Transmogrified Tiger

It's certainly possible they're optimistic, but at the same time, Baez's near 3 win performance didn't really include any outliers, plus on another team he'd be even more valuable as a full-time SS. He obviously has room to grow offensively and has already made strides, so further improvement isn't out of the question either. As for Schwarber, he played at a 4-5 win pace in 2015 with less than a third of his PAs coming as a catcher, so there's some built in regression allowed there too. I'm comfortable calling him a LH Nelson Cruz, for example, maybe slightly less bat and a little more glove. If the White Sox think Baez's bat is a time bomb or that Schwarber is a -20 LF then that would change things, but like I alluded to before, we have to assume they like the players in question to consider trading for them, otherwise their exact surplus value doesn't matter. In any case, I was also optimistic both ways. Quintana fell short of 5 wins each of the last two years, Sale regressed a bit peripherally but we'll assume that was intentional, and neither are penalized for the much higher injury risk they carry as pitchers. For surplus value, it was a quick 8 x WAR per season minus their salary, which I back of the enveloped to be 25M for Baez and ~30M for Schwarber through arbitration. Arbitration salaries might look very different in 4+ years, but that gets into complexity that is beyond the point I was making, since I wasn't inflating the cost per win each successive year either.

In the pure mathematic sense, this is a good illustration of how much surplus value Baez and Schwarber have. Sale is a 5-6 win pitcher on a 3/39 deal, at 8M/win you're looking at roughly 90 million in surplus value. Quintana is a near 5 win pitcher on a 4/37 deal, which is about 120 million in surplus value. Baez is a near 3 win hitter under control for 5 years, with arbitration estimates you're looking at 90-95 million in surplus value. And Schwarber is a 3-4 win hitter under control for 5 years, with arbitration estimates you're probably in the neighborhood of 105 million in surplus value. So again, from a straight 'value to the team' perspective, you aren't looking at adding much to one of those guys to make this match up. That's "fair", and not really a homer opinion. However, you still have to offer enough to 1) convince the Sox to make a move and 2) be the best offer out there. That's what would take additional pieces, not that Baez or Schwarber are so much less valuable, but that you need to convince the Sox to blow it up with the quality of your offer to get them. Personally, I'd still be very interested in a Baez + some other major piece for Quintana deal depending on the details.

That basically means Sale, Robertson, Abreu, and all their guys entering the last year of their contracts(Frazier, Lawrie, Cabrera). Everyone else(Quintana, Jones, Rodon, Eaton) is either at 4 years of control when you count team options or is not worth trading for.

What you really want to look at is the culmination of several years ending in 2012, to make sure we aren't seeing some fly by night results. Here's 2010-2012 leaders: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2012&month=0&season1=2010&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0 We'll want to pay special attention to the ERA-/FIP-/xFIP- columns, because those are park and league adjusted so we can account for the fact that the offensive environment has changed a fair bit. What you see there is Kimbrel lapping the field, with Mariano a solid 2nd and everyone else in the 50s and low 60s(including Jansen and Chapman themselves!) for all 3 metrics. It's also worth noting that most of the names you see on that list have held up pretty well once you account for the inevitable injury risk, and filter out guys near the end of their careers in 2012 like Putz and Rivera. Now let's look at 2014-2016: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2016&month=0&season1=2014&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0 You can see off the bat that Chapman and Miller are in Kimbrelian territory with Jansen right behind them(along with Betances). In 2016 alone both rise to that threshold, along with Miller, and Britton's outlier BABIP suppression. The point being made here is that Chapman and Jansen are rare birds, they aren't just 'good closers' who happened to reach free agency, for the last 5 years they(along with Kimbrel) have consistently been the best relievers in the game. I don't expect them to be at that threshold at the end of a 5 year deal, but I also don't expect Dexter Fowler to be a 3-4 win CF at the end of a 4 year deal and I'm still interested in signing him. Chapman and Jansen's dominance means that they can decline and still be effective relievers, and their method of dominance(Chapman throwing several mph faster than any man alive, Jansen throwing cutters faster than anyone with great control) portends well for them aging gracefully too.

11/30/15: 12/1/15: [tweet] [/tweet] 12/3/15: http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/free-agent-market-oakland-as-sonny-gray-chicago-white-sox-chris-sale-ken-rosenthal-notes-120215 12/4/15: Cubs sign Lackey 12/8/15: Cubs sign Zobrist, trade Castro 12/11/15: Cubs sign Heyward

I've actually brought this up in previous seasons, but I think a non-Dodgers or Yankees team sort of has to have a limit on how many 20 million plus guys they have on the books. And with Lester and Heyward already above that I feel doing another for a closer makes it more difficult to get a top of the line pitcher next year or......Bryce Harper a few years from now. I might be wrong, though. It's fair that you have to keep future flexibility in mind to a certain extent, and the Cubs core is going to get more expensive as the young guys hit arbitration. The upshot is that there aren't many future holes to fill, they have a lot of payroll room without the payroll skyrocketing, and the payroll very well may skyrocket with the momentum of the WS leading into a new TV deal. So for anyone wanting to sign Fowler and Jansen/Chapman and then spend big on a SP next year, yeah it's something to keep in the back of your mind. But personally I don't think things are tight enough to say we can't get an elite guy at a position of need because of future payroll considerations. After all, they have more than 50 million coming off the payroll next year alone with Arrieta/Montero/Lackey/Strop. Sure some of those guys will require money to replace, but if we're spending to get back to the status quo then things are more than fine considering the revenue that's coming.

I think this really illustrates the misunderstanding of the scale that relievers operate on. I'd give Chapman something absurd like 6/180 before I considered Cecil at 7-8 million. Chapman and Jansen are cheat codes and have proven themselves far more immune to the volatility that suppresses reliever cost than Cecil. Part of it is I just don't like Chapman as a person. I didn't want us to trade for him because of it, and I'd rather we not sign him for it now. And I'm just not buying that there's a reliever that is that much more immune to volatility. It wasn't that long ago that people were talking about Craig Kimbrel like they're talking about Jansen now. I'll agree that I don't want Cecil at that price, but I still think it's fine to spread the money among cheaper options and hope you get guys like Rondon and Strop have turned out to be. Kimbrel gave up a few more HR when the league did, and then he got the AL East penalty on top of that. If there's a takeaway I think it's that you need to weight recent years a bit more when considering consistency(and the HR thing is something to keep in mind with Jansen), but I don't think he's at all a cautionary tale. He had the environment/ball change, got moved to the toughest league/division, and had control issues and was still very effective. The takeaway isn't that Chapman and Jansen can never have a downturn, it's that they're so dominant that even when you stack the volatility deck against them, you have the downside of 2016 Craig Kimbrel, saving 94% of opportunities in the AL East with a sub-3 FIP. Or in other words, the downside is good Rondon!

The pre-'15 and pre-'16 pen had healthy and productive Rondon and Strop to anchor it. If that were the case for the pre-'17 pen I'd have far less tunnel vision about Chapman/Jansen. Also if there were other ways to conceivably spend for impact talent, but that's a bit beside the point.

I liked Dunn a ton as a trade target last winter, but he missed time with a forearm injury and looks pretty high risk. To be honest though, the only way I'd want to spend real money on a LHRP is if they fail to sign Chapman or add a SP(meaning Montgomery to the rotation), which isn't an outcome I find all that likely. This FO's history says they don't put a lot of emphasis/dollars on that spot in the bullpen either, so I don't think it's something we'll see unless it's a guy that has the real chance to be more than a LOOGY. All that said, I bet you could get Justin Wilson for little more than his contract at this point, I like him as a bounceback guy.

Singleton was never a Top 25 prospect, so no, not close.

I think this really illustrates the misunderstanding of the scale that relievers operate on. I'd give Chapman something absurd like 6/180 before I considered Cecil at 7-8 million. Chapman and Jansen are cheat codes and have proven themselves far more immune to the volatility that suppresses reliever cost than Cecil.

The name that I circled back to today was Bauer. I think there's a lot to like with him, AL to NL transition, no platoon split, he's a bright guy/Driveline client, he's proven a level of durability but still has 4 years of control, he's very good the first 2 times through the order but still faced the 3rd a lot so Maddon could conceivably have a positive influence on end results, and most importantly, as a clear 4th in the pecking order with reasonable in house options behind him, he could pretty easily be available to help Cleveland fill other needs. The good news is that Soler and Almora are both potential fits there, but neither is a snug enough fit to make me certain that they'd uproot an existing SP(especially with Carrasco and Salazar's injuries) to get them. But that's really the case with every option unless they're gambling on someone with downright poor performance.

This is a one off idea that will never happen for a few reasons, but it fascinates me as a challenge trade for both teams: Rondon for David Robertson The Cubs could use a little more certainty in their pen after Rondon and Strop came apart a little down the stretch, and especially if they don't sign Fowler, they'll likely have more money than they have holes they can fix with money. Robertson had a down year but his struggles line up pretty well with a (non-arm) injury and he finished the season strong. The Sox, if they're planning on being competitive in 2017 or even 2018 could use some more money at their disposal, and Rondon gives them a chance to win/win because when he's good he's even better than Robertson at a lower cost. So at the simplest level, the Sox save money to take on more risk and ceiling, and the Cubs take on more money to limit upside and downside in the back of their pen.

Eovaldi is supposed to be out all of 2017 with TJS and is only one year from free agency, so you'd need to either sign him to a minor league deal or work out some multi-year/option contract.

Why does that matter? If anything, it just means you'd have him for 6 seasons and may not have to worry about ever giving him a multi- year deal. He throws hard and K's a bunch of guys. I'll be extremely surprised if he's not added by someone. Because having team control of a run of the mill bullpen prospect means less when he's going to start losing velocity halfway through that team control. Rivero is no different than any of the guys the Cubs play waiver roulette with every November, except the Cubs have been working with him for years and don't think he's worthy.

Rivero turns 29 before opening day.

Soler for a pitcher who split the year between the NWL and Midwest league is an unequivocally bad idea. Complete non-starter.

Contract crowdsourcing had 4/49 as Reddick's average and 4/56 as the median, compared to 4/62 and 4/64 respectively for Fowler. Maybe it ups the total a couple million, but I don't think this is much of a departure from expectations.

Seems like close to a wash in aggregate, you gain a MLB salary for 5 months at the expense of a handful of guys for 1 month. Plus you make September baseball a better approximation of the real thing.

You think they're giving up on AJ Reed already? Well Reed had a .530 OPS with a 34% K rate in his MLB time this year, so I think a team planning on competing probably wants to have a contingency if he ends up being a AAAA slugger(Gurriel is no sure thing himself either). This year's Cubs clearly illustrate that too many players for spots is pretty much a myth, so as long as they aren't doing anything silly like putting Bregman at 1B, they're probably fine.

There's a causation at play here. Scherzer had about 80 more PA the 3rd time through the order and 12 more IP in innings 7 through 9 because Hendricks was only selectively allowed to face those situations, maximizing his odds for success. Think of Game 7 for an extreme example, Hendricks was pulled before the heart of the order got a 3rd crack at him because the game was in the balance. Or in the regular season he might only start the 7th inning if he were facing the bottom half of the order. That said, you can assume replacement level pitching to fill in that innings gap and Hendricks still has a compelling argument, but it's not unfair to credit Scherzer for having thrown those innings, lessened the impact on a bullpen, etc.

I'll preface this with the thought that there's like a -15% chance of Jake getting traded. But on the chance that I'm wrong you want to trade him: - to a team with a young SP that has promise but isn't an anchor of the rotation - to a team planning on contending ASAP and could use another high end SP - preferably to a team with the financial resources to entertain the thought of extending/re-signing him - preferably to a team in the AL, partially to avoid enriching the competition but mostly to get the league benefit from the pitcher you have coming back To me there's one ideal match, and that's the Red Sox and Rodriguez, which further illustrates the impossibility of Arrieta getting traded this offseason.

Quite possible he's not available or would be super expensive, but I also don't think he's been rumored for more than a year because the current FO loves him. They don't need to deal him, especially if they have their hearts set on competing next year(silly), but they also have plenty of arms in that system to not need to cling to Teheran for dear life either. Soler, Almora, Happ, Candelario, Cease

That's a bit much, there's a more than logical argument for him to be at the top of the list. But really it's no outrage that Scherzer won, and the actual voting tallies are zero surprise since Lester and Hendricks were going to split the homer/local vote. I would have had Syndergaard and Fernandez 1-2. They were the best pitchers in the National League in FIP and WAR and were near the top in ERA and strikeouts. Hendricks would have been 4th for me at best. That's not illogical, but FIP is also not going to give Hendricks his due because of how well he avoids hard contact. Those two also didn't throw any more innings than Hendricks either. Scherzer did throw those innings, although from a pure ERA standpoint Hendricks could've stayed in games longer with a 7 ERA and still come out ahead, plus their FIPs were the same. Really it all underscores that there were 7 or so really really good pitchers this year, 8 if you include Kershaw. None of them would've been horrific choices, and the gaps between them are small enough that the ordering doesn't matter.

That's a bit much, there's a more than logical argument for him to be at the top of the list. But really it's no outrage that Scherzer won, and the actual voting tallies are zero surprise since Lester and Hendricks were going to split the homer/local vote.