Transmogrified Tiger

Curious how folks feel about one of the possible position player tradeoffs. To my eyes, the two position player needs aside from star IF and catching help are 1B/DH/"Bat", and CF help that is ideally defensively strong. With the aforementioned IF, C, and pitching help, it seems likely that you'll have to choose one to invest significant resources in while going cheaper with the other. So would you rather have: 1)Greater investment in a bat(e.g. Abreu, Josh Bell, Wil Myers) and less investment in the CF(there's a bunch of cheap LHH defensive CF that K too much: Phillips, Quinn, Zimmer, etc) 2)Greater investment in the CF(e.g. Bellinger, Nimmo if his market isn't strong), and go cheaper on the bat(find another Frazier/Reyes, maybe Tellez) There are probably ways to split the difference a bit(e.g. Kiermaier and Mancini), but I'm more interested in if people feel strongly about which one should be prioritized.

For filling this particular roster spot, there is a large difference in magnitude of investment in giving Contreras 4/75 vs. giving Abreu 2/32, and those estimates are probably more conservative for Contreras than they are for Abreu(at least in years). The 3rd and 4th year belonging to a younger player doesn't change that they'll be ages 33 and 34 for a guy with about 1000 pro games of catching wear on his body. More importantly, what makes this pointless is that the front office is not interested in Contreras as a catcher capable DH, and Contreras is not interested in being a 1B/LF/DH. If the front office were enthusiastic about Contreras the catcher, they'd be pursuing him independent of Abreu because they need to add a catcher anyway or are knowingly underinvesting in the position.

Last full season. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal to ignore a weird pandemic shortened 60 game season especially when it was an outlier compared to the rest of his career. I'm not trying to relitigate the actual decision to keep Schwarber or claim his 2020 was absolute proof of his level at the time, but in the context of being surprised at the claim that Washington 'fixed' him, it definitely matters that he was near replacement level in 2020.

If I could sign Abreu or Contreras to identical short term contracts as a 1B/DH, I would lean towards Contreras because of age, even though Abreu has been a more productive hitter each of the last 3 years. They will not have the option to choose between Abreu and Contreras signing identical short term contracts, and part of the reason Contreras is functionally gone is that the front office doesn't value him as a catcher while he is not interested in being next-gen Nick Castellanos positionally, so it's a fairly pointless comparison to make.

2019 was not Schwarber's last season with the Cubs

I wonder if it's ever happened before that there were playoff games from different rounds on the same day.

lol no one ever hangs a breaking ball in the big leagues, what are we doing here Keith Was there not an extremely online debate about how noteworthy it was that Aaron Judge was constantly getting mistake pitches and hitting home runs off them constantly, like a month ago?

He's talking about PCA.

That's an interesting thought, and I think it could come down to what the defensive evaluation looks like. Third parties seem to have Davis as a capable CF but probably more plus in a corner. Happ is probably a decent minds-eye approximation here. If you're thinking that you care enough defense to not want Davis as a long term CF, and maybe you're really confident in PCA being that guy soon or even Morel's ability to be Davis-caliber defensively in the short run, then yeah I think you can probably arbitrage Davis pretty well when you have Canario sitting right there having a similar pattern of success(and some loud tools of his own). Doing that for *pitching* feels like a weird step though and I would still be surprised to see that happen. But if Devers comes available, or they really believe in Sean Murphy as the long term C, or there's a somewhat surprising SP trade candidate(someone with big enough stuff/success/control, e.g. McLanahan, Manoah, Gilbert), I could see that being the bet being made about the OF logjam.

I think this is a good way of describing the options. I really want to think the answer is B, it means they aren't committing long years to a less reliable class of player, and it leans on their existing strength to be a competitive team since they don't have to not spend on pitching in following years. The thing that sticks in my mind about being an intentional strategy is how specific the news has been about Smyly. If you aren't investing much $$ in pitching, is giving Smyly 2/14 or similar really the way to spend minimal pitching funds? Maybe they just love their existing group so much and they think they can buy low on someone like Daniel Lynch or a very cheap FA that they aren't worried about adding a surefire playoff series starter. If they were particularly confident about Hendricks and/or Wesneski that could at least have some internal logic, but if you're only spending ~10 million on SP, that is probably not how I would do it. EDIT: I guess the other thing that informs my thinking here is I'm skeptical they're going to spend the prospect capital to make a trade for a SP clearly better than Smyly, like Lopez. The ones I can see them making(like Marquez) are for guys with big enough salary numbers to not stay within the 'not investing $$ in SP' lines.

DH & 1B I just wonder if Abreu is going to be wiling to sign with a team where he's going to be the DH 80+% of the time if Mervis is actually good. He played 128 games at 1B last year so, I doubt he's going to be ok with that. So play him at first base? Abreu is a good defender and Mervis doesn't have an excellent reputation that would be a big source of value for him. Sure you'd prefer he get more reps if he's to be a long term fixture, but if Abreu is the preferred upgrade, you don't move on to Plan B just because it means Mervis only plays 40-50 games defensively instead of 120-130.

I don't think Nimmo is getting 5/120 with his track record(particularly health) plus the QO. The latter is why I struggle to see him being a plan B/'less expensive' target for this front office.

figured I'd wait til breakfast and get a few posts in during the top of the 38th

Don't think they're rebuilding, but they have Sam Huff, a legit C with 70 power ready to take most of those PAs, and they desperately need OF help and SP, so it would be one of those deal-from-your-strengths-to-address-your-weakness type trades. Ah, I spot checked their roster and the top of their prospect list but didn't make it to Huff.

Michael Harris has had a few adventures tracking balls in CF this series for someone who is a plus defender

Are there indicators that Texas is going to rebuild next year? I don't have a good handle on them so I assumed that with the Gray, Semien, Seager additions they were gonna make an effort at being more competitive next year. Not sure what the new post-Daniels outlook is though.

https://twitter.com/nbaleave/status/1580547881194643459

I think the cost is the main thing for me. I think he's a pretty strong bet with the bat(his power dip is likely ball/environment and he's run high BABIPs before and cut his K rate while maintaining near peak BB%), but going to 15 million+ for him forces some hard decisions elsewhere on the roster and I don't love forcing that for a good not great 1B/DH.

Levine was on the radio this morning saying that the Cubs were going to have more interest than the Sox in signing Abreu. Not without some risk, and he'll make enough that it would force some tradeoffs elsewhere(particularly in CF or maybe C), but it'd be an excellent bat to add on a short term deal.

Mervis's reaction to every home run is either in the "batflip swag" or "Lord, my brilliance is becoming a bit of a burden" category. There are no maybes, just bombs.

Up front, I'm with wolf that the world cup shouldn't be in Qatar and shouldn't have been moved to winter. That said, I'm not sure how different this is than what teams have been dealing with. James played 11 games, all of them full 90s, across all teams/competitions from 8/6 to 10/5. That's too many! But as a quick point of comparison, last year Salah had 13 games between 8/14 and 10/16 and 15 games from 10/19 to 12/16 with very few minutes lost to being subbed out. Also way too many! But not demonstrably different for someone who is counted on for a club team in Europe and their National team. Personally, while I understand the complaints about there being too many games/competitions at the highest level, it strikes me as a "simple" problem to solve via rotation, especially in a world where 5 subs is the new norm. Teams pushing these limits always have deeper/richer squads than those who don't, so that can be an equalizer in exchange for them hoarding all the revenue. Or if you absolutely think coaches will just risk injury forever, you could do LLWS-style minutes limits as a restrictor plate of sorts. Don't get me wrong, I don't care if the Carabao cup disappears tomorrow and the international calendar is a mess for 5 different reasons right now, but I also understand that the power structures are basically never going to say "you know what, less soccer" so best to think through solutions in that reality.

My first thought live was, "damn, what dumb luck that the ball gets tipped up that high in that spot". But seeing the replay, I have no idea how a 6'3" QB thinks he's going to throw the ball over a 6'5" DT with a release at 5'11". Just a ridiculously bad arm angle attempt. heres a view of it from the endzone, he's got Kmet in the middle with pretty close coverage, and had he not hit the commanders helmet, would likely have hit Kmet in the numbers. it wasnt a stupid throw, believe it or not;. If he lofts this, its likely picked Patrick and SM both get stood straight up and blown back several yards on the play. Washingtons DL played it exactly the way they should have. It was a predictable outcome and not a great play design by Getsy I think the point is not that Fields should have lofted it, but in that situation you need to be able to throw a strike that isn't released below your own helmet level, because that outcome is exactly what can happen.

Brett has some discussion of a Hoerner extension after Wittenmyer referenced it as something "expected": https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2022/10/14/nico-hoerner-is-expected-to-be-extended-by-the-cubs-this-offseason/ He goes on to highlight how JP Crawford's extension(5/51) is a pretty good starting point, since there's reasons that might nudge in either duration in Hoerner's case. That's useful to think about, particularly for payroll planning purposes since Hoerner's LT number going from 2 million to 10 million is non-trivial. But the inclusion of Happ in Wittenmyer's quote strikes me as interesting too: Brett seems to think this is in reference to Happ also being a player Hoyer believes in, rather than a player "expected" to get an extension. I find that a strange interpretation for grammar/sentence structure alone, but doubly so since this offseason is a pretty crucial period for Happ to get an extension if one is coming. Extending Happ also carries some implications for what the offseason brings, since having both Happ and Suzuki locked up long term is meaningful for what opportunity might exist for Velazquez, Davis, or Canario. Yes, they presumably can at least fake it in CF and there's no DH stalwart locking down those PAs, but as Bertz mentioned above, if you get your SS target and are left with some tighter remaining financial resources(maybe moreso after extending Hoerner and Happ), it could nudge further into trading at least one if not more than one of those players to keep building the roster you want to build.

I dig it, I agree that fits pretty cleanly payroll wise, I've been thinking 15 million below the tax line after all the extras is a reasonable target, give or take a couple million. This is about 21 under by my count. Gives you room to do something mid-year or extend someone, and with Hendricks and Heyward falling off after 2023(plus any 1 year deals signed this offseason), you aren't painting yourself into a corner. Main weakness I see is that the bullpen probably needs another external arm, you can consider Wesneski part of that group which helps, but with Wick's crap 2022, Heuer's post-surgery unknown, Rodriguez's velocity loss, etc, I'd feel better with another Givens/Martin. Thankfully those are cheap enough that you don't have to change anything else. Otherwise, trading for all of Marquez, Jansen, and Brown is probably a little on the high side for my tastes in terms of total talent outgoings, and while I like Phillips' profile he's riskier than others who you could technically afford(Kiermaier, maybe even Bellinger) without shaking up the rest of the moves.