Transmogrified Tiger

He was staying in a house with several other journalists, so if there is some sort of foul play it would seem to be difficult to do discreetly.

terrible

oh no

If you're targeting Swanson then I don't see much reason to get too worked up about 8/200 in this market. He turns 29 right before pitchers and catchers report, so 8 years for him isn't going any later in his career than say, the Darvish contract. And 25M AAV is less than I would expect so you're at least getting a slight discount for it. I'd rather have Correa, but especially with several holes and a hot market, I can at least understand how some might prefer something like Swanson + Senga to Correa + rehabbing SP

https://twitter.com/johnspacemuller/status/1601357120368410625

every time someone says "if lebron james played soccer!!!!" i think of how modric would eat his lunch for 90 minutes and laugh After today it is clear we need to teach the next Al Horford to play soccer

The Dutch gonna try to Burnley their way into a comeback, phenomenal

Baseball reference has L/R minor league splits: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=morel-000chr&type=bgl&year=2021 In 2021 he had a heavy platoon split, but he's had several minor league seasons that were more split neutral.

https://twitter.com/rwohan/status/1599823387966464001

I think this was talked about on here somewhere yesterday as likely, that the Cubs' to-do list has a bat on it but the ability for that guy to play 1B is more of a nice to have I take this as Taillon is viewed as being the "other" SP this winter, but they wanted to get it done now to make sure they didn't whiff entirely on the rotation. Are they planning to pull down their top guy via trade? Pablo Lopez? I dunno, viewing him as the best non-QO SP and waiting to add more 'depth' could be about making another SP simply fit in salary wise more than ensuring they're better than Taillon. Thanks to trades it could be both, but I didn't get the same impression. As for the bat, it sounds like they only see one spot to be filled aside from SS & C? I wonder if that's sincere belief that they're fine with the depth, or they're gonna cross that bridge with what's left over if they do end up using MLB position players in a trade. Swanson, Vazquez/Narvaez, someone like Martinez/Brantley, and a 10M SP(Smyly?) would probably let you extend Hoerner and just barely stay under the tax line.

A little bit of that, and also that the most important number is the 17 million. Players aren't going to be looking up the individual OPS or WAR of all their new potential teammates, but if they've got an offer from the Cubs who are saying "we're going to be in the playoffs next year" it is more clearly demonstrated that Jed isn't blowing smoke when he drops 35 million AAV on 2 players and says there's more coming.

Yeah Bellinger was not brought in with the intention of playing 1st. Is the flexibility nice, sure. There are certainly scenarios where Bellinger and Davis are both crushing it and that's a way to get them both into the lineup. But Bellinger's been one of the worst hitters in the league the last two years but has played monster enough defense to mostly compensate for it. They're planning on the latter continuing while trying to mitigate the former. Even setting aside the 1B part of it, any team that paid 17 million for Bellinger did so with belief he'd be a better hitter than recent form, otherwise they'd find a far cheaper option for bad bat CF defense. With that in mind, I don't think Plan A is Bellinger at 1B, but I think that option as a contingency could very well be part of it. That contingency could be Davis going nuts to start the year like you said, or it could be Mervis falling on his face while Velazquez looks good. Or it could be that the plan is to sign Swanson but if it falls through they don't want to lose the option to pay Nimmo or trade for one of Arizona's outfielders. I also think for a team in the Cubs' position, banking a signing like Bellinger(and Taillon) even if you aren't 100% sure how he'll be used is something that's done as a signal of intent to other players they may be working with that may be hesitant about the team's competitive intent. His positional flexibility just keeps more potential options open that can be bigger upgrades than the post-prime crowd or buy low bounceback guys.

Increasingly, what I'd really like them to do is add enough that they're comfortable trading Morel. I like Morel, but he's possibly at a high in value given his swing and miss, he's really probably a 2B/3B which if you add a SS cuts out lots of potential PT(plus next year's FA stars are shaping to be 3B-heavy), and he's got enough value to lead a trade for a significant addition that doesn't carry a big salary. You can use him to get Murphy(good fit, requires more), Jansen(bad fit, standalone), or a Marlins SP(good fit, requires slightly more) and work around that with the rest of your additions.

They're still taking to Smyly. I'm pretty much expecting him to be their final SP add. They've also been linked to Bassitt a couple times. I'm kinda intrigued by Tom's point that Bellinger may not be locked into CF, I thought I had heard someone in the FO describe him as a primary CF but couldn't find it. That could mean that if they did strike out on the SS you could pivot to Nimmo, but I also don't know if there's another reasonable target worth relocating Bellinger(Tom just pretend I said Varsho so you don't have to say it).

The Padres were plenty luxury tax conscious with their moves over the summer, and also they haven't won 90 games since 2010, so I'm more than a little skeptical of the framing that they're the ones working the league by not playing by the ownership class's rules.

Mostly because people on Twitter are super melodramatic. Also at the moment it seems like the most likely to be a Cub is Swanson, which some people are varying to degrees of unhappy with.

Fiancee, it's Mallory Pugh of USWNT fame

Is Malloy toolsier than Fangraphs leads me to believe? Because Malloy and a 26 y/o AA reliever w/ a 4.73 ERA while giving up cash too should.. not be enough for Jimenez?

https://theathletic.com/3980158/2022/12/07/cardinals-sign-willson-contreras/ Olson went for (at the time) two 50 FV prospects (both close to MLB ready), a 45 FV and a 40 FV from other levels. Following that pattern reasonably closely could get you something like:

Interestingly, Profar and Mastrobuoni have near identical projected batted lines w/ Steamer. Ah, forgot we added him. Never mind the Profar idea then use the money he’d take to throw at an established RP, he can cover a Morel/Madrigal going out. I almost prefer him to Madrigal for a roster balance standpoint, can play more spots, LHH, etc. Not that it's a bad idea because he exists, depth is good and projections for end of roster types are going to be sketchy(McKinstry projects for a 98 wRC+, for example), it just made me wonder how different the expectations were by comparison.

Interestingly, Profar and Mastrobuoni have near identical projected batted lines w/ Steamer.

Depends on how you define it, but guys with significant offensive improvement on past form would be Montero, Valbuena, Coghlan, and Wisdom in recent years. Further back you have Aramis, Lee, Barrett, and Todd Walker too.

It has not. 20+ hours is a long time for nothing else to drip out about it though.

First and foremost, others on Twitter pointed this out but this isn't significant news, it's not in either party's interest to not at least schedule conversations(which is all the article mentions is taking place), and the article continues the trend of pointing out Berhalter may prefer to try to capitalize on this relative high and try his hand at club coaching overseas. That said, I am conflicted about it. On the plus side, the internet perception of Berhalter is way out of wack with reality. This was no more obvious than in the last week when the USMNT fanbase continued to shriek about him for umpteen different reasons while the foreign press and european tactics bloggers raved about his work. He's met performance expectations, built a great culture in the team, been a terrific recruiter, adjusted his tactics to play to his team's strengths, and generally had a smart outlook on deploying an international team. This is ironically reflected best in the bouts of offensive struggles the team has had, because part of the reason the attack is static at times is an emphasis on rest defense, and Berhalter understands that in international play and especially in tournaments that variance can burn you so it's best to limit opponent attacks before they start. As it relates to him getting a 2nd cycle, I think a lot of the risks(holding on to last cycle's prime players too long as they age out) don't have near as much risk for this roster so the downside is more muted. Also of note, 6 of the 8 quarterfinalists have a coach in their second cycle. On the down side, I think if you want the program to move up a level and be a team favored in a knock out round and being seriously considered to make the semis/finals, you'll need a little better on field coaching and tactical flexibility than Berhalter has shown. You could reasonably argue he doesn't expand more tactically because of how inexperienced his core is(along with the limitations of international soccer), but this is also the soccer he wants to play so it's not as if he's eager to add more clubs to the bag but is holding himself back. This also manifests itself at not being able to conform his approach to the roster at hand, which leads to things like playing 4 different players at striker in 360 world cup minutes. All that said I don't have a strong opinion on Berhalter staying or going. I'm fearful that a different manager will be a worse downgrade at Berhalter's strengths than it is an upgrade on his weaknesses, but I also don't have intense optimism that he's going to level up the team more than increasing the talent and experience will already.