Transmogrified Tiger

I'm not going to lead the crusade for a signing deadline, but every time it comes up I see this argument that this would shift leverage entirely to teams(and by extension owners), and I'm just not sure if I buy that. There exists a de facto deadline to the offseason already with the advent of spring training and a new season, and if anything the deals signed that wait the longest are often those less player friendly due to the player/agent misreading their market. Teams have needs to fill too and they do not view players as perfectly fungible, and the idea that they'll just run with whoever comes to them with a sufficiently low signing point does not strike me as a plausible outcome. We saw this with the insertion of a quasi-deadline with the last CBA negotiation, a flurry of deals that were not particularly team friendly got in under the gun. Yes, trades are still possible, but the same people who are supposedly going to grind the players out of marginal salary are also the ones who have basically brought the trade market for any player of note who is not a rental to a standstill over the last couple years. And if they perceive they have additional leverage via FAs not being on the table that part is going to get worse before it gets better. I could see there being pockets of the market where this could have ill effects, relievers and bench bats in particular come to mind, and I can appreciate that those players are numerous even if their contracts are not enormous. But if being able to drag the collective market's feet is what's making those players more indispensable and marginally increasing the offers they'll get, I'm not sure how certain their market is to begin with and is probably more a product of happenstance than having a long enough runway to wring more money out of teams. Plus, with a signing deadline teams don't have to hold anything in reserve on the potentially misguided hope they can spend it later, which could drive some salaries higher. If Bellinger ends up signing for like 4/100 because no one but the Cubs is willing to go there at this point in the offseason, you don't think there's a couple GMs that would look at that deal and wish they could've signed him for more than that before making their own moves, if only Boras had been willing to consider it (looking at you, Farhan Zaidi)?

I'm gonna throw my hat in that I think Wesneski has a real shot, at least as much as the others. Yes, he'll have to solve for his LHP woes last year, but given this was the first real time this has been a problem(from MiLB thru a brilliant short MLB stint in 2022) I have faith the fixes are both in his control and reachable. Plus you have little tidbits like Counsell name checking him as a player to be excited about and that he has the best stuff of all the options as well.

The glass half full view is that Morel has shown some measure of competency at 2B, which combined with his arm and athleticism means there's no structural/talent reason he can't be functional at 3B. And while he has played a lot on the left side of the infield, but he hasn't had the clarity of a single position to try to drill into the nuances so he can avoid avoidable mistakes, and make the footwork second nature. The glass half empty view is that Morel's problems have shown up at both SS and 3B where he is unplayably error prone, and that makes up almost 75% of his minor league defensive innings. And while he has shown better at 2B, that's still only about 55 games across minors and majors so it doesn't inspire confidence that it's not noise or something else. Plus at nearly 25 he's not at the age where you typically see dramatic changes in defensive competency, especially on the infield. I certainly hope it's more the former than the latter, and would even be interested in Morel starting at Iowa again if that's what gave him the reps to be playable without compromising the MLB team in the meantime. But I suspect the latter is what wins out here and that Morel simply doesn't have the skills to be a MLB infielder.

They reportedly had him doing work with a coach during winter league, but in the games he didn't play at all at 1B. 18 games worth of innings at 3B, 3 at SS, and 1 in the OF.

As with several of these moves that have happened over the last few weeks(Toronto, Philly), this doesn't completely close the door on Bellinger, but they are not the types of moves that you make when you are aggressively pursuing him and getting Boras to say yes/exceed an interested incumbent like the Cubs.

If Bellinger is real good and opts out, they got a good season out of Bellinger and at this stage in the offseason the money he was paid certainly didn't block other moves, so that's a very good result. If he's not good enough to opt out that's less ideal, but there's a huge spectrum of production and his AAV is at the Taillon level so as long as he doesn't completely crater that's perfectly fine to want him around. The main problems with this are that you don't really see this duration combined with 1 year opt outs, normally it's more like 5 years with a 1 year opt out or if it's a longer deal then the opt out is after 3 or something. This is as much a generic hedge against injury/age than a statement about Bellinger. Also I don't think there's any real chance Bellinger would take an 8/140 guarantee, opt outs or no. If he has any reasonable deal of ~5 years(e.g. 5/125) he's more likely to gravitate to that or go for a purely shorter deal with opt outs.

Inspired by the conversation on swingmen here: What are the roster or playing time decisions you think are unexpectedly going to happen, or at least have a much higher likelihood than most people think? I have two: I think one of Smyly or Wesneski grabbing the 5th starter role is a near coin flip, if not the slight favorite given it's 2 v 1 with Wicks on the other end. Wicks would then start in Iowa in this setup most likely. It's not the most likely or even 2nd most likely outcome, but I think there's a legitimate chance Mastrobuoni pulls a Madrigal and gets a lot of 3B PAs. If Busch doesn't look capable over there he has left handedness on his side, he adds real value with his speed, and after some early struggles with the bat he looked functional at the plate(142 wRC+ in Iowa, 112 wRC+ in Chicago after his July callup). What are yours?

He doesn't have much prospect pedigree, he doesn't throw hard or have a particularly devastating second pitch, his MLB success has been by beating his FIP by large margins, and he doesn't show much aptitude for preventing hard contact. History is littered with guys who had a strong year as a swingman from guts and good luck but aren't bound to be bullpen staples, and I think it's very possible that's the case with Assad.

Szymborski did a ZiPS Top 100 prospects, which I encourage you to click through because he starts with a retro from 10 years ago and you can see the 4 Cubs in the Top 8 of that list, and not all who you'd guess: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/zips-2024-top-100-prospects/ But for this year's list: 5. Shota (Yamamoto is 1 & Lee on the Giants is 15) 13. PCA 37. Alcantara 78. Shaw 82. Busch 97. Horton

There's probably a better place to put this, but one of the potential surprises I'm low key wondering about is if the Cubs don't really believe in Assad and are trying to build a staff where he's Iowa depth. This would come into sharper focus if they did pull the trigger on one of the more recent names they were linked to like Lorenzen, but not even absolutely necessary. This is especially true if we think Counsell will have less interest in having a couple multi-inning guys in the pen than Ross was, though if Wicks wins the 5th starter job it only takes a good spring from Wesneski to likely make it happen.

It is not. I made some mild assumptions that I think you have to be unreasonable to disagree with about where the remainder of this offseason may play out and what options are at Jed's disposal, but there's nothing that's invalidated by the current state of play. Even if they don't land one of the Boras guys, I think it takes an excessively cynical view to think that Jed's spending to the current ceiling of payroll, and that simply becomes something Jed has to own from a roster building perspective and he better be right about the bets he did make and the prospects coming through. Nothing changes about the history of the team's spending and any of the ownership-related stuff.

There's a couple things happening here. One is about the Ricketts/Jed relationship and who bears responsibility for spending levels. I think the facts on the ground are pretty clear. Ownership is going to have a healthy payroll, but they do not expect to live above the luxury tax or blow it out like the teams who dwarf them in revenue(Dodgers, Yankees) or those with more carefree spending ownership(Mets, Padres). Ownership does not appear to care about how that payroll is distributed, and I have no reason to think that within that bucket of spending that Ricketts is vetoing or exerting influence to steer towards or away from particular players. Some will say that ownership steering is by hiring Jed who is ideologically aligned with Ricketts. I don't think this is objectively wrong, but I think it gets used as a cynical framing that doesn't really match the points being made. Yes, Ricketts would not hire Jed if he was constantly going to argue with him about spending. At the same time, that's kinda obvious about any working working relationship and not representative of *additional* ways that Ricketts might suppress payroll. Ricketts doesn't have to play 4D chess to hire a GM who will spend less than he says is available if that's what he wants. He can just say that less is available to spend. Which leaves what Jed's actual philosophy on spending is, which I agree is on the conservative end when it comes to making large long term commitments, and most focused on having a consistent pipeline of player development. The first point I'd make on this is that this is not necessarily a permanent state of being. @Bertz has made the point before, but a lot of the criticisms of Jed you could've made of Friedman for the first ~5 years of his Dodgers tenure, it was true until it wasn't. Jed's aggressiveness may change as the team's level(one of expected contention) and composition(one with sustainable contributions from the farm) changes. Another point to make on the player development focus is that *this is the correct focus to building a consistent winner in the current environment*. There are at most 3 teams that can reasonably spend their way out of poor player development, the Cubs are not going to be one of them, and one of those is the Dodgers who have made player development the bedrock of their success. But you also can't be the Dodgers without spending, then you're the Rays, and that leads to a final point, which is about making sure we're clear about the specifics. Setting aside whether it comes to fruition, it seems abundantly clear that Jed has the green light to add one of the remaining Boras clients if he'd like, which is likely to push them into the luxury tax. Prior to Counsell most of us thought they'd be in that first band of LT spending, not exceeding 20 million over, and this would be living up to that expectation. I think many of us think that the payroll ought to be capped at a higher point than that, but I think it's also helpful to be clear on what that looks like. For me that's mostly about being at roughly the level the Phillies are now, and while that difference is real(~15 million if they add a Boras FA), it is not a chasm, nor does it make sense to me to spend a bunch of time hand wringing how much ownership is holding them back. Others might think it's clear that they can run Dodger/Met payrolls, and while I understand and can sympathize with that in solidarity with those who have justified grievances with the billionaire class, I have a hard time seeing the math that leads to that being something that they can pull off without balance sheet losses. And while I can also sympathize with those who want sports teams run purely in service of winning as opposed to spendthrift businesses, I also can't find it in myself to treat that as a moral failing worthy of so much animosity.

Ah crap you're right, serves me right for going off memory for that part of it. I think the current Pipeline list is the 2024 list, so with that and BA's list, Wicks would not be eligible. BA: PCA, Horton, Shaw, Busch, Caissie Pipeline: PCA, Horton, Shaw, Busch, Caissie, Alcantara, Triantos ESPN: PCA, Horton, Shaw, Caissie, Wicks Eligible for PPI: PCA, Horton, Shaw, Busch, Caissie

It's 2 out of 3 from BA, ESPN, and BP. Some googling and scanning this thread shows him in BP and ESPN so I didn't bother finding out if he got 100%.

I feel like the Tigers version of NSBB would be saying that Harris isn't gonna ruin leverage by saying 'yeah we're thinking about making a splash', and posting Jed's quotes from the other day about the Cubs being happy with what they have, so not sure how much to make of those. Especially since part of the thinking with that type of move is ownership involvement potentially going over the GM's head(there's rumblings that this happened with Hoskins and may have pushed the Burnes trade). That said, Detroit and Washington are not popular destinations and there's plenty of reason for Washington in particular to not make a move like this right now, so any bit of status quo that doesn't portend greater interest is another step down the path to the known interested teams waiting on a Boras client.

Yes.

I'm open to the idea that PCA learning at the big league level is ultimately just as good for the current and long term than it is for him to make some AAA adjustments, but I think the slope of that curve matters a lot. If he's going to be the version from 2023 that was uncompetitive against MLB pitching before he makes those adjustments, then even if he ultimately ended up with a Wiemer line for a full season post-adjustment, the team would be better off in the short term letting him start at AAA and have Tauchman be a playable bat while he makes enough progress to have a higher baseline when promoted.

This is not a 'your opinions are bad' thing, I suspect I disagree with you but I do value your perspective so I'm trying to take it in but you're making it impossible. Seriously look at your previous post and read it out loud, it's incomprehensible. It's clear from context and most of what you've posted this offseason that it's vaguely ranting against the Man, but beyond that it's indecipherable and not making any point.

Dude can you just talk like a human being, it's honestly worrying that you can't write coherent sentences.

This reads like someone raving to no one in particular on a street corner, can you please try to explain this with more detail and less shorthand, because I'm pretty sure I don't agree with at least some of what you're assuming as bedrock fact. To simplify my point of view: Complex leagues are barely above an intrasquad scrimmage, there's basically zero competitive stakes and games are played/managed as such. The main differentiation is that they report the box scores, which makes essentially no difference for player development or future pay Because there's basically no difference in facing your own org's teammates in intrasquad situations, draftees not being able to play in the last portion of the Complex season isn't going to lead to a bunch more of them starting in affiliated ball later than they would have before.

What exactly is the diabolical outcome you think is happening because of a change like this

I suspect the front office has a more multi-position view of Busch and Morel at this point, which helps because if they're 1B/DH's outside from playing 2B on a handful of Nico/Dansby rest days, I agree the fit is more awkward. I don't expect they'll play 50 games each at 3B but I won't be surprised to see both combine for 30 or even 50 starts there, and maybe being an option in the OF depending on circumstances. And also this split represents something resembling a best case. There's 5 guys slated to play 150 games, it's likely one of them needs a DL stint or even tears a ligament. Busch may pull a Mervis or Belt might pull a Mancini. Said another way, if our main complaint is that a couple guys look like they're playing 30-40 games less than you hope, that's probably about the right amount of depth to be putting out a good team. DH also appears to be missing a 25 game chunk too.

I don't get it either, make it 10 mins in the regular season if you're that worried about wear and tear. Anecdotally I feel like nearly every OT game I saw had 5 mins or fewer left at the end, so I'm not exactly sure what the more roundabout rules are doing in practice anyway.

I guess the thing that I've become most convinced of this offseason(and to be clear I wasn't a huge skeptic before), is that if we're describing a playing time problem that only exists when 5+ players are healthy and productive, we're not really describing a playing time problem that exists in any practical measure for a team with playoff aspirations. This is especially true for the Cubs given they just made their boldest decision of Jed's tenure to pay a record salary to a manager to optimize these decisions. Now if you want to say you'd rather put the resources into the rotation, I think that's a fair argument though I think the ship has probably sailed on a 'clearly better than Taillon' SP at this juncture. I would also add that the same concerns we might have about opportunity for Morel/PCA/Busch/Wisdom apply in fairly equal measure to Wicks/Horton/Wesneski/Smyly.

I don't have super strong feelings about Belt/JDM so take it in that spirit, but I also think the negative connotation on depth in the name of 'blocking' options probably could be reframed. 1. Is the defensively versatile guy Mastro? If so I get it but also at what position is he even the #2 option? Keeping Madrigal, Wisdom, and Mastro is its own type of luxury, and generically Mastro's LHH bat off the bench isn't gonna be option 1 with Tauchman also blocked from starting most games. 2. Good, PCA should be in Iowa to start the season. When he shows he can adjust to that level then you can jettison a number of different players to make room, but it's more likely to be for Tauchman and not impacting the last man discussion. 3. Canario isn't someone you need to make room for, his ceiling (especially on this roster) is platoon/bench depth so not being at the front of that line is fine. Caissie and Alcantara, add Shaw and Murray to this if you like, they have a combined 0 PA at AAA. One of them forcing the issue is very possible, but that's likely to take til past Memorial Day and by then you'll have all sorts of other stuff shaking out with injuries and any other performance nuances where the logjam doesn't actually materialize.