Transmogrified Tiger

[tweet] [/tweet]

Exactly, the CBA has been in place for 3 years, the consequences of spending from that perspective are not a surprise. So either we have to believe that Theo was confident that the team would be so good that they'd be fine just taking an offseason to trim payroll(even as late as *this June* when he committed 37 million to Kimbrel), or ownership pulled the rug out from under them. I think he significantly overestimated the market for some of his assets. He assumed teams would be showering him with high-profile prospects in offers for Bryant and has been resoundingly met with "meh." There's just no way that he built the team with Plan A being trade Bryant for prospects(and Bryant is the only salary big enough to fix payroll ills). He committed 8 figures in 2020-21 to a reliever in June, combined with the rapidly approaching FA of the positional player core there's no way trading your best player to get under the tax was his first choice, because you know you're taking a step back when you do it even if they're showering him with prospect riches.

Exactly, the CBA has been in place for 3 years, the consequences of spending from that perspective are not a surprise. So either we have to believe that Theo was confident that the team would be so good that they'd be fine just taking an offseason to trim payroll(even as late as *this June* when he committed 37 million to Kimbrel), or ownership pulled the rug out from under them.

I would guess when this number is closer to zero than 9 digits. [tweet] [/tweet]

The tl;dr is that going over the tax for the 2nd straight year is more like a ~25 million cost than a ~5 million cost, and doing so for a 3rd straight year is upwards of 50 million.

Smoak had a worse wOBA than Heyward last year

He’s owed 4/96 yet and has a partial no trade clause. I think it would be incredibly hard to move him. The prospects given up would be costly to save any money and we’d still likely have to throw in a decent chunk. The Angels just had to give up the 15th overall pick from last year to move and clear some of Cozart’s money and that was for 1 year and under $15 million. I think we’d be talking multiple of Hoerner, Amaya, Marquez, Adbert, Davis, etc to even be starting conversations and we’d still have to be throwing in 10s of millions or taking back a bad deal too. If you did fix 2B more permanently(like getting Kieboom in a Bryant trade), I could see something like Hoerner, Heyward, and ~25 million to the Giants. Their corner OF situation is barren, they could use the prospect influx, plus they have the cash to absorb Heyward at 17M or so.

So if I'm making a realistic template for the offseason at this point, these things would come into focus: - Ownership went full cartoon villain and has mandated getting under the first tax line, the current roster is ~2 million over - The market for dumping contracts is nonexistent, I can't find the tweet but there were some quotes talking about how teams are valuing flexibility above all else - The front office clearly likes Castellanos a lot, and it appears they like Shogo too - Trading Bryant is generally favored over tap dancing with the tax line across multiple other moves If you want the best case from that mess, then IMO you do something like: - Trade Bryant for a package that includes an MLB ready position player with star potential. Of the known suitors this is basically only Robles and Kieboom since Albies and Acuna aren't getting traded, the Angels signed Rendon, and the Rangers are a tire fire. I guess the Twins are technically on the periphery of the 3B market but there's not much of a match there either. We really do not want Donaldson on the Nationals. - Trade Contreras for your 5 starter and additional arms. - If you sign Castellanos, trade Schwarber for additional pitching help or possibly infield help depending on how the other deals play out. I can't emphasize enough how angry this offseason would make me(to oversimplify, you're choosing to trade Bryant to make room for Castellanos), but if you're able to add Kieboom, Suero, Castellanos, Shogo, Castro, and the pitching haul from Bryant+Contreras+Schwarber, you can at least squint and see a way to be a similar caliber team as last year, and with significant pitching quality added for 2021+ that might actually give you room to maneuver next year if the nonsense financial restrictions continue.

Not to mention wasting Quintana and Lester's last year, and one of few remaining years for Rizzo, Schwarber, maybe Contreras. Darvish and Kimbrel will be worse in 2021 than 2020 too. Wondering, should Lester be part of this? I don't think we are wasting anything with him at this point. Lester isn't close to surplus value at this point so it's not a crime that he's about to hit free agency, but it just further underscores the work to be done to stay/exceed the current team's level in the coming years.

Not to mention wasting Quintana and Lester's last year, and one of few remaining years for Rizzo, Schwarber, maybe Contreras. Darvish and Kimbrel will be worse in 2021 than 2020 too.

He’s probably better than Descalso or Kemp but maybe not. That’s all I got. Still want a Cesar or Holt type add for the margin upgrade/guaranteed spot with a move like this just being depth in the minors. I'd probably take Kemp over Perez, more consistent bat and doesn't seem to be appreciably different with the glove(albeit they play some different positions). Kemp's speed is more of an asset on the bench too. Perez seems to be an addition by prevention though, surely he has an 1.100 career OPS against the Cubs(don't believe what BBRef says, they're full of lies).

If you're looking at a team that has Bryant, Baez, and Hendricks headlining it(plus several useful supporting players) and concluding the only way forward is to blow it up, you're profoundly misunderstanding 1) how much year to year variance happens in MLB or 2) where the positive variance tends to come from or 3) both. Even if the team is handcuffed financially there's no excuse to not attempt to win the division.

[tweet] [/tweet] I thought the MLB minimum had gotten higher than 575k edit: it was 555k in 2019

Because the trend is worse than simply writing off 2019 and saying things are fine:

Champions League knockout draw: - Dortmund/PSG - Real Madrid/Man City - Atalanta/Valencia - Atletico Madrid/Liverpool - Chelsea/Bayern - Lyon/Juventus - Tottenham/RB Leipzig - Napoli/Barcelona Dortmund/PSG and Real Madrid/City should be real good. Chelsea/Bayern might have 15 goals between the 2 legs. Excited for Atalanta to have a legit shot at the quarters, and Spurs/Leipzig might be lowkey the best matchup of all.

I see certain possibilities for a Bryant trade (along with other moves) working out. I don't have any inside knowledge as to how possible they are, but these scenarios don't seem unreasonable (way out of the realm of possibility) to me. And yet, I haven't advocated for trading Bryant. I merely have stated I think the prevailing opinion in this thread is largely close-minded and that the idea of a trade is dismissed out of hand without so much as examining the possibilities out there. Perhaps you don't see any. That's cool. I do. But there appears to be no room for a level-headed discussion. Again, that's cool. I just find that disappointing. Show your work then, what's a Bryant deal that helps the Cubs be better in 2020, or equivalent in 2020 and better in 2021 and beyond? Bryant is already the rarest commodity, a consistent 5+ win star. That's the type of player that is a moat between competitive and non-competitive teams. Voluntarily getting rid of him puts you in such a huge hole, that you're looking at a much worse outcome unless you get an insane return, which no team is going to reasonably give for 2 years of Bryant at arb prices.

Come on, there are literally dozens of hypothetical offseasons that have been thrown around in this forum, across a number of different theoretical constraints. If you think trading Bryant is better than any of them feel free, but 'I don't see anyone with other ideas' is nonsense. As for me, the basic framework is: - Trade Contreras, embrace the additive improvements from improving framing across the board while getting strong value in trade - Of the young position players(Happ, Bote, Hoerner), pick 1-2 that you think will pan out best, and pave the way for them to get opportunity while providing guardrails in the form of positional player depth. Trade the others if needed. - In those trades, embrace the variance that comes from controllable arms, that makes it possible to take leaps forward and also prepares you for the coming rotationpocalypse. Trade Quintana as needed to fit into whatever constraints the front office has to work with, to further embrace this idea. You can fill in the blanks here a bunch of different ways, but you're getting improvement by better productivity balance out of catcher, playing time for young positional players ready for more, and getting more talented arms in the fold to take advantage of that catching improvement and supposedly improved pitching infrastructure. Better positional player depth by not running out Descalso, Almora, and Russell for 800 PA helps on the margins too.

So then you don't trade him. Simple, right? You would think! And yet, the idea of trading Bryant persists. Trading your best player is an inexplicable idea for this Cubs team, that's what my post above illustrates. The continued presence of Bryant rumors since the start of the offseason, with basically no rumors that come close to being a deal that improves the Cubs or comes close to the hypothetical 'worth it' haul that you're alluding to, is why folks are at best confused and at worst very upset at the prospect of trading Bryant. Because there are no logical positive outcomes. The point here is that 'what if this inexplicable decision ends up being positive' is an opinion you're entitled to, but also not one anyone should feel is at all likely, because it's not! And even if Bryant doesn't go anywhere, the fact that this is clearly being seriously entertained means it carries an opportunity cost compared to other moves that are not inexplicable.

Might have to just make this my signature: viewtopic.php?p=384016#p384016 Is it possible to imagine a combination of players from a single organization in return for Bryant that would make the team better? Of course, that's true for every player in the league save for maybe Trout. But when you layer in the constraint of what teams are willing to pay for 2 years of Bryant at arbitration prices, it becomes impossible very quickly.

I thought the implication is that the source created the list based on info they know, not that the source is sneaking photos of a piece of paper Theo happened to write his wish list on.

In a trade like this you’re gonna have to choose between likely ceiling and how quickly that player can help the MLB team. Robles clearly helps today, and while I would not predict him to become a .370 wOBA guy(or the equivalent that considers his SB), he has the tools and is young enough that it’s not complete fantasy to hope for. To go much higher on that scale you’re getting into guys who haven’t yet proven they won’t collapse in MLB, which is a different downside Robles doesn’t have(at least nearly to that degree).

If you want reasons to think Shogo won't work out they definitely exist, but I would hesitate to say his game is predicated on speed. His plate discipline and hit tool are the main attractions. Speed makes both of those things more useful, but they also remain useful even with waning speed. When I think about his profile, on one end you can see a lot of Zobrist as a hitter. On the other hand, you can see Fukudome with a touch less pop. Both those guys stole their share of bases in their prime, but it wasn't the driver of their production.

Starting to feel okay with the last 2 spots of the pen/Iowa Shuttle. Even if you say Alzolay, Cotton, Mills, and Rea are only starters so they don't count, and Kimbrel, Wick, Ryan, Wieck, Chatwood are set in stone, you have: Morrow Maples* Megill* (Rule 5) Winkler* Underwood Norwood* Rodriguez* Mekkes* (Not on 40 man) Brooks* (Not on 40 man) Pelham* (LH) Steele* (LH) * Optionable That feels about right for ~2 spots given how speculative some of those guys are.

Yeah if other teams are inquiring about his availability, that doesn't signal to me that he has negative value. Teams don't usually ask what other teams would like to get rid of. Eh, it's not hard for me to imagine that teams see what Cole/Strasburg/Wheeler got, what remaining FA want, and combine it with the clear message the Cubs are being $ conscious to see if they want to dump Darvish's contract for a song. Doesn't mean he has absolute negative value, but the value might not be all that positive. As for trading Darvish, if ownership is driving down payroll at all costs, trading Darvish isn't my favorite option but it's worlds better than trying to trade Bryant.

They got just under 14 fWAR (!) from Cole and Verlander. Cole is gone and Verlander is a strong bet to be good but less than 6 wins good. No one would say they're gonna suck but given the state of their pitching I wouldn't overstate how surefire their dominance is in 2020 and beyond.