Tim

If Robinson stays on his feet, does he have a play on that ball? It was hard for me to tell with the views they showed

I feel like we've been obsessed with this guy for years, but if this is his price tag sign Jon Gray. Basically, the Rockies beat writer is suggesting there will be no QO and he's only expecting a 3/30 contract.

That sack was not on him. He barely got to his drop before he was sacked

So, uh, the Bulls might be pretty good.

Going from Randy Bush to the masters in statistics guy that worked for Houston and the Dodgers R&D is about a dramatic a shift in skills and perspectives as you can get in modern front office. Yeah - that tells us a fair amount about Jed's approach vs Theo's.

This seems like a nice hire: https://theathletic.com/news/sources-astros-executive-ehsan-bokhari-expected-to-be-named-agm-for-cubs/u8Z5F4ancorB/

Also, on the starters: If Matz is going to get a QO (assuming they still exist), I'm going to have to pick another guy to use in my examples for the third of three starters. I'm sure Gray will get the QO - I think he's a good bet to be worth it, but we'll have to see what the rules in the next CBA look like. Thor is almost certainly not going to be in the offering. If he gets a QO (and they function similar to today), I think his best bet would be to take that, show he's healthy, and snag a big fat contract next time around. In reality, it's going to be really hard to plan anything on the pitching side until we know what the next CBA looks like. One way or another, I'm sure the Cubs are going to be most interested in finding the next Gausman or Ray. Or hope the Cleveland guy has scouting on who might be some young guys to go snag from another org.

lol - so you guys are suggesting there are flaws in a plan that I wouldn't really endorse in the first place? I accept the criticisms wholeheartedly! Honestly, it was more of a thought experiment for creating a deep lineup vs the stars & scrubs approach. I'd like to say I put a lot of thought and effort into it, but it was really more of a whim and a few minutes looking at the upcoming FA list.

All except the "Thor, Gray and Matz" part

I'm looking at a plan for the offense in a different way today. Instead of trying to load up with stars, I'm going to try to create a really deep lineup without any long-term FA commitments. The Giants had the best OPS in the NL last year at .769. Assuming we will have the DH in the NL next year, the best OPS in baseball was Toronto at .797. The White Sox were top five at just .758. Let's split the difference and try to build a team that can reasonably project to a .775 OPS. Coming back to the team next year we have Contreras, Hoerner, Madrigal, Happ, Bote & Heyward. Our first key to the balanced-offense approach is to trade or cut Heyward and eat the rest of the contract. Each of the first three is at least a decent bet to post a .775 OPS (but not much more than that in the case of Hoerner & Madrigal). Bote...is more complex. The man hits the baseball hard...and on the ground. But he's increased his launch angle each year (3.9 -> 7.7 -> 9.3 -> 9.8). He's on a cheap deal - I'd keep him and hope the new hitting coach can help him to increase the launch angle. But if he's still hitting it on the ground to start next year, be ready to move on quickly. Chirinos has had only one year below that number in the past 5-6 years (and it was the weird 2020 season). Bring him back to back up Willson. Shouldn't cost too much. The next step is to decide what to do with all the (interesting) old rookies from last year - Schwindel, Ortega, Wisdom, Rivas & Hermosillo. I think you could look at a Rivas/Schwindel platoon at 1B/DH and expect to get okay production. I wouldn't want to go into next year counting on any of the other guys in any more than a limited bench role. So that leaves 3B, OF, OF, SS, 1B/DH as spots to fill. 3B: Of course I'd target Bryant if his price comes down into the right range. The other options are...less good. Escobar & Kyle Seager are probably the next best FA options at the position. Escobar seems like the better bet of the two and also provides better than average contact rates. OF: Assuming the market is reasonable after his down year, Conforto would be my top priority. It really looks like he was just unlucky this year. Sign the man. One relatively under-the-radar guy I'd like to sign would be Eddie Rosario. He provides really strong contact numbers and 2021 was the first year he's been under a .792 OPS in five years. Of course, he's also 30 and has been declining each of the past four years, so hopefully he comes at a reasonable cost. Also: Schwarber's gonna get paid. If the price doesn't get crazy, though, bring him back, please. But I'll assume it's not happening here. Also: add Brennen Davis into the mix for the second half of the year. SS: I'm just going to assume that Correa, Seager, Baez, Story & Semien all get bigger deals than we'll want to hand out in this scenario. Personally, I'd push hard on Seager & Semien to be a foundational piece for the next few years. But it doesn't fit in this particular plan. So - sign Chris Taylor. Next best option available and can help at a number of positions. So here's my roster: C - Contreras 1B - Rivas 2B - Madrigal 3B - Escobar SS - Taylor OF - Conforto OF - Happ OF - Rosario C - Chirinos UT - Hoerner IF - Wisdom IF - Schwindel IF - Bote Ideally, there would be money in the budget to add in Schwarber for DH, in which case I'd cut one of Wisdom/Schwindel/Bote. Another one of those guys gets booted when Davis comes up in the second half and boots one of the OF to the bench. Not any star power in that lineup, but there aren't any easy outs unless Happ is in one of his funks. Taylor & Hoerner provide a lot of versatility. And there's more than enough room in the budget for those guys plus 2-3 starters. Go get Thor, Gray & Matz.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that trading Willson is the path I definitely want to go. I'm just replying to those who say that trading Willson means they're punting on 2022. For me, the calculation comes down to whether I can get a reasonable term extension, what kind of prospects are offered up in trade, and how well I think I can plug the *overall* catching gap for 2022 and beyond. One small factor that I'll throw out there, though, is that recruiting FA's is already going to be an uphill challenge to convince them the team is ready to be competitive. It'll be that much harder if we trade our all star catcher for future assets. It's a minor factor, though, because it would only take a big contract to one top of market player to change everyone's perception about the window.

The Cubs, as a whole, finished 20th in MLB in catching fWAR in 2021. Rather than thinking of it as replacing Willson alone, think of it as doing better than that overall. 19 other teams managed it - shouldn't be *that* hard.

As much as I love Willson, the most he's ever contributed is 2.7 fWAR. If you can get quality assets for him, you're not losing a ton by moving him and signing whatever catchers you'd like. It just adds one more position to the offseason shopping list. Honestly, I don't think I'd want to lock him up long term after next season anyway. If he's not going to sign a limited term (2-3 year) extension beyond next season, trading him probably makes a lot of sense if you get decent assets in return.

Yeah - I get people linking a trade of Contreras with giving up, but that's not really true.

From Keith Law: Cubs right-hander Caleb Kilian, who was part of the return for Kris Bryant, faced seven batters Saturday night, and they all reached safely and scored, culminating in a home run for Rockies first baseman Michael Toglia (which I predicted — I have a witness). Kilian was just 91-93 with four pitches, getting hit hard, with no ability to finish his curveball and too little deception. He was followed by Cubs lefty Brendon Little, who was 93-96 but all over the place and left the game with the trainer.

Sure there are some plays and schemes he’s more comfortable with and it’s not like it’s all been bad at all. But twice today he took his team out of FG range by taking a sack on 3rd down. That can’t happen, it needs to be thrown away but he waited too long and/or tried to make a rush that wasn’t there. On one of them he tried to run to the edge like he probably successfully did 100 times in college but the defense was just too fast for him. I don’t know if that’s processing or lack of situational awareness but it’s a problem he needs to fix. But at the same time I think there is a lot of adjustment for him right now and he will only figure it out by playing more Or, he saw that the end was being double teamed and assumed the linemen would at least slow the guy down a tiny smidge. Nope.

Yeah, this can be automated, also. Just put high angle cameras (on stadium roof or whatever) off to each side of the plate. If the bat passes the front of the plate, it was a swing. Done.

They're not *this* bad. But I think they made all those moves, limited the future flexibility, gave up quality assets...and might still miss the playoffs.

On that note they have 3 guys in the top 100 of this list, nobody in the top 2 tiers though. I guess in theory you could say a Dach or Toews could earn another spot in their but their lost 2021 and Toews' overall deterioration makes it unlikely. I'll be at the game on Friday in Jersey, first truly big indoor event in quite a while, assuming the attendance is a bit more than the 1,500 person capacity at Webster Hall. My kid practiced on that ice a couple weeks ago. If I pretend the Panarin trade never happened, then they do have a guy in 2A.

I'd agree with this if they hadn't made the horrendous TLR decision.

I think the only team run better than the rays is the Dodgers

...and Kimbrel implodes to give up a whole bunch of runs to put the game out of reach.

Keeping with the theme of large former Cubs leading off, Soler is hitting first for the Braves today.

Very fair not to be trilled on Opening Day. However, nobody expected Gausman, Ray & Rodon to be Cy Young candidates this year, either. I'm hoping for a guy that is a high probability effective starter, but then I'm hoping for a couple of upside plays, too.

I can't remember the last time I watched a whole Bulls game start to finish. That was a blast.