Transmogrified Tiger

Ironically enough, the best match for this is the White Sox. They have all the upside they could need, but the floor that you get from Heyward, Q, even Chatwood is lacking. Hard to see that happening though, for several reasons.

Trading good players and continuing to compete are not mutually exclusive ideas. That's doubly true in the case of someone like Contreras whose exact level of contributions are more debatable than say an outfielder. in these circumstances, they basically are though like if you trade Bryant for some hot prospects and use the savings toward Rendon or whatever, sure, but we're just inevitably setting sail 5 wins in hopes that one day we'll get some return as Cristian Pache develops into a nice affordably cheap Chris B. Young Bryant yes, because he's a 5+ win star. I indulged the idea yesterday(partially as a defense mechanism and partially because I do enjoy rosterbation), but to be clear my real thoughts are here: viewtopic.php?p=384016#p384016 Contreras(and Schwarber and anyone lower on the roster) don't have as high a bar to clear, and it also depends on what you get. We're seeing the right prospects adapt to MLB quicker than ever, and when you're dealing with pitching the variance goes in both directions.

Especially when he told a porn star that he was a big fan of hers. What does it all mean?!? There were generic smilies involved, he's still a man of mystery

Trading good players and continuing to compete are not mutually exclusive ideas. That's doubly true in the case of someone like Contreras whose exact level of contributions are more debatable than say an outfielder.

Contreras is a master vaguetweeter(or instagrammer), truly world class

- Contreras and Q for Lamet, Margot, Hedges, and Munoz - Bote for Chirinos - Zobrist for one year - If you can squeeze him in(maybe by dumping Descalso and Almora), sign Brock Holt Zobrist/Bryant/Rizzo/Baez/Schwarber/(Happ/Margot)/Heyward/(Caratini/Hedges); bench adds Holt(otherwise Descalso/Hoerner) and Kemp Hendricks/Darvish/Lester/Lamet/Chirinos Kimbrel/Wick/Ryan/Chatwood/Wieck/Munoz, rest are Iowa/NRI shuttle This plan leans hard on the pitching infrastructure improvements bearing fruit, since Chatwood, Cotton, and Alzolay are backstopping a rotation unlikely to give you 900 IP. We’ve set that up for maximum success by stacking positive UZRs up and down the roster and going all in on framing. Munoz is hopefully what we hoped Carl would turn into, but if not we’re going to leave the variance with the pitching where it’s the least certain anyway. I’m pretty sure if you have less than 15 million being paid to Zobrist, Holt, Almora, and Descalso that this fits, but with no margin for error and I could’ve miscalculated.

The reporting could be wrong, but nothing in the Bryant trade news I’ve seen indicates that a big FA move would come on the heels of it. Either way, there’s no outcome with Cole, Rendon, or Strasburg. How to backfill Bryant depends on the specifics of what he’s traded for, bit I vote that if you’re willing to trust Bote v. RHP, that you just give him the job. He’s a good defender there and lets you focus resources elsewhere. Sorry TT. Read it twice and still missed it. I meant assuming they trade Bryant and DON’T sign Rendon or obtain another 3B option I’d be okay without Bote/Frazier. Oh I know that’s what you meant. What I’m getting at is if I think Bote is for real enough to trust him v. RHP, I won’t bother getting a platoon partner for the pitchers Bote already has platoon advantage against, even if their career numbers are a bit better.

Hmmm, yep it’s a mystery

The reporting could be wrong, but nothing in the Bryant trade news I’ve seen indicates that a big FA move would come on the heels of it. Either way, there’s no outcome with Cole, Rendon, or Strasburg. How to backfill Bryant depends on the specifics of what he’s traded for, bit I vote that if you’re willing to trust Bote v. RHP, that you just give him the job. He’s a good defender there and lets you focus resources elsewhere.

I appreciate your commitment to respond to news that the Cubs can barely afford to sign a Minor League FA with a scenario that boils down to “trading Quintana frees up enough to get Cole, right?

Something like Newcomb, Pache, and Wright doesn’t make me feel all that warm and fuzzy, but it would be a good combination of underlying talent, unrealized upside, and MLB ready contributions. It almost certainly makes them worse in 2020, and when you combine it with the fact that Braves fans would probably howl in anger at that package, makes me feel it’s in the ballpark. If we’re truly punting on 2020, you need to consolidate. Reunite him with Maddon and get Jo Adell.

Any team with the starpower of Bryant, Baez, Hendricks, and to a lesser extent Rizzo has the foundation needed to win the world series. The supporting cast is a lot easier to fix/replace/have better luck, so you shouldn’t be writing off 2020 at all. While this is true, if they have to get under 208 for reasons I just don’t see how you build a proper team to win this year. If they’re currently tapped out, it’s definitely more difficult but not impossible when you have role player salaries with value you can go full Dipoto on(Quintana, Schwarber, Bote, Contreras) to increase your variance but keep the foundation with the chance of a better supporting cast. If we need to cut from the current roster I’m going to be so angry that I refuse to consider it because we are already considering trading Bryant and I only have so much anger.

Any team with the starpower of Bryant, Baez, Hendricks, and to a lesser extent Rizzo has the foundation needed to win the world series. The supporting cast is a lot easier to fix/replace/have better luck, so you shouldn’t be writing off 2020 at all.

I have to imagine that trading a player of Bryant's caliber is an as-is sorta situation, you take on the risk when you make the trade. It's too significant a move for the Cubs to make for 2020 to make the return at all contingent on something that comes later. Speaking of trading Bryant, let's connect some dots: - Rosenthal says "[Cubs] officials are telling representatives of even low-budget free agents that they need to clear money before engaging in serious negotiations." - Multiple articles lightly speculating the Braves might try for Bryant, and lets toss in Rogers' guesswork too - The mention that the Cubs are bringing an army of people to the winter meetings, and their comments about shaking up the roster So if they have to cut payroll relative to last season(instead of merely staying flat), then trading Bryant does become more of a realistic means of trying to improve, because there's not many other means of freeing up significant salary unless you can find a taker for Heyward or Chatwood(questionable at best). If that happens 1) I will probably pass out from anger at Tom Ricketts and 2) the Braves do really make the most sense as a team by far. They have MLB ready quality that they aren't necessarily reliant on(to various degrees Fried, Newcomb, Wright, Wilson, Touki, Pache, and Waters all help the Cubs in 2020), a hole at 3B, and motivation to make a big splash.

I think Margot is a good fit for the roster, and has a nice balance of floor and room for optimism about more, while coming at a reasonable cost. He’s a good acquisition without taking a leap forward. I think of it similarly to the opportunistic move they made in trading for Montero.

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Sure looks like Margot could be considered surplus to requirements now.

This is also probably a good spot for some napkin-math research I did at the start of the offseason on relief pitcher consistency. 2018 - 48 RP had 1+ fWAR - 20 of the 48 had 1.5+ fWAR - 10 of those 20 were 1+ in 2019 - 6 of the 28 between 1-1.5 were 1+ in 2019 Basically, even the best relievers in 2018 were a coinflip to be even good in 2019, and those that were good were 20-25% odds of being good again. So where do those good 2018 relievers come from in the first place? In 2017, The 20 that were 1.5+ fWAR in 2018: sub-0 fWAR: 2 0-.5: 7 .5-1: 3 1-1.5: 5 1.5-2: 1 2+: 2 About a coinflip whether they were even mediocre the year before! The 28 that were between 1-1.5 fWAR in 2018: sub-20 MLB IP: 8 0-.5: 7 .5-1: 7 1-1.5: 1 1.5-2: 3 2+: 2 About a third weren't even pitching in MLB in a material way, and another half were varying degrees of mediocre to okay. Hopefully this makes some sense in how it's presented, but the tl;dr is that relievers are super random and often don't have indication they're about to be good. Hopefully Winkler is one that pops up and gives good productivity.

I had never heard of Winkler before today. - Was doing very well in a difficult AA league for the Rockies, then had TJS - after rehab was excellent in a 2017 Sept callup and in all of 2018 for Atlanta - had a rough 2019 spring(elbow trouble and performance) that led to him missing the opening day roster, when he did make it back he gave up a bunch of homers - got shipped off in the Melancon deal and was weirdly effective(no runs allowed but no Ks) in 15 IP for the Giants AAA team He lost some velo from 2018 to 2019 so that combined with the fall off in performance is concerning, but he also didn't get the chance to pitch in MLB in the hottest months so an apples to apples comparison of velocity might not be as stark.

Catchers with Grandal and Contreras' workload receive ~8000 pitches a year. Even if we throw out 90% of pitches as unimpacted by framing and say that the difference between the best and worst in that remainder is like 20%, that's still ~160 calls a year one is getting that the other isn't. Is it really so hard to think at the extreme ends of the spectrum(and when we talk about Grandal v. Contreras that's what we're talking about) that magnitude can add up to multiple wins? If you want to quibble with the exact degree that Contreras or any alternative is good/bad that's fine(that's what message boards are for!), but scoffing that the very idea that the Cubs could be better off without Contreras is closer to an uncritical rejection of framing as a potential source of value.

Last year's catching position was worth ~3 wins, maybe a run or two more depending on how exactly you count Contreras and Caratini's time away from C. The right external addition paired with Caratini could absolutely produce similarly. Heck Jason Castro is a free agent and him and Caratini repeating 2019 is basically it right there. If you can get more value from Contreras in trade than you give up to sign Castro or get a similar player, then you get better.

Going from one end of the defensive spectrum to the other. Narvaez makes Contreras look like a wizard with the glove.

I'm not a huge Bundy enthusiast, but he was a 3 win pitcher with a 92 mph average fastball in 2017. It's decreased from that point a bit, but I think there's room to think he can be that guy again. At a cost of 5-6 million and the equivalent of Mekkes/Maples in trade I can see the appeal.

I haven't been able to kick the idea of piggybacking rotation spots out of my head(probably not surprising since I've liked it for years), so I'm going to indulge an offseason planned around it. The quick benefits: - you avoid the 3rd time through the order penalty entirely, and can act quickly if a starter is losing it before then - you can piggyback R/L and/or contrasting styles to prevent lineups being stacked to beat a particular pitcher's arsenal - you lessen the likelihood of bullpen games because you're extremely likely to get 5-7 IP each time, which means the bullpen doesn't need a long reliever for long reliever's sake - with the 3 batter minimum you're going to see more of a multi-inning reliever trend and this fits that need of one part of the piggyback overperforms(justifying a rotation spot) or underperforms(and slides into short relief). So to do this right, I think for each rotation spot you want the 2 players doing the piggyback, plus at least 1 decent alternative that is either optionable or occupying a different bullpen role. Trades (basic framework, might need minor additions on either side) - Contreras for Luzardo and Daulton Jeffries - Quintana for Margot - Bote for Chirinos Signings - Alex Wood - Jason Castro - ZOBRIST, I'm paying him what it takes to go for one more year, his bat and 2B defense both remain fine - Strop, or your favorite FA of similar cost Castro/Caratini, Rizzo, Zobrist/Hoerner, Baez, Bryant, Schwarber, Happ/Margot, Heyward. Kemp or your favorite cheap position player is the only other position player Hendricks, Lester, Darvish, Chirinos/Luzardo, Wood/Chatwood Kimbrel, Wick, Ryan, Wieck, Strop/FA, Luzardo, Chatwood, AAAA(Maples, Mekkes, Mills, Underwood) Alzolay, Jeffries, Cotton, and Rea backup the piggybacks in Iowa or take that AAAA spot

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