Bertz

Taillon and Boyd are pitching today and tomorrow. I'm guessing that means the rotation to open in AZ will be Taillon-Boyd-Shota-Steele.

1. You shouldn't let spring training change your mind about a player 2. If you're going to ignore the above, probably worth acknowledging Cam's contact numbers this spring are awful Cam Smith's a good player, but I see very little to suggest he's MLB ready. I also think if he hadn't been traded he would (correctly) be viewed in the same tier as Caissie and crew.

Luke Little's alive as well. Nice I had assumed he'd open the year on the IL but maybe not.

Nico's starting today! Unsurprisingly, none of the other starters are. Workman and Brujan are, and I'd presume they're the only ones who made the Japan trip who will play.

The options are: - Someone gets put on the IL - Hodge or Pearson gets sent to Iowa - Someone gets cut Considering we didn't see Miller at all against the Dodgers, I agree if they want Brown to stay up in the bigs Miller's probably the casualty.

Eli Morgan got optioned to Iowa. That answers the question of whose roster spot Brad Keller would take. Last questions for next week are whether Brown makes the roster and which of Workman/Brujan does. I'd guess "no" and Workman respectively.

I swear so many Cubs fans don't watch any other baseball

I did some statcasting at the link. But the tl;dr is that the very limited statcast data we have on him from this spring is pretty sterling. He's got just three tracked balls, but all three are over 100 MPH including an opposite field triple at 106. You wouldn't necessarily think it, but going 106 the opposite way in the air is extremely impressive. 148 guys in MLB managed it a single time last year. 74 did it more than once, only 15 did it at least five times. Hernandez did it in one of his first three tracked balls, so chances are decent that's not even where he currently tops out. Based on the handful of guys I looked at, their actual max exit velo was 5-6 MPH higher than their opposite field in the air max. So that'd give Cristian an implied max in the ~112 range. That would put him in line with guys like Marcus Semien, Randy Arozarena, and Wyatt Langford. As a 21 year old shortstop. He only had 5 homeruns last year, so I don't want to get too over my skis. But it looks like he has at least 55 or 60 grade raw power *today*. He's of course got to turn that raw into production before any of this matters but it looks like the special skillset we were promised when he signed is there.

If we're reading too hard into two games, here's some of the stuff that stood out to me. Things I liked: - Most of the pitchers' stuff was where we expect it to be. Big picture this is probably the thing all 30 teams care most about until ~May, so box thus far checked - The bottom half of the order did their jobs. The catchers hit well, Swanson looks healthy, Berti did a good job in the 9 hole. My #1 worry for this team is that the bottom half of the order is a mess, so this was a tiny sign that worry is overblown Things I didn't like: - Pressly looked broken this morning. He was fine on Friday, and it is mid March, so it's not a 5 alarm fire. But that was a concerning outing - It wasn't one of the real games but Taillon’s velo was down after he spent the offseason trying to claw some back. Steele's velo was also down this AM, though it kind of sank as the game went on so I think he was gassed. Hopefully an adrenaline thing, might also tie back to his flu two weeks back. Might be worth lining him up as the #5 coming out of ST, that way he would have almost two weeks before having to pitch in a game that counts - Busch and Shaw looked BAD. Shaw's making his debut in a high pressure environment, so I am pretty understanding there. Busch I'm hoping it was just the steady diet of splitters giving him fits, but chalk it up as instance #59432 of Spring Training not carrying over to games that count

I included multiple games under .500 on May 1st and 5+ games over on June 1st in my bold predictions post but honestly it's just a thing I expect to happen Even the teams that aren't that scary I expect to be rough. Like we're lined up to likely get deGrom vs. Texas, Pittsburgh will surely make sure we get Skenes/Jones. It's brutal. The saving grace is the off days. The team has at least one off day (usually Thursday) every week until June. A benefit of this Dodgers series is we do get more off days in the "real" season, in addition to the already lax travel schedule the team already has. It's stuff that's hard to quantify but likely shows up during the grind.

It is very rare that a baseball game is more than 70/30 in any direction.

I don't take much away from the series. It's two games against a good team on the road. That inning from Pressly though was pretty alarming. Being that wild AND his velo being down is a red flag. You hope because of the calendar that it's just dead arm or something.

Cubs are one of the better teams against velo. They were #2 in xwOBA against 96+ last year. I could see Sasaki splittering them to death like Yamamoto did this AM. I could also see that plan being far less successful when the guy's command is 2-3 grades worse. I'm also presuming everyone who pitched out of the Dodgers' pen being burned for the trip. So likely looking at Sasaki with a piggyback (Dustin May?).

They would not want to from a business standpoint, and I'm not totally sure they'd want to from a baseball ops standpoint. Two extra off days during the domestic regular season is a decent reward. And assuming Jed gets extended he'd appreciate the leg up this type of thing likely gives in negotiations with future Japanese players.

The Brown stuff is really interesting. His raw spin rate was up from last year, while normally within a player spin and move in lockstep. So my guess is that velo loss was a conscious tradeoff for the higher spin and more optimal movement. I know the Stuff models have been surprisingly tepid on him, so we'll see if this has an impact. In the short term I'm worried about what it does to his command. 40% of pitches in the zone isn't going to cut it. He hasn't pitched in a real game in 12 days, and clearly the environment was amped, so maybe it's not tied to his stuff. But last night when I went to bed I wanted Brown to win the 5th starter spot, now I'm thinking 3-4 starts at Iowa wouldn't be the worst thing.

Because then far fewer people care. Just look at how many people are posting about this game compared to Friday night or Sunday morning, and we're a community of diehards

It's a heck of a lot better than during the season like the London series IMO

Yamamoto was pretty nasty. Especially that first inning those splitters were coming in at 93-94. There's a real chance the bottom half of this lineup ends up being a problem, but I feel comfortable chalking this up as getting the meat of the Dodgers' pitching staff.

I'd presume since it's mid March the Dodgers aren't going to throw any relievers back to back. So between that and the Betts/Freeman situation tomorrow should be a winnable game if the team can get anything off of Sasaki. Speaking of relievers not going back to back, I'm wondering if Morgan/Brasier going while the team was down is an indication as to where they are in Counsell's pecking order. Morgan does have a MiLB options so if the whole pitching staff is still healthy next week will he be the guy going to Iowa to make room for Keller?

I mean this in the best way possible but during the spring breakout game Mathis looked like a 30 year old. He was calm and he was spitting on pitches pretty much right out of the hitters hand. It was impressive stuff, I wouldn't be surprised to see him spend much of the year at Tenn. Hernandez is the guy who has opened my eyes most this spring. The at bats look good, he has big boy power, and the defense has never been in question. If there was a way to bet on this stuff I'd be hammering the over on himright now.

They just showed a group of Japanese Cincinnati Reds fans. I am....intrigued.

Brown is RATTLED, ugh

Ben Brown getting loose. If Shota and Brown can get us into the 7th you feel pretty good.

Batting immediately after Tucker makes Busch look really short.

Curious how deep the starters go today. 4 probably?