Cubswin11

That’s a team to take off the list for Willy. Also 2/16 seems like a lot for guy who recently has a 0 and 1 win season and has surpassed 2 WAR since 2015.

Good, short thread. The cutter and curve comment makes me wonder if they’ll try and do the knuckle curve thing with him as his breaking ball pitch since they had luck with that this year with other dudes.

Alright I'm bored on a Saturday, given some of the recent discussions here's another go at a mock offseason. FA Signings: - Akiyama, 3/15 is the rumor so lets call it like 4/22 - Claim/sign Matt Duffy, if he has to be signed he'll be cheap and maybe even only take a minor league deal - Whoever between Robinson Chirinos, Jason Castro and Russell Martin, probably takes 2 years and $9 mil on the low side and $14 mil on the high side - Bring Strop back on a cheap 1 year deal for like $2 million with incentives and he gets the first few months to show it was health issues last year or else he's cut - Do the minor league deal with Morrow Trades: - Q, Bote and Underwood for Jean Segura and Seranthony Dominguez - Contreras, Corey Abbott and Almora for Jon Gray, Carlos Estevez and a prospect 26 man roster: Position Players: 1. Vic C 2. Rizzo 1B 3. Segura 2B 4. Javy SS 5. KB 3B 6. Schwarbs LF 8. Akiyama CF 9. Heyward RF 10. Happ IF/OF 11. Descalso or Kemp (they get until Memorial Day or so until Nico comes back up) 12. Duffy IF 13. Backup C Pitchers: 1. Lester 2. Hendricks 3. Yu 4. Gray 5. Mills (he's out of options so gets first crack) 6. Chatwood 7. Kimbrel 8. Wick 9. Estevez 10. Dominguez 11. Wieck 12. Ryan 13. Strop The offense gets more contact, the Duffy add helps keep Nico down to refine things and work on playing the OF/CF and they can play service time games if they want. The SP depth is pretty deep with Chatwood, Adbert, Cotton, Rea as the next guys up, the bullpen adds two solid arms. It's not a sexy offseason but I think it makes the team better and offense more diverse (contact issues are certainly addressed) without really punting, doesn't really add all that much money for this year and Segura moving forward isn't a crazy deal and the rotation looks to be solid as Hendricks, Yu and Gray are the new anchors.

They were under a 40-man crunch

Yeah seems like a plenty worthy gamble, especially now that we have revamped some pitching development stuff. His change up was his best pitch and elite, iirc. So hopefully there’s some sequencing stuff or clean up with some of his other pitches that can be achieved working with the new guys and they can unlock the potential that had people raving a few years ago.

I think Fangraphs had him at like 1/11 if he hit FA. Lol. Giving him the QO was ridiculously stupid too.

Seems to have some decent zip on that FB/cutter and commands it well in those few clips and shows a decent change/split/sinker as well (hard to tell exactly what that is but it seems to be one of those and he strikes a guy out on whatever it is at the 18-20 second mark). His delivery and motion is a bit funky too, probably plays up out of the pen.

Getting someone who was at Driveline is a good thing and the rest of the hires all seem to be pretty solid/definitely forward thinking.

If I had my choice I’d keep him. But hearing some of the things so far from Theo and Co., we clearly aren’t going all in this year. He’s a 30/31 year old pitcher this year on an expiring deal who probably isn’t a guarantee to get a QO. 1 year ago he only had a 1.7 WAR year and doesn’t have exceptional stuff, if you could turn him in to some stuff that could project to be as good as him this year and still be controlled beyond and not really affect money this year I think it’s worthwhile to explore or if you can do a move to save money this year and still add talent as valuable.

I’m fine moving it back, but more 3s and spacing and pace is a more fun brand of basketball, IMO, over the 90s and before basketball of dumping it in to a big guy and lane clogging and no space or shooting.

Segura is an interesting one. In a vacuum I think of several things I like, but in practice since he's not exactly a top of order bat and that contract is non-trivial, I wonder if he's only a good idea in certain contexts. For example, Q and Almora for Segura and say, Seranthony Dominguez, then use Bote to get a live armed SP to go with a volume rotation approach? I know Quintana only has a year left, but I don't see how how Segura at second over Bote/Hoerner, which to me seems marginal at best, makes up for the downgrade of whatever Bote gets you to Quintana plus Dominguez. I guess it depends on where you fall on the hypothetical spectrum of "let's retool and compete every year indefinitely" vs "pretty much all of our good players are hitting free agency and also old in two years, so let's take advantage" I mean Segura has a 5 win, 4 win, 3.7 win year plus two years comfortably in the 2s. I think he’s an upgrade and makes the team and offense better (probably defense too), especially since the thing he’s good at is something we lack and are looking to add with the contact. Maybe on paper the overall moves in this sequence net you a similar amount of wins but I think it adds more than that with making the offense a little more complete/less 1 dimensional.

Segura is an interesting one. In a vacuum I think of several things I like, but in practice since he's not exactly a top of order bat and that contract is non-trivial, I wonder if he's only a good idea in certain contexts. For example, Q and Almora for Segura and say, Seranthony Dominguez, then use Bote to get a live armed SP to go with a volume rotation approach? Yeah I was thinking something like that. Agree Segura isn’t the lead off option but that contact ability hitting 5/6/7 behind the OBP guys and Javy would be nice plus you have to think he’d be a plus defender at 2B/hedge against Nico or allow him to play CF. But yeah, something like Q/Happ or Bote/Almora or minor league throw in for Segura, Dominguez and Pivetta then use the leftover of Happ or Bote or Willy to go get a SP (Gray, Lamet, etc). The good thing too is that there’s really no money added doing these sequences of moves for this year, so there would be money (you’d think) to go back fill some stuff like bullpen, spend more on backup C, add another quality bench player, etc.

Why would they "realistically be in on" Chirinos if budget suddenly becomes an issue among OFs that can or might hit LHP while Heyward and Schwarber are on the roster? I just don't see him as a realistic target if budgeting under the cap is such a big deal Overall though, I think the whole LHP masher thing is a manufactured need, more of a want, than something to really lock in on players for. This team was boring to watch the past few years no matter what hand the pitcher threw with He’s not costing more than $4-6 mil a year. There’s no clear cheap options for OF lefty matching as far as I know and I don’t think we’re “realistically” in on Nick, Ozuna or Garcia for varying reasons. Chirinos is a cheap way to possibly help plug a hole this team had last year when there aren’t clear alternatives and the likelihood of moving Schwarbs and especially Heyward aren’t high. If you can add a guy like Chirinos who has a 120 wRC+ or whatever vs LHP you can get away with Heyward maybe having to play with them a bit and burying him in the order.

Sure. But if we believe whoever is added is more the backup and Vic is getting ~115 starts, Chirinos brings a lefty mashing bat which we know is also something we need to address. I think this is where I have the most disconnect, my goal would be to find someone I consider to be Caratini's equal from a productivity perspective. If they complement each other(e.g. a lefty masher) all the better, but I think you create the greatest outcome by not intentionally getting someone known to be worse than Caratini. That is probably marginally more expensive, but I think the incremental couple million is worth the benefit/risk minimization. That’s fair and yeah probably how I think it should work now that you laid it out. I still think Vic is the nominal starter in the event Willy is moved, regardless of who comes in but it will probably be like a 90/70 start split with him and TBD FA.

- I don't think it's anywhere near consensus that whoever is added is the backup, Caratini doesn't have that kind of pull - Nothing about making the AS bat first catcher available for trade says they're looking to solve the offense's problems through C - Lefty mashing bat is a very clearly an OF thing There doesn’t seem to be any real options out there that fit this profile that we’d realistically be in on. Listen I’m fine going another direction than Chirinos but he does bring something to help the overall composition of the team.

Segura has 3/45 or so left, they apparently are in on Didi and want to move Kingery back to the IF. Like last year, he still would be a really nice target for us at 2B if they are looking to reshuffle things a bit/move money around. Something around some combo of Q, Bote, Happ and some smaller pieces could be something that makes sense for both sides.

Morosi was just in The Score, he implied Gray will be available via trade. It was taking primarily White Sox and their next moves but he seemed to make it pretty clear that Gray can be had.

Yeah but we know that the team's shopping for more upside defensively which Chirinos doesn't really check...The other two have been top of the league framers at their best, Chirinos peaked at about average, and also have some bat Sure. But if we believe whoever is added is more the backup and Vic is getting ~115 starts, Chirinos brings a lefty mashing bat which we know is also something we need to address.

Castro, Chirinos and Martin are all about the same to me, I can find something to like about any of them. I’d probably go with whoever comes cheaper and doesn’t take more than 2 years guaranteed.

Pretty ideal outcome for us here. Grandal goes to a non Brewers/Reds team and to an AL team that won’t affect us, also goes to a team we wouldn’t be dealing Willy to so it leaves all the options still on the table there. Plus the VBs and Reds need to add a catcher still so they could steal a guy from a team in the market for a catcher and help up the need/level of interest in Willy for those teams.

I’ll take that, especially if he can handle CF adequately and also is only going to cost ~$5 mil a year.

He’s a top 3-5 player in the league and I think you could make a convincing argument he’s the 2nd best only behind Giannis.

Rodriguez is a pretty shocking add, it seems like, he can hit 100. 4 (really 5 since Russell is gonna be gone in 2-3 weeks at the tender deadline) spots open is also interesting/intriguing......

He’s a high contact rate guy and can play a few spots, could see us targeting him.