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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    Obviously steals are a little cheaper these days than they've been historically but this is still really cool
  2. Bertz
    I'm guessing he's done for the year, and they are using the IL to get another warm body up here for tomorrow. I'd guess they're hoping none of the leverage guys have to pitch and they can have some combo of Wicks, Civale, and Assad take tomorrow's game to the house.
  3. Bertz
    Yeah Padres also don't have any LH starting pitching. So the situation where you might go like Turner->Busch->Santana over the course of a game doesn't exist. I think the WC bench is backup catcher (probably McGuire), Castro, Turner, and Mo.
  4. Bertz
    I think this is right. We're currently looking at a pretty stellar slate: Dodgers vs. Mets Cubs vs Padres Cleveland vs Detroit Yankees vs Red Sox In this scenario it's pretty obvious how it'llget scheduled. The AL Central battle is the early window, Cubs in the afternoon, Yankees/Sox prime time, Dodgers late. I think if Yankees/Red Sox gets broken up but Dodgers/Mets doesn't that has a chance to slide into prime time? Then the Yankees would get the afternoon slot and Cubs/Padres would be late.
  5. Bertz
    Tongue mostly in cheek but Colin Rea has 29 strikeouts and one walk over his last 4 outings to go along with a 1.48 ERA. The flipside to pretty much any argument for removing Shota from the post-season rotation implies Rea should slide in, right?
  6. Bertz
    Mo's been really fun to watch. I am absolutely fascinated with what the plan is for folding him and the other young bats into next year's team. - Do you let Tucker walk to open up a dedicated spot (plus free up resources to throw at the pitching staff)? - Even if you keep Tucker, do you move Seiya for those same reasons? - If you let one of the vets go, you probably need to bring in some type of veteran bat as a backfill. How good are we talking here? Probably north of Turner... but a lot or a little? - How many of the four can we reasonably roster at once? Do we feel comfortable with any of them spending significant time back at Iowa? - Speaking of roster fit, how much catcher are we comfortable with Mo playing? How about Long and 3b? - Is there an anyone who's especially valuable on the trade market? And how much do we let that override the above considerations? I have thoughts but I don't have answers. It does seem like Mo has already won Craig over, at least at the plate. That certainly impacts the calculus, but TBD specifically how.
  7. Bertz
    Because you have to make option decisions right away there's very little chance Shota goes anywhere IMO. Like I could see a situation where the team loses the Tucker bidding and you're left wishing you could roll some of that money over to a second rotation slot, but the Shota decision has to be made ~2 months before Tucker's decided.
  8. Bertz
    Yeah. You hear all the time "if this was the playoffs I'd be out there!", and I suspect this is one of those where if it wasn't the playoffs he'd be put on the IL out of caution.
  9. Bertz
  10. Bertz
    While it didn't work out, Monday's game is a good blueprint. One of the long guys, probably Rea, for 3 innings/once through the order. Soroka for two, and then shift to the short relievers. Maybe have one of the lefties go an inning-ish between Rea/Soroka depending on where in the lineup they are.
  11. Bertz
    I'm probably Wicks' second biggest fan after Jason at this point, and there's still no way I'd have him on the playoff roster. He looked awesome Monday, but too little too late for building up trust for this year's playoffs.
  12. Bertz
    If this ends up happening, curious what they do with the rotation. Right now Boyd and Shota are lined up to pitch the first two wildcard games, so easy peasy there. Taillon’s currently scheduled to pitch Sunday, presumably lining him up for game 1 of the LDS. Do you try and shuffle things around last minute to get Taillon lined up for game 3? Do you plan on that being a bullpen game, given that starters have basically no leash in an elimination game anyway?
  13. Bertz

    Playoff Talk

    Bertz replied to mk49's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk

    Pretty big deal given how much of the Padres lineup struggles against lefties
  14. Bertz
    Unconfirmed I believe but sounds like broadcasts will have to nix K-Zone as part of this to avoid potential shenanigans
  15. Bertz
    I've been a bit out of pocket, has Craig announced the playoff rotation? Because the way they're coming at the Mets is a bit ambiguous. With the Cubs going Horton-Boyd-Shota coming out of the offday, one option is to go the same order for the wildcard round, with everyone getting extra rest, a week between starts. The other possibility is Boyd/Shota start the WC series on normal 5 days rest, and Horton is going Tuesday/Sunday this week to set up for a potential NLDS game 1. There's pros/cons either way, but I assume the plan is the former.
  16. Bertz
    NOPE
  17. Bertz
    I hope Alcantara starts tonight. I'd love for him to start at least 5-6 of these last several games.
  18. Bertz
    "You know if you set aside the things he's good at he's pretty bad actually"
  19. Bertz
    At this point his option definitely gets picked up, yeah? We know Jed's favorite free agent reliever is "the best guy I can find willing to take a one year deal", and I'd be shocked if there ends up being something better than Kittredge at 1/9. Plus, I think there's a lot of value to having a trio like Palencia/Kittredge/Hodge locked in before FA opens. Allows you to hunt for deals a la Thielbar, but also doesn't preclude you from going big game hunting on like a Helsley.
  20. Bertz
    A collection of players Dansby Swanson is out-WARing since signing with the Cubs Xander Bogaerts Carlos Correa Bryce Harper Elly de la Cruz Alex Bregman Manny Machado Vlad Jr Rafael Devers Kyle Schwarber
  21. Bertz
    I wonder if the celebration being middle of the day allowed everyone sufficient recovery time
  22. Bertz

    Playoff Talk

    Bertz replied to mk49's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk

    Thinking about the bench, there's a lot of interesting decisions: - Castro, one of Santana/Turner, and one of Amaya/McGuire are absolute locks - Do you carry 4 or 5 bench players (corollary to 'Do you carry 12 or 13 pitchers')? - Has Santana shown anything to leapfrog Turner? I'd think not? - Is there enough time for Amaya to leapfrog McGuire? I'd lean no but it's a lot closer - Do you carry a 3rd catcher? I'd think not given that Kelly doesn't have crazy splits, but it's worth asking - Do you carry Billy Hamilton as a designated runner? He's 3/4 in SBs at Iowa, but no idea how he grades out beyond that? - Feels like Ballesteros as the big lefty bat off the makes a lot of sense?
  23. Bertz

    Playoff Talk

    Bertz replied to mk49's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk

    via the Athletic The worry seems to be less "will he be available" and more "can we get him back in time to not have any rust"
  24. Bertz
    Could be. Anecdotally it feels like he's not executing that backdoor curveball to righties nearly as often. But yeah famous last words declaring a pitcher healthy, but I don't see anything off with him. He's been struggling since 8/19, here are his pre-post numbers across a bunch of metrics Fastball Velo - 93.3 / 93.3 In Zone Rate - 57.1 / 57.4 Chase Rate - 29.7 / 23.7 First Strike Rate - 69.2 / 63.6 (heavily skewed by yesterday, was 67% before that) Zone Contact Rate - 85.1 / 85.0 Vertical Release Point - 5.49 / 5.52 Horizontal Release Point - 2.29 / 2.23 Extension - 6.4 / 6.4 Arm Angle - 25.2 / 25.4 Remarkably consistent aside from the chase numbers and the 1st strike numbers (which are probably due to the chase numbers). Hitters have basically gone from chasing as much as Heliot Ramos to chasing as little as Michael Busch. That's the issue, but I can't figure out what's causing that. My suspicions would generally be sequencing or tipping.
  25. Bertz
    There's nothing that looks off physically. He's not drawing as much chase for whatever reason, but there's not even a whiff of anything in his profile that would indicate anything wrong physically. Hell even results wise he's throwing strikes still and his swing and miss are fine, which again are the things you'd see if he was diminished. He's getting hit harder and drawing less chase. I'd guess some of that is luck, and some of that is interrelated to whatever his issue is (my guess is sequencing).
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