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My guess is this is the main reasons they were so focused on players with control. They didn't want to expend too many resources on rentals, so they went for the home run players. They didn't land any of them, so at the last minute they pivoted to rentals that wouldn't cost very much. It feels like they saw this season as a good opportunity, but the seasons upcoming as even better. So they tried to balance out those two thoughts.

It probably matters what the upgrade is. If they have to overpay for a mid to back of the rotation starter or bench bat, that doesn't seem worth it. The Cubs very well may not need the help to make the playoffs, and those types of players don't tend to help you very much in the playoffs. It might add a couple percentage points to their chances of making the playoffs, and that does have value. But that value is probably not close to what those players tend to cost. If it's a reliever, those help you in the playoffs more, but it's more of a luxury item than a glaring need at this point. An elite reliever would certainly help the bullpen, but their value would be mitigated by pushing down perfectly fine options down a slot. A starting offensive option makes quite a bit of sense, but the question is where. Unless the Cubs are ready to trade one of their young starting options for a veteran, there doesn't seem to be a great spot to upgrade that won't block one of their young expected stars. An elite starter makes the most sense in terms of providing upgrade both now and in the playoffs, but obviously depends on how much competitors bid up for what will likely be a very scarce supply. The Cubs may still upgrade, but both their playoff positioning right now and their roster composition makes upgrading a much harder decision than it would be in a normal year. It's not typical to have such a strong chance at the wildcard while being on the very fringes of the division race in July. Usually a team would either have a stronger chance of winning the division which would make upgrading more valuable, or they would be stuck in the middle of a thick wildcard race which would also make upgrading more valuable. Maybe the Cubs will move one of those two directions in the next couple of weeks, but right now that's not where they are.

2013 was solidly better pretty much across the board other than a higher strikeout rate. That's especially true in the type of contact stats. The good news is that eyeballing the 2013 numbers they look a little unlucky.

The scary thing is that last year is starting to look like the outlier in Castro's peripherals. The strikeout rate has been up for 2.5 years, and that is mostly due to the fact that his contact rate has gone down every single year of his career. Last year he compensated for that by increasing his hr rate per fly ball to the highest rate of his career and having a Babip that was closer to his early years despite hitting more fly balls than normal along with the highest walk rate of his career. Then this year has been a disaster peripherally. Contact rate has gone down again, he's hitting tons of soft hits, very few line drives, lots of infield pop ups, walk rate is terrible, etc. He is just lost at the plate. I have a hard time seeing him return to his early years with his contact rate degrading so badly. Last year was an encouraging sign that he possibly could replace that with walks and power, but this year is changing that possibility quickly. If the Cubs get overall average play from Castro over the next few years, it might be a surprise at this point.

Average at best, sure. But I think the specific quote was slightly above average. Fowler seems like a reasonable peak upside 3.5 win player at this moment. And going forward, I don't know how reasonable that upside is. He certainly could remain a 0 to +5 defensive player. But I don't see the 350+ BABIP being very likely in an age 30-33 contract, especially as his speed declines just a little. And those are the sorts of BABIP he has needed anytime he has been a 1 win or better offensive player. He obviously is hitting more fly balls this year which is helping his power, but that seems to mostly be a difference rather than a help so far. Reasonable upside seems more in the 2.5 to 3 range going forward after this year. And there's a growing list of reasons why he might not hit that upside as the years go on.

what was that, 60/4? I'd be fine with that. Yikes, I would not be. this is what baseball players cost. $15M AAV is not a lot of money. that's going rate for a slightly above average season. slightly. Which happens to be all that Fowler has ever given in his prime. There isn't that much potential for upside, and there's lots of avenues for downside. He could easily do what Bourn did for example. Signing Fowler wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. But I think the wiser route is qualifying offer and likely pocketing the pick. I'm not a fan of locking in players who are on that sort of trajectory. It's too easy to have massive playing time questions if they decline even a little bit.

Hmm, that's an interesting question. They are in many ways very similar players. High power, good defense at their positions. Baez has the big positional edge. Soler had a massive edge in the strikeout category, but this year from him has been worrying in that department while Baez's season was a little encouraging. Soler still has an edge in that area, but it's not nearly as big. Soler also has a bigger injury concern. They're probably pretty close at this point. Soler with a little better chance have a career in the majors, Baez with a better chance to be a massive player. Probably depends on your risk tolerance.

meh, it's too close to take with two strikes if the catcher sets up there, the pitcher hits the spot and the catcher frames it well. they also set it up well with the previous pitch, which was a little too far outside. as the post above says, that pitch gets called a strike 40% of the time against LH batters, so until robot umps come to mlb, it may be a good idea to swing in that spot. It would be interesting to know the math on that. Even if a player gets called out 40% of the time, it might be worth it because they aren't going to do much with a pitch like that anyway. And that doesn't even count the residual effects. I don't know if a player can expand their strike zone in certain situations and not have it bleed a little bit over in situations it shouldn't.

I think that's more of a necessity based on facing a lefty and Soler being out, no? Maybe. Don't see why Herrera in the OF wouldn't make as much sense (if not more) if there were no plans/thoughts whatsoever about Bryant to LF. Bryant has already played more innings in the OF for the Cubs this year than Herrera has in the majors or minors. Maddon clearly thinks Bryant is fine as a backup OF, while Herrera is an IF only. I don't agree with your reasoning. What explains the game in CF earlier in the season then? How is this different than that one? It seems to me to be the exact same situation. An OF is hurt and they are facing a left-hander.

I think that's more of a necessity based on facing a lefty and Soler being out, no? Maybe. Don't see why Herrera in the OF wouldn't make as much sense (if not more) if there were no plans/thoughts whatsoever about Bryant to LF. Bryant has already played more innings in the OF for the Cubs this year than Herrera has in the majors or minors. Maddon clearly thinks Bryant is fine as a backup OF, while Herrera is an IF only.

It's unusual that a three quarters of a season can swing perceptions wildly on a player, but Castro seems to be at that crossroads. If he puts up 2-3 WAR over the remaining part of this season, then he still is a bargain player who can be an average player at a below average price. If he stays at 0, then suddenly he's put up 0 two out of the last three years. His contract is in many ways extremely worrisome at that point, because you have a player signed for four more years that may very well need to get benched if he starts 2016 slowly. Castro's risk profile is growing every day. His peripherals are scary bad. I don't think it's time to sound the alarm bells just yet, but I think his assumed safety has been overemphasized.

Whut. I think he's referring to 2013 and this year. Obviously this year is not even quite 1/4 over so it's a little unfair including it. On the other hand, he has the worst peripherals of his career this year basically across the board, so there's no imminent sign that his season is going to turn around.

I think 10/$150 might not be terribly unpalatable for either side. Figuring about $60 million might buy out the arbitration years (including this year) and then tack on the rest for the final 3 years. Hmm... 2015: .5M 2016: .5M 2017: 2M (arb 1) 2018: 4M (arb 2) 2019: 8M (arb 3) 2020: 15M (arb 4) 2021: 30M (FA) 2022: 30M (FA) 2023: 30M (FA) 2024: 30M (FA) Total: 10/150M You have it a year off. He doesn't become a super 2 until after 2017. Mike Trout is going to make around 147 million for his first 9 years, and that's with waiting to sign a deal until he had put up 2 10+ WAR seasons.

It'll be interesting to see LeBron actually have to be on the team with the major injury for once rather than get his road to the Finals paved with marshmallows and candy canes. Bosh was hurt for a series and a half their first championship and Wade was playing on one leg for long stretches of the playoffs during their second one. They weren't exactly snake bitten, but they did have some key injuries those years.

The crazy idea I had if things were to change (which I am not in favor of) would be to go the other way. 9 men field, but only 7 of them bat. You can watch the best hitters in the game come up many more times. Great fielders in the minors who can't hit can still have a career and try to compete to be that 8th spot in the lineup. With less pinch hitters needed, bench strategy becomes even more complex to decide if teams want specialist fielders/baserunners on the bench or players that can replace their starters because of injury. You would have a more offensive game, keep most of the cohesion of the same players deciding the game, and yet allow the very best of hitting/defense/baserunning/pitching to all show their skills. I would rather keep the current system though because I do like the strategy. I wouldn't mind a partial DH, but I wouldn't want a full DH.

it's very much worth considering if we somehow overperformed and weren't sellers either of the three years 2012: no Kyle Hendricks* 2013: no Neil Ramirez, Justin Grimm, CJ Edwards, Arrieta, Strop 2014: no Addison Russell, Billy McKinney *this one would probably bother just me though yeah, retroactively wiping out either of those last two deadline hauls is way too deleterious for me to accept One would hope that the FO would have had the ability to construct competitive teams and actually draft well (and work the IFA market) without tanking for higher picks and fire sale trades. Sure, but it would have been a slower process. They almost certainly got inflated value for consistently picking the future asset over the present one. Plus, the Cubs have taken advantage of playing time openings to give more time to reclamation projects that have turned into some extra assets. It's a separate question if that inflated value is worth throwing away seasons. But as the assets in the Cubs portfolio start to mature, they almost certainly are in a better organizational state going forward than if they had gone the other way. That's almost by definition true based on the way the MLB economy works.

That was probably the right mathematical play. It's hard to model, but decreased offensive environment/Wrigley in April/up 1 run late/not a particularly strong #5 hitter changes the calculations quite a bit.

Talk about keeping everybody close to home. Five Indiana teams in the Midwest region!

Yes, he did have control of it. And because of that control, the play is dead when the ball touches. A player is either a receiver (in the process of catching the ball) or a runner (has shown possession of the ball). The rules are different for receivers and runners - a receiver has not yet shown possession of the ball, so if it touches the ground and comes loose, it's incomplete. Because a runner has shown possession of the ball already, when the ball hits, it's dead. in this case, where Bryant catches the ball, takes 2 steps, changes hands with the ball and THEN falls down, it seems more relevant to the runners situation. But JUST because the ball was thrown down the field, that changes everything? idk. and if there is a screen shot of the ball clearly touching the ground, could someone show me it? This is the difference. The NFL considers Bryant to be falling down from the moment he made the catch. He never made a controlled step. Each step was off balance, and so he is considered to be going to the ground the entire time until he regains his balance, which is why he had to control the ball all the way through the ground. If he had jumped, came down, run a couple steps and then tripped, he wouldn't have had to control it all the way through.

San Francisco also did that with Kaepernick. On a lesser level, Bengals with Dalton. I'm not saying it's a good position to be in to by trying to draft a cheap QB that's decent. It's not. That's where the comparison to the NBA comes in. But if you sign one of these non-elite QB's just to be safe, you are tying your hands completely. There have been two QB's in the last 20 years to win a Super Bowl while taking up 10% of a team's cap, and Cutler might eclipse that every single year of his deal despite not being one of the top 10 QB's in the league. It doesn't take away from your point, but per this link, there have been at least 3 over that since 2000. (4 if you count Rodgers at 9.85%) http://overthecap.com/super-bowl-rings-and-the-overpricing-of-the-quarterback/ EDIT: Difference from your results might be that this is using APY. Fair enough. Here is the article I got my figures from : http://q.usatoday.com/2014/03/07/paying-for-an-elite-qb-often-means-not-affording-even-a-mediocre-defense/ There's a decent possibility that another QB over 10% will join that list this year. Manning, Brady, Rodgers, and Flacco are over 10%, while Wilson, Romo, Luck, and Newton are under 10%.

San Francisco also did that with Kaepernick. On a lesser level, Bengals with Dalton. I'm not saying it's a good position to be in to by trying to draft a cheap QB that's decent. It's not. That's where the comparison to the NBA comes in. But if you sign one of these non-elite QB's just to be safe, you are tying your hands completely. There have been two QB's in the last 20 years to win a Super Bowl while taking up 10% of a team's cap, and Cutler might eclipse that every single year of his deal despite not being one of the top 10 QB's in the league.

There's a few elite QB's that maybe someone could say justify their contracts. Then there's a whole middle tier of "meh" QB's that get paid too much because nobody wants to be stuck with the really crappy ones. The "meh" QB's get paid too much and can never live up to the money they get. It's just how the NFL works. The question becomes if that is the way the NFL should work. With the new rookie wage scale, there is a new class of QB's: the relatively cheap ones. And the playoffs have been dominated by the elite QB's and the cheap ones the last couple of years. About 1/3 of the league is non-elite QB's on big deals, and they've had 3 total representatives in the division round the last couple of years: Rivers last year (who lost) and Flacco and Romo this year who are underdogs. The odds of winning a Super Bowl with one of those guys is significantly lower than it was 5-10 years ago. It's pretty low even if you have the best non-elite guy, and Cutler isn't that. The Bears definitely were following a trend, but the question is if it was a trend worth following. It hasn't worked out for many teams lately, and there's a potential of an NBA like treadmill team trend developing.

I think they will almost certainly get Marc Gasol. They will probably sign Jimmy Butler to a max offer too, but the Bulls will match. Not sure what else is out there, unless you believe LeBron will opt out and go to a team that currently has the worst record in the NBA because Phil Jackson and Carmelo Anthony are there. Edit: looking at the FA class there are some good targets, Aldridge, Gasol and Rondo are the "max range" unrestricted FAs available. LeBron, Love and Wade have player options, while Leonard and Butler are restricted. If you go beyond that level you get guys like Al Jefferson, Dragic, DeAndre Jordan, Milsap that might work as secondard pieces, but not really the level of players that the Knicks want to be clearing cap space for. All of the guys with player options will opt out as the cap is going to rise significantly due to the TV deal. Could you imagine if LeBron, Love, and Wade went to the Knicks? LBJ would be murdered the first time back to Cleveland if he leaves them a 2nd time, particularly after all of the "coming home" nonsense from this past offseason. The TV money is not supposed to come until the 2016 offseason, although it's going to jump so massively that there are still lots of discussion on how to try to smooth out the jumps a little better to benefit everyone and not just the FA's that offseason, so it's possible some of that money bleeds forward into this offseason.

The tiebreaker is strength of schedule. Whoever has the easiest schedule gets the 1st pick. Right now that goes Tampa Bay, then Jacksonville, then Tennessee, then Oakland. Where do you get your current SOS numbers? Was glad the Jets won today because now as long as the Raiders lose their last two games, they'll get the No. 3 pick. Worst case was Tennessee beating both the Jets and Jags and leaving the Raiders with the fourth pick. This is where I got them from: http://espn.go.com/nfl/standings/_/type/playoffs

The tiebreaker is strength of schedule. Whoever has the easiest schedule gets the 1st pick. Right now that goes Tampa Bay, then Jacksonville, then Tennessee, then Oakland.