Non-Soto FA thread

[Bertz]

17 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Arizona Phil is the gold standard on this stuff and he says Kilian has 1 left: https://www.thecubreporter.com/cubs-40-man-roster

I hadn't seen this yet, great news.  Makes sense with how much time he lost to injury last year I guess.

Definitely changes the calculus on him sticking on the 40 man.  I still don't think he's very high on the depth chart, but he's very unlikely to be cut now.

[Jason Ross]

6 minutes ago, thawv said:

As you know, the 4 guys mentioned can't be on the 40 and not be on the 26.  I was always referring to the active roster, and assumed that you understood that due to the options situation. 

Yes. I understand that. But the conversation started with "I would DFA the four players without options before I DFA'd Killian". The original thing I was responding to was: Don't be so sure about that. The team very well may prefer to have Merriweather (who's on a split contract for a reason and is a year removed from real MLB success), Thompson (who was selected well before Killian agreed on a contract) and Miller (who was legitimately good last year and they're not going to DFA a good pitcher for Killian). Two of those pitchers were used before and more often than Killian and one was traded for and spent the entire year in the MLB. Miller's a lock, the other two are coin-flips if the team would rather have them in the BP over saving Killian from DFA. Sure, they could option him down more easily, but the other two have been much better pitchers. 

There's just nothing to worry about here on Killian. It's not worth handwringing. It's very possible Merriweather, Thompson and Killian are all gone because the team needs three 40 man spots. If Killian does survive it's almost going to be 100% on the basis that he can go to Iowa. 

[Tryptamine]

1 hour ago, thawv said:

I agree with this.  All I'm saying is, if I need to DFA pitching to make room for other pitchers, he would be the 5th guy on my list. 

 

I think they need to cut ties with at the very leas 2-3 of pitchers before the season starts regardless of whether or not they add pitching.  I don't see any chance that of all of Merryweather, Miller, Keegan, and Rob Z being on the active roster.  Maybe only one is on the roster, and the other 3 get DFA.

Wait, wtf? Like I get the other 3, but why Miller? The guy just threw 62 innings of 2.32 ERA ball and yeah he pitched above his peripherals, but even if he regresses he'd still a solid pen arm. I am completely baffled as to how he got included in that. 

[Rcal10]

4 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

Wait, wtf? Like I get the other 3, but why Miller? The guy just threw 62 innings of 2.32 ERA ball and yeah he pitched above his peripherals, but even if he regresses he'd still a solid pen arm. I am completely baffled as to how he got included in that. 

Agreed. I do understand thawv’s point on Killian versus Thompson and Merryweather. Because Killian has an extra option he might make the 40 man over either of them. This is especially so if the Cubs do add another pen arm. With one less spot on the 26 man roster Thompson and Merryweather get squeezed even more. But, Miller needs to be in the team unless they use him as a 3rd piece in a bigger trade. He should not be dfa so that Killian gets a spot on the 40 man. 

[thawv]

27 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

Wait, wtf? Like I get the other 3, but why Miller? The guy just threw 62 innings of 2.32 ERA ball and yeah he pitched above his peripherals, but even if he regresses he'd still a solid pen arm. I am completely baffled as to how he got included in that. 

Miller will be on the team, as I didn't mean to include him in the group of guys to DFA before Kilian.  It was my mistake. 

[thawv]

20 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Agreed. I do understand thawv’s point on Killian versus Thompson and Merryweather. Because Killian has an extra option he might make the 40 man over either of them. This is especially so if the Cubs do add another pen arm. With one less spot on the 26 man roster Thompson and Merryweather get squeezed even more. But, Miller needs to be in the team unless they use him as a 3rd piece in a bigger trade. He should not be dfa so that Killian gets a spot on the 40 man. 

I made a mistake including Miller as one of the guys to get DFA before Kilian.  He was just supposed to be on the one of the 4 years out of options.  My mistake.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

42 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

I can see where the 4th year opens up for Kilian. I'm assuming he didn't accumulate enough time in 2019 when he was drafted and 2020 didn't count so 2021-24 becomes 4.??? service time.

But how does someone like Alcantara earn a 4th year option like he says? Alcantara is in the same boat as Kilian but with one of his 3 option years left, which will get used up this season with this season being his 5th year. So next year he will have accrued 5 full seasons, making him ineligible.

I honestly don't know on Alcantara, I've been operating on the assumption that this year was his last one and I rarely get in the weeds on the particulars of this stuff.  Arizona Phil probably has a comment on a blog post at TCR where he details why Alcantara would get the 4th year, but searching for that isn't easy.

[Rcal10]

10 minutes ago, thawv said:

I made a mistake including Miller as one of the guys to get DFA before Kilian.  He was just supposed to be on the one of the 4 years out of options.  My mistake.

Got it. Makes more sense. Because Killian has another option, IMO, if the Cubs sign one more pen arm, his chances are better than at least one of Thompson or Merryweather. I don’t see them both making the 26 man roster if another arm is added. There is a decent chance both won’t make it even with what they have. Adding one more makes it less likely. That said, I won’t be too upset if Killian get dfa as well. 

[thawv]

53 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

I can see where the 4th year opens up for Kilian. I'm assuming he didn't accumulate enough time in 2019 when he was drafted and 2020 didn't count so 2021-24 becomes 4.??? service time.

But how does someone like Alcantara earn a 4th year option like he says? Alcantara is in the same boat as Kilian but with one of his 3 option years left, which will get used up this season with this season being his 5th year. So next year he will have accrued 5 full seasons, making him ineligible.

I'm thinking that this is considered Alcantra's 4th full season. 

[Cuzi]

17 minutes ago, thawv said:

I'm thinking that this is considered Alcantra's 4th full season. 

How? He's been around since 2019. His game log in 2019 spanned from June 1st to August 27th. Thats 88 days. You only need 90 days on a minor league roster to accumulate a full year. He damn near did that in his first year. Then you have 21-24. Thats 4 seasons. Assuming he is just shy of 5 years as it is, how would this be his 4th year?

[LBiittner]

If this is true / takes away any urgency to deal him this offseason. 

[LBiittner]

Not sure where this belongs :

Hypothetically , if the Manfred Man rule were to go into existence in 2025, who on the Cubs current roster would be the golden bat? I understand it depends on the situation, but do the Cubs have a clear-cut golden bat?  Seya? 

[Jason Ross]

2 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

Not sure where this belongs :

Hypothetically , if the Manfred Man rule were to go into existence in 2025, who on the Cubs current roster would be the golden bat? I understand it depends on the situation, but do the Cubs have a clear-cut golden bat?  Seya? 

Yes, it'd probably be Seiya. 

[Cuzi]

It would be nice if the owners could fire Manfred prior to his contract expiring. Larger bases, speeding up the game... fine. Changing fundamental rules to allow 1 player a freebie at bat? Suck a fat one. Imagine having to have a pitcher face someone like Aaron Judge back to back with the bases loaded.

[Bertz]

Yeah I think by default it'd be Seiya, but with plenty of situations where Happ would be preferable instead.

[Tryptamine]

Manfred, taking baseball closer and closer to blernsball everyday. 

[Jason Ross]

I have a feeling a lot of time will be spent worrying about the golden-at-bat but we will eventually realize it's not going to actually happen. For all of the rule changes, they've had some purpose or something. For example, I know many hate the ghost runner thing, but the purpose was to cut down on the 16 inning game mid-summer (which they seem to have done!). It's still baseball at it's core. The golden at bat really changes that.

In the end I think the MLB will not adopt it. But they got a lot of free-talk about baseball in the winter right before the WM's. And I think they'll be really happy about that.

[LBiittner]

3 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

It would be nice if the owners could fire Manfred prior to his contract expiring. Larger bases, speeding up the game... fine. Changing fundamental rules to allow 1 player a freebie at bat? Suck a fat one. Imagine having to have a pitcher face someone like Aaron Judge back to back with the bases loaded.

Ouch. Especially with relief pitcher mandated to face 3 hitters, which I personally hated when that was borne into existence.

I loved the loogy. I was all set to groom my lefthanded grandson on a career path. Then Manfred broke my heart.

I enjoyed joe Maddon and his flip flopping pitchers and players. But that was too colorful and took too much time.

[thawv]

1 hour ago, Cuzi said:

How? He's been around since 2019. His game log in 2019 spanned from June 1st to August 27th. Thats 88 days. You only need 90 days on a minor league roster to accumulate a full year. He damn near did that in his first year. Then you have 21-24. Thats 4 seasons. Assuming he is just shy of 5 years as it is, how would this be his 4th year?

I'm seeing full seasons in 2022, 2023, and 2024, which makes this is 4th season.  In 2021 he only played in 34 games, so I doubt he had 90 days on the roster.

[Rob]

I'm not an unreasonable man. I liked the change Manfred made with the larger bases to encourage more stealing.

I've come around slightly on the pitch clock as well. I still think they've got it tuned too aggressively, and I'd love for players to be able to step out a bit more often in big moments to build the suspense. But overall things were trending too slow, and even I can admit that now. Same for the end of the LOOGY.

But the ghost runner is horsefeathers horsefeathers. And the golden-at-bat would be worthy of a firing squad.

[chibears55]

1 hour ago, LBiittner said:

Not sure where this belongs :

Hypothetically , if the Manfred Man rule were to go into existence in 2025, who on the Cubs current roster would be the golden bat? I understand it depends on the situation, but do the Cubs have a clear-cut golden bat?  Seya? 

It belongs in the trash can, this would be the dumbest thing they'd do..

But for your question I would say Suzuki would be that guy

Edited December 3, 2024 by chibears55

[Tryptamine]

28 minutes ago, Rob said:

I'm not an unreasonable man. I liked the change Manfred made with the larger bases to encourage more stealing.

I've come around slightly on the pitch clock as well. I still think they've got it tuned too aggressively, and I'd love for players to be able to step out a bit more often in big moments to build the suspense. But overall things were trending too slow, and even I can admit that now. Same for the end of the LOOGY.

But the ghost runner is horsefeathers horsefeathers. And the golden-at-bat would be worthy of a firing squad.

It still pisses me off that due to that ghost runner nonsense, a pitcher can come in, induce a ground, flyout and strike out and still lose the game. 

[Cuzi]

25 minutes ago, thawv said:

I'm seeing full seasons in 2022, 2023, and 2024, which makes this is 4th season.  In 2021 he only played in 34 games, so I doubt he had 90 days on the roster.

Unless the minor league service time is different than MLB, then between 2019 and 2021 he was on a roster more than enough time to accrue a full year.

[thawv]

6 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

Unless the minor league service time is different than MLB, then between 2019 and 2021 he was on a roster more than enough time to accrue a full year.

That's the only think that I can think of.  But it's a good thing for us.  The Cubs won't have to make any 40 man roster decision on him until before the 2027 season. 

 

[Stratos]

8 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

So, I'll ask you this: do you think the Chicago Cubs are unaware of his career ERA? Because I'm fairly sure the Chicago Cubs have at, the very least, heard of mlb.com and know this. So maybe we should ask "why don't the Cubs care?" and that answer is almost assuredly "because they believe the 2024 version of Mathew Boyd is the version of Mathew Boyd that they're buying". 

Cleveland pitch-labbed Boyd last year and the post-TJS version of Boyd was a different beast. He displayed a much improved slider, better location, and a lower arm angle than he had most of his career. He used his very funky mechanics coupled with these new pitches to be a very effective starter. We're talking small samples of 40 IP here, but on a per-rate basis, there's nothing that stood out as "unrepeatable" if you buy into the new pitches sticking. He didn't have insane LOB% or relied on luck where he gave up a lot of hard contact that just resulted in outs. If we look at who he most compared to last year, it was Yuki Matsui, who was also really good. Now, Matsui came out of the pen, but I think the point remains - it isn't like what Boyd was doing was some smoke mirrors game. 

At $14.5m there is risk that Boyd will not pitch enough, I get that. He's managed <80 IP since pre-covid and we shouldn't just wash over that. But if we look at his IL history it's entirely tied to the elbow that he had fixed. While it's possible that he's just prone to getting hurt, it's also possible that all of this stemmed from an elbow that was never right, and now it is. But we need to stop acting like this is some horrendous contract, too. It's two years, it's pretty much align with predictions of his market, and if you get 2024 Boyd, even for like 110 innings, he's going to crush it. 

I'll wrap it up this way: Blake Snell just got $180m this offseason from the Dodgers. Sure, it's the Dodgers, but let's put that aside for a moment. He got $180m, and he pitched 104 innings last year. He's topped 130 IP once since 2018. His career line isn't very far off (30 K%, 11 BB%, 3.19 ERA, 3.35 FIP, 3.57 xFIP) than what Boyd did in 2024 (27.7 K%, 7.8 BB%, 3.29 FIP, 3.89 xFIP). If you really believe in Boyd, and even if he comes in at 105 IP, you get Blake Snell at $150m as your discount. That's a dream. There's reason why Matt Boyd got $29m over 2 years and Blake Snell got what he got, mind you (the risk of injury and limited sample size) but that is another way to look at this contract. This is a bit of a gamble, and I reiterate that I don't think it can be the big addition to the rotation...but the risk here is likely worth the gamble and then some.

I don't dislike Boyd the player, I dislike the contract.  He's not good enough to be our #1 SP acquisition this winter and not cheap enough to be our 2nd SP.  Even regardless, the contract isn't good.

Also, Snell got $180m because the Dodgers deferred some of that contract, in today money he's making around 160m, which is still a tad high for a guy who misses as many starts as he does, but I guess the Dodgers FO has the luxury of throwing money around like candy.