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Transmogrified Tiger

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  1. Transmogrified Tiger
    I will go a step further in that if you have a reasonable amount of confidence that Polanco will be healthy(he had surgery but he had knee issues with the Twins too) and that the injury + Safeco are the big drivers in his 2024 performance, that there's not much daylight between him and Santander. But I also agree that getting Polanco in the door could be a challenge given the settled infield and him likely looking to take a 1 year deal with aspirations of proving 2024 was the fluke.
  2. Transmogrified Tiger
    They are due Monday I believe.
  3. Transmogrified Tiger
    Said another way, he proved he was over his injury-related hitting struggles with above average offense(probably stifled 5-10 points of wRC+ by Wrigley's weird 2024), still grades out as a capable CF, isn't burdened by the QO, and is entering a CF market where the only FA competition is Harrison Bader.
  4. Transmogrified Tiger
    Think about how there is a relationship between these two things, and what a playing time distribution that is actually Busch-first looks like. It might look like Wisdom playing more than it feels like is necessary because Busch is shielded from LHP that are poor matchups, inflating Busch's splits at the expense of Wisdom's(who is not exposed to the weakest LHP).
  5. Transmogrified Tiger
    I think the broader point isn't a baseless one, but we're getting beyond 'false precision' to 'borderline useless' if we're quoting defensive run values for minor league samples of 20-60 games that are spread across multiple levels.
  6. Transmogrified Tiger
    The Yankees hadn't won a pennant in 15 years before this month(16 teams had in the meantime!), never mind a world series, and I don't think hatred for them has really abated.
  7. Transmogrified Tiger
    He's also a Dominican player who has gotten a taste of being a hero in the city with a big concentration of his countrymen, so you can probably say similar things about 'all else being equal' for both NY teams. Under both Theo and Jed the Cubs have done a very good job of selling Chicago, but similar to the Ohtani situation I suspect there's a team(two in this case) with deeper pockets with a built in advantage.
  8. Transmogrified Tiger
    Confirmed it's his shoulder, but not his throwing shoulder so probably not too bad for pitching prognosis.
  9. Transmogrified Tiger
    PCA isn't moved, it's having a good option for the games where PCA is not in the lineup or is a particularly bad matchup. Or said a different way, you can think of it in the abstract as a DH platoon between Garcia and Lowe, but both would play more than that because they complement the existing starters well(Garcia as a RHH CF, Lowe as a LHH IF).
  10. Transmogrified Tiger
    It's really too bad he's a zero defensively, or to be specific too bad that he can't at least fake it in CF. If so you could see a 'build it in the aggregate' option out of trading for Garcia and Brandon Lowe that might end up being a particularly good fit given the prospects that could come good in 2025. But you can't guarantee Garcia won't sub-Suzuki in RF, which sorta torpedoes the whole idea, especially if you are remotely bullish on Alcantara's bat in a similar role.
  11. Transmogrified Tiger
    Nico isn't going to miss the whole year or even the first half, there's uncertainty around him being available for opening day but not for months into the season. If Torres is signing a short term deal to set up a larger payday, he is definitely going to see that he does not have a defensive home to prove himself, especially compared to other suitors who do not have gold glovers at the only position he (attempts to) plays defensively.
  12. Transmogrified Tiger
    Torres is a worse hitter, worse defender, and worse baserunner, hits with less useful handedness for that role, may be more expensive than Lowe, and may not be willing to take a short term deal with an uncertain everyday role/defensive position.
  13. Transmogrified Tiger
    Giving a little buffer for those estimates to be low, call it: 25 Eovaldi 15 Joc 10 Jansen (Danny) 12 Holmes 6 RP2 6 Bench Bat You're north of 70 million. So room to play with(and to be clear I don't *want* an all-FA offseason given the trade market may be more robust than last year), but not leaving a huge chunk of cash on the table.
  14. Transmogrified Tiger
    Welcome!
  15. Transmogrified Tiger
    I'm a little gunshy of O'Neill and would probably put Kikuchi more at Eovaldi AAV on 3 years, but of a similar mind. The other one that sticks out to me is Joc, especially compared to the numbers put forward for Alonso, Santander, and Teoscar. Assuming a Bellinger opt-out, you could do a lot worse than an FA-only offseason of Eovaldi, Joc, Holmes, Jansen, plus another reliever and bench bat.
  16. Transmogrified Tiger
    https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5863532/2024/10/24/mlb-free-agents-2024-contract-team-predictions-soto/?source=user_shared_article Bowden is pretty useless for connecting players to teams, but his track record on contract details isn't bad. No one bats 1.000 and there are a few obvious head-scratchers in the list, but this is a good first calibration step on what some players may cost. Some noteworthy names from the list: Soto 15/622 Fried 6/174 Alonso 7/204 (not. a. chance.) Snell: 3/105 Santander 7/150 (see Alonso) Bellinger 4/112 Flaherty 3/68 Eovaldi 2/42 + team option Teoscar 3/75 Buehler 1/10 + incentives O'Neill 2/32 Pederson 2/26 Kikuchi 3/42 Brandon Lowe 2/24 after 10.5 option declined (???)
  17. Transmogrified Tiger
    Feels like a Caissie too heavy for 1 year of Cease/King at non-trivial cost. Speaking of that cost, I think there's a 'that's what the money is for' situation about plugging immediate holes. Send em Assad sure, but odds are they can problem solve their lineup holes a bit better with the money and just take a lower level prospect instead of forcing Canario(though I don't mind shipping him off at all).
  18. Transmogrified Tiger
    It is 195 in AAV.
  19. Transmogrified Tiger
    Problem #2, Ricketts refuses to transact in Pesos
  20. Transmogrified Tiger
    The Mets have about 65 million in dead money(Verlander, Scherzer, McCann) coming off the books too. I'm not sure if they'll go to their peak spending, but they won't be out on Soto simply by being spread too thin to fill in all needs.
  21. Transmogrified Tiger
    Terribly unlucky that he managed to find 4 different fraudsters to accuse him of sexual assault. Also he's 34 and was wedged between Zac Grotz and David Reyes in Mexican League performance. It's over.
  22. Transmogrified Tiger
    Absolutely not
  23. Transmogrified Tiger
    As for the FA I want, I'm most interested in Clay Holmes and Danny Jansen. I'm not enamored with the options for the 2 main additions(bat and SP), so I'd like one of those to come via trade(both would be great but probably unrealistic). What that trade is informs what the other FA target would be, for example trading for Brent Rooker means different things for the resources to use on a SP than Josh Naylor.
  24. Transmogrified Tiger
    I like Kikuchi and Eovaldi fine as targets, but they aren't the same caliber of pitcher as Fried, who has shown greater peak production and (crucially for a multi-year contract) consistency, especially relative to 2025+ expectations given the ages of the players. Also the Cubs had an elite defensive SS already when they signed Swanson! Hoerner was 2nd in SS OAA/FRV in 2022, and there's way more opportunity to have additional impact from a 'redundant' SP than there is a middle infielder. If you want a more legitimate reason a QO FA may not be coming, it's that Jed(and most of the front offices folks admire) generally do not sign one without having one of their own to mitigate the pick cost. But either way it is not an uncrossable line in the sand.
  25. Transmogrified Tiger
    I am not actually *celebrating* Nico having surgery and the recovery that entails, that would be silly and why I mirrored the charged phrasing someone else used for effect. But while there are always technically ways to trade a player to make the team better, the number of Nico trades that were realistic and actually made the team better are far fewer in number than the volume we saw in practice. Nico has somewhat unique value to this team and people overrate the ease in replacing that value(and the likelihood that a locked on starter for 2025 exists in house)
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