Cubs acquire Matt Thaiss for Cash - DFA Wingenter, then Trade Thaiss to White Sox

[Jason Ross]

 

[Jason Ross]

Fine with this as long as they view him as a AAA depth guy. If he's the backup...well...less enthused. 

[Bertz]

If Matt Thaiss is the opening day backup catcher, that's a problem.  Full stop.  That said:

- This could just be waiver wire roulette.  In the same way that teams claim relievers and then shortly after DFA them to sneak them through waivers, that would be a savvy play here to try and sneak Thaiss down to Iowa

- Similarly, this may be a placeholder until they sign the inevitable veteran and then DFA Thaiss.  The Cubs only have Amaya as a catcher on the 40 man currently, you need SOMEBODY there as a placeholder

- Because of positional flexibility of guys like Hoerner and Bellinger, having a 3rd catcher on the MLB roster wouldn't be crazy, especially early in the year before the kids start pounding on the door.  I wouldn't hate Thaiss getting a Luis Torrens style run until Shaw comes up around like Memorial Day

[Outshined_One]

Man, this Cash guy must be a clubhouse cancer if he keeps getting traded.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Yeah I'm fairly sure that Thaiss is not long for the 40 man roster or he's taking the place of another player on the margins(like Mastrobuoni).  I also think counting on an Amaya/Thaiss catching situation is a bad idea.

But!  Solving catcher for nothing would let you do some more interesting things with the bench or even rotation if you wanted to do it that way, plus Thaiss as a LHH would allow for a pairing w/ Amaya to hopefully be better than the sum of your parts.  I would say it's like a 10% chance, but there is a chance they're high enough on Amaya(and/or high enough on Ballesteros as a C?) for that to be where it lands.

[Tryptamine]

If this is the Amaya back up plan, this is laughably terrible. If he's the third catcher sitting in AAA just in case, then fine whatever. 

[Post Count Padder]

Lmao I called it the other day: https://northsidebaseball.com/forums/topic/53819-general-offseason-priorities/?do=findComment&comment=3921595

 

Kneel before me, Mediocre Talent Nostradamus. 

That said, this is probably just a flyer in case the catcher/bench bat market doesn't shake out for awhile. If he makes the opening day roster then a few things went poorly.

Edited November 20, 2024 by Post Count Padder

[LBiittner]

2 minutes ago, Post Count Padder said:

Lmao I called it the other day: https://northsidebaseball.com/forums/topic/53819-general-offseason-priorities/?do=findComment&comment=3921595

 

Kneel before me, Mediocre Talent Nostradamus. 

That said, this is probably just a flyer in case the catcher/bench bat market doesn't shake out for awhile. If he makes the opening day roster then a few things went poorly.

Check back pcp, I called it nine hours prior to you. Bertz even called me a whiner for my lamenting

[Cuzi]

9 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

But!  Solving catcher for nothing would let you do some more interesting things

Let's be real here for a second, Thaiss doesn't solve anything. He's a clear downgrade to Bethancourt and the Cubs just non tendered him.

[Cuzi]

1 minute ago, LBiittner said:

Check back pcp, I called it nine hours prior to you. Bertz even called me a whiner for my lamenting

You "called it" after an article was posted on BN about Thaiss.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

2 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

Let's be real here for a second, Thaiss doesn't solve anything. He's a clear downgrade to Bethancourt and the Cubs just non tendered him.

He's less expensive, younger/not post-prime, and a better hitter who fits cleaner with Amaya.  Worse defender though.

[LBiittner]

But I was whining first

[Post Count Padder]

6 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

Check back pcp, I called it nine hours prior to you. Bertz even called me a whiner for my lamenting

I think this world is big enough for both of us to know we can sense a Jed Hoyer target when we see one.

[Tryptamine]

10 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

He's less expensive, younger/not post-prime, and a better hitter who fits cleaner with Amaya.  Worse defender though.

Bethancourt's 2024 would have been the second best of Thaiss's career and his 2023 and 2022 would have been the best year of his career. He's a terrible player. 

[Bertz]

6 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

Check back pcp, I called it nine hours prior to you. Bertz even called me a whiner for my lamenting

I mean your posts on this topic aren't exactly making me rethink whether "whining" was the right way to refer to your reacton.

[Cuzi]

2 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

He's less expensive, younger/not post-prime, and a better hitter who fits cleaner with Amaya.  Worse defender though.

Less expensive by a McDonald's happy meal? He's going into ARB 1 with 0 options. We save what? 300k to go from positive value to negative? Going to go out on a limb and suggest that's not worth.

[LBiittner]

Dear Santa Jed, can we please have a higashoika, lahoppe, Raleigh, or langeliers under the tree this year.

Santa jed replies: " I already gave you matt thaiss, you ungrateful cubfans"

[Transmogrified Tiger]

This is already too many words for a hypothetical I said has max 10% likelihood.

7 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

Less expensive by a McDonald's happy meal? He's going into ARB 1 with 0 options. We save what? 300k to go from positive value to negative? Going to go out on a limb and suggest that's not worth.

Bethancourt's arb estimate is a million more than Thaiss's.

7 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

Bethancourt's 2024 would have been the second best of Thaiss's career and his 2023 and 2022 would have been the best year of his career. He's a terrible player. 
 

This is putting a lot of faith in 30 game defensive metric extrapolations at one of the hardest positions to get to a run value for.  Thaiss hits slightly better than a backup catcher and is likely a poor defensive catcher.  Bethancourt is a 34 y/o defensive catcher who cannot hit and is at the age the defense can go in a flash(see Gomes, Yan).  Reasonable people can disagree on which one they'd rather have, that's why they would non-tender one and acquire the other regardless of future purpose. Quoting partial season fWAR totals is not very compelling to try to sway someone to one side of that.

[WhyCantWeWin]

Eh guess hes close enough to O’hoppe

[LBiittner]

I'm all in if this means it frees up $ to go after Fried

[Cuzi]

25 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

I'm all in if this means it frees up $ to go after Fried

Jed is just making sure he doesn't go over the CBT by $200k in 2025.

[Cuzi]

1 minute ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Ngl I like both these moves and wanted to bring in Thaiss once available.

Begs the question of why?

[Tryptamine]

38 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

This is already too many words for a hypothetical I said has max 10% likelihood.

Bethancourt's arb estimate is a million more than Thaiss's.

This is putting a lot of faith in 30 game defensive metric extrapolations at one of the hardest positions to get to a run value for.  Thaiss hits slightly better than a backup catcher and is likely a poor defensive catcher.  Bethancourt is a 34 y/o defensive catcher who cannot hit and is at the age the defense can go in a flash(see Gomes, Yan).  Reasonable people can disagree on which one they'd rather have, that's why they would non-tender one and acquire the other regardless of future purpose. Quoting partial season fWAR totals is not very compelling to try to sway someone to one side of that.

The point is, neither is an acceptable backup for the amount of PAs they're likely to get. If Thaiss is indeed the backup he's going to see probably 200-250 PAs, A player of that caliber has no business seeing that many PAs on a team that is trying to be competitive.

[Stratos]

2 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Fine with this as long as they view him as a AAA depth guy. If he's the backup...well...less enthused. 

Exactly.  He's a replacement player. He can't do anything well except take walks and block balls.  He can't hit a baseball.  Not for avg or power, he can't run, he can't put the ball in play.  Below average pop-time and framing.  He's passable to be the 3rd catcher to fill in for injuries but he'd suck as the guy sharing starts with Amaya.

Have to assume he's AAA depth (let's hope).

[Stratos]

1 hour ago, Tryptamine said:

If this is the Amaya back up plan, this is laughably terrible. If he's the third catcher sitting in AAA just in case, then fine whatever. 

I'm very much hoping Amaya is the backup catcher on this team.  Amaya can block balls and has above-avg power and that's it.  He's too slow to ever have much hope about his AVG.