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Transmogrified Tiger

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  1. Transmogrified Tiger
    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.
  2. Transmogrified Tiger
    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.
  3. Transmogrified Tiger
    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.
  4. Transmogrified Tiger
    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.
  5. Transmogrified Tiger
    I'm gonna assume on the Cubs MLB roster
  6. Transmogrified Tiger
    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.
  7. Transmogrified Tiger
    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.
  8. Transmogrified Tiger
    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.
  9. 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.
  10. Transmogrified Tiger
    They are due Monday I believe.
  11. 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.
  12. 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).
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. Transmogrified Tiger
    Confirmed it's his shoulder, but not his throwing shoulder so probably not too bad for pitching prognosis.
  17. 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).
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. 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.
  22. Transmogrified Tiger
    Welcome!
  23. 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.
  24. 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 (???)
  25. 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).
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