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.

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.

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).

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Santana works best with a bench IF like Brandon Lowe that could also play some OF in a pinch, but he's not a bad lefty bopper option. Guessing he's probably gonna find a non-competitor to give him every day at bats, and given he's basically collected every Bally-impacted franchise, I suspect the same thing will happen for 2025.

The optimistic case for the offense is: It was better than you think last year because Wrigley had an outlier park factor. An imperfect example since people are fixated on power: the Cubs were 11th in the NL in HR but 6th in HR away from home, better than the Brewers, Phillies, and Padres. Adding a catcher who can be a functional MLB hitter is an upgrade roughly equivalent to going from a Happ to a Soto You expect significant improvement over the Cubs numbers/2024 Morel from Paredes, and potentially improvement from their 2024 totals from PCA and Amaya(who will still play plenty with a C addition) You still add a good hitter to the group, and if money isn't enough to sway players antsy about having a clear path to 150 games, the trade market looks to be more robust than recent years.

Yeah some people got worked up about Happ relative to *all outfielders*, but there were only 5 qualified LF in the NL and Happ was one of 3 you could reasonably conclude was the best numerically. Swanson had a little more clear cut case, but Tovar was excellent too. It thankfully didn't go to Winn, who does not appear to have been worthy of being a finalist.

I believe the scuttlebutt is d'Arnaud is either staying in Atlanta or retiring, but would be a nice option to have on the market if not.

We've really come full circle if we're going to earnestly say 'stats can't measure heart' like it's 2005 again. From the description in that article and in others previous, there is probably a shift in the weight of analytics v. scouting, but I think the bigger one is in how the scouting is done. Video is commonplace in the leagues where they're decreasing scout activity(on top of increasing trackman data), so you could also think of it as getting a similar amount of scouting input(with admitted marginal downsides the article highlights) without having to pay the travel costs to have an army of scouts. Said another way, is the marginal value of in-person scouting v. video scouting greater than the impact you get when the cost difference is plowed into other areas of player development? I'm not sure any of us can answer that but it seems very possible the answer is no. Could the Cubs have an army of scouts in-person and also put a lot of money into analytics? Sure, but regardless of if the budget number has a zero added to it or not there will always be the question of how you can get the best impact from it on the margins. Hoyer/Hawkins seem to have pretty strong conviction they'll get more gains from using that money elsewhere and that there's not a net decrease in spending, so they're betting(and with their jobs on the line) that they're right.

Also, while I don't *expect* it, Tauchman's performance itself is less than certain. He turns 34 next month and was a pop-up find. We've seen in the past that those types often have an expiration date even if their peripherals were solid(Valbuena and Ortega stick out in my mind), so there's also the sense of better to act a bit too soon than too late, especially given the roster situation.

You still need to include the IL roster time. Fangraphs before the non-tenders is 42-45 million under depending on if you want to leave the league minimum there for external additions, the non-tenders are what pushes it to low 50s but nothing gets it above 55.

I think you're genuinely trying to understand this, but we've also had multiple people spell it out a couple times so I think you also need to try re-reading it again to see if something clicks. There's 2 components to the differences: Your arb numbers are different from Fangraphs/MLBTR. You aren't including Tauchman at all(he projects to 2.9 million), and several of your estimates are lower than theirs. For Steele/Paredes/Merryweather/Pearson I highlighted the difference between them. Tauchman I only added 2.15 instead of the full 2.9 because... You are not including enough minimum salaries due to IL time. Adding 10 would be consistent with how we're talking about it. You can then subtract a minimum salary for any external additions(e.g. a 2 million dollar addition is only 1.25 million closer to the tax). If you want to think of the roster spots as 'open' and you include the full freight salary that's fine, but you still need to add ~7 of them to account for IL time.

If you want to say the 2025 team will be too similar to last year that's your prerogative, I don't particularly agree especially given the bullpen/pitching depth was such an issue and that's obviously going to be different. But the team will be dramatically different than 2023, trying to frame things as if 2023 -> 2025 is a marginal change isn't reality.

I'm talking about this: https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/payroll/cubs The big difference from what you typed out and what Fangraphs has is they are accounting for a proper number of roster days, like I said in my original post. Think of it this way, right now you're only counting a 23 man roster(the '40 man' piece in your 22 million is counting the MiLB salaries of the minor leaguers). You not only need to be a full roster, you need to be more than that. For example, if Shota misses the season due a freak gasoline fight accident, he will still make his full salary towards the CBT. But they will still use all 26 roster spots so you'd need to add another league minimum salary to get to the actual amount they spent. This applies to all time spent on the MLB IL, which will add up to a handful of full-season roster spots. It's an estimate, they could be super healthy and use less or super hurt and use more, but when you think of how many days guys spend on the 60 day IL along with every 15 day IL trip, it adds up. Using Fangraphs' injury tracker, it looks like the Cubs had 1546 IL days last year, which is right about 9 minimum salaries' worth in addition to a 26 man roster. So in addition to your 23 man roster plus player benefits/non-payroll stuff(which you have), you need to add about 10 league minimum salaries. That's the biggest difference. Also, you don't have Tauchman (+2.15 million), and your arb estimates for Steele(100k), Paredes(1.6 million), Merryweather(100k), and Pearson(200k) are lower than Fangraphs/MLBTR's. Which is the additional ~4 million to bring us down to 52-53 under the CBT.

The link you quoted literally shows it line by line, compare to see where you aren't including something.

I am going to become the joker

Tauchman started 4 of the final 45 games of the year and played at a pace of less than 170 PA/season, another Pearson would absolutely be more useful than what Tauchman's 2025 role projects to be.

Splits matter because a player's usage can heavily impact how lopsided they are. Do you think Tauchman would have even splits if he faced the same LHP that Wisdom did? This is the same thing from people wringing their hands about Wisdom playing over Busch, there's a cause and effect, and setting aside the hitter side of it there's a structural disadvantage many LHP have against RHH. And this is not a criticism of Tauchman, I like him a lot. It's a reality of the roster around him. Tauchman is a very good bench player and in some teams may even be more than that. On a Cubs roster that has 3 very good LHH OF, 2 of which play CF at least as well as Tauchman, he just won't have as much opportunity as he did before PCA took the reins(and Bellinger was hurt). That's why people think it's a fair thought that he will be traded, several teams might want him to start more games than not in the OF, and on 3 million that could bring something more useful to the 2025 Cubs than Tauchman's role from the 2nd half of 2024.

Tauchman has 9 career PH PA against LHP, 1 of those has come with the Cubs. He’s not an infielder. If you think they may keep him as the last bench option because he’s got a contact profile that is more split neutral, that’s fine. But the idea that platoon splits are irrelevant in a bench role or that Tauchman would take any meaningful playing time that went to Wisdom is silly.

The overwhelming majority of Wisdom’s playing time came as a PH against LHP or as an infielder (against a LHP SP), it makes no sense to think Tauchman is a fit. They would get another OF(technically the 5th behind Happ, PCA, Bellinger, Seiya), but that player being a RHH (and probably with some HR pop) meets the team’s needs much better.