The 2018-2019 Cubs Offseason Rumors & Discussion Thread AKA The Rickettssss take a dump on EVERYTHING

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[The_Achiever]

In the underwhelming but would be decent moves to end the offseason I wouldn’t mind seeing some combination of the following moves yet.....

 

- Bote (maybe more and maybe work in Duensing) for 1 of Castillo or Hedges from the Padres

 

- Sign Oliver Perez to a Brach type deal

 

- Sign Maldonado (if no Hedges)

 

I like Hedges. (when he's not dropping bombs on our pitching)

[Post Count Padder]

In the underwhelming but would be decent moves to end the offseason I wouldn’t mind seeing some combination of the following moves yet.....

 

- Bote (maybe more and maybe work in Duensing) for 1 of Castillo or Hedges from the Padres

 

- Sign Oliver Perez to a Brach type deal

 

- Sign Maldonado (if no Hedges)

I like Hedges. Would love to get more than that for Bote though, even if we are dumping Duensing.

 

I still feel like there's a way to deal Duensing/Kintzler and Chatwood to someone like the Marlins or Royals or Mariners, teams in a rebuild who can take on a contract like that and buy low.

[Deeg]

In the underwhelming but would be decent moves to end the offseason I wouldn’t mind seeing some combination of the following moves yet.....

 

- Bote (maybe more and maybe work in Duensing) for 1 of Castillo or Hedges from the Padres

 

- Sign Oliver Perez to a Brach type deal

 

- Sign Maldonado (if no Hedges)

I like Hedges. Would love to get more than that for Bote though, even if we are dumping Duensing.

 

I still feel like there's a way to deal Duensing/Kintzler and Chatwood to someone like the Marlins or Royals or Mariners, teams in a rebuild who can take on a contract like that and buy low.

 

What possible incentive could there be for those teams? Just because you have money doesn’t mean you’re looking for a way to piss it away. You’d still have to give up good prospects to unload any of those contracts.

[Cubswin11]

Hedges would probably take Willson’s job from him. He’s a talent and Contreras hibernates or something for half a season every year

 

Edit: Thought Hedges was 24....I still like him enough to not take that back

Adding Hedges allows to cut down on innings for Contreras behind the plate to keep the bat fresh (assuming we think there still a solid bat there, which I do). Also allows to throw Willy in the OF or 3B/1B from time to time.

[Deeg]

Life after Contreras really should be Amaya, because I think he has a chance to be a star. But my gut feeling is we're going to give him away in another short-sighted trade for a reliever.

 

Mind you, Hedges would be a good get. He's an elite overall defender and a top-level framer, and with his power should be at least average offensively for the position. But I don't really see the incentive for SD to move him unless they get quite a lot back.

[Deeg]

So what’s the subsequent move to fit Brach’s massive salary on the payroll? Wasn’t that a thing - the Cubs being so broke that they could not add even low rung middle relief to the payroll - like a week ago? Why after and not before the signing? Why am I still hoping?

 

I think they could always afford to add a $3-4M guy like Brach, but they had to wait for all the pitchers who were actually good to get signed by the teams actually trying to improve before a guy like Brach would sign for their budget.

[squally1313]

Hedges is fine, but we should really at least be keeping tabs on Realmuto before the Dodgers get him for pennies on the dollar. Flip Contreras for whatever upgrade elsewhere.

[Cubswin11]

Who says no to Almora and Zack Short (or a similar prospect) for Castellanos? Heyward and Happ can handle CF, Castellanos takes a corner spot and can play some 3B/1B. A lineup of Zobrist 2B/Bryant 3B/Rizzo 1B/Castellanos RF/Schwarber LF/Javy SS/then Willy C /Heyward/Happ CF in either order 7/8 is a pretty nice and balanced lineup. I like knocking Javy down to 6 with all the OBP guys in front of him.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Who says no to Almora and Zack Short (or a similar prospect) for Castellanos? Heyward and Happ can handle CF, Castellanos takes a corner spot and can play some 3B/1B. A lineup of Zobrist 2B/Bryant 3B/Rizzo 1B/Castellanos RF/Schwarber LF/Javy SS/then Willy C /Heyward/Happ CF in either order 7/8 is a pretty nice and balanced lineup. I like knocking Javy down to 6 with all the OBP guys in front of him.

 

I would rather have Almora than Castellanos.

[Cubswin11]

Who says no to Almora and Zack Short (or a similar prospect) for Castellanos? Heyward and Happ can handle CF, Castellanos takes a corner spot and can play some 3B/1B. A lineup of Zobrist 2B/Bryant 3B/Rizzo 1B/Castellanos RF/Schwarber LF/Javy SS/then Willy C /Heyward/Happ CF in either order 7/8 is a pretty nice and balanced lineup. I like knocking Javy down to 6 with all the OBP guys in front of him.

 

I would rather have Almora than Castellanos.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Who says no to Almora and Zack Short (or a similar prospect) for Castellanos? Heyward and Happ can handle CF, Castellanos takes a corner spot and can play some 3B/1B. A lineup of Zobrist 2B/Bryant 3B/Rizzo 1B/Castellanos RF/Schwarber LF/Javy SS/then Willy C /Heyward/Happ CF in either order 7/8 is a pretty nice and balanced lineup. I like knocking Javy down to 6 with all the OBP guys in front of him.

 

I would rather have Almora than Castellanos.

 

Steamer sees them as basically identical from a value perspective. Castellanos will have BABIP regression this year and go back to being an averagish bat with horrible defense who's past the age where we'd expect any marked improvement. Almora will at least have one standout ability with his defense, and has enough age and pedigree to think he can get back to the .330 wOBA or so that makes him an above average regular. He's also a much better fit on the roster since while Happ and Heyward are both capable of playing CF, neither is a natural at it.

[Cubswin11]

He’s the first Driveline guy we’ve brought in as far as I know. I like that, at the least hopefully some of his teachings/learnings/theories from them will rub off on guys and/or they’ll switch to Driveline training.

 

[Tim]

He’s the first Driveline guy we’ve brought in as far as I know. I like that, at the least hopefully some of his teachings/learnings/theories from them will rub off on guys and/or they’ll switch to Driveline training.

 

Would have rather had Hagerty.

[imb]

good god, george kontos is "a really nice signing." horsefeathers right off

[Hairyducked Idiot]

good god, george kontos is "a really nice signing." horsefeathers right off

 

Honestly the only reason to follow baseball at this point is to make sure you get all the references in Grant Brisbee columns.

[Butterscup]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh baby the checkbook is open and flowing. rich tom ricketts is back!

[Bertz]

Even at his best Kontos wasn't that special, he was basically just a Brandon Kintzler type whose superficial numbers looked nice because of AT&T park. Even if the velocity thing is real I'm not sure it'd mean much.

 

But hey, there's no such thing as a bad minor league signing, so cool.

[Deeg]

Life after Contreras really should be Amaya, because I think he has a chance to be a star. But my gut feeling is we're going to give him away in another short-sighted trade for a reliever.

 

Don’t want to overstate this or anything but I know for a fact the Cubs were extremely high on Amaya from Day 1

 

As they were on Torres, Jimenez, Cease and Paredes.

[Sammy Sofa]

Stacking no-name relievers is the new stacking middling middle infielders.

[Sammy Sofa]

And yes, I know this is just business as usual for this kind of horsefeathers...the problem is that this is essentially their ONLY kind of business right now, so I hate it.

[ConstableRabbit]

Stacking no-name relievers is the new stacking middling middle infielders.

He’s not good anymore but calling Tazawa “no-name” is making a strong case for bringing back the Sofa-doesn’t-pay-attention-to-any-other-teams meme.

[Derwood]

Hey, Tazawa was last good in....2015....so at age 33 he's sure to bounce back

[Post Count Padder]

I hope we don't see Tazawa this season, for us at least. But with that signing we now have like 28 guys on the Iowa shuttle:

 

I assume we'll have a few trades in March.

 

This table taken from Cubsprospects on Twitter

[Bertz]

I hope we don't see Tazawa this season, for us at least. But with that signing we now have like 28 guys on the Iowa shuttle:

 

I assume we'll have a few trades in March.

 

This table taken from Cubsprospects on Twitter

 

Wow, I didn't realize how many of these guys we had until they were all listed together. While it sucks that it still lacks a blue chipper, this is actually pretty good depth. And that's really important because we need, at minimum, 3 of these guys to show enough that we feel good about them heading into next offseason. Otherwise prepare for more of this same nonsense we've been dealing with this winter.