Transmogrified Tiger

The new market efficiency is huge deferrals but making sure the player hears the pre-deferral number so they can't overcome the anchoring effect.

If there existed(and it were possible to be) a +60 defender with average offense, I think you might be surprised. Defensive measurement isn't perfect, but the difference you're describing is one of opportunity. The top 20ish hitters in the game create more runs of value than it's reasonable to expect one player could prevent defensively. Beyond that level, there's far less difference.

Good Berti is good at providing value. He hasn't played a pace below 2 fWAR/500 PA since 2021. He's an excellent baserunner and neatly fits in as a PR option He plays good defense at several spots, and importantly provides some defensive floor at 3B(unlike some other options who are maybe sexier with the bat) For his career he is split neutral, which helps him be useful as a fill in starter as well as PH depth Bad Berti turns 35 today and missed most of last season with injury, you can't be very certain of what you're getting The injury was actually 2 different leg injuries, which is not great for someone who you are hoping will add real value with speed Berti is not going to hit for power, which means he's not going to be a primary RHH PH(not the worst outcome w/ Kelly & Canario/Alcantara potentially on the bench) Ideally the remaining bench roles have a path to light platoon playing time against LHP due to the positions they play(hedging Busch and PCA), which means now a LHH bench option will be a bit imperfect in its role too.

I just keep thinking 'diminishing returns' when it comes to a 2nd reliever. It forces you to do something that in the abstract you don't want to do. Send Assad to Iowa, cut Merryweather, option Hodge/Brown/Morgan. You actually have to do 2 of those things(assuming the closer/1st reliever means Keegan is done), so even if injuries remove the need for another, you're still doing something suboptimal.

Do you see how painting Jed as overly conservative in his spending, to the point you say Tucker is "clearly not going to be here in 12 months" is at odds with also painting Jed as making a "last ditch attempt to save [his] ass" in trading for Tucker? Not that you can't make multiple types of mistakes, but the underlying behavior motivating those moves(overly conservative, reckless to save his job) are essentially the opposite. This is what I mean when I say that his flaws are whatever people want them to be in order to be mad at him, because at a minimum you are dramatically underselling the odds Tucker is in Chicago in 2026 and beyond. Nothing is guaranteed, but teams who earnestly try to keep top of market FA under the qualifying offer have a very good success rate, and Tucker getting to play on a good Cubs team undercuts some of the more common reasons it doesn't work out(an uncompetitive team, a tiny market, etc) But to the Tucker decision specifically, you never get the chance to make the perfect move, and that barometer of being a 'single move away from the world series' is arbitrary and counterproductive. The Cubs right now project as the 3rd best team in the NL and the clear favorite for their division. Every season matters, not making decisive moves while you have a core in place for the next couple years is frittering away the good things that have happened to get the team to this level, just because it's not a guaranteed long term deal or that the team doesn't project to be a 95 win monster doesn't mean that you can't make moves that prioritize next year more than the 2-3 years afterwards. I don't love every move Jed has made this offseason, in particular I was not without reservations in trading for Tucker because of the cost and what pressures it put on the rest of the offseason. Like Bertz, I think he's being a bit too risky with the rotation given Wrigley is likely to revert away from being an extreme pitcher's park. But I also can see how there's a path to things working out and tradeoffs from having gone a different way. If you honestly are thinking that Jed is a 'moron' and 'can't for the life of you see how anyone could see the point' in trading for Kyle Tucker, have a little more curiosity.

Jed is apparently always grossly incompetent in the exact way that lets some folks stay convinced he has no idea what he's doing, it's such an uninteresting and obviously contradictory way of looking at things. Jed is famously overly conservative, hoarding resources and being scared of big contracts, and obviously will never ever pay to keep Tucker despite a significant head start in the race to do so. Also Jed is reckless, making a historically bad overpay to mortgage the future just to save his job. I really don't understand the impulse to try to make up these caricatures, the nuance is not only more accurate but it's more interesting to try to understand and guess how it'll apply going forward.

I dunno, it makes sense to me. The game is similarly over whether they get 12 yards or 50, so force them into the lowest probability of a 1st down that you can, with a bonus for it being an incompletion in doing so.

Happ and Suzuki were 18th and 19th among qualified OF last year, You can't do better than that without paying a much higher price(see: Tucker), and Caissie/Alcantara are very much long shots to ever make it to that level, never mind in the next 2 seasons.

okay, that's enough babby's first day on the internet for me

Turnover luck hits hard

Robertson's ZiPS ERA is the same as Estevez. I know you're a big Robertson fan(I don't hate him myself), but pointing to his 40 year old season as a money-in-the-bank elite reliever option isn't reality.

We are talking about relievers, so no. Or in a best case scenario you can do that for 1-2 years on a 4-5 year deal(and only 1-2 guys per offseason) and play roulette that they're useless beyond that.

Also half a run worse than his post-Colorado totals, the point is that a better projection system sees a clear difference. And to Bertz's point he's spent 95% of his career in organizations with stone age pitching development so you'd hope to have a little more you can unlock from him. Not my top target, but I don't see much of a case for the idea that he's on the precipice of severe regression.

Gotta be careful about using per 9 stats when part of your point is that he had a particularly good BABIP season. That means there's simply fewer PA in general, his K% was middle of the road for his career, and his HR/FB is impacted by playing most of his career in Coors. Since leaving Colorado he has 2 seasons and over 115 innings with an ERA far under his xFIP, given his stuff it's very possible that assuming a league average HR rate(like xFIP is doing) is not a safe assumption. ZiPS projects him for a 3.76 ERA and 3.73 FIP.

I think this is largely people using the terms interchangeably, it's not like there's a reliever of similar caliber with no closing experience waiting to be signed that is being ignored. That said, given the rest of the pen has several players who can easily be leverage/impact guys but have limited experience closing games, I think ensuring your leverage RP addition has some experience in that realm is worthwhile.

I’ve liked him going back to his Colorado days, so wouldn’t be bad. He’s got a little of both of Finnegan and Scott’s imperfections in him, and I didn’t realize how much closing he’s done since leaving COL, so yeah sure let’s do it

Scott would have been fun but I've always been a bit apprehensive about the length given his relatively short history of throwing strikes(especially poignant as a closer) which probably will degrade by default with his age. Bring down Finnegan(my preference) or Yates and the pen looks good.

Everyone say good things about the pants so they get rid of the pinstripes once and for all

Bertz put more effort into his rumor update so we'll consolidate there

There have been drips and drabs from local reporters about the Cubs being after a late inning reliever and occasionally name dropping Scott among others in a list, but this seems like the strongest connection between the two of them yet.

I know no one is making a serious point to that end, but Sasaki will only count the league minimum towards the CBT. He's getting a 6.5 million signing bonus, so for CBT purposes that's treated the same as the Dominican 16 year olds that signed this week.

The Blue Jays are about to find out the price to buy your wedding ring back from the pawn shop

They don't have Suarez's contract right, he has an opt out after this season that amounts to a 2/16 player option, there is no option on the club side as far as I can tell.

I find it very amusing that the Mets just treat money as made up when they sign a free agent but simultaneously act like they will descend into anarchy if they give Alonso a single dollar more than offered