Transmogrified Tiger

the hornberger method, classic

A day late but too good not to share [tweet] [/tweet]

The players aren't as good as we think they are to naturally make adjustments and the coaches and advanced scouting/FO don't prepare them well enough for the day to day stuff (like getting our butts shoved vs Gio, Peter Lambert, Mahle, etc). The FO/Coaching changes on some of this stuff is as important, if not more, than the player turnover we expect. Agreed. And if a pitcher can tunnel we really fall off the rails. Pretty much every hitter was befuddled by the high fastball/breaking ball in the dirt combo. The numbers against curves and sliders were really bad for an offense that was supposed to be as good as ours was expected to be. A lot of that can be countered with proper preparation. I remember early in Joe's tenure he said something to the effect of not wanting his hitters to get bogged down in the details and wanting them to go up there with a clear mind. He was not a proponent of the percentages and tendencies being fed to hitters and I think that's part of the reason that guys stagnated in their development. Pretty much every hitter is going to be susceptible to tunneling, that’s why it’s so attractive as a concept. And the Cubs had above average pitch values against curves and sliders. I think there’s something to the idea that the Cubs had too many hitters with similar weaknesses, but chalking it up to lack of preparation or going back to the “they can’t hit curves” well is overly simplistic at best.

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Hiring Boddy would have been cool, but I don’t think he’s uniquely qualified for the role. The fact that they’re targeting someone with his skills/strengths means as much as if they’d gotten him in particular.

you just hate to see it

really interested in the potential for Hader to have his Chapman game 7 moment and then have his arm explode in April when they use him 9 days in a row

I've been thinking about that last rotation spot since listening to Theo talk yesterday. One of the things they've done historically is veered into proven arms, guys who have a bit less combined performance+injury risk. I wonder with the talk of hiring a director of pitching, being a bit more present with the modern game, and especially with potentially limited funds, if they might be willing to let several interesting arms battle it out instead. I'm not sure if it's Mills or Alzolay in particular, Alzolay you can't bank on for 200 IP, Mills isn't optionable, etc, but they could definitely be a part of a group that's competing for it moreso than years past. If they do go that route, they'd almost certainly need to supplement the group through trades. E.g. imagine a world where Contreras is dealt for 3 high end but less proven arms; two battle it out for the rotation, one hopefully becomes a bullpen stalwart, etc.

oh man bread-eating guy is totally gonna be eating baseball yarn next year, isn't he

"Shame on us if we can't develop a player like that at the major league level." That sounded like he's staying to me. Yeah, I don't know what people here are talking about? We've listened long enough to Theo interviews to know what he means, and how transparent and honest he is. He doesn't talk up a player to try to build up trade value... He genuinely regards Contreras as legit one of the most talented catchers in MLB. I've thought this for a while too that Contreras is one of the most tooled-up, athletic catchers with an MVP upside if he puts it all together and improves his receiving/framing. I'm not saying he couldn't be traded this offseason if the right deal comes along, but it really sounds like Theo wants to keep him and hopes he keeps improving. It should be noted Theo and this FO tried to sign him to an extension and failed. They want to keep him and I'm pretty sure they still want to extend him. I think it would be a mistake trading him. Here's my thesis, which is a combination of taking what Theo said at face value and reading between the lines: They know they aren't on the cutting edge when it comes to developing pitchers, and they know that Willson in particular is not very good at framing or particularly gifted at calling a game. Partially related: he's also had consistent trouble staying healthy. They've seen how their stuff like the pitch lab has paid some small dividends already(e.g. Wick, Ryan) and hiring a director of pitching should lead to more of that in the future. They admit that they've had a winner's curse of seeing the best in their positional core, and relied on youth taking a step forward that hasn't happened. I would hope that all of this can be universally agreed upon. My interpretation of those facts is that they see a huge potential for improvement across the pitching staff by improving catcher defense, and Contreras, who is likely to never be better defensively than he is now, has nagging injury concerns, and is easier to replace with a strong framer/game caller than trading a different asset, makes for a logical player to trade. He also makes sense in the fact that he should still have substantial trade value, and since the team doesn't have buckets of money to spend he offers the ability to get significant talent that is cost controlled in return. I don't think they're planning a one way offseason that involves Contreras being dealt, but I'm increasingly convinced that it's Plan A.

Really? That sounded like a sales pitch to the 29 other teams, to me. He’s gone, imo. "Shame on us if we can't develop a player like that at the major league level." That sounded like he's staying to me. Unspoken: Willson isn't up to par when it comes to framing, and Theo's language about the things Willson worked on was all about things "he" believes will drive improvements. When you pair that with all the winner's curse talk and some of the pitching infrastructure stuff that's inextricably tied to game-calling and framing, I'm willing to lay odds that he's traded. Not overwhelming odds though, he does have significant strengths.

Might be confirmation bias, but I'm actually extra convinced he's gone now.

Not sure I follow. To maybe clarify, all I'm saying is that the Cubs clearly had an eye on at least the possibility of Joe not coming back when they hired Loretta. I don't think they'd hire a bench coach they had zero interest in as a future manager, and therefore I don't think his one year association with Joe is a negative in their minds. I'm saying that you don't hire someone to be the second fiddle to a lame duck manager if you're likely to promote them after pushing the latter out the door. The people in charge are, quite frankly, completely tone deaf and possibly legally blind if they think simply promoting someone who was working under Maddon, even if only technically for a year, is something they can sell as really making a change. They're going out of their way to overwhelmingly praise/absolve Joe on his way out, so I'm not sure they particularly care about selling a particular level of change in that regard.

live stream of theo's presser:

They very publicly and intentionally made Joe a lame duck, so if they are seriously considering Loretta, I doubt they care too much about the association they've created by making him Joe's bench coach for a year. Wouldn't the bold essentially make "seriously considering Loretta" not likely? Not sure I follow. To maybe clarify, all I'm saying is that the Cubs clearly had an eye on at least the possibility of Joe not coming back when they hired Loretta. I don't think they'd hire a bench coach they had zero interest in as a future manager, and therefore I don't think his one year association with Joe is a negative in their minds.

Sorry, I really mangled that thought. The fact that they hired Loretta, who fits the next-gen manager profile exactly, as bench coach means he has to be favorite IMO, unless 2019 revealed something they unexpectedly did not like about him. He's got the taint of Maddon. They very publicly and intentionally made Joe a lame duck, so if they are seriously considering Loretta, I doubt they care too much about the association they've created by making him Joe's bench coach for a year.

He's the bench coach, don't you think they've seen him up close already? Sorry, I really mangled that thought. The fact that they hired Loretta, who fits the next-gen manager profile exactly, as bench coach means he has to be favorite IMO, unless 2019 revealed something they unexpectedly did not like about him.

Feels like Loretta is so much the archetype of recent managerial trends that they'd have to actively dislike him once seeing him up close to not consider him the favorite right now.

I know that 2B doesn't have an etched in stone starter, but it sure feels like they have everything they need to fill the position capably between Hoerner, Bote, Happ, Kemp, even Descalso if you think his Cub tenure will follow the Kintzler track. With that in mind, I'm not a big fan of using dollar or trade resources for guys who are slight upgrades over one of the options but not necessarily the group. Especially Merrifield, that guy has 'collapses at 30' written all over him. Hernandez I think is a better player, but he's not quite Zobristian at getting on base, and there's no other true strength(hit tool, power, defense, defense at multiple positions) that I'm comfortable banking on(plus he's yet another rental).

Way way too much. Machado got nowhere near that kind of package. Machado was traded at the deadline and Mookie is fat and away better. I think to get him in the offseason it takes around that. The deadline tends to be inflationary in terms of trade value, and the only player above AA traded for Machado was roster fill Valera. Trading Contreras for Mookie is a complete non-starter, Schwarber basically the same, and Happ almost certainly a bad idea.

Mookie is one year from free agency and will make upwards of 25 million in his last arb year.

79 wins *and* last in the division. You don't get extra credit for only being 1-2 standard deviations off for one team when you whiff on half the division by 20 wins

For those curious like I was, from reading the replies, the implication is that Julianna Zobrist = Cindy Sandberg lol - who is supposed to be Palmeiro? There were no less than 3 names given by various people in that thread, so it appears to be up for debate.

For those curious like I was, from reading the replies, the implication is that Julianna Zobrist = Cindy Sandberg

Contreras v. Castellanos is an interesting way of looking at it. If you think they're similar values as players(and I think that's pretty fair in a few ways), then the question is which has more value, the trade return for Contreras or the return you can get on the money spent on Castellanos? I haven't thought deeply on this, but I suspect the Contreras trade return probably maximizes output better.