Transmogrified Tiger

I think the argument is that the 40 man has an imbalance in players who are corner outfielders on a good team. Happ, Suzuki, Velazquez, Davis, Canario, Ortega, maybe toss Morel in that group too depending on the roster build(or PCA's ascent), and it's very deep with too much to go around, especially relative to the infield. So this offseason is a good time to make a decision and trade *somebody*, maybe more than one somebody. Happ is a more narrow trade fit than the guys with more team control(and is more unique than the rest for reasons you said), but the rewards are potentially higher because you also free up his money to do something more substantial with your offseason plans. Yes there's a quality gap between Happ and the youngsters/Ortega, but between their quality and the sheer numbers that difference is less than similar gaps in cost on the IF or on the pitching staff(because of how $$ misses compound on a staff like we've seen this year).

Took me a minute of wondering how there were more incoming that outgoing to realize it was September 1st. Nice to see Estrada get to stay for an extended audition.

https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2022/09/01/cubs-prospects-have-some-of-the-best-tools-in-the-minor-leagues/ Brett aggregated the Cubs on BA's best tools lists. Strumpf being the best defensive 2B is the only real surprise, in my head I had him as a bat-only profile a la Dan Uggla/Todd Walker. The swing and miss jump this year is still pretty disqualifying given he's still only at AA, but at least if he shows modest improvement or even reverts more to his previous profile of fewer whiffs with fewer XBH, there may be a bench role for him yet.

If the SS is the only position player of substance you're adding and you subtract Happ, you could do a fair amount to upgrade the pitching staff. Something like Rodon and Smyly would probably be within reach, with the knock on effects for the pen(Thompson/Wesneski filling bullpen roles) on top of having money to replenish a new season's Robertson/Givens/etc. More likely though, you can scale that down to Taillon and Smyly, or Syndegaard and Smyly, and be able to add a Bellinger or a Narvaez(maybe both) to beef up that group. Plus you get *something* for Happ, and odds are with the current trajectory they would want that to be an MLB or near-MLB ready piece.

Piggybacking on this because I came to the thread to make this point unrelated to Contreras. I think it's likely that they'll be able to do some pretty significant spending, but they aren't going to be doing three different 5+ year contracts, and I think they'll stop a decent way short of the Luxury Tax. ~15 million under *feels* right for the team's current stage for reasons I can't completely articulate, though I think you can make arguments otherwise and ultimately it's a guess of what self-imposed limits they'll put on themselves. So if that's the limit, the only way to fill all the holes you want is to find a low cost option(5 mil or preferably less) for at least one of them, or dial back the pursuit of a star and their huge contract(one of the SS, Ohtani, Devers, Machado/Tatis, etc). I don't think anyone is convinced the latter is the best way to go, so you have to find that bargain to make the short sheet cover as much as possible. Catcher would be a great spot for that bargain, because there aren't a laundry list of guys to spend big money on to begin with, and between the nature of the position and the presence of Gomes you don't have to find a 150 game stud to make progress towards a competitive team. Combining this thought with the Happ conversation, I struggle with finding a good home for him since a one year deal for an LF is only interesting to so many teams, but the Jays were interested in him at the deadline, and Danny Jansen may be surplus to requirements with Kirk's emergence and Moreno being ready next year. If you were able to do something resembling Happ for Jansen, then you have a bunch of potential in-house options for LF(Velazquez, Ortega, Davis, Canario, maybe Morel if you add the right CF and IF), and Jansen will make 5ish million in arbitration which means you could still add a cohort in Free Agency like Correa, Bellinger, Smyly, and a fairly high dollar SP(up to 20M) and still have room to refresh the bullpen.

They might make me look dumb and put up 4 in the second half, but Liverpool may be in some real trouble. Van Dijk isn't a one man counter-killer anymore, and the midfield and their(admittedly 4th choice) other CB are gonna leak goals on the break too often to compete for trophies unless they tighten up or get more clinical with the ball.

17 WAR from Mookie/Freddie/Trea with 20% of the season still to play goes a long way. Their pitching staff is also beating their FIP about as much as the 2016 Cubs did.

Looks like Milan's current RB Calabria is their 25 y/o captain and their LB is Theo Hernandez, so unless either are hurt or about to be sold(a quick search didn't find anything but Calabria didn't play in their last match) I'm not sure if there's abundant playing time there.

Estrada's fastball spins like an old video game animation, really makes it easy to see how much ride it has

DJ Herz has 26 BB (and 8 HBP) in 22 IP at AA and hasn't walked less than 3 in any outing, it's not going great.

it is so funny to me that there are like 5 european superclubs that are consistently well run and the rest of them just point a money gun at everything that moves and fire their manager every 2 years because the only way you can tame a locker room like that is with types that alienate half the team in 18 months

lol I had the same thought, he was a senior sign and turns 23 before opening day!

I could look very dumb about this, but I think we could see Willson's market fail to materialize. It only takes one team to fall in love or have money burn a hole in their pocket, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he doesn't beat Grandal(4/73) in years or dollars.

I haven't started it yet but I've heard very good things. In terms of the whys, I'm pretty sure it's not a thing they did just to do the documentary, they've sunk serious money into the club(e.g. they brought in a striker who was successful at a higher level and went down a rung to play for Wrexham) so there's no ROI to be had. And because they've sunk money into the team my guess is it will work out okay for all parties involved. I don't think Wrexham's ticketed for the Premier league, but they can get back into League One(the highest level Wrexham has played at I believe), and probably make it to the Championship too. I want to like it because Rob seems like a really good guy. Not sure I'm with you on the 'serious money' part...from what I can tell they spent $2.5m on the club and then that record transfer was a little under $400k. Obviously a lot more costs involved, but it seems pretty reasonable (I think?) to recoup most of that in selling the doc to FX/Hulu. Agree that it will end up working out, seems like it's headed in the right direction so far, just have this negative feeling that it could be the first step to like...rich guy fantasy football 2.0? Serious money is a relative concern when we're talking about the English 4th tier. Documentaries not being a super lucrative business anyway, my thinking is that running the club at a mild loss for the doc isn't exactly a moneymaking venture you'd dream up if you didn't care about owning the team. As for rich guy fantasy football, that's kinda what lots of European soccer ownership is, it just depends on the ownership level of involvement. Boehly buying Chelsea and then wanting to press all the buttons would be a bad version of this, so it comes down to how much Rob and Ryan care to insert themselves into the day to day of running the team. Maybe that comes through more clearly in the documentary, but my baseline assumption is they lead busy and hectic enough lives as it is that I wouldn't guess they're itching to micromanage.

I haven't started it yet but I've heard very good things. In terms of the whys, I'm pretty sure it's not a thing they did just to do the documentary, they've sunk serious money into the club(e.g. they brought in a striker who was successful at a higher level and went down a rung to play for Wrexham) so there's no ROI to be had. And because they've sunk money into the team my guess is it will work out okay for all parties involved. I don't think Wrexham's ticketed for the Premier league, but they can get back into League One(the highest level Wrexham has played at I believe), and probably make it to the Championship too.

It was a no-man's land blooper that JBJ didn't handle the high bounce cleanly, and Bichette had to cover some ground to catch the throw. Reyes to his credit hustled out of the box, but should recognize that he is Franimal sized and not Madrigal sized when making that decision.

Morel was very fortunate that was the slowest possible slide from a very slow runner because that was a terrible throw decision

They traded away their four best relievers and are nearing the end of 19 games in 18 days(and 31 in 30 since the deadline), plus multiple starters got hurt in the last week. It's gonna look a bit lean

I believe Mowins did Sunday's game so might just be a couple days off.

I don't think it's quite fair to write off the rest of the trade as not impacting Betts' value. Yes the Red Sox were LT motivated and that's why they made the deal they did, but they made the deal they did knowing the salary relief that they were benefitting from Price's 31 million LT number(for 3 years!) going away. That said, I do think Steele and Davis is a half step better than Verdugo/Downs, and given Steele's service time is probably fairly appealing to the Angels compared to, say, Hoerner and his 3 arb years. Adding in a high variance/high ceiling guy like Hernandez feels pretty fair to me. However, I can see a number of teams that probably could cough up an above average pre-arb player, a top-50 prospect, and a top 100/high ceiling lottery ticket without sweating a ton, so you're putting yourself at the whims of Ohtani's preferences(probably good news) and the Angels prospect preferences(probably bad news vs. the field), filtered by those willing and able to pay him his contract(probably good news). Long story short, I can grin and bear a great deal for Ohtani under the assumption that 1) he wants to pitch for a while longer, 2) you aren't trading a Soto level amount of prospect capital, and 3) you aren't cutting down your chances in Ohtani's best years by raiding the MLB roster too much. Throw DJ Herz or Horton into the above deal and I don't really care as long as Ohtani signs, but you start tossing in Hoerners and Thompsons and it gets tough to build a short term championship team given how much you'd be paying Shohei.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Does Ohtani want to pitch through his next deal? I’m not sure if it was idle speculation but I’ve seen reports he only wanted to pitch for another year or so.

By ERA, FIP, FIP, K-BB%, fWAR, WPA, HR/FB%...Rodon's been anywhere from the best to the 5th best SP in baseball over the past two years. He's still easy top 10-15 when considering velocity, SwStr%, CSW%, and only slips towards top 30 because of IP and GS. This is to say swapping him out for Noah Syndergaard would totally take the spirit out of a run prevention offseason. Syndergaard's 27% CSW is barely league average for a SP and actually worse than Kyle Hendricks' 28%. His 1.6 fWAR over the past two years, knowing 2021 went to injury, is right with Hendricks' 1.7. He may be "safer" than Hendricks for 2023, but he's about the same talent tier and a big step down from this prime Rodon Worth noting, since the SSs are in your discussion, that only Bogaerts and Swanson are plus defenders at the position this year among the top 4 FA SSs...only Boagerts across the FGs fielding board...If the spirit is satisfied by this swap, assuming we're OK with Correa or Turner in this run prevention oriented hypothetical, it's in a very different way than the original Yes, the idea is a less expensive pitcher wouldn’t quite be as good, though the comparison to Hendricks is silly and Thor is an example. Call it the 20M and under SP and replace the name with your preference. As for the SS, I’d still take Correa as above average, but part of the thinking is there’s enough positional flexibility that you get games with him at SS and 3B just like Wisdom might play at both corners or Hoerner might play both up the middle.

I also saw some speculation that Wisdom’s IL stint may be shielding him from being left for vax reasons.

You could probably get away with adding a SS to that group by scaling down the RP spend a little, and replace Rodon with, say, Thor. Still satisfies the run prevention spirit but gets you that extra star power.