***Official*** 2019 Spring Training Thread

[CSF77]

Chatwood must be allergic to the 2nd inning.

Too bad on Strop.

 

[anotheridiot]

If a surgeon ever came up with a procedure to reduce or end hamstring strain occurrences, it would be called Pedro Strop surgery...

-Doug

this happened alot to the bears between the last regime and the trestman regime. They wanted more athletic linemen, so got a new strength and conditioning coach and they must have lost 10 guys to ligament injuries.

You can almost say strop works out too much and needs more flexibility. This was what I brought up when people were commenting that Yu added 20 pounds of muscle.

 

[Castor76]

Need a Yoga instructor.

 

[anotheridiot]

Chatwood must be allergic to the 2nd inning.

Too bad on Strop.

So filling in closing should be fine? I dont think he knows what the 9th inning feels like

 

[CSF77]

So filling in closing should be fine? I dont think he knows what the 9th inning feels like

It is a 1 time thing. He was doing fine up til then. That is like tossing Lester under the bus for not getting the feel of his cutter or 2 Seem.

We have to go by the majority. If the majority is last year then ya You have to cut your loses. If that is a blip then no you don't.

 

[CSF77]

President of baseball operations Theo Epstein put a somewhat different spin on things in his comments later today. He said that he does not “foresee anything significant at all” in terms of new acquisitions and added that he is confident in the team’s existing depth. (Twitter links.)

It stands to reason that the club will at least look into other possibilities. The Cubs could at a minimum peruse this season’s crop of out-of-options players, as several of those players face uphill battles to make their current rosters.

That said, Chicago isn’t exactly teeming with bullpen flexibility. Even if Morrow and Strop open the year on the injured list, the team projects to commit roster spots to at least six veterans who can’t be optioned: Mike Montgomery, Steve Cishek, Brad Brach, Brandon Kintzler, Brian Duensing and Tyler Chatwood. Beyond that, while Carl Edwards Jr. can technically be optioned, he’s a lock for the Opening Day roster.

Well it looks like they are not doing anything here. They can't toss cash at the problem. It really comes down to making what they have work.

 

[chibears55]

Well it looks like they are not doing anything here. They can't toss cash at the problem. It really comes down to making what they have work.

Which could end up being a disastrous first month or so if what they have in the pen cant close out games..

No Morrow til May the earliest and no idea how he'll come back..

Strop missing the start of the season


They spent a good chunk of change on reclamation projects and hopefuls to fill in the pen over just getting a guy like Kimbrel..

Epstein said he wanted to get off to a great start in April and win as many games they can early..
Starting the season with a questionable and shaky bullpen not the way to go to do that in beginning of season when their relied upon the most.

Hope it don't bite them in the ass and end up having to trade away top prospects later to add a reliever to save them

 

[CSF77]

Which could end up being a disastrous first month or so if what they have in the pen cant close out games..

No Morrow til May the earliest and no idea how he'll come back..

Strop missing the start of the season


They spent a good chunk of change on reclamation projects and hopefuls to fill in the pen over just getting a guy like Kimbrel..

Epstein said he wanted to get off to a great start in April and win as many games they can early..
Starting the season with a questionable and shaky bullpen not the way to go to do that in beginning of season when their relied upon the most.

Hope it don't bite them in the ass and end up having to trade away top prospects later to add a reliever to save them

What they spent did not equal what Kimbrol was demanding. Add to it all teams are not matching his price with his velocity drop.

 

[chibears55]

What they spent did not equal what Kimbrol was demanding. Add to it all teams are not matching his price with his velocity drop.

Didn't expect or want them to offer what he wants or wanted..

Just saying now , Epstein should at least keep that door open in case Kimbrel willing to accept a 1 or 2 yr deal at reasonable cost

 

[CSF77]

Didn't expect or want them to offer what he wants or wanted..

Just saying now , Epstein should at least keep that door open in case Kimbrel willing to accept a 1 or 2 yr deal at reasonable cost

I think it will stay in house. Injuries are part of the game. That would be in line with paying for Jake last year already knowing the investment would fail.

My opinion is they will let it work itself out. They have 3 previous closers in the pen and that is good enough for 30 days. Morrow is already throwing and on schedule. If he goes down than that forces a trade.

 

[chibears55]

I think it will stay in house. Injuries are part of the game. That would be in line with paying for Jake last year already knowing the investment would fail.

My opinion is they will let it work itself out. They have 3 previous closers in the pen and that is good enough for 30 days. Morrow is already throwing and on schedule. If he goes down than that forces a trade.

Not a whole lot of confidence with what they have in house now..

Maddon starts pulling starters after 5/6 every game, bullpen will be worse then 2nd half last year

 

[CSF77]

Not a whole lot of confidence with what they have in house now..

Maddon starts pulling starters after 5/6 every game, bullpen will be worse then 2nd half last year

Maybe. Injury has been the issue. Montgomery has come online Iate due to it.

Well having a explosive O can help here also. Tight D also.

 

[chibears55]

Maybe. Injury has been the issue. Montgomery has come online Iate due to it.

Well having a explosive O can help here also. Tight D also.

Injuries are already their problem going into the season..

After Edward Monty and Chisek, their hope turns to Chatwood Duensing Kintzler and a bunch of unknown to carry them the first month plus

I wouldn't call the offense explosive just yet, let see what they do outside Arizona and facing mostly minor league pitching

 

[zack54attack]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Darvish has a blister on his right ring finger, per the team.</p>— Jesse Rogers (@ESPNChiCubs) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNChiCubs/status/1108126911916466176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[SilenceS]

Anyone notice Baez has been batting second in the lineups? Maddon has routinely gone with Baez, Rizzo, Bryant, Schwarber as his 2,3,4, and 5.

 

[beckdawg]

Anyone notice Baez has been batting second in the lineups? Maddon has routinely gone with Baez, Rizzo, Bryant, Schwarber as his 2,3,4, and 5.

Thought i read somewhere that the plan was to go bryant rizzo baez but maybe i have that wrong. That being said seeing this config isn't much different in that it still does the whole r/l/r thing

 

[CSF77]

Too early to set a line up.

Guys that may make it interesting:

Adames. He is kinda tearing it up right now and might give Bote a run at it.

Mekkes and Maples. Mekkes holding hitters to a .105 BA. Maples .158. But Maples 10 SO in 5.1 IP. I could see some justification for either/both starting on the team.

Chatwood 1.17 WHIP. Kinda says enough here. I think last year will end up a bump in his road.

 

[CSF77]

I would put the pen at:

Lock:
Chatwood, Montgomery. Swing arms

Kintzler: Groundball spec. (5M says so and he doesn't suck right now.)

Cishek Pretty much 8-9 inning with Brach. I don't see too much drama here.

Edwards has been solid so far and should be in the late inning mix.

Bubble guys:

Duesing. He is being hit. .286. His only saving grace is 1. He is a lefty. 2. His competition (Ryan .341) (Rosario .379) are not making it interesting. Kinda default to paycheck here.

Maples: He is on the 40 and is really looking the part. I would be shocked if they push him to Iowa.

The rest are NRI and none have impressed more than Maples to date. Tazawa has history. 32 YO and a 4.50-5.00 ERA history... Webster same thing. Little younger but lacks the track record of success to justify a 40 man adjustment.

Barnette really hasn't shown much. Alozay hasn't pitched with the major league team. Mills injured. Norwood not much action. Underwood .308 BAA. only seen 3 games. Wick .273 BAA. Again not really doing anything to justify a spot.

Right now I would be hard pressed to leave Maples off the 25 man.

 

[beckdawg]

So spring training obviously doesn't guarantee much but Schwarber is hitting .364/.500/.485 with 11 k's and 9 walks in 44 PAs this spring. That's a 20.5% bb rate and a 25% k rate. There's neither the sample size nor the easy split of stats to get a R/L comp on this but as some comparison here last year he hit .340/.419/.660 with a 12.9% bb rate and a 27.4% k rate. Year prior to that he was .293/.359/.638 9.4%/28.1%. 2016 he was .259/.317/.444 8.3%/21.6%

So, at the very least he's apparently making some progress. Looks like he might be trading some power for contact. He's got 4 doubles this spring with no triples and no homers. I'm not particularly concerned about that given we know he has more than enough power when needed. That walk rate is also pretty freaking crazy. Keep in mind his in season walk rate last year was 15.3%. If he's anywhere near 20% he's going to have a huge year. For some perspective, in the past 10 years there's only been 18 seasons where a guy has had 17%+ walk rate. 3 were Trout(16, 17, 18). 3 were Harper(15, 16, 18). 4 were Votto(13, 15, 17, 18). Rest were Judge(17), Bautista(11), Adrian Gonzo(09), Carpenter(17), Berkman(09), Santana(14), Nick Johnson(09) and Dunn(09).

For additional reference, even with an elevated K rate like dunn's 09(26.5%), he finished with a 142 wRC+. And of those seasons where at least 25 HRs were hit the worst wRC+ was Santana's 126. Honestly given those spring numbers wouldn't shock me at all to see Schwarber put up something close to Harper's 2018(.249/.393/.496 18.7%/24.3% 34 HR 135 wRC+). Think there's a case to be made as well that might be slightly conservative. There's a lot of room between that and Judge's 2017 wRC+ of 172 where he hit .284/.422/.627 with 18.7%/30.7% bb/k rates.

 

[beckdawg]

Also worth noting in spring stats.... Happ is hitting like shit but he's only k'd 10 times in 50 PAs for a 20% k rate. His walk rate is also way down at 6%. That's noteworthy given his nearly 900 career PAs put him at 12.5%/33.8% bb/k. So you're talking about a 74% contact rate this spring and a 53.7% contact rate on his career. That's a fairly massive difference. My guess is given his poor slash(.149/.200/.213) and his well lower walk rate that this is far more a work in progress than "done" change. But its steps in the right direction.