Jason Ross

Bob hasn't tweeted pure nonsense in a few hours. Let him go back into his cave.

Frankly I hope he keeps getting opt-outs after one year and this can be MLB's off-season kickoff. Every year we huddle around twitter creepin' on Ohtani's travels to figure out which MLB franchise he signs with this time. Spoiler alert, every year the Dodgers are the favorite and he never picks them. Hard Knocks can eat their heart out. Sho-Time is here to stay. Coming soon to STARZ.

Cant wait for him to have an opt-out after 2 years and we can do this all again soon.

Dodgers guy seemed like he was right, too.

For clarity's sake: From multiple sources (two Toronto based, Passan and Gonzalez) he has not made a decision. It would be weird if he hadn't made a choice, but took a flight to Toronto. It wasn't that "a decision was unknown" but a definitive "not". The "dinner reservations" was tweeted by an opera singer in Toronto who's been tweeting incessantly about Ohtani for days now and has under 1K followers. None of whom had any connection to being a legitimate sports reporter. I don't think that is his plane. I don't think that the dinner reservations are accurate. I think the first is a coincidence and the second someone pretending to know things. That doesn't mean I think any less of the smoke blowing; it certainly seems like right now Toronto is likely the choice ultimately. Only that I think these other two things are not useful in helping us make that determination.

Bingo. The real likelihood is that the plane has someone else on it who's flying from Anaheim to Toronto for X reason. And then some opera singer, who has been tweeting incessantly about Ohtani for a bit, faked Kikuchi's sushi booking to make him self seem self-important. None of that is to discount how likely the Jays feel right now, only that I really have a lot of doubt about these plane trackers and dinner plans.

I'll say this: if Passan/Gonzalez are saying he's not made a choice, it's likely not his flight. Be weird to not make a decision but fly to Toronto.

He seems like some sort of reputable Dodgers blogger. Got a handful of retweets from reputable folks. With that said, the quick squash likely means this was either not sourced well and he ran with it, or just bad journalism.

To confirm. No decision.

https://dodgersnation.com/shohei-ohtani-to-sign-with-toronto-blue-jays-over-los-angeles-dodgers-sources/2023/12/08/ This is the first reports of Ohtani, indeed, choosing the Blue Jays. There is no confirmation yet, however this seems real.

https://www.si.com/mlb/cubs/news/cubs-reportedly-viewed-as-finalists-for-shohei-ohtani-jon9 There's not much there. But it's the faintest puff of smoke.

Yeah, the Cubs are strange in that my only hope for the Cubs pulling this one out is the amount of *not* smoke on the Cubs part. They're odd in that when they pull moves, many times they just...happen. And with how little there has been on the Cubs for the past week, it both could make you think they're just way out, or way deep. All that said, Toronto really sounds like the pick right now.

If there's at least a positive for looking forward to Myrtle, is that there are some upside young players who could break out there. Someone like Zyhir Hope, or any of these fun IFA kids, maybe McGuire figures out some control...I think Myrtle Beach is going to be fun for someone I just don't know who it is yet. There's a really interesting crew of young players who will probably make their way into Myrtle at some point.

Morosi seems to think it's Toronto. He was on MBLN talking about his standing with the Jay sand just tweeted a Canadian flag,

Mike is usually way off, and he's got a few teams listed who seem *way* off. But he did nail the Jorge Lopez to NYM thing recently. Passing it along, take it how you wish. https://twitter.com/mikedeportes/status/1733130726340518166?t=8RsEXDWh7RSGRom-wRLZCA&s=19

Have they been? The first is their actual deal vs the crowd-sourced predictions. It should be noted that the AAV in the crowd sourcing doesn't always match up with the contract value because the crowd sourcing isn't dealing in whole numbers for years. For example, Gray's AAV is $21.4m crowd sourced because the average years is 3.24 and not a nice, round, 3. Sonny Gray - 3/$75m ($25m aav) + option year for 1/$30m vs 3/$69m ($21.4m AAV) Jemier Candelrio: 3/$45m ($15m AAV) vs 3/$36.6m ($12.4m AAV) Eduardo Rodriguez: 4/$80m ($20m AAV) vs 4/$80m ($20m AAV) Aaron Nola: 7/$172 ($24.5m AAV) vs 5/$125m ($25m AAV) Shohei Ohanti - ??? vs 10/$450m Yoshi Yamamoto - ??? vs 7/$172m Jordan Montomgery - ??? vs 4/$100m Shoto Imanaga - ??? vs 4/$70m (reportedly already has deals over $100m) Just looking across the board, average crowd sourcing seems to be doing far better on the lower-end of the market (where there's inherently less variance. No one is blowing the doors off of Nick Martinez or Emilio Pagan, for example). Where they seem to be low is on the top end of the market, and pretty consistently by at least a decent margin. Sonny Gray may not feel drastically different at $75m vs $69, but 3.5m AAV isn't a nothing number (and his $25m AAV is closer to Clemons $26m). Same for Candelario. They're way off on Ohtani, Yamamoto, Imanaga, and Montgomery from the looks of it. Ben Clemens is much higher on all them and even he's likely low on all of them. Considering there is just not a premium amount of bats behind Ohtani, it's very likely that Chapman goes for much closer to Ben Clemens 5/$120m projection than the crowd sourced 4/$80m. If the Cubs could get Chapman on 4/$80m, that'd be a near steal. He's easily going to match that contract on value, QO attached or not. Which is also why he's not going to come in that low.

Not that this is necessarily the article for it, but I still have some concerns long term with Swanson, and I think he's kind of a good comparison to Chapman. They have some of similarities in profiles (though not really 1:1 across the board). I've at least come around to the idea that Swanson may continue to be a useful player longer into his contract than I had originally considered (and give him credit for the nice overall season last year), but I'd prefer if the Cubs stayed away from an entire left side of the infield with similar long term bat questions and value hinging on defense. With that said, I share similar concerns with Bellinger as you. I'm kind of at the point where I'd prefer the Cubs to either make a trade for a hitter or just sign two from the Hoskins/Belt range. I'm concerned with the amount of turnover this is yet again going to create next year but I think I'd rather deal with roster churn over being saddled with middling bats for 3-4 seasons, as well.

I think Matt Chapman is a perfect example of "Good player, Wrong Player" for the Cubs. There's a team out there that needs a glove-over-bat projected infielder for the next few years, but the Cubs aren't that team, with Hoerner and Swanson already locked in over the next few seasons, both of whom project as glove-over-bat types. Even with funky data last year that I can't entirely make heads or tails of, Chapman has been a 110 wRC+ over his last 1,800 PAs. What the Cubs lack are upside bats that provide run creation opportunities. With the previous infielders already mentioned, with Happ and Suzuki locked in, without an obvious plus-hitting catcher, and with PCA who's bat is a bit iffier than his glove, the Cubs just don't have a ton of opportunities on the team to add that kind of bat...third base remains one of the few chances they have. There may be opportunities for the Cubs to make an approach change to switch that projection, but that seems like a pretty hefty bet for someone with as much data as Chapman already has. I'd rather the Cubs not try to sign a Chapman to a six year deal hoping they can make him into a hitter that fits their needs, instead, just finding someone who already does. And so, while I think Chapman provides value, he doesn't provide the diversification the Cubs need. A different infield and a different offensive team and he'd make a ton of sense. For this team, I'd much prefer if someone else signed him for the next six years.

Well, that's fair, and maybe I could have been more clear, so that's on me, but I wasn't attempting to imply they couldn't outpace their wRC+ at all, but that I wouldn't expect the 12th best wRC+ team to be a top-6 offense based on their base running. That's a massive jump and one I don't expect to continue. If' we're using fangraphs BsR, while base running adds value it's not a huge jump. The Cubs were 14 runs above average on the bases. Taking them away, the Cubs still scored the 7th most runs in baseball. Do I think the Cubs were the 7th best offense last year? No. I'd buy them being closer to the 9-11 range. Which, is fine, don't get me wrong, but I think the amount of runs their scored makes them seem a tier above where I'd suggest their offense is. As we enter 2024, I think it's fair to suggest they have components to win on the margins and outpace their wRC+. I don't think the drastic jump from a slightly above average offense in terms of run creation will manifest as a top-6 team in run scoring, too with out some lucky outcomes.

It certainly is part of it (I'd argue it's certainly not all of it). But also, trading out, say, Bellinger out for the Hoskins/Belt/Naylor crew is unlikely for that trend to continue. Even more so depending on the future of Morel. I think banking on out performing wRC+ based on a lot of base running seems a bit suspect moving forward.

The one thing I'll push back on is this idea that the offense is really good. They finished 12th in wRC+ last year and 14th in ISO, and lost their best hitter. I know they scored the 6th most runs, but I think that is a bit misleading looking the other numbers. I wouldn't expect them to out preform these metrics in run scoring. I think it's an offense that was far more "fine" than "good" and will require some real work. That's not to say they can't but I do think there was some real positive variance in runs scored for this team last year that I don't really see continuing without that work being done. With losing Bellinger, and seemingly, no new 130 wRC+ hitter incoming at this point, it's likely going to be an offense that relies more on depth than core, and probably will require young players to make instant contributions (players like PCA, Canario, Mervis, Shaw, Murray, Caissie....etc) at some point to maintain depth. I think in the end, you'll be right that on paper, this should probably shape out to be the best team in a bad division. But I have less faith in the returning offense than you do.

I don't hate that idea here. There's some parallels between the two. That's not saying he's Burnes 2.0 or anything, but he's got some of the aspects Burnes had.

Yeah, I agree with that. There's always agency on all parties. I do think there are ways around agency and ways you can brute force yourself into situations, and I think my biggest issue with the Cubs is that I just don't know if they have the stomach to throw their weight around. I don't expect them to go all Texas Rangers, but the Rangers brute forced their way into Seager, Seimien, DeGrom...and while the back end of those might not always be pretty, and we can question whether brute forcing all of those were good ideas, I'd like to see the Cubs, just once, decide they had to have a guy and really brute force their way into them. Be judicious, be smart, but also...be a big market. From an outside perspective, the Cubs seem to really have hard limits. Maybe it's because they haven't determined what that player is. When it comes to Ohtani, if this wasn't the one to brute force (and while I do believe they gave an earnest account, I'm not sure if they brute forced it) then I do struggle to wonder who that is. When you're big game hunting, unless you're in a unique situation, brute force is almost necessary. I'll be happy to be wrong on this some time. At least, I hope I'm wrong.

I think this is a level-headed view. My one counter to this is that there should never be a reason to not fully attack some of these generational type talents like Soto, like Ohtani, regardless of how you feel about your current roster. It doesn't seem as though the Cubs fully attacked on Soto and Ohtani seems like they tried, but I'm not sure how fully they played that one (and we may never really know). And that's not a counter to you so much as the Cubs. If this is the view the Cubs have, it feels like they're waiting for that perfect player, at the perfect time, to go all in on, and I just don't know if that perfect confluence of players, time, availability, need will arise. I do have a bit of that fear. I do certainly hope this is the case though, that the Cubs see the roster as a bit better than I do. They have a full metrics and analytics team and all I have is fangraphs, so they should be infinitely better positioned to make that determination. Fingers crossed.