Cubs (Taillon) vs Orioles (Kremer): 7/9/24, 5:35pm

[Brock Beauchamp]

[CubinNY]

This is a winnable game. 

[Bertz]

I wonder how much this start functions like an audition for Taillon.  Holding down this offense on the road would definitely perk my ears up if I was a team looking for a SP.

[Tryptamine]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

I wonder how much this start functions like an audition for Taillon.  Holding down this offense on the road would definitely perk my ears up if I was a team looking for a SP.

The Orioles are definitely one of the teams I think would most be in on Taillon. They adamantly refuse to include Basallo/Mayo/Holliday and seemingly Kjerstad in any trade. So when your lead trade pieces are Connor Norby/Chayce McDermott/Dylan Beavers you're probably shopping in the Taillon level starter range. Of course if I was them I'd be chasing Fedde, but who knows.

[Bertz]

2 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

The Orioles are definitely one of the teams I think would most be in on Taillon. They adamantly refuse to include Basallo/Mayo/Holliday and seemingly Kjerstad in any trade. So when your lead trade pieces are Connor Norby/Chayce McDermott/Dylan Beavers you're probably shopping in the Taillon level starter range. Of course if I was them I'd be chasing Fedde, but who knows.

Similar to Bellinger, I don't have a good sense of what Taillon would bring back given his contract.  I think it's above water but not by much? 

Someone like Norby seems about right though?  Though honestly if we're shopping in the back of a team's top 30 I'd probably aim for guys in A ball with a little more upside.  We've got a good crop of guys pretty imminent to the majors, you can never have too many but I'd hate to add a guy who's buried on the depth chart from day 1.

[Outshined_One]

Taillon makes the most sense to me as a buy-middle trade candidate for a team looking to make a deal with the Cubs.  He's done well enough this season that you can buy last season was just a bump in the road for him...but you're also unsure if this season is just a dead cat bounce.  I remember articles speculating that he was tipping his pitches last season, and perhaps that's been corrected, but there's still enough to make me wonder.

Additionally, the Cubs could easily dump Taillon and still be competitive for a wild card spot, particularly with Assad and Wicks coming off the IL (hopefully) in the near future.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I truly do not understand how people can watch this season unfold and conclude that the best way forward for short term competitiveness is getting rid of an established SP for a flyer of a return.  If you think they need to plan for 2027, okay fine I disagree with that premise but at least there's logical consistency.  You need all of them, this year even all of them hasn't been nearly enough!

[CubinNY]

17 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Similar to Bellinger, I don't have a good sense of what Taillon would bring back given his contract.  I think it's above water but not by much? 

Someone like Norby seems about right though?  Though honestly if we're shopping in the back of a team's top 30 I'd probably aim for guys in A ball with a little more upside.  We've got a good crop of guys pretty imminent to the majors, you can never have too many but I'd hate to add a guy who's buried on the depth chart from day 1.

, Tallion should bring back a decent prospect If they eat enough of his contract 

[squally1313]

1 minute ago, CubinNY said:

, Tallion should bring back a decent prospect If they eat enough of his contract 

But that takes away the money that people are trying to clear for free agent signings that will immediately improve the team going into 2025.

[CubinNY]

16 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

But that takes away the money that people are trying to clear for free agent signings that will immediately improve the team going into 2025.

Good point. The Cubs are in no man's land. 

[Bertz]

19 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I truly do not understand how people can watch this season unfold and conclude that the best way forward for short term competitiveness is getting rid of an established SP for a flyer of a return.  If you think they need to plan for 2027, okay fine I disagree with that premise but at least there's logical consistency.  You need all of them, this year even all of them hasn't been nearly enough!

I think for me it's a few things:

- The over/under on WAR we can expect from Taillon next year is probably south of 2

- If we want to take a big swing to improve the roster, adding a 3+ WAR SP is one of the best places to do it

- While it's ironic for me to say at the moment with 5 injured SPs, I think the internal youths are enough to cover the 4 & 5 spots plus injury depth

- If you're *that* worried about the depth hit you can sign a veteran swingman to take on long relief duty

I think the depth is there that the Cubs should trade a SP.  Probably just one, but they should trade one.  I think the arguments against it being Taillon are more either

- No one's actually going to take his whole salary off your hands and if they're not what's the point

- You can get actual impact back if you do like Brown or Wicks instead

But I don't buy that we need Taillon for next year.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Bertz

[mul21]

3 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I think for me it's a few things:

- The over/under on WAR we can expect from Taillon next year is probably south of 2

- If we want to take a big swing to improve the roster, adding a 3+ WAR SP is one of the best places to do it

- While it's ironic for me to say at the moment with 5 injured SPs, I think the internal youths are enough to cover the 4 & 5 spots plus injury depth

- If you're *that* worried about the depth hit you can sign a veteran swingman to take on long relief duty

I think the depth is there that the Cubs should trade a SP.  Probably just one, but they should trade one.  I think the arguments against it being Taillon are more either

- No one's actually going to take his whole salary off your hands and if they're not what's the point

- You can get actual impact back if you do like Brown or Wicks instead

But I don't buy that we need Taillon for next year.

1. Who's your 3 win pitcher and how much more (on top of covering part of Taillon's salary) is that going to cost?

2. This feels easier said than done, unless you're going to just plan on Assad being that guy.

3. This may be true, but between what we know about how the Cubs run their budget with regard to the LT, i think it's very difficult to justify jettisoning Taillon in favor of hoping you find an equal/better replacement with a similar or lesser budgetary impact.

[squally1313]

2 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I think for me it's a few things:

- The over/under on WAR we can expect from Taillon next year is probably south of 2

- If we want to take a big swing to improve the roster, adding a 3+ WAR SP is one of the best places to do it

- While it's ironic for me to say at the moment with 5 injured SPs, I think the internal youths are enough to cover the 4 & 5 spots plus injury depth

- If you're *that* worried about the depth hit you can sign a veteran swingman to take on long relief duty

I think the depth is there that the Cubs should trade a SP.  Probably just one, but they should trade one.  I think the arguments against it being Taillon are more either

- No one's actually going to take his whole salary off your hands and if they're not what's the point

- You can get actual impact back if you do like Brown or Wicks instead

But I don't buy that we need Taillon for next year.

There's always the risk that his elbow goes boom between now and November, but I think I'd rather have Taillon around as a reliable piece for 2025/2026 in the event we don't make a substantial move to improve the rotation, and I think what you could get for Taillon now vs what you could get for Taillon in 4 months (upon signing someone better) isn't going to be a huge difference. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

7 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I think for me it's a few things:

- The over/under on WAR we can expect from Taillon next year is probably south of 2

- If we want to take a big swing to improve the roster, adding a 3+ WAR SP is one of the best places to do it

- While it's ironic for me to say at the moment with 5 injured SPs, I think the internal youths are enough to cover the 4 & 5 spots plus injury depth

- If you're *that* worried about the depth hit you can sign a veteran swingman to take on long relief duty

I think the depth us there that the Cubs should trade a SP.  Probably just one, but they should trade one.  I think the arguments against it being Taillon are more either

- No one's actually going to take his whole salary off your hands and if they're not what's the point

- You can get actual impact back if you do like Brown or Wicks instead

But I don't buy that we need Taillon for next year.

The bolded is the stickler for me.  I can potentially see the argument if we look narrowly at the rotation, but considering the bullpen's injury troubles and issues with quality, I think there's a compounding depth issue that really cannot afford to turn away quality SP innings.  Mayyybe in the offseason if Wesneski figures out the pitch mix problem and looks the part for the rest of the season.  The rest I don't have enough confidence in them being a potential playoff series starter(Assad, Wicks) or they simply can't be counted on for enough innings while also potentially being needed to reinforce the pen(Horton, Brown).

[Rcal10]

33 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

But that takes away the money that people are trying to clear for free agent signings that will immediately improve the team going into 2025.

Couldn’t they eat salary this year? Then next year he is the O’s payroll? I am not in agreement they should trade him, still on the fence with that. But if they do, they can’t also pay some of next years salary. That just doesn’t make sense. 

[Eeyore]

I don't want Taillon gone. He's a great option as a back of the rotation starter. They need 6-7 viable options and they can't all be $30 million guys.

They do need to free up some money to address 3rd, catcher, and back of the bullpen.

How they do that is up to them. I couldn't believe that they went into the season with those two catchers (didn't they have another veteran on a minor league deal?) and no experienced 3rd baseman. They try to go cheap on the bullpen every year and choke away the first half of the season in doing so 

[Irrelevant Dude]

3 minutes ago, Eeyore said:

I couldn't believe that they went into the season with those two catchers

That feels like revisionist history.  Gomes/Amaya looked like a solid catching duo going into the season.

[CubinNY]

9 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

That feels like revisionist history.  Gomes/Amaya looked like a solid catching duo going into the season.

Only if one believes in pitcher whisperers. 

[squally1313]

16 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

That feels like revisionist history.  Gomes/Amaya looked like a solid catching duo going into the season.

On the one hand, the Cubs were projected to be 24th in overall catcher fWAR going into the year. So I think it was safe to say it was a concern or at least something they consciously decided to punt on for soft skills.

On the other hand, they were projected for 1.8 fWAR for the year and have been worth -1.5 so far this year, so we're talking about basically a 2.5 win swing in the wrong direction from even those feeble projections. 

[Bertz]

27 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

The bolded is the stickler for me.  I can potentially see the argument if we look narrowly at the rotation, but considering the bullpen's injury troubles and issues with quality, I think there's a compounding depth issue that really cannot afford to turn away quality SP innings.  Mayyybe in the offseason if Wesneski figures out the pitch mix problem and looks the part for the rest of the season.  The rest I don't have enough confidence in them being a potential playoff series starter(Assad, Wicks) or they simply can't be counted on for enough innings while also potentially being needed to reinforce the pen(Horton, Brown).

It's tough, because obviously the current moment has shown how quickly 9 can drop to 4, and another lesson from this year is there's no law that says you can't also be down 3 relievers at the same time.

But I do think we need to add a vet SP, it's one of the best ways to add multiple WAR in a single roster spot.  Plus I have no faith Taillon will be a playoff caliber starter 15 months from now (I frankly don't have a ton of faith he will be 3 months from now).  If we've got 4 vets heading into next year having 5-6 kids competing for that last spot plus some relief innings and depth starts feels like a total waste.  Like there's being careful and there's wasting bullets.  So I think in my mind we circle back to probably shopping Wicks or Assad. 

[Jason Ross]

11 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Only if one believes in pitcher whisperers. 

I'm not sure that's true. From 2021-2023 Yan Gomes had racked up 4 fWAR. That's not super-duper great, but that's 18th in baseball over that span. His 89 wRC+ would have been league average for catchers in every one of those three seasons. He was reaching an age where a complete and utter faceplant was possible, but there wasn't much to suggest it was imminent ether. 

Miguel Amaya posted a 94 wRC+ last year and was a projected mid-80's wRC+ hitter entering the year using things like ZiPS. He wasn't a great defender, but wasn't bottom barrel in 2023 and the thought process that he'd improve his throwing a year extra out of TJS was logical. He's always been touted as a good defender. 

I don't think you needed to believe in much to think that the Cubs had probably a decent catching duo. It was never going to likely be a point of strength but it wasn't looking like "worst in the league" by a bit, either. There was some risk inherent, but also some hope that Amaya would take a step forward. Sadly, both Gomes (likely due to age) and Amaya faceplanted bad.

[Bertz]

51 minutes ago, mul21 said:

1. Who's your 3 win pitcher and how much more (on top of covering part of Taillon's salary) is that going to cost?

2. This feels easier said than done, unless you're going to just plan on Assad being that guy.

3. This may be true, but between what we know about how the Cubs run their budget with regard to the LT, i think it's very difficult to justify jettisoning Taillon in favor of hoping you find an equal/better replacement with a similar or lesser budgetary impact.

I don't think we need to find a better pitcher with less money.  I fully expect this 3+ WAR pitcher to cost $25-30 M per annum.  But I think we need to add that guy regardless, so dumping $17M ahead of time makes the budgetary impact that much more palatable.

If we assume Bellinger and Neris don't return, there's about $70M between the Cubs' current 2025 payroll and the luxury tax.  That's 1 big signing plus quality depth pieces, or two big signings plus some bargain shopping.  If you're bumping closer to $90M to play with suddenly it's more of an "and" and less of an "or" between depth and impact, though it does bump SP to a necessity rather than a nice to have on the shopping list.

[squally1313]

22 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I don't think we need to find a better pitcher with less money.  I fully expect this 3+ WAR pitcher to cost $25-30 M per annum.  But I think we need to add that guy regardless, so dumping $17M ahead of time makes the budgetary impact that much more palatable.

If we assume Bellinger and Neris don't return, there's about $70M between the Cubs' current 2025 payroll and the luxury tax.  That's 1 big signing plus quality depth pieces, or two big signings plus some bargain shopping.  If you're bumping closer to $90M to play with suddenly it's more of an "and" and less of an "or" between depth and impact, though it does bump SP to a necessity rather than a nice to have on the shopping list.

Do you think the market for Taillon in December is markedly worse than the market for him now?

[Bertz]

4 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Do you think the market for Taillon in December is markedly worse than the market for him now?

Probably?  I know people probably get sick of me harping on xFIP and HR/FB rates but if you normalize Taillon’s he comes out as a slightly below average SP this year.  He's on a legitimate heater right now, and maybe you write off his early season struggles due to his abbreviated ST, but ultimately the same numbers that said not to panic last year say he's been merely fine this year.

That said he's on that aforementioned heater right now, he's presumably available, and he's safe/boring without any major worries (e.g. Garret Crochet's innings).  So I think he's likely someone teams would be apt to take on right now, while in the offseason when they have to weigh that 2/$34M against just signing like Kyle Gibson there's probably less incentive.

[Tryptamine]

For me, I think it's almost a no brainer if you can can get a 45 back for Taillon this year then you can just sign a guy like Kikuchi in the offseason for similar money if that's even necessary given all the SP depth the Cubs will have once people start coming back from injuries. Going into 2025 FA with Steele, Imanaga, Wicks, Assad, Brown and potentially Horton isn't the worst place in the world to be.