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Transmogrified Tiger

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Everything posted by Transmogrified Tiger

  1. Transmogrified Tiger
    What do you think the odds are that the Cubs tender him tomorrow
  2. Transmogrified Tiger
    What do you think the odds are that the Cubs tender him tomorrow
  3. Transmogrified Tiger
    There is a chasm of good and less good outcomes in between saying 'welp Jed is going to build another 80 win team again' before the non-tender deadline and having confidence they're building a 90 win floor(which 1-2 teams/year will have). Can we at least try and be intellectually honest about this
  4. Transmogrified Tiger
    Bellinger has a career 118 wRC+ and has been at worst an average CF defensively, more frequently a few runs above average. Even if 2024 was the new norm, that profile(110 wRC+, +2ish CF defense, 10+ steals) is very valuable. Chisholm and Carroll were 4 win players with that + 20 steals, so with wins costing at least 9 million, I think Bellinger's 2 year deal isn't underwater. That doesn't mean he's easy to trade, because not all teams are looking for a CF or could take on that contract even if they wanted to. I suspect given the likely diversity of opinions about Bellinger that what may be perceived as shopping him is trying to get a sense for his market early in the offseason.
  5. Transmogrified Tiger
    More information about "Rosenthal: Cubs Want To Trade Cody Bellinger"
    In a recent piece by The Athletic, rival front offices are suggesting that Jed Hoyer is interested in trading Cody Bellinger. This isn't startling news but it's still noteworthy. When Bellinger opted into the second year of his contract, speculation began about the future of the centerfielder and first baseman. The Cubs have both center field and first base covered in Pete Crow-Armstrong and Michael Busch, respectively. The source here seems to be *other* front offices so worth taking with a grain of salt, but Rosenthal's words carry weight so worth taking into consideration.
  6. Transmogrified Tiger
    Jed has added a 3rd catcher that we immediately overthink its importance before. More offseasons than not actually.
  7. Transmogrified Tiger
    https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5935761/2024/11/21/blake-snell-free-agency-dodgers-mlb-offseason/ The source here seems to be *other* front offices so worth taking with a grain of salt, but Rosenthal's words carry weight so worth taking into consideration.
  8. Transmogrified Tiger
    Kilian
  9. Transmogrified Tiger
    This is already too many words for a hypothetical I said has max 10% likelihood. Bethancourt's arb estimate is a million more than Thaiss's. This is putting a lot of faith in 30 game defensive metric extrapolations at one of the hardest positions to get to a run value for. Thaiss hits slightly better than a backup catcher and is likely a poor defensive catcher. Bethancourt is a 34 y/o defensive catcher who cannot hit and is at the age the defense can go in a flash(see Gomes, Yan). Reasonable people can disagree on which one they'd rather have, that's why they would non-tender one and acquire the other regardless of future purpose. Quoting partial season fWAR totals is not very compelling to try to sway someone to one side of that.
  10. Transmogrified Tiger
    He's less expensive, younger/not post-prime, and a better hitter who fits cleaner with Amaya. Worse defender though.
  11. Transmogrified Tiger
    These are thin margins, but contract crowdsourcing seems to indicate there's not a huge line there with this group, which I think is probably mostly true given their track records and ages: Maybe Estevez or Holmes gets a 3rd year?
  12. Transmogrified Tiger
    More discussion on Thaiss here: We left this thread for a few weeks while not much was happening in terms of offseason news, but since we'd prefer not to have a single thread for all chatter and it's eclipsed the original purpose I made it, I'll go ahead and lock this one.
  13. Transmogrified Tiger
    Yeah I'm fairly sure that Thaiss is not long for the 40 man roster or he's taking the place of another player on the margins(like Mastrobuoni). I also think counting on an Amaya/Thaiss catching situation is a bad idea. But! Solving catcher for nothing would let you do some more interesting things with the bench or even rotation if you wanted to do it that way, plus Thaiss as a LHH would allow for a pairing w/ Amaya to hopefully be better than the sum of your parts. I would say it's like a 10% chance, but there is a chance they're high enough on Amaya(and/or high enough on Ballesteros as a C?) for that to be where it lands.
  14. Transmogrified Tiger
    I think the years are the differentiator more than the dollars. e.g. I doubt it was the 2M AAV difference between Stephenson and Neris compared to 2 vs 3 years.
  15. Transmogrified Tiger
    Jed has also not been afraid of having an RHP be his LHH matchup guy, and like was mentioned Morgan doesn't have strong splits so with the 3 batter minimum it's less crucial than it used to be even if it's suboptimal to have one LHRP and it being the 6th best pitcher in the group.
  16. Transmogrified Tiger
    I've been kicking around the idea that they're likely to add 4 pitchers, and whether they add 1 SP or 2 impacts how they'd shop for RP. Morgan being a super cheap and optionable RP keeps a lot of flexibility open. The one part that does seem a little out of place is the lack of a LHRP though. Little should be around and I'm sure there's some fringe guys they can add to the pile(Zastryzny, maybe Riley Martin by midseason), but it feels like a conscious decision/design flaw considering the only real way for the 'big RP' to be LH is if they sign Scott(unlikely, imo)
  17. Transmogrified Tiger
    Perfect world I'd want a little more leverage RP potential for a deal with Rosario, but he has AA flameout written all over him at this point so I'm not gonna quibble over it. I'm curious given the Hawkins familiarity and the timing of the Zombro hire, if they're aggressive in adding Morgan because they think they can optimize/improve his repertoire in particular.
  18. Transmogrified Tiger
    I believe that's a Bugs Bunny riff
  19. Transmogrified Tiger
  20. Transmogrified Tiger
    Given how much of the flexible/uncertain portion is around pitching, I bet we see something like the ~3 cuts and then as moves happen you make room with the underbelly of the pitchers(Wingenter, Zastryzny, Keegan, Hollowell, Kilian, maybe Merryweather). With the addition of Cowles and the seeming likelihood of another IF being added, I wonder if Mastrobuoni is in jeopardy to some degree too.
  21. Transmogrified Tiger
    There were also like 3 national guys who specifically name checked Fried to the Cubs, and IIRC not in a list of 5-7 suitors either
  22. Transmogrified Tiger
    I also think that's a fair bit too much to give up in the Garcia deal. Maybe more importantly, I don't think Jed would give up a well regarded MLB-ready SP and IF prospect for any reliever, regardless of contract or team control. I have my doubts he would give up either Wicks or Triantos in such a trade, never mind both.
  23. Transmogrified Tiger
    I would start with deconstructing how they're arriving at those future values. In your previous link they mention using a $/WAR of just over 9 million as a baseline, which seems reasonable, plus some positional adjustments and their own future projections. So some combination of positional adjustments and their projections are estimating Hoerner to be worth less than 5 cumulative WAR over the next 2 years, and just over 7 for 3 years for Raleigh. Given that Nico plays up the middle(at both positions) at an elite level and Raleigh has been one of the more durable catchers in the game, both of those feel like severe underestimates when you consider their consistent production and age. At a minimum, given the context of a team trading for either, you would assume an acquiring team would be bullish on them continuing their current levels through their team control and value them as such. Maybe that dynamic doesn't quite work for all players or in an agnostic tool like BBTV, but it does work that way in practice(and is part of why trades are harder than they used to be!). That dynamic also applies to any uncertainty about Nico's surgery recovery, like I mentioned upthread.
  24. Transmogrified Tiger
    I liken it to Steamer. It is objective and consistent and useful to those ends, but has enough holes that I wouldn't consider it a gold standard or a refutation of a well-articulated argument on an individual basis.
  25. Transmogrified Tiger
    That's fair if the belief is that his stuff is really cooked, and non-tendering him isn't the same as him making it to April or August on the roster. Personally I don't mind betting an offseason 40 man spot and 500k on the chance that it bounces back, but I don't have the inside info to clarify how likely that chance is.
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