Transmogrified Tiger

FWIW, even if you assume Brothers is gone(the other fringe arb relievers already are), Cot’s has the 40 man number around 98 million after Miley.

There’s no take on a message board more boring than “this isn’t important/worth talking about”

Good - Consistent Results. Miley is Top 20 in SP in ERA since 2018 (min 400 IP), with names like Greinke, Alcantara, Nola, Montas, Stroman, and Lynn surrounding him - Handedness. Miley gets lefties out which makes piggybacking an appealing option with righties of uncertain quality/durability(Alzolay, Thompson, Espinoza, Jensen, Killian) - Durability. He's made 28 starts and 155 IP in 8 of his 9 seasons(excluding 2020 of course). While he hasn't hit 170 IP since 2015, having someone who will be decent or better for 5 innings 30 times is sorely needed given the roster - Contract. Getting a player with Miley's track record would've likely required a long term commitment and/or a decent amount more in AAV. It makes for an obvious place where 2023 savings can happen by replacing him internally, which is important since there's zero contractural dead weight coming off next offseason Less Good - Stuff/velocity. One day Miley won't be able to get MLB hitters out, and given his lack of 4 seam velocity, cutter heavy repertoire, and existing HR tendencies, when it goes it will go very badly. The gamble is that isn't going to happen in 2022. Protecting him from the 3rd time through the order will help prevent turning any good outings to bad. - Uncertain spending. We don't know how much Miley's 10 million represents of the amount the team will spend this offseason. If it's 10 of 70 or 80 million that looks very different than if it's 10 of 40 million. For my .02 I'd be shocked if they tied a hand behind their back this early just for the opportunity to get Wade Miley, but we went through this before with how the team spent after signing Kimbrel so who knows. - Lack of competitive solution. While having Miley for a single year is a positive, it means you've only filled the rotation spot short term, and if you're a surprise competitor Miley is the type of arm that doesn't make a postseason rotation or could even get left off a playoff roster entirely. You still want to have 2 SP(in addition to Hendricks) outperform him, be they external additions or emergent players already on the roster

So if my Baseball Reference navigation is correct, the best hitter in the Cuban league is a left handed infielder that just turned 22 and is now a free agent

Probably gonna need a separate thread for laughing at the Mets soon

At City I assume he's making as much or probably more than he would at any place where he would be the starter. He's mentioned in the past maybe wanting a move after this year so he can play more, so not sure if this is a change of heart or about Steffen getting paid and City maximizing his transfer value.

Wow I read the roster and didn't realize they dropped Brooks. Seems like he's taking it in stride. Also I have continued my streak of hate-reading the comments to see which mediocre midfielder eurosnobs are gnashing their teeth about, which I do not recommend at all.

The Fire continue to be the Mets of MLS

Is there a theory as to why he turned it down the player option? I understand the appeal, but at the same time he's been a 1 win starter in MLB and 12 million is a lot to turn down. Especially since he's only 30 so any bounce back this year wouldn't jeopardize the length of his next deal.

1) Barnhart would've been a nice backup C option to have around. His 7.5 million option is a bit steep, but for the next-to-free price I wouldn't have been upset about adding him. 2) As some folks have noticed, there's some strong selling sentiment in that quote from Krall. Moustakas would be a good fit for the current roster as long as you assume his 2021 struggles are mostly due to injury, and his monthly splits would back that up. If you could get the Reds to pick up a chunk of his 2/38 (2/32 CBT value) to clear the rest, then that'd be a reasonably compelling option for LH corner IF.

https://twitter.com/TexasVC/status/1455741657295564802

Mexico got another punishment for the chant: https://sports.yahoo.com/mexico-puto-chant-world-cup-qualifiers-without-fans-153948541.html 1) good, I can't believe the fanbase is choosing to die on this hill (I kinda can, but nevertheless) 2) they'd be playing in empty stadiums for Costa Rica and Panama, which from a US perspective is good news if your aim is optimizing the chances the US get 1st in the Ocho(and the associated ELO/WC pot draw benefit), less good if your aim is maximizing the US's odds at qualification.

Brett points out that while the QO concern is real and the consequence for the Cubs is as significant as it can be given the current rules, there's a fair number of teams in a similar boat: https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2021/10/27/yes-the-cubs-have-a-qualifying-offer-problem-in-free-agency-but-so-do-a-lot-of-other-teams/

Is there a recent report on Velazquez's defense? Longenhagen said in the July list that he'll 'have to develop' on defense, putting a 30/45 grade on him to go with the 'will fill out his body' grade of 50/40 on speed. But he's playing enough CF at all levels that I have a hard time squaring that with the report, unless the Cubs and the AFL manager are dopes he's clearly not a DH *today*. Especially for a guy who's more of a swinger, that defense is gonna make a big difference in what a MLB role could be and how likely that is.

There isn't going to be a winter meetings in all likelihood, but depending on the progression of CBA talks I think end of 2021 makes a reasonable deadline. If the CBA doesn't get finalized til some time in January and Willson wants to wait until after that dust settles to negotiate(which would be very reasonable on his part), then it gets really tough to negotiate in parallel with a compressed offseason and need a contingency if those negotiations fail. I think you need to know by the time the CBA is agreed upon. As for who they'd replace him with, the Free Agent options are dire, which at least might help the return for Contreras. Unless there's a competing team that wants to give up on a young catcher for more certainty(maybe Padres/Campusano if the Cubs gave more value, or Seattle/Raleigh), I think it's a good candidate for a challenge trade where someone like Bote or Happ goes for the catching equivalent in another org. The only other option I spot from a quick scan is Miami might want to cut bait with Alfaro now that he's in arb years.

Named After Maddux appears to be too busy/modest to link his work so I'll do it. He's doing an offseason plan over several parts, today marked the 2nd of 4. Part 1: Building the Offense Part 1 with Wisdom, Ortega, and Schwindel Part 2: Building the Offense Part 2 with an Ian Happ trade Part 3: Building the lineup with Match-ups Part 4: Pitching Targets You should read both because they're very thoughtfully done and I'm just gonna give bullet points for the sake of conversation. His takeaway from the Giants success was their accrual of lots of position players with complementary skillsets, as evidenced by Crawford being the only player with 120+ games at a single position. In trying to emulate that approach, these were the moves: - Sign Kyle Seager to complement Wisdom at 3B - Sign McCutchen to platoon w/ Ortega in corner OF, pursuing Suzuki instead if posted - Trade Happ & Carraway for Kiermeier and Taylor Walls I like the idea of a LH corner infielder a lot. I'm less bullish on Schwindel so in my eyes this is more for 1B/3B than 3B/LF, but Seager or Eduardo Escobar would be smart additions. I'm less a fan of McCutchen at this stage in his career, I feel like you can find someone with more upside and/or better defense in a similar pool. To that end, Steamer doesn't see a whole lot of difference between Hermosillo and McCutchen when you layer in likely defense. And lastly, while I'm doubtful that specific trade would happen(to quote the article, "all mock trades are bad, including mine"), I like Kiermeier as a target if he's available and really like Walls' potential fit if the high end of the SS market isn't an option. He's a defense first SS that's blocked by Franco, and while he's not a heavy platoon bat(his splits go back and forth) he does switch hit so he can timeshare well with Hoerner/Madrigal.

I'm rusty on my 40 man roster nuances, what's the action and consequences here? Looks like the current 40 man is at 47 including the 60 day IL. EDIT: Assuming this isn't a one way door and the only forcing function is getting down to 40(meaning we can keep 5 at most), I'd say Hermosillo, Alcantara, Adam, Stewart, and one of the lefties, I guess Brothers. EDIT2: Are some of the catchers part of this too and just not in Bryan's tweet? I could maybe be convinced to keep another reliever like Nance over the 4th/5th catcher like Lobaton.

I’m pretty skeptical that Gray gets a deal that modest, but I do think that might be telling about the Rockies view of Gray. Even if the 3/30 is exaggerated and they would be willing to give him 4/50 or something, that’s still in the range of not being a slam dunk qualifying offer, especially for a more modest spending team like Colorado. Good news all around.

I’m not sure I follow the logic for this one. The argument seems to be “if you intentionally limit the pool of players you can add, you’re left with scraps that doom the season to failure if you don’t sign your targets”. But even if you set your sights higher, that doesn’t mean you’ll be able get more than the scraps if you miss because the players in between are still getting targeted in the meantime. If anything, aiming for the top the market likely has greater risk in that regard, because they’re likely to be longer negotiations, you can’t use playing time as a differentiator so less is in your control, and there’s the possibility that free agency is condensed into a much shorter window post-CBA negotiations. I’m also not sure I agree with how narrow this seems to be defining what counts as ‘intelligent’ spending. The implication seems to be any FA that can get more than 2 years is off limits. Not only does that not match past behavior(the 2013 Cubs gave Edwin Jackson 4 years without the “must be aggressive” messaging of 2021), but it’s very likely that depending on the post-CBA landscape, there’s more options in that bucket than there were in 2012-2014 thanks to the continued emphasis on suppressing FA spending from owners via the CBA.

we got the rock to tweet about MLS, we’re a soccer country now

Going from Randy Bush to the masters in statistics guy that worked for Houston and the Dodgers R&D is about a dramatic a shift in skills and perspectives as you can get in modern front office.

BN with a good roundup of a good NPB outfielder that may get posted: Seiya Suzuki: https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2021/10/22/top-japanese-outfielder-seiya-suzuki-will-reportedly-be-posted-soon/ I am admittedly the easiest person in the world to sell on Japanese imports, but this seems like it could be a really good fit. The profile seems like it would translate well, as Brett points out the Cubs can take the risk on that unknown more than the average contender, and a RH corner OF complements the current roster nicely with all the lefties hanging around(Happ, Heyward, Ortega, Deichmann). Brett also notes that the posting fee is a good outlet for the one off 'savings' of shedding the salary they did at the deadline, though the exact internal accounting on that front is far from certain.

I almost said something similar yesterday, but I think the size of the market is an underrated case for optimism in landing one of the SS. IMO you've got 10-12 teams that you can reasonably say *could* land one of them(NYY, TOR, DET, HOU, TEX, NYM, WSN, PHI, CHC, LAD, maybe CIN or MIN). That's a little bigger than the reasonable market for the average top FA, but in this case there's 5 of them, if we treated all their odds equally you're north of a 40% shot. And you could make the case the Cubs have better odds than a decent chunk of the field. CIN/MIN probably aren't going there, TOR, NYM, and LAD have SS so their incentive on this particular group is lower, NYY, LAD, and HOU might have luxury tax concerns depending on the CBA details, plus WSN, DET, and TEX aren't inherently more attractive/competitive than the Cubs. In this light you could say the main barrier is the Cubs willingness to give out the contract, and the nuances of what teams target which players, since it's tough to negotiate with 5 SS simultaneously and they aren't created equal.

I think there's a logic to this, but probably good reasons teams don't do it. - One is not all Free Agents are created equal, but the QO treats them the same. If I'm a big market team who cares less about dollars, then I'd probably prefer to have e.g. Harper, Cole, and Correa if I'm giving up my draft picks than Correa, Ray, and Conforto. - Another is the bidding wars thing you mention, though if there was a year this was less of a concern it's probably this year with the likely number of QO FA's. - Another is around flexibility. You can say that you'll go deep on one class and then not do so for several years to avoid cratering your farm system, but the Dombrowskis of the world probably don't have that discipline, and other FO's probably understand they can always open that box when next year gets there and want to stave off that risk. - The last one is that there's likely cascading effects from having such a lost year in terms of young talent acquisition, especially since the teams most likely to pull off 3-4 QO FAs are big market teams without competitive balance picks and who lose IFA money for each QO FA too. You can be smart and make up for a slight handicap in a given year, especially if you're this year's Cubs and the ACL/Low-A teams are stuffed with promise. But if you have to functionally sit out IFA and have 1 pick in the top 150 or so that's a pretty severe problem. Layer on that increasingly FAs are more 31 year olds than 27-28 and you get even further from the benefit being worth the risk/cost.

Might need to recalibrate on what is worth giving starting PA to, especially for certain positions. Merrifield put up a a .712 OPS with +5 defense and was worth 3.3 fWAR. In practice Nico might be shy of that mark in a similar line since Whit added value by leading off 162 times, but even if you cut that by 10-15% thats still productivity well worth having. As for Madrigal, he was tracking better than that through a third of a season, so him being similarly worthwhile is not an abstract concept.