General Offseason Priorities

[CubinNY]

28 minutes ago, Wilson A2000 said:

That was a brutal press conference by Jed. He doesn’t even know how to spin a bad season and he doesn’t know how to give real or fake hope.

because he's bad at his job. 

[Wilson A2000]

14 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

because he's bad at his job. 

$230 million payroll projected at 83 wins and got 83 wins. But Jed expected the players to play better.

[thawv]

On 9/30/2024 at 9:55 PM, LBiittner said:

It would be so Jeb, to believe Miguel's last 50 games are a secure indicator he's Miggy "the answer" Amaya.

I'm dumb, I don't know how he's rated defensively. Does he lean the direction of molina or simply adequate? 

In a nutshell. 

Blocking:  Top 98%. 
Caught stealing:  Bottom 16%. 
Framing:  Bottom 16%. 
POP time:  Bottom 4%

[thawv]

19 hours ago, Cuzi said:

Cool, then hopefully he is fired.

He'll only get fired if winning was a priority for Tom.  It's not.  So, behind the scenes, Tom may be happy with Jed for all we know.  

[thawv]

16 hours ago, mul21 said:

Cody underperformed his contract by somewhere between $5.5-10 million depending on what you use as your $/WAR calculation value.  Some of that is actual underperformance, some of that is injury, and a decent chunk of it is paying him as a CF and him playing 95 of his 130 games somewhere other than CF with 46 of those games being at 1B and DH.  He was -0.4 dWAR, which you wouldn't expect to be the case in CF for most of the season.

I read a very good article that removing pre arb players, and arb players, the cost of a win in 6 million.  With Cody coming in at 2.2 fWAR, that's way more than 5-10 million dollars.  Not trying to be confrontational, but he's was bad this year for his pay.   He needed to be over 4.5 fWAR just to hit the break even point of his pay. 

[mul21]

1 minute ago, thawv said:

I read a very good article that removing pre arb players, and arb players, the cost of a win in 6 million.  With Cody coming in at 2.2 fWAR, that's way more than 5-10 million dollars.  Not trying to be confrontational, but he's was bad this year for his pay.   He needed to be over 4.5 fWAR just to hit the break even point of his pay. 

I saw a similar article but it removed all players who accumulated less than 2 WAR from the calculation, so kind of a suspect method.  Regardless, the suppression of salary by owners has led to a downward trend in $/WAR in free agency with more dollars being allocated to players performing at a <2 WAR pace and less to those 2-4 WAR players.  It's a really weird trend making it difficult to really ascertain a good $/WAR value.

[thawv]

14 hours ago, TarzanJoeWallis said:

You really think they haven’t spoken at all about next season yet? You think every time someone starts discussing ideas for next season Jed says, “hey, shut it down! You know we don’t have those discussions until October!” If they have no idea about what they want to do next year until they have their off-season meetings, then things are worse than I thought. 

I agree.  These discussion about next season should have been happening at the beginning of August.  At the latest!

Edited October 2, 2024 by thawv

[Irrelevant Dude]

Just caught up on Jed's press conference from yesterday.  Did he say one thing that was insightful or interesting?  As far as I know, it was AI Jed just giving all the standard answers to every question.

[Bertz]

2 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Just caught up on Jed's press conference from yesterday.  Did he say one thing that was insightful or interesting?  As far as I know, it was AI Jed just giving all the standard answers to every question.

3 things that seemed more than just press-speak:

1. An implication Cody's going to opt out

2. Wrigley played extremely pitcher friendly this year, which needs to impact how you evaluate both the offense and the pitching from this past season

3. There was a line about making prospect trades, but not ones that are too focused on the short term.  I read that to mean more deals in the Busch/Paredes mold

[mul21]

4 minutes ago, Bertz said:

3 things that seemed more than just press-speak:

1. An implication Cody's going to opt out

2. Wrigley played extremely pitcher friendly this year, which needs to impact how you evaluate both the offense and the pitching from this past season

3. There was a line about making prospect trades, but not ones that are too focused on the short term.  I read that to mean more deals in the Busch/Paredes mold

I thought point #2 was very interesting.  Tells me TT is right in his evaluation of pitching being the priority in the offseason. I think we see two upper end of the rotation additions because of that combined with the uncertainty caused by the injuries to all the young guys who could potentially fill those spots.

[Irrelevant Dude]

2 minutes ago, Bertz said:

3 things that seemed more than just press-speak:

1. An implication Cody's going to opt out

2. Wrigley played extremely pitcher friendly this year, which needs to impact how you evaluate both the offense and the pitching from this past season

3. There was a line about making prospect trades, but not ones that are too focused on the short term.  I read that to mean more deals in the Busch/Paredes mold

 

Cody opting out still feels like something Jed is trying to speak into existence.  I think it could go either way, but if I had to put money on it I would bet that he won't opt out this year.

The second one scares me.  "The offense will fix itself if we have a normal summer at Wrigley" is not something I want Jed thinking.  I know that's not exactly what he was saying, but I don't want to see Wrigley Field weather becoming this year's scapegoat for poor performance.

[CubinNY]

They never tried to deceive or paint a picture that wasn't an accurate reflection of their intentions. At the same time they cannot be naked and say we are going hard after player X or player Y is out of comfort. 

We pretty much know that Jed is going to look for value and try and sign players for what he thinks is a fair value. Those efforts will result in a competitive team that they hope will get to the ASB in good shape so they can add pieces. It's a risk, but it's a lower risk than signing Jason Heyward to his deal. 

[Bertz]

8 minutes ago, mul21 said:

I thought point #2 was very interesting.  Tells me TT is right in his evaluation of pitching being the priority in the offseason. I think we see two upper end of the rotation additions because of that combined with the uncertainty caused by the injuries to all the young guys who could potentially fill those spots.

I wouldn't expect two, I think we need to be careful about relying on the young pitchers for too many innings but that feels like overcorrecting.  That said a nine figure pitcher contract feels more likely than it has in a long time.

[mul21]

1 minute ago, Bertz said:

I wouldn't expect two, I think we need to be careful about relying on the young pitchers for too many innings but that feels like overcorrecting.  That said a nine figure pitcher contract feels more likely than it has in a long time.

By upper end I mean guys that will effectively push Taillon to the de facto #5 starter and at that point you have a really solid rotation with lots of depth available.

[Bertz]

1 minute ago, mul21 said:

By upper end I mean guys that will effectively push Taillon to the de facto #5 starter and at that point you have a really solid rotation with lots of depth available.

I'd be surprised if Taillon’s not the 4 with Assad the 5.  I think Craig might have fully come out and said Assad's earned a spot for next year?

[Wilson A2000]

1 hour ago, thawv said:

He'll only get fired if winning was a priority for Tom.  It's not.  So, behind the scenes, Tom may be happy with Jed for all we know.  

Tom wants to win without hitting the luxury tax. Jed slightly hit the tax and didn’t win. Ricketts is not getting the winning bang for his buck. I can’t see Tom being happy.

[Rcal10]

43 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I'd be surprised if Taillon’s not the 4 with Assad the 5.  I think Craig might have fully come out and said Assad's earned a spot for next year?

Agreed. I definitely do not see 2 starters added. I can see one who would be counted on to be better than Taillon and push Taillon to 4th starter. To start the season I can see Assad as the 5. But they will also have other options if/when healthy. Wicks, Horton, Brown, Wesneski, etc…..

Maybe is Bellinger stays they will focus mainly on the pitching. Get a solid starter and add 2 “dependable” pen arms. Add someone to share time with Amaya or swing bigger for A’s or Angels catcher. Stengthen the bench, and go with the line up they used since Parades came around. I know fans don’t want to hear this, but since Paredes came around the offense was too 8 in baseball, even with playing half their games in Wrigley. I would think that very well could be the case next year with PCA having 400 AB under him now, Busch a full year in the majors, Amaya getting more acclimated to the majors and a full year of Parades. 

Edited October 2, 2024 by Rcal10

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Assad/Brown/Wicks/Wesneski is perfectly fine as the 5th starter even if one gets traded, so I I don't think they're going to add 2 SP over that group.  The one exception to this is if they manage to pull off Sasaki, they can't assume he'll pick the Cubs so they need to pursue other candidates, but if he does there's basically no change to the team's resources so you can get your super rotation for the same cost as the non-Sasaki plan.

[Cuzi]

I can easily see 2 SP additions, with the 2nd one being a 2 year deal for Shane Bieber who should be ready to pitch early to mid season. Then Assad becomes trade bait.

[Bertz]

 

It can probably be assumed that nearly anyone on one of these teams making decent money is at least somewhat available this winter.

[Cuzi]

2 hours ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Cody opting out still feels like something Jed is trying to speak into existence.  I think it could go either way, but if I had to put money on it I would bet that he won't opt out this year.

I'm in the same boat. Hoyer sounds like an agent trying to sell Bellinger on the idea that the grass is greener outside Wrigley.

I'm probably like 70/30 he opts in. I don't think he did enough this year to get a better deal than he currently has. However, a deciding factor might be the amount of time on the field he thinks he can get on the Cubs. CF is no longer an option for him outside of spot starts. There's no need to have him play 1B outside of some late inning substitution position shuffling. It's RF/DH for him. Does the potential of the Yankees losing Soto with a need at 1B and the knowledge of the Yankees past pursuit of him sway him to opt out and play on a similar structured contract in a much, much, much more friendly park for his profile? I dunno. I tend to think it might, especially if he is still searching for that retirement contract.

[Rex Buckingham]

26 minutes ago, Bertz said:

 

It can probably be assumed that nearly anyone on one of these teams making decent money is at least somewhat available this winter.

So, the entire NL and AL Central divisions except for the Cubs and White Sox are without a TV deal for next year... yikes

Edited October 2, 2024 by Rex Buckingham

[Cuzi]

1 minute ago, Rex Buckingham said:

So, the entire NL and AL Central divisions except for the Cubs and White Sox are without a TV deal for next year... yikes

And we'll still end up 8 games behind the Brewers.

[LBiittner]

3 hours ago, thawv said:

In a nutshell. 

Blocking:  Top 98%. 
Caught stealing:  Bottom 16%. 
Framing:  Bottom 16%. 
POP time:  Bottom 4%

Wow. The eye test doesn't really lie then. He mostly stinks like fish defensively. No wonder Jeb was checking out better catching at the deadline

[Rcal10]

12 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

Wow. The eye test doesn't really lie then. He mostly stinks like fish defensively. No wonder Jeb was checking out better catching at the deadline

To be honest, I am surprised he is good at blocking balls.