Transmogrified Tiger

This past year's market is not going to be a great comparison point for obvious reasons, but looking at the ESPN FA tracker, only 10 SP got more AAV in free agency than Arrieta. 2 were very good in a full season(Morton, Ray), 2 were very good in half a season(Bauer, Kluber), and of the remaining 6 the only one who exceeded 1 fWAR was Mike Minor and his 5.05 ERA. Trevor Williams had 1.2 fWAR in 91 IP. This is the point, the unspoken inference to 'if only they weren't so cheap' is that they'd have done better if they had just spent more money, when the guys further up the ladder are a pretty big minefield themselves.

Yes, and I would guess that goes doubly so heading into an offseason where they don't really know what the rules will be. The other part of this that is the main tension of the offseason is that the Giants and Rays comment isn't wrong! Free agency has never been a worse deal(especially below the superstar/mega-contract line) and it's never been easier to DIY your way to good players(note: not "it's easy", but "it's never been less difficult"). So if the new CBA's environment is similar to what is in place now, the path to getting better(especially for multiple seasons) does not really run through free agency. That's a problem! One because the owners made it this way and it leads to all sorts of perverse incentives. The problem more specific to the Cubs is that even if they aren't running a 170 million payroll, money is the one thing they have a surplus of to make the team better. You can take on contracts in trades but at a certain point you have to deal with that misalignment. If the below the surface point is "free agency is a bad deal and we don't think dollars spent will correlate with how much we can improve the team", I think that's true(again, given the current CBA) and mostly fine. If the below the surface point is "free agency is an extra bad deal when you have no plans to compete before 2025 so you might as well not spend and hunt for long term diamonds", that's where I'm gonna get aggravated.

I think you leave one spot for those three to fight over, and fill the other two with vets. I hate what seems to be already crystalizing as the conventional wisdom that we need 3 vet SPs. I don't want to hear any more whining about not developing starters if we're not going to give any starters an actual opportunity to develop. Alzolay's dong problem is probably a fluke, while Steel (prior to yesterday) and Thompson haven't really looked like viable starters. I think you go into ST expecting Adbert in the rotation but keep an open mind. Steele and Thompson are both already 26, Thompson will be 27 by opening day next year. Neither of them were top 100 draft picks, or have really shown anything in the upper levels of the minors that would lead you to believe they can turn into quality starters. Maybe if they had a full year last year to show something, but they didn't. Alzolay will also be 27 by opening day next year, has shown some success, but still holds a FIP and xFIP above 4 as a starter (FIP above 5) and continues to not be able to get lefties out. Finding three MLB quality starters to sign with us is pretty difficult, so I'm sure someone is going to get a chance, but these are not guys to build around. I don't disagree that the odds are not in the favor of any of those guys individually, but at the same time I think they're fine enough candidates. Yes, Thompson and Steele weren't Top 100 picks, but Thompson was a slot pick at 105, and Steele was a 5th rounder who got a 2nd round-caliber bonus. They aren't absent of pedigree. And yes, all 3 are not young or what we think of when we think of traditional prospects breaking into an MLB rotation, but the improvements to player development across the league means none of them are a long shot based on age alone. They aren't a Schwindel/Ortega type either where you have to be very worried about imminent decline eating at their development in the next few years. If the roster and rotation were in a different place I might be more aggressive coming over the top of them, but given the current state of things I think those 3 are a perfectly viable approach to the 5th SP spot.

The Paul Riley story was about as much terrible as I could stand this morning, but the hits are gonna keep coming in the soccer world today.

If there's enough space(IIRC there's not a ton but it's been 6 years since I lived in that area), you'd still need to get some more events/tenants to justify that, right? 10 Bears games a year wouldn't sustain those businesses I would think, and Arlington Park was a higher foot traffic baseline than an empty lot. the Arlignton site is 326 acres, there is more then enough room. for comparison, here is Foxborough including the shopping areas (outlined in red) over the Arlington site (unofficial 1000' google meter comparison): laptop resolution check Oh if there's enough space in the existing Arlington Park footprint then never mind me, I was mostly thinking of the surrounding streets.

If there's enough space(IIRC there's not a ton but it's been 6 years since I lived in that area), you'd still need to get some more events/tenants to justify that, right? 10 Bears games a year wouldn't sustain those businesses I would think, and Arlington Park was a higher foot traffic baseline than an empty lot.

So nice to have the Champions League back so we can watch the best teams in the world and also their opponents, Real Madrid.

https://twitter.com/No_Little_Plans/status/1442907455759867906

Not sure I see enough upside in Sampson to value him being able to fill an emergency starter role in 2023 on top of 2022. He gives up home runs by the handful, doesn't strike people out, and wasn't particularly good at preventing runs in AAA. If that spot becomes necessary I'm okay with it going to some NRI(even if they only can do that in 2021) or existing org depth like Abbott or Swarmer as much as I am with Sampson.

Between recent offseason trends and the CBA negotiations, I think very little activity will happen before January anywhere.

Sahadev did a Twitter mailbag, which was interesting but also a little confusing and I’m not sure how much I can read into it: https://theathletic.com/2848654/2021/09/26/how-will-the-cubs-fill-out-their-2022-starting-rotation-can-they-find-offensive-help-too/ - He fairly casually says the payroll could “conservatively” be in the 140-160 million range, “doubling” the current guaranteed payroll which will be between 70-80 million. - However, he spends multiple questions suggesting that Hoyer will be focused on value signings and not at the top of the market, in particular he name checks Stroman, Ray, Gausman, and Correa as players they won’t be spending on. While I get that in the sense of setting expectations with the average Twitter user if nothing else, he also seems to think there’s no reasonable way to the Cubs being more than long shot playoff contenders until 2024, which is categorically wrong, IMO. He uses the example of being ready in the competitive cycle go outside your comfort level like they did with Lester, but 1) they should be to that point faster than he seems to think, 2) this framing misunderstands some of the benefit of making big additions(Lester helped win a division in 2020 even when not at his peak), and 3) you can only spend so much money if value is your overriding concern. - Despite my disagreement on the longer term chances, he does make the good point that this is the first year in a long while where the Cubs enter the offseason in a different stage of the competitive cycle. This means good things for certain parts of the free agent market(they can offer playing time other teams might not, especially to buy low and/or short term targets), but less good things for others(he mentions Scherzer as a player who won’t consider a team with uncertain competitive chances). - Similar to a lot of the conversation here, he thinks Hoerner isn’t likely to be considered the every day SS(and therefore one should be prioritized this offseason), but that he’ll get an every day workload between positional versatility, days off and the likely DH requiring more PA to be absorbed.

The thing that blows me away about the Cardinals thing isn't so much that they won 11 in a row(teams get hot), it's that every other team in their path has simultaneously fallen on their face. In that same span the Reds are 3-7, the Padres are 2-9, the Mets are 2-8, the Phillies(who needed to make up ground to begin with) look like world beaters at 7-4 compared to that crew.

I'm not intimately familiar with him and haven't seen a single PA of his at the MLB level, but from reading from others and seeing his past I don't have very high hopes. The consensus seems to be that he's a 1B/DH caliber defender that isn't going to hit for corner infield power, and that's a really tough profile to be a particularly useful player. If he can be passable in LF he becomes more interesting, and if the DH gets added like we expect there's at least a chance he can play a part given how few position player spots are locked down, but a 25 year old with the ceiling of Lyle Overbay isn't a profile I'm jazzed about.

I'm probably overfitting this a little bit, but there's a handful of categories in my mind: - Guys we can hope will be above average with a reasonable amount of certainty: Contreras, Madrigal, Hoerner - Guys with enough performance track record to be in that first group but with legit questions about repeating: Wisdom, Happ - End of prime minor leaguers with good small MLB samples: Schwindel, Ortega - Older prospects with a little room to dream on: Hermosillo, Deichmann EDIT: I just realized I did prospect stuff for the pitchers but not the hitters. Davis of course and I'm too lazy now to go into as much detail for the Morel's of the world like I did for the pitchers below. Everyone else I either don't rate(e.g. Alcantara) or is not under contract(e.g. Duffy, Chirinos). On the pitching side: - Guys w/ MLB track records whose place on the roster is written in ink: Hendricks (SP), Wick (RP), Heuer (RP) - Folks whose place on the roster is in ink unless multiple unlikely things happen: Mills (SP), Steele (SP/RP), Alzolay (SP/RP) - The group who are gonna get reliever IP but are subject to fall off the roster if they don't perform: Thompson, Nance, Rucker, Rodriguez, Wieck, Megill, Effross - Pitchers likely to get reliever IP but haven't gotten the shot yet: Leeper, Roberts, Little - SP prospects who could start an MLB game if they start 2022 strong: Jensen, Killian - WILD CARD: Espinoza, Wicks

This is going to be awesome: They're 1 team shy of 48 in 2023 by my count, so my guess is they invite a 2nd division team(until MLS gets to 30) to get to the right amount for group play(not sure if 3 or 4 per group)

PITCH CLOCK PITCH CLOCK PITCH CLOCK https://theathletic.com/2829518/2021/09/17/can-this-minor-league-pitch-clock-solve-all-of-mlbs-problems/ There's also a bunch of quotes from an MLB official(Raul Ibanez), Cal League Manager(Rico Brogna), a couple players in the league, and an MLB pitch clock skeptic(James McCann).

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/69716/an-alternate-baseball-salary-system/ This is not a proposal that has been made from either side in the real negotiations, but something the BP Author(Jonathan Judge, of catcher framing metric fame) put together in the above article. You can read it with a free BP login, but if you want the Tl;dr - A proportion of all revenue is put in a centralized player salary pool - Salaries are based on previous year's performance using an objective metric(being BP they suggest WARP or some derivation, but the specifics are less important). That means if the performance is equal the pay is equal, regardless of team. Teams do not control salaries in any way(save for secondary effects like playing time), and they pay the same amount towards player salaries regardless of who the players on the roster are. - He briefly describes the need for some type of mechanism to help insure players with injuries don't get screwed, and years of control and the free agency process would need to be evolved to avoid an NBA-esque consolidation of the most valuable free agents. All in all this was more of a framework that's light on details, but at the very least it's interesting as a thought experiment. I had never tried to think through the idea of making team payroll completely separate from the players on the roster before.

When does Fabrizio sleep, would you say

Okay who wished on a monkeys paw that Adams will stay healthy for the US

Longenhagen describes him as a 'gamer' with 'some feel for contact but no power', so I'm guessing the tools are not loud. He's interesting though, he's a switch hitter who has a .821 OPS against RHP and .800 against LHP. It's more than just the last 40 games too, since June 1: 298 PA, .286/.362/.500, 31/76 BB/K

Fangraphs with egg on their face for not putting Happ and Schwindel in their top 50 trade value series

I'm still very much in the camp that Schwindel is a mirage and his lack of positional flexibility doesn't make it worth it to be sure he isn't, but I am interested if he can keep his walk rate where it is or inch it higher. Combining his Cubs time with a career high walk rate in AAA this year is at least something to hope on from a sustainability perspective, and his plate discipline statistics don't paint a dire picture either. For me, that optimism is mostly in the form of 'he can be the last position player on a Cubs team light on position players if the DH is added', but it's something.

Wow AA is older than I thought

We have about 1.5 attackers at a time who are 1) healthy 2) want the ball and 3) can cut out defenders when on the ball, not great

Yedlin obviously got cooked but that’s gonna happen with Davies. How is Brooks 2 strides from Larin to make that a tap in?