Transmogrified Tiger

There's more than a couple things I don't fully understand about the roster build at the moment, but maybe the thing I'm most curious about is what the plan is at catcher. The beat reporters seemed pretty adamant they were going to bring in a starting-caliber presence, but the lack of more than a whisper about anyone but Vazquez makes me curious if he was plan A, B, and C. The offensive bar is so low and Gomes' presence means they could take a chance on a pre-FA target that is maybe more speculative if they were confident in the defense, Reese McGuire to the Red Sox last year being a good example of this. Signing someone in the Barnhart/Hedges/Perez tier of players doesn't seem representative of their original intent, doubly so considering they aren't needing to compromise thanks to a huge SS contract. Maybe they think they can mold something out of Jorge Alfaro? He did hit .307/.360/.482 away from Petco last year, but he's not exactly a defensive stalwart so there's questions at both ends.

Considerably less than that. I've got right around $56. Yeah I got $56m from Sportrac which has their estimated luxury tax number at $176.8m compared to the $233m luxury tax threshold. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/chicago-cubs/payroll/ To answer your first reply, how do you see $56m vanishing quickly without Swanson? Yeah Fangraphs has right around 55 too, I guess the disconnect that I can see is they have 14 million for pre-arb contracts(not including 40-man minor leaguers) and I'm not sure how they come to that considering they have 7 players in that bucket. Even doubling it for the likelihood of Estrada, Wesneski, Mastrobuoni, etc being major leaguers, there's only so many slots considering those minor leaguers + guaranteed + arb salaries.

By my count(and there isn't a true answer because of arb estimates and exactly how you count various benefits and such), it's somewhere between 65 and 70 million under.

You can read this as coping, but Swanson is a clear level below the others so the appetite for super long term deals is probably not nearly as high even before setting aside that 3 of the teams willing to do so already found their man. As an example, Swanson just had a career high wRC+ that was worse than the career average of each of the other three. I wouldn't be surprised if it was more of a 6/160 or 7/175 type of deal. This market tends to make most guesses look foolish, though now I feel pretty good about my 12/360 anchor point for Correa from Sunday. Quoting myself here, but reading this Fangraphs article made me update my priors a little bit: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/why-are-teams-issuing-extremely-long-contracts/ TL;DR because interest rates are so high it's more in teams' interest to stretch contracts over more years on top of luxury tax implications. If that held then maybe it wouldn't be surprising to see a 9/190-200 type deal for Swanson, but I do still think on an AAV basis it'll be a clear step down from the other 3, and maybe even if it's not 8+ years too.

I just saw that the Red Sox DFA'd Jeter Downs and they're a sneaky good fit for Madrigal. I wonder how close Madrigal for Houck gets you, considering they don't seem to have interest in making him a SP again and they certainly aren't relying on him for late innings given the addition of Jansen/Martin and his back surgery last fall.

There's some chatter on this a few pages back from yesterday. For my part, it's about maximizing your chances of a less likely star emerging.

Boxberger seems like a good fit to be 2023 Givens in terms of bullpen role. That dollar figure also means they should still be in the running for someone like May, Lugo, or Fulmer even if they aren't spending big on the pen. One of those guys, and maybe a little more depth on non-guaranteed deals or near the minimum(e.g. Giles, Reyes, Leone, maybe Britton) and I'll be satisfied with the pen assuming one more SP is coming.

I forget who it was associated with, but what I saw was that there was a vote, but it was a coaches/support staff vote and not players.

I’m not gonna read too much into Jed trying to humor our least knowledgeable beat writer in casual conversation.

To use Fangraphs' rankings for ease of use, the Cubs are 5th in overall value, 5th in number of 50 FV or greater prospects, and 9th in average value of ranked prospects. they're probably absurdly high on most of our farm, most notably they rate Cristian Hernandez/James Triantos/Owen Caissie top 100 prospects despite there being little to justify it i'd sincerely bet other respected evals that start to trickle in have us way more in the #12-18 range ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ They're also arguably low on Mervis, Canario, Wicks, and Brown, and if we look at every organization we'll find highly rated prospects deserving of a lot of skepticism(failure is the game after all).

I'm skeptical of Swanson's offense, but it's worth noting the dynamic you're describing isn't really unique to him. The other 3 FA SS have a combined 12 seasons above 4 fWAR, and 9 of those seasons had BABIPs over .330. Swanson has a career .313 BABIP and .328 since the start of the pandemic, so it's not as if he's running Schwarberian BABIPs outside of his career year either.

The farm system is most definitely better than average, whatever average even is. I’m the low guy on the mainstream coverage too, but it’s as deep and talented as anyone’s To use Fangraphs' rankings for ease of use, the Cubs are 5th in overall value, 5th in number of 50 FV or greater prospects, and 9th in average value of ranked prospects.

One other thing that could come into play with Swanson that didn't with the others is opt outs. Correa and Bogaerts were already exercising theirs so they maxed out on length, and Turner didn't prioritize it(probably because his value has little to go but down). By comparison, Swanson has an incentive as someone who only hit peak value in his contract year and who will still be Turner/Bogaerts aged after next year. I don't think he's signing a version of Correa's Twins deal, but would he sign 7/140-150 with an opt out after 2023? Maybe?

You can read this as coping, but Swanson is a clear level below the others so the appetite for super long term deals is probably not nearly as high even before setting aside that 3 of the teams willing to do so already found their man. As an example, Swanson just had a career high wRC+ that was worse than the career average of each of the other three. I wouldn't be surprised if it was more of a 6/160 or 7/175 type of deal. This market tends to make most guesses look foolish, though now I feel pretty good about my 12/360 anchor point for Correa from Sunday.

It's pretty public at this point that the Sox and Devers aren't particularly close to an extension, but their willingness to risk another Bogaerts v. risking another Betts is an open question. Also, whether Devers has interest in extending with any team before FA at this point, given the extravaganza he's seen over the last couple weeks.

This does some heavy lifting with Morel's value, but BBTV says Morel, Kilian, and Made is about there. Maybe they insist on Thompson over Kilian, or Made has to get upgraded to the Caissie/Triantos tier, or they must get Hernandez on top of an MLB piece. But as we've seen at the deadline for expiring deals, one year of a star doesn't go as far as it might feel.

One other trade situation worth monitoring is the Rays middle infield. Are they bearish on Lowe after his poor injury-hampered 2022? Are they willing to cut bait on Brujan's tools considering he's buried on the depth chart and they have multiple top 100 infielders getting close?

A no shortstop offseason would have been a lot more viable if it was the plan from the beginning. Add an Abreu or Bell, go harder on SP, etc. I think at this point the top tier no SS offseason is probably something like - Trade for Danny Jansen - Sign Nate Eovaldi - Sign the best DH option available (Michael Brantley?) - Sign someone who can cover 3B and/or SS. I'd prioritize offense and do someone like Justin Turner - Go fairly hard on the bullpen, but guys who are already good rather than those you think you can make good, something like Taylor Rogers and Adam Ottavino But like if they're drawing such a hard line on keeping the powder dry, even the above plan you have to have doubts around Jed's appetite for the modest prospect costs of Jansen and Eovaldi's QO. If you whiff on a SS, then to me the priority is taking as many swings as you can on guys who have at least some chance of giving you star level production, preferably beyond 2023. Since you haven't signed a QO guy and you've gotten your Willson pick, I think you need to be aggressive in the trade market, which coincidentally is the best place to do that. You mentioned Jansen, he would qualify and is probably the only realistic C option. Rogers and Luzardo from the Marlins would be natural places to shop for SP, as would Bieber if the Indians are making him available(seems doubtful at the moment). With trade targets you don't have to sell a player on PT so you can look to the OF for the bat-first player if you want. Kelenic, Pratto, maybe one of the Twins excess bats. At third base the obvious first stop is Devers, especially if the Red Sox keep striking out on FA targets(remember Mookie was traded in February). You also need to really understand what you think of Morel, because if you're gonna bet on him then that could limit the MLB caliber pieces you have and therefore your potential trade partners.

bring the guy

Yeah if he's actually a plus defender, an OF with that glove plus 30/36 SB and decent AAA batting line is a nice option to have in Iowa. Especially considering the existing options don't have the same strengths.

While I'm not nearly apoplectic about not giving Christian Vazquez 3/30, the catching options are dwindling considering there's good reporting they planned to add meaningfully to the position. We've discussed Jansen and Narvaez at some length, and several have mentioned taking advantage of Barnhart's platoon advantage for a buy low option. I tried to look around for some other less discussed options. Catchers who were decent or better in 2021 but bad in 2022 - Carson Kelly - Arizona was in on Vazquez so you have to think they'd at least consider moving on from Kelly, but considering their backup is a December waiver claim with 0 MLB PA it probably requires them finding their starting solution first. - Mike Zunino - The boom/bust option, he was worth 4.5 wins in 2021 but has surrounded that with a bunch of bad seasons at the plate, plus he's coming off thoracic outlet surgery - Tom Murphy - also coming off a shoulder injury, Murphy lost the primary job to Raleigh and is only 1 year from FA if Jerry gets the trading itch again. Career league average hitter and 5 WAR in 270 games. Congested catching situations - Travis D'Arnaud - Anthopoulos is at least pretending he'll get significant time even with Murphy, and there is some room for DH at bats. But if they are looking for a way to trim some salary that's a fairly painless place to do it. Since leaving New York, D'Arnoud has been worth 8 fWAR in about 300 games. - Whatever is happening with the Guardians - They have 2 strong young catching prospects and yet seemed very interested in bringing in Murphy. Would they deal Lavastida or Naylor? Like with Kelly, probably not until there was a reinforcement of their own in place.

We've only heard that framing directly from Gio so it's hard to say exactly what was communicated, but I imagine this was roughly the intent though obviously not the exact message:

well i guess i'm just not down with giving up for 2-3 more years Signing Swanson really doesn’t help the next 2-3 years if they don’t add a real star and the 1-2 year vet deals can bring as much value without the money outlay for a guy who’s just a guy, imo. Maybe things break right enough they make a WC game and done have a burden of 9 figures on Swanson. If you want to bank a consistently 3+ win player for several years and he's not post-prime already, it's gonna cost you 20+ million in this market. We can talk about how it'd be better to get Correa or have been more aggressive for Bogaerts/Turner, and I'm sure if they sign Swanson we won't be in love with the AAV, but the downside of taking on Swanson's risk is a marginal one. Even without payroll changing they've got 70 million to replace 2 OF and 1 SP next year(with multiple top 100-caliber prospects as internal options for all 3) so this isn't their only bite at the apple too.

Even with modest projections for their offense, I think it's understated just how dramatic an upgrade Swanson and Mervis would be over the production they got from those positions last year. They were 25th in CF WAR. If they're at all right about how much Willson was giving back defensively and they add a C with a better bat than Gomes they may very well have parity there too. I would rather they sign Correa regardless, but a lot of my view on the offseason hinges on if ownership actually has the appetite to go over the LT this year. If they don't, then the likely outcome here isn't exactly how I would play it out, but with the number of holes and the market being higher than expected I can at least appreciate the logic. That starts with Swanson being the 'settling' outcome though, you can't whiff on a SS.