General Offseason Priorities

[Rcal10]

2 minutes ago, Stratos said:

These guys are up for arbitration, plus Alzolay (who will def get non-tendered), any of them could get non-tendered:

• Yency Almonte (5.143): $2.2MM
• Julian Merryweather (4.109): $1.3M
• Trey Wingenter (4.049): $1.4MM
• Nate Pearson (4.005): $1.4MM
• Jimmy Herget (3.069): $900K
• Colten Brewer (3.063): $800K
• Keegan Thompson (3.006): $1MM

I would say Pearson is the least likely to be let go. He will be here next year. 

[Stratos]

7 hours ago, squally1313 said:

How many non-JAGs do you think exist in the population of relief pitchers in baseball to the extent you can count on them over a period of multiple years? As an example:

I think you hit on where I'm at towards the end though. Trying to build a bullpen through offseason acquisitions is futile and a waste of resources. Whatever problems the pen has (and your mileage may vary on blaming external factors like injury, overuse, overuse due to starter ineffectiveness, bad sequencing, etc), the blame should be placed much more on the internal coaching and development rather than the front office. 

I think this FO puts a very low priority on relievers even as prospects, and I get the logic on that compared to every other position, but we've also been paying the price for that.  They trade or waive them like candy.

As it stands we only have 1 seemingly effective above-average reliever and possibly 2 if Merryweather is back and effective which are both question marks.  We probably have 1 or 2 effective SP who can also go to the pen.  Brown is a late-inning guy if needed but could be our best #5 SP option.  You can fill the bottom half of a pen with JAGs no problem but we still need to figure out the 8th inning and have some depth in case of inevitable injuries.

You're right that building a pen in FA isn't the best strategy, you end up overpaying a lot for guys who are genuinely good.  And guys like Fulmer, Boxberger were just average relievers when signed, basically JAGs not really worth investing millions on.  Neris was a slightly above-average reliever at best and well into age-regression years, no idea why they signed him to that deal unless they thought a career year at age 34 was legit even though the xFIP was pedestrian.

[Stratos]

7 hours ago, squally1313 said:

Said another way, wanting three guys that you can rely on and saying that we only have one right now, and at this time last year he was coming off a 5.13 ERA in AA, is pretty telling. 

I could be wrong about Hodge too, didn't really look at his minor league numbers.  He's had some serious walk issues both last year and in AAA this year (small sample).  Can't count on him either.  So its a JAG-fest in the pen right now.

[Stratos]

8 hours ago, squally1313 said:

How many non-JAGs do you think exist in the population of relief pitchers in baseball to the extent you can count on them over a period of multiple years?

No idea but we have none of them as of today LOL

[Stratos]

39 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

I would say Pearson is the least likely to be let go. He will be here next year. 

I think he probably isn't very good.  Too many gopher balls.

[Cuzi]

49 minutes ago, Stratos said:

I think he probably isn't very good.  Too many gopher balls.

Do you think Imanaga was good this season? Because Pearson was damn near the same statistical pitcher across the entire board after the trade for the Cubs.

Pearson is not getting non tendered over $1.4M. That's just a stupid thing to suggest. The Cubs just traded for him and he has a 98 mph fastball with disgusting movement on his breaking balls. He's everything this organization strives for in a pitcher.

Edited October 8, 2024 by Cuzi

[Rex Buckingham]

10 hours ago, Stratos said:

As it stands we only have 1 seemingly effective above-average reliever and possibly 2 if Merryweather is back and effective which are both question marks. 

There is nothing about Julian Merryweather's MLB career that suggests this level of confidence in him coming back from injury. His 2023 performance was very good. Other than that, his best year as a pro was in 2016 in High A and AA in the Cleveland system. 

[Rcal10]

9 minutes ago, Rex Buckingham said:

There is nothing about Julian Merryweather's MLB career that suggests this level of confidence in him coming back from injury. His 2023 performance was very good. Other than that, his best year as a pro was in 2016 in High A and AA in the Cleveland system. 

This is true. And a version of this statement can probably be said about 90% of the middle relief pitchers in the game. There is no reason to assume Miller, Almonte, or Lopez will be good either. Same with Pearson, Thompson, and Hodge. But other teams have the exact same issue. Year in and year out it is a guessing game as to who will be good. The guys who make up a good pen this year might be the same guys next year in a pen that is average to below average. Cubs, or  any team really, just have to have enough options to go to to find the right mix. Sometimes it happens from the start, like Cleveland this year. Sometimes it takes time, like the Cubs of 24’. And sometimes it never comes together. 
 

[squally1313]

The best bullpen is a good offense. And/or starting pitching. 

[CubinNY]

19 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

The best bullpen is a good offense. And/or starting pitching. 

Along those lines, the best bullpen is a well rested bullpen. In modern baseball with max effort etc, a pen will wear out quickly. We saw this in 2016 when Chapman was used up by the World Series. 

[Bertz]

Bullpens aren't  *total* dice rolls. 

Kenley Jansen has been pitching since Obama's first term and has never had an ERA worse than 3.71 (and that was the rabbit-ball year).  David Robertson is pretty similar sans the two partial seasons bookending his TJ.  

On the team level, of the teams fangraphs projected with top 10 bullpens coming into the year, 5 of them did indeed end up in the top 10 (and a sixth, St. Louis, was 12th).

But it's all directional at best.  Try to pull together a quality top 3-4 of the bullpen and flank them with live arms, ideally live arms with minor league options.  It's all you can do really.

[squally1313]

20 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Along those lines, the best bullpen is a well rested bullpen. In modern baseball with max effort etc, a pen will wear out quickly. We saw this in 2016 when Chapman was used up by the World Series. 

Trying this out to marry the 'good starting pitching' and 'well rested bullpen' ideas (which were kinda the same thing anyways). By month, team rankings in starting pitching innings and reliever fWAR

• April: 25th, 25th
• May: 9th, 8th
• June: 10th, 28th
• July: 5th, 2nd
• August: 18th, 5th
• September: 6th, 30th

I realized halfway through this (dumb) experiment that I was trying to find correlation between two stats that should trend in opposite directions because they're both cumulative and pulling from the same finite amount of innings. But even still, I think when people think about the bullpen being bad they think about early season struggles and the correlation is pretty good there.

[Rcal10]

10 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Bullpens aren't  *total* dice rolls. 

Kenley Jansen has been pitching since Obama's first term and has never had an ERA worse than 3.71 (and that was the rabbit-ball year).  David Robertson is pretty similar sans the two partial seasons bookending his TJ.  

On the team level, of the teams fangraphs projected with top 10 bullpens coming into the year, 5 of them did indeed end up in the top 10 (and a sixth, St. Louis, was 12th).

But it's all directional at best.  Try to pull together a quality top 3-4 of the bullpen and flank them with live arms, ideally live arms with minor league options.  It's all you can do really.

True. But there are probably a handful of guys who can be counted year in and year out. So even if you are a team who has 2 of those handful of guys you still have to fill the pen with 6 other guys and probably another 5 or more ready to filter in. As for Jansen, sure he has been fairly consistent. And I know era is a terrible way to judge a pen arm, but in 6 if his last 7 seasons he has had an era over . And his FIP is no better. He is a solid pen arm. But not a lock down closer, IMO. And he probably gets a lot of money to be that guy. 

[Rcal10]

3 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Trying this out to marry the 'good starting pitching' and 'well rested bullpen' ideas (which were kinda the same thing anyways). By month, team rankings in starting pitching innings and reliever fWAR

• April: 25th, 25th
• May: 9th, 8th
• June: 10th, 28th
• July: 5th, 2nd
• August: 18th, 5th
• September: 6th, 30th

I realized halfway through this (dumb) experiment that I was trying to find correlation between two stats that should trend in opposite directions because they're both cumulative and pulling from the same finite amount of innings. But even still, I think when people think about the bullpen being bad they think about early season struggles and the correlation is pretty good there.

Where did the Cubs land overall in bullpens? 

[Rob]

2 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Where did the Cubs land overall in bullpens? 

20th

There were 8 teams with between 5.1 and 7.8 fWAR. Then a bit of a gap, and an additional 13 teams between 2.8 and 4.5 fWAR.

Not too far behind the Cubs, it starts to get ugly. But we were still pretty firmly planted in the fat part of the bell curve, albeit on the wrong side of it.

[Backtobanks]

59 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Along those lines, the best bullpen is a well rested bullpen. In modern baseball with max effort etc, a pen will wear out quickly. We saw this in 2016 when Chapman was used up by the World Series. 

It's hard to have a well-rested bullpen when modern day baseball shoots for 5 innings from the starter.

[LBiittner]

Jerry Weinstein is leaving the Rockies and joining the Cubs. Jed didn't announce this as yet, but Jerry did. 

Jerry, BTW, is 81 years young

[Cuzi]

1 hour ago, LBiittner said:

Jerry Weinstein is leaving the Rockies and joining the Cubs. Jed didn't announce this as yet, but Jerry did. 

Jerry, BTW, is 81 years young

Don't know much about him, but poaching the head of player development of the Colorado Rockies isn't a thrilling start to the offseason.

[Jason Ross]

To clarify, he's not the head of the player development, for the Rockies but he has he's been working as a special advisor to the director - who was previous Zach Wilson and has been Chris Forbes since 2021. 

I'd assume Weinstein is coming to Chicago in a similar role. There's smoke that the Cubs are set to lose some people in scouting and development and an experienced person like Weinstein, even for a year or two, is probably someone who's an easy plug-and-play guy. He's got a ton of experience coaching at the Cape - and the smoke is that the Cubs are set to lose national cross checkers - guys who do  advanced scouting pre-draft. The Cubs have been heavy on Cape Code success recently, another reason why Weinstein probably makes sense. 

[Stratos]

21 hours ago, Cuzi said:

Do you think Imanaga was good this season? Because Pearson was damn near the same statistical pitcher across the entire board after the trade for the Cubs.

Pearson is not getting non tendered over $1.4M. That's just a stupid thing to suggest. The Cubs just traded for him and he has a 98 mph fastball with disgusting movement on his breaking balls. He's everything this organization strives for in a pitcher.

Would you like to try that post again without being weirdly aggressive for no reason?  I don't respond to this nonsense.

[Cuzi]

37 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Would you like to try that post again without being weirdly aggressive for no reason?  I don't respond to this nonsense.

You just responded to it. And it was rhetorical.

[Cuzi]

37 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Would you like to try that post again without being weirdly aggressive for no reason?  I don't respond to this nonsense.

You just responded to it. And it was rhetorical.

[Rcal10]

For the most part I have been against the idea of signing a higher priced pen arm. But think I would make an exception for Tanner Scott. He can not only be the closer if they need him to be, but he can also be the lefty pen, late inning arm if Hodge does prove to be a solid closer. He will cost a decent amount of money, but tbh, if Bellinger comes back I don’t see them spending big on the offense. There should be enough money to sign Scott and still get a quality starting pitcher, upgrade at catcher and maybe add a decent/solid bench/semi-regular bat to the team. Between free agency and trades of some young assets the Cubs should be able to do all of that and stay within the budget. And, if Bellinger leaves use his money for an everyday line up bat. Again that can be through a trade or free agency. 
High end example of a decent semi regular bat would be to trade for B. Lowe. He is about at the spot where Tampa starts moving guys. He can play 2nd, 3rd or first. He can also play when Swanson takes a day, by moving Hoerner to SS. He can DH. Basically he would give the Cubs a 9th man for 8 line up positions, which is fine. That move helps the bench too, because there will always be a starter grade guy on the bench. They have enough young talent to get him without giving a top 5-7 prospect in the team. As for a pitcher, I guess it depends on if the Cubs want to spend money on one or use minor league assets for one. I am sure that decision would be made with the budget in mind. They need to get one that slots ahead of Taillon. Schmidt has been mentioned here. He would be a nice option., if the budget is the issue. Which brings us to catcher.🤷 They could go trade, they could go FA to share time with Amaya. I think that would be a very good, realistic off season. Of course I want them to explode getting one or two of Soto, Vlad, Tucker, Rooker, a TOR starter, a high end catcher etc….. , but I don’t think it is realistic that they will. I think lengthening the rotation with a solid starter, strengthening the line-up/bench with a solid bat, getting a very good, dependable lefty pen arm and upgrading catcher would take this team from an 83 win team to a 90+ win team. And I think they can do it within their budget and still have some young talent available to them from the minors. 

[Tryptamine]

So I have extreme doubts Jed would be into it, but with various rumors that the Cardinals are going to be getting rid of Willson, he does have a no trade clause through 2026, wouldn't he make a lot of sense here? Amaya would be your primary catcher, but Willson could give him a rest when need be and fill in at DH the rest of the time. The last 3 years he has posted 140, 127 and 134 wRC+s. I don't think there'd be much cost at all if the Cubs ate the remainder of his 4/72 contract and that 4th year comes with a 5M buyout so you're only on the line for 3/59.5 if he tanks after a couple years. 

C- Amaya

1B- Busch

2B- Nico

SS- Dansby

3B- Paredes

RF- Seiya

CF- PCA

LF- Happ

DH- Willson

That's a deep lineup even if it lacks that one super star bat. 

 

 

[Cuzi]

Dont want Willson back, sorry not sorry.

Sure, we'll get more WAR out of the catching situation, but at the detriment of the entire pitching staff. Not worth it.