Brandon Glick’s 2025 Payroll Blueprint:

[Brandon Glick]

Article coming soon.

• C: Miguel Amaya ($0.80M)
• 1B: Michael Busch ($0.80M)
• 2B: Nico Horner ($11.50M)
• 3B: Willy Adames ($26.60M)
• SS: Dansby Swanson ($28.00M)
• LF: Ian Happ ($21.00M)
• CF: Pete Crow-Armstrong ($0.80M)
• RF: Seiya Suzuki ($19.00M)
• DH: Cody Bellinger ($27.50M)
• 4th OF: Mike Tauchman ($2.90M)
• Utility: Isaac Paredes ($6.90M)
• Utility: Matt Shaw ($0.80M)
• Backup C: Kyle Higashioka ($7.50M)
• SP1: Shota Imanaga ($13.50M)
• SP2: Justin Steele ($6.40M)
• SP3: Max Fried ($26.0M)
• SP4: Javier Assad ($0.80M)
• SP5: Jordan Wicks ($0.80M)
• RP: Daniel Palencia ($0.80M)
• RP: Julian Merryweather ($1.30M)
• RP: Tyson Miller ($0.80M)
• RP: Porter Hodge ($0.80M)
• RP: Keegan Thompson ($1.00M)
• RP: Hayden Wesneski ($0.80M)
• RP: Ben Brown ($0.80M)
• RP: Luke Little ($0.80M)

Payroll is 5.14% under budget

[mul21]

Trading Taillon and benching Paredes is certainly a strategy.

[Tryptamine]

1 hour ago, mul21 said:

Trading Taillon and benching Paredes is certainly a strategy.

It completely baffles me how many people are ready to bench a 3B worth 10 fWAR over the last 3 years.

[Rcal10]

11 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

It completely baffles me how many people are ready to bench a 3B worth 10 fWAR over the last 3 years.

Agreed. Now if they wanted to sign Adames and then trade Parades for a young starting pitcher and then not sign Fried, that might make some sense. Considering you have to add Taillon to this plan, they cannot sign both Adames and Fried. Personally k am fine with Parades. But if they signed Adames, Parades would need to be traded, not benched. And they need to get someone decent for him. 

[squally1313]

25 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

It completely baffles me how many people are ready to bench a 3B worth 10 fWAR over the last 3 years.

Wait until you hear about the 2B worth 12.8 fWAR over the last 3 years

[Brandon Glick]

1 hour ago, mul21 said:

Trading Taillon and benching Paredes is certainly a strategy.

If you'd seriously rather have Taillon than Fried, bless your heart. And Paredes is a fine player, but in a world where the Cubs get Adames and keep all four outfielders, I don't know where he's gonna play.

[Brandon Glick]

19 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Agreed. Now if they wanted to sign Adames and then trade Parades for a young starting pitcher and then not sign Fried, that might make some sense. Considering you have to add Taillon to this plan, they cannot sign both Adames and Fried. Personally k am fine with Parades. But if they signed Adames, Parades would need to be traded, not benched. And they need to get someone decent for him. 

Paredes is coming off a horrendous second half. The Cubs would be selling low on him. There's no reason to trade him this offseason. Better to hold onto him as a utility player and let him rebuild value if that's the route you wanna go.

[mul21]

1 minute ago, Brandon Glick said:

If you'd seriously rather have Taillon than Fried, bless your heart. And Paredes is a fine player, but in a world where the Cubs get Adames and keep all four outfielders, I don't know where he's gonna play.

If you seriously want to go into a season with Assad and Wicks as your #4 and #5 starters, bless YOUR heart.

[Brandon Glick]

1 minute ago, mul21 said:

If you seriously want to go into a season with Assad and Wicks as your #4 and #5 starters, bless YOUR heart.

If you've watched Assad take the mound at all since late-2023, you'd feel more than comfortable with him as the No. 4. He's running a 125 ERA+ as a starter in his career. That's... unreal for a "4".

And Wicks is a stand in. Put Cade Horton there. Put Ben Brown. I don't care. There's going to be a competition for that 5th spot in the rotation no matter what the Cubs do.

[Brandon Glick]

The Cubs don't have infinite money, everyone. The payroll tracker gives you $220 million to work with (as a projection). You can't keep Taillon AND sign Fried AND Soto AND whoever else. You need to make sacrifices. That's the point.

[mul21]

18 minutes ago, Brandon Glick said:

If you've watched Assad take the mound at all since late-2023, you'd feel more than comfortable with him as the No. 4. He's running a 125 ERA+ as a starter in his career. That's... unreal for a "4".

And Wicks is a stand in. Put Cade Horton there. Put Ben Brown. I don't care. There's going to be a competition for that 5th spot in the rotation no matter what the Cubs do.

If you're going to Judge Paredes on half a season, why aren't you doing the same for Assad?

[Tryptamine]

24 minutes ago, Brandon Glick said:

If you've watched Assad take the mound at all since late-2023, you'd feel more than comfortable with him as the No. 4. He's running a 125 ERA+ as a starter in his career. That's... unreal for a "4".

And Wicks is a stand in. Put Cade Horton there. Put Ben Brown. I don't care. There's going to be a competition for that 5th spot in the rotation no matter what the Cubs do.

Interesting how Paredes having a few bad months despite still posting a 3.4 fWAR in 2024 relegates him to the bench but we're supposed to overlook Assad posting a 6.57 K/9, 4.09 BB/9 , 4.80 FIP and 4.88 xFIP  after July 15th and just ignore it because he was good prior to that.

[squally1313]

21 minutes ago, Brandon Glick said:

The Cubs don't have infinite money, everyone. The payroll tracker gives you $220 million to work with (as a projection). You can't keep Taillon AND sign Fried AND Soto AND whoever else. You need to make sacrifices. That's the point.

The Cubs especially don't have infinite money when you commit $26m a year to the guy who has a Steamer projection of 3.4 fWAR to replace our league minimum guy who has a Steamer projection of 3.3 fWAR.

[Bertz]

People took "Paredes' swing was uniquely optimized for the Trop and he's going to lose some offense going to Wrigley" and then just went absolutely insane over some normal small sample size noise.

The over/under on his wRC+ is something like 110 or 115.  Reasonable expectations for Willy Adames shouldn't be any higher than that.  Spending $150-200M to add some dong to the lineup and some athleticism on defense is absolutely silly.

[CubinNY]

I'm pretty sure Parades was injured before the trade and was dealing with minor stuff for the rest of the season. I expect he will be better next year (career norms +/-). He's a good defender, relatively inexpensive, and if he plays to career averages, will be better than many at 3rd. Also, Adames isn't going to want to move. 

Edited November 18, 2024 by CubinNY

[mul21]

1 minute ago, CubinNY said:

I'm pretty sure Parades was injured before the trade and was dealing with minor stuff for the rest of the season. I expect he will be better next year (career norms +/-). He's a good defender, relatively inexpensive, and if he plays to career averages, will be better than many at 3rd. Also, Adames isn't going to want to move. 

I agree with all but your last thought.  Adames has already said he's willing to move.

[Stratos]

6 hours ago, Brandon Glick said:

Paredes is coming off a horrendous second half. The Cubs would be selling low on him. There's no reason to trade him this offseason. Better to hold onto him as a utility player and let him rebuild value if that's the route you wanna go.

They should play Paredes full-time at 3B or trade him.   For me i would rather keep Paredes than sign Adames and spend all that money on a position we need.

Your roster puts our young SP depth into our rotation which leaves us vulnerable when injuries happen, and our pen isn't very good.

[Stratos]

6 hours ago, Bertz said:

People took "Paredes' swing was uniquely optimized for the Trop and he's going to lose some offense going to Wrigley" and then just went absolutely insane over some normal small sample size noise.

The over/under on his wRC+ is something like 110 or 115.  Reasonable expectations for Willy Adames shouldn't be any higher than that.  Spending $150-200M to add some dong to the lineup and some athleticism on defense is absolutely silly.

They could do it, but they'd have to trade Paredes for a good young/cheap SP.

But there's not much difference in Paredes + Fried vs Adames + good young SP in terms of payroll and WAR.  It just seems like a bit of a wash, other than Adames being a bit than younger than any of the top FA SP besides Flaherty.

[Manny Trillos Brother]

One thing we are in desperate need of is some kind of offensive player that moves the needle. Otherwise, why are we even talking about Soto? Adames will cost nothing but money to acquire, and relatively (for the Cubs) not that much money.

You also don't have "bench" Peredes. There were a few hundred PAs given to the likes of Madrigal, Wisdom, Mastrobouni, etc in 2024 - borderline wasted ABs IMO (520 PAs at -2.8 WAR). Those could all/almost go to Paredes. If you matched up right (carved out the ABs against the toughest righties), there's a pretty decent chance he could still compile that 3.4 WAR, but in less PAs.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Adames would be about the 5th or 6th best hitter in the current Cubs lineup, if you want to claim the team is missing a 'move the needle' offensive player(eh) it needs to be someone better than him.

[squally1313]

45 minutes ago, Manny Trillos Brother said:

Adames will cost nothing but money to acquire, and relatively (for the Cubs) not that much money.

Everything I'm seeing has him getting $25m-$30m a year. I'd love if that was a rounding error for the Cubs, but realistically that comes at the expense of a top line starter or a more impactful offensive (less impactful defensive) player.

46 minutes ago, Manny Trillos Brother said:

If you matched up right (carved out the ABs against the toughest righties), there's a pretty decent chance he could still compile that 3.4 WAR, but in less PAs.

But then you're hurting someone else's WAR by giving them a disproportionate amount of PAs against the toughest pitchers, and obviously we're focused on overall wins, not individual. 

[Bertz]

27 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Adames would be about the 5th or 6th best hitter in the current Cubs lineup, if you want to claim the team is missing a 'move the needle' offensive player(eh) it needs to be someone better than him.

One of these is Dansby Swanson the last three years, the other is Willy Adames

.236/.314/.443, 108 wRC+

.255/.323/.419, 108 wRC+

[Tank]

I have been as big a supporter of Assad as anyone on this forum`, but you absolutely cannot go into 2025 with Assad as a regular in this rotation. The Cubs can do better than that. Long relief/spot starter, yea, I can get behind that. The peripherals on Assad suggest using him as a regular in the rotation is going to eventually crash and burn. 

[Bull]

No one commenting about Matt Shaw wasting away on the bench behind Parades?

first option off the bench...maaaaaybe? But in the Mastrobouni slot getting around 98 ABs? No way

 

Matt shaws future is worth more than anything Adames might add next year. And with the positional versatility on this offense, he has no place, especially if that place displaces Shaw.

Edited November 24, 2024 by Bull