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Transmogrified Tiger

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Everything posted by Transmogrified Tiger

  1. Transmogrified Tiger
    There was some similar chatter on Twitter when the betting odds for Correa came out, it only takes one but it's not really clear who is waiting to give him 9-10 years.
  2. Transmogrified Tiger
    I've long said that Weah could be a great fit at the 9 in this system, but why is this a thing being considered 6 days before the world cup starts
  3. Transmogrified Tiger
    Contract crowdsourcing had Rizzo getting 3/54 and Abreu getting 2/32. Feels like that 2/32 should still be possible, especially if Abreu does have a fondness for staying in Chicago.
  4. Transmogrified Tiger
    The most cost efficient option is antenna + subscribing to Peacock. That will get you all the big Fox games over the air, and any others will be on Telemundo (albeit in Spanish) on Peacock. Other considerations: - It looks like 21 group stage games are on big Fox with the other 27 on FS1, and all the US group games are on Fox. - The Cable games are slanted towards the weekends, presumably since Fox has football obligations that take precedence. - All of the knockout games are on big Fox except the 2 round of 16 games on Sunday December 4th(again, presumably because of NFL obligations) - Unfortunately, if the US wins their group, they'll be one of those December 4th games TL;DR if you have a way to watch Fox OTA you're gonna be able to watch a lot of these games. The cheapest option to fill in the cable gaps is Peacock, but it'll be in Spanish.
  5. Transmogrified Tiger
    He was getting torched in 3 inning starts at South Bend(where he couldn't throw strikes, didn't prevent HR, and didn't get GB), even if they had protected him he might've run out of option years before he was ready to be a bullpen piece, never mind a starter. Especially with the more restrictive roster rules around bullpens next year, if someone can make him work at the MLB level all year(and somehow not stunt his development further), you tip your cap and move on. I had a slight preference for Sanders v. Jansen because Sanders had made it to AAA and shown signs the RP conversion could be fruitful, but ultimately it's a marginal decision.
  6. Transmogrified Tiger
  7. Transmogrified Tiger
    I agree that the most likely thing this portends is that McKinstry didn't save himself with his decent September line, and he's getting outrighted the moment it becomes necessary(maybe today, maybe in 2 weeks, maybe in January). Other less likely possibilities include an increased likelihood of Madrigal/Morel getting traded, a lesser 40 man squeeze than assumed that can afford to carry Mastrobuoni(who still has options), or even the Cubs wanting to give him a look in CF in some form.
  8. Transmogrified Tiger
    Bowden and Wittenmyer have prediction columns up that despite being unsourced, both have Correa going to the Cubs. Wittenmyer also has a non-tendered Bellinger signing, which is the only other Cubs mention of either piece.
  9. Transmogrified Tiger
    Yeah I think it's mostly about the 40 man space, aside from Glasnow and Margot(both of whom signed their current deals in the last 12 months), there's no one making more than a couple million, and they lost Kiermaier, Zunino, and Kluber's salaries which were like a third of their payroll. That said, I'm sure they'll be more willing to trade the arb guys than the pre-arb guys, but I'd be surprised if they took on current 40 man obligations.
  10. Transmogrified Tiger
    I almost included Cleavinger but didn't with his pre-arb salary and solid performance, but given what you say about his nomadic career and that TB might not see his 2022 BB% as his true talent, that's a distinct possibility.
  11. Transmogrified Tiger
    Twitter is jumping on the idea of Glasnow being a target, I have no complaints with his ability but a 15M AAV plus significant trade cost is a lot to choke down for a guy who has never reached 15 MLB GS in a season. My 'I looked up a bunch of guys I had heard of once before' take is Beeks might be the guy? Arb eligible reliever whose peripherals don't match the performance justifies it for the Rays, but maybe some room for development given his TJS in 2021 and big LHP fastball to either be a late inning RP or LH Thompson? The other two off the wall ideas are best posed as questions. 1) How many starts do they think they could get out of Chirinos if they only wanted SP2 to be a Wesneski hedge instead of a bigger investment? 2) How much have the Rays soured on Patiño, and relatedly, how healthy is his arm?
  12. Transmogrified Tiger
    The way the article described it, that program is less aiming to get Hendricks to gain new velocity, and more trying to get him back to previous highs(e.g. 88 mph on the fastball v. 86), plus possibly make his delivery more repeatable. Personally I don't see much to lose given how little we can count on Hendricks' 2023 baseline, but what is sticking in my head is how Kilian's command evaporated right when they were able to upgrade his stuff, so I'm gonna treat it as BSOHL level optimism for now.
  13. Transmogrified Tiger
    holy smokes the last 2 minutes of Bills/VIkings has had three different plays that made my jaw drop
  14. Transmogrified Tiger
    Aaronson being listed as a midfielder on the roster(for the first time I believe) on top of his great form looms large here.
  15. Transmogrified Tiger
    Yeah I can get on board with Smith essentially being the new Robertson pretty easily. Another one that is a little more speculative is Alex Colome. He's been Fastball/Cutter for a while(which probably explains at least some of his Rockies tenure) and he still has the same velo from when he was a strong closing option, which feels like a good foundation for this staff to work with.
  16. Transmogrified Tiger
    Can someone be knighted and arrested for the same thing, because I think that's about what should happen to Jesse Marsch for what he's doing to the people of Leeds
  17. Transmogrified Tiger
    Not sure what you're getting at here. No one is saying 'well this is their one chance to get a star-level player so it better be great', but they also aren't going to make 3+ or even 2 investments of that caliber AAV *this year* so the difference in certainty/upside certainly matters. If he hits like last year then great! He's a good defender and a year younger than Bogaerts/Turner. But since he's only been above average hitter last year and the pandemic-shortened 2020, I'm extremely skeptical!
  18. Transmogrified Tiger
    I'm not a big Steamer fan, but I think it boils down the point pretty well. Correa 5.1 fWAR Bogaerts 4.5 Turner 4.7 Swanson 3.2 You can do a lot better for your star-level investment, especially when you do have Hoerner so SS defense(the one differentiator for Swanson) is not a gaping hole where you'd get disproportionate benefit. If someone wants to make the case that Swanson made some specific improvement that makes 2022 the new norm I'm open to it, but his candidacy to belong in this category hinges on stuff like his 2022 defensive value(a cartoonish 15 RAA beating a previous career high of 7), and him maintaining an offensive level that (to put it gently) he has not reached with consistency.
  19. Transmogrified Tiger
  20. Transmogrified Tiger
    Is Bogaerts good enough defensively to move Nico off of SS? Or is Bogaerts going to be the 2B? Bogaerts has been pretty insistent on playing SS in a similar situation last year(Boston signing Trevor Story), so I think in 2023 you would see a default of Bogaerts SS/Nico 2B. There's reasons to think that wouldn't be so bad. Bogaerts has consistently had good UZRs, and this year had OAA easily above average too. Nico was very strong defensively last year, but also a decent chunk of that value came from constantly being flipped to play in the hole on LHH shifts, which could persist in this arrangement. And while the default would be this way there's also keeping Bogaerts rested or any minor injuries, so I'd expect Nico to be over there 10-20 games regardless. Plus, Bogaerts' insistence on playing SS may go down if he's paid like an elite SS and gotten his big FA deal.
  21. Transmogrified Tiger
    There's a little bit of Bogaerts chatter picking up, between Wittenmyer reporting that the Cubs met with his agent and Heyman on the radio today saying that might be the best fit for the Cubs. Fangraphs has his contract at 6/168, which would leave some room even if it's a little low for the Cubs to be competitive on a 5 year deal that doesn't completely wreck all other plans(e.g. 5/170 probably carries more appeal than 6/180). That would fit if it were true that the FO wants to get that star SS but really hates long term deals, even if it's a bit silly to be deathly afraid of 8 years for 28 y/o Correa but then give 5 to 30 y/o Bogaerts. I have my reservations about Bogaerts(the defense is unclear and again, 30 v. 28), but he has an offensive profile that looks like it should age gracefully and still play at 3B if they do move him. Preferable to rolling the dice on Swanson repeating his 2022 at the plate for me.
  22. Transmogrified Tiger
    and so our Mekkeswatch has ended
  23. Transmogrified Tiger
    Hartman is a 2020 4th rounder who missed most of 2021 and 2022 w/ TJS, coming back for 18 (bad) low A IP. For someone with Choi's offensive floor and modest 2022 salary I wouldn't have hated him for that price.
  24. Transmogrified Tiger
    In a vacuum I'd be pretty happy with Kiermaier + Abreu, but that's a big chunk of the likely available $ so you'd be jeopardizing some other significant addition or needing it to come via trade(e.g. Lopez instead of Senga). Kiermaier and Abreu can’t take more than ~$30 mil on the AAV side and overall commitment can’t be more than ~$50-60ish. If that’s a big chunk of our money, with where we stand then idk what we’re even doing here. I'm only thinking of AAV, because the LT threshold(or some amount under it like 5-10M) is where I expect there to be an upper limit this offseason. We've talked before about how we can probably expect them to spend 70-80 million of AAV with this in mind, maybe a touch more in very specific circumstances. If Kiermaier and Abreu are 25 million, and you still want to pursue a SS(30-35M), add 2 SP(~25M?), add a C(3-8M), fill in the bullpen(10M last year), and extend Nico(~8M AAV increase), well you can add it up and see that gets difficult pretty quickly.
  25. Transmogrified Tiger
    In a vacuum I'd be pretty happy with Kiermaier + Abreu, but that's a big chunk of the likely available $ so you'd be jeopardizing some other significant addition or needing it to come via trade(e.g. Lopez instead of Senga). If I try to (probably unsuccessfully) read between the lines, it sounds like they want to quickly bank some significant offensive improvement via Abreu, since he's a well rounded hitter and significant upgrade that doesn't block any other moves positionally. Then they can start playing tetris with how much their significant SS/SP targets want, what trade convos look like, etc, to see how much maneuverability they have for things like CF, SP2, or even C. But with the knowledge they've made progress on the biggest weakness to start with.
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