Transmogrified Tiger

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.

You have to count a handful of extra league minimum salaries to account for the fact that players on the IL still earn money towards the CBT and so do their replacements even if they get demoted after. Fangraphs counts league minimum salaries up to 33 players for this reason and they're about the gold standard for this estimate: https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/payroll/cubs This also means that non-tendering only nets you the benefit *above the league minimum*. Fangraphs shows the team at 43.3 million under with all players assumed tendered. If you assume a handful of non-tenders that gets you to the low 50s depending on who you choose, but there's no way to really get north of 55 unless you do something silly like non-tender Steele or Paredes.

Another possibility in this vein might be Cleveland, who ended up with a Tyler Freeman/Lane Thomas platoon in CF most of the year and don't have an obvious heir apparent. Trevor Stephan was a good enough reliever to get a pre-arb extension before getting TJS in ST last year, so for basically a wash money wise Cleveland may feel it's worth to bank some more solid CF production vs Stephan hopefully getting back to 7th/8th inning form. The stuff is good enough that you could hope for a multi-year solution, and unlike many arb relievers he appears to have options which helps be more aggressive with FA and your own out of options retentions.

No less efficient than using the marginal resources on a 2nd SP when they have Assad/Brown/Wicks and at least 3 others for the 5th spot. Reasonable people can disagree on exactly where to tune the dials(I might prefer to trade for Lowe over Rooker), but the important point is that it is not wrong/redundant and in fact necessary to get another good hitter. They still have ~50 million to work with plus a cache of prospects that are around peak value, there are some things that Bellinger opting in may make less likely but it's not as if austerity is the name of the game all of a sudden.

No one, because having 9 good players for 8 (non-catcher) spots doesn't mean anyone is being 'sacrificed'. Injuries, rest, and performance disappointments will happen. The Cubs have a higher than average number of 'everyday' players too, and their Top *9* position players combined for about 4800 PA out of the ~5200 they need out of non-catchers.

I'm gonna assume on the Cubs MLB roster

Cool, I expect a little better offensive production from Cody even before the boost everyone ought to get from Wrigley normalizing. Some things this brings into sharper focus: Can they do something better than one of the FA at catcher? The trade options have always been at least somewhat hopeful, and/or have their own warts that make them more of a coinflip with the FA options. Can they use Tauchman to help with their offseason shopping list? He doesn't have a ton of value but is a useful role player that can be a secondary trade piece or maybe bring a 2nd reliever. For example, KC needs OF bats and likely trusts their pitching dev, so maybe Tauchman for Bubic is a framework that gets you RP2 on your offseason needs.

PCA and Paredes both had less than a half season in the lineup and less than that actually playing to their future expectation, and they'll certainly be adding a catcher that can be starting caliber(replacing the ~50 wRC+ they got from that playing time). They should still look to add a good bat, but absolutism off obviously wrong truisms like 'they have the same lineup for 3 years running' is silly.

In that situation I would also go after a strong RHH 1B/OF type(even as big as Alonso if possible), but my point is less 'Polanco is amazing and solves all our problems' and more that Polanco and Santander(and Brandon Lowe for that matter) are a lot closer than their perception and likely contracts would imply. So if you think one is a good addition you'll probably end up similarly happy with one of the others.