Transmogrified Tiger

My read is that the Cubs are restricted on spending inasmuch in that they're planning on dropping hundreds of millions on Bryce Harper despite having a perfectly good offense without him, so they'll have to do more work on the margins to fit in the relievers or an additional SP they want to do on top of that. Anyone who says 'they're already over the luxury tax, they're tapped out' is not connected to the reality that the Cubs have very clearly been gearing up to play for Harper(or, sigh, Machado) and nothing has changed in that regard.

Because moving a reliever like Kintzler who is on a 1/5 deal is not a particularly difficult thing to do if you need to.

I was wrong about this last year, but I would be very surprised if the luxury tax number went that low. I think it's a fair bit more likely it exceeds 40 than fails to reach 30.

yeah, 275 that's 300 in penalties is functionally a 100 million jump year over year. They have been waiting to go higher than last year and we'll have to see if we get any TV deal specifics soon, but I've been of the mind that 250 is probably on the high end.

I'm curious how high folks expected the payroll to jump. Before adding anyone at all they had a full roster that was right at the luxury tax, and getting Harper adds probably 35 million to that on the low end. Hamels is either 14 or 20 million more, and that still hasn't done anything to address the pen unless you count sealing Montgomery away from the rotation. Yes, Kintzler and Duensing(and in a different way Chatwood) are frustrating contracts to deal with in that light, but ultimately the 2 relievers at a combined 8.5 million aren't going to be the difference between a prince and pauper offseason.

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Iglesias seems fine to me, but he’s only 28 and has been an average SS for 5 years, surely someone is gonna be more desperate to pay him than the Cubs are with Baez in tow.

Pat is already licking his chops at spending a whole half inning talking about this guy's name if he ever gets into a game.

He was a garbage pitcher in 2017 (he had a K/9 under 5) and he’s been a garbage pitcher his whole career who has to rely on soft contact and praying to the BABIP Gods to have any kind of success. He horsefeathering sucks. He had 4 seasons of at least 20 IP prior to this year, with ERAs of 2.69, 3.24, 3.15, and 3.03. He's beating is career FIP but not by Tyler Clippard lengths or anything. That profile can go quickly, and signing up for 5 million this year was a risk, but it's disingenuous to say he's been a terrible pitcher getting by on luck. His walk and home rate doubled from anything he had ever done previously, sometimes that happens with relievers, especially those with Kintzler's skills(or lack thereof).

Find someone who loves you as much as Theo Epstein loves picking up left handed relievers off waivers

I fully expect he'll pick up the option, but if you want to give yourself hope, Kintzler is 34 and every season could be his last where he's employable. If he thinks he can even get the Duensing contract(2/7) from somebody, that might technically be in his best interest. That said he'll likely take the 5 million and bet on himself that he can turn things around to earn another deal.

Even if we pretend Hamels’ August never existed(which is silly even if we don’t expect him to repeat that stretch) his September was 4 quality starts, another where he was one out short of a QS, and the one outing he had as a Cub where he got rocked. September Cole Hamels gets a decent amount of coin in free agency, and he flashed in August so you can dream on him as much as any other FA, plus the commitment is only one year unlike other FA. I’m not a Hamels enthusiast, so I’m not gonna campaign that he’s an obvious choice(lots of miles, HR prone, rotation already very left handed which could have downsides over a full year), but i also recognize the benefit of locking down the rotation without giving up huge years or trade assets so that the offseason puzzle gets simpler.

He's good, although in terms of overall value, good in the way that Happ or Almora can be good, compared to say, Bryant or Baez or Contreras. I mentioned it on draft night, but a good outcome would be the type of value that the Rockies have gotten out of Lemahieu.

Wouldn't the Cubs have to decline their end first? Yeah, the odds of that getting announced out of order are pretty low, even if the decision has hopefully been made by both parties for weeks.

The one thing I'd say to this is that part of the narrative here is that Chatwood is a year removed from being a fairly desirable FA SP, and his downturn appears to be a mental block(maybe helped by a change of scenery?) moreso than injury or loss of stuff. He's only 29 on opening day too, so I think you can make the argument his likelihood to rehab value is similar/better to Andrus. I don't expect that to be a universal sentiment, but I bet there's a handful of teams who would believe something close to that. Whether that's the Rangers is the question, because I do think in their position of not being very competitive next year, the idea of freeing up 15 million each in '21-22 is appealing enough to take on a few million bucks in post-prime relievers for 2019.

No one is talking about making Edwards a starter, the thought is that since he was a starter through most of his minor league career and he wasn't converted because he failed at it, that he might be a good fit to be a multi-inning fireman. As far as injuries go, Edwards missed time with a shoulder injury this year and his command deteriorated dramatically over the course of the year. Could be nothing, but it would be very unsurprising that it turns out to be a harbinger of a significant injury.

What is it you don't like about Leclerc? For this exercise/deal, he crosses into 'too good/valuable' territory.

Does anyone have much of an idea of what Texas's opinion of Andrus is right now? I was looking for shortstops with a big enough contract and low enough production that we might be able to get a new SS with no gain in payroll or better by having that be a dumping ground. Andrus is only a year removed from a 4 win season, but he's 30 now, has had a sub-.300 wOBA 4 of the last 6 years playing in Texas, and UZR describes him as more of a capable SS than gold glove caliber. For luxury tax purposes he has a hefty 4/60 left on his deal, does trading several short term contracts for him seem palatable for them? In a perfect world they like Chatwood and/or Russell's potential and they're willing to eat money this year to be done with Andrus' commitment, so you can get something like Chatwood, Kintzler, Duensing, and Russell(combined 25.5 million 2019, 12.67+Russell for 2020) for Andrus and a reliever(4/60+ reliever). That's likely fantasy(and the Rangers don't really have any interesting relievers left anyway), but it's day 1 of the offseason so I can dare to dream.

Wouldn't in-season call ups be a subset of the 40 man guys? Or am I misunderstanding you?

I think in the abstract that makes sense, but I also have a sneaking suspicion that 2019 is the year Edwards blows his arm out.

Creating a separate thread so people can reference this without finding bits and pieces scattered everywhere. This post will be updated as the offseason progresses. Let's start with 2 invaluable resources. Cot's Contracts: https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/national-league-central/chicago-cubs Arbitration estimates: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/10/mlb-arbitration-salaries-2019.html Leaning on those two heavily, here's what things look like. I'm going to be using the luxury tax numbers since that's far more relevant to roster planning. Guaranteed - 14 players - 166.61 million Rizzo - 5.857 Zobrist - 14 Heyward - 23 Lester - 25.833 Quintana - 10.5 Chatwood - 12.67 Darvish - 21 Morrow - 10.5 Strop - 5.75 Cishek - 6.5 Duensing - 3.5 Kintzler - 5 Hamels - 20 Descalso - 2.5 Arb estimates - 7 players - 38.9 million Baez - 7.1 Russell - 4.3 Bryant - 12.4 Schwarber - 3.1 Hendricks - 7.6 Edwards - 1.4 Montgomery - 3 Renewals** - 4 players - 2.5 million Contreras Almora Happ Bote ** More players than these 4 qualify as renewals(Maples, Alzolay, Mills, Norwood, etc), but those 4 are the only roster certainties in my mind. Renewals - 4 players - 2.5 million Arb estimates - 7 players - 38.9 million Guaranteed - 14 players - 166.61 million Subtotal - 24 players - 205.51 million Player Benefits - 15 million Total current commitments: 224.21 million Luxury tax threshold: 206 million Luxury tax penalty: 20% on each dollar over the tax Additional luxury tax penalties: Above 226 million, an extra 12% on each dollar over the tax; above 246 million, an extra 42.5% on each dollar over the tax and first round pick lowered by 10 spots (source)

The last 3 years from Harper are indistinguishable from the last 3 years from Anthony Rizzo, that's exceptional to get from an outfielder. Of the hitters who have been better than Harper the last 3 years(less than 20), half are north of 30 and Harper is the youngest of the rest(which includes Bryant, Jose Ramirez, and Mookie). Signing Harper is adding an offensive wrecking ball, you can debate if he's merely going to be very good v. great by getting into the minutiae of his injuries or how his defense is evaluated, but those are rounding errors compared to the bulk of his value coming from being an elite hitter.

This is an honest question, but why is fWAR a better indication of WAR than bWAR? bWAR has Heyward and Harper averaging the same amount of wins the last 6 years. fWAR rates Harper better. 1. It doesn't matter! Using Jason Heyward's 2013-2015(which is like 75% of that 6 year span WAR) as anything representative of what Heyward is going to do in 2019 and beyond is crazy. That ship has sailed, Heyward is not that player any more, we have 3 years and 2000ish plate appearances as proof. 2. bWAR is simply less accurate. For pitchers it can be a worthy counterpart to fWAR because it is more descriptive while fWAR is more predictive(e.g. ERA v. FIP), but for hitters there's no reason to use anything you see on BR outside of using the DRS defensive values for comparison/validation to what UZR is saying.

Schwarber for non-major leaguers(pitchers at that) is an unserious idea, regardless of their pedigree or readiness.