Stratos
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Everything posted by Stratos
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Perfect through first 5 IP, then gave up 2 lazy singles and finished the outing with an inning-ending K. I think 20 swings and misses, which tied the MLB today with no-hitter from Blanco. Splitter which had a 80% whiff rate, FB had 15% whiffs, and slider had 50% whiffs.
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Yeah I have no issues with him playing 3B with Shota on the mound. But I think with Steele and also Hendricks (low, K%, lots of balls in play) they should consider Madrigal at 3B. Assad puts balls in play too and hard to say about Wicks yet. Not a lot of K's in our rotation besides potentially Imanaga so that doesn't help Morel. As a staff the Cubs were 19th in K/9 and 6th in GB%.
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He had excellent BB% in the minors, seems to have good swing discussions. I guess we don't know what the BA will be yet, but so far he's been K'ing a lot. Only 24.5% in ST for whatever that's worth. My guess is the BA will be average to below-average but remains to be seen.
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Yeah. The drop in defense between Morel and Madrigal is looking pretty substantial at the moment. Morel is letting 1 or 2 outs per game become singles at this rate. If that continues there's no way Tauchman makes up for that over Madrigal. Morel wasn't really even playing 9 innings in ST so his glove issues may not have seemed as blatant. But it is nice to give guys the day off in the field. I'm thinking Nico and Swanson and very likely Bellinger (unless PCA is called up) don't get regular rotation time at DH. Versus LHP they can get Busch time at DH by putting in Cooper/Wisdom, and Madrigal can play the field for Morel based on SP or matchups. With guys like Canario, Mervis, Caissie, Shaw, PCA, and hopefully Davis all as potential callup options at different points this year, I just don't see much need for the Cubs to have spent several million on a DH in FA, I think the pen & Bellinger/Imanaga was the place to allocate it.
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True, i'm fine with giving Morel a chance. At least show some improvement by end of April. But I also don't think swapping Tauchman for Madrigal in the lineup is the going to hurt us much.
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It was the Rockies on the road, but Imanaga looked great obviously. That split was nasty, tons of whiffs. Rockies weren't as fooled on it 3rd time through the order though, will be interesting to see how he does 2nd time through the league. He seems pretty good at keeping the FB in the strikezone, even when he misses his spot. Low BB/9 should help him even if he does give up HR.
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I've seen him whiff on 2 line-drives hit at him already that he definitely should have had. Hopefully he just needs some confidence because any MLB player and especially a 3B should make plays like that. At least one of the 2. If he can't handle those then he can't play 1B either.
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Wicks only gave up 2 ER today due to the errors. 6K in 4 IP is pretty good vs Texas.
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They're playing the Rangers too. WS champs and had the best offense in AL last year and now have Langford also. Not worried about Wicks/Hendricks/Brown at this point.
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He's either a DH on the Cubs or he needs to go to crappy team where he can move around and find some position where he's comfortable and not terrible and just stay there to develop. I'm fine with him as DH. They just need a solution at 3B until Shaw is ready. Cubs should hit enough for Madrigal to be ok there. This rotation puts balls in play so I can't see Morel working there if he keeps being this bad. Nothing has changed over the last month in ST, he's still terrible and still has no idea what he's doing and he's not going to suddenly get a lot better.
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Happ has 2 gold gloves, is a good hitter, and seems like a gamer/competitor. Morel sucks at fielding and I don't see it changing any time soon. Lots of speed and agility but no instincts or skills, and a very powerful arm but can't throw a ball where he wants. He probably needs to spend literally years at one position for any hope to just be anywhere near average defensively. Corner OF and 2B might be his best bets but the Cubs nerfed his career by moving him around positions in the minors and leaving him with no skills or instincts anywhere.
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It has to be his worst position on the diamond.
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He also had a good pitching staff and a killer pen.
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Morel's fielding was just terrible the entire game at 3B. Cubs defense looking a bit rough so far this year.
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Only thing that's nice about it is you can see the movement on a LHP's pitches really well. Would love if Imanaga had his start in Texas, but get to see Wicks on Sunday.
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You could take Montgomery over Hendricks, who is making 16.5m this year.
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"Davis won't join Triple-A Iowa on Friday for the start of the minor-league season and will remain at the Cubs' spring facility while he recovers from a minor undisclosed injury, Tommy Birch of The Des Moines Register reports. Davis isn't expected to be headed for an extended absence, as Birch relays that the outfielder will stay in Arizona for about a week or two before reporting to Iowa." https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/cubs-brennen-davis-sidelined-to-begin-milb-season/
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I see Horton isn't on the Iowa roster. Is this April weather related, or they just want him in AA again for a bit? Or maybe they're delaying his start of the season to give more depth down the stretch for the Cubs MLB team. McGeary is also starting in AA again, which might have to do with the roster crunch in Iowa more than anything. Aliendo is also starting in AA. Peralta stayed in AZ to continue building his elbow/arm. Apparently he can still only hit and not field/throw yet. Brennen Davis also staying in AZ for an extra 1-2 weeks, his injury is undisclosed but not serious.
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Betting is fine IMO but pushing it before and during the game and on MLB Network etc is just bad taste.
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Alzolay was lights out last year. If Steele didn't get hurt and maybe pitched another inning or even finished the 5th they may have won even with the Alzolay HR. Almonte may not have come in and Merryweather maybe could have pitched a full inning.
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One of our strengths is our depth. Could do worse than Ben Brown in for Steele for 1-2 months. Assad could start too once Taillon is back. The good thing is this division sucks and nobody is going to pull away with it early.
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Morel 3B experiment over on Opening Day haha jk. Well with Steele hurt now I guess Morel might start at 3B more often.
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Watched Imanaga's last ST start. His FB wasn't fooling many guys. He was living in the top half of the zone with it and the Cardinals were getting really good swings on it. Before the start Marquee showed he had a 20% GB% in ST. He may give up a lot of HR if he keeps throwing letter-high FB's all the time.
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Cubs almost got Sam Moll in a trade from the A's last deadline. Moll was unhittable after the trade with Reds. That miss may have cost us a playoff birth. https://heavy.com/sports/mlb/chicago-cubs/trade-rumors-sam-moll-reds/
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Agree. It's only ST though so it's fine that way. 162 + ST is a lot, I don't blame Boog and JD for not doing a lot of ST. Though they can do it from the studio.
