Jason Ross

Regardless of his height, Josh Naylor has been a positive defender. He's a +9 OAA and a +2 DRS. I think height can help, but height is not as necessary as we like to see. Naylor doesn't have a great appearance, and yet, he's a good defender. He moves pretty well for his size.

To counterpoint the first end: teams like the Dodgers and the Astros do so because they're not attempting to win on the margins. The Dodgers can try an Andrew Heaney or an Alex Wood every year because even with those players, they're going to win 93-95 games. Come the playoff time, they bin these guys if they suck, or replace them mid-season with a purchase. Teams like the Rays do so out of pure necessity; they can't not try to fix people. The Cubs are in a goldlilocks zone right now of not being good enough to throw innings or PA's away while not being so incapable of spending that they have an excuse not to find better. If the Cubs were a hands down 90+ win team, I'd be far more amenable to the Cubs playing and tinkering with guys who offer useful profiles if they can work magic. Currently, the Cubs look like they'll probably enter next season in that 85-88 win territory. Good enough to be paper divisional champions, but not so good they have innings to just throw away. While I think a trade could change the equation, I'm not sure they're going to ever to a stage where it's so drastic they have innings for Turnbull. Currently, the Cubs have: Steele, Hendricks, Taillon, Wicks, Smyly, Asad and Wesneski who are likely to make starts in 2024. They'll likely add at least one SP, and maybe two raising that number to 8 or 9. It's a forgone conclusion barring injury that Cade Horton will likely vault into that group by June. Even with a trade where the Cubs lose two of those, Spencer Turnbull is, what, 8th or 9th in line? For someone who wants to resurrect his career, that's not good odds when someone like, Oakland will probably put you 6th in line or so. For the Cubs, you still remain in a situation where you're so very unlikely to use him. Another year, another Cubs team and I think Spencer Turnbull, as explained by yourself, offers an interesting amount of data that suggests with work, tweaks, and changes (don't want to discount that. This is good stuff, Matt!), there's a useful MLB arm. I just think the Cubs aren't either bad or good enough for this to be the best place for him to do that. So really all I disagree with is the "Cub" part.

I don't think the Spencer Turnbulls of the world are bad, but I don't think the Cubs have much to offer someone like Turnbull, either. If you're Spencer Turnbull, you're likely looking for an MLB opportunity to rebuild your career. You're might not get a guarantee to start, but you'd like a pathway. The Cubs don't need to be giving Turnbull's a chance at this stage. We're past the "maybe if we can fix this guy, we can use this guy" stage, IMO. This is a team who, after missing out on Ohtani, will likely still need to win on the margins. Not desperately, but it's not going to be a juggernaut. We have multiple arms I'd far rather see start games. We have other arms who will be useful in the bullpen. It's time to leave the rebuild well in the past and make sure innings are going to arms you trust more. In 2021, I'd say that the Cubs would be a decent bet to take a Turnbull, find something there, and flip him at the deadline as a useful bottom rotational arm for a contending team who was wracked with injuries. Maybe a Washington National type team does that for Turnbull and in July, the Cubs are wracked with injury and we'd like him then. But as of now, while I don't think he'd be an awful player to gamble on for a team, I just don't see the Cubs being able to offer him anything. He's the kind of guy who can probably offer some rebuilding team something, but as a contending team who's less than a juggernaut, probably is too much of a risk to give him much of a chance.

I'd have been a fan of adding Kelenic. Damn.

Yeah, I like the Morel for Woo concept. I think the Morel-for-Woo stuff makes a lot of sense in the event the Cubs move a SP, which may be something they'd need to do to either get Glasnow or Bieber/Clase from the Guardians.

Can't tell if I think the Rays are trying to push the Braves/Dodgers narrative for Glasnow to force an issue with the Cubs, or the Cubs are seemingly losing ground there. Glasnow is one of the few players the Cubs are likely "in" on that represents a true departure from what they're missing: truly impactful talent. Bieber, Imanaga, and Montgomery are all fairly good players but none represent the upside Glasnow does, something I think the team is sorely lacking.

"Tyler Glasnow remains a target, but the Braves and Dodgers look like stiff competition… Hoskins, Glasnow and Shoto Imanaga all make sense and remain targets. Cleveland, the Minnesota Twins and the Seattle Mariners remain teams to watch on the trade market, along with the New York Mets and Alonso. Matt Chapman fits the mold that Hoyer has sought in recent winters, and if Jordan Montgomery’s market doesn’t get out of hand, he looks attractive — especially without a qualifying offer. " The Athletic

Most contracts are coming in higher than expected so far on the upper end of the market. Probably closer to 6/$150m. To your greater point: I'll take 1 year of Bieber over the Montomgery contract. Montgomery is fine. I don't love that contract.

Three smaller transactions today: Will Smith to KC Austin Hedges to Cleveland Andrew Chafin to Detroit. All one year deals. Hopefully signs that things are starting to move a bit here.

Which I mentioned to TT, is fair. At the same time, it doesn't make it good that we don't have Ohtani. There's no argument that a once in a lifetime type player being on another team that is good, however. It doesn't mean we don't have a path to a fine offseason, but I think claiming we don't have him is good...well...I won't agree.

Which is likely fair. It seems quite obvious that the Dodgers were always the choice here. I think the Cubs could have gotten crafty, still offered more AAV/money, played with deferments, but I have a feeling the reports that he knew where he wanted to end up, that he preferred LA...that these were ultimately true. I'm not sure I place that much blame on the Cubs here, because I think based on the Dodgers behavior, and Ohtani's, that as long as the Dodgers were close-ish, this was going to be the end.

Yeah, the market all around is likely very much just about to uncork. I'd guess we have a few acquisitions between the two Sundays.

Yeah, I'd wonder too. My guess is that the Ricketts don't want to be paying $300m for however many years it's differed. But I think that's silly for someone as generationally wealthy as the Ricketts.

The AAV could go down as low as $40m AAV due to differed money (per Passan) and the real-world-value of this will be less than $700m. I have no idea if Ohtani was open to Chicago, or open to this kind of a contract to be in Chicago. What I will say, is on this contract, I disagree that it's a good thing the Cubs didn't get him. It's a bad thing they didn't get him. Ohtani is worth plenty for the team in extra revenue, he's a great-once-in-a-lifetime talent. The Cubs can still come out of this good for 2024. But they won't be as good if they had Ohtani.

That's some deep state conspiracy horsefeathers. But I'm here for it.

Eh. Pass on both if possible. I think Bieber is fine, but the Cubs need strike out power in the rotation. Clase is going to be far too expensive I hate the idea of sinking legitimate trade capital into a RP. Naylor, however, is a guy I'd like,

Credit to the Dodgers for getting their guy. Credit to Ohtani for getting what he wanted. You just can't compete with that.

Probably less because of the Fubs and more everyone else.

$700m. Holy horsefeathers.

Yeah, I've given up thinking Charles has any information.

I will say this: I find this to be a compelling thing. Perhaps everyone is too scared to talk with how bad Jon Morosi looks right now, or just in deference to not having information, but even when local Toronto guys were jumping in on the Ohtani thing, Chicago sat quiet. It's been a weird reaction. I I'd have expected someone to have a reaction to all that talk, even retweeting their previous articles of other plans for the offseason but the silence was noticeable.

Could be. With Ohtani, I would be floored if anyone in gambling was hearing anything, however. This is arguably the most secretive FA recruitment we've ever seen, especially in social media world. My guess is that he got lucky on Judge and this isn't the only time he had jumped at something hours before, but misses 95% of the time. That's usually what these accounts do. Incarcerated Bob was another one of these accounts. With that said, he did surprise me when I saw the tweet wasn't a photoshop job, so I'll give him that. Perhaps CJ is just on it. But I think it'll likely be "in spite of" as opposed to "he knew" even if we sign him. But it's fun to think he's got a line here.

Yeah, I'd guess this guy is full of it. Probably got lucky on Judge, more than assuredly.

Listen, credit to Golson on this: I have been scouring twitter assuming (because he was using screen grabs mostly) that his tweet about Judge was doctored/photoshopped to make it look like he called it when he didn't. But twitter advanced search finds this: Which is the original tweet. Hours before Morosi and Rosenthal. I don't know what this guy does or doesn't know. I'm not claiming him to be real. But I was surprised that.