2019-20 Offseason Rumors/General Chit-Chat

[CubsWin]

So is your argument here that this thread, 553 posts deep at the moment, along with the 2020 roster thread, 934 posts deep, just a bunch of group think morons chanting "No good Bryant trades"?

Nope. I'm only referring to this thread and used qualifiers like "largely", "for the most part" and "prevailing opinion" throughout.

 

Or is it possible that somewhere in those threads, apparently very difficult to find, are literally hundreds of other hypothetical offseason plans that people think would improve an 84 win team (90 by pythag) without trading our best player?

Yep. Totally possible. In fact I responded to a post at the very bottom of the previous page saying that I thought the plan the poster (TT) described would improve the team without trading Bryant.

 

On your side of the argument, I see two different options of what you are thinking. One, that there are baseball players that currently exist in the world where if you put them on our roster instead of Kris Bryant, the Cubs are a better team. Bryant for Mookie Betts makes our team better. Bryant for Trout and Ohtani makes our team way better. Fun! Also, completely useless in terms of productive conversation.

No mine are actually realistic and take in to account the big picture of where the entire roster and payroll are headed in the next year or two. I don't look at a Bryant trade (or any other trade) in a vacuum because it doesn't exist in a vacuum. In fact, for me, the main reason to trade Bryant, if you do, is to address what is going to happen to the Cubs rotation after next season. And the main reason to trade Contreras, if you do, is to address CF and the hole left if you trade Bryant. It has nothing to do with getting a better player than Bryant in a trade involving him. That's simply highly unlikely to happen. He's going to be the best player in the deal. All of this could've been avoided had the Cubs produced more quality, in-house starting pitching prospects. But they didn't and now they are left dealing with that situation.

 

Or there's the option that uses the rumored Kris Bryant trades that are out there, of which there are many, and sees an option or options in there that improve our team in the short term and/or the long term. If that's the option you're taking, please, as TT said, show your work, because I think that's where we fundamentally disagree on how to construct a successful Cubs roster.

I actually wrote it all up and when I pressed submit, I lost it all. That horsefeathers was long, too. Sometimes that happens when you've worked on it over time and left the page open for the good part of a day. But I pretty much remember what I wrote and the research I did, so I'll write it out again.

 

As a short aside, burying your head in the sand about pretty much every message Ricketts has sent regarding their willingness to spend money and sticking with the 'oh you think Theo is an idiot huh' argument is really dumb. There are clearly other factors at play, things none of us are happy with.

You're misreading what I wrote. I never accused anyone of thinking Theo was an idiot. I don't think anyone here thinks Theo and Jed are idiots. I simply pointed out that it seems clear to all of us that Theo and company are open to trading Bryant if not actively seeking it. At the same time, the prevailing opinion in this thread is that there is no imaginable reason to make such a move. It's unfathomable why the Cubs would trade KB. And yet, Theo and Jed are still looking into it. They must see a reason. I simply asked if the Cubs "front office was filled with idiots" with the obvious answer being "no". So if those guys see a benefit to trading him then those of us who think it is completely unfathomable haven't considered all the options and are suffering from a lack of imagination. Go back and read it again, if you don't believe me.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

No mine are actually realistic and take in to account the big picture of where the entire roster and payroll are headed in the next year or two. I don't look at a Bryant trade (or any other trade) in a vacuum because it doesn't exist in a vacuum. In fact, for me, the main reason to trade Bryant, if you do, is to address what is going to happen to the Cubs rotation after next season. And the main reason to trade Contreras, if you do, is to address CF and the hole left if you trade Bryant. It has nothing to do with getting a better player than Bryant in a trade involving him. That's simply highly unlikely to happen. He's going to be the best player in the deal. All of this could've been avoided had the Cubs produced more quality, in-house starting pitching prospects. But they didn't and now they are left dealing with that situation.

Oh. You are realistic and no one else is.

 

But to get serious, why do you take it as a given that trading Bryant is the best/only way to keep the pitching from being bad? And also, why not just let the pitching suck and keep Bryant? Why is keeping that pitching at an arbitrary level of current performance needed, and at the expense of trading away our (probably) best position player? This can all be avoided by not doing any of it.

[Cubswin11]

[squally1313]

You're misreading what I wrote. I never accused anyone of thinking Theo was an idiot. I don't think anyone here thinks Theo and Jed are idiots. I simply pointed out that it seems clear to all of us that Theo and company are open to trading Bryant if not actively seeking it. At the same time, the prevailing opinion in this thread is that there is no imaginable reason to make such a move. It's unfathomable why the Cubs would trade KB. And yet, Theo and Jed are still looking into it. They must see a reason. I simply asked if the Cubs "front office was filled with idiots" with the obvious answer being "no". So if those guys see a benefit to trading him then those of us who think it is completely unfathomable haven't considered all the options and are suffering from a lack of imagination. Go back and read it again, if you don't believe me.

 

I appreciate the rest of your response, cutting it here so this page doesn't go on forever. Looking forward to seeing your KB trade ideas, because like people have been saying, I've yet to see one that I think makes the team better and gives them a better chance to make the playoffs.

 

In terms of the above, obviously all these rumors are coming from somewhere. They aren't just bored down there, looking for something to do. I just don't believe that these rumors and potential reasons are coming strictly from a desire to improve the talent of the baseball team. I look at the organization openly talking about 'banking money' during years of poor performance, and very clearly creating this offensive core of players that would, due to the nature of player control, remain relatively underpaid relative to their performance and allow them to supplement that core with more expensive, established players, pitchers in particular (to mixed results). There's no way they conceived of this plan without realizing that eventually that sweet player control would run out, and those core players would be able to hit arbitration and eventually the open market, mostly at the same time.

 

But we aren't at that point yet. If the plan was to leverage the team control and then bail as soon as there started to be a threat of these guys making serious money, well...that's a little depressing. Two years of Kris Bryant on this team, to me, is much more valuable than taking five years of control of Player X, adding up all those WARs, and claiming victory because they add up to more than what KB will most likely produce in 2020 and 2021. You want to talk me into a stud for stud deal, where we could get away from Boras and potential hard feelings for service time manipulation and commit to a long term deal? Let's have that discussion. But trading Kris Bryant for Max Fried doesn't come close to guaranteeing success down the road, and pretty clearly makes us worse next year, a year where we know we're going to be competitive and the value of every win is incredibly high. That's a clear downgrade in the near term, and the chance he turns into some 4-5 win player in 2022 in front of a roster that will either be super old or have a ton of other turnover required...what does that do for you? I don't mean to totally write off anything after 2021, but I don't really see a lot of reason for optimism at this point. Give me two more shots at October with this core, led by Bryant, and figure it out after that.

[Tryptamine]

The point of trading KB is not to make the team better in 2020, it's to make them better later. They clearly don't want to give him a huge contract so you either move him for pieces in/close to the majors with an eye on making the team better in 2021+ or you let him play on a mediocre team and hope the Cubs somehow sneak into the playoffs before he walks away for a draft pick. I simply don't believe this 2020 squad is worth taking that kind of gamble on given the monetary and player asset related constraints.

[CubinNY]

You're misreading what I wrote. I never accused anyone of thinking Theo was an idiot. I don't think anyone here thinks Theo and Jed are idiots. I simply pointed out that it seems clear to all of us that Theo and company are open to trading Bryant if not actively seeking it. At the same time, the prevailing opinion in this thread is that there is no imaginable reason to make such a move. It's unfathomable why the Cubs would trade KB. And yet, Theo and Jed are still looking into it. They must see a reason. I simply asked if the Cubs "front office was filled with idiots" with the obvious answer being "no". So if those guys see a benefit to trading him then those of us who think it is completely unfathomable haven't considered all the options and are suffering from a lack of imagination. Go back and read it again, if you don't believe me.

 

I appreciate the rest of your response, cutting it here so this page doesn't go on forever. Looking forward to seeing your KB trade ideas, because like people have been saying, I've yet to see one that I think makes the team better and gives them a better chance to make the playoffs.

 

He doesn't have to do that, only accuse everyone else of thinking they are smarter than Theo and also sucking each others dicks because we cannot think for ourselves.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

The point of trading KB is not to make the team better in 2020, it's to make them better later. They clearly don't want to give him a huge contract so you either move him for pieces in/close to the majors with an eye on making the team better in 2021+ or you let him play on a mediocre team and hope the Cubs somehow sneak into the playoffs before he walks away for a draft pick. I simply don't believe this 2020 squad is worth taking that kind of gamble on given the monetary and player asset related constraints.

 

If you're looking at a team that has Bryant, Baez, and Hendricks headlining it(plus several useful supporting players) and concluding the only way forward is to blow it up, you're profoundly misunderstanding 1) how much year to year variance happens in MLB or 2) where the positive variance tends to come from or 3) both. Even if the team is handcuffed financially there's no excuse to not attempt to win the division.

[squally1313]

Imagine looking at the Brewers and Cardinals roster and thinking the best case scenario with a KB/Baez/Hendricks (Rizzo/Contreras/Yu...) led team is "a mediocre team that hopefully somehow sneaks into the playoffs".

[Cubswin11]

The point of trading KB is not to make the team better in 2020, it's to make them better later. They clearly don't want to give him a huge contract so you either move him for pieces in/close to the majors with an eye on making the team better in 2021+ or you let him play on a mediocre team and hope the Cubs somehow sneak into the playoffs before he walks away for a draft pick. I simply don't believe this 2020 squad is worth taking that kind of gamble on given the monetary and player asset related constraints.

The Cubs currently have the best team in the Division. As many have laid out, spending somewhere in the $20-30 million range on the margin moves is all this team needs to be the pretty decent favorite going in. There’s really no “gamble” in doing that. They aren’t trading away any top prospects to fill holes or committing huge money long term to hold things up going down this path.

[Cubswin11]

[Bryants Disco Ball]

Imagine looking at the Brewers and Cardinals roster and thinking the best case scenario with a KB/Baez/Hendricks (Rizzo/Contreras/Yu...) led team is "a mediocre team that hopefully somehow sneaks into the playoffs".

 

Of course, to be fair, the team with KB/Baez/Hendricks (Rizzo/Contreras/Yu) was largely mediocre last season and couldn't even sneak into the playoffs. So, I suppose it's not that difficult to imagine looking at the same roster and thinking that.

[Cubswin11]

Imagine looking at the Brewers and Cardinals roster and thinking the best case scenario with a KB/Baez/Hendricks (Rizzo/Contreras/Yu...) led team is "a mediocre team that hopefully somehow sneaks into the playoffs".

 

Of course, to be fair, the team with KB/Baez/Hendricks (Rizzo/Contreras/Yu) was largely mediocre last season and couldn't even sneak into the playoffs. So, I suppose it's not that difficult to imagine looking at the same roster and thinking that.

Same roster, maybe, still would be favorites. But same core with some margin tweaks well it’s hard to see how they wouldn’t be the best projected team. I’m not letting the Brewers 1 in a billion season in 2018 and underperforming year by us in 2019 skew the fact we still have the best core to go to battle with the next two years in all likelihood.

[Splendid Splinter]

The only trade package that I can think of that will be close to what you want where it's not much of a drop off in 2020 is probably something like Ender Inciarte, Ian Anderson, and a prospect (most likely a SP) in the 8-15 range of their prospects list from the Braves. You upgrade at CF who's signed for 2 more years on a team friendly deal plus an club option at 9 mil in 2022 and downgrade at 3B. You can let Anderson take the 5th SP spot or you got another SP with upside in AAA ready to take that spot anytime in the season. Then you get a 3rd piece that could end up doing something down the road. I think Braves would be willing to do this deal as they still have the SP prospects left over and Pache/Waters can replace Inciarte at some point. Just not sure if Theo would take this type of package.

 

Still have to figure out what you want to do at 3B for 2020 and down the road, but you could squint at this package and be like, "ok, this helps us now to compete and down the road with the rest of the core". Not saying I would do this deal, just was trying to come up with a package where you're not hurting yourself next season if you do trade Bryant. I'm sure there are other packages where you could do this, but I'm just not sure how realistic it is like this one.

[squally1313]

Inciarte is a career below average hitter relying heavily on his defense and speed who just suffered what I assume is a fairly serious leg injury (given that he only played 65 games) and just turned 29. You wouldn’t have to give me much odds to say Ian Happ is a more productive center fielder the next two years.

[ConstableRabbit]

Even moving past that the Cubs are still probably the most talented team in the division on paper (Bryant, Hendricks, Baez, Rizzo, Contreras, Schwarber is still the deepest top of a roster in the bunch with only Yelich in the conversation for Bryant as the best player in the division), it's *still irrational* to think a trade designed to start paying off in 2021 or later is realistically something that will work out

Thinking that Yelich isn’t the best player in the division — as much as it pains me to say it — is irrational.

[chopsx9]

Even moving past that the Cubs are still probably the most talented team in the division on paper (Bryant, Hendricks, Baez, Rizzo, Contreras, Schwarber is still the deepest top of a roster in the bunch with only Yelich in the conversation for Bryant as the best player in the division), it's *still irrational* to think a trade designed to start paying off in 2021 or later is realistically something that will work out

Thinking that Yelich isn’t the best player in the division — as much as it pains me to say it — is irrational.

 

Was Bryant even the best player on the Cubs?

[Cubswin11]

Even moving past that the Cubs are still probably the most talented team in the division on paper (Bryant, Hendricks, Baez, Rizzo, Contreras, Schwarber is still the deepest top of a roster in the bunch with only Yelich in the conversation for Bryant as the best player in the division), it's *still irrational* to think a trade designed to start paying off in 2021 or later is realistically something that will work out

Thinking that Yelich isn’t the best player in the division — as much as it pains me to say it — is irrational.

 

Was Bryant even the best player on the Cubs?

He was.

[Cubswin11]

[KingCubsFan]

Even moving past that the Cubs are still probably the most talented team in the division on paper (Bryant, Hendricks, Baez, Rizzo, Contreras, Schwarber is still the deepest top of a roster in the bunch with only Yelich in the conversation for Bryant as the best player in the division), it's *still irrational* to think a trade designed to start paying off in 2021 or later is realistically something that will work out

Thinking that Yelich isn’t the best player in the division — as much as it pains me to say it — is irrational.

 

If we're looking at the division:

 

Past 3 Years

Yelich 20 WAR

Bryant 13.9

Goldschmidt 13.4

Suarez 12.3

Baez 12.1

 

Past 2 Years

Yelich 15.4 WAR

Baez 9.7

Suarez 8.4

Goldschmidt 8.1

DeJong 7.4

Cain 7.2

Bryant 7.1

Rizzo 6.9

[Deeg]

So the argument is the best team in the division, which couldn’t win the division two years ago, did nothing to improve and got worse, can do nothing again and is still the best team in the division?

[Cubswin11]

So the argument is the best team in the division, which couldn’t win the division two years ago, did nothing to improve and got worse, can do nothing again and is still the best team in the division?

On paper it still likely is. Look around the division right now, who is better? It doesn’t mean they will win the division but they’re still probably the best team on paper/projections going in to next year as of today.

[Deeg]

That's a terrible approach to take, IMO. We haven't been the best team in the division the past two seasons, or we would have won it. We've already seen the results of standing pat once with a core that wasn't good enough - I don't think doing it again and rolling the dice is a good strategy.

 

This isn't 2016. Bryant has regressed physically, Russell and Almora are just two more failed top prospects, Zobrist got old, Lester is a shadow of his old self and we've done nothing whatever to replace Fowler as a CF or leadoff hitter. Status quo was a bad option last winter - it's indefensible this winter.

[Cubswin11]

That's a terrible approach to take, IMO. We haven't been the best team in the division the past two seasons, or we would have won it. We've already seen the results of standing pat once with a core that wasn't good enough - I don't think doing it again and rolling the dice is a good strategy.

 

This isn't 2016. Bryant has regressed physically, Russell and Almora are just two more failed top prospects, Zobrist got old, Lester is a shadow of his old self and we've done nothing whatever to replace Fowler as a CF or leadoff hitter. Status quo was a bad option last winter - it's indefensible this winter.

It is a terrible approach to take, I'm not advocating for it all. But it still can also be true that a core of KB, Javy, Willy, Rizzo, Hendricks and Yu with a supporting staff of Scwharbs, Bote, Q, Lester, Heyward and Happ is still the best core and group of next 3-5 best players in the division and they likely are favorites as of today. It also shows how ridiculous it is just to stand pat because with just cleaning up around the edges we'd be the prohibitive favorites. Instead doing very little (while still favorites) lessens the margin for error and horsefeathers like last year and winning 80 whatever games especially is more probable, 2018 they still won 95 games and it took a moon shot for another team to catch them, if they go win 95 games next year I'd take my chances we win the division. We're the only team in the division with multiple 4+ win projected players on offense and have the most 3+ win projected players and only the Reds top 5 pitchers project for more than our top 5 right now. Again this isn't a reason to do nothing, at the least some horsefeathers needs to get cleaned up, but it's also still likely the best team on paper going in to the year next year as of today.

[squally1313]

We're going into year 6 of this run, and since 2015 we've won the 3rd most games in the league. There's no real path to becoming the 2016 Cubs in the next few years, and the only real hypothetical path to it in the next 3-5 years is by seriously hurting the 2020 and 2021 rosters. I'm not expecting 100 wins, or even 95+, but 90+ is pretty achievable with this core, and should be enough to let us roll the dice in the playoffs for a couple years.

[Marlin Bystro]

I'm surprised we aren't discussing moving Quintana to get out of his money. I don't think he goes anwywhere but further downhill next year and getting out of his money maybe allows us to keep Bryant. Which should be the plan, but there has been a clear communication breakdown between Ricketts and the front office.