Cubswin11

I think ultimately we see both KB and Q dealt, which would put the team ~$27M under the tax. That's enough room to extend Javy (adds $8-9M), add 2-3 bench bats ($3-5M each), and leave a small reserve (~$5) for the trade deadline. But with so many moving parts, they don't want to close off any possibilities early. And if extending Javy really is part of Plan A, that may be why they don't even want to do something modest like a Shogo signing before they know they've got a preferred KB deal done. If you're trading KB and Q, then why in the world are we keeping a $16 million closer and a $13 million relief pitcher? Yeah, hmm. Really hard to figure out why they’d be stuck having to keep Kimbrel and Chatwood.

Yeah I don’t see how they can do a Javy extension if they are going under the LT. Or see how that’s the smart thing to do at least, it keeps them from adding anything pretty much.

OSU is gonna KD Dobbins leg. Don’t let him play.

Genuinely curious why you bring this up this year, when there are clearly three elite teams and everybody else.

Really need a 8+ team playoff though

2/17 seems like a healthy deal for a 31 year old who’s season ended with a broken foot and was a 1 win player.

Just one more question!!! Are things better than assets or the same? Decide for yourself

If Derwood is still wondering what the dozen posts defending Almora were spoofing - no doubt he is - look no further! I horsefeathers knew it - team need is as much a factor in selling an actual cheap prime aged All Star talent with the bat to back it up. JMO using your best and most real world valuable stuff to shop for needs *and* that need isn't even fixed immediately is just something that cannot add up in my head Marsh is coming off his best pro season after a very meh year in the Cal, for sure the most friendly non-PCL league in the minors if not outright. He's not an ARL guy so his stats kinda are what they are for the level, and yeah his line in the SL was good this year but again also the best he's ever done and without much power for a guy very close to typical peak years for power. He's nowhere near the prospect or player Heyward or even Bradley Jr. were at the same stage, and is yet another guy we have to push back dates for to accommodate the big potential breakout that has to come because because. And if the next step would be something about the juiced ball giving him a boost...Why not Cubs? How does that only seem to work in the favor for non-Cubs who are also worse than current Cubs? Disregard this part if juiced ball wasn't going to come up, just going on a hunch I think he’s a pretty solid prospect, I like what I’ve read on him and the year he’s coming off of. He also was a 2 sport guy in HS and had an injury in 2017, there could be more in there as he’s now fully in on baseball. Him and Canning is a nice package for Willy and Q, imo, with another thing or two coming back. Especially if we must get below the LT. If you don’t like him for whatever reasons I get it, I’m not dead set on wanting to do this. Just something I could live with hearing what we’ve heard we may have to do with moving guys and money and the type of prospect trade targets (CF and SP) we’ve heard they’d target. I don’t care to really discuss this more than that.

He is a pretty solid athlete by all accounts, CF is so thin across MLB right now that’s a selling point in and of itself. His stat line in AA was pretty solid .300/.383/.428, 11%+ BB rate, manageable K rate, 18 SB, 7 HR, .370+ wOBA, 137 wRC+. I can see a little good season JBJ in him, Odubel Herrera, good versions of Fowler, maybe some Braves year versions of Heyward. Canning is also a major league ready SP that is a 4/5 right now with some middle rotation upside.

JMO maybe Cubs should throw in another good player. Is that really fair to the Angels? Cubs are getting min 12 years of sweet precious control and giving up just 4 If they want a Zagunis, Giambrone, Underwood, Maples to even that out go nuts. They’re getting far more certainty and the most value right now. Plus Willy is an underpriced asset for at least 2 of the next 3 years.

If we have to get below the LT, Willy and Q to the Angels for Brandon Marsh, Griffin Canning and 1-2 other prospects is something I could live with. Canning can go in the rotation this year, Marsh is potentially the CF’er in second half 2020 or some time in 2021. Trading off Willy and Q gets us about $12 million below the LT, fwiw.

Yeah I agree. I like Bohm, Kieboom or Robles more than anything the Braves have to offer (pitcher or position player). I just hate going so pitching centric on a return for KB, give me a little more certainty with a position player. It’s too bad there wasn’t more certainty Bohm could stick at 3B because I like his bat the most of any name we’ve heard. But since it sounds like he’s COF/1B destined I think I want Kieboom the most. If we must go down this path, that is. My two preferred packages right now would be: 1. Kieboom or Robles then 1-3 other things (depending on rank or whatever), 2-10 or so in their system is all pitching so 1-2 of those guys then maybe another guy or two below that. 2. Bohm, Spencer Howard and 1-2 more guys probably in their 12-20+ org range.

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A .928 OPS into not being impressive before working down from there. Even with no context but league by league stats, that's elite Never said it wasn’t impressive, it is. The point was to be generous and show that even if he OPS’s in MLB what he did in MiLB the ceiling is still a limited player in MLB assuming he remains a DH/bad OF defender with an all bat type profile (which likely won’t be as good as his MiLB OPS). All indicators point to that being the case, and again this is still a plenty fine player and I’m not saying he’s going to be bad or bust out or anything. All I’m saying is I don’t see a super elite/valuable superstar type player in him, there’s less than like a 5% chance of that happening to me. What’s your argument that he isn’t a 2-3 win player on average with a ~4 win ceiling? Other than “young for his league?” You’ve been given real examples of likely MLB comps showing his path to being a 4+ guy on average/annually likely isn’t happening. Soler and Meadows aren’t “picked out of a hat” they’re pretty darn close major league comps that currently do things better than Eloy (even better at MLB level than his MiLB numbers). I’m capping him at 2-3 with a ~4 win year being his likely ceiling because looking around the league comping his profile (or even better ones) that 2-3 wins with a 4ish ceiling is exactly what you consistently see. It’s not a generic knock or words, I’ve told you what I see him being value wise. A 2-3 win guy on average most likely with a ~4 win ceiling. That’s “plenty good but not elite” to me. Elite is being consistently at 5+ on average with some 6-8+ win seasons mixed in, to me, it’s hard to see Eloy ever being that.

Cool spin, but a .928 *career* MiL OPS from a guy who did it all from 17-22, including .400+ wOBAs in AA at 20-21, is the good stuff What am I trying to spin? You threw out his minor league slash line and I gave two pretty close comps to his profile at the major league level who OPS’d his MiLB OPS +/- just this past season and they weren’t super valuable or “elite” players. It seems pretty generous to assume a guy is going to hit at or above his MiLB OPS/slash line at the MLB level (at least over the course of his career, maybe a peak year or two he does). The whole point of this is showing that while he is a plenty good hitter it’s pretty hard for him to ever be super valuable with his profile. Schwarbwer and Bryant (and this is just eyeballing the numbers because I don’t care to do the math) appear to have averaged over a 1.000 OPS for their MiLB careers. Nobody expected them to be at that or exceed it at the major league level. That’s insane. Sure it’s indicative they’re likely a good MLB hitter but their MiLB OPS is not the expected baseline or production level at the MLB level. There’s nearly a 100% certainty there’s going to be a discount.

Just a reminder that this guy hit .311/.359/.569 in the minors over almost 1800 PAs before graduating by 22. The lack of walks, he only topped doubled digit walk rates in 2017 at High A, will hurt him but guys like Nelson Cruz and JD Martinez have put together some really productive careers with similar issues So a .928 OPS as a minor leaguer with bad COF defense or DH. Soler and Austin Meadows were both at .922 OPS this year and seem like a decent comp to him with their profiles if he’s able to OPS at the major league level he did at MiLB level (which is likely being generous). Soler was at 3.6 WAR and Meadows was at 4. They both walked 3-4% more and Meadows struck out less, Soler was roughly the same. Eloy is also a far worse fielder than Meadows and him and Soler are probably about the same. It’s just a really hard profile to be “superstar” or “elite” valuable also throwing in Eloy has already missed time in multiple seasons with injuries. But that’s not a bad thing either, a 2-4 win player has plenty of use and is a perfectly fine outcome for nearly every prospect.

If he literally brought nothing else of value to the table to being a good baseball player I doubt it. Especially in an environment where everyone with a pulse and a couple hundred PAs hits in the 20s to 30+ HRs. He’s kinda capped as a 2-3 win player with his profile, maybe he has a peak 4+ year as an outlier. For example, JD Martinez hit .304/.383/.557 with 36 HRs with double the walk rate and about 1/3rd fewer Ks than Eloy last year and was only worth 3.2 WAR. As I posted before, I never said he was a great player and MLB has become a place where one-dimensional players are on every team. The AL has paid them a lot of money and extended their careers by having the DH. At 22 years old, it's kind of hard to predict what he'll do in the future. You literally called him a superstar slugger on the last page. Sure it’s hard to be 100% certain what his future brings but seeing his minor league production, injury history, knowing his clear limitations and getting some major league numbers on him now it isn’t too hard to be relatively certain what he becomes looking at what other guys with his profiles typically do. He needs to take leaps he’s probably not capable of (increase BB rate, lower K rate, play good defense and be a good base runner) to turn in to anything that isn’t perennially a slight above average player by WAR.

why do you do this Because if a 22 year-old hit 31 HR in his rookie season for the Cubs, you would be gushing about how great he is. If he literally brought nothing else of value to the table to being a good baseball player I doubt it. Especially in an environment where everyone with a pulse and a couple hundred PAs hits in the 20s to 30+ HRs. He’s kinda capped as a 2-3 win player with his profile, maybe he has a peak 4+ year as an outlier. For example, JD Martinez hit .304/.383/.557 with 36 HRs with double the walk rate and about 1/3rd fewer Ks than Eloy last year and was only worth 3.2 WAR.

Swing and miss can ironically be a good thing for BABIP actually. You want someone who either swings and misses or hits the ball on a line. Like Javy basically. That being said the ceiling for true talent BABIP probably isn't much higher than .340 or .350, so Anderson's gonna have to improve in other ways (to your point by cleaning up his defense probably) to be more than an average regular. Yeah. I’ve never really looked at Anderson’s numbers but like he could basically be SS Almora with a few more Dongs with his batted ball profiled and BB/K numbers. His 2018 and 2017 were very Almora like but just a little more power. I see last year being a peak year for Anderson much more than I see it being any kind of jump/growth is really what I’m saying and I think a bottoming out and hitting like Almora for a year or two in the next 3-5 years is far more likely than repeating last year/growing off it.

I just looked up Tim Anderson with all this White Sox talk, I had no idea he ran almost a .400 BABIP last year (.399). That’s pretty crazy given doesn’t have great contact ability. I’d be pretty surprised if he’s much more than a 1.5-2 win player next year. Between the defense and likely BABIP correction.

I don’t think we’re getting like Jo Adell for Q, but Kluber was hurt and really, really shitty last year, makes $7-8 mil more than Q this year and is 33/34. I think they could get a fringe top 100 guy for Q or like a newer version of Monty. Griffin Canning from the Angels would be a really nice get for him, IMO.

Other than Holt I’d take him back over any of these other names out there.