Transmogrified Tiger

Slaughter is such a fascinating player. After an early stolen base he's now 13/16 in SB at AA, and he's only played 33 games at Tennessee. This comes on the heels of being 8 for 8 in 20 games at South Bend.

I'll play devil's advocate since I think what you're saying makes sense, but there is another lens we can look through. In order to get back to competitiveness, the team needs to have generally unlikely things happen more than normal, and you do that by taking on more risk. There's lots of different types of risk(developmental risk with poor performers or players in low minors, age risk, contract risk, etc), but taking on injury risk can be a way to get ahead. Said another way, for a team that has some emergent pitching depth and will not be close to their payroll capacity even with a Rodon and other significant FA spending, is having Rodon's talent for 2023-2025+ worth paying for, even if it's not for 30 starts? I think you can make the argument that yeah you take the chance to have his upside and ability to anchor a postseason rotation, especially considering there are not any realistic internal options that look possible to do so in that timeline. This feels like justifying Rich Harden 2.0. I haven't followed Rodon closely enough to know if he's that fragile but I still have PTSD from all Harden's unrealized potential. Harden put up 4.0 fWAR in 38 starts that spanned July 2008 through 2009. From a quick game log scan he missed a maximum of 8 starts as a Cub, which is a downside I'd be more than happy with in this case. But even setting that aside, that is the risk you take. Sometimes the player gets hurt, maybe at an especially inopportune time. Sometimes they're, well, Rodon 2022. You can take the risk of that injury happening, or you can take the risk that an otherwise healthy pitcher gets hurt(look at Hendricks this year) or that adding a player without that risk doesn't get you the upside you need to be truly competitive(see all the Cub rotations since Arrieta left). I'm not going to plant a flag on Rodon personally, but in a world where even good starters aren't locks to go 6 innings, I think we should be careful about how we project the wounds from a different SP era to what the roster should be in 2023+.

What do we know about Alfredo Zarraga? Searching this forum shows an old Arizona Phil post that says he tops out in the mid-90s as of last year, and so far for Myrtle Beach he's overwhelming hitters: 10 G, 12.1 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 23/5 K/BB(a 46% K%)

If they've cooled on Martinez given his swing and miss issues at AA, that would probably work. Not very glamorous as a main piece from our end. I like Tiedemann, but a guy who will start 2023 in AA is a tough sell as the headliner unless other deadline deals are more immediately useful. No idea what to make of Groshans either. EDIT: BaseballTradeValues says Groshans and Tiedemann for Happ is right at the edge of possibility, so let's say that it's gospel this time and call it a day. I'm with muntjack on this one, that'd be a tough one to swallow. Value is value for the rentals, but personally I need to be bowled over on Happ. To be clear, I'm not endorsing that deal per se, just trying to solve the problem of what does a deal look like that from a cumulative value perspective might be accepted on both sides. And if it makes anyone feel better, the same guy wrote the 'trade for Effross' blog post and the Yahoo piece, so I remain skeptical that there's a match for Happ here.

Curious what the Jays would send our way for Happ. Everything they have seems either far too valuable or not nearly valuable enough. If they've cooled on Martinez given his swing and miss issues at AA, that would probably work. Not very glamorous as a main piece from our end. I like Tiedemann, but a guy who will start 2023 in AA is a tough sell as the headliner unless other deadline deals are more immediately useful. No idea what to make of Groshans either. EDIT: BaseballTradeValues says Groshans and Tiedemann for Happ is right at the edge of possibility, so let's say that it's gospel this time and call it a day.

I don't want any part of Rodon with his injury history. Obviously he is a great pitcher when healthy, and he is probably worth the risk for a team that is one piece away, but I am too afraid of the Cubs getting burnt by injuries and bad contracts at this stage in the rebuild. I'll play devil's advocate since I think what you're saying makes sense, but there is another lens we can look through. In order to get back to competitiveness, the team needs to have generally unlikely things happen more than normal, and you do that by taking on more risk. There's lots of different types of risk(developmental risk with poor performers or players in low minors, age risk, contract risk, etc), but taking on injury risk can be a way to get ahead. Said another way, for a team that has some emergent pitching depth and will not be close to their payroll capacity even with a Rodon and other significant FA spending, is having Rodon's talent for 2023-2025+ worth paying for, even if it's not for 30 starts? I think you can make the argument that yeah you take the chance to have his upside and ability to anchor a postseason rotation, especially considering there are not any realistic internal options that look possible to do so in that timeline.

Alcantara out of the lineup for the 2nd straight day. I'd assume he has a knock, but his last game action was the HR friday night which makes it a little odd.

I can mostly tune out Sutcliffe's attempts at analysis, but the dugout banter with the 'come ons' and the like push me over the edge thankfully this is a very good start

Newcomb got to face a lineup stretch with 5 LHH and mowed them down, 2 IP perfect w/ 4 K edit: they let him go a third inning, GO, BB, GIDP

PCA seems to be following the 'struggle at South Bend for 20 games and then turn it on' pattern that Caissie did, except he was just normal bad instead of the brutal sub-.400 OPS that Caissie was.

Someone has to

the bullpen is gonna be an adventure after the deadline

I should know better but rumors don't seem to exist until after the draft and maybe until the QO/int'l draft gets sorted, so I'm resorting to sharing Bowden's proposal from a 'one deal for each division leader' article. Contreras to Houston for Colin Barber and Misael Tamarez. Using Fangraphs, Barber is a 21 y/o OF(probably CF but maybe LF due to arm) and their 3rd best prospect (45 FV) who is torching high-A(.306/.414/.474). Tamarez is a 22 y/o SP and around their 20th best prospect (35+ FV) and seems like a tweener with good but not great stuff, mediocre command, and results to show for it in AA at the moment. While that would be underwhelming(the comments on the article are basically "all of these are dumb for the contender except the Astros one"), it does raise the question of what the Astros think of their catching situation. They've always prioritized defense/framing over having elite offense at the position, but also have had decent bats to play regularly or at least platoon/timeshare to keep the production decent. This year Maldonado is getting the bulk of the time with a 62 wRC+, Castro(who last year was the offensive bright spot) is hurt and unplayable with the bat, and they just called up one of their Top 5 prospects in Corey Lee(but he has a AAA wOBA around .300). Scoring runs is a bigger problem than their pitching too, so if they are making an upgrade to try to make sure they stay clear of the Twins and go deep in the playoffs, this is as good a guess as any. They do have a headliner that would be more appropriate for Willson, SP Hunter Brown(50 FV per FG) is pitching well in AAA and has big stuff. The question is are they interested in upgrading catcher at all, and are they interested in giving up what is now their consensus top prospect in a diminished system to do so for a rental?

that did not look like a swing

what in the world seiya

Imagine if someone told us before the season that Steele and Thompson would both in the rotation pitching like 3 win starters. I would've said some very dumb things about this team's chances

Frazier starting to get hot, in July he's up to 29 PA, .333/.414/.583, 3 HR, 4/8 BB/K

If it were up to me, I would pay Willson. I think he's a strong bat regardless of position when he's not worn down by catching, and the DH now means you don't have to limit him to 400 PA to do so. The front office doesn't seem to agree, or Willson is standing in the way (e.g. despite public comments he isn't signing until the offseason, or his contract demands are beyond the pale). In that reality, I think it's likely they can get more for him at the deadline than what the draft comp would be. Or even if the return were similar to the draft pick, I'd rather it be closer to MLB to help with hastening the competitive window. Happ I see as a 3 win LF who they have for 1 more season. The odds of him signing an extension at anything less than absurd prices are probably zero, imo. For his next contract he's not likely to be a 3 win LF, the club has lots of promising OF at many levels of the org already, and LF is one of the easiest spots on a roster to coax above average production without big spending or a slam dunk prospect. Given that outlook, if they can get a good return for Happ that provides something useful for 2023 and especially 2024(e.g. more Kilians/Madrigals, less Alcantaras/Canarios), then I think they can come out ahead. If they keep him, cool he's a good player and I don't think they should be afraid of QO'ing him after 2023(Hendricks + Heyward alone is 36 million coming off the 2023 payroll even before growing it from current/2023 levels) so they shouldn't be afraid of losing him for nothing. Though I am skeptical there's an extension for Happ that is a good idea that he'll also agree to, unless that comes with him as a FA in December 2023.

I was a little skeptical of the fit for the Padres with as well as Profar and Mazara have been playing. But Profar nearly broke his neck last night and will be out for an indeterminate period, and they are giving most of their DH playing time to Voit already, so there's possibly a decent window here. If you sent Happ(with his 2022 tab paid for) and took on Myers' money, I wonder how close that gets you to Campusano? I'm noodling on a "what I'd do at the deadline" post and that exact deal is on there. Having catcher just totally (and quite satisfactorily!) taken care of heading into the winter would be a huge head start on team building. In fact combined with the positional versatility of Wisdom/Morel/Hoerner, Jed wouldn't be absolutely locked in on having to upgrade any specific position. He could just go get his favorite 2-3 bats and the defense will align around them. The thing that keeps me from being too enthusiastic about this(aside from the 'dreamed up trades never happen' odds), is that I'm not really sure what the Padres then use their newfound savings on. Everything I can find says they may want multiple OF, which makes sense given that Grisham has been terrible and Mazara may be fool's gold. But the outfielders that you might get in addition to Happ are not super expensive: Benintendi, Mullins, Reynolds, Peralta, none of them are making 8 figures on the luxury tax. Or they may just decide to run it back with Mazara/Grisham, maybe flex Tatis to the OF for health and create a platoon between one of the LH OF and Kim/Abrams at SS. But I guess if you think you are right up at your absolute limit, then freeing up Myers does get you the freedom to buy more than one if at least one comes free(Happ in this case).

Kilian with a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad 3rd inning, giving up 7 runs and ending his night early. If you want a silver lining it's that none of the 3 singles he gave up that inning were line drives, so he might be a touch unlucky, at least unlucky relative to another inning where you give up a double, triple, and 2 HR.

I was a little skeptical of the fit for the Padres with as well as Profar and Mazara have been playing. But Profar nearly broke his neck last night and will be out for an indeterminate period, and they are giving most of their DH playing time to Voit already, so there's possibly a decent window here. If you sent Happ(with his 2022 tab paid for) and took on Myers' money, I wonder how close that gets you to Campusano?

I feel like I heard something about Stroman, Miley and Smyly all starting to throw like 10 or so days ago. I would assume at least 1 of them would be back in the next 2 weeks, no? Edit: Just googled it, Stroman and Smyly are likely to start this weekend Yeah, the all-star break is in 10 days too, so while you still will need one of Sampson/Swarmer/Leiter even after Stroman and Smyly return, with Miley and Mills's timeline their days should be numbered. Especially since Miley's injury doesn't exactly make him an in demand trade target, plus if a permanent rotation spot opened up they might bring Kilian back. Also, Alzolay may still be alive in a closet in Mesa somewhere.

I'd tend to agree that we shouldn't expect multiple guys who need to be rostered from any single trade, be it Happ, Contreras, or Robertson. But if you think a guy is a 2023 contributor, the high minors are not so stacked with those that you need to shy away from them. Like if the Mets get aggressive about going after Contreras, I'm not gonna turn down Baty in the return because he'd need a 40 man spot. He'd be in line to start getting corner IF/DH at bats on a timeline not too dissimilar to Davis. But a second player in that hypothetical deal would be lower minors/higher upside instead of getting a relief arm or a hitter who won't be a first division starter.

4 straight outings with < 2 ER is at least progress, I'll take nitpicking the peripherals over being completely uncompetitive. Speaking of, Luke Little was legitimately good today, not walking anyone for just the 2nd time all year.

I've seen this suggestion a couple times now. Is the thought that a contender won't sign Conforto because of the unknowns regarding his health and since the Cubs are out of the playoff picture anyway it doesn't matter if he's really healthy or not this year so they can assume a higher level of risk? It's been a minute since I checked on this, but I don't think Conforto is set to be able to play in any games until around September. A contender would be taking a really big risk giving him playing time not knowing how quickly he's bounced back from an injury/surgery that impacts play as much as the shoulder.