Transmogrified Tiger

I should try to distill the broader point that's driving the back and forth from my end a bit(which is more macro than about JD's words specifically), because I don't have particularly strong feelings about Perlaza. If they bring him up I hope he hits and sticks, and I doubt they'll jeopardize the development of anyone I think deserves it more to do so in that case. I also don't think much of his future impact, without more cartoonish AAA performance or other pedigree there's not much reason he clears the high bar to be a significant contributor with where he lives on the defensive spectrum. As such I don't think there's much urgency to make irreversible decisions(cutting Mancini, adding Perlaza to the 40 man) to facilitate his 2023 debut. That said, I think a lot of fans(some who I respect their analytical thinking, like Brett/Bleacher Nation) have fallen into a trap in how they think about the deadline and remainder of the season. It starts with the buy/sell binary, which in this situation has never made sense to me. Jed has set the roster to continue to try to be competitive in 2024-2026, and he almost certainly doesn't have the job security to blow it up and start over. You see this in last year's deadline where despite heavy rumors he didn't do anything but trade a few relievers, and one of those was for an immediate contributor. Add in that there's about 3 teams that are looking to trade away any quality outside of rentals and the likely outcome is a minimal trade market or one that the Cubs participate in at both ends in searching for 2024 contributors. The related issue to this is fans have not only been conditioned into that buy/sell binary, but that August/September is an open tryout for new contributors once you've stripped the roster in your Sell-off. There's nothing wrong with the idea that post-deadline you prioritize some things differently, but this gets warped into the idea that anyone currently on the fringes of the roster has no use if they weren't able to fetch a prospect at the deadline. There's plenty of marginal roster players who could have a 2024 role even if they had struggles in 2023, and it's far from certain that casting them aside just to make way for a player with limited ceiling is the right way to maximize your talent to be the best you can be in the short and long term. This is magnified in Perlaza's case by him being a defensive zero, because he has a higher bar to clear to be useful and more competition for the spots where he could fit in. Mastrobuoni, Wisdom and Madrigal(all of who are hitting well at the MLB level most recently and exceeded Perlaza's AAA line in limited time there) can be similarly useful as a good Perlaza outcome without unexpected leaps at the plate thanks to their defensive value, and players with greater pedigree and ceiling(Amaya, Morel, Mervis, a potential deadline acquisition) sap potential opportunity along with starter incumbents(Happ/Suzuki).

If you like Perlaza you can add him in the winter when more dust has settled, but you also don’t have to. I’m all for trying to find internal solutions but this line of thinking (specifically throwing away Wisdom) is oversimplifying the roster nuances involved and is generally more hopeful thinking than anything. There are 8 different players with at least 50 PA at Iowa who have outhit Perlaza this year(including some MLB names you might be ready to move on from). He has very little defensive value or prospect pedigree. If they bring him up because of necessity or they see something in his performance, great. I hope he carves out a role and hits well. But he is not banging down the door and forcing the issue, and there are many options of a similar caliber who arguably can and should get that opportunity instead.

Again, if you like Perlaza you don’t have to promote him to avoid Rule 5 consequences, players get added to the 40 man without MLB experience all the time. He is a bench bat without positional value, I won’t get worked up if he’s on the roster over Mancini, but there are players who should get regular time instead(plus potential deadline acquisitions). Adding him to the 40 man just so he can play once or twice a week isn’t some big mistake but it’s not urgent or consequential.

I’m not going to be upset if they give Perlaza a roster spot, I just don’t think it’s necessary or likely. He’s a guy whose likely outcome is a yo-yo bench bat, and in the short term there are players with greater present or future upside that works against him getting any significant amount of time.

Welcome!

You can add Perlaza to the 40 man after this year without giving him an MLB audition, that's not a problem. If anything that's preferable because you're not using an option year on the limited PA he can scrounge up between LF/1B/DH on a roster that already has Happ, Morel, Amaya, and likely Mervis. And after the year you may have taken more decisive action on some of the weird situations I mentioned(plus Mancini/Barnhart), so those option years are years of greater opportunity.

Yeah, all indications are that they aren't going to blow things up, they're gonna deal from their rentals and maybe an OF to try to get a head start on building their 2024 rotation. As for the trade value conversation, while I don't think BBTV's mathematical approach is perfect, it's closer than it might seem in these cases because of the compounding factor of age. Less so for Goldschmidt because he's only got 1.5 years(though teams will offer less to have him for less time), but for Arenado it's not that about the specific $/WAR efficiency, it's committing 15-20% of your payroll to his age 33-36 seasons. Trading a haul for the opportunity to do that requires an extremely high confidence in his aging curve basically being an aging plateau.

I would be surprised if Perlaza comes up. He's not on the 40 man, and while that's potentially not a huge barrier depending on the deadline outcomes, the OF 40 man has several weird cases(Alcantara, Davis, Canario) where they may not want to rush to add someone who isn't a locked on MLB contributor. With his defensive limitations and lack of super high end offensive production it's very likely a bench profile, and I don't think they'll be in a rush when you can give Velazquez already there(and who can help in CF if Bellinger is traded), plus potentially Canario later in the summer if things go well there.

There's still something missing about why they're opening with Fulmer. If it was a bullpen game or simply about putting a RH before Smyly to steal some platoon at bats, then it'd make more sense to be Palencia. He's on 2 days rest and was starting games in very recent memory. Maybe Smyly's got the flu or something and they're simultaneously showcasing that Fulmer can pitch in consecutive days(something he hasn't done since London) for a trade partner? But even that is a pretty weird outcome given his poor outing yesterday, though admittedly there aren't so many more opportunities to do that before the deadline.

There's a whole minor league forum here: https://northsidebaseball.com/forums/forum/44-cubs-minor-league-talk/ We do daily threads to follow games but there's other more general convo too.

I wouldn't rule out a trade angle. Smyly has been a capable SP and has another year on his contract that some teams might want over a rental. More importantly, if Wesneski is coming up to pitch you just start him, there's no need to mess with an opener. So something odd is happening that's related to Smyly, be it a trade, illness, personal matter, or an injury with an unknown severity.

Someone added today's game to the Controversies section of Kulpa's wikipedia page, which uh, does not include incidents of similar magnitude

I'm guessing a team at the Orioles point in the competitive window is gonna be a tough sell to give so that much value for two rentals, even if the value isn't wrong. It'd be easier if e.g. Brandon Marsh went down and the Phillies were the team(though they have fewer fun things to trade for) given their roster/future outlook/Dombrowski.

98, okay Adbert

He looks old enough that they probably did.

lol, I really do try to remember that a lot of folks are living in the moment in the game thread. The Fulmer thing just baffles me a bit because it's not like other spots where I might say 'it's not so bad' to a marginal player but instead it's 'he's objectively good, you don't have to be mad he's playing!' Save your blood pressure spikes for a different roster spot I say.

Yeah it's been a consistently big zone, especially wide. That strike 2 was as bad as any that I've noticed today though.

lol at the ump "get the f*** outta here"

Even if we accept low leverage success/high leverage failure as a predictable thing(I don't, especially given his history as a successful late inning reliever in Detroit), I don't see any sign that it's factually true. BBRef shows the leverage index of his appearances and there's no obvious correlation.

Fulmer has been excellent for like 2 months running, I get that he was bad out of the gate but at a certain point we gotta let go of the idea that he's a mop up guy being thrust into late inning spots.

Looks like the Cubs have had 10 of them this year(Stroman 3, Steele/Smyly/Hendricks 2 each, Taillon 1), so it happens once every 10 games or so. Before Taillon it was Hendricks on the 29th and Stroman on the 20th, so the pace has slowed down a little even with the London trip/ASB

Raisin pointed out that Wiggins went to the combine, so while I don't know the ins and outs of what they do there it'd be a little weird if he 1) refused the medical testing that's associated with it and the Cubs still picked him or 2) the post-draft physical unearthed something significant the combine testing missed.

I agree if the main limitation is just ownership stinginess, but I think that even though it's motivated by stinginess, the penalties they've created feed a system where front offices are disincentivized to exceed it for too long for competitive reasons. Maybe that doesn't hold up but we're at near a half-decade where everyone is consistently resetting penalties before they get too severe.

FWIW I think in the last couple CBA cycles that's not as true as it used to be. The reasons it has happened are far from noble, but the luxury tax and especially its draft penalties has been a real spending deterrent, FA classes get slimmer and older each year, player development makes it easier (relative to the past) to improve lesser players with the right instruction(which is not expensive), and draft/IFA pools have shut down avenues of buying talent. Go back to since the start of the 2017 CBA and you've got about 6 full seasons. The Top 10 in wins over that span include Tampa, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and St. Louis. What smaller markets still don't have is as much cushion from being very bad.