Cubs offseason chit chat...

[Stratos]

7 hours ago, champaignchris said:

So, the Brewers just sent Houser and Taylor to the Mets for a 23-year-old AA pitcher coming off TJS. 

The division is. Just, Right. There. 

Four players - Chapman, Hoskins, Imanega and Hader - or pick your combination of four. I don’t care. But that’s all it takes to get this team in the playoffs. 

Do it, Jed!

Cubs are a joke if they don't take the division this year.  Reds might be annoying this year though.

[Stratos]

5 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

Do we know if he is any good. Not like other teams wanted him either. Everyone who signs with another team other than the Cubs, doesn’t mean the Cubs were wrong not getting him. If he went for just over $5M a year for 4 years, maybe there are real questions about him. 

Read that he had real problems getting used to the WBC baseball, which is similar to the MLB ball, so maybe teams had some pause there.  I get it, it's still a dice roll to sign a player from another league, and he's only a reliever.  It's like bringing up a prospect from AAA, but even riskier, you don't know what will happen.

[Stratos]

4 hours ago, CubinNY said:

Pearl Jam are doing two shows at Wrigley next year. That’s Hader’s money if the want him. 

Hader was given a QO.  Womp-womp.

[ToolDRT]

23 minutes ago, javy knows my name said:

Yeah you're definitely coming out wayyyy worse here. This would be enough for a suspension in the old days

Yeah, I don’t care. Sorry. It appears we’re not allowed to post anything on this forum anyway without multiple users having panic attacks. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by ToolDRT

[We Got The Whole 9]

1 hour ago, ToolDRT said:

I don’t think people being openly dissatisfied with the offseason as it stands is “buffoonery”. Again, there’s still plenty of time left. But 6 weeks ago we were talking about Ohtani as plan A, with Soto/Yamamoto as plan B.

We were talking about trading for Pete Alonso. Tyler Glasnow seemed like a given. Now, where are we? We missed on Ohtani, deemed Soto too pricey. Don’t appear to have even had a meeting with Yamamoto because he was also too pricey. Alonso seems to have been pulled off the trading block and we couldn’t even acquire Tyler Glasnow with the “extraordinarily” deep farm we’ve been hearing about for two years. 
 

We don’t want to do mega deals. We don’t want to trade from the farm, and it appears we’re waiting to see if freaking Matt Chapman gets cheap enough to be our marquee acquisition for the year. Sorry, but it’s not “buffoonery” to find this offseason to be alarming as it stands.  
 

 

Jed did his due diligence on every FA and potential trade fit, that's really it. Some of you guys took that to mean that we were going to land those players or that we were the only team to check in on them. None of those options were givens. We still have interest in a lot of good players as do 2/3 of the teams in the league. 

[ToolDRT]

12 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Jed did his due diligence on every FA and potential trade fit, that's really it. Some of you guys took that to mean that we were going to land those players or that we were the only team to check in on them. None of those options were givens. We still have interest in a lot of good players as do 2/3 of the teams in the league. 

Oh heavens no, I knew there would be competition. Hell, I don’t even think I really thought Ohtani would happen. But I think it should also coming into focus that Jed has a value he places on every player and every trade that he won’t stray from. The problem is that’s not a practical way to run a big market team when your only advantage is that you can outspend the little guys. He has a small market mindset and he needs to take that horsefeathers to Minnesota. Because the rules say that disposition isn’t going to work here. 
 

Also, just want to add that there’s simply no excuse I could deem reasonable for the cubs bowing out on Yamamoto without even trying. Whether that’s on Tom or Jed it’s disgraceful. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by ToolDRT

[squally1313]

Lol my fault for all of that. Hopefully rich hill or someone like that signs tomorrow so we can start over. 

[ToolDRT]

1 minute ago, squally1313 said:

Lol my fault for all of that. Hopefully rich hill or someone like that signs tomorrow so we can start over. 

To bookend this, my thought is if I complain about the cubs lack of moves, and you complain about me complaining what’s the difference? Isn’t it better to have an active board than a dead board, even if people are posting stuff you don’t agree with? 

[Stratos]

29 minutes ago, ToolDRT said:

Also, just want to add that there’s simply no excuse I could deem reasonable for the cubs bowing out on Yamamoto without even trying. Whether that’s on Tom or Jed it’s disgraceful. 

If it makes you feel any better, a reminder that Jed met with Counsell without anyone knowing and the signing came out of the blue, and the Swanson and Stroman signings had no heat from what I remember until just before they happened.

Sounds like Yamamoto won't sign until after the new year, and Imanaga might wait for him.  The top 4 non-Japanese FA's left are Bellinger, Snell, Chapman, Montgomery, and they all are Boras clients, so there's no action there either until well into January it seems.  Stroman and Hader are left as well, plus a lot of solid bats we've talked about like Hoskins, Garver, Belt etc.

There's only like 3 big names off the FA board so far:  Ohtani, Nola, and Lee, and seems no other teams had any realistic chance at Ohtani or Nola including Cubs.  It's just a slow market this year.

[ToolDRT]

11 minutes ago, Stratos said:

If it makes you feel any better, a reminder that Jed met with Counsell without anyone knowing and the signing came out of the blue, and the Swanson and Stroman signings had no heat from what I remember until just before they happened.

Sounds like Yamamoto won't sign until after the new year, and Imanaga might wait for him.  The top 4 non-Japanese FA's left are Bellinger, Snell, Chapman, Montgomery, and they all are Boras clients, so there's no action there either until well into January it seems.  Stroman and Hader are left as well, plus a lot of solid bats we've talked about like Hoskins, Garver, Belt etc.

There's only like 3 big names off the FA board so far:  Ohtani, Nola, and Lee, and seems no other teams had any realistic chance at Ohtani or Nola including Cubs.  It's just a slow market this year.

Yeah, this is true. And it’s not so much that I’m inpatient (well, maybe a little!) my concerns more lie in what’s been leaking the last few years about Jed looking for value. Obviously I’m not pining for our version of an Eric Hosmer-Padres signing. But the mega deal isn’t going away. And it would be very annoying if every year we're eliminated from the cream of the free agent crop because Jed has a self imposed years limits on free agents. 
 

Putting it another way; I’d be more than fine sitting out on the big fish this year if I knew we’d be going hard after Juan Soto next year. I’m not demanding a top tier signing every offseason. My concern is - if the reports about the cubs being out on Yamamoto are true - it appears we’re not even willing to be irrational on players that have youth on their side. There’s no perfect free agent, but if Jed is convinced 250-300 million is too much for a 25 year old ace pitcher who hasn’t hit his prime yet then we have a very idiotic man running our team. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by ToolDRT

[Jfoley89]

11 minutes ago, Stratos said:

If it makes you feel any better, a reminder that Jed met with Counsell without anyone knowing and the signing came out of the blue, and the Swanson and Stroman signings had no heat from what I remember until just before they happened.

Sounds like Yamamoto won't sign until after the new year, and Imanaga might wait for him.  The top 4 non-Japanese FA's left are Bellinger, Snell, Chapman, Montgomery, and they all are Boras clients, so there's no action there either until well into January it seems.  Stroman and Hader are left as well, plus a lot of solid bats we've talked about like Hoskins, Garver, Belt etc.

There's only like 3 big names off the FA board so far:  Ohtani, Nola, and Lee, and seems no other teams had any realistic chance at Ohtani or Nola including Cubs.  It's just a slow market this year.

People keep saying this, but 13 of the Athletics top 40 free agents have signed.  That's roughly 33% of the impact talent gone. I'm sure they'll spend some money at some point, but they're starting to run out of opportunities to be as good as they were in 2023

[We Got The Whole 9]

28 minutes ago, Jfoley89 said:

People keep saying this, but 13 of the Athletics top 40 free agents have signed.  That's roughly 33% of the impact talent gone. I'm sure they'll spend some money at some point, but they're starting to run out of opportunities to be as good as they were in 2023

IDK I look at the list of signed players and a lot of them just never made any sense for us. 

I would have liked to have gotten Sonny but he had a QO. Candelario would have been fine, as would have Rodriguez and Lugo. We tried for Lee. Martinez maybe looks like a decent deal. 

The rest (besides Ohtani and Nola) I feel like we can find a close enough proxy still. 

I don't blame Jed for not wanting to throw a 300m contract at a pitcher, let alone an import. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by We Got The Whole 9

[ToolDRT]

3 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

IDK I look at the list of signed players and a lot of them just never made any sense for us. 

I would have liked to have gotten Sonny but he had a QO. Candelario would have been fine, as would have Rodriguez and Lugo. We tried for Lee. Martinez maybe looks like a decent deal. 

The rest (besides Ohtani and Nola) I feel like we can find a close enough proxy still. 

I don't blame Jed for not wanting to throw a 300m contract at a pitcher, let alone an import. 

I would have been good with Gray too. 

[ToolDRT]

2 minutes ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Lots of rambling nonsense coming:

I didn’t really really have a point to the Clase post, just looked up the deal after Matsui. Dude’s down year featured 99, 35% chase, 13% SwStrk, 28% CSW, and the #1 RP by Stuff+ and Pitching+. I’ve been about a velo and stuff monster in the mold of Alvarado for the pen, Clase is great shot at maybe the best of those guys. The bullpen could even use a closer/anchor too, is shallow and unorganized. 

Also now I, a sucker who thought Ohtani (twice really) after thinking Harper/Cole would be Cubs, am now thinking of going in for Framber, Bieber, and Clase? An OD SP depth chart of Valdez, Bieber, Wicks. Hendricks, Taillon, Smyly, Wesneski, Horton/Brown, less famous would be a good set up for 2024+, and picks for 2025 and 2026 are set up. The healthy, durable, high performance playoff caliber SP with some stuff (Valdez is 11th in Stuff+? After 200 IP? Nice. Bieber’s KC is top 3, top 25 SL) are badass players, often secret superstars once you get past the tippy top few 

Mitch Garver seems underrated, is probably my favorite FA bat. He and Naylor could go a long way 

Good stuff. You also reminded me how angry I still am we didn’t go after Harper 🤣

[BigbadB]

Seems some people could use a good night's sleep 'round here.

[thawv]

4 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Lots of rambling nonsense coming:

I didn’t really really have a point to the Clase post, just looked up the deal after Matsui. Dude’s down year featured 99, 35% chase, 13% SwStrk, 28% CSW, and the #1 RP by Stuff+ and Pitching+. I’ve been about a velo and stuff monster in the mold of Alvarado for the pen, Clase is great shot at maybe the best of those guys. The bullpen could even use a closer/anchor too, is shallow and unorganized. 

Also now I, a sucker who thought Ohtani (twice really) after thinking Harper/Cole would be Cubs, am now thinking of going in for Framber, Bieber, and Clase? An OD SP depth chart of Valdez, Bieber, Wicks. Hendricks, Taillon, Smyly, Wesneski, Horton/Brown, less famous would be a good set up for 2024+, and picks for 2025 and 2026 are set up. The healthy, durable, high performance playoff caliber SP with some stuff (Valdez is 11th in Stuff+? After 200 IP? Nice. Bieber’s KC is top 3, top 25 SL) are badass players, often secret superstars once you get past the tippy top few 

Mitch Garver seems underrated, is probably my favorite FA bat. He and Naylor could go a long way 

Where can we find Suff+ and Pitching + stats on every pitcher?

[squally1313]

7 hours ago, ToolDRT said:

To bookend this, my thought is if I complain about the cubs lack of moves, and you complain about me complaining what’s the difference? Isn’t it better to have an active board than a dead board, even if people are posting stuff you don’t agree with? 

Would I rather have a dead board or a board where people used every minor signing as an excuse to trash the Cubs, the team we are supposedly fans of? Man, such tempting options with apparently no other path. 
 

i keep thinking about this narrative that the cubs have this theoretical limit, and how the most recent example is last offseason, where they, to fit that narrative, cheaped out on the shortstop market…as if Dansby didn’t go out and put up the best season out of all those options. And somehow that isn’t a good thing.
 

Jed put together a team last year that exceeded projections, that by advanced metrics played like a 90 win team, and we’re still currently in a position where there’s about a dozen paths to opening the year as the division favorite with a top five farm system. Which in my mind is not bad? But it’s not the dodgers, so apparently the whole thing is broken. 

[Bertz]

14 minutes ago, thawv said:

Where can we find Suff+ and Pitching + stats on every pitcher?

Fangraphs has them, but annoyingly not on individual player pages.  What I normally do is go to the leaderboard, go to Pitch Modeling, and then filter to get the team I want

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&type=36&season=2023&month=0&season1=2023&ind=0&team=17&qual=20

 

 

[thawv]

12 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Fangraphs has them, but annoyingly not on individual player pages.  What I normally do is go to the leaderboard, go to Pitch Modeling, and then filter to get the team I want

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&type=36&season=2023&month=0&season1=2023&ind=0&team=17&qual=20

 

 

I can't seem to figure out how to get to these stats without using your link.  Any help?  If I want to look at this, I want to be able to just go on fangraphs and find it without have to go back and fine your link.  Thanks so much!

[Transmogrified Tiger]

9 minutes ago, thawv said:

I can't seem to figure out how to get to these stats without using your link.  Any help?  If I want to look at this, I want to be able to just go on fangraphs and find it without have to go back and fine your link.  Thanks so much!

From any pitching leaderboard, click the 'Pitch modeling' , then Stuff+ will be one of the options if it's not the first one defaulted to.

[Bertz]

1 minute ago, thawv said:

I can't seem to figure out how to get to these stats without using your link.  Any help?  If I want to look at this, I want to be able to just go on fangraphs and find it without have to go back and fine your link.  Thanks so much!

Their leaderboards have a ton of stuff, which is great that it's available but can make things hard to find

Leaders -> Pitching -> The year you want

At the very top is a bunch of filters:  Starter/Reliever, lefty righty, etc.  Between that and the actual list of players you'll see a smaller box, and that has tabs for "Stats" (normal stuff you'd look up) "Pitch Level Data" (velocity, chase rate, etc.) and "Pitch Modeling".  Stuff+ lives in that pitch modeling section.

It's a bit silly how tucked away it is.  Feels a bit like Dennis Duffy's coffee vending machine.

[CubinNY]

42 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Would I rather have a dead board or a board where people used every minor signing as an excuse to trash the Cubs, the team we are supposedly fans of? Man, such tempting options with apparently no other path. 
 

i keep thinking about this narrative that the cubs have this theoretical limit, and how the most recent example is last offseason, where they, to fit that narrative, cheaped out on the shortstop market…as if Dansby didn’t go out and put up the best season out of all those options. And somehow that isn’t a good thing.
 

Jed put together a team last year that exceeded projections, that by advanced metrics played like a 90 win team, and we’re still currently in a position where there’s about a dozen paths to opening the year as the division favorite with a top five farm system. Which in my mind is not bad? But it’s not the dodgers, so apparently the whole thing is broken. 

How exactly did they exceed expectations? 

[s2obed]

1 hour ago, BigbadB said:

Seems some people could use a good night's sleep 'round here.

Nah, what will help this board is a signing or two... Actually, it might make this board worse lol.

[Jfoley89]

17 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Would I rather have a dead board or a board where people used every minor signing as an excuse to trash the Cubs, the team we are supposedly fans of? Man, such tempting options with apparently no other path. 
 

i keep thinking about this narrative that the cubs have this theoretical limit, and how the most recent example is last offseason, where they, to fit that narrative, cheaped out on the shortstop market…as if Dansby didn’t go out and put up the best season out of all those options. And somehow that isn’t a good thing.
 

Jed put together a team last year that exceeded projections, that by advanced metrics played like a 90 win team, and we’re still currently in a position where there’s about a dozen paths to opening the year as the division favorite with a top five farm system. Which in my mind is not bad? But it’s not the dodgers, so apparently the whole thing is broken. 

The Cubs largest contract in history ranks 12th out of the 15 in the NL. Only the Pirates, Cardinals, and Giants have also failed to ever spend 200 million on a player. They move up to 19th in all of MLB if you count all teams, but they're still in the bottom 3rd of the league.  

Jed's team last year failed because he thought 7 million would fix the bullpen, and that Hosmer, Mancini, and Barnhart belong on a good baseball team.  The Cubs have lost 7.5 wins from last year's team. Now some things did go well 

Suzuki had a huge step forward. Tauchmann seems to be a serviceable 4th/spot starter. Swanson put up 4.9 WAR. They have a top 5 farm system, but it's drastically short on impact talent. Thus far, Ross failed to extract much value from the kids coming up, but hopefully Counsel changes that. 

It's pretty clear we're far behind the Dodgers and the Braves at this point. The Braves develop, trade, and extend far better than Jed and the Dodgers are willing to spend money. Those should be the teams we're worried about, because a team with the Cubs revenue and pricing structure shouldn't be crying poor.

 

 

[Outshined_One]

I've come around on the notion that 90% of slap fights around here tend to resolve themselves once everyone sobers up.