Transmogrified Tiger

we've been reduced to offseason hug watch, DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO US JED

The Dodgers have a 100 million dollar head start every year on every other team in MLB thanks to their TV contract, and they still tried(and failed thanks to Bauer shenanigans) to get under the luxury tax this past year.

I keep going back and forth on Counsell being misaligned on Morel(both in terms of 3B willingness and emphasizing versatility after Hawkins/Hoyer both mentioned getting him a single position) means that it's more likely they trade him, more likely he's exclusively a 3B, or more likely that he gets used in a utility role. My answer changes a couple times a day.

There's a wide enough range of outcomes even in that list that I'd have to see how it played out specifically. Bieber/Wacha/Chapman/Belt fits the above and would be a large disappointment. Bieber/Imanaga/Bellinger/Hoskins also does and while not what I would've drawn up certainly makes them materially better and likely NLC favorites.

If I had to guess, I think the plan is roughly along these lines: Trade for Bieber and maybe like Karinchak. That gives you your rotation stability, gives you RP upside, doesn't commit large dollars, years, or even likely trade assets. Something like Canario and Arias is probably not so far away? Also get a FA SP, but more on your terms. Imanaga is the deluxe version of this but we've seen names like Wacha and Martin Perez connected at least once, and in that permutation I think they're as much to give you permission to trade from the Wesneski/Assad/Brown group as anything Sign a FA RP to a 1 year deal. If you've gambled on upside with Karinchak then maybe someone like Suter is the pairing? He might be as "successful" an RP you can get to sign a 1 year deal Wait out Bellinger and Chapman's markets, with the intent of making sure you get one. Get a secondary bat. This is where it depends on how far the Bellinger/Chapman markets come down and who your second SP is, because there's the range from signing Hoskins to trading for Polanco to playing in the JDM/Belt FA waters, to some type of off the radar trade(Alonso? Moncada?) The order may change, and Imanaga and Bieber might end up being mutually exclusive for various reasons(they want to invest more in the offense, the market for SP heats up more once you get one, etc). But that feels like the rough contour of what they're aiming for.

Anyone who is obsessive enough to be hyped about the Counsell hire is also gonna be all the more disappointed or upset if no substantial moves came to fruition. It's a move that raises expectations instead of lowering them and shines a brighter light on the team's roster, not some machiavellian scheme to avoid spending more on payroll.

The Bieber/Imanaga/Hoskins/Bellinger offseason would definitely make them a better team than last year, and fit within what we expect them to be able to spend if our understanding of the likely FA costs are close. The issue I would have is that right now they have done 0 of the 4 and this is a plan without many contingencies before you start losing a fair amount of the certainty/benefit from those 4 names. In other words, it's a narrow path considering you are 0% of the way there. There's so few leaks that come from Jed's FO that it's hard to get a handle on what else there is. I have to think that there's something more substantial on the trade market that they're pursuing, whether that's an expanded Bieber deal, or a SP from Seattle or Cease, or even Alonso since his name has come up again in indirect ways. Having this much financial wiggle room and betting it on being able to do something like the above is fine when you can pivot away from it when you don't go 4 for 4, but at least in FA there's not a ton else they can do that helps and would make good use of that money.

Something I looked up the other day that I think informs this. Outside the two Japanese pitchers, most of the best remaining FA are Boras clients. Montgomery, Bellinger, Chapman, Hoskins. He's very unafraid to wait out the market, and especially given the questions marks and QO considerations that surround them, I wouldn't be surprised if the FA market slows until January. It's because of that dynamic that makes me curious what Hoskins wants. If he wanted to sign a Bellinger-style pillow contract, presumably that would be done by now. Maybe he's a bit more interested in a multi-year deal given his age and comparative lack of ceiling?

Yeah there's two main points here. One is 'how good is Bellinger's bat', and I'm not gonna tell people 'no absolutely not he's a 125 wRC+ hitter for sure' if you're super worried about the batted ball peripherals, even if I disagree. The other is 'even if he hits he's not a great fit since we have PCA and a ~120 wRC+ is only okay for 1B', and that one I structurally think is incorrect given the lack of certainty from PCA, the value he would actually add at 1B, and the practical upshot of what positional needs the team has.

Oh one other thing on this that really informs my thinking. From the 3 OF spots, 1B, and DH you need 810 games each year. Even if you have 6 guys you love for those spots, with equal playing time they're still averaging 135 games each, and less than 4 players per team exceeded that mark last year. Injuries, rest, matchups, and poor performance will happen, so I'm not really cowed by him not being an insanely snug fit on Day 1. Doubly so in the case of someone like Bellinger with a well rounded profile and doesn't need to be signed until he's 38.

I don't want to be a broken record about this or trivialize that it would be a somewhat tricky management challenge(earn your money Craig, I guess?), but Bellinger can play RF and Seiya can DH. For that matter, maybe Seiya *should* DH given how he's graded out at the position over 2 years and how much emphasis the roster has around defense. And even if you're convinced the 'if PCA hits' outcome is definitely 1B, don't forget that Bellinger adds value above the typical 1B with his speed, and as such even with offensive regression would still be around a 3 win 1B. I understand how that may not be optimal given the power composition of the rest of the lineup, but it doesn't scare me off making the upgrade if that's what's there. Though I am on the team that doesn't want PCA up until Memorial Day and am trying to remind myself that the odds are decent he's a platoon or worse bat in a lot of different outcomes.

Most players put a lot fewer balls in play than Bellinger and do so at a lower launch angle too. Only 13 qualifiers had a sub-20% K rate(Bellinger 15.6) and > 16 degree launch angle(Bellinger 17.2). That group outperformed their xwOBA collectively by an average of about 20 points, and it's littered with some of the most consistently excellent hitters in the game. Betts, Lindor, Ramirez, Bregman, Arenado, Semien, plus a few other professional hitters most every team would want(Wade, Turner, Paredes) along with a few speedsters scraping their way in(Friedl, Albies, K Hernandez). This illustrates what my central thinking is as it relates to Bellinger, is that when we get this deep into batted ball quality conversations, we twist ourselves into slices of data that may feel like outliers, but are instead just as much a testament to a super talented player's ability than they are signs that the player is in for a fall.

Those 2 years were also correlated with injury problems that certainly appear to have resolved, but my point there is not that Cody Bellinger has always been this guy. It's that this isn't Cody Bellinger reaching heretofore unreached heights of offensive production and we have low confidence he can be successful outside this specific way he did it this year. He's a top prospect with an MVP on his resume that has been this caliber of hitter in multiple ways before even reaching the Cubs(look at the K rate from his ROY season compared to his MVP season). We can lean on his top of scale talent as comfort that he doesn't have to succeed in this narrow way to be similarly productive, because he's done it in multiple ways before and demonstrated an ability to make adjustments.

The CBA actually requires this, or some close approximation depending on the wording.

I think with Bellinger people have gotten too far in the weeds and worried about very specific slices of production that do not definitively tell us much about what to expect going forward. He's an extremely talented hitter who has already shown a demonstrated ability to put up high end offensive production and is still just 28. Take this most recent talking point, Bellinger had a .386 BABIP with 2 strikes last year, if that were to drop to .325(which feels appropriate given his approach and talent, for comparison Mookie was at .340 last year) he'd lose 11 hits. Call that 9 singles and 2 doubles since the the luckier/weaker contact is going to skew 1B-heavy, and this regression has dropped his wRC+ to roughly...123 by my best napkin math and comparison? And again this specific composition of batted balls is not certain, there's nothing that says we should expect him to be at his xwOBA next year or that he will be right at what we expect his BABIP to be in certain slices. He's a talented enough hitter with enough history that if his 2 strike approach is less fruitful he can likely make adjustments to mitigate the impact. All that said, I would not expect him to be a 135 wRC+ guy going forward, nor do I think that level is unattainable in a season or 2 over his next deal. But with his defense, speed, and positional flexibility I do not need him to be at that level to be interested in giving him a very healthy contract.

Works for me, Alfaro is a solid bet for AAA/3rd C. Can run into a fastball every now and then, and has a plus arm which is especially important these days.

I don't love the word 'never' for things like this. Could we swap some names and not write a similar story about Andrew Friedman circa 2019? He had been in charge in LA for 5 years by the time he signed such a deal, and it had to be an extension of a recently acquired player rather than winning a bidding war. Mindsets evolve, circumstances change. Sometimes they don't, but I'm not convinced this offseason is closing the book on Hoyer being aggressive at the top of the market. I also don't really get the 'and now we don't know how much the Ricketts will actually allow' sentiment, I think this requires focusing much harder on vibes than actual facts on the ground . They've paid the luxury tax before, they've signed top of market FA before, they've signed 6, 7, and 8 year deals before. Everything they've ever said about payroll is it's there if the front office thinks it's the right decision. Maybe there's an unknown if they would've signed up to pay Ohtani 68 million until the heat death of the universe, but this suspicion seems to be overwhelmingly driven by (well-deserved) animus towards the Ricketts for their activities outside the Cubs, or an overreaction to the 2020 offseason which is a set of once in a lifetime circumstances.

LT payroll(which is the payroll we mean when we talk about going to 240-250) was 227.7 million per Fangraphs, 5 mil under the LT line. This includes Candelario, though between salary already paid and money kicked in he moved the needle less than 1 million.

without looking, what do you think their payroll was last year

70 million in AAV added is right before the second LT threshold, 20 million over the LT.

I alluded to something similar in the other thread, but the part of Jed's approach to team-building I like the least has been over-indexing on certain pitching traits that end up with him priced out on the types of guys they're still missing to really headline a team that can be dangerous in the postseason. Maybe I just lack vision, and he's gonna give up less for Bieber and extend him(a pre-FA extension has at least been floated in the media), and then Chapman's market is never gonna materialize and they'll get him for like 3/60 or whatever and PCA comes up and no batted ball ever finds grass again. But the road to an offseason I'm really happy with is pretty narrow now, and probably relies on at least one or maybe two uncommon things happening.

The Glasnow trade is the first thing that's really discouraged me, because there aren't a ton of really electric arms out there that can help differentiate in the postseason, while it's easier to slug your way into and through the playoffs even if you don't have one of the 5 best hitters in the game. There's still some reasonable paths to taking a step up for next year, but I'm getting concerned that the pitching side of it is not going to have the dynamism I'm hoping for.

Same guy says it will be Pepiot and DeLuca, which especially with Margot included feels like roughly Wesneski and Canario? Wouldn't have been a perfect world scenario but I sure wouldn't have been upset, gonna be bummed if this does come to pass. For as much trouble as some folks give Jed for not dropping 300 million on a player in free agency, he also hasn't really done any trades for MLB pieces, the closest being the Kimbrel sell trade which does not look like a windfall. I guess Cuas for Velazquez is the other, and that one while not intended to be a cornerstone move doesn't exactly illustrate a keen eye for leveling up the roster(at least not yet). That muscle is far more important given his long term contract convictions, and with the team entering a (hopefully indefinite) phase where they expect to contend he's gonna have to demonstrate it early and often now.

The Padres signing Bellinger would be objectively hilarious, like Preller took the dril budget tweet and tried to make a roster in homage to it.

I get the impulse for sure, and I don't think I'd need some type of 75% discount on that price to seriously consider a move. But as an example, surely the Nationals could be convinced to move Hunter Harvey, and is that going to come close to the potential cost for Clase? 2 years vs 3(though given reliever volatility you may see this as a feature), but is there a chasm in their expected performance? I'd say no.