Transmogrified Tiger
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Everything posted by Transmogrified Tiger
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Steele Opening Day Starter/Initial Rotation discussion
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Bertz's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Renamed the thread since this seems like a thru-line worth keeping together. Taillon, who hasn't debuted in Arizona yet, got scratched with a back issue in warmups: Have to think his opening day is in jeopardy now, probably good news for Wesneski if he continues to show well like he did against Cincy? -
Willie Harris is a treasure
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Steele Opening Day Starter/Initial Rotation discussion
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Bertz's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Unsurprising but good to see. Will be interested to see how Counsell sequences the rest of the starters. I wouldn't be surprised to see them go Steele/Hendricks/Shota/Wicks/Taillon. You can't avoid consecutive lefties, so you do it with the 2 that are least similar. Taillon behind Hendricks is mostly a nod to last year's performance, plus Taillon probably needs a few extra days anyway with his slower ramp up. -
For those who may be newer to NSBB, one of our traditions is playing a type of fantasy game called Home Run Derby, created and run by @Southpaw19. It's become a favorite of many on the site over the years, and we encourage you to check it out in the Events forum. Here's the threads for entries and discussions, the former of which also has a link to a wiki if you want to learn more about it.
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Fangraphs crowdsourced estimates are far from gospel about true market value, but they are at least a consistently applied estimate. Of their Top 25 estimated contracts in total value, 22 of those players have signed, the 3 remaining unsigned are Snell, Montgomery, and Clevinger. Of those 22, the only ones who did not exceed the estimate in AAV, total value, or (in most cases) both are Kershaw, Stroman, Soler, Chapman, and Bellinger. So setting aside the obvious cases where there are external factors(Clevinger being a pariah, Kershaw's injury and Dodger history), you have 6 players who are underperforming contract expectations, with 4 of them being Boras clients. So this is either extremely targeted collusion, or Boras had a beyond the pale valuation on his big clients, decided to wait out for desperation to set in, and other GMs decided they couldn't wait and largely spent their money(of which there were fewer surprise players because of the Bally implosion) elsewhere.
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The thing to keep in mind about the relationship to the tax line is it's not only a number to monitor for this year, but how many consecutive years you stay over it. While both Bellinger and Chapman seem fairly likely to opt out after just one year, they have potential guarantees beyond that, and the Cubs have a non-trivial amount of those guarantees(Chapman would make 8 players with 8 figure guarantees thru 2026+). So the question is not only 'do we have the headroom to do this in 2024', it's 'what does this do to our headroom for 2025 and 2026', where the answers are less black and white. Also, pushing most of your chips in now hurts your ability to make other short term upgrades. Yes, you'd have Chapman v. the alternatives for a full season, but if (as an example) Gomes tears his ACL in May, getting catching help for less time may end up more impactful given the marginal difference between the alternatives.
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My oversimplified view of PCA is that right now there are too many holes in the boat to be a good major league hitter at the moment. He can reduce some chase with better pitch selection/recognition, which technically includes out of the zone fastballs but I'm more thinking about wide/down/offspeed chases. He can continue with his mechanical tweaks to avoid swinging through top of the zone heat. Ideally he does both. But for as much as I'm looking for his response to high fastballs, it's not some easy button for pitchers where he'll hit .130 if it doesn't improve. Show me meaningful progress in one of those with some strong AAA results and I'm fine with continuing to work on the other at the MLB level.
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That's just not true? Amaya didn't get called up until May and still played in more than 50 games despite Gomes having a good year. We'd expect his playing time to grow this year as part of his natural progression and because Gomes may not be as good as he was in 2023, not because Ross was holding him back.
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I had the same thought about the Cardinals, but the other thing about their composition is that they have a different *likelihood* of needing to go into that depth since the Fangraphs exercise just treats it all as an equal hypothetical. And also where they're most vulnerable is on the pitching side, where even an analysis like this is going to understate the effects because of how SP absences compound, as we learned last year. Rotation misses mean worse SP throwing and for fewer innings, leading to more bullpen innings used with fewer options to turn to because you rob the pen to plug the rotation, rinse, repeat.
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Minor League Musings
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Little Slide Rooter's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
I would distill my point of view to this: The Cubs have competitive aspirations this year, and so even bench roles need to be for those best set up to contribute quickly Davis needs time in Iowa before I could consider him the best option for even a bench role While we can haggle about exactly how much time is needed to demonstrate his readiness, I need Davis to tangibly produce in Iowa to consider him a good MLB bench option. Hitting fly balls and having solid EVs isn't enough if he's got a 92 wRC+ in a hitter's league. -
Minor League Musings
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Little Slide Rooter's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
He had a 49 wRC+ in Iowa last year, we can be encouraged by some of the peripherals while also acknowledging that he was far, far off the level of someone we can reasonably expect to be an MLB contributor. And don't mistake this as me saying Davis has to be chained to Iowa all year, I think he can leapfrog Canario(who I am not especially bullish on) fairly quickly. But on a team with competitive aspirations, I think you need to make him show that he's back in Iowa before giving him sporadic playing time in MLB, which would be 1) bad for the productivity for that roster spot and 2) not great for his long term outlook. -
Minor League Musings
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Little Slide Rooter's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
Before being beset by injuries, Davis was excellent at AAA but only for 15 games. Since then he has the haze of injuries clouding his performance, but only a 60 wRC+ at Iowa in over 400 PA. It's still an open question if the bat can do even the targeted things you're mentioning at Iowa, never mind the MLB level. -
Minor League Musings
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Little Slide Rooter's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
Not entirely disagreeing with this, and honestly a decent chunk of it is having a 1st round bat fly past both levels by the end of last season. That said I do think there's some sneaky potential in that group. Rojas is a hot pick to break out, there's several other infielders with the talent and timeline to put themselves on meaningful MLB paths(Hernandez, Paciolla, even Howard). Plus I suspect we'll be talking up Trice similar to how we've had conversations the last couple years with Mervis and McGeary. The outfielders are definitely rough though, if the best option is either Brett Bateman trying to summon the ghost of Tony Campana and whatever remains of Ismael Mena's derailed hype train, there's very much room for improvement. Do we know what the plan is for Mule? May not be at an affiliate right away and certainly some skepticism about any future with the bat, but he'd be a fun bit of upside to throw into the mix at Myrtle Beach as a 2 way player. -
I'm with you, and that's what makes it such an important season for Amaya and which side of the starter/backup divide he might fall on. If he looks like a good defensive(including all aspects) catcher and can merely be a Gomesian 90-100 wRC+ guy, then it takes a lot of pressure off. You can pick up a Jacob Stallings or keep Gomes on a lesser deal even if his bat falls apart because you know you've got up to 100-110 games spoken for. If Amaya doesn't look Gomesian on one or both sides of the ball, then things get more complicated and you start pushing your luck with the position(or at least more than you did in '23-24).
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He's more of a Schwarber at this point, though there is time to improve and prove doubters wrong.
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https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/04/2024-25-mlb-free-agents.html
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It's very funny that while the tweet loaded I thought you were going to be referencing a different one Being 7th in % of WAR expected from your top 5 starters when they average 35 years old is a bad place to be. They're apparently gonna try to do the 2023 Mets rotation with like a third of the upside?
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Lovelady, Pannone, and Escobar are the NRI's that I'm aware of, there might be another one or two I can't recall.
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The Rays are not at the top of the waiver list and all it takes is one team willing to pay a small trade cost(or even just cash) for him not to make it to waivers it all.
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It's his first outing of the spring, who knows what his priorities were. I'm not gonna change the outlook from what it was a week ago even if LHH went 0 for 6 or 6 for 6. But you always prefer good over bad so it's not a positive marker if he gets torched even if his main focus was throwing strikes and building endurance.
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LHH starting 5 for 6 against Wesneski is not a great sign
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Counsell seems to be downplaying Wisdom as a 3B option without ruling him out at this point: There's also Mastrobuoni who can be in that mix. I suspect there's not a huge difference in how they feel about the 3B group with or without Wisdom.
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Also almost 29, on his last option year, and couldn't really get it done at Iowa or Chicago last year. If you have to DFA someone, the main reason not to would be if you feel you want this many arms on the 40 man going forward, so you might as well match Bellinger to a position player now.
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- cody bellinger
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