Transmogrified Tiger

Agreed, I'm kinda baffled by people who think the Paredes trade increases the likelihood of Nico getting traded. They got a certain 2025 solution at 3B and kept both their prospect powder dry and didn't add much AAV. Especially since Shaw and Triantos haven't set foot in AAA like you said, it would be counterproductive to trade Nico at this point considering they have one fewer hole with almost the same amount of roster building resources they did yesterday.

No I think it's very fair as a concept, it's just another variant of trading today's production for tomorrow, it's just tomorrow has a different shape. The Dodgers are probably the best match for something like this because they have 37 pitchers on the IL for various reasons. For example, Gonsolin doesn't offer a ton to dream on but very real possibility he's on par with 2025 Taillon next year. Maybe Emmet Sheehan for a more Wesneski-esque addition? Other guys who you can at least squint and see the match even if it's not probable: Luis Garcia on the Astros, and Garrett Whitlock on the Red Sox

Welcome!

I don't think the trade is some grand fleecing, but the framing here is more than a little silly. Bigge is a pop up relief prospect, he's a 26 y/o 12th round college draftee that no one outside the deepest of prospect nerds paid any attention to until about 10 months ago. The upside he has is no more unique than it is for hundreds of pro pitchers. Similarly, Johnson is pitching well and on an upward trend, but he's still a 15th rounder without dynamite stuff throwing 4 innings at a time in A ball. His 'upside potential' is maybe being an up and down depth starter or matchup reliever. These players have value, but they are also very fungible, any remotely competent farm system is churning out several of them every year. And then there's Paredes v. Morel, the idea that Paredes carries 'risk' while Morel has 'upside' is mostly just code for 'Paredes has played well while Morel has not'. Paredes is 4 *months* older than Morel, and has only 1 fewer year of team control. There is the chance that Paredes doesn't continue to hit as well as he has since the start of last year(this is 1000 plate appearances, but I digress). A reasonable version of a regressed Paredes is something like a 115-120 wRC+ with average 3B defense. That's close to a best case scenario of the 'upside' version of Morel if multiple things start going right for him! Maybe he trades some defense for more offense in his version, but the value would be the same. So if Paredes and Morel are at the same point in the age curve, there's little difference in their service time value, and the 'downside' version of Paredes is as good as the 'upside' version of Morel, then why are we framing this in such guarded terms?

Didn't he just miss some time to injury? Could be a precautionary thing.

Since the start of last year, 5 players have a FB% over 45% and a K% under 18%: Paredes, Mookie Betts, Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker, and Will Smith. They don't all overperform xwOBA to the same extent, but I think this grouping makes the point about what the overperformance may actually be representing(a skill and not variance that will inevitably regress).

Players who make a ton of contact and still hit the ball in the air tend to do that.

The consistency is the skill, he is not coordinated enough to be able to regularly make all the movements needed to be successful. He doesn't make errors for lack of concentration, it's because he is not able to make the subtle physical adjustments to the variety of plays he faces as a pro infielder, despite years of repetitions.

I do not fear that even a little bit, there is pretty overwhelming evidence that Morel does not have the necessary skill to be a capable MLB defender.

Carries risk, but decisively attempts to fix a position of need for multiple seasons. Doesn't touch prospect depth, fixes the potential logjam of DH's at the MLB level, and doesn't add meaningful payroll. Fantastic.

I am begging the media to find a better way to talk about this then describing teams as buying or selling as if that informs how they will approach every player, especially non-rentals. The Cubs are not making trades to try to win in 2024, it is yet to be seen if some team is going to offer them an attractive enough deal to trade away Taillon's 2025 productivity since they intend to compete next year.

A roll of the dice on a guy who may be a leverage reliever(w/ multiple years of control) in a new org, in exchange for two guys who lack big ceiling and aren’t currently on MLB trajectories. Works for me, I like it better than the similarly flavored Cuas deal last year.

Pretty sure Robinson Chirinos still has a few years of team control too

Hasn't been a rumor connecting them, but in a similar vein I'm trying to manifest Tauchman for Drake Baldwin myself.

if he's throwing a similar amount of innings, why does it matter if he gets them starting games

Cal Quantrill with the one shot kill

In what world was that not a swing from Turang, come on

I should also add, MLB moving the draft to July hurts the timeline for scouting resources too. Since teams are understandably putting max effort into that process, they have to wait until after the draft to get into the nitty gritty on potential returns for deadline deals.

I think there's a couple things about most teams waiting til the deadline. One is that capital B Blockbuster trades don't happen in general as much as they used to, and they definitely don't happen at the deadline as often. Teams are less and less willing to give up top prospects, they don't overvalue fame, and only a handful of poor teams have much incentive to trade players before they are close to free agency. As a result, most deadline moves of substance are for rentals with the occasional 1.5 season rental. Because the players being traded away are rentals in an environment that zealously hoards prospects, there's almost always incentive for selling teams to wait. The odds of your guy getting hurt pale in comparison to 1 of 10 teams having an injury that increases their need, or the odds that your team has a hot streak where you'd rather roll the dice on low playoff odds instead of getting a low level prospect. So even if we can say 'just go get the guy early and pay the price if you have to', the person on the other end of that trade has just as much motivation to call the bluff that this offer won't be there later or that they can't get another offer as good or greater.

Maybe! Happ is a midwestern lifer who signed that extension coming off 71 and 74 win seasons, so my intuition is that if that was really important to him he would've at least tested FA. Never know until the situation presents itself though.

Yeah, maybe I'm overindexing on what is otherwise a puff piece, but there was an Athletic article with quotes from him a few weeks back about how he knows he's not going anywhere at the deadline. That's why he signed the extension and got the NTC so he has that peace of mind. Extremely skeptical that he would be going anywhere.

He's probably too important to the Mariners to consider moving, but Dylan Moore would be a pretty snug roster fit in that vein.

The point was not 'actually the Cubs offense is good, they just score fewer runs in this environment', the point is that the Cubs, while a below average offense, scoring < 4 runs so often is more normal than it might feel because of the run scoring environment. Also, we should be less enthusiastic about the starting pitching for the same reason, Shota and Taillon in particular with their FB tendencies probably have regression in their future(in terms of raw run prevention, not necessarily relative to league average).

Yes, think back to the first half of the year and then think of who would've been available to take the dozen Taillon starts. In a similar vein, for all the understandable irritations with the offense, a big chunk of that is the run environment, hence all the close games. Very real possibility that even if they don't trade Taillon, fan sentiment is 'the rotation is fine, fix the offense', and then next year the environment changes and the problem spots switch places when Taillon/Shota give up more HR, Wicks or Assad faceplants, etc. tl;dr the offense is probably not as big an issue as it *feels*, and by the same token the pitching is not as strong as it feels either.