Transmogrified Tiger

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.

I'm really glad that Dave Cameron works for the Padres now so I don't have to roll my eyes at every 'opt-outs only have downside for a team' mention that ignores that's how you get the player on your team in the first place.

Correct, the same idea applies to someone who is Arb 2 or 3 coming off a terrible season. That proposed contract structure seems pretty sure to be vetoed, or the odds of Harper being able to leverage it into some team(Cubs or otherwise) just giving him 10/400 or 10/425 without the shenanigans are pretty high. Not that you can't get creative, but there needs to be something in it for the player and there isn't really in that case.

That was way funnier than it had any right to be.

Oh could the brewers not get 7 innings of 0-1 run ball from their bullpen for 10 straight games

You have an incredible gift for incorrect sanctimony, it is your superpower

A backup catcher is playing about as much as Lackey did, I doubt that would be a huge issue. My concern is that at this stage in his career, I’m not sure what McCann is actually good at. Framing has been below average for a couple years, and his bat fell off a cliff this year.

We should all be able to agree that Aguilar is a bear wearing a human suit trying and failing to play first base, and also that Machado unnecessarily took a dangerous and dirty swipe at him

Please don’t take another job this year Brandon Hyde

THATS GR GREAT TO HEAR

Did it really have to be these 2 teams

the lack of juiced balls could explain less power in the league, but is there another team that had a 25% loss in hrs? Its an honest question. 11 teams lost at least 19%, 5 lost at least 24%, but those other 4 are more explainable(Marlins, Mets, Tigers, Rays)

The average team hit 20 fewer HR than last year, and Bryant alone is another 15. they hit 56 fewer hr's. Everyone not named BAEZ loss power. And Baez alone accounted for 11 additional hr's that Bryant didn't hit between the years. Overall, the offense loss power and rather dramatically. Overall OPS took a 31 point loss. 62 fewer runs over the 162 game schedule. That's Chiliball with a sprinkling of Maddon enabling. Chili gets his blame*. *I don't feel death threats are appropriate League-wide OPS dropped 25 points and teams scored 30 runs fewer on average. The Cubs lost 27 points in slugging, the league lost 18. The gaps between that and the Cubs are even narrower considering how important Bryant is to the offense(2018 Baez was as close to 2017 Almora in offensive output as he was 2017 Bryant). This is not a #freeChili campaign, and I think you can lay a small part of the offense's inconsistency and power down turn at his feet. But the idea that counting numbers went down and that's on Chili is ignoring the two most important reasons, Bryant's injury and league-wide offense regressing.

I think Bryant's injury was the biggest issue. If he's healthy they score a couple more runs and probably win at least one more game. Nobody complains. Bryant's injury was a big factor clearly, but dropping 60+ hr's from year to year isn't due to one guy. The average team hit 20 fewer HR than last year, and Bryant alone is another 15.

How much do you think hitting coaches actually matter? Mallee got fired because there was a lot of stagnation/regression, Schwarber most notably but also Russell, no progression from Baez, etc. I won't argue that there's clearly some philosophical differences and that if the players don't have faith you need to move on, but a single season where the team went from 3rd in the NL in wRC+ to...3rd in the NL in wRC+ is well within the range of any number of factors independent of the hitting coach too.

really? i think he's worse and thought he was decent at csn I think he's always looking for the narrative that is what someone(be it the team or some portion of the fanbase) doesn't want to hear, I'm sure there's some logic for it from a journalistic sense. I think Sharma has rubbed off on him in a positive way so that those narrative takes are at least more informed or subdued if they aren't. That entitled second place team nonsense though, woof. As bad as anything he did at CSN.

Mooney has gotten better since joining the Athletic but that is a terrible take. However, I can get on board with the sentiment that Chili should not be back but that he'll take way more blame from both fans and players than he deserves.

Boras insists on his client reaching free agency, news at 11

I generally like players with Kipnis' skillset, but he's now at about 1000 PA with a wOBA around .305, he's not adding value defensively, and at 32 and with one year left on his deal there's little benefit to adding him with Zobrist around and LH corner OFs not in short supply(Heyward, Happ, Schwarber, hopefully Harper). Not hard to make the argument that La Stella is a player better suited to this roster, and that's before getting to the salary difference.