Review of last offseason's moves

[squally1313]

1 hour ago, Cuzi said:

No goal posts are being moved.

I dont consider 5 years a long contract when there are 67 other contracts in MLB that surpass it in length. But if you want to consider it long then go ahead.

There's nothing long about Imanaga's contract or Taillon because neither one is going to show up on the list when you order by length. 4 years is below average length for top 20 or so FAs in a given year since the boon of these career contracts.

There have been 19 contracts of 6 or more years handed out since Jed took over. He’s one of the 19. That’s by definition above average. 

[Cuzi]

5 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

There have been 19 contracts of 6 or more years handed out since Jed took over. He’s one of the 19. That’s by definition above average. 

So let me get this straight. You bring up the 1 contract above 6 years he has given out. The one contract I acknowledged as what I would consider long. And then you think I'm moving goal posts? Clown.

[Cuzi]

We are sitting here celebrating Jed's "success" in avoiding "bad" contracts. I'm still waiting for the nickel and dime strategy to actually win something worthy of celebrating.

It's time for Jed to learn how to putt.

Edited October 19, 2024 by Cuzi

[squally1313]

3 hours ago, Cuzi said:

So let me get this straight. You bring up the 1 contract above 6 years he has given out. The one contract I acknowledged as what I would consider long. And then you think I'm moving goal posts? Clown.

No you called out stratos for saying Jed has done well on long term deals and then unilaterally decided that ‘long term’ meant 6 or more years, which conveniently excludes taillon, shota, and Suzuki (all good contracts!). In his post he obviously meant to include those guys and then you excluded them from the argument. Goalposts, etc.

Which, after all that,  meant in your world Jed has signed one ‘long term deal’, out of the 19 total during his tenure, which has thus far also gone very well. Good point though!

[Cuzi]

59 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

No you called out stratos for saying Jed has done well on long term deals and then unilaterally decided that ‘long term’ meant 6 or more years, which conveniently excludes taillon, shota, and Suzuki (all good contracts!). In his post he obviously meant to include those guys and then you excluded them from the argument. Goalposts, etc.

Want to point out where I said 6 or more years? Or are you just putting words in my mouth.

I conceded to saying Seiya would qualify as long term, if you wanted to add him. That still doesn't eliminate the fact that there are 67 longer term contracts than 5 years in MLB currently with off the chart number of contracts matching 5 years. There's absolutely nothing long term about a 2 year contract with options or a 4 year deal in today's market. They are both below average terms for their tier.

Top free agents defined by MLBTR

A 4 year deal is like saying a 5'8 man is tall.

I do wonder when the rest of the league will wake up, though. Jed is schooling them on what it takes to win by eliminating bad contracts. Fingers crossed we dont have a Dodgers vs Yankees World Series.

Baseball is entering the LeBron James + Dwayne Wade + Chris Bosh era of basketball. Time to stop worrying about what the last 3 or 4 years of a deal will look like when you'll be out of a job 5 years before that time comes.

Edited October 19, 2024 by Cuzi

[CubinNY]

3 hours ago, Cuzi said:

A 4 year deal is like saying a 5'8 man is tall.

You watch your filthy mouth.  

[Rex Buckingham]

4 hours ago, Cuzi said:

Want to point out where I said 6 or more years? Or are you just putting words in my mouth.

I conceded to saying Seiya would qualify as long term, if you wanted to add him. That still doesn't eliminate the fact that there are 67 longer term contracts than 5 years in MLB currently with off the chart number of contracts matching 5 years. There's absolutely nothing long term about a 2 year contract with options or a 4 year deal in today's market. They are both below average terms for their tier.

Top free agents defined by MLBTR

A 4 year deal is like saying a 5'8 man is tall.

I do wonder when the rest of the league will wake up, though. Jed is schooling them on what it takes to win by eliminating bad contracts. Fingers crossed we dont have a Dodgers vs Yankees World Series.

Baseball is entering the LeBron James + Dwayne Wade + Chris Bosh era of basketball. Time to stop worrying about what the last 3 or 4 years of a deal will look like when you'll be out of a job 5 years before that time comes.

average contract length for a top 10 or 20 is irrelevant when it has outliers like Turner, Bogaerts, Yamamoto, etc.

[Rex Buckingham]

1 hour ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Noooo, the opposite! If anything the Post-2016 Cubs helped launch the Actually No One is Good era. Soto’s* the last of a dying breed in FA, at least from the stateside pool. The current biggest contract one’a them foreign players has ever signed was smaller than a 5 YO Gerrit Cole FA contract at the same position. 

*I’m as big a fan of Kyle Tucker as anyone, but $300 isn’t what it once only seemed in the first place and he may not even get that

uh, not sure what happened with your quote but I am not the one who said that...

And I generally agree with you - superteams aren't really a thing in baseball like they are in basketball

[Stratos]

11 hours ago, Cuzi said:

We are sitting here celebrating Jed's "success" in avoiding "bad" contracts. I'm still waiting for the nickel and dime strategy to actually win something worthy of celebrating.

The point is the Cubs aren't coming up short because of the deals 3+ years long.  Jed's errors in FA are coming from all the bad short-term deals and bad exercised options.  The money given to Hendricks, Smyly, Neris, Mancini, Barnhart could have been spent better.  Put Bote in there too (Theo deal).  Maybe the Gomes option was understandable at the time, but he was also old, i can let that one go.  Barnhart also wasn't very expensive but 2 years was stupid given he was coming off a 0.3 WAR, 63 wRC+ season and was 32 y/o.

The others mentioned were just overpaid for their talent level and could have gone towards some better players.  That's about 45m spent on meh players on 1-2 deals/options that combined for negative WAR in 2024.  45m could have payed for another Swanson + Happ or literally any player.  Count Bote and its 50m, almost half the Brewers payroll spent on zero WAR.  That's NOT efficient or good value.

Value and efficiency are good things, and if Jed was as careful with the smaller contract as the larger ones we probably would have been in the playoffs last year and at least made it much closer (or better) this year.   That wouldn't be bad for a team not getting a ton of WAR from cheap young players yet.

Edited October 20, 2024 by Stratos