Cubs Planning To Add Starting Pitcher In Offseason

On 9/24/2024 at 4:13 PM, muntjack said:

I only proposed that because I think the Tigers could still field a competitive team next season while setting themselves up for a sustained run.  Skubal will likely be gone in FA after 25.     

A deal centered around Horton, Wicks/Brown and Alcantara or along those lines would be productive for both teams.   

Horton, Wicks and Brown are in the infirmary. 

On 9/30/2024 at 9:53 AM, Tryptamine said:

Flaherty should be the guy. I have little to no interest in giving Burnes the 6+ year deal he's going to get. Flaherty provides the highest mix of stuff with a likely 4 year or less contract option out there. Fried is probably #2 on that list. and safer option to repeat his results. 

Flaherty would've been a good target last season.  Now that he's basically re-established his value, you'll have to pay him.  Which is something that seems to be out of the question for this FO.

So let's sort through some of the FA SP options.  I took every pitcher from this past season who threw at least 100 innings, and set up 4 flags:

IP - Did they throw at least 150 Innings?  A major reason we need a SP this winter is lack of durability from the young pitchers currently in org

ERA - Did they manage an ERA under 3.80?  League-wide starters had a 4.09 ERA, so 3.80 is a cutoff for results that you'd consider an unequivocally "good" season

xStats - Did they manage an xFIP and xERA under 3.80?  Between these two numbers, xERA taking contact quality into account, xFIP purely distilling to peripherals, you can largely triangulate skill and avoid a luck based ERA mirage

Stuff - Stuff+ and PitchingBot are both available on Fangraphs and have very different approaches to quantifying stuff.  I flagged every starting pitcher that at least one of the two flagged as having above average stuff

From there, how many guys met each threshold?  Below are the FAs that met all 4, 3 of 4, and 2 of 4.

4's - Corbin Burnes and Max Fried

3's - Blake Snell (missed on innings), Yusei Kikuchi (ERA), Jack Flaherty (stuff)

2's - Nate Eovaldi, Nick Pivetta, Luis Severino  Michael Wacha. Sean Manaea, Andrew Heaney, Jose Quintana

I feel like this largely tracks with perception.  Burnes and Fried are stars, the next three guys have a wart or two that keep them a tick behind (they compare to Steele and Shota who came in as 3's for instance), and the 2's are all guys who you probably like but almost certainly don't love.  I will note, since he's my guy, that Nate Eovaldi *just* missed being a 3 because his ERA and xERA were between 3.8 and 3.9.  I'd consider him like a 2.5.

And then I don't want to go through every possible trade option, but some regularly mentioned ones:

4's - Framber Valdez, Kirby and Gilbert from SEA

3's - Crochet (innings), the rest of the Seattle guys

2's - Mackenzie Gore, Brady Singer, Reese Olson

How about Cease in the last year of his deal? Castillo for 3 more years. These are a few other options, depending on costs. Of course I would love Logan Gilbert or maybe another young pitcher in the Mariners as well. But Castillo cost less.

1 hour ago, Rcal10 said:

How about Cease in the last year of his deal? 

Haven't you been banging the "no 1 year deal" drum all day?

3 hours ago, Ding Dong Johnson said:

Haven't you been banging the "no 1 year deal" drum all day?

Yes. But if they deal for Cease they would have to sign him, or don’t deal for him. My apologies for leaving that out. And, also, before biitner criticized the idea and asks if SD is fine with him not in the rotation, it goes without saying that no trade idea is a slam dunk. Obviously you need a partner to make a trade. All anyone ever does here is make suggestions and obviously it is much easier to suggest a trade than to actually make it happen. But SD does have some high salaries on their team and some solid pitchers. So IF they didn’t think they could sign Cease long term, and they felt they had enough pitching without him, maybe he would be available. 

Patrick Mooney of all people wrote an article of major substance?!

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5857550/2024/10/21/cubs-free-agents

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Adding a clear-cut starter is an obvious move. Part of the calculation is supply and demand. It’s more realistic to sign a good pitcher than to acquire an All-Star catcher or outbid the New York Yankees for Juan Soto. That investment would create different options for the bullpen and more depth at Triple-A Iowa. It’s an insurance policy against the young pitchers who spent most of last season on the injured list and cannot be counted on as part of next year’s Opening Day rotation.

The Cubs are also good at this. They have a type. They know what they’re looking for in that upper-middle class of free agents. Their process the past two offseasons yielded Jameson Taillon and Shota Imanaga, two consistent pitchers who have been solid additions to the rotation and the clubhouse. Those acquisitions offer a few clues.

 

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Max Fried would fit that description as a consistent, high-level performer throughout his time with the Atlanta Braves. So would Nathan Eovaldi, assuming he declines his $20 million player option with the Texas Rangers for next season. Both pitchers also have World Series experience.

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If the Cubs didn’t sign Jack Flaherty, Sean Manaea or Luis Severino to a prove-it deal last winter, it seems doubtful that they would do a buy-high contract for any of those pitchers who helped push their teams into the National League Championship Series. The New York Mets could also extend one-year qualifying offers to Manaea (assuming he opts out of his contract) and Severino, adding draft-pick compensation into the model the Cubs use to evaluate the cost of potential deals.

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If the Cubs believe their pitching infrastructure can draw out more, bounce-back candidates include Walker Buehler (who returned in time for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ playoff run) and Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber (who underwent Tommy John surgery in April). The Cubs could see something more in a swingman such as Nick Martinez, who can elect to become a free agent after a 4-WAR season with the Cincinnati Reds (10-7, 3.10 ERA in 142 1/3 innings).

I so wish that the team wasn't so obsessed with being in the upper-middle-class of things. That's not really shitting on Mooney here, or the article. Just feels like the organization consistently sets the bar lower than it could be. I get that maybe dumping money into Burnes or even Fried can be questionable, just that it feels all too common for the Cubs to immediately take themselves out of the running before ever really trying (Ohtani not withstanding).

I'll give them that maybe they expect Bellinger to opt in and that's limiting some of the budgetary power that's been allotted, but if he's not...feels like there's an opportunity for the Cubs to go big somewhere. Maybe, as well, they plan to go big on a bat (though if they're not going in for Soto, they're once again either in the upper-middle-class FA pool or a trade, which would likely be for a lower budgetary player meaning...the money would be there elsewhere) so I'll give them that as well. So there's wiggle room here. It just feels...like the past few offseasons. 

I just would like to see the Cubs shoot higher than a pretty-good player this year. They're set up for a 4+ win player acquisition. Not one you can hope gets to four wins, but who gets there in most cases. 

18 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

 

I just would like to see the Cubs shoot higher than a pretty-good player this year. They're set up for a 4+ win player acquisition. Not one you can hope gets to four wins, but who gets there in most cases. 

They are never going to shoot for higher than pretty good. It's not their business model. 

19 minutes ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Yeeeeaah, still find the rhetoric of “pretty good” to be an unhelpful waste of time that only helps power hoard power. By this standard only Soto is worthy of joining the org this offseason, fewer and fewer beyond that, and that just ain’t the truth 

I'm not sure why you think I'm hoarding anything nor did I mention simply Soto. In fact, I mentioned Burnes and Fried by name.. As well, trades exist and I'm quite the proponent of "go get a really good player any way". If that's a trade, hey go for it! The Cubs have money and prospects. At some point you've got to do something a bit uncomfortable, and it's about time the Cubs do something of that magnitude. They've done an admirable job of the upper-middle-class of everything. But it's time to step out a bit. 

What I don't want to see the Cubs do is this bastardized form of getting wins where you get a guy and you really hope he's good. I mean, get those guys too (I'm not against rolling dice on Walker Buehler if you think you can get him back, for example) but that can't be the main platform for change this offseason. It's time for the Cubs to do that, but supplement it with player(s) who you can reasonably expect to be very good (4+ win territory). It doesn't have to be a "big bat" or a "big arm" or anything subjective...just get really good players. 

Mooney's article, in turn, sounds like the Cubs have kind of bowed out internally on those guys. Maybe it's a tonality of the article and I'm reading too much into it. Or maybe the Cubs are trying to find behind their true intentions.. Or maybe it's just an accumulation of history and I'm placing a little undue pressure on them - just because they haven't doesn't mean they won't ever. But it'd be nice to see the Cubs break that mold this offseason.; Frankly, I think it'd be more than time...I think it's the next steps the org needs to take. 

Get a starter clearly better than Taillon, preferably one that throws hard and right handed.  Don't need to make it much more complicated than that.  

The Buehlers of the world are fine targets in the abstract, but the range of outcomes for that archetype is not much different than you'd expect from one of/the best of Brown/Wicks/Assad/Wesneski/Horton/Birdsell, so it's not as if they need the innings along with that upside.  If you trade one or more of those guys, then maybe that's a pool worth fishing in, but it will be difficult since the pitchers and their agents will see the lack of opportunity relative to other teams(even if you offer marginally more $)

9 minutes ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Objectively Soto is the only “really good” player available by the stated criteria of being a safe bet to put up 4+ WAR, but obviously to limit options in that way is more deterrent than motivator. Teams and orgs have to be smart, have all the tools to make deep evaluations in an era teams have more influence than ever in a players’ bottom line results 

It's kind of disingenuous to limit my post to that portion, no? It convienently cuts off two other names and trades, which I mentioned directly after. Fried has put up numbers where I think he's a pretty good bet to get to four wins (healthy which is a risk, but he's pretty close this year and has done it in the past) and Burnes has done it plenty. I don't think it's Soto or bust. I'll say I think the Cubs are kind of silly for bowing out of Soto immediately, but Soto or bust was never, and is not my argument.

If that's what you want to take away from my post, that's all you. As stated, I think you're ignoring a massive portion of my argument. It's fine (and recommended) that the Cubs model out players they think they can improve. But that it can't be the foundation of the improvement for the team, IMO. They need to both acquire helpful players they can improve, but also find ways to acquire players who move the needle without hoping you can fix 'em, too.