Transmogrified Tiger

Maybe that rumor about MHJ getting a zillion dollars in NIL to stay is true? UCLA's Freshman QB also entered the portal and since OSU was already one of his (many, many) recruiting offers and he's from Detroit, it's very possible they're trying to line up an immediate upgrade on McCord.

Signing Ohtani requires the Braves to either dramatically cut payroll elsewhere, or to go to a payroll level previously only reached by last year's Mets. They have a lot of guarantees in future seasons already too, so while you can maybe squint and see it as a temporary jump(e.g. Morton + Ozuna is an Ohtani shaped role and a big chunk of an Ohtani AAV), it would either require sustained payroll levels we have only seen by the Cohen Mets(who immediately backtracked from them) and the Yankees, or pretty significant handcuffs over the next several seasons.

Okay.

Louisville was #10 before losing to a middling SEC team and then again to FSU so yes they would absolutely have the opportunity to make the playoff in similar circumstances. Also, the other conference title games (and OSU/Michigan) would still have stakes since a playoff bye is on the line.

I have a high amount of confidence Horton pitches in the big league pen this year, potentially meaningful innings too. We know he's probably not ramped to start the whole year, we know Jed really likes breaking in pitchers via the bullpen, and while there are promising options for MIRP(Smyly/Assad/Wesneski) we shouldn't have high confidence that for whatever reason(trade, underperformance, injury) there won't be a need in that role. Caveat: Counsell may lean less heavily on MIRP than Ross so maybe that part matters a bit less. I think the telltale sign for Horton is how many net SP they add relative to today's roster, inclusive of Assad/Wesneski/Brown. If it's zero then they probably are prepared to let it ride with Horton starting games through the season, if it's two he's probably ticketed for the pen, if it's one then it probably depends on the details. Brown I just don't really know. Don't know if he'll be in the organization in March, don't know how he'l bounce back from his injury and if his AAA walk rate will calm down, don't know how many innings the org wants to get out of him this year. I suspect that he's in a bit of a bizarro goldilocks zone where he'll quickly be surpassed by Horton if the team wants impact, but won't show enough improvement in command to be near the top of the pecking order for reliability relative to the trio above or even other AAA RP options(Little, Roberts, Palencia, etc). So his fate may be dependent on an uncommonly good outcome from him individually or a series of negative circumstances from others.

I haven't thought deeply about this but I think I prefer the path of pursuing Glasnow, even if for no other reason than he's really and truly "available", while these Astros rumors seem to be them signaling for some other team to impress them more than really needing to get a deal done. That said, Valdez would afford you more flexibility in how you approach those "Tier 2" additions on top of a big bat and the SP. If that's the difference in getting Hoskins v. getting more into the Mancini zone in salary that has more collapse risk, I surely wouldn't hate that on top of Valdez having the extra year of control.

Can't wait for Ohtani to go to the Rockies because Shohei loves mountains and they got their biennial inclination to tell a random Free Agent "one jillion dollars" without any semblance of a plan.

Please continue to share stuff relevant to big moves in those respective threads(Ohtani, Glasnow, etc), but for more speculative stuff or news unrelated to the Cubs, pop it in here.

Locking for the winter meetings since daily chatter will be focused in a thread there. Will reopen afterwards.

Using the Committee's rankings, you have on one hand, a team whose best victories are v. #13, v. #16, @ #26, and no others in their Top 33. In comparison, you have a team who lost v. #3, and had victories v. #6, v. #11, v. #13, v. #25, @ #33. I think independent of margin of victory or injuries there's an argument Bama is the right choice on resume grounds when a quarter of their games are against better teams than Florida State saw all year(and they replicated FSU's best win). Certainly not black and white though.

Michigan v. Bama and Washington v. Texas, FSU is left out

Hell is Real never disappoints

The committee consistently put Georgia as the best undefeated team and Texas has never gotten above 7th in their rankings, I don't think it's at all certain that Georgia losing to Bama by 3 and Texas handling Oklahoma State is bridging the gap between them.

Welcome!

Yeah I think we'll probably do something that replaces Cubs offseason chit chat for that period since there may be a lot of non-Cubs movement plus more speculative Cubs stuff that doesn't necessarily warrant a new/existing thread.

I stopped following it because they started playing too fast and loose with the definition, but if you love those types of bloopers then I have the twitter account for you: https://twitter.com/wpiootbgw/

Welcome! I'm not local to the area any longer so I'll let those folks chime in more about travel logistics, but I would say generally that Chicago + Milwaukee is a perfectly reasonable plan for a baseball trip, as long as you're okay renting a car you shouldn't have any issues planning a trip where you see games in both cities.

Yes at the start of the offseason most every competitor has a number of holes to fill, that's how offseasons work when a big chunk of the player pool is no longer attached to a team. The Dodgers rotation at the moment needs multiple guys to come back from TJS real strong real fast, they have no DH and are apparently betting real heavily on Heyward being a starting caliber corner OF. The Padres rotation is Musgrove(coming off shoulder injury), Darvish, and a pile of sorrow. Last year's division winners the Brewers have Jake Bauers and Tyrone Taylor as their 1B/DH and Adrian Houser as their 3rd best SP. At the root of this anti-logic is the sentiment that the worst thing you could possibly do is spend resources a year too early, I get it but it just isn't a significant risk. The Cubs were garden-variety variance from a playoff berth, will either have leg up in keeping Soto or recoup some cost through a pick, and he is a very snug roster fit. Waiting until you have all the other pieces in place before considering a star player(and I mean a real star level impact, not Pete Alonso/Jordan Montgomery level guys) who isn't a perfect contract fit is a great way to run into a situation where you don't have the ability to acquire one because they aren't available or not in a spot where you need to improve.

There is no meaningful sentiment of folks here wavering on pursuing Ohtani because Soto is a trade target.

I can't escape the feeling that from a results perspective, the main thing separating pre-FA Montgomery from pre-FA Taillon is that Montgomery got to spend 30 starts over the last 2 years in one of the worst parks for hitting HR while Taillon was a RHP pitching in Yankee stadium. I'm not sure they're exactly the same caliber, and I wouldn't forecast Taillon's 2023 for Montgomery. Nor do I think Taillon was an especially bad signing. But I'm pretty uneasy signing up to give a 6 year deal in the 20-25M AAV range for someone running such pedestrian K rates given the team's needs. Especially when Montgomery's stuff and pedigree doesn't offer much hope for further advancement.

It can be difficult to navigate this new media landscape with Ohtani having so much secrecy, it's a little complicated but I made a flow chart to help interpret all these rumors and rumblings

Yep. In a reality where the Dodgers are also offering a half billion dollars and Ohtani cares about not being in Angels purgatory anymore, illustrating that he would be joining a team that is actively improving could matter. I don't think they'd make a move that they wouldn't otherwise, but it seems very reasonable to me that they could be motivated to pay a little bit more to get that over the line quicker.

I agree with this, under the assumption that Ohtani is deciding somewhat soon. Preller wants to maximize the return but he also needs to use the Soto savings on the roster, and if Ohtani unexpectedly waits til after the Winter Meetings then he may be forced to take the bird in hand unless he wants to play a dangerous game of signing players with money he doesn't currently have and with unknown holes filled by the Soto return.