Cubs sign Matt Boyd (2/29)

[We Got The Whole 9]

8 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

A lot of flak around here about small sample sizes and here Hoyer gives an ol boy 30 mil based on 40 innings. 

Yeah this is the type of contract the Dodgers or Yankees give out. This is an extreme level of risk IMO.

[Backtobanks]

5 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

I'm on the fence on Boyd, but I'm fully out on Lorenzen. He'll pitch more but he's much worse when he does. He doesn't do anything particularly well and most of the things he does poorly. His best quality last year was average exit velocity, with him finishing in the 58th percentile. He was below 50% on every other baseballs savant metric with many things (such as chase, K%, whiff...) being below the 15% marker. 

Durability matters to a degree. But the Cubs need quality most right now. Someone else can take the plunge on a guy like Lorenzen. He's likely going to be not good.

I guess we'll have to disagree.  The last thing the Cubs needed was to totally overpay a broken-down lefty to add to the other lefties we have in the rotation.  Lorenzen would be cheaper, more durable, righty, and probably better in my opinion.

[Jason Ross]

8 minutes ago, Backtobanks said:

I guess we'll have to disagree.  The last thing the Cubs needed was to totally overpay a broken-down lefty to add to the other lefties we have in the rotation.  Lorenzen would be cheaper, more durable, righty, and probably better in my opinion.

I've attached Michael Lorenzen's baseball savant page. This should be fairly damning evidence on him. This is among the worst pages you'll find for SP's in 2024 available - it's just not good at all. There's nothing he's doing particularly well there.  It's true, that Lorenzen is more durable, and right handed, but being durable only matters if you bring value with that durability. 

The Cubs shouldn't want that profile anywhere near their rotation. Maybe Lorenzen is a pitch lab guy (even though he's already been a Driveline guy)! Maybe you get him and fix 'em up. even more But Boyd's already done that and showed success with it last year. And sure, I'm not sure he even gets to 80 IP...but I'll take those 80 over 140 of...this.

[LBiittner]

5 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

This is a good example of the spectrum of roster building, between quality and quantity of pitching innings.  In a perfect world, you add players who give you both, but they are very expensive and if they get hurt like pitchers do, you're in significant trouble.  

You also can't go too far in either direction.  If you get 6 SP who you expect to be excellent for 100 innings, you will have a lot of innings funneled to your bullpen, and managing the staff in October gets dicey.  If you have 5 innings eaters who go 6 innings but have mediocre results, you'll either miss the playoffs or get beaten up by good offenses in that crucible.

What Boyd appears to represent is a bet on his production over his durability.  He's probably not going to exceed 5 innings much, and he may not make even 25 starts.  But the plan is he's going to leave those starts in a much better place than if we had gotten Durable Joe The Innings Eater to get more outs but also give up more runs per inning.  On a roster that already has several guys who you can expect to eat innings on a per start basis(Steele, Shota, Taillon), and a group of talented young pitchers who aren't ready for a full starter's workload(Brown, Horton, maybe Pearson, Assad), Boyd adds quality of innings that can combine with those other talented pitchers with durability concerns.  And you pay Counsell record money to manage that balance to ensure you don't ask the bullpen to throw 30 innings a week.

I find boyd interesting. A few years ago his FB was 88-91. Now it's running 91-94 at age 33. How did he get such an uptick? Chicago scouts must be excited about his sinker/slider along with the new FB for jed to jump on him so quickly. 

I'll be anxious to see how sagano's all around impeccable control with 6 pitches translates. (Especially his splitter)