2022-23 Offseason Thread (Cubs)

[Bertz]

 

Even if Senga's salary is more like $15M than the $20M we expected earlier in the year, this is tough to reconcile with some of the other rumors. TT mentioned a few days ago with Abreu, but the money starts piling up really quick. For example think about an offseason like this:

 

Correa ($35M)

Abreu ($18M)

Senga ($15M)

Hoerner (extension) ($10M)

Smyly ($7M)

Danny Jansen (trade) ($4M)

A couple relievers ($5M)

 

That's *right* up against the luxury tax. There's plenty of places to save a million here or a million there, so not to say it can't happen, but it just feels tighter and lower margin for error than I'd expect? Especially since Abreu, Senga, Smyly, and Hoerner have all been mentioned multiple times by multiple outlets. Those all feel a lot more specific and legitimate than like that stray Aaron Judge rumor.

 

I guess where I'm going with all of this is I'm really starting to think Swanson is the target at short. Him at $25M makes all the other pieces fit so much more cleanly. He's likely looking at 5-6 years instead of 8-10. He's probably the best defender of the group. Jed had some random line about too many ground balls a month back and he's got the lowest rate there, etc.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Even if Senga's salary is more like $15M than the $20M we expected earlier in the year, this is tough to reconcile with some of the other rumors. TT mentioned a few days ago with Abreu, but the money starts piling up really quick. For example think about an offseason like this:

 

Correa ($35M)

Abreu ($18M)

Senga ($15M)

Hoerner (extension) ($10M)

Smyly ($7M)

Danny Jansen (trade) ($4M)

A couple relievers ($5M)

 

That's *right* up against the luxury tax. There's plenty of places to save a million here or a million there, so not to say it can't happen, but it just feels tighter and lower margin for error than I'd expect? Especially since Abreu, Senga, Smyly, and Hoerner have all been mentioned multiple times by multiple outlets. Those all feel a lot more specific and legitimate than like that stray Aaron Judge rumor.

 

I guess where I'm going with all of this is I'm really starting to think Swanson is the target at short. Him at $25M makes all the other pieces fit so much more cleanly. He's likely looking at 5-6 years instead of 8-10. He's probably the best defender of the group. Jed had some random line about too many ground balls a month back and he's got the lowest rate there, etc.

 

Funny enough I was adding up an almost identical offseason earlier. The "obvious" valve is going cheaper on SP2 than Smyly, but he's the strongest sourced rumor of all of them and 5 million only goes so far. The other one I can see working is finding a trade for the bat, hopefully using the likes of Madrigal and/or Sampson since Jansen will probably cost something a little more painful. You've mentioned Seth Brown before, maybe the Angels would move on from Jared Walsh? The Rays will probably part with Ji-Man Choi, or maybe Gallo comes cheap enough since the Dodgers didnt' fix him? I'd love the relative predictability of Abreu, but not enough to forego any of the other substantial additions.

[Bertz]

 

Team Payroll pages are updated too including the MLB Trade Rumors arbitration projections. At the moment the Cubs are about $85M under the Luxury Tax. Cutting Reyes, Brault, and Ortega would free up another ~$7M. So for your mental accounting figure on essentially $90M in available funds as an upper limit, but in practicality closer to $80M after a Hoerner extension and setting aside some money for the trade deadline.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I'd personally be a little more conservative and round down to 70 to account for a potential Happ extension, possibly keeping Ortega if other OF are traded, and a little larger deadline buffer. I think that also forces the type of plans that probably hem closer to reality in terms of targets, even if the FO ends up using 80 million of bandwidth.

 

But either way, it really sells the ultimate limitation you're dealing with, and it helps to work backwards to see how practical things might be. For example, there's been a fair amount of 'go get two TOR starters' floating around Cubs twitter as we watch guys like Wheeler and Verlander dominate the playoffs, but in the FA sense you've basically exhausted your budgetary headroom to get 2 of those guys plus a star SS without addressing C, 1B/DH, CF, or the pen. Maybe it works if one comes via trade, but considering those likely restraints and the developmental success they've had, it feels likely that a 2nd SP is gonna be more speculative.

[CubinNY]

I'd personally be a little more conservative and round down to 70 to account for a potential Happ extension, possibly keeping Ortega if other OF are traded, and a little larger deadline buffer. I think that also forces the type of plans that probably hem closer to reality in terms of targets, even if the FO ends up using 80 million of bandwidth.

 

But either way, it really sells the ultimate limitation you're dealing with, and it helps to work backwards to see how practical things might be. For example, there's been a fair amount of 'go get two TOR starters' floating around Cubs twitter as we watch guys like Wheeler and Verlander dominate the playoffs, but in the FA sense you've basically exhausted your budgetary headroom to get 2 of those guys plus a star SS without addressing C, 1B/DH, CF, or the pen. Maybe it works if one comes via trade, but considering those likely restraints and the developmental success they've had, it feels likely that a 2nd SP is gonna be more speculative.

I know there is nothing to be done about it, but the luxury tax threshold seems to me to be low relative to the salary in MLB.

[Tim]

I'd personally be a little more conservative and round down to 70 to account for a potential Happ extension, possibly keeping Ortega if other OF are traded, and a little larger deadline buffer. I think that also forces the type of plans that probably hem closer to reality in terms of targets, even if the FO ends up using 80 million of bandwidth.

 

But either way, it really sells the ultimate limitation you're dealing with, and it helps to work backwards to see how practical things might be. For example, there's been a fair amount of 'go get two TOR starters' floating around Cubs twitter as we watch guys like Wheeler and Verlander dominate the playoffs, but in the FA sense you've basically exhausted your budgetary headroom to get 2 of those guys plus a star SS without addressing C, 1B/DH, CF, or the pen. Maybe it works if one comes via trade, but considering those likely restraints and the developmental success they've had, it feels likely that a 2nd SP is gonna be more speculative.

At $70M, you've basically used that up with two TOR pitchers even without the SS.

[Bertz]

I'd personally be a little more conservative and round down to 70 to account for a potential Happ extension, possibly keeping Ortega if other OF are traded, and a little larger deadline buffer. I think that also forces the type of plans that probably hem closer to reality in terms of targets, even if the FO ends up using 80 million of bandwidth.

 

But either way, it really sells the ultimate limitation you're dealing with, and it helps to work backwards to see how practical things might be. For example, there's been a fair amount of 'go get two TOR starters' floating around Cubs twitter as we watch guys like Wheeler and Verlander dominate the playoffs, but in the FA sense you've basically exhausted your budgetary headroom to get 2 of those guys plus a star SS without addressing C, 1B/DH, CF, or the pen. Maybe it works if one comes via trade, but considering those likely restraints and the developmental success they've had, it feels likely that a 2nd SP is gonna be more speculative.

 

Yeah $70M might be safer. I don't know if I buy a Happ extension but certainly there's other ways those additional dollars could be allocated. I also wouldn't be surprised if Jed has essentially two numbers in mind, e.g. a $50M cap on multi-year deals and $80M overall. And there's typically only so much you can spend on one year deals. I think that was part of last winter is Jed only wanted to tie up so much long term money and ended up leaving some '22 funds on the table.

 

And I think to your point the more I look at the landscape the more spending for a TOR starter in FA at all seems unlikely. I could see a trade, so definitely not ruling it out entirely, but I think if Jed sticks with FA to address the rotation the most likely outcome is a guy with TOR talent who's more speculative (e.g. Senga) and then someone boring and cheap in the Drew Smyly mold (probably actually Drew Smyly). But Rodon/Verlander/deGrom seem messy from a 2023 payroll perspective, and the tier below that with like Eovaldi and Bassit seems unlikely because I'm not sure that they're good enough that Jed's going to want to give them 3+ years (to say nothing of the qualifying offer).

[Cubswin11]

Yeah I’m all in on getting him.

 

 

[Bertz]

 

This isn't so much a rumor as dot connecting, but I agree with Brett that Christian Vazquez makes a lot of sense. He and Yan Gomes are basically the same guy, except Vazquez is a little younger and has reverse splits. Sign him to the Yan Gomes contract and this year you can sorta platoon the two, then next year Vazquez can hopefully do the Amaya mentor thing.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Does Vazquez actually have reverse splits? Career his wRC+ is 81/92 v. RHP/LHP, and last year was a standard platoon 89/130. Closer to split neutral than many, but not really ideal against RHP. Especially when Narvaez is also a FA and carries most of these same benefits while being a LHH.

[Bertz]

Does Vazquez actually have reverse splits? Career his wRC+ is 81/92 v. RHP/LHP, and last year was a standard platoon 89/130. Closer to split neutral than many, but not really ideal against RHP. Especially when Narvaez is also a FA and carries most of these same benefits while being a LHH.

 

He's at 95/84 R/L the last three years which is what I was looking at, but digging deeper that appears to mostly just be an uncharacteristic for him 2021. You're right that split neutral is probably better way to think of him.

 

Narvaez is interesting because he looked like an absolutely perfect compliment to Gomes prior to this year, but he was neutral this year and generally just an absolute trainwreck in the second half. It's probably safe to assume that was just his injury?

[pitchcs]

 

This isn't so much a rumor as dot connecting, but I agree with Brett that Christian Vazquez makes a lot of sense. He and Yan Gomes are basically the same guy, except Vazquez is a little younger and has reverse splits. Sign him to the Yan Gomes contract and this year you can sorta platoon the two, then next year Vazquez can hopefully do the Amaya mentor thing.

 

I'm not against your Vazquez idea, but I hope they aren't thinking too much about Miguel Amaya when figuring out next years catching situation. He has 304 PA's since 2019.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Narvaez is interesting because he looked like an absolutely perfect compliment to Gomes prior to this year, but he was neutral this year and generally just an absolute trainwreck in the second half. It's probably safe to assume that was just his injury?

 

If it lowers his market a bit I'd definitely be willing to take that chance, the floor on catcher hitting is so low and the fit with the existing options would help too. I wouldn't give him 3/24 on that belief, but if that 2nd half scared off everyone to the extent he can't exceed the Gomes deal? I'd be on that for sure.

[Cubswin11]

Barnhart would be a nice addition to pair with Gomes.

[CubinNY]

When Contreras signs a reasonable deal with the Cardinals I'm going to go ape. You've been warned.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I've been kicking around various offseason plans in my head for a while and I think this could end up in the realm of possibility

 

 

Sign Correa - 35M AAV

 

This doesn't require much elaboration, they need a star position player, Correa is great and fills a hole on the current roster while being younger than the other options to help ease Jed's contract anxiety

 

Backup plan: Trea Turner. This is essentially "I dislike more about Swanson & Bogaerts". If Devers comes available and is at all open to a pre-FA extension, he also applies.

 

 

Sign Senga - 4/65

 

The SP market is kinda weird this year. With the exception of Rodon, the best track record guys are older and require short deals, which is in one sense good for the Cubs but will be at AAVs that I don't think they'll want to mess with this year(next year, with Hendricks/Heyward off the books and a step closer to a contender? Sure). The tier after them is a bit hollowed out and has more risk than normal, there's not the Gausman/Ray/Stroman/Rodriguez/Desclafani depth that the market had last year. As a result I think Senga is the right call because while he carries risk as an import that relies on a splitter and is already 30, his velocity and Cubs pitching dev make him as good a bet to be a playoff series starter than other players in that price tier. The aforementioned risk is what you hope keeps him from going to 20M AAV and 5 years, and you'd like the Cubs odds to be the best of similar offers given the connection with his agent, the presence of Suzuki, and just their general success rate wooing Japanese imports.

 

Backup plan: I've been on the 'Trade for Marquez' bandwagon for a while and he's the best like for like in terms of price, stuff, and hopeful production if there is a deal to be made. If not, I don't have high confidence but I think Clevinger, Eovaldi, and Syndergaard are the FA names that wouldn't exceed this AAV I'd be most happy with(all on shorter deals of course).

 

 

Sign Narvaez 2/12

 

This is discussed upthread, but Narvaez was consistently a bit above average as a LHH catcher until this year when he has the potential excuse of injuries. Even then he put up 1.1 fWAR in less than 300 PA thanks to his defense and a weak catching postition. He makes for a pretty seamless platoon with Gomes, my main worry is depending on the intensity of his market he may be looking for a clearer path to a starter's workload.

 

Backup plan: The aforementioned Vazquez would work fine on a similar contract. I also like Danny Jansen as a trade target but I'm unsure about the fit with the Jays needs and want to avoid using too much trade capital given what's coming below.

 

 

Sign Bellinger 1/12

 

12 million represents the high point that I'd be willing to go on a one year deal, and you'd be hopeful it could be for less. Even with his broken bat he's a league average CF on the strength of his defense, he adds needed LHH balance, and there's ceiling here he could get back to if you believe that theory about his mechanics. This still feels fragile though, so I almost expect to need to go to the backup plan.

 

Backup plan: Sign Kiermaier 1/8(1/7 + option?). Kiermaier gives a very strong defensive foundation for a team that needs to improve it, and is a fairly natural platoon with Morel to hedge against his offensive risk. Even though he's thought of as defense first, he's an average hitter over the course of his career, and his base-stealing threat could re-emerge under new rules.

 

 

 

Trade Sampson to LAA for Jared Walsh

 

Walsh is being mentioned as a potential non-tender candidate after his crummy 2022. He has a potential injury related excuse, and he was an excellent hitter in his first 600+ PA so it's worth the shot that once healthy again he'll be back at it. There's some LaHair/Schwindel risk here given his lack of prospect pedigree, and I don't love that he's a mediocre defensive 1B only that doesn't have strong plate discipline, but the cost is minimal and one that matches with how the Angels are going to want to retool more than rebuild.

 

Backup plan: There's any number of low cost bat options you can use in this space. Tellez or Dom Smith could get non-tendered, Ji-Man Choi probably won't but would come at a similar trade cost, the Tigers are probably ready to move on from Austin Meadows, Wil Myers' market might not materialize. The profile here is bat first hitter making no more than 5M and not costing substantive trade assets, the who is less important.

 

 

Trade for Trevor Rogers

 

For multiple reasons, this is the biggest stretch, but one I think is worth aiming for. Rogers has past success, a big fastball for a LHSP, and the biggest barrier to making a further leap is the strength of his slider(a Cubs pitch lab specialty). He's also coming off a poor season marred by injuries and there may be an equilibrium that's not 'buy low', but 'very tolerable price for a potential 4 win SP with 4 years of control'. If you can pull this off(Baseball trade values suggests something like Canario, Caissie, Triantos is in the ballpark, but this feels like a trade that could have a wide range of outcomes), then you've gotten a 2nd starter you believe can be a part of a playoff rotation, and one that's on less than a million to spread resources to these other spots.

 

Backup plan: If you can't pull off Rogers, I think you're moving down the certainty scale at other trade targets. Maybe you can pry loose Mitch Keller, maybe one of those Royals SP has a palatable price, maybe you think there's more stuff to be unlocked with a SP with a perceived lower ceiling(Quantrill?)

 

 

Sign 2-3 RP for total of 10M AAV

 

Last season is a decent template to work with, some names on the FA list that catch my eye in no particular order:

 

Carlos Esteves

Alex Colome

Ken Giles

Michael Fulmer

Trevor May

Zach Britton (if currently healthy)

Brad Hand

Vince Velazquez

 

Ultimately I think it's fair to have faith with whoever gets brought in, since I have zero doubt they will bring in multiple FA RP.

 

 

The end result here I think addresses most of the major criticisms of the team as a whole:

 

- It adds a star position player and lineup anchor in Correa

- It adds more pop, bringing in above average power production at C, SS/2B, probably DH, and maybe CF

- It adds a variety of offensive profiles that avoid worsening any current imbalances in terms of plate discipline or GB rate, while adding several LHH to help the offense be as good as the sum of its parts(or better)

- It significantly improves the team defense, and in particular up the spine with C, 2B/SS, and CF

- It adds 2 SP who can fit in a playoff rotation and have big enough stuff to thrive against good offenses

- With those moves the team would be roughly 16-20 million under the LT(depending on if you get Bellinger or not), which means you have room to extend Hoerner and possibly Happ too while still having some deadline room before you lose 50M+ AAV that are mostly not expensive/urgent to replace after 2023.

 

What it looks like altogether:

 

 

Happ

Suzuki

Correa

Walsh

Hoerner

Wisdom

Mervis

Bellinger(or Kiermaier)/Morel

Narvaez/Gomes

 

(You can organize this a lot of different ways, this is mostly guessing at how Ross/Jed would arrange it to start)

 

Stroman

Senga

Rogers

Steele

Hendricks

 

FA

FA

Hughes

Thompson* (Wesneski* AAA)

Alzolay (Kilian* AAA)

Wick (Heuer rehab)

Leiter Jr or FA

Estrada (or Rodriguez or AAA)

 

*next up rotation depth

 

[Bertz]

I like it, and while I might prefer some different names it's basically the exact shape of what I'm expecting Jed and co. to attempt.

 

One thing I am curious about is the Jose Abreu rumors. I had been kind of assuming the DH would be someone pretty fungible like you went with here with Walsh. But Abreu is very much not an afterthought. Is Plan A to go much harder at that 1B/DH spot than you've done here, or is getting a higher end bat more of a backup plan if Jed doesn't come down with a shortstop? Because going from e.g. Walsh -> Abreu basically cuts off one or two additional moves.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Just as a heads up…Walsh closed out last year with a major shoulder injury that sapped his power…Probably not the ideal LHH player on the Angels to target

 

There's definitely some risk there, but he did get it surgically corrected, and if that is the cause then without it he wouldn't be available. I think it'd be fair to question if the production comes back *quickly* even if you're optimistic it will(the surgery was in September after all), so I'm not gonna gnash teeth about if it's Walsh or your favorite buy low bat that gets added.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I like it, and while I might prefer some different names it's basically the exact shape of what I'm expecting Jed and co. to attempt.

 

One thing I am curious about is the Jose Abreu rumors. I had been kind of assuming the DH would be someone pretty fungible like you went with here with Walsh. But Abreu is very much not an afterthought. Is Plan A to go much harder at that 1B/DH spot than you've done here, or is getting a higher end bat more of a backup plan if Jed doesn't come down with a shortstop? Because going from e.g. Walsh -> Abreu basically cuts off one or two additional moves.

 

In the way I would prefer to prioritize it, you basically choose whether the money goes to 1B or CF. In this case I felt like there's more potential upside in buying low on a positionless hitter than there is mining for CF gold among the defense-first options, but from a payroll perspective you're in a similar enough place if you, say, trade for Victor Robles and sign Abreu/Bell.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

That risk seems likely to be exacerbated by the the high risk Bellinger and Narvaez signings being the LHH depth. To be a competitive team they can’t walk in with half answered questions at 1B/DH, C, CF, and really the rotation here.

Definitely worth talking about how everyone involved is coming in off a down year except Senga, coming off 141 NPB innings with likely similar if not higher expectations…Basically there’s a ton of performance risk for the money and trade cost here that may not be aided so much by shifting from Walsh to a Dom Smith or Choi or whoever…Even Rogers, a decent trade target, still requires tweaking+ to be the near TOR starter (to ??’s 1) expected of him off of a likely large trade cost

 

All new acquisitions are gonna have risk. You can gamble that a guy had a down year is gonna bounce back or otherwise improve, you can gamble that the guy coming off a good year isn't gonna hamstring the team by requiring 1-2 more years on his contract, you can gamble that the expensive trade target is truly worth the cost, or you can gamble that paying a bit more and investing less in other areas doesn't burn you for not getting more/quality depth. I personally think that in general we overweight the recent past, so I'm definitely more likely to be interested in folks with reasons for improvement, especially when we have a more firm understanding of how much $ there is to work with or what is reasonable to expect the front office to trade away in this particular offseason.

 

Also also putting so much priority on 1B/DH doesn’t really align with stuff like getting more athletic (which Hoyer specified), playing better defense, and hitting more flyballs (Walsh’s GB% last year was 3+% worse than league average, Abreu’s a GB guy, etc)

 

We're talking about trading a 30 y/o with unremarkable stuff and an uncertain path to the 26 man roster for someone earning a couple million bucks, or some similar flavor of investment. Not touching your actual prospect capital and using less than 10% of the money you have to spend isn't much 'priority', and half the alternatives I mentioned are credible OFs too. As for the other concerns, adding Correa & Bellinger/Kiermaier helps with athleticism, those guys plus Narvaez help the defense, and Narvaez/Bellinger are fly ball hitters(I admittedly don't care about this as much as you do). You can't address every concern with every addition.

 

I'd encourage you to game out the entirety of the moves you'd like to see made, and see where you end up in terms of total payroll and trade assets given up. It's a hard puzzle to fit into likely reality.

[Bertz]

 

This is oddly specific for this early in the offseason

 

Despite the need in CF he doesn't seem likely as a Cubs target, but still notable

[Transmogrified Tiger]

We need a Rockies version of this tweet

 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I didn't do hard numbers or anything but my favorite imagined offseason so far only needs to be tidied up (maybe skip Britton and Lugo for the cheaper and harder throwing Estevez)...I'm nigh impossible to convince making meaningful trades will hurt the farm so much

 

I don't want to come off as a scold about this because fan however you want, and I'm not trying to hold you to the specifics as the only way to get what you want, but if you do game that out you'll see it's a very different exercise. Using some rough estimates for the FA you didn't specify, the team in that example is about 15 million over the luxury tax, on top of trading away PCA, Alcantara, Mervis, Ballesteros, and whatever the cost is for Varsho and Perdomo(Baseball Trade Values suggests that Davis + Hernandez + Caissie + Kilian is in the ballpark but maybe a little short). Do you think the Cubs are going to be a non-trivial chunk over the LT line in 2023? Do you think they're going to trade(without loss of generality) 6 of their top 10 prospects? Not even trying to argue if that's a good plan or if the trades are worthwhile or whatever, just does this seem like remotely something that could play out in practice? I'd say definitely not, and that's fine, but what I (and several others) are attempting to do is play within those lines of something that could happen. Because we're operating under those constraints, those plans are naturally going to be objectively worse than those we can dream up without those constraints.

[Tim]

My ultimate offseason:

 

FA:

Judge 8/300

Correa 9/270

Trea 8/272

Verlander 2/88

Rodon 5/120

Diaz 5/100

 

Trades:

Ohtani

Murphy

 

Lineup:

SS: Turner

3B: Correa

DH: Ohtani

CF: Judge

C: Murphy

1B: Mervis

2B: Hoerner

RF: Suzuki

LF: Happ

 

SP:

Verlander

Rodon

Stroman

Steele

Hendricks / Thompson / Wesneski / etc.

[Tim]

Somebody has to take Happ's place next year.