Transmogrified Tiger

This is on the right track but you have to zoom out even more to see how things swing back the other way. Strikeout rate is a byproduct of approach at the plate. So the question is not about that single at bat, "would you rather have a K or a ball in play/out in play". It's are you better off with the good things that the approach that generates more Ks gives you. As an extreme example, if you were in the same situation 5 times and went HR, HR, HR, HR, K with one approach, and GO, GO, GO, GO, 1B with another, we would never say the second one was better just because it avoided strikeouts/unproductive outs. In practice, higher K rate is associated with doing more damage when you are not striking out, so the idea that K's are bad because they remove the chance of something good happening is incomplete. This doesn't mean more K's are always better, but that you have to look at the totality of production instead of putting a microscope on the bad outcome when it happens.

if Kilian is a casing into which new pitches are dumped in, does that make his arsenal a Kilianbasa

what's the magic number for the cactus league

I agree, I for one am sick of CubinNY's constant fawning over the Ricketts family and stumping for ownership

I think this is my guy Mickey Morandini

Welcome! I don't think they'll go too nuts trying to play regulars in uncomfortable positions just for the Tokyo series, especially since it seems like both Shaw and Hoerner will be ready for domestic opening day at least. That means no Busch at 2B/3B or Happ on the infield(which he hasn't done in years now). If Shaw is ready to go(and that seems like a possibility), then you'll see Berti fill in for Nico with minimal fuss. If neither are ready to go, then it'll depend a bit on the matchup and who the last man on the bench is. Since the two LHP are going in Tokyo, that puts more of a premium on 3B defense, so you would probably see Workman/Brujan taking that last spot. But it's not impossible that Turner could get a one game look, especially if Snell starts Game 2(I haven't seen the Dodgers plans outside of Yamamoto Game 1).

Bolded players are optionable, the rest have to stay on the roster or risk being lost in some fashion. The underlined are not currently on the 40 man roster so even if they're optionable they need to be added at someone else's expense. Ryan Pressly Porter Hodge Ryan Brasier Caleb Thielbar Julian Merryweather Tyson Miller Keegan Thompson Brad Keller Chris Flexen Phil Bickford Ben Brown Cody Poteet Nate Pearson Eli Morgan Luke Little Daniel Palencia Jack Neely Caleb Kilian Ethan Roberts Gavin Hollowell Ben Heller Brooks Kriske Trevor Richards Brandon Hughes

That’s fair. I’m a little skeptical that Brasier is ahead of Pearson in that pecking order without seeing them go in opposite directions in ST, but we’re talking about small margins.

I think they'll try to position the initial roster in a way that tries to preserve depth, but I don't think they'll do it at the expense of their preferred leverage pecking order. So in practice that means they might keep Merryweather and option Morgan, or ease Brown in at Iowa until the first IL stint strikes. But if Pearson is in line for the same role he finished the year I don't think he's getting optioned in the name of avoiding a decision on the Keegans/Hollowells of the world. Same with Hodge.

Yeah, I don't remember enough about Junior Lake to know how similar the swing was, but there's a lot of Soler indicators in the follow through, bat, even the long sleeves while the crowd is not bundled up.

While he's clearly being eased in, Nico has been throwing in some fashion since he got to ST.

Jed bullied PCA into changing his number

Here is a comprehensive list of qualified 2B who were clearly better than Hoerner *offensively* last year: Ketel Marte Jose Altuve

My takeaway is that Canario is a prospect who was on one trajectory before he exploded his leg, and another very different trajectory afterwards. And we fans have been hopeful that he was still on the first trajectory or was a small step away from it, but in actuality he was not. Too much swing and miss, too little overall productivity, and not enough defensive value/versatility.

I still don't think Tauchman is much of a fit for this roster, generally the LHH bats are in the OF and the RHH bats are in the IF, so a LHH 2B/3B will get much more mileage. Hopefully that's Workman, but also in the alternate case they did bring in 2 bench players(Turner and Berti) that are much more split neutral than the typical bench player.

Help me understand how this was supposed to play out then. The idea is that they're going to go really hard in the next CBA negotiations, and they don't want big contracts on the books beyond that point because if they succeed then having those big contracts hurts their flexibility/bottom line, right? In order for that to be true, you either have Bregman opting out heading into his age 33 season, and making that choice days before a work stoppage. Or he opts in and you trade him in the time before that point and the lockout? Because if we agree on the premise, trading him after a work stoppage doesn't make sense. The team will be operating under those new rules by then, and if the whole point was about optimizing your books to get the best CBA result possible, you've failed to clear Bregman's money before then. Both of those seem really implausible to me, what am I missing? Instead, what I think is more likely is that if the team may have preferred to not have Bregman for all 4 years(or at a minimum worried less about the opt outs offered heading into age 33 or 34 season), but the CBA isn't the animating factor or close to it. Instead it's a general preference that means they value shorter contract tenures, and are less interested in paying for Bregman's mid-30s in making an opportunistic attempt to sign him. Throw in a dash of what Bertz mentioned about Jed's job security too for good measure. That to me feels much more logical and still consistent with the front office/ownership SOP.

Bellinger was traded. So apply that to Bregman, how are they clearing themselves of hypothetical opted in Bregman if the whole point is being free of obligations to lock the players out to extract maximum CBA concessions? And more to the point, the point of view here appears to be that ownership is mandating no 2027+ spending but also they can offer 2027+ spending because they can just trade it before the date arrives? So what type of limitation is that actually, if at all?

Whose point do you think you're making by bringing up Bellinger, the player widely assumed to be a likely opt out that...did not opt out.

Bregman had a good 2024, so the main thing depressing his market was the qualifying offer. I'm really skeptical that 2 years later he's going to find a better deal worth opting out for heading into his age 33 season. At a minimum that isn't the most likely outcome by a long shot. Maybe if he has an especially good year banging doubles off the green monster the calculus is a bit different after a single year, but less relevant to this particular topic. The idea that there's an edict to not have spending beyond 2026 so they carefully put an opt out for 33 year old Bregman to fall into their trap by exercising just doesn't make for coherent logic.

I don't think there's a hard and fast rule on this. They just offered Bregman a deal that went to 2028, they're going to offer Tucker a deal that goes beyond one year, the middle of the road outcome for Imanaga's maze of options is keeping him beyond 2026. Plus of the 4 guys who were signed to bigger deals expiring after 2026, 2 of them I don't think they would've wanted to add an extra year regardless(a 5th year for Taillon or a 6th for an unproven Seiya). I'm sure it's a factor in how it's played out, at least in the sense that in 2027 and beyond the rules will be different and they don't want to over-optimize for a landscape that won't exist then. But I think the idea that they're trying to actively minimize 2027 money so owners can try to rake players over the coals is vastly overstated here.

Seiya's like a -3 OF, and I really doubt they would've supplanted him in RF with anyone who wasn't a Tucker-caliber hitter. I don't think they're going to orient the bench around the idea that his glove is radioactive, and I think signing a 1B/DH instead of someone with some OF flexibility(or letting Canario have runway for that spot) is another sign in that direction.

The Cubs have 4 starting caliber outfielders already, and they just signed someone who can readily play DH to ensure that flexibility can be used in 4th OF-esque fashion. That combined with the right handedness of the bench and his lack of individual progress the last 2 years means it's pretty clear Canario isn't long for the roster, imo. Maybe Nico is 100% ready for Japan and Counsell wants a 2nd pinch hitter so he survives opening day, but he's the only player in that group who doesn't really have a role that he's first in line to be the reserve for.

Now you're really not making sense here. Tauchman was a lefty outfielder, not even 1b / I bow out of this because I dont even know what we're talking about anymore. Turner as a hitter has more in common with Tauchman in terms of their swings and peripherals than he does with Mancini/Hosmer. Handedness and position aren't the primary drivers of aging curves. Turner is also a more accomplished hitter than Mancini(who had a much shorter peak), Hosmer(who was never a consistently good hitter), and obviously Tauchman, so using them as your comparison just because they played for the Cubs is not very useful.

Those young outfielders are not a clearly better bet offensively. ZiPS has Turner with a 112 wRC+, Caissie 100, Alcantara 85. But even if the team prefers to bet on their upside when there's an IL stint(or wants the marginally better defense over Suzuki), they are unlikely to be called up to fill in twice a week for normal rest or a knock that doesn't require an IL stint.