Transmogrified Tiger

I'm not gonna be the one to tell you 'no Jed is definitely gonna win a title, just wait and see', I've said before that a lot of the anger directed at ownership really ought to be placed towards Jed. But at the same time, my main objection is the insinuation that Jed assumed he had a 90 game winner on his hands when really the plan all along has been a more gradual ramp to playoff contention. Maybe that escalator gets stuck at 78 wins or 84 wins, I won't begrudge anyone for lacking faith that he's gonna get them over the hump, but I think that progression has always been what they planned on.

That roster is about 75 million under this year's LT payroll even with no increases, though I'd say it's very likely Gomes is back and it's more like 70. You also likely have some type of contributor via a Bellinger/Stroman trade or at a minimum a comp pick to make sure you're definitely getting a QO FA. Given the last 2 offseasons have seen them add one big money position player and one big money SP on top of smaller acquisitions, you can start with your favorite combo of Urias/Nola/Giolito/Stroman and Chapman/Candelario/Bellinger, plus maybe some SP depth, and someone like Bader who could be a savvy bridge to PCA. The trade market opens up further possibilities given the farm system depth, and they could also kill two birds with one stone and try to win the Ohtani sweepstakes.

We're only really talking about MLB outcomes though, the 2023 Cubs have more good players(I'd venture a lot more?) than the 2014 team is another difference. *How* you make additional leaps to perennial playoff contender is not assumed to be through graduating stars from the farm system.

I guess what are the alternatives if he didn't think that? It's that he thought he had built a near 90 game winner/division contender, which doesn't track with his words or behaviors during the offseason, or he thought he had built a low-70s win team but for some reason was fine with throwing lots of money at Swanson, Taillon, and extending Hoerner & Happ to lock in a core of players. The most logical interpretation to me is that the target was building an averageish team that would get some fan excitement by being in the playoff hunt later in the year, but ultimately wasn't banking on a playoff appearance. You can see some residue of success in that approach with things like the run differential, but a combination of where the inevitable misses have come and some bad fortune with injuries/schedule luck mean that fan excitement isn't happening. Maybe the telltale sign for how to view this team is in their record when they actually have their good players available. I DIY'd this several days ago so I may be off a game or so, but at last check they're a .500 team(and better by RD) when Hoerner, Swanson, and Bellinger are on the roster(not in the lineup, just on the active roster). The problem is those 3 have been on the roster for about half of the team's games. I think that's telling because it's not saying that they're any type of juggernaut when things aren't going wrong, but that they needed more things to break right and for various reasons in and out of their control they haven't so far.

I feel like this line of conversation has memory wiped how everyone has talked about the team for months, either that or we've forgotten what it's like to follow a mediocre team. On the former, very few people thought this was a do or die situation in terms of making the playoffs. A lot of folks described it as trying to be between the 2014 and 2015 seasons where they'd be a decent team and springboard from there into consistent playoff contention/appearances(especially with Heyward and Hendricks' money off the books). 80% of us said the team would win 85 or fewer games(and a big chunk was 5+ games fewer), so given the line for playoff competitiveness most years we were collectively bearish on that possibility. So that leaves the latter, which is understandable. The Cubs have won between 76 and 90 games just once since the Hendry era, and that was 2019(84 wins) which was naturally going to feel like a huge disappointment. Mediocre teams are frustrating, they lose more than you feel they should, and they leave you feeling miles away one week and then counting your what-ifs when they put it together the next. I pegged them at 84 wins, and while that's what their pythag says they've earned with their play so far, it's been a disappointing year, but also one that is part of the reasonable set of outcomes when you're projected to be a middling team.

Wisdom has raised his wRC+ back to last year's 104, and has done so with half of his PA since returning being three true outcomes.

What they could really stand to do is to make a trade reminiscent of those that supplemented the 2016 roster, which wasn't really about paying through the nose for very good players(this tended to not work out, notably with Quintana) but about trading for players who found or re-found their level with the Cubs. Arrieta is the shining example, but guys like Fowler and Montero fit in this bucket too. That type of player is very much able to be found at the deadline even in a selling year(see Arrieta), and while it'd be foolish to bank on any trade acquisition becoming a Cy Young/MVP candidate as the linchpin of their success, it's the type of move that hasn't really happened in a bit while they've been at least okay at developing players and in signing FAs. The roster is close enough that one bit of good scouting/development/luck can really transform their fortunes, both as a hedge against bad luck/injuries and by allowing them to be more aggressive in plugging remaining holes.

I think you're misunderstanding what it means to be a "legit" prospect on the Fangraphs list. The Cubs have a deep farm, they had the 3rd most prospects on a FG list and their 6 prospects with 50 or better FV's is tied 4th best among teams(behind 3 orgs w/ 7). They should absolutely use their prospect depth to improve the team for 2024 and beyond. That doesn't mean they have no room for prospects or that they have a big talent surplus compared to other teams though. Fangraphs lists have enough prospects across all teams to completely fill every 40 man roster in MLB, most of those prospects won't have any type of MLB future. Mervis being listed #46 is not a testament to insane depth, it's Fangraphs saying they think Mervis is not much of a prospect at all.

I think the injury factor is a valid one, but the other bit unexplored here is Seiya's swing decisions. He's patient to a fault, and that means that the composition of the middle/middle pitches he is making contact with are different than his peers. Fewer middle/middle swings in obvious fastball counts where the probability of damage is highest, and more with 2 strikes where he has a more defensive posture and may be working harder to recognize spin.

I don't think your overall conception of a good team here is completely off base, but I think you'll find most people here are thinking about roster building at a more detailed level than the "slugging 1B" "strikeout #2" roles you're describing. So more people are gonna disagree with the initial assumptions even before you get into the specifics of a player like Madrigal As it relates to Madrigal, I'm maybe the biggest Madrigal optimist on the site, but I think he's a poor fit for this team. The best version of Madrigal is a decent starter on a good team, a 3 win player in those peak years that's driven by hit tool and positional value that makes up for taking few walks and hitting for no power. Those deficiencies are big enough that even if he is elite at getting hits, there's a hard ceiling on how much value he can add that most players don't have. The problem though is less that he's got those limitations, and more that this player isn't maximized on a team that 1) doesn't have enough HR power and 2) has a core player that plays everyday at 2B that also gets more value from defense than they do patience or power. Even if Madrigal does hit to the optimistic outcome, he can mostly only fill in at 3B, which shines a brighter light on his shortcomings considering that Hoerner isn't compensating for that with his bat. And while Madrigal has hit better recently, he's not only not hitting to that optimistic outcome but he can't stay healthy enough to play his way into the consistent time he needs to keep that hit tool sharp.

Yes, players with declined options can be given a QO, as long as the player hasn't gotten a QO before. I know there's technically different mechanics when it comes to team options, player options, opt-outs(aka multi-year player options), or mutual options, but as far as I know there's nothing in those mechanics that could prevent a QO from being offered when the player is hitting free agency after the options aren't exercised.

Kirilloff and Mervis are not mutually exclusive in a lineup.

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about it yet, but I kinda wonder how agreeable a deal based around Stroman for Luis Garcia would be.

Kirilloff's current wRC+ would be Top 10 for qualified 1B, the Cubs have roster/lineup room to get him and another bopper, and there's an obvious reason(health) where his power would increase(he ran IsoPs in AAA similar to Mervis). There's risk(that's why he's potentially available), but he's clearing a bar they aren't clearing now and provides the hope of future improvement. I did want to come back to this point from Matt, because at a minimum I think it's debatable or at least the Front Office does not agree. We've seen rumblings in the past that the front office values the comp pick much higher than the value charts that tend to get floated online, and behavior both specifically from the Cubs(not trading Contreras) and the league at large in how they approach QO'd free agents indicates that they put a greater value on not only the draft pick itself but the scarce resource of the pool that comes with it. To put a finer point on it, in recent memory there are not many examples of good/well run teams signing QO free agents without also gaining a QO pick themselves in the same offseason. I think this is generally how Jed and co approach the QO dynamic, and as such I think Bellinger represents not just a trade asset that happens to have a softer landing than Stroman in terms of "return", but rather the flexibility to be aggressive in FA without giving up too much draft capital that teams unequivocally need to be consistently competitive.

There's an Arrested Development subplot where Jed heard Higgins was practicing his Japanese for career reasons and decided he was a must have addition to lure Ohtani.

Higgins does not appear to have been on the 40 man so it's possible this is just as much about Iowa roster logistics as anything happening in Chicago.

boy this is really a conflicting one for me

Folks on Twitter already caught this but Hoerner and Happ alone have combined for about 20 fWAR, so even if that's meant to be a per-draft number it seems fishy. I wouldn't be at all shocked that even if the numbers are accurate the Cubs do not rank well though.

I can get on board with that, I just didn't have the guts to project that much(health, control/command, 3rd pitch) all coming together. Plus even as an underslot the 2nd round carries a higher baseline of expectation because of who could've been picked in that spot(even at underslot prices).

Setting aside Shaw since I don't think that's really the point of your question, I'll vote for Sanders. Guy had 1st round helium before this year and was a multi-year starter in the SEC, I wouldn't be surprised that a little bit of health and a little bit of pro instruction(mechanical and pitch dev) make him into a really good pick for the round/slot.

I think if you want to be optimistic on Shaw, you can point to most of the complaints about his defense being arm-related, which combined with his physicality & work ethic you can draw a line to him being closer to the Dansby/Nico end of defenders who lack elite arms. That would then put his profile in the vicinity of like a Marcus Semien, again assuming positive outcomes for the bat too. More realistic might then be closer to Brandon Drury if he's more of an average defender but still hits like you hope?

I guess to maybe clarify on the catchers I don't necessarily disagree about the Amaya v. Barnhart conclusion, but I think how much emphasis was put on handling pitchers in how they built this catching group means that they aren't particularly cowed by Barnhart being a handful of singles worse than hoped for offensively. I think because of this mindset it's notable in a positive way that Amaya continues to persist on the MLB roster and get occasional starts behind the plate, with other inflexibilities in the position player group it would have been easy to send him down for someone who could play the infield or outfield at various points. But I also don't think the front office sees this as a problem needing immediate resolution, if they're okay with Amaya sticking on the roster in this fashion then they probably will be for next year's roster, which lowers the urgency in creating an Amaya audition outside of purely developmental grounds(which there are arguments I can buy for and against). On Mervis, he can definitely be called up for Young today, no question. What I was getting at is that keeping him up after others get healthy requires an opinionated decision on one of those other guys going down instead of Mervis(technically Tauchman or Mancini too, but those are more nuanced). If you're of the mind that Wisdom should be in Iowa instead of Mervis *when the time comes to choose between them*, then great, I don't disagree. But you have to be of that mind because otherwise he's coming up for like 10 games and then going back down, and I think avoiding that outcome is why Young was chosen to begin with.

Call up Mervis when you're willing to to send down one of Amaya, Madrigal, or Wisdom to keep him up. If that moment is now then you don't have to wait, but if you aren't there yet then it shouldn't be now because then he just gets yo-yo'd when Swanson/Madrigal get healthy. I would call up Velazquez before Perlaza, and I would not call up Velazquez. Amaya's near term value is as a bench bat/backup catcher, and the team has taken uncommon steps to keep him on the roster when they didn't have to. This isn't his ceiling and you can say he should be playing more now with the existing roster, but he's doing the role you're creating an artificial audition for already. Faking an injury for Barnhart(who has been a perfectly cromulent backup for the last 5 weeks running) not only ignores how and why Barnhart gets most of the PT he does get(Stroman, platoon advantage), but it sends a contrary message to all previous writing and thinking about trying their best to be competitive.

Boy I really did not need to see that SD/Detroit guess was correct since I talked myself out of it and then guessed wrong for 8/9