Jump to content
North Side Baseball

Transmogrified Tiger

Community Moderator
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    38,760

  • 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
    Welcome!
  2. Transmogrified Tiger
    I’m also not sure what problems the Twins are solving with this deal aside from getting rid of Vaxquez’s dead weight. They have oodles of bats lying around if they want to bet on less certain production. It’s less creative than trading for Jax and starting him (which is truly an interesting idea), but if a 2025 SP is coming from Minnesota, it’s probably Lopez. His money off the books will go further for MIN given their payroll constraints, and also potentially keep the cost to a sub-Alcantara level.
  3. Transmogrified Tiger
    FWIW Fangraphs has the Cubs 29th after 8/1 at 93.3 mph, though i suspect that’s probably a matter of what fastballs are being counted. The biggest thing though is that Hendricks will be gone. Using that FG number if you exclude him they go up to 94.0, tied for 22nd. The three teams just ahead at 94.1(MIL, NYM, KC) feel like a decent proof of concept that you can be quite successful at that level, though more is not a bad thing by any stretch.
  4. Transmogrified Tiger
    It is not a strongly held opinion, but I think my favorite option at this stage(no other holes filled, Bellinger's decision not yet made) is Jansen. He's got a career 100 wRC+ and played at about a 2.5 fWAR/season pace overall, and he is a pretty 'neutral' addition(above average K rate, good BB rate, good HR power, split neutral, doesn't cost player resources or big $$) that keeps other options open. Defensively he's been up and down and he consistently has struggled a bit with pop times, but he's been consistently better than 2024 Amaya in that regard so far from catastrophic.
  5. Transmogrified Tiger
    If so they've put as many resources into the White Sox relative to other teams as Reinsdorf has
  6. Transmogrified Tiger
    Degree probably matters here too. 10 of the first 13 picks this year were college hitters, and while many of them hit well, the only one to clearly exceed Smith's pro production is Christian Moore.
  7. Transmogrified Tiger
    Two things can be true. Opt outs are a player benefit, teams don't put them in because they want to play roulette with what the rest of the contract is. At the same time, an opt out *that is used* when a player is at the end of their prime is not necessarily a bad thing for the team. A player outproducing the contract for several years opting out at age 30 doesn't mean the team would have signed them to the remainder of the original contract at that point. The value of FA deals is always front-loaded, so just because you were comfortable with that downside originally doesn't mean you'd optionally sign up for it again after you've gotten the main benefit. EDIT: I should also add that players/agents are generally savvy enough to put opt outs in a place where that potential *shrug* response to opting out from a team is less likely. Soto will play all next year at 26, he's less likely to be looking for an opt out after 5-6 years than he is at 2-3. Macroeconomic conditions are hazier than they have been though, so this isn't an ironclad rule.
  8. Transmogrified Tiger
    It is hilarious how so many people have basically responded to Jed's presser with "here are the things that this definitely means for the offseason, which also happened to be my preconceived notion of what will happen". And even those notions are sloppily held together too. Using bWAR, saying Swanson's track record doesn't compare favorably to a list that includes 3 players with less than 2 years of service time, saying Swanson's value being defense heavy doesn't count while ignoring that Seiya outhit a chunk of that group(not to mention propping up BRICE TURANG in the previous paragraph), it's just hastily thrown together backwards justification of previous hobby horses. Then there's the decisively ruling out any and all free agent bats for increasingly flimsy reasons, and Alonso and Santander being merely 'good' WAR guys apparently is fine now that they have been cast as unreachable upgrades.
  9. Transmogrified Tiger
  10. Transmogrified Tiger
    The Orioles built a roster with a baker's dozen Top-25 hitting prospects and they're about to get bounced by losing 1-0, 2-1. I'd turn into the Joker
  11. Transmogrified Tiger
    Assad/Brown/Wicks/Wesneski is perfectly fine as the 5th starter even if one gets traded, so I I don't think they're going to add 2 SP over that group. The one exception to this is if they manage to pull off Sasaki, they can't assume he'll pick the Cubs so they need to pursue other candidates, but if he does there's basically no change to the team's resources so you can get your super rotation for the same cost as the non-Sasaki plan.
  12. Transmogrified Tiger
    Whoops, he should go in the Maybe pile. I think the stuff is common enough, the performance history short enough, and the salary high enough that it makes sense to non-tender and try to bring him back on a lower number/MiLB deal. Merryweather edges him out in all 3 of those areas to tip the scales in favor of tendering.
  13. Transmogrified Tiger
    Initial glance seems like they break down like this: Obvious tender: Steele, Paredes, Tauchman, Pearson Probably: Merryweather Maybe: Wisdom, Bethancourt, Thompson Non-Tender: Madrigal, Alzolay, Wingenter, Herget, Brewer Possible they like one of those waiver wire relievers enough to bump them into the maybes, but even then I'm guessing everyone below Merryweather is non-tendered.
  14. Transmogrified Tiger
    No, full stop. This is a very silly thing to think, and one that is only possible to think if you have been so brain-poisoned by cynicism that you try to fit every bit of news as proof of a hyper-negative caricature you have in your head.
  15. Transmogrified Tiger
    Thank you for having the courage to speak the truth about the disastrous handling of first base and bullpen coaches
  16. Transmogrified Tiger
    coaches so meaningless that Counsell doesn't actually care about them, but so meaningful that they will strategically announce them(through journalists and not through official comms) to try to get good PR schrodingers coaches
  17. Transmogrified Tiger
  18. Transmogrified Tiger
    He said this almost verbatim.
  19. Transmogrified Tiger
    It's not unexpected given what we know of Counsell and Jed, but also nice that they didn't reach for the easy button of firing Kelly given the external headwinds on the offense.
  20. Transmogrified Tiger
    I can recall like 2 guys getting thrown out at the plate as a result of Harris sends this year. There were way more that were a result of guys going on contact which is more team philosophy than Harris' decision making.
  21. Transmogrified Tiger
    Add a 4th wild card and make 3rd and 4th play a double header where the winner advances on run differential if there's a split. Peak entertainment and more advantage for the 3rd division winner.
  22. Transmogrified Tiger
    I guess it strikes me as a bit of a stretch that Bloom is uniquely equipped to reform the player development system. Hire the guy who is gonna be in that chair and then help them fix it, and keep Mozeliak for roster management bandwidth if you need to lean in. I think what it signals more is that they aren't actually dissatisfied with how Mozeliak managed the roster, which, again, seems crazy given his post-pandemic track record.
  23. Transmogrified Tiger
    This is so deliriously stupid, we should do it this way every year
  24. Transmogrified Tiger
  25. Transmogrified Tiger
    Mozeliak staying on in the POBO role through 2025 is insane to me, they hired Bloom a year ago!
×
×
  • Create New...