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Transmogrified Tiger

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Everything posted by Transmogrified Tiger

  1. Transmogrified Tiger
    Yeah Madrigal showed pretty clearly that we overrate how much a strong arm matters to being a solid defensive 3B. If Shaw can catch the ball I think he'll be fine at either 2B or 3B.
  2. Transmogrified Tiger
    I think as a fit the biggest barrier is that the Mariners aren't really hurting for OF or OF that can play CF. They obviously have Julio, and they recently extended Robles who can play out there along with Arozarena to play LF. Plus Raley was very good for them and is a LHH 1B. All 3 OF are RHH and they don't have a locked on DH so it's not an impossible fit, but probably one where they'd look for something a bit different than Bellinger.
  3. Transmogrified Tiger
    Watching the game in real time I had a similar thought, I think you take the goal in hand if you're Liverpool, but if Nunez missed that wouldn't have been an unjust red. I was watching the Sky sports feed though, and shortly after they replayed the ref's reaction to the Salah collision that seemed to imply he wasn't going to call it a foul at all. That might've been a tougher overturn on VAR, especially in the EPL where everything refereeing-related is done on vibes, so happy that Nunez got the finish.
  4. Transmogrified Tiger
    I believe this is the source: https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/42331709/mlb-offseason-2024-25-passan-predictions-juan-soto-roki-sasaki-corbin-burnes-pete-alonso The Hoerner stuff in particular feels more speculative than I'm used to seeing from Passan. I also wonder if a hotter trade market makes FA even harder to handicap this early.
  5. Transmogrified Tiger
    Serious, I am not a BA subscriber so possible I've been duped but saw a cropped screenshot of those superlatives and Triantos was the pick.
  6. Transmogrified Tiger
    They named Triantos the best defensive infielder in the system.
  7. Transmogrified Tiger
    I know the content gods have endless demands, and outside the box thinking is fine, but we also don't have to try to credulously say that there's any path to Seiya being traded. Seiya led Cubs regulars in wRC+ and IsoP, he probably would've hit 30 HR in a normal Wrigley year, and there likely aren't 10 hitters clearly better than him in MLB for the next 2 years he's under contract. Trading him in the name of adding power to the lineup is ludicrous.
  8. Transmogrified Tiger
    This doesn't make any sense, and also isn't what has happened when past IFA bound by pools have come to MLB.
  9. Transmogrified Tiger
    PSG isn't even in line to make the play in round at this point
  10. Transmogrified Tiger
    Welcome!
  11. Transmogrified Tiger
    I'm coming around on that too, though I think the path may be something like a trade for an SP that isn't making 15+ million paired with Bieber.
  12. Transmogrified Tiger
    Worth noting the Ravens had scored a touchdown on 4 consecutive drives, the odds of the coin flip ending the game one way or another were pretty high. It's the same situation from the Tampa/Kansas City game from Monday but the opposite decision. KC didn't aggressively try for a FG in those last 30 seconds, won the coin toss and Tampa never had the ball again. When you're on the road against a great QB that is playing well if you have any trust in your offense I think you need to show faith in them and go for it.
  13. Transmogrified Tiger
    If I'm reading between the lines, I think the Cubs probably like Burnes but they do not hold out any hope they will like the contract he gets enough to pursue him. I think they have greater optimism about Fried(there's a lot of independent connections between the Cubs and Fried for early November), but they're not gonna go beyond the pale to get him specifically, and that's where the trade market and possibly any next step down guys they especially like come in. I am just so curious what they manage to do from a trade perspective. I feel like I've canvassed nearly every team's roster resource page already this offseason, but the last 2 big trades were not a surprise in the way they helped the roster, but were very much surprises in how(Busch was a production gamble, Paredes I did not think would be available). And given the weight given to trade mentions and the near universal sentiment that we should see a hotter trade market in general, I'm wondering if multiple trades or a single trade for multiple roles is the most likely path this offseason.
  14. Transmogrified Tiger
    Men will literally obsess over trading our all star 2B on a team-friendly deal rather than go to therapy recognize Wrigley was weird last year
  15. Transmogrified Tiger
    The thing that makes me wary of any extensions is that the team currently isn't losing any meaningful dollars off the payroll after this year. Any 1 year deals would potentially fit in that category, and Bellinger has an opt out again, but at least a small part of the planning for this offseason has to be mindful of that to avoid painting yourself into a corner. Extensions work against this because it's very likely that any extension candidates would raise their AAV/CBT value. Maybe if you wanted to be like 'Ian Happ do you want to be a Cub for life' and offer him 6/110 or something you could pull it off(not my favorite idea!), but any young guys by definition will increase in AAV.
  16. Transmogrified Tiger
    Signing a QO FA SP and trading significant assets for another is a lot of player capital used when you do have decent depth. Assad, Wicks, Brown, Wesneski, Horton, Birdsell as options 5-10 is not a problem, especially if you fortify the pen that you don't have to use those folks there outside of long relief if desired. There's 2 situations where I could see them adding 2 SP. One is if Sasaki is posted and they win the race for him, since he's functionally free in both player and financial terms. The other is if they like a SP and he carries a similar cost as one of the RP they would be adding anyway. Beefing the rotation and leaning on Brown and Wesneski in particular out of the pen as needed is fine, it's just not very certain you can find that SP target/RP target equivalency.
  17. Transmogrified Tiger
    I think there would be a pretty dramatic difference. Lowe is a 2-3 win IF/OF who has had persistent injuries that led to him reaching 110 games once, he's on 1/10.5 + 11.5 option. Tucker (while he was hurt last year) hasn't had recurring injuries, has consistently been a 5+ win OF, and is on ~1/16 before FA (plus comp pick). Just using BBTV as a semi-objective benchmark, Tucker's cost is roughly Lowe's cost plus an Alcantara.
  18. Transmogrified Tiger
    I think the risk with Miller is there's a little less track record, he was middling in 2023. So you're definitely taking the chance on a guy a year early vs at peak value. That could pay off, because the cost for Kirby/Gilbert is probably one significant piece more than Miller(maybe 2 for Kirby), and you'd hope that any pitch dev ideas you have for Miller hedge that risk, but you would have more confidence in Gilbert/Kirby's baseline.
  19. Transmogrified Tiger
    I think the one complicating factor with this thinking is it's unclear how long Caissie can be a viable MLB OF defensively, if he even is one today. I know the reports were that he showed some good signs last year so maybe he can do it through pre-arb at least, but with that frame and what we know of his tools I think if you're making a multi-year 'this is the OF' choice, it has to be in the back of your head that Caissie is a 1B/DH in a decent percentage of possible outcomes.
  20. Transmogrified Tiger
    Shaw is the most untradeable prospect in the system by a decent length for me, but for a shot at Gilbert or especially Kirby I'd have to put that conviction to the test. The extent of the '+' in 'Shaw +' probably would make me (and Jed) blink, but fun to think about. EDIT: I'll also come back to the idea that if the Mariners are serious about trading a SP, Luis Castillo feels the most likely to be a Cub. The money he's owed feels like the sweet spot of not being too rich for Jed if they're interested but more of a primary motivation for DiPoto which would keep the trade cost to a minimum(further interesting Jed).
  21. Transmogrified Tiger
    It is in a literal contractural sense, he's only under contract through this year and they didn't bother extending him like you would normally see with an exec you're especially pleased with. We might be overstating the degree in which it's 'win the division or you're gone', but there's clearly some level of pressure on Hoyer for things to work and take a step forward.
  22. Transmogrified Tiger
    I think this is probably as good an estimate as we can have. I especially am becoming convinced that a Willi Castro trade makes a lot of sense for a number of reasons given their likely focus. I'm curious on 2 things related to this though. One is what is the Fried contingency? Maybe it's boring and it's just Eovaldi to save a couple bucks that goes to marginally better RP, but I could be talked into a number of trades that flip the calculus for spending on other holes. The other is what creative trade might be coming that could change the way those slots net out? Jed was pretty early on the trend of trading for multi-year solutions at the deadline and has been unafraid of selling controlled players to do it repeatedly. Busch was obviously a logical but unexpected move. Is there another one in that vein coming? Does he go for Castro and Duran in one deal maybe? Is it a less creative but still unexpected like landing Crochet?
  23. Transmogrified Tiger
    Probably depends on the specifics. The distribution of possible 2025 performance between say, Fried and Eovaldi has a lot of overlap. But the difference between Burnes and Flaherty is a lot wider. But I think the larger playing with fire point is true, especially if they want to keep lanes clear for the prospects and their offensive side acquisitions are like Willi Castro and a Mountcastle type. They're gearing up to make a SP the most impactful acquisition of the offseason, and I think that's right on the merits. But with Bellinger's opt in, even with a little creativity that SP acquisition has to come good, regardless of who it is or the price paid.
  24. Transmogrified Tiger
    Busch got a little more leash as the year progressed, but they shielded him from LHP fairly heavily. If Fangraphs' split tool is accurate, only 36 of those 100 PA came in the first 5 innings of games, which implies that most of those PA came against relievers, and that he only started a fraction of the time against LHSP.
  25. Transmogrified Tiger
    Rob Z feels like one of those moves that we try to read the tea leaves about the team's intent or preferences and then he's yanked off the 40 man before the winter meetings. I don't have a firm grasp on this, partially because cubs.com hasn't updated the roster with today's happenings, but it feels like the non-tenders and 40-man additions for Rule 5 should probably net out pretty similarly? So while we will get some signal with news on who gets non-tendered, it might take until an external pitching addition to see more movement among the bottom of the pitching roster.
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