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Transmogrified Tiger

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  1. Transmogrified Tiger
    [tweet] [/tweet]
  2. Transmogrified Tiger
    Hellickson is still young enough that postponing FA by a year or so won't change much, so if you think last year wasn't a huge aberration(and after you consider AL to NL movement it's not all that out of line with his career), then taking the QO is the right move. If he backs it up this year he'll get a better deal at 31 than he would this year at 30, and the 17 million up front is a nice buffer even if he doesn't.
  3. Transmogrified Tiger
    Hellickson accepted the QO.
  4. Transmogrified Tiger
    I haven't given a ton of thought to this but Eloy and Happ are 1 and 2 with a bullet. I'm not all that high on Cease but there's also a dearth of players to really claim spots after Happ too. I will probably continue my Ryan Williams crusade by putting him way higher than most everyone else.
  5. Transmogrified Tiger
    oh okay
  6. Transmogrified Tiger
    The AFC West is 19-7 when they aren't playing each other, if my counting is right. I wonder what the record for a season in the 8-division era is.
  7. Transmogrified Tiger
    Man, I kinda think that Houston deal is terrible. Paulino looks a really good prospect but he's got 20 innings above A ball, and Feliz only has this year with the awesome peripherals and even then he still wasn't very good at run prevention. I mean maybe that's what it would take to get those two, but those two are not particularly good fits for the Cubs' primary needs. I still can't come up with an exact series of moves I really like, mainly because I can't seem to find a SP deal that I like and is feasible without Baez(nor is there a great Baez replacement). But in the spirit of not dumping on the above and not offering anything of my own: - Jansen 5/100 - Fowler 4/65 - Soler, Almora, Villanueva for Manaea - Sign a LH reserve OF, Coghlan, Blanco, Joyce, and Jay are all options of varying quality Fowler/Bryant/Rizzo/Zobrist/Schwarber/Russell/Contreras/Heyward (Montero/Baez/Candelario/FA/Szczur) Lester/Hendricks/Arrieta/Manaea/Lackey Jansen/Strop/Edwards/Rondon/Grimm/Montgomery/Zastryzny(or other LOOGY) Like I said, not my favorite sequence by any stretch, but that team wins a lot of games too.
  8. Transmogrified Tiger
    The Cubs also intend to win a bunch of games next year. Even if you plan on Arrieta being the worst version of himself next year, that's still pretty averageish, and you can't get averageish with the chance of better for Arrieta's cost on the FA market, meaning you're looking at trading for probably 2 different SP this offseason. And to what end? Teams would give up more than a comp pick in value, but they saw Jake struggle last year too, and he's 31 and a year from FA so there's no ransom coming back either.
  9. Transmogrified Tiger
    We can't know definitively because the new CBA could change the luxury tax threshold or even eliminate it entirely. The tax currently goes into effect at 189 million and taxes amounts over 189M at 17.5% the first time you exceed it, with that percentage growing to 30%, 40%, and 50% with each successive season over the threshold. Right now if you include arbitration estimates the Cubs payroll is just over 140 million for a full roster. With that in mind, I think the luxury tax is a decent proxy for what the team can probably spend. It'd represent a 10% or so increase over last year's actual payroll, and while I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it go beyond that, I can understand there might be some hesitancy to do so if all of a sudden there's more teeth added to the tax in the new CBA.
  10. Transmogrified Tiger
    While I agree that a deal for Gray would be far outside the MO for our group, they've also said that at some stage they'll have to make a few moves that are uncomfortable. I think there's a distinction between uncomfortable and out of character. Uncomfortable is trading more than you want to get a guy you really like(for me this would be Teheran, Quintana, or Odorizzi), or trading for a guy who doesn't check every box because the opportunity is there(for me this might be Manaea, Bradley, or even Bauer). It doesn't have to mean trading for a guy who is probably more likely than not to need arm surgery at this point, especially when he would cost more than scraps in return.
  11. Transmogrified Tiger
    I think the Cubs place a lot of value on health when it comes to pitchers, and it's part of the reason that they've been able to keep their rotation so healthy. That doesn't mean they won't trade for someone with potential health risks, but someone who missed a bunch of time with a forearm injury and had their command leave them before the injury is an enormous red flag if you're giving up a package of any real value.
  12. Transmogrified Tiger
    The Rays line up so very well for the Cubs to trade with, they have arms of pretty much every profile that you could want. Ace potential? Archer. Controllable and past the injury nexus with room to be better? Odorizzi. Buy-low LHP who controls contact the way the Cubs like? Smyly. Relief ace? Colome. The problem is that there is a reason that the Rays haven't made any trades from that pitching depth, and it's that their valuation of those pitchers has bordered on the absurd. Maybe this is the offseason where they re-evaluate and pull the trigger, it's definitely a possibility. The problem is I don't think the Rays are going to be quick on the trigger finger to do so, and if we've learned nothing else about the Cubs under Theo, it's that they very much prefer 'fast and done' to 'perfect' when it comes to trading for players.
  13. Transmogrified Tiger
    I don't hold any illusions the US deserved a result, but it just galls me to see that Mexican hackery get rewarded when they were under siege for 30 minutes.
  14. Transmogrified Tiger
    that was Marquez throwing the block there at the final whistle wasn't it
  15. Transmogrified Tiger
    shoulda tackled Marquez I guess
  16. Transmogrified Tiger
    tell me why that isn't a straight red for Salcedo
  17. Transmogrified Tiger
    What's the alternative, Bedoya and Williams? Also thank goodness for an early equalizer
  18. Transmogrified Tiger
    Partially because another team has to have a need/want for Candelario. The intersection of teams with interesting controlled pitching that they might trade and teams with an interest in a MLB-ready 3B prospect isn't a large one. Just to use your examples, Longoria(plus Duffy) and Lamb would be two big reasons that Candelario wouldn't hold as much interest as a secondary piece. This is the downside of hoarding hitters, they hold their value better, but in some cases they can be less liquid an asset.
  19. Transmogrified Tiger
    I just don't see it with Wisler. Never been a high K rate guy, sub 6 in the MLB,control in the minors was good but that hasn't carried over to the majors. Velocity is down .5mph from 2015 to 2016 where it sits at 92.5. He gave up 36.7% hard hit balls while his swinging strike rate was 9% and his contact rate in the zone was 90.8%. That all sounds to me like a guy who has to nibble because his stuff isn't good enough to beat major league hitters in the zone. To be clear, the idea here is that Wisler is treated as the 6th starter at best, which really you can't hope to do more than if you're only giving up Candelario, a Top 100ish prospect that's hard-blocked at the MLB level anyway. But Wisler is a strike thrower with pedigree, can be optioned, and wouldn't cost significant assets, which makes him appealing enough as an effort to add rotation depth.
  20. Transmogrified Tiger
    cmon Candelario for Wisler
  21. Transmogrified Tiger
    Sale's cost would probably be prohibitive. Quintana(who I've wanted forever) likely will have too high a cost as well, but it's possible that something could happen involving him.
  22. Transmogrified Tiger
    In reality, God-mode Jake should never have been expected to come back for any length of time, and that's okay as long as we don't let that anchor expectations. Even if you strip out his April as the last of that version of Arrieta, he still was a near 4 win pitcher. Hopefully his walk year and some greater understanding of what kept him from being as sharp can make him more like 2014 Jake than 2016 Jake.
  23. Transmogrified Tiger
    I mean we were like 2-3 weeks away from starting the season last year with Heyward as the CF being our only really option out there. I think they are mostly fine with him there if they can't find someone on the FA/Trade market that fits what they want/think they need. I get that it was where he was supposed to play last year. But now he's got to get his swing back. A position switch on top of that is a lot to put on a guy. Plus, finding an averagish defensive CF, to play with Heywards great D in right, sets up much better defensively than any configuration we have with Heyward in CF. A different way to look at it is that having him play CF brings lower offensive expectations. Plus it's not asking him to play SS or anything, he started over 20 games there last year. The other variable is that if either Soler or Baez start hitting, then the best lineup has Heyward in CF even if there's no OF addition of significance.
  24. Transmogrified Tiger
    Blanco and Jon Jay are the 2 FAs that jump to mind. But I also think that Heyward being that hedge is the most likely outcome.
  25. Transmogrified Tiger
    This is an extremely thorough article on Otani, both on his abilities as a pitcher and hitter, as well as the possibility of him coming stateside: https://dodgersdigest.com/2016/11/02/its-finally-time-to-talk-about-shohei-otani/ The short version of the author's conclusion: - Otani is a #2 starter in MLB today with the potential to be a true ace - His bat might be exploitable in MLB but he wouldn't embarrass himself - He hasn't played defense in multiple years and might be bad in the OF because of it - There are reasons/precedent that Otani could be posted as soon as this year, although the entirety of the evidence points towards him not being posted yet
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