Transmogrified Tiger

In an offseason without Ohtani, my expectation is that they'll exceed the luxury tax but probably more in the 15-20 million overage, which would mean they add 65-70M in AAV. I think they'll probably add 3 pitchers and 2-3 position players. I think SP is probably the key decision in terms of the exact shape of the other moves. If it's Glasnow I bet they try for another SP to hedge his injury risk, and it's possible then the 2nd SP is a Morel-based trade. In that permutation then the 3rd position player is probably a low dollar bat, hopefully better caliber than Rios last year but also probably not a 10M+ AAV like JD Martinez. If they don't get a 2nd SP then I think they probably add a 2nd RP but more in the Robertson/Boxberger range. So a couple different permutations of what this could look like: Glasnow/Imanaga/Robertson on the mound, Hoskins/Polanco at the plate Bieber/Stephenson/Fujinami on the mound, Bellinger/Belt at the plate Glasnow/Cabera/Miller on the mound, Hoskins/Naylor/Gallo at the plate I can also see some plan B/C permutations where they put money they don't have a better home for into Woodruff.

I'm with you, and I do think they did aggressively pursue Ohtani at least, and at a minimum pursued the contours of a Soto trade. I know some folks are taking the waning belief Ohtani will sign as an indicator they offered him like 7/400 as a last offer or worse didn't try at all, but that is not the impression I've gotten from combing the Cubs internet. And this also might be just a coping mechanism, but I also try to remember that everyone wants these guys and the other parties involved have agency, so there is some element that is beyond their control. If Ohtani thinks Wrigley is a dump or Chicago is too cold or too long a flight or w/e, and Preller says 'We need pitching but I'm not a big fan of Wicks or Assad/Wesneski', then no amount of aggression or even foolhardy levels of pursuit is going to do it.

This might be just my coping mechanism at not getting our version of a nut-shelling squirrel, but I'm getting the impression that they have a higher view of the current roster and baseline they're working from than a lot of us do. There's some logic for that since the team's underlying performance was very good, and some of the ways they failed to meet it have been addressed or there's still plenty of opportunity to(rotation depth, bullpen firepower, Ross if you believe he was the problem). Plus they'll pursue backfilling the production lost from Bellinger/Stroman. I don't think they're calibrated quite perfectly, it puts a lot of pressure on a couple of the prospects in particular to be good fast instead of investing in higher quality to give them greater breathing room. But there's always tradeoffs so if they feel they have a wave and some redundancy on that front, then I can understand it at least.

This is an amazing reference that reminds me of my own mortality, I love it and hate it.

So in the last few days the Yankees have traded most of their upper level pitching depth for 3 outfielders, and now they're within 5M of last year's payroll(which was a record high for them AFAICT) with a rotation of Cole, the hope that Rodon is healthy/unbroken, Schmidt, Cortes, and a bodega cat. What's the plan here, are they gonna just tack on money since they're over the third threshold and paying third time repeater penalties anyway? Continue selling off the farm for another SP? The rest of that lineup isn't exactly the stuff of dreams either.

Maybe they know that all of their infielders are in for regression and are trying to cash in while they can

I've been working and may have missed it, but if Grisham is still in the deal he's got non-trivial surplus value. So doing the deal without him probably knocks off one of Assad/Wesneski?

I'm not really interested in trying to draw specific lines on what counts as a 'star' or not, what you're saying is fine and not at all unfair. If I were to distill what I'm getting at into a few bullets to try and clarify, it'd look like this: Stars are valuable because they concentrate a lot of value in a single spot, but the Cubs have a fair amount of value concentration in their team and in particular their position player group. This isn't a bunch of players scraping league average that need Soto's bat to make them good, as Bertz highlighted about the offense. The Cubs were basically a 90 win team/division winning caliber team last year by underlying performance, so while capital S Stars are naturally preferred, maintaining and marginally improving last year's squad(while not a perfect scenario) is still a very good team Where the Cubs do have an acute need, and the mentioned capital S stars would help most, is filling lineup holes where they had poor offensive performance with very good performance. There's still a substantial upgrade in getting a Hoskins/Lowe caliber bat, especially if you can get more than one. I also acknowledge there's a Bellinger backfill to account for too since Tauchman/PCA are not expected to crush the ball, but that circles back to the previous point about how the status quo is still a high level.

I think this is a cynical interpretation of the motivations involved. It might be right, but just as likely is he's a very private person potentially negotiating a move to a new city and with a new organization where he wants to be able to have trust in what they say(especially since he's not fluent in the language). Having that trust demonstrated by respecting his wishes for secrecy is not outrageous in that context.

This is half devil's advocate, so take it in that spirit, but do the Cubs have a fair amount of star power already? Last year Hoerner and Swanson were both a hair under 5 win players despite not having particularly good offensive seasons for their standards(and Swanson has a 6 win season in his past). Seiya was Top 25 in wRC+ and his second half was at a 5 win level. They're graduating a Top 25 prospect next year who will basically be another Hoerner in terms of the shape and magnitude of value if he can be averageish offensively. What the Cubs *need* is more really good hitters, because they were 24th in wRC+ for 1B and 25th for DH. Obviously superstar position players are mostly really good hitters, and if you can get a superstar of the Ohtani or Soto tier you should try to do so, but additions like Hoskins, or Pete Alonso if that kicks up again, or even Brandon Lowe can do a fair amount to raise the team's ceiling given that they have a lot of value monsters that just don't necessarily do it with power. On the pitching side, they have last year's Cy Young finalist who was 7th in fWAR among pitchers, that's a pretty good start! Also the strongest rumor they've been involved with is Glasnow, who is a Top 5-10 SP in baseball when healthy. Plenty of upside still on the table even if Glasnow isn't a long term deal. I know it doesn't fill us with the warm and fuzzies like signing Ohtani or Yamamoto or trading for Soto would, but I do think the collective impact of e.g. a Glasnow trade and Hoskins signing is probably being underrated.

I dunno, I don't subscribe to BA so I can't see their ranking of him, but their '2027 lineup' lists him as a 5 starter behind King and Nester Cortes. Pipeline and Fangraphs barely have him in their Top 5 Yankees prospects(which isn't a system dripping with premium talent), and the only Top 100 placement I see across Pipeline, Fangraphs, and Prospects Live is Pipeline sneaking him in at 99. I'm much more comfortable saying that is more comparable to what Wicks' pedigree was(especially being a changeup artist himself) than being a no doubt Top 50 prospect or on Horton's tier(which is at least a half step higher than that).

Did Thorpe have a bump in velo? I wouldn't consider him close to Horton's tier of prospect without one, if anything that profile would then be a closer match to Wicks. How much of an overpay that is then depends on what you think of King. Definitely some uncertainty about whether he's a starter or reliever, and he's only got team control for 2 years so the fact that he hasn't exceeded last year's 104 IP since 2018 is not a point in his favor either. If it's those 2 I don't think it's all that far off, but since the Cubs don't have a super clean comparable to King, you'd have to hope the Padres had similar feelings about Assad or Wesneski. And quite frankly I'm not sure how jazzed I'd be about one of them and Wicks being the deal(though I'd have to think on it).

I've been thinking about this and I do think we probably overrate multi-year certainty a bit as fans. Look at 2021 v. 2023 and see how much variation there is or players who drop off or jump up in production. This is especially true for free agents who are older and have more significant dollars attached. And especially if you are a big market team that is considered a contender, there are always options to fill those gaps productively on the market, Glasnow and Hoskins don't represent a special opportunity in that regard. Now I would prefer not to have your *best* players constantly be on this treadmill, which is what Soto and Glasnow would be. But as we discussed with Soto in particular you can't always choose the shape of your upgrades so this may be what this offseason offers. As an aside, maybe a topic for the Hoskins thread, but I'm starting to wonder if maybe he's gonna get a multi-year guarantee after all.

Wonder if Bruce is thinking in terms of nominal payroll or the total LT payroll. 240-250 in LT payroll is basically table stakes for my expectations, if you're gonna go into the LT then there's no sense in only going in by less than 5 million(which is what 240 million would be), especially with as many high dollar 1-2 year deals that are being considered in FA and trade right now. If that 240-250 is nominal though, then you're talking more about being close to the 3rd threshold(the draft penalty threshold), which I would've previously assumed was probably only possible with Ohtani.

Gonna have to make a new one with the No line pointing to "I knew it, Jed probably offered him 3/15"

Mooney/Sharma

Mooney/Sharma

Mooney/Sharma

It is extremely funny to watch this thread get populated with contradictory information while people go "well that settles it, the thing that reinforces my prior conceptions was right again!"

With talk like this, Shohei is definitely not signing with ESPN https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39049998/shohei-ohtani-secret-free-agency-mlb-dodgers-blue-jays

Big afternoon for Bob

If Roberts actually hosed them here I will never stop laughing at him even if they win the next 3 world series (he did not and they will not)

Lowe has a career 126 wRC+, so you've got a body of work of a strong bat to start with. Add on to that, you can make the argument his relative down years have an injury-based explanation that has since passed. His line after returning from injury in July through the end of season: 235 PA, .254/.353/.483, 135 wRC+. Lowe isn't a wizard with the glove, but you can make the argument he's a better option at 3B or 1B than Morel as well. Plus the LHH bit helps with lineup balance as you mention. I wouldn't trade Morel for Glasnow or for Lowe straight up, but in a deal for both I'd have to seriously consider it given Glasnow's upside, and what I'd expect from Lowe at a reasonable dollar amount for 1-3 years.

*taps the sign*

I like Hoskins quite a bit. 126 career wRC+ is simply not a common caliber of bat that is out there, at least not without enormous commitments or other downside risks(e.g. Brandon Lowe's recent form) His contract isn't going to materially block any moves, won't have a long enough commitment to scare off other additions, and since Philly didn't QO him you can do that after 2024-25 and get a pick on the back end if he hits reasonably well(or get a de facto team option) He's been a one org person, which I always like as an opportunity to have new voices help potentially unlock a new level The downsides for me are that he's probably gonna be expensive enough that I think if you get him and you want a playoff SP and a better-than-Hoskins bat, you start having to make tradeoffs pretty quickly with the assumption that you aren't pushing into the Ohtani zone of LT penalties. Soto + Glasnow + Hoskins would be great but I'm unsure if they want to go into the 2nd level of penalties for that type of offseason, at which point you're either not getting Soto or you're making severe compromises elsewhere. Also, Hoskins probably wants a one year or 1+ option deal, and considering the other high end talents potentially available seem to mostly be rentals, it's a lot of potential 1 year uncertainty for your main additions. Rentals as a concept are fine and Soto + Glasnow + Hoskins would make the team a strong playoff/division contender, but having to replace all of them would be a chore.