Transmogrified Tiger

We can ban the shift but we can't ban obliques? Get your focus right Manfred

They're referring to a 'Total Pro Sports' post that used Jed's quotes from his news conference as proof that they were done with Bregman, so safe to assume there's no actual news one way or the other.

Welcome!

I think you should never assume any team will be able to make 5 super bowls in 6 years even with perfect team building, the margins are too thin even with the advantages the Chiefs had/have. But I think they'll probably be fine, their Top 2 WRs entering preseason played a combined 4 games(this along with their schedule explains some of the less impressive statistical output), and next year they'll have Rice(pending suspension), Worthy, and likely a FA they hope will play more than 1 regular season game. But they'll need to continue to draft well, they drafted a rookie LT with minimal veteran backup, and that rookie not being ready to be an NFL LT right away caught up to them.

It's a harness for a device that tracks various fitness details(like a more advanced smartwatch), you see it very commonly in soccer(even during games under the jersey) and possibly other sports as well.

Two more Cons, though you address one indirectly: 1. Bregman costs you draft capital when the farm is at its heaviest at the upper levels. You can in theory (more than) make up for that in the Nico return, but trading Nico to restock the farm you lost signing Bregman just seems like absurd deck chair shuffling to me. 2. They need the impact on the pitching staff much more than the offense, especially with a 2025 only lens, which you have to take given the odds of a Bregman opt out. There's much greater chance in 2025 that Shaw, Ballesteros, or Alcantara(or a career year from Dansby or Amaya) give the lineup length than that Brown or Horton are able to be taking multiple starts in a playoff series. Cutting off your avenues to making that rotation upgrade, whether now or at the deadline, isn't the best option towards improving your playoff/championship odds.

Strike that, reverse it

If you're talking about why adding up depth chart values doesn't add up similarly, I believe it's because the projected standings are still at least partially using Steamer, which is nearly as low on the Cubs as ZiPS is high.

I'm not overly jazzed about signing Bregman, and I'm borderline against it if it requires trading Nico, but also worth noting that ZiPS loves Shaw, so a straight forward comparison is gonna show minimal upside. But the error bars on that Shaw projection are large, so there's more value in the certainty of Bregman than it might appear.

A couple thoughts about this. Sprint speed only trends one way if you zoom out, but not absolutely. We could imagine an article written about Happ on this topic 4 years ago. His sprint speed had fallen from 28.8 to 27.1 over his career, and combined with already moving off the dirt and his uneven offensive output at the time, you could wonder if he was about to become a marginal DH. Instead his sprint speed bounced back to 27.7, 27.9, 27.7, and 27.9 last year at age 29, the T-2nd fastest of his career. Tucker's 2024 is not a very good comparison to his previous baseline. About a quarter of his plate appearances came after he returned from a leg injury, when clearly the priority would not be about maxing out his running speed at every opportunity. He DH'd for a week before resuming his spot in RF, which tells me the priority was getting his bat in the lineup for the pennant race moreso than ensuring he was 1000% athletically recovered. He also missed the three warmest months of the year with that injury, which I'm assuming are probably peak sprint speed league-wide. On top of the comparison, the actual value/impact lost from that sprint speed is unclear. Yes, as you note he did have his worst baserunning season, though again having a quarter of his PT come post-injury clouds the magnitude. 2024 was also an improvement on the previous year defensively by both OAA and UZR(which was a career high). His range value for UZR in particular was a career best on a rate basis, for as much as we can trust that tidbit. On the whole, I think the bigger speed/athletic related concern for Tucker is less that his sprint speed was X, it's that he had a significant leg injury and we need to see the proof of concept of what he looks like after that point.

Agree with this, in a vacuum I preferred more investment in the rotation, and while I think it will work out fine I think they've increased the variance on the offense by decreasing the length of the lineup's known quality(Tucker+Shaw vs Bellinger+Paredes). If they pull in a Cease/King that's a pretty clear A offseason, and I think they've done enough to be okay with playing wait and see for the deadline, but the risk is in the pitching staff. Hopefully injuries + park regression don't bite too hard.

I think there's room for nuance here. The Verducci effect is not a law of the universe, and especially with a post-prime pitcher(with plenty of full-seasons in his past) on a 2 year deal there isn't as much caution required. If all other indications are good, there's no reason to think that the Cubs are going to shut down Boyd to rest for an extended period. That said, they're a team with aspirations on making the playoffs, and there's reason to be uncertain if Boyd's effectiveness(moreso than his health in the 'is he injured?' sense) will last through a playoff run if you don't take any preventative measures. I don't think we have a concrete sense of how significant those measures will be, but we already know that for the back half of the rotation that Counsell likes to shuffle to give SP 5(or more) days rest when he can. We know that there will likely be depth in the pen or at Iowa eager to get a shot at some starts. And we know that as we hit the dog days of summer they'll likely have 3 starters who they'll lean on innings-wise which lessens any dependence on Boyd. With that in mind, I think the 'plan' for Boyd is likely to treat him like a college starter, get him ~25 starts by essentially having him go once a week. That would put him around 130 IP and have the runway to go another 20ish in the playoffs as needed. Whether that plan lives up to reality, whether because of Boyd's health/effectiveness or the health/effectiveness of the rest of the staff that changes the dependency on Boyd, we can't know today.

why is the whole league colluding to overstate the injury risk for Flaherty specifically, when the pitching market has been white hot all offseason

Since the pandemic season, see if you can pick out which is Flaherty and which is Boyd A: 4.04/3.97 ERA/FIP, 15.1% K-BB%, 9.8% HR/FB, 5.3 IP/GS B: 3.89/4.04 ERA/FIP, 17.2% K-BB%, 14.2% HR/FB, 5.4 IP/GS

I think they're looking a lot like Stearns' Brewers teams(elite back end pen, misfit pieces in the rotation), but with a better offense(once they likely get Alonso back), which you can take in either direction. If they can stitch together enough SP quality innings they'll be good, but that's also the type of thing that can go wrong in a hurry.

I wonder for relievers who don't really have much hope of an MLB deal how nuanced they can practically view the options. For one, they can only sign with clubs that offer them, and outside of counting the guaranteed deals, how good are they or agencies at being able to tell the difference between Jack Neely and the Reds option at #13 on the RP depth chart? Similar to how it ends up playing out in practice, it may be that teams just all appear as a blob of arms and you have to bet on yourself to rise above it.

this graphic might make it a little easier to conceptualize

I understand what you're getting at, but this is an arbitrary line to draw and ultimately not very helpful. I think you can make reasonable arguments that there are anywhere from 1 to 5 NL teams with a clearly better Game 1 starter than Steele. Getting into the minutiae of what you like more in a pitcher for what you put for that answer isn't all that useful for roster building. IMO a better way to think of this is to get starters good enough that you're fine with them starting multiple games in a playoff series. Steele and Shota both are clearly in this group, and ideally you'd have another that I don't think they have today.

You also get assets back if you don't sign them, plus a head start both in terms of time and cost in re-signing them. But yes, as Bertz alluded to, Plan A would not be letting both walk.

I'd imagine the NTC lowers Pressly's value further though.

Pressly is a good reliever, but he's also on 14 million and has an NTC. I would suspect the return here is very minimal or the Astros are taking on a chunk of the deal. Maybe both.

thread here