Jump to content
North Side Baseball

Transmogrified Tiger

Community Moderator
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    38,761

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    70

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by Transmogrified Tiger

  1. 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)
  2. Transmogrified Tiger
    I am celebrating because trading Nico was always a silly idea and now hopefully we read less of it.
  3. Transmogrified Tiger
    I can appreciate that view, but I also don't think the group is that far behind the 8 ball from a workload perspective. Only 126 pitchers league-wide hit 100 IP in MLB last year, having the 5+ rotation spots up with a group of guys who run the gamut in their likelihood to go to 150(Assad and Birdsell were north of 130 last year, Wesneski has hit 140, Wicks has hit 125) doesn't strike me as an intractable problem. As for where the money goes, the bullpen is an obvious either/or when it comes to something like a 2nd SP. You can also lean higher end on your main targets as needed.
  4. Transmogrified Tiger
    This is where I keep banging the Mitch Keller drum. He gets a 10 million AAV raise starting next year, which makes him about 15% of Pittsburgh's expected payroll alone. He's not going to front a rotation with Skenes and Jones so a payroll-conscious team like the Pirates would get more out of those marginal dollars by spreading them out and by picking up some promising bats to line up with the pre-arb core they have. In another thread I said the SP priority should be 'better than Taillon, and preferably throws hard and right handed', which is Keller to a tee. And the MLB-ready prospect bats are a potential differentiator in a trade for him.
  5. Transmogrified Tiger
    Get a starter clearly better than Taillon, preferably one that throws hard and right handed. Don't need to make it much more complicated than that. The Buehlers of the world are fine targets in the abstract, but the range of outcomes for that archetype is not much different than you'd expect from one of/the best of Brown/Wicks/Assad/Wesneski/Horton/Birdsell, so it's not as if they need the innings along with that upside. If you trade one or more of those guys, then maybe that's a pool worth fishing in, but it will be difficult since the pitchers and their agents will see the lack of opportunity relative to other teams(even if you offer marginally more $)
  6. Transmogrified Tiger
    "Ricketts vaguely alluded to CBT penalties being bad, so I need to see them do it in consecutive seasons before I believe it" [The team behaves like they do not care about being above the tax in consecutive seasons] "well that's a stupid mistake"
  7. Transmogrified Tiger
    Having said that, I would not bet the farm on them being over the CBT line next year, but that's not at all because they're over this year. It's because they clearly aren't going to go 40+ million over in any season in the current environment, and unlike each of the past several seasons there isn't a bunch of bad contracts(Heyward, Hendricks) or dead money(Hosmer, Bote, Mancini, Barnhart) being freed up after 2025. Add in that several important players will have material raises(Steele/Paredes in arb, preventing Shota's opt out), I think there's a chance they don't want to eliminate all of their 2025-2026 flexibility before that offseason arrives. You can hedge that by simply ensuring some of your additions are only guaranteed 1 year though(relievers and bats in particular), and I've seen stray mentions the purse strings may be marginally loosened with improvements in the debt service situation.
  8. Transmogrified Tiger
    I believe that used to be a bigger deal, but the compounding penalties only really hurt on the overages, so if you're only Phillies/Astros level over instead of Yankees/Dodgers level over, the only difference is the total expenditure rises like 1-2%. Copy/pasting myself from an earlier example, take two hypotheticals of 3 year spending: A: under LT, 10 million over, 18 million over; 7.4 million in total penalties B: 5 million over, 10 million over, 15 million over; 13 million in total penalties
  9. Transmogrified Tiger
    Going over in 2024 meaning they won't go over in 2025 is closer to being nonsensical than it is a presumed fact. And the difference in going over as it relates to QO is the 5th rounder and 500k in IFA money, as a revenue sharing payor they'd lose their 2nd pick and 500k in IFA regardless of their CBT status.
  10. Transmogrified Tiger
    Who? Flaherty and Lorenzen didn't even bring back 45 FVs using Fangraphs midseason 2023 board. The only other 50 FV was Manzardo going for Civale, who was having a better season at a younger age and 1/5 the salary with an extra year(technically 2 since he opted out) of team control.
  11. Transmogrified Tiger
    Gonna need you to show your work on that one. Verlander sure, much better pitcher. Nothing else is remotely close to that as far as I can see.
  12. Transmogrified Tiger
    Are we acting like Hoyer didn't play a big part in signing FA and winning a World Series? We can't ascribe all the good stuff to Theo and then say Jed bears responsibility for things that didn't go well.
  13. Transmogrified Tiger
    Chapman signed a 3/54 deal originally though, his big extension ripped up the last 2 years.
  14. Transmogrified Tiger
    2024, yes. Beyond 2024, let's say maybe.
  15. Transmogrified Tiger
    Not ascribing these to anybody, but illustrating the fact that some complaints will exist regardless: Waiting for Bregman(whose 2025 and beyond is probably not a large upgrade on Paredes remaining team control) would amplify complaints about Jed sitting on his hands and prolonging 'how long the rebuild is' Signing Chapman would've amplify complaints about Jed not being willing to sign a long term deal and over-prioritizing defense. Chapman's 2025+ should also not be expected to be a material upgrade on Paredes, and paying Chapman would've also come at the expense of other acquisitions, further diluting the impact.
  16. Transmogrified Tiger
    I'm scared of what we thought Ballesteros looked like before if the slimmer version of him is evoking comparisons to the Naylors
  17. Transmogrified Tiger
    I'd also add that these tenures are not uncorrelated! Theo's biggest failing was a fracture in the pipeline to the majors, through a combination of trading away talent in competitive seasons and falling behind in drafting and development. That meant that Jed not only had to repair that issue but bear the consequences at the major league level for multiple seasons.
  18. Transmogrified Tiger
    If the difference in FG and BR WAR were negligible, then either would make your point, but they don't. Especially for hitters there's no reason to use BR. More to the point, the list of 3B significantly and/or reliably better than Paredes is basically Jose Ramirez, Alex Bregman, and Rafael Devers(2 of which are 5+ years older than Paredes), so being worked up that they didn't get a nebulous 'star' instead of Paredes is getting worked up about an impossibility.
  19. Transmogrified Tiger
    Something that *feels* true to me but I don't know for sure that it is: IFA has become less successful in recent years league-wide. For a quick point of comparison, this year there were 38 pitchers age 25 or under that reached at least 1 fWAR(reachable for swingmen and good relievers). By my count 5 of them were IFA(13%). If I turn the dial back 5 years to 2019, there were 33 such pitchers and 9 of them were IFA(27%) by my quick check. That seems to correlate to both the CBA changes and the rise in teams being able to teach 'stuff'(which is the differentiator for a lot of IFA) via pitch dev, so it makes sense to me as an explanation. Not sure if that would hold true for hitting as well(where teaching tools has been less rapid) or if there's other factors, but useful to think about when comparing across those eras just for the Cubs.
  20. Transmogrified Tiger
    Paredes' slump pre-dated the trade though, and he finished the year much stronger. We've talked about Wrigley's heavy pitcher-friendly turn and Paredes was no different. He had a 159 wRC+ on the road *after* the trade, and even at home he was much improved in September(103 wRC+ v. 68 in August). Plus he missed a few games with a nagging injury that may have influenced his performance in the 2nd half. There's nothing beyond general anxiety/skepticism that indicates he'll continue to struggle like he did midseason(for both Rays and Cubs).
  21. Transmogrified Tiger
    Paredes fWAR per 600 PA: 2022: 3.7 2023: 4.5 2024: 3.2
  22. Transmogrified Tiger
    Right now the 10th/11th hitters on the roster are Bellinger and Tauchman, and Bellinger can opt out. So a RHH bopper doesn't necessarily force Busch to a platoon role since they'd be up for plenty of DH at bats. But that acquisition does hedge against him regressing, which I think is a useful secondary goal for the offseason.
  23. Transmogrified Tiger
    Over the past 2 years, Paredes is 3rd in 3B wRC+ and 4th in fWAR, he's also the youngest of the very good 3Bs. Calling him filler is an unserious opinion.
  24. Transmogrified Tiger
    Yep, we're on the same page. The important part of it is that the marginal resources get used elsewhere. So instead of spending X million(or trade equivalent) on all 3 of the non-catcher spots, you do it on 2 and make more meaningful upgrades elsewhere(slightly better SP, your preferred RP target less bound by AAV, etc).
  25. Transmogrified Tiger
    I agree that an explicit goal of the offseason should not be finding room for Shaw or any of the Iowa hitters, there's too much risk regardless of your view of them to be doing things like trading Nico, or leaving DH open for Caissie. However, I think that they could very well have a bench spot that's functionally earmarked for one of multiple AAA prospects(with an NRI placeholder if that isn't possible opening day) if that means that they get to use resources elsewhere. Especially if you're able to build the roster such that it's 'the best/most ready of these 2-4 options' for a single roster spot(when all of those guys are Top 100 prospects), I don't think that's nearly as risky.
×
×
  • Create New...