Bullpen Options

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Confusing.

[David]

at least this helped me confirm how i really feel about a possible arrieta return bc mully and hanley did a fakeout, saying something like... "we have some breaking news from jon heyman...the cubs have done it. you've got your pitcher...they're bringing back..." and i was like ah horsefeathers. Edited January 17, 2018 by David

[Bobson Dugnutt]

this basically guarantees that grimm is gone, right? but they still have to pay him, what, $1 million? and then duensing will make an extra $1 million over what grimm was slated for.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Yuck.

[ScrubMD]

this basically guarantees that grimm is gone, right? but they still have to pay him, what, $1 million? and then duensing will make an extra $1 million over what grimm was slated for.

 

If they go with an 8 man bullpen, Grimm will probably compete for the last spot.

 

Morrow

Cishek

Edwards

Strop

Montgomery

Wilson

Duensing

 

Then Grimm, Maples, or maybe one of the guys they claimed puts it together.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

this basically guarantees that grimm is gone, right? but they still have to pay him, what, $1 million? and then duensing will make an extra $1 million over what grimm was slated for.

 

If they go with an 8 man bullpen, Grimm will probably compete for the last spot.

 

Morrow

Cishek

Edwards

Strop

Montgomery

Wilson

Duensing

 

Then Grimm, Maples, or maybe one of the guys they claimed puts it together.

 

possibly. i just can't see them spending a combined $6 million on Grimm and Duensing.

[KrisBryantisaBeast]

Duensing was good last year plus that's not a lot of money so I am totally fine with this deal. I might have went for someone with a little more upside but if they are saving cash for Darvish and or Harper than it makes sense.

[Bertz]

I think we needed another lefty so I expected someone Duensing-esque closer to ST. I'm mostly just surprised it's for 2 years.

[Lefty]

Is it possible this paves the way for Montgomery to start?

[treebird]

unless we are really confident we’re actually going to sign darvish for way less than expected, spending any of our limited under the tax money on okay 35 year old relievers seems bad.

[Cubswin11]

This seems dumb and unnecessary

[Bryants Disco Ball]

unless we are really confident we’re actually going to sign darvish for way less than expected, spending any of our limited under the tax money on okay 35 year old relievers seems bad.

 

Or it means they aren’t really that serious about Darvish and are just making sure they explore every avenue.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

this seems fine to me. i trust our front office didn't blow their chance to sign darvish or harper to sign brian duesning.

[Bryants Disco Ball]

this seems fine to me. i trust our front office didn't blow their chance to sign darvish or harper to sign brian duesning.

 

I think he made $2 million last year as a scrub pitcher that nobody cared about. So getting a raise of $1.5 million after putting together a solid year and being a pitcher nobody cares about doesn't seem that crazy.

[treebird]

unless we are really confident we’re actually going to sign darvish for way less than expected, spending any of our limited under the tax money on okay 35 year old relievers seems bad.

 

Or it means they aren’t really that serious about Darvish and are just making sure they explore every avenue.

 

if we aren’t serious on darvish and don’t want arrieta, are we just locked into cobb no matter what? i’m pretty sure i’m the sixth starter right now. going into a season with the rotation depth as it currently stands would be unconscionable for a team that plans to contend.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

this seems fine to me. i trust our front office didn't blow their chance to sign darvish or harper to sign brian duesning.

 

I think he made $2 million last year as a scrub pitcher that nobody cared about. So getting a raise of $1.5 million after putting together a solid year and being a pitcher nobody cares about doesn't seem that crazy.

 

yep, i'm fine with Duesning as a 3rd LH reliever, freeing montgomery up to make spot starts when needed. and $3.5 million isn't anything i'm going to get too concerned over. after we shoot justin grimm into the sun, we've increased our payroll obligations by like $2 million.

[David]

this seems fine to me. i trust our front office didn't blow their chance to sign darvish or harper to sign brian duesning.

 

basically this

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Is it possible this paves the way for Montgomery to start?

 

This is the permutation I think about, because Wilson, Montgomery, and the LH eating righties we have(Edwards, Morrow, kinda Strop) mean there isn't a whole lot of need for a LOOGY in particular. If you're going with Montgomery to the rotation AND Duensing is the reliever(and not someone more expensive/higher caliber), then you're probably using more resources on position players, of which there are very few permutations that make a great deal of sense. Trading for Machado is one of them, but others like trading for Yelich or signing Cain don't seem to square very well with signing Duensing to let Montgomery start.

 

Maybe it's putting Grimm on the chopping block as the 8th man in the pen and getting someone like Cobb and trying for Yelich? I don't want to extrapolate too much over 3.5 million for Duensing, but it's still confusing.

[davell]

So, where do we stand? That's my only concern.....

 

C Contreras-.6, Caratini-.6

1B Rizzo- 5.857

2B Baez-.6, La Stella- .950

SS Russell-3.2

3B Bryant-10.85

LF Schwarber-.6

CF Almora-.6, Happ-.6

RF Heyward-23, Zobrist-14

 

Total-61.457(Position Players)

 

SP- Lester-25.833, Quintana-4.2, Hendricks-4.175, Chatwood-12.667, Smyly-5

 

Total-51.875(Rotation)

 

RP- Morrow-10.5, Cishek-6.5, Duensing-3.5, Strop-5.925, Wilson-4.25, Grimm-2.338(midpoint), Montgomery-.6, Edwards-.6

 

Total-34.213(Pen)

 

 

 

Total-147.545

 

147.545+ 2.25(40 man)+ 15(insurances)

 

164.770

 

197-164.770=32.230

 

32.230 Left to Spend, counting in season callups, and trades

 

Is that enough for Darvish at a 25 AAV? Yeah, I guess so. But, it does mean zero position player additions. Which, I'm fine with. Just not sure if the FO is...Backup C, maybe a backup OF?

 

To get Darvish, it basically means at the trade deadline, we'd be going after guys that aren't making a lot of money.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

unless we are really confident we’re actually going to sign darvish for way less than expected, spending any of our limited under the tax money on okay 35 year old relievers seems bad.

 

Or it means they aren’t really that serious about Darvish and are just making sure they explore every avenue.

 

if we aren’t serious on darvish and don’t want arrieta, are we just locked into cobb no matter what? i’m pretty sure i’m the sixth starter right now. going into a season with the rotation depth as it currently stands would be unconscionable for a team that plans to contend.

 

i mean, as it relates to darvish, i think there could be a number of reasons why they felt comfortable making this deal. maybe after talking to him for the last month, they don't believe they're able to meet his asking price in terms of either years or aav and have decided to move on. maybe they're really confident that they'll get him for a low enough aav that they had an extra $2 million to play with to bring back a guy they like better than grimm. or they'll go super cheap on backup catcher/OF. or they've determined that the trade deadline market is likely to be really thin, so instead of leaving much wiggle room for in-season trades, they're going to try to get basically all their shopping done now.

 

in any case, i'm fully confident the cubs will sign a starting pitcher and you'll be bumped to seventh starter by the time the season starts.

 

by the second half, when depth becomes especially important, we could be looking at Monty/Smyly/Tseng/Alzolay as depth. that seems alright to me.

[Bryants Disco Ball]

unless we are really confident we’re actually going to sign darvish for way less than expected, spending any of our limited under the tax money on okay 35 year old relievers seems bad.

 

Or it means they aren’t really that serious about Darvish and are just making sure they explore every avenue.

 

if we aren’t serious on darvish and don’t want arrieta, are we just locked into cobb no matter what? i’m pretty sure i’m the sixth starter right now. going into a season with the rotation depth as it currently stands would be unconscionable for a team that plans to contend.

 

I think they are just waiting to sign the pitcher that takes the fewest years/money or who presents great value. I just don't think in the end Darvish is really going to be that guy. Sure, if they can get him for what the Yanks think they can get him for, they'd jump all over that.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

To get Darvish, it basically means at the trade deadline, we'd be going after guys that aren't making a lot of money.

 

i think this is a definite possibility. i know that whenever you do these projections (and i always appreciate the breakdowns) you leave money for trades. but maybe they feel like there just won't be much out there worth trading for. or that, since they've used a lot of their trade assets over the past two years, they won't really be able to outbid other teams for attractive pieces without dealing from the major league roster (which they're seemingly reluctant to do). so they're just going all in now.

[David]

yeah i don't really care about leaving money for a midseason acquisition. if you can get the better player all year, i think that outweighs the benefit of possibly being able to fill a hole that might be created by injury or underperformance later on.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

yeah i don't really care about leaving money for a midseason acquisition. if you can get the better player all year, i think that outweighs the benefit of possibly being able to fill a hole that might be created by injury or underperformance later on.

 

and i think the front office has talked about this in the past. was it the heyward/zobrist/lackey offseason where they pretty much said that they took care of multiple years' worth of offseason acquisitions all at once? similar idea here.

[BigbadB]

To me, this feels like a precursor to other deals. I find it pretty hard to believe that they stood still all this time to go with Montgomery as their 5th starter. They said they weren't done improving the team, but I highly doubt that Duensing was the missing piece.

 

Montgomery wants to start. This is Theo using Montgomery as an added trade chip to improve the team, and Duensing just replaces Montgomery in the bullpen. My guess is Theo has it all figured out now, and this is just the first domino. I'm guessing Yelich and Cobb.