2021 Offseason Thread

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Heaney went pretty quick

 

[Bertz]

[Bertz]

 

Expected, but still obviously notable

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I haven't thought it through all the way, and the new CBA seems likely to impact the calculus, but I wonder if pitchers with good results that are 1 year from FA(Bassitt and Manaea in this case) are an opportunity. They're the cheapest trade target to acquire because of the lack of team control, but the QO either doubles that or gives you a rebate on the trade cost, with the caveat that the pitcher needs to be remotely worth a QO the next year(it's not risk-free). The crucial thing is cycling SP year to year isn't inherently creating a ton of performance risk compared to getting a SP for 2,3, 5 years, so from that perspective if you believe in the pitcher then you're basically rolling the dice on injury risk for the upshot of cheap acquisition and maximum roster-building/contract flexibility.

 

Other pitchers who you could at least squint and see falling into this bucket this offseason: Clevinger, Sonny Gray(though he has a club option), Joe Ross, Eflin(though he won't be ready to start the year)

[Bertz]

I haven't thought it through all the way, and the new CBA seems likely to impact the calculus, but I wonder if pitchers with good results that are 1 year from FA(Bassitt and Manaea in this case) are an opportunity. They're the cheapest trade target to acquire because of the lack of team control, but the QO either doubles that or gives you a rebate on the trade cost, with the caveat that the pitcher needs to be remotely worth a QO the next year(it's not risk-free). The crucial thing is cycling SP year to year isn't inherently creating a ton of performance risk compared to getting a SP for 2,3, 5 years, so from that perspective if you believe in the pitcher then you're basically rolling the dice on injury risk for the upshot of cheap acquisition and maximum roster-building/contract flexibility.

 

Other pitchers who you could at least squint and see falling into this bucket this offseason: Clevinger, Sonny Gray(though he has a club option), Joe Ross, Eflin(though he won't be ready to start the year)

 

I think too, with the number of holes on the roster and the shape of the farm (lots of depth contributing to some impending 40 man crunch) it makes sense to make at least one trade of consequence this winter. That doesn't necessarily need to be an arm on an expiring contract, but for the reasons you laid out that's probably the best option?

 

Like don't blow up the farm for Jose Ramirez, but if you can add e.g. Sean Manaea AND clean up the 40 man a bit I am not going to worry about dealing a few prospects in our 15-30 range (and maybe Mills?). Especially since as you said if you pick the right guy you're getting some of that prospect capital refunded on the back end.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Let's play a game about tradeoffs. To set the stage, we'll assume that the Cubs need to make these acquisitions:

 

- SS

- IF

- OF

- Backup C

- 2 SP

- 2 RP

 

To simplify, let's also assume that after Miley the team has 65 million to spend(which is roughly last year's OD payroll) and that we'll reserve 10 million of that for the Backup C and RP. Maybe it doesn't take that much, but we won't count on it. Now let's see our options. You can quibble with the specific names/amounts so take it more seriously than literally. It's meant to be representative of the cohorts of additions that fit the spending rather than a super cohesive plan for a roster.

 

Option A - consistent FA spending

 

 

SS - Galvis/Ahmed - 8M

IF - K Seager - 10-15M

OF - Suzuki/Canha - 10-15M

SP - Gray/Matz - 15M

SP - Wacha/Richards - 8M

Player cost: None

 

 

Option B - QO splurge forcing stars/scrubs

 

 

SS - Seager/Correa - 30M

IF - Shaw/Lamb - 2M

OF - McCutchen/Pillar - 5M

SP - Gray/Matz - 15M

SP - Urena/Smyly - 3M

Player cost: draft pick + draft/IFA pool

 

 

Option C - Trade allows consolidated spending

 

 

SS - Galvis/Ahmed - 8M

IF - K Seager - 10-15M

OF - K Marte/Buxton - 8M

SP - Gray/Matz - 15M

SP - Kikuchi/Wood - 10M

Player cost: Several top-20 prospects

 

 

With the obvious caveat that you can create variants between these, if forced to choose which one would you pick?

[UMFan83]

I think you can build a fairly solid but unspectacular team avoiding any major long term deals or deals from QO players like option A. Go this route and if the team is doing ok at the deadline maybe you take a shot...or maybe you just wait for guys like Davis to emerge. I want to say go for the stars but its costly and it's not like the NBA where you need to do everything possible to secure superstars and then figure out the rest. While I want to win ASAP I don't think we need to put ourselves into a win now position this offseason. I'm perfectly fine with putting a competitive team on the field and seeing where it takes us while we get one more year of development and data on our prospects.

[Tim]

Interesting question, TT.

 

At various times so far this offseason, I think I've leaned each of those directions at different times. At the moment, I'd probably lean towards the depth choice (A) and keep my options open for trades at the deadline.

[Backtobanks]

From MLBTR:

Interestingly, Sawdaye suggested the D-Backs could try to pick up a controllable third base option via trade. Even if Arizona doesn’t wind up trading long-term assets, they could move someone like starter Merrill Kelly, who’ll make just $5.25MM in his final year of team control. Perhaps a Kelly deal could bring back a controllable infielder, and Sawdaye also floated the possibility of a “prospect-for-prospect-type deal” eventually coming together. The D-Backs themselves were part of perhaps the most notable trade of that kind in recent memory, when they picked up Gallen from the Marlins for Jazz Chisholm Jr. at the 2019 trade deadline.

 

Maybe a deal involving Bote + might work in getting another cheap rotation filler leaving plenty of money to fill the other holes.

[Named After Maddux]

From MLBTR:

Interestingly, Sawdaye suggested the D-Backs could try to pick up a controllable third base option via trade. Even if Arizona doesn’t wind up trading long-term assets, they could move someone like starter Merrill Kelly, who’ll make just $5.25MM in his final year of team control. Perhaps a Kelly deal could bring back a controllable infielder, and Sawdaye also floated the possibility of a “prospect-for-prospect-type deal” eventually coming together. The D-Backs themselves were part of perhaps the most notable trade of that kind in recent memory, when they picked up Gallen from the Marlins for Jazz Chisholm Jr. at the 2019 trade deadline.

 

Maybe a deal involving Bote + might work in getting another cheap rotation filler leaving plenty of money to fill the other holes.

 

I’ve floated a Chris Morel and David Bote for Nick Ahmed and Merril Kelly deal.

I really like Kelly, but my only issue is the below average velo after adding Miley. Kelly had a 91.7 mph avg with his FB. If they get Kelly I really hope they splurge and get Gausman. Gray or Matz is an okay second line option, but go get Gausman.

 

Arizona is motivated to move Nick Ahmed with Perdomo ready. Ahmed’s bat really isn’t an addition. He battled shoulder issues and had a 64 wRC+, but was at 94 and 90 in 2019 and 2020. The glove is elite (99% OAA) at SS. He’s owed $7.875 M and then $10.375 M in 2022 and 2023.

 

David Bote’s contract really starts to escalate in the next couple years ($2.5M, $4M, and $5.5M with a couple club options). Good for him for signing that. It’s life changing money for his family. I’m also totally great with moving above to a team where he can get more of an opportunity.

 

Arizona saves a bit of money and snags a prospect while the Cubs bring in SS insurance, greatly improve the infield defense (imagine Wisdom, Ahmed, Hoerner, Schwindel to close out games), and they pick up a very useful pitcher with solid underlying metrics.

[Cubswin11]

Bote just had shoulder surgery from his injury in May, I doubt anyone is trading for him until he can prove he’s healthy.

[Bertz]

My ideal is a Plan B/C hybrid, specifically a lower end trade paired with a FA ranked more in the 5-10 range than the 1-5 range.

 

Actually sticking to the parameters of the question though, I think I'm Team B. The Cubs actually have a lot of decent players in house, the problem is that the few who might be more than that are very high variance (Davis, Alzolay, Hendricks). If the cost for adding a star is more limited help for Wisdom/Schwindel/Ortega, I think that's a worthwhile tradeoff. Also, for 2023 and beyond I'd much rather have one ginormous contract and one medium contract than be locked into 4 medium sized contracts on the books.

[Irrelevant Dude]

Bote just had shoulder surgery from his injury in May, I doubt anyone is trading for him until he can prove he’s healthy.

On the bright side, maybe there was an explanation for why he was so terrible last year.

[UMFan83]

Bote just had shoulder surgery from his injury in May, I doubt anyone is trading for him until he can prove he’s healthy.

On the bright side, maybe there was an explanation for why he was so terrible last year.

 

Was his shoulder bothering him in 2020 too?

[Cubswin11]

Bote just had shoulder surgery from his injury in May, I doubt anyone is trading for him until he can prove he’s healthy.

On the bright side, maybe there was an explanation for why he was so terrible last year.

Pretty sure the injury ended his season and he was just bad prior to it. He separated his shoulder on a dive or slide and was done from May on. Don’t think this was a lingering thing.

[Post Count Padder]

If we're talking Arizona I'd love to figure out a way to get Gallen but the cost might be more than it's worth.

[CubinNY]

KB is getting publicly dissed on Twitter. The Giants were apparently not impressed with him.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Bote just had shoulder surgery from his injury in May, I doubt anyone is trading for him until he can prove he’s healthy.

On the bright side, maybe there was an explanation for why he was so terrible last year.

Probably because he’s just not good.

[Clem Fandango]

Bote just had shoulder surgery from his injury in May, I doubt anyone is trading for him until he can prove he’s healthy.

On the bright side, maybe there was an explanation for why he was so terrible last year.

Probably because he’s just not good.

 

Yeah, his first couple of years were nice and all, and his little baby contract is still a decent value for someone like him when he's healthy, but I don't know that anyone should expect him to be putting up like 20 dingers and an .800 OPS or anything. If he can get back to being a 1.5-2 win player, that's all he needs to be.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I linked this in the CBA thread since the bulk of the article is on that topic, but Passan does mention there may be more early signings of significance than previously thought: https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/32612663/why-mlb-seems-headed-lockout-how-thatll-create-free-agent-frenzy

 

The most interesting twist, certainly, occurred on the free-agent side. Teams essentially suggested players have a choice: Sign before the lockout or wait until February, when most everyone expects the labor discord to end, and have fun navigating the frenzy of signings and trades that will ensue. Agents for some of the highest-profile free agents this winter, in the meantime, inverted the posture: If you want a player, step up financially, because the February stampede is going to be so different, so unfamiliar, that it's worth paying more for certainty now than having to overpay or be left empty-handed on the eve of the season.

 

The fallout is a sense that Corey Seager, the magnificent Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop, and Marcus Semien, the dynamic Toronto infielder, are increasingly likely to sign before Dec. 1, executives interested in the players told ESPN. Both are clients of Scott Boras, who two winter meetings ago fetched more than $800 million guaranteed for Stephen Strasburg, Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon over three days. With the rhetoric that the sides treated this week like that time of year, teams and players making surgical free-agent strikes -- even on projected nine-figure deals -- feels like more of a possibility, though not a certainty, than it did even a week ago. It's not just Boras' clients, either. The starting pitching market, sources said, is expected to have multiple big-name pitchers get pre-lockout deals.

 

Such supposition, of course, could be nothing more than high-level strategy -- trying to extract leverage by using the lockout as a cudgel, something not necessarily limited to one party. The tack with Seager and Semien left executives wondering whether they really do want to sign early or it's a play to draw out teams like the New York Yankees, who need a shortstop and, three sources said, have shown interest in both. Likewise, just because players are unfamiliar with the NFL- and NBA-type free-agent period -- pure chaos -- doesn't make the prospect of going through one necessarily bad.

 

A divided market might then be the result, with aggressive teams that have shown a desire to spend -- Detroit, Texas, maybe Seattle and Toronto -- among those executing a flurry of deals in the days leading up to, and perhaps even on, Dec. 1. Should the clock turn from 11:59 p.m. to midnight heading into Dec. 2 with no deal, the lockout would end all major league transactions until a deal is struck, and dozens of executives and agents this week pegged the same time period for that: somewhere in the two-week span between Feb. 1 and 15, 2022.

[Cubswin11]

Lorenzen horsefeathering sucks, hard pass.

[Cubswin11]

Lorenzen horsefeathering sucks, hard pass.

 

Especially for the money, Lorenzen's probably the highest ceiling arm on the arm on the FA market outside of like Gausman and Scherzer/Verlander. He's the hardest thrower, best athlete, among the widest pitch mixes, manages contact well, and healthiest...Compare/Contrast to Jon Gray, who's fastball is down a tick from peak velocity, lower between the two by 2 MPH, doesn't haven't a standout secondary (does try 3, the slider's not bad, changeup's terrible), doesn't manage contact well (does get some GBs),and is very mediocre when you asked to throw more than 150 innings anyway, but will get maybe 2-3x the contract on the assumption he'll get better

Lorenzen is 30, hasn’t thrown over 80 IP since 2015 and has just over 50 combined the last two years. Never really has gotten any special results. Career ERA/FIP/xFIP all in the 4s (over 5 as a starter with a .360+ wOBA against, k/9 in the 6s, K% around 15% and BB% around 10%) why he’d be expected to be good for ~170 innings as a SP I don’t get. If he has 5 good pitches he certainly hasn’t implemented them in to results as a SP, RP or swing man. Just don’t get why he’s interesting other than he’s a good athlete who can throw hard but never has gotten results.

 

The Reds have also had some of the best pitching infrastructure over the years he’s been there. Moneyball gif but with pitching. If he’s so good at pitching why doesn’t he pitch good?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I’m interested in the possibility of Lorenzen being someone worth stretching out, I’m typically of the mind that players like Lorenzen(or Gray) who have spent their careers in one org have more opportunity/likelihood of an adjustment that helps them find improvement, especially when they have that stuff/athleticism profile, so the recent results don’t terrify me.

 

Where I think the plan of adding Lorenzen loses some logic is the intersection of his capacity for innings, acquisition cost, and the duration of payoff. As mentioned, Lorenzen hasn’t thrown more than 33 IP the last 2 years, and he’s been a reliever for 6 years(Samardzija by comparison spent 1 year as a full-time reliever in between being a SP in the minors and the majors). Expecting more than 100 good innings next year out of someone like Lorenzen feels like a mistake. And because of this, you have to be clear eyed about how that fits into your plans. The rotation already has a fair amount of uncertainty on this front, and even if you want to throw a bunch of arms at the problem there’s still only so many roster spots(Hendricks, Miley, Mills, Steele, and of course Lorenzen would not have options and if healthy Alzolay needs MLB dev). And then there’s the payoff, Lorenzen’s contract seems unlikely to break the bank, but in order to truly reap the rewards of stretching him out you’d need at least a 2 year deal, which would likely require a non-trivial financial commitment and limit other SP options in dollars or opportunity of playing time.

 

All that said, I don’t think Lorenzen is a bad target, but we should be clear eyed about the limits of that acquisition. He’s a perfectly cromulent option for a veteran bullpen role and even as a multi-inning reliever, and there’s likely some mutually agreeable outcome where you give him 2 years or an option year where his salary escalates based on IP to incentivize stretching him out. But in an offseason where Jed keeps saying they need to add starting pitching and most of us seem to think 2 more SP are needed, I don’t think adding Lorenzen changes that, so you have to be careful about the terms.

[Cubswin11]

[Bertz]

I actually think Lorenzen is a pretty savvy option, but probably for another team. We already have enough "is he actually a starter?" SP candidates. Unless we're planning to do something fairly radical with the back end of the rotation (which I don't necessarily mind) I don't think we should be adding anymore unless it's a pre-FA guy with some minor league options remaining.

 

On a completely different track, I've been thinking about this from Brett yesterday:

 

 

I've generally been ignoring this, wanting to add a Brad Miller or Kyle Seager for 1B/3B and call it a day. But like Brett says, Ian Happ is pretty much the only LH batter of consequence in the org above A Ball. And when you start trying to assemble prospective lineups, you can really feel the lack of a LH thumper. So a LH power hitter probably ought to be moved up quite a bit on the offseason priorities list. Corey Seager at SS would be the obvious ideal, but even Matt Olson or Michael Conforto would really scratch the itch. I also wonder about Joey Gallo. There's been a lot of smoke around him, though I don't know if it's real or if the fan base just hates him and is trying to speak a trade into existence.