Transmogrified Tiger

I think the bigger shock was the fact that he's just foregoing the $20 million he would have gotten from Colorado if he opted out. That money now goes to the Cards to pay the rest of his deal. He really only would have had to get a contract exactly like what he already has to increase his intake by $20 million. Just seems like an odd move for someone who clearly tried to max out what he was getting previously. Maybe he just likes being in the land of the unvaxxed and not getting a ration of horsefeathers for it too. I haven't seen anything indicating Arenado would've gotten more for opting out like that. He has 20 million in deferred 2021 salary he's owed, but that deferral isn't on top of his previous salaries, it's overdue salary from years already past. Is there another 20 million that Cot's doesn't seem to be referencing?

There was some Cubs Twitter gnashing of teeth about Arenado not opting out to at least extract a bigger deal from the Cardinals, and while that wouldn't have surprised me I don't quite get the shock. Yes, he's coming off an incredible year, but he's also turning 32 at the start of next season. Is another team going to give him 6 years at his current or greater AAV? I'd argue almost certainly not. Could he have upped the amount he gets over 5 years? Probably, but not without its risks. While someone probably could've gotten to about 5/160 over the course of free agency, that's only 15 million difference in absolute terms, and even less when you consider TVM given his current deal is front-loaded. And most importantly, you don't know what team that will be. It's clear from hearing Arenado talk that he places high value on being on a contender after 8 years in the Colorado wilderness, so the idea of extracting ~10% more just to potentially go do so for the Rangers or w/e isn't terribly appealing.

Where did you see that the shoulder injury requires surgery?

lol not only did Diaz lean way into that pitch but it was gonna be a strike

I don't want to come off as a scold about this because fan however you want, and I'm not trying to hold you to the specifics as the only way to get what you want, but if you do game that out you'll see it's a very different exercise. Using some rough estimates for the FA you didn't specify, the team in that example is about 15 million over the luxury tax, on top of trading away PCA, Alcantara, Mervis, Ballesteros, and whatever the cost is for Varsho and Perdomo(Baseball Trade Values suggests that Davis + Hernandez + Caissie + Kilian is in the ballpark but maybe a little short). Do you think the Cubs are going to be a non-trivial chunk over the LT line in 2023? Do you think they're going to trade(without loss of generality) 6 of their top 10 prospects? Not even trying to argue if that's a good plan or if the trades are worthwhile or whatever, just does this seem like remotely something that could play out in practice? I'd say definitely not, and that's fine, but what I (and several others) are attempting to do is play within those lines of something that could happen. Because we're operating under those constraints, those plans are naturally going to be objectively worse than those we can dream up without those constraints.

We need a Rockies version of this tweet

All new acquisitions are gonna have risk. You can gamble that a guy had a down year is gonna bounce back or otherwise improve, you can gamble that the guy coming off a good year isn't gonna hamstring the team by requiring 1-2 more years on his contract, you can gamble that the expensive trade target is truly worth the cost, or you can gamble that paying a bit more and investing less in other areas doesn't burn you for not getting more/quality depth. I personally think that in general we overweight the recent past, so I'm definitely more likely to be interested in folks with reasons for improvement, especially when we have a more firm understanding of how much $ there is to work with or what is reasonable to expect the front office to trade away in this particular offseason. We're talking about trading a 30 y/o with unremarkable stuff and an uncertain path to the 26 man roster for someone earning a couple million bucks, or some similar flavor of investment. Not touching your actual prospect capital and using less than 10% of the money you have to spend isn't much 'priority', and half the alternatives I mentioned are credible OFs too. As for the other concerns, adding Correa & Bellinger/Kiermaier helps with athleticism, those guys plus Narvaez help the defense, and Narvaez/Bellinger are fly ball hitters(I admittedly don't care about this as much as you do). You can't address every concern with every addition. I'd encourage you to game out the entirety of the moves you'd like to see made, and see where you end up in terms of total payroll and trade assets given up. It's a hard puzzle to fit into likely reality.

In the way I would prefer to prioritize it, you basically choose whether the money goes to 1B or CF. In this case I felt like there's more potential upside in buying low on a positionless hitter than there is mining for CF gold among the defense-first options, but from a payroll perspective you're in a similar enough place if you, say, trade for Victor Robles and sign Abreu/Bell.

There's definitely some risk there, but he did get it surgically corrected, and if that is the cause then without it he wouldn't be available. I think it'd be fair to question if the production comes back *quickly* even if you're optimistic it will(the surgery was in September after all), so I'm not gonna gnash teeth about if it's Walsh or your favorite buy low bat that gets added.

I've been kicking around various offseason plans in my head for a while and I think this could end up in the realm of possibility Sign Correa - 35M AAV Sign Senga - 4/65 Sign Narvaez 2/12 Sign Bellinger 1/12 Trade Sampson to LAA for Jared Walsh Trade for Trevor Rogers Sign 2-3 RP for total of 10M AAV The end result here I think addresses most of the major criticisms of the team as a whole: - It adds a star position player and lineup anchor in Correa - It adds more pop, bringing in above average power production at C, SS/2B, probably DH, and maybe CF - It adds a variety of offensive profiles that avoid worsening any current imbalances in terms of plate discipline or GB rate, while adding several LHH to help the offense be as good as the sum of its parts(or better) - It significantly improves the team defense, and in particular up the spine with C, 2B/SS, and CF - It adds 2 SP who can fit in a playoff rotation and have big enough stuff to thrive against good offenses - With those moves the team would be roughly 16-20 million under the LT(depending on if you get Bellinger or not), which means you have room to extend Hoerner and possibly Happ too while still having some deadline room before you lose 50M+ AAV that are mostly not expensive/urgent to replace after 2023. What it looks like altogether:

Other interests I assume is code for "running teams that aren't spending 20% of their payroll on Christian Yelich until the heat death of the universe"

If it lowers his market a bit I'd definitely be willing to take that chance, the floor on catcher hitting is so low and the fit with the existing options would help too. I wouldn't give him 3/24 on that belief, but if that 2nd half scared off everyone to the extent he can't exceed the Gomes deal? I'd be on that for sure.

Does Vazquez actually have reverse splits? Career his wRC+ is 81/92 v. RHP/LHP, and last year was a standard platoon 89/130. Closer to split neutral than many, but not really ideal against RHP. Especially when Narvaez is also a FA and carries most of these same benefits while being a LHH.

Celtic and Rangers are 0-8-2 in Champions League (the 2 is a pair of 1-1 draws against Shakhtar), with 4 goals for and 29 against. Beginning to wonder if the median SPL team would win in USL.

I can't tell if it's on the inner third, but it's definitely off a lefty

MLS's new approach of just playing a series of world cup-style tournaments all year long may go up in flames but I'm nothing if not intrigued: https://theathletic.com/3730955/2022/10/25/mls-considering-significant-overhaul-of-playoff-format-sources/

I'd personally be a little more conservative and round down to 70 to account for a potential Happ extension, possibly keeping Ortega if other OF are traded, and a little larger deadline buffer. I think that also forces the type of plans that probably hem closer to reality in terms of targets, even if the FO ends up using 80 million of bandwidth. But either way, it really sells the ultimate limitation you're dealing with, and it helps to work backwards to see how practical things might be. For example, there's been a fair amount of 'go get two TOR starters' floating around Cubs twitter as we watch guys like Wheeler and Verlander dominate the playoffs, but in the FA sense you've basically exhausted your budgetary headroom to get 2 of those guys plus a star SS without addressing C, 1B/DH, CF, or the pen. Maybe it works if one comes via trade, but considering those likely restraints and the developmental success they've had, it feels likely that a 2nd SP is gonna be more speculative.

15 teams, including at least 2 in every division, have won a pennant since the last time the Yankees did.

On the other hand though, the bunt from Grisham, woof. Punting on one of your 2 chances to keep your season alive when Grisham isn't a prime DP candidate just to raise the odds that Austin Nola gives you the lead?

It's a tough call, if you bring on Hader you pretty much need him to get all 6 outs considering the state of the bullpen, and there isn't a significant LHH until you get back to Schwarber 6 hitters later(though Stott and Marsh are LHH). Suarez was excellent against both righties and lefties this year, and that HR was the first he'd given up to a LHH. true, but hader had only pitched 1 inning in the nlcs. I thibk you use him for harper and if he can't go 6 outs you take your chances with someone else. the hit from realmuto to start the inning really made things difficult. I certainly wouldn't have criticized them for doing that. I do get the logic here though, Suarez already got a GIDP in his first matchup against Harper, and trusting him to not get burned over Harper/Castellanos/Bohm and then turning over to Hader for whatever is needed to get to 27 outs from there makes sense to me too.

It's a tough call, if you bring on Hader you pretty much need him to get all 6 outs considering the state of the bullpen, and there isn't a significant LHH until you get back to Schwarber 6 hitters later(though Stott and Marsh are LHH). Suarez was excellent against both righties and lefties this year, and that HR was the first he'd given up to a LHH.

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Funny enough I was adding up an almost identical offseason earlier. The "obvious" valve is going cheaper on SP2 than Smyly, but he's the strongest sourced rumor of all of them and 5 million only goes so far. The other one I can see working is finding a trade for the bat, hopefully using the likes of Madrigal and/or Sampson since Jansen will probably cost something a little more painful. You've mentioned Seth Brown before, maybe the Angels would move on from Jared Walsh? The Rays will probably part with Ji-Man Choi, or maybe Gallo comes cheap enough since the Dodgers didnt' fix him? I'd love the relative predictability of Abreu, but not enough to forego any of the other substantial additions.

Without thinking too deeply about it, I'd say 10-12 million. If he can get to 20 million then my guess is he won't be non-tendered because the Dodgers could extract at least something for him on his Arb 3 salary if the market is that strong.

I didn't list trade candidates to avoid getting too bogged down in what folks thought were possible options/reasonable prices, but I did frame this as 'investment' because I think the same dynamic holds true with the trade market. They aren't going to run a 300 million dollar payroll and they aren't going to trade half their Top 10 prospects, and moving downwards from that extreme example they will need to make some tradeoff on whether they use marginal players/money on plugging one hole vs. another. Yes there are probably trade candidates who are better bets than others without breaking the bank, but there's also buy low free agents(one example being our near universal interest in a non-tendered Bellinger) and ultimately there's a sacrifice of some certainty or ceiling in doing so.