Trade deadline target

[squally1313]

1 hour ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

Freeman and a Braves core that won between 88-104 games from 2018-24, Sale, Martinez, Boggarts and Betts on Boston, Soto, Rendon, Turner, Scherzer on Washington, Verlander, Alvarez, Altuve and Bregman on Houston, Texas is the one team where you can definitely say caught lightening in a bottle thanks to career years from Seager, Semian and Garcia, I don’t have to explain the Dodgers or the 2016 Cubs.  This has definitely been a phenomenon over the last decade.

There has to something to Milwaukee turtling in the playoffs despite 90+ wins every year.

This seems like backwards logic, no? These guys are considered ‘superstars’ or whatever in hindsight…because they went out and won a bunch of games or won very important games? It wasn’t like Boston slotted Xander bogaerts in the starting line up and on day one was like ‘perfect, we have our superstar, now we can compete’. If Michael Busch wins 85+ games for the next four years and continues to hit like he did last year, how is he any different? Same for the overall performances from PCA, Hoerner. 

[Geographyhater8888]

35 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

This seems like backwards logic, no? These guys are considered ‘superstars’ or whatever in hindsight…because they went out and won a bunch of games or won very important games? It wasn’t like Boston slotted Xander bogaerts in the starting line up and on day one was like ‘perfect, we have our superstar, now we can compete’. If Michael Busch wins 85+ games for the next four years and continues to hit like he did last year, how is he any different? Same for the overall performances from PCA, Hoerner. 

Do you think the Cubs are on a similar level of talent to the 2018 Redsox? PCA is great, sure. We don’t have Mookie Betts trending towards league MVP or a Chris Sale who finished top 4 in cy young voting though. We have some great complimentary pieces. Boggarts played like a “superstar”/all star/whatever by earning himself a $280 million contract with Sandiego. So we’ll have to wait on Busch for now. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Geographyhater8888

[Bertz]

Turner and Bogaerts were star caliber players but not star caliber bats.  I thought our problem was we needed a star caliber bat?

[Bertz]

Oh and Devers became a star bat post WS, he had a 90 wRC+ in '18

[Gjfificifjdej]

If your takeaway from witnessing Wicks and Taillon attempt to pitch in May was “we need a star bat”, wtf man. 

[Geographyhater8888]

11 minutes ago, Gjfificifjdej said:

If your takeaway from witnessing Wicks and Taillon attempt to pitch in May was “we need a star bat”, wtf man. 

I agree. Better players and or better performance from the pitchers currently on the team is needed in the rotation. If we’re stuck with what we have we’ll need an Aaron Judge like bat at DH to compete with the Dodgers superstar roster, at least on paper. Although I could be off on this, Ian Happ has a higher wRC+ than Freddie Freeman, which may or may not disprove that the Dodgers have really good players.

Edited 3 hours ago by Geographyhater8888

[squally1313]

29 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

Do you think the Cubs are on a similar level of talent to the 2018 Redsox? PCA is great, sure. We don’t have Mookie Betts trending towards league MVP or a Chris Sale who finished top 4 in cy young voting though. We have some great complimentary pieces. Boggarts played like a “superstar”/all star/whatever by earning himself a $280 million contract with Sandiego. So we’ll have to wait on Busch for now. 

Do I think the Cubs are as good as a team that won 108 games? No, of course not. But this is what the qualified Red Sox hitters did in 2017:

Going if you were to compare opening day rosters based on past performance, would we really be that far off? I'd say we would have looked better offensively than that. They picked up JD Martinez coming off a 4.3 fWAR year, so a slightly better pickup than Bregman. 

It's hard to articulate, but it's bad logic in my head to be like 'do you think this team in June is as good as teams that went on to win world series'. The players were good, and then they became great. Unless you throw a Dodgers level payroll at it, that's usually how teams go from good teams to teams that play in November. PCA is a top 10 player offensive player, Nico is top 25. I promise you if this team goes deep in October that Bregman's name will get thrown on that pile too. And that's before our 131 wRC gold glove LF and our 121 wRC first baseman who raked at the end of last year. They actually have to do the work, of course. But there's no actual serious reason why they can't on the offensive side. 'We'd be heavy underdogs to the Dodgers'. A. 'Heavy underdogs' is like a 40% chance. B. Who cares, what a loser attitude, take your shots anyways, they aren't going anywhere. 

[Geographyhater8888]

1 hour ago, squally1313 said:

Do I think the Cubs are as good as a team that won 108 games? No, of course not. But this is what the qualified Red Sox hitters did in 2017:

Going if you were to compare opening day rosters based on past performance, would we really be that far off? I'd say we would have looked better offensively than that. They picked up JD Martinez coming off a 4.3 fWAR year, so a slightly better pickup than Bregman. 

It's hard to articulate, but it's bad logic in my head to be like 'do you think this team in June is as good as teams that went on to win world series'. The players were good, and then they became great. Unless you throw a Dodgers level payroll at it, that's usually how teams go from good teams to teams that play in November. PCA is a top 10 player offensive player, Nico is top 25. I promise you if this team goes deep in October that Bregman's name will get thrown on that pile too. And that's before our 131 wRC gold glove LF and our 121 wRC first baseman who raked at the end of last year. They actually have to do the work, of course. But there's no actual serious reason why they can't on the offensive side. 'We'd be heavy underdogs to the Dodgers'. A. 'Heavy underdogs' is like a 40% chance. B. Who cares, what a loser attitude, take your shots anyways, they aren't going anywhere. 

I’m speaking about adding another silver slugger DH bat to convey the point that they’ll need to score a ton of runs because the pitching staff blows. They can certainly trade for a top of the rotation starting pitcher, the Ben Brown thing is real (maybe a star in the making) and Cabrera and Boyd perform better, especially Cabrera when they come off the IL, then who the horsefeathers knows. They can shock the world. That needs to happen though. 
 

But to your initial point, teams with great players win championships whether they emerged during their championship seasons or were established stars well before. That incomplete list features both of the above. Milwaukee doesn’t really have anyone that belongs on that list and they turtle in the playoffs every year. You took that as a direct shot at the cubs for some reason. My direct shot was comparing the talent gap between the Dodgers everyone else.
 

Edited 1 hour ago by Geographyhater8888

[Rcal10]

15 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

But to your initial point, teams with great players win championships whether they emerged during their championship seasons or were established stars well before. That list features both of the above. Milwaukee doesn’t really have anyone that belongs on that list and they turtle in the playoffs every year. You took that as a direct shot at the cubs for some reason. My direct shot was comparing the talent gap between the Dodgers everyone else.
 

Except if Milwaukee wins the WS this year people will say they had Yelich, Tourang, Contreras and Chourio and also has Miz as a stud pitcher. A couple of those guys will have to have big year to be considered their stars. I believe that is the point squally is making (and I agree with). 

Edited 2 hours ago by Rcal10

[Geographyhater8888]

4 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Except if Milwaukee wins the WS this year people will say they had Yelich, Tourang, Contreras and Chourio and also has Miz as a stud pitcher. A couple of those guys will have to have big year to be considered their stars. I believe that is the point squally is making (and I agree with). 

I’m aware. But we still have to cross that bridge first. Outside of 2018-19 Yelich, they’ve been defying all projection models with mostly random names. 

[Rcal10]

7 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

I’m aware. But we still have to cross that bridge first. Outside of 2018-19 Yelich, they’ve been defying all projection models with mostly random names. 

Getting away from the brewers for a second, this goes back to WS winners have players who are either great going in or have a great year. I agree with this. But it is not productive to look back 10-20 years and then decide who the great players were in that team. And then suggest the Cubs or any team doesn’t have that so they can’t win. Many cases the people being mentioned as great players actually were only great that year or it was his first great year. The Cubs have several players whose name would be on that list if they won the WS. It stands to reason if they won the WS a few guys on this current team would have to have a great year. And there are numerous Cubs who can break out. Which is why looking, after the fact, at all WS teams to argue they won because they have stars current team dont have right now, is pointless. 

[squally1313]

3 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

I’m aware. But we still have to cross that bridge first. Outside of 2018-19 Yelich, they’ve been defying all projection models with mostly random names. 

At the risk of going circular, they'd stop being 'random names' if they won a championship right? There may not be a Betts-type name in there, but Contreras, Misierowski, Yelich all either have or could put up those elite offensive seasons. And I guess your contention is that they haven't won a World Series because they aren't elite players, but at the end of the day 

I was taking issue, and it might not have been you specifically, of this thought process of like, 'well we don't have a superstar so we shouldn't try to improve the team'. It just feels like self-defeating logic. We have very good and good players, and I think, offensively, within the group there's plenty of potential to raise their games and put together elite performance. PCA was 15th in fWAR last year and is 13th this year. Do you need a top 10 guy? The Yankees and Dodgers, as expected, each have a guy better than PCA this year. But it's Ben Rice and Andy Pages, not Judge and Shohei (offensively). The (comfortably) best player in baseball plays for a 23-37 team right now. So you need an elite guy AND a Cubs level supporting cast, otherwise don't bother?

There's 9 guys in a baseball lineup. Any one hitter can only take 11% of the PAs in any given game. Pile up good players and you get good offensive results, we have 8 months of the Cubs to show that, as much as people seem to hate the numbers there. Go get the best starter you can if costs you a bunch of dudes who are blocked and haven't produced at the highest level. Will it work? Probably not! 29 teams go home every year. Will it be more fun and give us a better shot? Yes. 

[Gjfificifjdej]

2 hours ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

I agree. Better players and or better performance from the pitchers currently on the team is needed in the rotation. If we’re stuck with what we have we’ll need an Aaron Judge like bat at DH to compete with the Dodgers superstar roster, at least on paper. Although I could be off on this, Ian Happ has a higher wRC+ than Freddie Freeman, which may or may not disprove that the Dodgers have really good players.

Yeah exactly, if the offence doesn’t play to its true talent level, nothing we can realistically acquire will make enough difference to save the season, even if Boyd and Cabrera come back and pitch well. 

[muntjack]

This team is currently missing almost its entire projected rotation and is still above .500.  I know how they got here is frustrating, but it's not the great failure some are positing.  

[Rcal10]

18 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

At the risk of going circular, they'd stop being 'random names' if they won a championship right? There may not be a Betts-type name in there, but Contreras, Misierowski, Yelich all either have or could put up those elite offensive seasons. And I guess your contention is that they haven't won a World Series because they aren't elite players, but at the end of the day 

I was taking issue, and it might not have been you specifically, of this thought process of like, 'well we don't have a superstar so we shouldn't try to improve the team'. It just feels like self-defeating logic. We have very good and good players, and I think, offensively, within the group there's plenty of potential to raise their games and put together elite performance. PCA was 15th in fWAR last year and is 13th this year. Do you need a top 10 guy? The Yankees and Dodgers, as expected, each have a guy better than PCA this year. But it's Ben Rice and Andy Pages, not Judge and Shohei (offensively). The (comfortably) best player in baseball plays for a 23-37 team right now. So you need an elite guy AND a Cubs level supporting cast, otherwise don't bother?

There's 9 guys in a baseball lineup. Any one hitter can only take 11% of the PAs in any given game. Pile up good players and you get good offensive results, we have 8 months of the Cubs to show that, as much as people seem to hate the numbers there. Go get the best starter you can if costs you a bunch of dudes who are blocked and haven't produced at the highest level. Will it work? Probably not! 29 teams go home every year. Will it be more fun and give us a better shot? Yes. 

Yep, I agree with you. Also, tbh, I think peanut is the one who started the whole idea of needing a superstar, not GH8888. He was the originator of the idea of needing a superstar bat to win a WS and proceeded to name superstar bats on teams that won. Only problem was he was naming not superstars and sometimes not even bats (Strasburg, Scherzer, etc). Also included Austin Riley as a superstar bat and mentioned the year Texas won the WS they had Seager and 4 all stars. None of which would be considered a superstar, btw. 

[Rcal10]

3 minutes ago, Gjfificifjdej said:

Yeah exactly, if the offence doesn’t play to its true talent level, nothing we can realistically acquire will make enough difference to save the season, even if Boyd and Cabrera come back and pitch well. 

 

1 minute ago, muntjack said:

This team is currently missing almost its entire projected rotation and is still above .500.  I know how they got here is frustrating, but it's not the great failure some are positing.  

An oddity. Two great posts in a row. Nicely done!

[Outshined_One]

I don't even know if the Cubs even have the ammunition to acquire someone we'd think of as a "star", be it a SP or a bat, right now in what we'd consider a fair deal.  Their most exciting prospects are in A-ball, and their high level young players in the majors range from "great defensive 2B/3B whose bat might come around" to "positionless guy with a decent-but-maybe-really-good bat?" to "our manager periodically forgets they're on the major league roster".

Like...I think of Shaw for Skubal as a huge overpay, but what else would the Cubs have to offer that would get the Tigers to trade for him compared to what a team like the Dodgers could offer?

[Geographyhater8888]

40 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

At the risk of going circular, they'd stop being 'random names' if they won a championship right? There may not be a Betts-type name in there, but Contreras, Misierowski, Yelich all either have or could put up those elite offensive seasons. And I guess your contention is that they haven't won a World Series because they aren't elite players, but at the end of the day 

I was taking issue, and it might not have been you specifically, of this thought process of like, 'well we don't have a superstar so we shouldn't try to improve the team'. It just feels like self-defeating logic. We have very good and good players, and I think, offensively, within the group there's plenty of potential to raise their games and put together elite performance. PCA was 15th in fWAR last year and is 13th this year. Do you need a top 10 guy? The Yankees and Dodgers, as expected, each have a guy better than PCA this year. But it's Ben Rice and Andy Pages, not Judge and Shohei (offensively). The (comfortably) best player in baseball plays for a 23-37 team right now. So you need an elite guy AND a Cubs level supporting cast, otherwise don't bother?

There's 9 guys in a baseball lineup. Any one hitter can only take 11% of the PAs in any given game. Pile up good players and you get good offensive results, we have 8 months of the Cubs to show that, as much as people seem to hate the numbers there. Go get the best starter you can if costs you a bunch of dudes who are blocked and haven't produced at the highest level. Will it work? Probably not! 29 teams go home every year. Will it be more fun and give us a better shot? Yes. 

 

Sure. Miz is in the running for a Cy Young and Turang is establishing himself as the best second baseman in baseball. It’s not a rule. The 2015 Royals had no truly memorable names besides maybe Zobrist whose fame is tied to the Cubs.

I think the superstar question is rooted in skepticism over Jed’s quirky roster construction. If you look at all the other teams with $250 million top 10 payrolls, he’s the only GM without a player signed to a $200+ million contract and a roster mainly comprised of high floor, medium length deal vets with a few exceptions. There’s a bit of unfamiliarity with the lack of aggressive signings unless I’m mistaken. 

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Geographyhater8888

[Geographyhater8888]

10 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Yep, I agree with you. Also, tbh, I think peanut is the one who started the whole idea of needing a superstar, not GH8888. He was the originator of the idea of needing a superstar bat to win a WS and proceeded to name superstar bats on teams that won. Only problem was he was naming not superstars and sometimes not even bats (Strasburg, Scherzer, etc). Also included Austin Riley as a superstar bat and mentioned the year Texas won the WS they had Seager and 4 all stars. None of which would be considered a superstar, btw. 

I thought I made it pretty clear that Texas was the exception. 

[squally1313]

4 minutes ago, Outshined_One said:

I don't even know if the Cubs even have the ammunition to acquire someone we'd think of as a "star", be it a SP or a bat, right now in what we'd consider a fair deal.  Their most exciting prospects are in A-ball, and their high level young players in the majors range from "great defensive 2B/3B whose bat might come around" to "positionless guy with a decent-but-maybe-really-good bat?" to "our manager periodically forgets they're on the major league roster".

Like...I think of Shaw for Skubal as a huge overpay, but what else would the Cubs have to offer that would get the Tigers to trade for him compared to what a team like the Dodgers could offer?

Well if Shaw is a huge overpay, how much further is a team like the Dodgers going to go? Like, yeah, in an 'empty the farm' contest we probably can't compete. But the point of a guy like Skubal is that the market historically hasn't set the cost for two months of elite pitching to be 'empty the farm'. Is Josue de Paula (160 wRC in AA, corner outfield at best) and/or Eduardo Quintero (high A centerfielder with a 108 wRC) more valuable than Shaw? I have no idea. Are the Dodgers trading their best/top 2 prospects for a playoff starter when they have Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Glasnow already? 

It certainly won't be 'fair' in that we'd be getting like 2 wins out of Skubal and giving up 4 years of control of of a 2-3 win player. But there's not really a team in baseball (very good offense, decimated pitching, not guaranteed a playoff spot, almost assuredly would be playing a 3 game series if they made it) that would benefit more from that sort of upgrade. 

[Rcal10]

8 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

I thought I made it pretty clear that Texas was the exception. 

Again, I said it wasn’t you. It was peanut. This started pages ago with his idea of superstars. You did say Texas was the exception. He didn’t. 

[Outshined_One]

5 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Well if Shaw is a huge overpay, how much further is a team like the Dodgers going to go? Like, yeah, in an 'empty the farm' contest we probably can't compete. But the point of a guy like Skubal is that the market historically hasn't set the cost for two months of elite pitching to be 'empty the farm'. Is Josue de Paula (160 wRC in AA, corner outfield at best) and/or Eduardo Quintero (high A centerfielder with a 108 wRC) more valuable than Shaw? I have no idea. Are the Dodgers trading their best/top 2 prospects for a playoff starter when they have Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Glasnow already? 

It certainly won't be 'fair' in that we'd be getting like 2 wins out of Skubal and giving up 4 years of control of of a 2-3 win player. But there's not really a team in baseball (very good offense, decimated pitching, not guaranteed a playoff spot, almost assuredly would be playing a 3 game series if they made it) that would benefit more from that sort of upgrade. 

My post was more to say: if the Cubs *aren't* going to trade Shaw for Skubal, how can they beat a team with a deep farm system (such as the Dodgers) in making a potential deal for Skubal?

[squally1313]

12 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

 

Sure. Miz is in the running for a Cy Young and Turange is establishing himself as the best second baseman in baseball. It’s not a rule. The 2015 Royals had no memorable names, but it’s rare.

I think the superstar question is rooted in skepticism over Jed’s quirky roster construction. If you look at all the other teams with $250 million top 10 payrolls, he’s the only GM without a player signed to a $200+ million contract and a roster mainly comprised of high floor, medium length deal vets with a few exceptions. There’s a bit of unfamiliarity with the lack of aggressive signings unless I’m mistaken. 

 

Yeah I think that's fair in calling the construction unique for a big market team. I think the whole organization was pretty barren 5ish years ago, and you're still seeing some lasting effects from there (the Taillon deal in particular stands out for me. he was never going to be anything more than he was, but we needed innings because we had no internal options and really just needed to spend money somewhere after stripping it down to the bones).

I think Jed needs to take more shots. I think his decisions have been largely proven correct compared to the alternatives (Dansby has been better than Bogaerts and Correa, Turner has put up 15 fWAR to Dansby's 13.5 but Turner is having an awful year and has an extra 4 years, $108m on the books for ages 37-40). But I think he's somewhat maxed out how far he can take this approach if he isn't going to produce studs (a la the big contracts that Julio or Vlad Jr have gotten) from within the organization. Take a couple chances.

[Rcal10]

2 minutes ago, Outshined_One said:

My post was more to say: if the Cubs *aren't* going to trade Shaw for Skubal, how can they beat a team with a deep farm system (such as the Dodgers) in making a potential deal for Skubal?

I think every team in baseball has enough in their system to get Skubal. Whether it be prospects or young major leaguers with a lot of control left, like Shaw. It isn’t like the Tigers are going to get 2 or 3 top 50-75 prospects for him. So the question isn’t how can the Cubs or any team beat out the Dodgers for him. It is does a team want to give up what the Tigers want for him? They all can, but will they? 

[gflore34]

I believe the discussions of Skubal or anyone else of his ilk are academic, Hoyer has never paid the costs for such a trade.  And, never will.  Should be talking more Robbie Ray type or perhaps, Logan Webb - an uptick, clearly not in Skubal tier.