Yoshinobu Yamamoto to...the Dodgers? Really? Again?

[mfcubs22]

5 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

I think a team with Glasnow and Hoskins is significantly worse than a team with Stroman and Bellinger.  So how are the Cubs going to get better?  It's going to take a lot more than those two to make me feel ok about next year's team.

Glasnow had more bWAR and fWAR than Stroman last year and is obviously a much better pitcher when healthy. I believe the hope is Hoskins, PCA can about match Bellis production combined with what we got out of Mancini, Hosmer, Mervis last year. 
 

I’d feel much better if Hoskins was the 2nd best bat we got this offseason, but I can understand a long term plan without one. 

[Irrelevant Dude]

1 minute ago, Tim said:

Well, some were arguing that going from Ross to Counsell is worth eight wins right there!

 

(I don't agree, it's just a joke)

Seriously though, that was my glass half empty way of looking at the Counsell signing.  People wanted to make it out to be a sign that the Cubs were going to spend big and be aggressive (and they still could), but what if instead they are just going to continue hovering around the luxury tax threshhold and simply saw Counsell as a way to buy a couple wins for "free".

[Bertz]

1 minute ago, 1908_Cubs said:

I think my issue, as I see it, is how the Cubs operate. And maybe it's a personal choice issue, maybe I'm way off (I always know there's personal stuff here) but it feels like the Cubs are operating less like a powerhouse team like the Astros, the Yankees, the Mets, the Dodgers (which they can) and more as if Cleveland had a bigger budget. It's a team that feels like it's designed to make higher budget market inefficiency decisions that leans heavily into run prevention with just enough offense to boot. I know we finished 6th in runs scored, I do question a bit the RD and runs in total (I think there's a bit of a smoke and mirror thing with some of the blowouts). Just a personal feeling more so than probably anything.

Funny you mention the Dodgers, because they don't actually play in these waters that often.  They jumped on Betts and Freeman, and appear to be doing their damndest for Ohtani, but otherwise they keep it short term.  Like they passed on Harper, Machado's FA, all the SS's last year.  They're very judicious with long term contracts and instead do a lot of trades, short term FA deals, and lean on their farm.  

Jed's clearly trying to do something similar, we'll see if he can pull it off.

[Jason Ross]

4 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Funny you mention the Dodgers, because they don't actually play in these waters that often.  They jumped on Betts and Freeman, and appear to be doing their damndest for Ohtani, but otherwise they keep it short term.  Like they passed on Harper, Machado's FA, all the SS's last year.  They're very judicious with long term contracts and instead do a lot of trades, short term FA deals, and lean on their farm.  

Jed's clearly trying to do something similar, we'll see if he can pull it off.

They are. But I'd say this as well: they're not afraid to be uncomfortable. They traded for, then extended Betts to a $365m contract over 12 years. They went in on Ohtani, full force (the Cubs, may or may not have). They went in on Freeman and beat the Braves for his services. I think, if they miss on Ohtani, they'll do the same on Yamamoto. I do think they're a judicious franchise, but they're also a franchise who, when they're in, tend to be all in. The Cubs seemingly are in...until they hit that line where it becomes uncomfortable. Then all of a sudden, they tend to back out and go back to that safety blanket of the 2nd tier of players (kind of like what I think we both think the Cubs will do now).  

I don't think the Cubs need to go full force on everyone. But it'd be nice to see the Cubs start to wander past what is comfortable and safe, too.

Edited December 6, 2023 by 1908_Cubs

[KCCub]

1 minute ago, 1908_Cubs said:

They are. But I'd say this as well: they're not afraid to be uncomfortable. They traded for, then extended Betts to a $365m contract over 12 years. They went in on Ohtani, full force (the Cubs, may or may not have). They went in on Freeman and beat the Braves for his services. I think, if they miss on Ohtani, they'll do the same on Yamamoto. I do think they're a judicious franchise, but they're also a franchise who, when they're in, tend to be all in. The Cubs seemingly are in...until they hit that line where it becomes uncomfortable. Then all of a sudden, they tend to back out and go back to that safety blanket of the 2nd tier of players (kind of like what I think we both think the Cubs will do now). 

I don't think the Cubs need to go full force on everyone. But it'd be nice to see the Cubs start to wander past what is comfortable and safe, too.

Agree with this completely. Jed's "smart" spending is fine most of the time. But at some point, you have to cross that line to get a true superstar. Almost all deals regarding a superstar will feel like an overpay at the time. Cubs fans have been begging for that cornerstone player for some time now. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

49 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

This is half devil's advocate, so take it in that spirit, but do the Cubs have a fair amount of star power already?  

Last year Hoerner and Swanson were both a hair under 5 win players despite not having particularly good offensive seasons for their standards(and Swanson has a 6 win season in his past).  Seiya was Top 25 in wRC+ and his second half was at a 5 win level.  They're graduating a Top 25 prospect next year who will basically be another Hoerner in terms of the shape and magnitude of value if he can be averageish offensively.  What the Cubs *need* is more really good hitters, because they were 24th in wRC+ for 1B and 25th for DH.  Obviously superstar position players are mostly really good hitters, and if you can get a superstar of the Ohtani or Soto tier you should try to do so, but additions like Hoskins, or Pete Alonso if that kicks up again, or even Brandon Lowe can do a fair amount to raise the team's ceiling given that they have a lot of value monsters that just don't necessarily do it with power.

On the pitching side, they have last year's Cy Young finalist who was 7th in fWAR among pitchers, that's a pretty good start!  Also the strongest rumor they've been involved with is Glasnow, who is a Top 5-10 SP in baseball when healthy.  Plenty of upside still on the table even if Glasnow isn't a long term deal.  

 

I know it doesn't fill us with the warm and fuzzies like signing Ohtani or Yamamoto or trading for Soto would, but I do think the collective impact of e.g. a Glasnow trade and Hoskins signing is probably being underrated.

Yes, I agree. They will have what it takes to win the division. the team has a lot of guys that haven't proven it in the playoffs but so did the D-backs. Granted they don't have a Carroll but they have a good collection of solid players and could "get hot at the right time". Nobody can say otherwise with absolute certainty.

[Bertz]

3 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

They are. But I'd say this as well: they're not afraid to be uncomfortable. They traded for, then extended Betts to a $365m contract over 12 years. They went in on Ohtani, full force (the Cubs, may or may not have). They went in on Freeman and beat the Braves for his services. I think, if they miss on Ohtani, they'll do the same on Yamamoto. I do think they're a judicious franchise, but they're also a franchise who, when they're in, tend to be all in. The Cubs seemingly are in...until they hit that line where it becomes uncomfortable. Then all of a sudden, they tend to back out and go back to that safety blanket of the 2nd tier of players (kind of like what I think we both think the Cubs will do now).  

I don't think the Cubs need to go full force on everyone. But it'd be nice to see the Cubs start to wander past what is comfortable and safe, too.

I mean you yourself have been saying it doesn't look like losing out on Ohtani is due to lack of effort?  So it's hard to say right now but isn't the difference here just who looks like they're going to happen winding up with the guy based on softer factors?  

You also mention 4ish WAR being more good than great.  Yamamoto projects to 3.7 next year.  And he's tracking towards the 2nd largest contract for a pitcher ever.  I think there's a "fine well if no Ohtani you must get the next best thing" and I think one of the things Friedman does that's helped keep that franchise so strong (and what Jed is trying to emulate) is not throw bad money after good.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

50 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

While I think these things are fair, I think it's important to note: mid 4 win players are good players but are not what I'd consider to be stars. Like, is TJ Friedl a star? Brandon Nimmo? There are some players like Tatis in this range too, but I'd argue Tatis isn't a star because he made 4.5 fWAR, but what he can do above that. These are players who can have all-star caliber seasons, but I would suggest don't raise the bar to the elite level. And it isn't that you can't build a team with a bunch of pretty darn good players, but truly elite teams have truly elite players. Is there a single Cub hitter you're confident, even with Hoskins or Lowe, or Belt, reaches a 130 wRC+? Is there a true game dominating SP we can count on? Even if we get Glasnow, it's a one year thing; it's not fun to have to continuously have to replace that. Not that this is the only barometer, but just using it as an example of where I find the deficiencies. 

I know it's half devil's advocate, but these are the issues with the Cubs right now that I see as we move forward because there are a lack of solutions (by nature, stars are hard to come by) and the Cubs remain a team I'm not confident has the ability to lean into the uncomfortable to acquire them. I don't mean to suggest they won't, but for a team who hasn't shown the ability to jump in to the true deep ends, I think maintaining a healthy skepticism they will, is fair (until they do).

I'm not really interested in trying to draw specific lines on what counts as a 'star' or not, what you're saying is fine and not at all unfair.  If I were to distill what I'm getting at into a few bullets to try and clarify, it'd look like this:
 

• Stars are valuable because they concentrate a lot of value in a single spot, but the Cubs have a fair amount of value concentration in their team and in particular their position player group.  This isn't a bunch of players scraping league average that need Soto's bat to make them good, as Bertz highlighted about the offense.
• The Cubs were basically a 90 win team/division winning caliber team last year by underlying performance, so while capital S Stars are naturally preferred, maintaining and marginally improving last year's squad(while not a perfect scenario) is still a very good team
• Where the Cubs do have an acute need, and the mentioned capital S stars would help most, is filling lineup holes where they had poor offensive performance with very good performance.  There's still a substantial upgrade in getting a Hoskins/Lowe caliber bat, especially if you can get more than one.  I also acknowledge there's a Bellinger backfill to account for too since Tauchman/PCA are not expected to crush the ball, but that circles back to the previous point about how the status quo is still a high level.

[LBiittner]

For all you old timers like me, this offseason is go smell a lot like a candy Maldonado, jeremy Burnitz, jeff Blauser, danny Jackson type of year.

[Jason Ross]

Just now, Bertz said:

I mean you yourself have been saying it doesn't look like losing out on Ohtani is due to lack of effort?  So it's hard to say right now but isn't the difference here just who looks like they're going to happen winding up with the guy based on softer factors?  

You also mention 4ish WAR being more good than great.  Yamamoto projects to 3.7 next year.  And he's tracking towards the 2nd largest contract for a pitcher ever.  I think there's a "fine well if no Ohtani you must get the next best thing" and I think one of the things Friedman does that's helped keep that franchise so strong (and what Jed is trying to emulate) is not throw bad money after good.

I do think the Cubs gave that effort here, but it's important to remember; you and I are working on some really spurious stuff right now. While it's not enough for me to burn my Cubs jersey to the ground in protest as some have been over Nightengale's report, it's not so ridiculous that it's 100% discountable. As a middle school teacher with zero inside sources, I have to say that benefit of the doubt lays with the Cubs, but it's not without some doubt, too, you know? 

When it comes to Yamamoto, I think projections are a bit iffy. And I'm open to the belief that maybe a team doesn't love Yamamoto! But it seems like the Cubs liked Yamamoto. They sent scouts to view Yamamoto in Japan. Rumors over the summer linked the Cubs to him. The Cubs seemed in on him early, But then it hit an uncomfortable level and the Cubs seemingly backed out. I think we have to accept things like inflation, an increasingly LT line year by year, and a few other teams starting to swim in higher waters as to factors that push contracts up. But what seemingly has happened as an outsider is once again, the Cubs were interested at the "acceptable" pre-offseason levels but once it hit the uncomfortable have seemingly backed way out. Whether that's because they won't go years, or top-price, not sure. I'm not even sure that's an accurate story. I try to be very realistic. It also seems to have been similar paths they took on Correa (x2) and a few other players recently. 

I really don't want to seem like I'm coming off as the whiney, creaky wheel here. But I do think that at some point, the bar for the Chicago Cubs needs to be raised a bit higher than it has been.

[17 Seconds]

Just now, LBiittner said:

For all you old timers like me, this offseason is go smell a lot like a candy Maldonado, jeremy Burnitz, jeff Blauser, danny Jackson type of year.

not even close

[LBiittner]

6 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

not even close

Worse?

[17 Seconds]

Just now, LBiittner said:

Worse?

the cubs are going to add several good players this offseason

[Jason Ross]

25 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I'm not really interested in trying to draw specific lines on what counts as a 'star' or not, what you're saying is fine and not at all unfair.  If I were to distill what I'm getting at into a few bullets to try and clarify, it'd look like this:
 

• Stars are valuable because they concentrate a lot of value in a single spot, but the Cubs have a fair amount of value concentration in their team and in particular their position player group.  This isn't a bunch of players scraping league average that need Soto's bat to make them good, as Bertz highlighted about the offense.
• The Cubs were basically a 90 win team/division winning caliber team last year by underlying performance, so while capital S Stars are naturally preferred, maintaining and marginally improving last year's squad(while not a perfect scenario) is still a very good team
• Where the Cubs do have an acute need, and the mentioned capital S stars would help most, is filling lineup holes where they had poor performance with very good performance.  There's still a substantial upgrade in getting a Hoskins/Lowe caliber bat, especially if you can get more than one.  I also acknowledge there's a Bellinger backfill to account for too since Tauchman/PCA are not expected to crush the ball, but that circles back to the previous point about how the status quo is still a high level.

Well, I think we should be a little careful of leaning too much into pythag, and our RD last year. I think there's some positive variance (offensively) there in that I think some of those blowout wins are doing a little more work than they should. I say this as a statistics guy, so I'm not throwing stats out, but we were the 12th best wRC+ team. Looking at stats+ we were pretty close to 100 on almost every metric, iso, k%, bb%.... I'm not actually a monster believer in the offense returning right now. It's not that I think it's a bad roster, but I don't look at the Cubs 2023 roster and see a 90 win team. It looks a lot closer to an 84-86 win team that dealt with some negative W-L variance but also had some blow outs that aided on the RD making them look a bit better too. 

And I want to be clear: I'm not saying an offseason in which we add Glanow, Hoskins, Belt and Imanaga, or whatever is a bad one. I do think it's a failure  to address the issues that the Cubs have currently and long term which are those capital S stars we lack. I think the Cubs will be a solid 85-88 win team who has a bunch of pretty good players and some good prospect depth. I think it's a better team than we had opening day last year, with a chance to add some talent at the deadline to be even better.  It's probably the NL Central favorites, partly because it'd be a pretty solid team, partly because the NL Central sucks. So I want to make sure no one thinks I'm trying to horsefeathers on this team entirely. But I do, very much, think this team needs something a bit more premium somewhere. So while I think we can have a decent offseason, I don't think that the idea of lacking on hitting on what we need (that truly upper echelon player) is not also mutually exclusive. I think both, in tandem, can be true.

Edited December 6, 2023 by 1908_Cubs

[LBiittner]

6 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

the cubs are going to add several good players this offseason

LOL. 

I'm just figuring candelario putting up jeremy burnitz cub numbers. Glasnow pitching Danny Jackson cub pitched 70 innings. Tauchman reaching Maldonado cub numbers and chapman flaming out like Jeff Blauser

[chibears55]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

This is half devil's advocate, so take it in that spirit, but do the Cubs have a fair amount of star power already?  

Last year Hoerner and Swanson were both a hair under 5 win players despite not having particularly good offensive seasons for their standards(and Swanson has a 6 win season in his past).  Seiya was Top 25 in wRC+ and his second half was at a 5 win level.  They're graduating a Top 25 prospect next year who will basically be another Hoerner in terms of the shape and magnitude of value if he can be averageish offensively.  What the Cubs *need* is more really good hitters, because they were 24th in wRC+ for 1B and 25th for DH.  Obviously superstar position players are mostly really good hitters, and if you can get a superstar of the Ohtani or Soto tier you should try to do so, but additions like Hoskins, or Pete Alonso if that kicks up again, or even Brandon Lowe can do a fair amount to raise the team's ceiling given that they have a lot of value monsters that just don't necessarily do it with power.

On the pitching side, they have last year's Cy Young finalist who was 7th in fWAR among pitchers, that's a pretty good start!  Also the strongest rumor they've been involved with is Glasnow, who is a Top 5-10 SP in baseball when healthy.  Plenty of upside still on the table even if Glasnow isn't a long term deal.  

 

I know it doesn't fill us with the warm and fuzzies like signing Ohtani or Yamamoto or trading for Soto would, but I do think the collective impact of e.g. a Glasnow trade and Hoskins signing is probably being underrated.

I dont think they do at all..

Swanson is probably the closest to that but he not quite there IMO.

I think Bellinger would be a good start if they brought him back, but what the cubs have now on their roster are just guys that their high mark is probably just having a good season that might make them AllStars. They are guys that has to rely on getting hot for X amount of games to be useful.

[Stratos]

4 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

I dont think they do at all..

Swanson is probably the closest to that but he not quite there IMO.

I think Bellinger would be a good start if they brought him back, but what the cubs have now on their roster are just guys that their high mark is probably just having a good season that might make them AllStars. They are guys that has to rely on getting hot for X amount of games to be useful.

Swanson has been worth 2 wins more than Soto over the past 2 seasons.

[squally1313]

7 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

I dont think they do at all..

Swanson is probably the closest to that but he not quite there IMO.

I think Bellinger would be a good start if they brought him back, but what the cubs have now on their roster are just guys that their high mark is probably just having a good season that might make them AllStars. They are guys that has to rely on getting hot for X amount of games to be useful.

To be clear, Swanson > Bellinger, both in 2023 and going forward

[Tim]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

Funny you mention the Dodgers, because they don't actually play in these waters that often.  They jumped on Betts and Freeman, and appear to be doing their damndest for Ohtani, but otherwise they keep it short term.  Like they passed on Harper, Machado's FA, all the SS's last year.  They're very judicious with long term contracts and instead do a lot of trades, short term FA deals, and lean on their farm.  

Jed's clearly trying to do something similar, we'll see if he can pull it off.

I was thinking the same about Houston. I can't remember the last time they dipped into the top end of the FA pool, either.

[Rcal10]

2 hours ago, Dfan25 said:

As long as Jed Hoyer is the president of baseball operations , it’s going to be difficult for this team to get stars. His plan seems to be just wait for the minor league system to produce those stars . Pretty risky 

As long as Ricketts owns the team it’s going to be difficult for the Cubs to get star players. Hoyer is just following Ricketts lead. He may think like him too. But if he didn’t he wouldn’t be the president of baseball operations. 

[Irrelevant Dude]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

This is half devil's advocate, so take it in that spirit, but do the Cubs have a fair amount of star power already?

Let's look at it another way.  If I'm an opposing pitcher facing the Cubs, who do they have in the lineup that scares me?  That isn't to say they don't have good hitters, but they are lacking a true threat in the middle of the lineup.  MAYBE Seiya can be that guy, but otherwise it is a lineup with several good, but flawed, hitters.  That is probably true of most lineups, but it would be nice to have someone who could be consistently relied upon to deliver in the 3 or 4 spot. 

Similarly, it would be great to have a dominant starting pitcher at the top of the rotation.  The Cubs may have pitching depth, but they are seriously lacking at the top and are leaning heavily on Steele. I don't think it is realistic to expect him to repeat his 2023 performance, but hopefully any regression in his performance would be offset by an improvement by Taillon.  If this team does make the playoffs though, who do we feel good about giving the ball to in a deciding game?

I'm not sure how much of this really matters, and maybe the team can be just as good by accumulating value in other areas, but having a dominant hitter and/or pitcher in the mix would just make things FEEL so much better. 

[Cuzi]

18 minutes ago, Tim said:

I was thinking the same about Houston. I can't remember the last time they dipped into the top end of the FA pool, either.

The Astros have been extending their core to avoid dipping in the top end of the FA pool, though they have triple dipped on Justin Verlander now.

The Cubs havent been willing to stick their neck out too far on their young players. They "extended" Hoerner a whole year. Ian Happ is the longest extension given out. Meanwhile, a guy like Altuve has been with the Astros for 12 years now. They just gave Alvarez a 6 year deal.

[WhyCantWeWin]

And the Astros developed those players they drafted and signed through international free agency into superstars. They haven't had the need to go big in free agency. 

[Jason Ross]

34 minutes ago, Tim said:

I was thinking the same about Houston. I can't remember the last time they dipped into the top end of the FA pool, either.

The Astros inclusion was less their behavior in free agency, but more their ability to remain a powerhouse. The Astros got good around the same time the Cubs did. Through a handful of factors which includes leadership at the baseball ops, ownership and players (and this isn't to say every factor was a controllable one for the Cubs, some things were well within their power, others have been well without of their power) they've maintained their powerhouse status for a much longer period of time. I don't think the Cubs have necessarily acted in accordance to these teams. And it's not asking the Cubs to go back and change the past, but even moving forward, the Cubs, at least to me, feel more like they're going down a path in which the Guardians travel than these teams such as the Astros, the Dodgers, the Yankees in a roster building sense.

I'm glad to share a differing opinion, and I'll be happy to be wrong, as well. As I've said a few times, it's less that I'm trying to be the unhappy, fit-thrower or incapable of seeing that the Cubs offseason can still be relatively fine, but that I do think the Cubs need to take some steps beyond where they've been willing to go to reach the level I think they should ultimately be at. 

[Tim]

Yes - and the moral of that story is that Jed may be trying to emulate that approach, which has been extremely successful for a large market team. But it takes patience while getting the prospects to mature and you can't have a bunch of payroll tied up in aging players once they do.

I'm not saying I 100% agree with the approach, but I do think Hoyer has sold Ricketts on the idea of building slowly, picking the "right" guys to invest in, and spending most of your payroll on pre-prime and prime players and as little as possible on post-prime guys.