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Stratos

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Everything posted by Stratos

  1. Stratos
    Busch is really bad at picks in the dirt. That's alarming since it's a basic skill you largely pick up naturally over many years of just playing catch. If he's played baseball most of his life and he can't pick balls by now it's a problem & a good chance of not getting fixed. He's just so stiff taking throws. Sucks given Morel and Swanson often spike their throws. He seems adequate defensively otherwise. If one of our OF gets hurt or Tauchman tanks I wouldn't mind giving Mervis a shot at 1B and Busch at DH vs RHP. No idea how this would shake-down roster wise though. Hoping Tauchman's bat gets on track besides the walks.
  2. Stratos
    I thought Rojas looked really good in ST. Very athletic and calm/ comfortable at the plate. I like him a lot. Only thing might be his size which could limit the power upside, but who knows.
  3. Stratos
    He was all over the place last year, but I looked on Baseball Savant at his outing today. The velo was sitting 93-94, which is usual. The spin on all his pitches were up about 1000 rpm last year in MLB compared to 2022, possibly due to only pitching out of the pen last year. Last night's game his fb spin was still up to 2023 levels, but the spin on his curve and cutter were up a bit and the spin on his sweeper was way up to almost 3000 rpm, up from 2700 in 2022 and 2800 in 2023. It would put him in the top 10 in the MLB. Not sure if stuff & velo is still the issue for him, maybe just the command. But i didn't look at pitch movement. Wesneski's sweeper spinrate is far lower, around 2600, but his active spin is much higher.
  4. Stratos
    Looks on Baseball Savant after his start. The fastball will be key for him. Last year they pummeled his 4-seamer, this year so far it's been very effective, .230 xwoba this year vs .394 last year, and he's more than doubled the whiff% on it. Still small samples though. The velo seems to be ticking down a bit since his first start, back to sitting around 92 mph this start and last start vs Dodgers. Maybe 1st-start adrenaline vs Texas had it tick up. Avg velo this year now 92.6 compared to 92.2 last year.
  5. Stratos
    Keegan for Cuas is underwhelming, I don't even see the point, other than throwing things at the wall and crossing our fingers.
  6. Stratos
    Thing is you always have to prepare for and even assume there's typically gonna be a starter or 2 on the IL at any given time. We can't assume Assad and Brown are in the pen. We have the SP depth and we knew that going into ST. But as I said in the offseason we needed another quality pen arm besides Neris because injuries happen, and you disagreed. I said 1 injury and we were back to 3 late inning guys pulling most of the workload and back to the same issues as last year. Merryweather is out, and so here we are. Now imagine if Alzolay or Leiter go down again for a bit, we'd be in trouble. It's only April 12th and we're in this situation again. Let's just hope we get lucky with some JAG who might turn into the next Leiter or Merryweather. Hoyer has gone light on the pen 2 offseasons in a row and each time the issues were foreseeable. Each time all we needed was another 5-10 million from old man Ricketts for another arm that wasn't JAG-tastic. Hoyer wasn't even able to get us a pen arm besides Cuas at the trade deadline last year. Clearly he just doesn't see the value in the pen as worth the cost. I get it but you can't live on scraps and expect to be better than the competition.
  7. Stratos
    You might get disappointed. I have mlb.tv and am not sure they showed these last year. I can't remember
  8. Stratos
    Pre-game opiates?
  9. Stratos
    All our options sound JAG-tastic! Might be a long year watching this team pitch....
  10. Stratos
    Maybe they waiver Thompson.
  11. Stratos
    .429 BABIP and 39% HR/FB and a 12.08 ERA, that won't continue obviously. 4.36 xFIP so let's hope he's closer to that. I'm thinking 4.30 to 4.60 ERA, even before the season that was my expectation. His projections were bad, 4.70 ERA.
  12. Stratos
    Wesneski or Thompson?
  13. Stratos
    I think a 3rd effective pitch for him would go a long way and keep the guess hitters off a bit.
  14. Stratos
    Hopefully he's just getting weird Craig Kimbrel type results now. You're right he's not going to keep up that pace for HR. He has a 12 ERA but 4.36 xFIP.
  15. Stratos
    It's for the children.
  16. Stratos
    Wouldn't give up on him yet, but I don't think any player should earn the right to stick around and make the team worse based on past performance and "loyalty". If it turns out he's 2021 Arrieta you can't keep running him out there, but I think it's worth giving him more looks to see if he can figure stuff out, he was at least an average SP last year.
  17. Stratos
    I think the Cubs still need to be a little more careful with how they spend on these smaller contracts. Smyly, Mancini, and now maybe Hendricks. I believe in paying for talent rather than paying for stats, the cream usually rises to the top and the duds will usually expose themselves eventually. Stats can go up and down, but nothing replaces talent. Sometimes you have to take the spreadsheets with a grain of salt and listen to the scouts. At least they seem to do their homework with the bigger signings.
  18. Stratos
    He's not even missing his spots on the HR he's giving up, which was an issue in 2021-22. His stuff is just well below average. He's going to give up more hits and HR than average and K below average. Maybe a bit of bad luck on some hits falling in today but he only K'd 2 guys and walked zero. He wasn't fooling anyone. His H/9 this year is off the charts. That will regress down over time as bad luck does, but still... If he keeps it up these performances he should maybe head to the pen until something improves, though I have no idea what that would be, he's not doing anything "wrong". I wasn't against bringing him back but I wouldn't have done it for the $16.5m. The league has just passed him by.
  19. Stratos
    He looks pretty legit.
  20. Stratos
    Seems like teams either demolish Hendricks or are mystified by him. So let's flip a coin haha.
  21. Stratos
    Maybe they were sitting on the change. I'd think you'd have to sit on either his FB or change and guess right to have success with him. You're going to be right almost 50% of the time LOL since he doesn't throw the curve much.
  22. Stratos
    Well he's a longshot nobody and agree a lottery ticket like all the older guys in Iowa, but he does have the elite K/9 throughout his whole career. Yes depends on how he's recovered from the arm injury and layoff. 32 y/o isn't quite old yet to contribute this year. His K/9 is down but only 5 IP which is meaningless. I assume he has to build up more and wouldn't be quite ready to come up yet even if he had a good April. As I said there really isn't much in terms of relievers in Iowa to be very excited about.
  23. Stratos
    They have excellent depth everywhere except in the pen I think. They have SP who can pitch in the pen and do well, but in terms of pure pen arms there's not much in Iowa. Injuries are to be expected i agree, including in the rotation, which makes the pen and pen depth weaker if Assad/Brown/Smyly etc have to start instead of being in the pen. Gotta assume there's always going to be 1 or 2 guys on the shelf. I think the pen depth is a bit of a concern, though nothing to worry too much about yet. Edwards Jr and Escobar aren't exactly reassuring. Wieck has potential, and there may be others. Maybe some younger guys in minors come out of nowhere to shine.
  24. Stratos
    I'm glad. His approach has been lackluster so far in his career, there's definitely more potential there. If he can just manage an average walk rate he'd be fine, and can steal more bases. Guys like he and Madrigal should only be swinging at balls in their happy zones and shouldn't have much problem in 2 strike counts, they can afford an increase in K% to get deeper into counts. They should take most borderline pitches unless it's in their happy zone.
  25. Stratos
    Totally agree. I caught a deep Schwarber HR in BP once, it was a bit frightening. Moving so fast and you hear the seams hiss loudly. I also had a Rafael Ortega screaming liner hit right at me down the RF line during a game. I was perfectly lined up to catch it with nobody around me but I forgot my glove so I just ducked under it.
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