Winter Meetings catch all

[Stratos]

Gripping Tucker Barnhart rumours:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/12/astros-diamondbacks-interested-in-tucker-barnhart.html

[gocubs218]

And away we go. 
https://twitter.com/ken_rosenthal/status/1731519941851971642?s=46&t=ETZItzsBUKwTOqmXUfHIVQ

[sweetpeteman]

 

 

[KCCub]

5 years of control. Another savvy trade by the Braves. 

[Bertz]

The Mariners are quickly becoming one of those teams where you assume they'll make a pitcher they acquire better.  Jackson Kowar is some grade A raw material for Dipoto to get his hands on.  So this deal doesn't look great without that context but I dunno I think Jerry might be cooking

[Rex Buckingham]

Mariners gonna trade a pitcher for an OF now?

[KCCub]

Just now, Rex Buckingham said:

Mariners gonna trade a pitcher for an OF now?

Seems like Soto is a match at this point. They’ve cut a lot of salary now

[Rcal10]

58 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Why not for 2 years?  He's been a pretty good player consistently throughout his entire his career and has stayed mostly healthy.  He'll probably hit better outside of Oakland/Toronto too.

He was been pretty bad offensively the last 3 years. And the Cubs need offense. 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Rcal10

[Tryptamine]

1 minute ago, Rcal10 said:

He was pretty bad last year. Not much of an upgrade for his cost. 

This. He was awful for the last 3/4 of 2023 after a crazy hot start. Starting May 1st he had 467PAs and put up an 84 wRC+. 

[Stratos]

7 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

He was been pretty bad offensively the last 3 years. And the Cubs need offense. 

He's been above-average offensively his entire career except 2021, where he was average.  They should try to replace Bellinger's production, but their run prevention was quite a bit worse than their offense last year and they should prioritize improving that that this winter.

[ToolDRT]

Yeah, I’m breaking something if we end up with Chapman. 

[JD94]

We have a team full of solid players. Chapman is just another solid player. We need star power. Chapman is decent with the bat, great with the glove. The bat likely is going to get worse as he continues to age, and there’s not much margin for error there. Soon he will be an all glove 3b. Hard pass on him, especially at the numbers being thrown out for him. 

[LBiittner]

13 minutes ago, JD94 said:

We have a team full of solid players. Chapman is just another solid player. We need star power. Chapman is decent with the bat, great with the glove. The bat likely is going to get worse as he continues to age, and there’s not much margin for error there. Soon he will be an all glove 3b. Hard pass on him, especially at the numbers being thrown out for him. 

Yikes, he turned down a Toronto offer of 100m. 4yr or 5yr. 

[Stratos]

22 minutes ago, JD94 said:

We have a team full of solid players. Chapman is just another solid player. We need star power. Chapman is decent with the bat, great with the glove. The bat likely is going to get worse as he continues to age, and there’s not much margin for error there. Soon he will be an all glove 3b. Hard pass on him, especially at the numbers being thrown out for him. 

The argument was for 2/20 we shouldn't even sign him.  Based on his age (31 at the end of April) i'd be very hesitant to sign him for the years he'll get, but for 2/20 that's a solid move.  He's a 4 WAR player.

Wanting "star power" is fine but also comes with its own tradeoffs, like very high risk longterm deals into their late 30's/40's, speaking of "age" as a factor.

[Tryptamine]

10 minutes ago, Stratos said:

The argument was for 2/20 we shouldn't even sign him.  Based on his age (31 at the end of April) i'd be very hesitant to sign him for the years he'll get, but for 2/20 that's a solid move.  He's a 4 WAR player.

Wanting "star power" is fine but also comes with its own tradeoffs, like very high risk longterm deals into their late 30's/40's, speaking of "age" as a factor.

I'll take the significant under on 4 war. In fact I'd guess much closer to 2.

[Jason Ross]

Chapman is almost assuredly going to get over $100m, ya'll. He isn't signing for 2 years.

[Jason Ross]

On the Seattle trade; super interesting. I've seen some suggest they're making a run at Soto, but other suggest this is more about crappy ownership. Hard to tell. For a team who needed offense, they've shipped two (positionally) average to slightly above average hitters out and acquired...nothing to help them in that department. If we're talking about a Chapman home, they, too, would make sense.

Edited December 4, 2023 by 1908_Cubs

[We Got The Whole 9]

Kelenic is gonna rake in Atlanta 

[CubinNY]

12 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

 

In news, that's not news but is news news. I'd be a bit sour if they were asking me for all my young players for a rental. 

[Jason Ross]

12 minutes ago, TomtheBombadil said:

I’m not looking to sign Chapman but there’s a lot to like about his offense. He makes a ton of hard contact, takes walks, doesn’t chase…great foundation to go with his defense, probably why he’s ~30 WAR in at 30

His last year was pretty weird which has given me a lot of pause. The quality of contact was great, but the home runs fell off. His last 467 PA's saw him post an 84 wRC+ with just a .150 ISO. That's not a small sample size, and the fall of on ISO from where he has been over his career his final five months last year was real. I can't tell why the quality of contact doesn't match the power/results. There doesn't seem to be any less launch or barrels. Could be weird datasets. Could be bad luck with doubles not turning into home runs like they have in the past. Could be he's losing some power on his swings despite the batted ball data. Really weird set of information. I'd be skeptical of Chapman, but can see the appeal. 

My fear on Chapman is that he fits a lot of what the Cubs have been signing, and he can't be the best new player this offseason. He's a pretty good player with some variance that suggests he could bounce back to being a better hitter than 2023 made him look. There's offseasons the Cubs have where they add Chapman and that's pretty cool! And others...where I'd be a bit bummed.

Edited December 4, 2023 by 1908_Cubs

[Rcal10]

7 hours ago, Stratos said:

The argument was for 2/20 we shouldn't even sign him.  Based on his age (31 at the end of April) i'd be very hesitant to sign him for the years he'll get, but for 2/20 that's a solid move.  He's a 4 WAR player.

Wanting "star power" is fine but also comes with its own tradeoffs, like very high risk longterm deals into their late 30's/40's, speaking of "age" as a factor.

But where are you getting this idea that he will sign 2/$20M? Are you saying $10M a year? That isn’t happening. He also isn’t signing for only 2 years. There really is no point suggesting you would sign a guy and then also suggest a contract he would never sign. 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Rcal10

[Tryptamine]

30 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

But where are you getting this idea that he will sign 2/$20M? Are you saying $10M a year? That isn’t happening. He also isn’t signing for only 2 years. There really is no point suggesting you would sign a guy and then also suggest a contract he would never sign. 

It's because I said I don't know that I'd feel comfortable signing him for 2 years at 20 a year let alone the 5/100+ he's projected to get. It seems insane to me to give that type of a commitment to a guy who absolutely sucked the vast majority of 2023.

[CubinNY]

12 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

It's because I said I don't know that I'd feel comfortable signing him for 2 years at 20 a year let alone the 5/100+ he's projected to get. It seems insane to me to give that type of a commitment to a guy who absolutely sucked the vast majority of 2023.

I thnk it depends on how much of a premium a team places on his defense.  But, yeah. 

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, 1908_Cubs said:

His last year was pretty weird which has given me a lot of pause. The quality of contact was great, but the home runs fell off. His last 467 PA's saw him post an 84 wRC+ with just a .150 ISO. That's not a small sample size, and the fall of on ISO from where he has been over his career his final five months last year was real. I can't tell why the quality of contact doesn't match the power/results. There doesn't seem to be any less launch or barrels. Could be weird datasets. Could be bad luck with doubles not turning into home runs like they have in the past. Could be he's losing some power on his swings despite the batted ball data. Really weird set of information. I'd be skeptical of Chapman, but can see the appeal. 

My fear on Chapman is that he fits a lot of what the Cubs have been signing, and he can't be the best new player this offseason. He's a pretty good player with some variance that suggests he could bounce back to being a better hitter than 2023 made him look. There's offseasons the Cubs have where they add Chapman and that's pretty cool! And others...where I'd be a bit bummed.

I think there is a scenario where Chapman can make some sense to the Cubs. Just not at $100/5 years. If his value does slip some and he can be had for something like 4/$72M AND the Cubs signed Ohtani, he could make sense as the second bat. He should not be the main signing on the offense. 

[Jason Ross]

6 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

I think there is a scenario where Chapman can make some sense to the Cubs. Just not at $100/5 years. If his value does slip some and he can be had for something like 4/$72M AND the Cubs signed Ohtani, he could make sense as the second bat. He should not be the main signing on the offense. 

With the market the way it's at, I'd be shocked to see anyone's value slipping. Once you get past Ohtani, Soto and Yamamoto, this free agent class sucks. Guys like Jordan Montgomery are looking at $140m over 6. Chapman should be fine.