Transmogrified Tiger

Signing Cozart and trading a SS for a SP that otherwise would cost more dollars than Cozart is a very interesting idea.

That pizza grease means he throws a nasty slider. Yeah, but the wine means his command leaves a bit to be desired.

I haven't been able to come up with an offseason I really like yet, but this is as close as I've gotten: Sign: - Darvish - Cobb - One of Nicasio, Shaw, or Reed - Austin Jackson - Rivera Trade: Happ+ for Hand and Jankowski I wouldn't be above adding a 3rd reliever like Tim, but unless you can do something like Caratini or Zagunis for Liam Hendriks, I'm skeptical enough of being able to pull off all 3 FA pitchers as is so I wouldn't think signing *another* is all that likely. Jackson takes Jay's role, Jankowski is optionable and also is a defensive replacement/pinch runner if he happens to be on the MLB roster at any given point. Darvish/Q/Hendricks/Lester/Cobb is very, very good, albeit at a heavy financial cost which isn't great. Also not great is adding two 30+ contracts to the rotation. Hand/Edwards/Strop/FA/Wilson/Montgomery/Grimm/Maples(or other Iowa shuttle) is also very, very good. Rivera/Zobrist/La Stella/Jackson/Jankowski lacks future starpower like benches of yore, but such is the cost of that pitching staff. Financially that team is roughly 10 mil under the luxury tax this year, and can probably swing Harper next year without reaching 40 over the luxury tax.

Harper is very good at baseball but he has always looked like a werewolf

Merged our two SP threads since they'll be talking about filling the same roles. I've been trying to think through some buy-low style acquisitions, the idea being that there's some reason to hope they'll be worthwhile, and would have a cheap enough acquisition cost to allow for the best possible offseason elsewhere(spending on Darvish, creating a super bullpen, etc). One theme with all of these options is that they continue with the Cubs' philosophy of wanting to control the strike zone. We know Bosio was canned at least in part for the inability for the relievers to throw strikes, all of the Cubs rotation stalwarts had sub-8% BB%, and I'd guess that's a big reason why they don't commit to Montgomery as a rotation option. Chris Tillman ++ Tillman is only a year removed from 4 consecutive years of average pitching. He was horrifically bad this year, but his stuff didn't really deteriorate, and finally getting him away from Baltimore's pitching environment with the AL to NL bump too could help. He's a FA so he's certainly available and he won't be expensive. -- Tillman was a nightmare in 2016 so you're taking a pretty huge gamble on him. His vertical release point has been in slow decline for a while and he missed some time with a shoulder injury this year, although you aren't hoping that Tillman is any sort of long term answer anyway. Kendall Graveman ++ Graveman has been a pretty average pitcher on the mound the last couple years. Even in his best case scenario he's not really someone you anticipate starting a playoff game, so he's not likely to be super expensive in trade. He's under team control for 3 years and would get a lift from moving from AL to NL. -- Graveman missed a big chunk of this year with a shoulder injury and his vertical release point looked the part too. The 3 years of team control don't mean much if he's about to go under the knife. He's super reliant on his defense because he doesn't strike out anyone even in this environment. Jeremy Hellickson ++ Hellickson was a 3 win pitcher just a year ago, and there aren't any huge indicators that his stuff is falling off. He has the Maddon/Hickey connection from his work as a mostly average pitcher in Tampa. He has always done a good job of BABIP suppression, and he's a FA and not likely to be an expensive one. -- Hellickson was terrible this year, his K rate fell, his HR rate spiked, and his ground ball rate fell. An optimist might see that as something mechanical that's fixable by working with old friend Hickey, a pessimist might see decline coming early for Hellickson since he's never had overwhelming stuff. Jordan Zimmermann ++ Zimmermann is presumably still the same human being that put up 19 fWAR in 5 years for Washington. He's still only 31, and his 2017 was pretty fluky from a BABIP perspective considering his stuff wasn't any worse than it was in 2016. Getting back to the NL and possibly working with Hickey who might be able to get more out of his 4 seamer may help. Detroit would love to be out from his contract so the player cost would be basically nil. -- Zimmermann's stuff isn't worse than it was in 2016, but it's definitely lost a tick from his Washington days, so even with the bad luck, you're talking about being similar to his 2016 which is still solidly below average even after considering AL/NL. His contract is also a huge albatross(3/74, 22M per towards luxury tax), so you'd have to make that more palatable in some way by getting another player of interest, getting money from Detroit, or trading Heyward/Zobrist. Erasmo Ramirez ++ Ramirez was turned around with Hickey in Tampa and put in a solid 2016. His decline seems related to dropping his 4 seamer, which would also seem to correlate to some divergence in approach between Tampa and Hickey's preference. He has 3 years of team control, would get the AL to NL bump, and while he wasn't terrible in Seattle, he wasn't really above average and Jerry DiPoto loves his trades. He's also capably served as a swing man in the case he gets supplanted in the rotation -- Ramirez hasn't held up to a full year's workload, which isn't the worst thing in a speculative 5th starter, but worth considering. He hasn't been super valuable, but the Mariners need pitching more than anything so getting rid of Ramirez probably isn't at the top of the todo list and might not be exorbitantly cheap.

Here's a Fangraphs leaderboard with all the noteworthy free agent arms(if I missed any lemme know): http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2017&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=7731,8110,4090,10586,7550,9346,7196,7441,10021,7466,1157,4682,3132,3281 When you look at it, there's a few tiers that start to develop: Traditional closers: Davis, Holland Big stuff with a fairly significant question mark about their future: McGee, Morrow, Swarzak, maybe Hunter Solid all around, pretty good stuff, strike thrower, but not going to be an elite monster: Reed, Nicasio, Shaw Very good strike throwers without closer stuff: Neshek, Smith, Gregerson Lefty-specific value: Minor, Watson

Tanaka is owed 3/67, was he really likely to do that much better? People are already lining up to be worried about Arrieta's performance and not giving him 9 figures and he's had much higher highs than Tanaka. He's much older so it's not a 1:1 comparison, but I do think elbow trouble and never demonstrating super high end performance would limit Tanaka's market substantially. No one who would pay him was going to view him as a TOR arm, and no one viewing him that way is gonna line up to give him 4/100 or 5/115.

Very gratifying to see Clint Dempsey having fun playing soccer again. Not quite sure how I feel about that beard though. He's less sexy, but I think I enjoy watching Roldan play more than the DPs on that team. He is so good at everything.

What are the odds that Rosario makes it to the first day of spring training on the 40 man roster? I'll say 5% and feel that's probably incredibly generous.

Ok. And I'm saying I don't think the Marlins make that deal. Would you make that deal if you are the Marlins and in a total rebuild ... and Yelich was your prime candidate to get multiple quality young assets to rebuild with? Jeter/Sherman have basically said they are fine taking time. A pop-up arm in Alzolay who, I like a lot, but has enough questions on his secondary pitches. A middle infielder, however promising, 3-4 years away, at best and doesn't project for much power. A "proto-type" in de la Cruz that hasn't pitched much. And Baez ... who is going to start increasing in costs sooner than later. I think they can do better than that in this market, in terms of long term building, if they opted to move Yelich. I'm not debating the value or whether or not it's good for the Cubs. As I noted ... I have my doubts that would do it for Yelich. I don't think any deal for Yelich they could make would get them a better player and talent than 4 years of Baez, never mind also a guy with LaStella's bat, multiple quality prospect arms, and a decent low level infield prospect.

I'm saying that stated package is more than enough for Yelich, and not a good deal for the Cubs to make.

That's Javier Baez, not Theodore Baez.

In my mind they have 4 clearly defined needs to fill: - Starting pitcher good enough to be in the playoff rotation - Starting pitcher that should be better than Montgomery - Closer/late innings reliever/Davis replacement - Another quality reliever They'll also add another outfielder and a backup catcher, but those are 1) less important roles and 2) won't carry a big financial cost Given the money and trade assets they have at their disposal, I come away thinking they need to fill one of those without paying more than 12 million(SP) or 7-8 million(RP), and also do so without giving up any of the MLB trade assets. This is not terribly easy if Otani doesn't choose the Cubs, but if you can pull that off, then the money and MLB trade assets make the rest of the offseason pretty plug and play.

Sounders are the first team in the conference finals after dispatching of Vancouver, who basically had no interest in attempting to score goals in either leg. In lighter news: [tweet] [/tweet]

Also, if you want to put a positive spin on Heyward, he did get better as the season progressed, unlike last year. 2016 1st half: .300 wOBA, 83 wRC+ 2016 2nd half: .255 wOBA, 55 wRC+ 2017 1st half: .303 wOBA, 83 wRC+ 2017 2nd half: .318 wOBA, 92 wRC+ Heyward has always been much better in the 2nd half than the first half even when he was doing well, so 2016 sticks out as an outlier even more. So the optimistic interpretation is that Heyward can continue building on his 2017 and set a baseline closer to his 2017 2nd half in the first half of 2018 and be more like a 3 win OF when you consider his defense(~.325-.330 wOBA). The pessimistic interpretation is that his first half is basically the new norm and anchors how much he can improve, but thankfully if his 2nd half got a bit better(past successful years had huge 1st half/2nd half splits), he can get above average without going completely nuts at the plate. That's just looking at trends without any thought to the cause behind it, but if you want reason to dream on Heyward not being a drain on the lineup, you can find it.

Starlin.

Last year's predictions, for reference: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/11/2016-17-top-50-mlb-free-agents-predictions.html Looks like for the top 25 or so they got the destination right for about a third of them, although a fair number of those were FA's being retained by their old team.

I looked at his numbers and thought 'damn these look horsefeathers, I'd hope Almora is better than that' but then I saw his splits are pretty much as extreme as Almora's. If Almora can't provide a defensive value approaching Pillar, I can't see him playing most of the time against RHP. Admittedly this idea was spawned with the idea of 2015 Pillar in mind, who was at least approaching average with the bat. Today I'm more confident that Almora will outpace him with the bat(and therefore be an everyday option), but also a little less certain he will be a defensive monster like Pillar.

I've always been of the mind that Almora becoming a lot like Pillar would be a pretty great outcome. After this year it looks like he's trending that way, albeit with slightly different offense/defense proportions.

Mound visits increase, for many teams dramatically, with higher leverage and stakes. They grind the game to a halt and help feed the perception of a game dragging on. Limit them to one an inning.

He was taken by surprise when he asked Morrow to warm up and was told he had already pitched today.

It has a Rays logo, so must be a ring for their 2008 appearance.

I mentioned this in another thread, but think Lester money, maybe a bit more. I think he gets closer to Cueto’s deal than Lester’s deal. When you account for the value of Cueto having an opt-out, they aren't terribly dissimilar.

I mentioned this in another thread, but think Lester money, maybe a bit more. I don't think he'll get that high unless there's been more inflation than I am factoring in. He has more of an arm health and durability question than Lester did. For what it's worth, he definitely won't have Lester's reputation for big game pitching, either. It's 3 years later, and a weaker SP market.

I mentioned this in another thread, but think Lester money, maybe a bit more.