Transmogrified Tiger

I don't follow. The TL;DR of what I was getting at is that if you bring Hendricks back and don't lose Stroman, you likley can do 2 big AAVs(20M+) and probably one other cheap move to add a couple million(in this example, a reliever), but probably not much else. You could also do one Ohtani if you prefer, it wasn't a value judgment on one v. the other.

You can possibly do 2 AAVs of that size and a reliever of quality(lots of options across the cost spectrum), but if Hendricks and Stroman are back the problem is you probably can't do much else. Puts a lot of pressure on Morel, PCA, and the catchers.

Pedantry first: I'm never 1000% confident about this stuff but I believe the real amount under the tax is less than that. The payment into the pre-arb bonus pool adds 1.7 million, and the pro-rated MLB minimums of various callups/IL replacements tacks on more too(JeffH mentioned a while back the assumption is roughly a 33 man roster of at least the min, and that matches closely to Roster Resource's calcs). On the other hand I'm fairly sure the buyouts do not matter, they're a part of the AAV in previous seasons. If Hendricks doesn't come back he is $0 towards the 2024 LT. From my napkin mathing, it would leave you around 26 million under the tax line if all 3 of Gomes, Stroman, and Hendricks are back on their original deals. That aside, I really wish I knew roughly where they were aiming to go payroll wise. I'd handicap it roughly like this: 20% chance they stay under the tax again. I would normally have this lower, but I'm conservative on it by nature, and Jed has called out how aggressive ownership was with payroll *last* offseason as if it's already at a high point. This would also ensure they don't get to the 50% overage rate since even if they go into it post-2024 they have so much money freed up after 2026 they'd be able to reset almost no matter what. 50% chance they go into the tax but stay within 20 million, including room for deadline moves. This gives them room to make substantive improvements but also allows room to grow above the tax prior to the 2025-2026 period where very little comes off the books. Yes, a lot does shake free next year, but that's also half of the planned rotation and a starting catcher, so counting all of that as found money doesn't seem like Jed's style. 25% chance they go into the tax above 20 million but less than 40 million. This is where Ricketts doesn't care about the specific overage on a team winning and filling Wrigley, and Jed sees Amaya/Horton/Wicks/Brown ready to backfill next year's freed up money and decides to go for it given the unusual amount of *young* talent potentially available(Bellinger, Yamamoto, Soto). He does this knowing 2026 gives a release valve that he'll either have an easy way back under the line or be fired anyway. 5% chance they exceed the 40 million overage. This is the 'F it, Ohtani pays for himself' outcome, and even then he's so valuable that you probably can get him and put a real good team together without hurting your draft pipeline in the process.

I don't think Colvin is a particularly great comparison. It's a different era, but even considering that Colvin's K rate wasn't as relatively high, and he hit for decent average in the minor leagues. In hindsight, Colvin's biggest problem is that he wasn't standout in any one area, and the rising quality in the high minors washed him out(though he did have two seasons and 800 PA of a 113 wRC+). That's not to say that you're wrong to worry (worrie?) about Caissie, the K rate is a big concern and his ability to make enough contact will likely be the difference in him making it as a big leaguer or not. He's unlikely to add any defensive value so the offensive bar is going to be very high. That said, the case for optimism with Caissie is three fold in my mind. He does the things you need to do to survive with a high K rate, namely hit the bejeezus out of the ball when you do hit it His age relative to level gives hope for further improvement/refinement even though he was an excellent hitter for AA regardless of age His K rate improved almost every month of the season, and especially after AA stopped using the pre-tacked ball. If they hadn't done that experiment it's possible his season K rate is 5% lower and OPS even higher and we view that risk in a different light

This comes into pretty sharp focus if you start listing it out with everyone healthy. You've got 8 spots, and they start to fill up quick: Alzolay - Lock Merryweather - Lock Cuas - Lock Smyly - Lock unless he somehow reclaims a rotation spot Leiter - Just shy of a lock but if he has the splitter in Mesa then without question Then for those final 3 spots you still have: Stretched out guys: You could quibble and call this Smyly, but Assad and Wesneski could go here Guys with past MLB success: Keegan, Hughes, possibly Heuer are all on the 40 man Young stuff-monsters: Palencia, Little At this point we're 11 names deep, and haven't mentioned Rucker, Brown, Estrada, Kilian, or the possibility of scrap heap pickups like Merryweather and Leiter were. That's not obscene depth given the demands on a modern pen, but it's a situation where one good reliever fixes things more than 2 hopeful acquisitions do.

They're related though, the fewer starts you need from the Smylys, Wesneskis, and Assads of the world, the more likely you are to get quality relief work from them and the pen as a whole. And going over the top with your rotation acquisition doesn't obviate the need/goal to add a reliever either. That money is typically not consequential enough to be a barrier if you really want it, and there's trade targets or even scrap heap pickups that can help, Merryweather was a January waiver claim. I'm also more optimistic that the premium velo in the system now(Palencia, Little, Brown in relief, etc) can be more impactful to 2024 than Horton(or Brown) can be to the MLB rotation in 2024.

I won't be too worked up if Hendricks is the only SP they "add", but I know you like your velo and that velo/stuff monster is something I think would go a long way to taking this from being a good team to a team that can win a division/in the playoffs. You could also interpret this as a statement of belief in Horton or their pitching dev more generally, and I think the general sentiment is probably more down on Taillon/Stroman than they will be in 12 months. But we saw this year how pitching depth issues have cascading effects, and ideally I'd like to reinforce from the top down. Plus I have my worries about how much to expect from a full season of Hendricks at age 34.

I only read the Bleacher Nation summary, but two things stuck out to me: 1. The optimism (especially relative to the Bellinger convo) that Hendricks will be back. Especially with the option this is a pretty early offseason decision, and unless spending is gonna be much higher than expected(or Stroman opts out), Hendricks has a lot in common with the Hamels option from 2019. Worth bringing back at the likely cost but does make other upgrades harder given payroll constraints. You give Hendricks 8 figures, and then you're probably only able to do two out of the 3 potential big spending avenues(Frontline SP, Big Bat 1, Big Bat 2) 2. The talk about finding a singular defensive home for Morel. Especially given the current roster, it seems like that points toward him getting reps at 3B, which would make for an interesting dynamic considering there isn't a strong incumbent there and several of the big bat options may need or want reps at DH.

Yeah, they've done their fair share of that with rentals too, Machado and Scherzer being the two biggest I can recall.

Trea Turner is probably the best example, but I'm not seeing that being something they do habitually. They are willing to let guys walk in general, beyond the short term of Turner you have Seager, Ryu, Jansen, Justin Turner, Pederson, Bellinger.

There is not, and definitely not related to position. This is the most clear if you look at comparable offensive seasons that span his positions. 2005: LF/3B, 146 wRC+, 5.1 fWAR 2007: 3B, 142 wRC+, 5.0 fWAR 2009: 1B, 143 wRC+, 5.1 fWAR 2014: 1B, 148 wRC+, 5.2 fWAR

Having (by far) the best offensive season of his career and being graded as a playable 3B in the other made a difference yes. The fact that you grouped multiple full-time 1B seasons as his 'before' without realizing makes the point. Pre-FA Cabrera was consistently a 5-6 win 3B/OF. After his trade and extension they pretty quickly gave up on him playing 3B and there was no material change to his fWAR. If you think Soto is going to be a better hitter than expected by staying in LF, or (more likely) that he's not actually a terrible LF then yes it makes more sense for him to play there. If you agree with his recent defensive metric history that he's a horrible outfielder, then there's no value reason to play him there if you don't have to.

He was a full-time first baseman from 2008 to 2011.

The best corollary to Soto's situation is probably Miguel Cabrera, who was an elite bat who similarly reached 6 years of service at an extremely young age, and was a very bad defender at both 3B and the OF. Take a look at his Fangraphs page and without scrolling down, see if you can spot the year he gave up 3B/OF and started playing 1B full time: https://www.fangraphs.com/players/miguel-cabrera/1744/stats?position=1B/3B You can't easily do so from that view because he didn't have a material change to his WAR, thanks to no longer hemorrhaging defensive value.

As Bertz said, the positional adjustment between corner OF and 1B is half a win. The last 2 years Soto has been a -10 OF, and given his body type despite his young age it's not something that's likely to get better before it gets worse. Therefore in order for Soto to be more valuable as an LF, you have to believe he is either not a -10 OF(an increasingly tough sell since both OAA and DRS agree about the magnitude), or you have to believe that he'd be worse than a -5 1B. Neither of those are indefensible positions, even if I don't agree with them. But also neither are worthy of the dismissive insistence that no one could possibly pay $X for a 1B(and as an aside, using total contract value for this conversation is especially silly given the ages we'd be comparing).

I'm really confused by this idea that because you've paid Soto all this money you must play him in LF even if it doesn't make sense to do so. This isn't a 'well he's way more valuable in the OF but we have Ian Happ so what're you gonna do' situation, though it is true that Soto absolutely should not play corner OF regularly on the current Cubs roster(and Happ & Suzuki are not getting traded). Independent of the rest of the roster, Soto is a horrific defensive outfielder. He should be playing 1B/DH *for the sake of his own value*. If you don't think he's worth that money then I would understand but disagree(his consistency of bat + age at FA is pretty unprecedented), but this insistence that no dummy would ever play Soto anywhere but the OF is bizarre.

Welcome @FullCountTommy! Enjoyed reading both of these. A couple other relievers that have caught my eye that aren't necessarily the closer/relief ace level many of the above are, but could make for worthy targets nonetheless: James Karinchak - He's arb eligible, fell down the pecking order with a subpar 2023, but still has the elite swing and miss that made him a closer candidate as recently as 2022. Main question is if he's healthy, a shoulder injury last year and a drop in velocity at the end of this year make it a gamble Hunter Harvey - The only thing better than having one elite strike throwing reliever is having more than one. He'd have a fairly substantial player cost but probably not to the Bednar level, and the Nats should be open to moving him given that he's Arb 2 and they aren't going to be good any time soon

Woodruff's shoulder asploded

This made me curious so I tried spot checking, there's a few guys with a couple more games than him(Mookie, Chris Taylor, Seager, Jansen), and then a handful of guys with 30+ more than him: Correa, Altuve, Bregman, Justin Turner

Split this off so it's easier to find in-game chatter. This Brewers/DBacks game has had some bombs.

I think 'fat and slow' is the wrong lens to look in terms of aging, though it probably is somewhat correlated to the actual thing that helps these players age: Hit tool. The recent 30+ 1B to buck the 2010s trend of 1B aging cliffs were guys running high BABIPs and regularly flirting with .300. That's where the Alonso risk comes from IMO, not the fact that he's got poor sprint speed or a belly.

Here's the argument for Alonso, in my view: The Cubs have above-replacement efficiency in a lot of places, but the thing they need more than additional defensive value(especially without Bellinger) is a star level bat. Alonso could provide that without costing as much money as Soto, Bellinger, or Ohtani, and have a lower trade cost than Soto too. As with Bellinger, Alonso is an easy QO decision so any trade cost you can partially make back through the QO, which is noteworthy as the big contract rolling off next year's books(Stroman) can't be QO'd. Or you extend him and have that player for longer than their trade cost implied. Alonso's WAR is held down significantly by his defense, which OAA hates. As with catchers, there's an argument to be made that 1B defense isn't perfectly calibrated by metrics, and his career wRC+ with averageish defense is close to a 4 win player Alonso's home park is quietly one of the most pitcher friendly in the game, and he could see an uptick from not playing so many games at Citi Field. Similarly, he's only ever played for one organization, and one that is not heralded for player development, so fresh coaching perspective could conceivably lead to improvement(note: this can go the other way, e.g. Taillon's first half)

I like that this series of moves doesn't rely on simply signing 2 of the 5 top FA, I think too often we fall in that trap without considering why it so rarely happens. That's still probably gonna end up being well beyond where Jed has the flexbility to go though. If you had to cut 30 million out of that offseason, what would you prioritize? Also, is there something in particular you see in Wendle? When you said the name my ears perked up because LH 3B options are not abundant, but checking on his last couple years the bat looks pretty dire at this point.

Get ready to keep learning Japanese, buddy

+1, I've also seen 'MySQL server has gone away' or something with similar wording as the specific message aside from 'connection refused', I'll try to grab a screenshot if I see it again. EDIT: