2022-23 Offseason Thread (Cubs)

[Cubswin11]

What does a Devers trade look like? 1 of Davis-PCA, 1 of Hernandez-Alcantara, 1 of Caissie-Triantos, and a major league piece like Thompson or Morel?

[Tryptamine]

What does a Devers trade look like? 1 of Davis-PCA, 1 of Hernandez-Alcantara, 1 of Caissie-Triantos, and a major league piece like Thompson or Morel?

 

Based on their unwillingness to spend, I can't see them moving their top prospects who they're going to almost entirely depend on to make the team relevant in the next few years.

[Cubswin11]

What does a Devers trade look like? 1 of Davis-PCA, 1 of Hernandez-Alcantara, 1 of Caissie-Triantos, and a major league piece like Thompson or Morel?

 

Based on their unwillingness to spend, I can't see them moving their top prospects who they're going to almost entirely depend on to make the team relevant in the next few years.

Oh I don’t think they’d make the move, more just wondering what a hypothetical trade would look like. I think that’s in the ballpark for 2 more years of control of a 26 year old Devers.

[JeffH]

What does a Devers trade look like? 1 of Davis-PCA, 1 of Hernandez-Alcantara, 1 of Caissie-Triantos, and a major league piece like Thompson or Morel?

 

Based on their unwillingness to spend, I can't see them moving their top prospects who they're going to almost entirely depend on to make the team relevant in the next few years.

Oh I don’t think they’d make the move, more just wondering what a hypothetical trade would look like. I think that’s in the ballpark for 2 more years of control of a 26 year old Devers.

 

Only one more year of control.

[Derwood]

How many years away is PCA from the majors? Is his potential upside as our CF for the next 6 years worth packaging him for a Devers type of player?

[Cubswin11]

How many years away is PCA from the majors? Is his potential upside as our CF for the next 6 years worth packaging him for a Devers type of player?

Late 2024 aggressively/things breaking right, 2025 sometime realistically. He hasn’t even played above A ball yet, he’s exciting but I’m moving him for a Devers caliber player.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

What does a Devers trade look like? 1 of Davis-PCA, 1 of Hernandez-Alcantara, 1 of Caissie-Triantos, and a major league piece like Thompson or Morel?

 

This does some heavy lifting with Morel's value, but BBTV says Morel, Kilian, and Made is about there. Maybe they insist on Thompson over Kilian, or Made has to get upgraded to the Caissie/Triantos tier, or they must get Hernandez on top of an MLB piece. But as we've seen at the deadline for expiring deals, one year of a star doesn't go as far as it might feel.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

My thing with Devers is true availability. Alot of his assumed availability is based around other players and not so much Devers, but its worth noting he’s younger than Boagerts by alot and going to be cheaper than Betts. Fenway loves a hitter like him: basically .300/.350/.525 there v .270/.330/.500 on the road, and his contact/power approach could age very well for them

 

It's pretty public at this point that the Sox and Devers aren't particularly close to an extension, but their willingness to risk another Bogaerts v. risking another Betts is an open question. Also, whether Devers has interest in extending with any team before FA at this point, given the extravaganza he's seen over the last couple weeks.

[champaignchris]

Anyone with Swanson contract predictions? Is there any reason he’d settle for something other than a little less than what Bogaerts got? Like, 9 years, $200 million. Any reason to believe the Cubs would be the one making that offer?

[Tryptamine]

How many years away is PCA from the majors? Is his potential upside as our CF for the next 6 years worth packaging him for a Devers type of player?

 

If he's what we hope he is, he either starts in AA or has a brief stint in A+ to start the year before AA. He spends the vast majority of the year there and gets a taste of AAA at the end of the year. Then he likely opens 2024 in AAA with a chance at a call up around the 2024 ASB, perhaps earlier if he's completely torching AAA.

[Tryptamine]

Anyone with Swanson contract predictions? Is there any reason he’d settle for something other than a little less than what Bogaerts got? Like, 9 years, $200 million. Any reason to believe the Cubs would be the one making that offer?

 

9/225 is a number that keeps rattling around in my head. A few months ago I would have said like 6/140, but yeah.....

[Tim]

How many years away is PCA from the majors? Is his potential upside as our CF for the next 6 years worth packaging him for a Devers type of player?

Late 2024 aggressively/things breaking right, 2025 sometime realistically. He hasn’t even played above A ball yet, he’s exciting but I’m moving him for a Devers caliber player.

That's a bit pessimistic. I think best case scenario is that he tears up AA in the first half, gets promoted and destroys Iowa. He'd be positioned to break camp with the team in '24 in that scenario.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Anyone with Swanson contract predictions? Is there any reason he’d settle for something other than a little less than what Bogaerts got? Like, 9 years, $200 million. Any reason to believe the Cubs would be the one making that offer?

 

You can read this as coping, but Swanson is a clear level below the others so the appetite for super long term deals is probably not nearly as high even before setting aside that 3 of the teams willing to do so already found their man. As an example, Swanson just had a career high wRC+ that was worse than the career average of each of the other three. I wouldn't be surprised if it was more of a 6/160 or 7/175 type of deal. This market tends to make most guesses look foolish, though now I feel pretty good about my 12/360 anchor point for Correa from Sunday.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

One other thing that could come into play with Swanson that didn't with the others is opt outs. Correa and Bogaerts were already exercising theirs so they maxed out on length, and Turner didn't prioritize it(probably because his value has little to go but down). By comparison, Swanson has an incentive as someone who only hit peak value in his contract year and who will still be Turner/Bogaerts aged after next year. I don't think he's signing a version of Correa's Twins deal, but would he sign 7/140-150 with an opt out after 2023? Maybe?

[Bertz]

Anyone with Swanson contract predictions? Is there any reason he’d settle for something other than a little less than what Bogaerts got? Like, 9 years, $200 million. Any reason to believe the Cubs would be the one making that offer?

 

I still tend to think baseball Twitter has overcorrected and he's gonna get less than a lot of the numbers being thrown around. Clearly the market is significantly hotter than anticipated before the offseason, but even against that backdrop I think Bogaerts is the only deal I'd have said was insane three months ago. Swanson topping $200M would be similarly insane.

 

That said, if that's what it takes that's what it takes. Jed made his bed now he's gotta lie in it.

[Cubswin11]

Yeah if I had to guess Swanson gets under 200 and maybe some creative opt out stuff. He still scares the horsefeathers out of me, he needs to BABIP like crazy to have offensive value (like .340-.350+ BABIP). He doesn’t walk/get in base. He’s an extremely ordinary player if he even BABIPS .290-.300. horsefeathers STEAMER has him at a .300 something BABIP this year and that’s a .249/.309/.413 slash line. I don’t care how good the defense is, that’s not a 9 figure player.

[17 Seconds]

it's funny that we did that huge sell off and our farm system is still average. jed has done nothing for this organization

[Tryptamine]

it's funny that we did that huge sell off and our farm system is still average. jed has done nothing for this organization

 

Waiting until the trade deadline before everyone was a FA certainly didn't do anything to help with that. If he makes those moves before the 2021 season we're looking a whole lot better.

[Bertz]

Yeah if I had to guess Swanson gets under 200 and maybe some creative opt out stuff. He still scares the horsefeathers out of me, he needs to BABIP like crazy to have offensive value (like .340-.350+ BABIP). He doesn’t walk/get in base. He’s an extremely ordinary player if he even BABIPS .290-.300. horsefeathers STEAMER has him at a .300 something BABIP this year and that’s a .249/.309/.413 slash line. I don’t care how good the defense is, that’s not a 9 figure player.

 

Now that we have Statcast there's no reason to look at a high BABIP and assume it's just good fortune. There's no indication under the hood that Swansons performance the last three years is built on luck. To the contrary, he's underperformed his xwOBA by a smidge despite being a pretty fast dude.

[Cubswin11]

it's funny that we did that huge sell off and our farm system is still average. jed has done nothing for this organization

 

Waiting until the trade deadline before everyone was a FA certainly didn't do anything to help with that. If he makes those moves before the 2021 season we're looking a whole lot better.

By all accounts Jed killed the 2021 deadline. He got PCA, Alcantara, Kilian and Canario. I know we’re all pissed at Jed now but to think he didn’t do a great job in returns in 2021 is insane and the system is also in really good shape and on the rise. It’s far from average.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

it's funny that we did that huge sell off and our farm system is still average

 

The farm system is most definitely better than average, whatever average even is. I’m the low guy on the mainstream coverage too, but it’s as deep and talented as anyone’s

 

To use Fangraphs' rankings for ease of use, the Cubs are 5th in overall value, 5th in number of 50 FV or greater prospects, and 9th in average value of ranked prospects.

[17 Seconds]

it's funny that we did that huge sell off and our farm system is still average

 

The farm system is most definitely better than average, whatever average even is. I’m the low guy on the mainstream coverage too, but it’s as deep and talented as anyone’s

 

To use Fangraphs' rankings for ease of use, the Cubs are 5th in overall value, 5th in number of 50 FV or greater prospects, and 9th in average value of ranked prospects.

 

nuh uh

[Sammy Sofa]

Dammit, I misplaced that cool "who gives a horsefeathers" gif.

[Cubswin11]

Yeah if I had to guess Swanson gets under 200 and maybe some creative opt out stuff. He still scares the horsefeathers out of me, he needs to BABIP like crazy to have offensive value (like .340-.350+ BABIP). He doesn’t walk/get in base. He’s an extremely ordinary player if he even BABIPS .290-.300. horsefeathers STEAMER has him at a .300 something BABIP this year and that’s a .249/.309/.413 slash line. I don’t care how good the defense is, that’s not a 9 figure player.

 

Now that we have Statcast there's no reason to look at a high BABIP and assume it's just good fortune. There's no indication under the hood that Swansons performance the last three years is built on luck. To the contrary, he's underperformed his xwOBA by a smidge despite being a pretty fast dude.

But he needs to BABIP like crazy to be a star type player and not some ordinary 2-3 win dude. He doesn’t walk and Ks at a pretty high clip, he has BABIPS in the .290s over multiple seasons and wRC+’s under 100 in those years. I’d bet he has more subs 3.5-4 win years than more over whatever contract he gets here and you’re paying him to be that 3.5-4+ win guy with the money he’ll take and not some good but nothing special player he likely is.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

But he needs to BABIP like crazy to be a star type player and not some ordinary 2-3 win dude. He doesn’t walk and Ks at a pretty high clip, he has BABIPS in the .290s over multiple seasons and wRC+’s under 100 in those years. I’d bet he has more subs 3.5-4 win years than more over whatever contract he gets here and you’re paying him to be that 3.5-4+ win guy with the money he’ll take and not some good but nothing special player he likely is.

 

I'm skeptical of Swanson's offense, but it's worth noting the dynamic you're describing isn't really unique to him. The other 3 FA SS have a combined 12 seasons above 4 fWAR, and 9 of those seasons had BABIPs over .330. Swanson has a career .313 BABIP and .328 since the start of the pandemic, so it's not as if he's running Schwarberian BABIPs outside of his career year either.