Transmogrified Tiger

Most places that track LT well have a line item for things that count against the LT but are outside the variance of player salaries, Fangraphs has an 'estimated player benefits' row in their tracker for example: https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/payroll/cubs

Projection system win totals are regressed, they represent everyone's middle of the road outcome and therefore the win totals are bunched lower than they will actually be in practice. ZiPS projects the Cubs for 81 wins at the moment and has them missing the playoffs by 1 game, by extension ZiPS is saying there are many outcomes where the Cubs make the playoffs and that they are very much a wild card contender.

I'm not sure, and maybe more importantly that was almost certainly never going to be an option available to Jed given the divisional dynamics. The one I would have made is for Glasnow, and said so at the time. But it's also a telling data point that essentially all of the big competitive trades being made so far have been for rentals. I'm skimming the MLBTR tracker, so maybe I'm missing some, but of the players traded this offseason that are under team control for 2025 or beyond, Busch is maybe Top 3?

That's fine, I literally said on Monday my biggest criticism of Jed is potentially letting some of the assets he's acquired spoil in the name of always making the most efficient move. But there is a gap between "I wish he would be a bit more aggressive in making a decisive move" and B2B's tired refrain of thinking Jed is terrible/a failure, and when asked to point out the missed opportunities to justify that, we get a list of my trash for your treasure trades that are divorced from reality. This is especially true when there aren't that many trades that actually did transpire that demonstrate that the misalignment is on Jed's end instead of people not having a clear idea of what the asking price may be for some of these names.

I think we can safely say Jed is not the reason the Guardians aren't acquiring Wisdom and Mervis in a trade for Naylor or the Padres aren't acquiring Madrigal in a Kim trade. Also the teams you mentioned trying to dump salary are so desperate to do it that we're on the verge of spring training and they haven't made any such cost-saving moves.

Your solution appears to be to make trades that opposing GMs would have zero interest in, with a backup plan of trading for players who may or may not be available, or only available for a very different price than you're implying.

Murray being listed as a 1B is probably the telling thing about his ranking.

I think this is a probably fair point about Jed's mindset, but also the extremely long commitment has to come from someone else, and at this point I'm just not sure how many teams are going to push negotiations that far past Jed's comfort zone. Especially for Bellinger who 1) Jed will likely be more willing to go longer on due to age and familiarity and 2) has a cheaper prospect cost for the Cubs than everyone else

Offensive metrics are adding up hypothetical runs that mostly equate to reality too. A different way to express what it feels like you're getting at is to compare it to money/personal finances. There isn't a limit to what you can earn in the same way there isn't a limit to what you can score, but in a practical sense there is a limit to what you can save and therefore how much defensive value you can create. At a certain level that also probably has a material effect on Wins/Losses when it comes to how they impact game state, but I don't really feel the Cubs roster(3rd in the NL in runs, 7th in Def) is all that close to that point.

I think you almost have to double the list, each player if the deal is 4+ years and each player on a 1-3 year deal w/ higher AAV opt-outs. And even that's probably a bit of an oversimplification. For me it's somewhat tiered: Tier 1 (in rough order): Bellinger 1-3, Chapman 1-3, Bellinger 4+, Snell 1-3 This is mostly about age, the multi-year head start Bellinger has on 2024+ productivity by being 28 is difficult to overstate even if others have a stronger roster fit. Tier 2: Montgomery 1-3, Snell 4+ This is mostly about me not being a Montgomery believer, and a belief that Snell being a stuff monster can be worth investing in(very similar logic to the Glasnow fit) Tier 3: Chapman 4+, Montgomery 4+ Again, Montgomery is the player I think we all look at in 12-18 months and go 'everyone wanted to give him how much?', and while a lot of the Chapman criticisms I see are overheated, I'm not enamored enough with his immediate outlook to want to lock in whatever he looks like at age 34 and beyond.

I'd be really interested to see what they might try in that circumstance, because I don't know. You could try to peel Jansen off the Red Sox, make sure you're the one who wins the race for Woodruff and/or Hendriks(though Woodruff is a 2025 play), you could ensure you get another positionless bat(JDM, Belt, etc), you could step up the trade pursuit of whatever they got closest to over the offseason, or some combination. Outside of clearly needing another good hitter though, the one silver lining would be they could take several paths(monster bullpen, rotation upgrade, several small upgrades, prospect depth trade, etc) and still be very much playoff favorites.

I don't really feel there's a stylistic reason you can't have two players with Hoerner and Madrigal's skillset in the same lineup. Yes they had 1000 PA of less than 15 HR and that's not ideal, but the contact ability is helpful for smoothing out offensive profiles, and they added over 50 SB at 85% success. The 'problem' that exists is the same problem that exists to a similar degree when Morel and Mancini combine for 600 PA as they did last year: one of them didn't play very well. If Madrigal continues to not at least sniff league average in overall production, then he's likely not long for any type of regular playing time. And I've made the point multiple times that he's likely not going to be playing day in, day out because of matchups. Which brings me to a final point, I don't have hard numbers on this, but I also suspect Madrigal's offensive numbers are a little suppressed because he's used in a matchup-dependent platoon. He's the one facing the guys that would've chewed up Wisdom/Morel, and because he lacks power he's not the one getting the look against many soft tossing lefties. The best approximation I have for this is BR's 'Power/Finesse' split. Madrigal's PA's broke down as 25%/30/50% Power/Average/Finesse. By way of comparison, Morel's were 20%/30%/50%. This doesn't mean it's the wrong decision to sit Madrigal against those types, but it's helpful to contextualize what we should expect from people taking on the PAs he's slated to take now.

I get that you'd really struggle to replace both in a single offseason, and Bregman is unlikely to be an easy or early negotiation(Boras again), but at the same time I don't know if I'd be in such a hurry to guarantee Altuve's age 35-39 seasons at 25 million per. Especially given Astros ownership does not seem enthusiastic about living above the luxury tax indefinitely.

I think the last 150 PA is largely an artifact of when he had a slump, he struggled hard for a chunk of August but was fine after. At least I don't see an obvious 'this is when the pitchers adjusted/the magic ran out' breakpoint that would lead me to think he's a 70 wRC+ guy in 2024.

If and when they sign Bellinger, Tauchman isn't a starter unless one or more of Bellinger and Busch are getting the day off and they want to prioritize LHH, or they're willing to play Busch at 3B for matchup reasons. Which is to say his role is unlikely to be large to begin with. I don't think they'll have a super itchy trigger finger if he has a poor April, his skill set(contact first approach with excellent batting eye and decent defense) is a solid fit for a bench OF role. That said, if and when PCA looks ready to play regularly, someone's gotta come off the MLB roster to do it, and unless there are other circumstances(injury, Busch collapse, Busch playing a lot of 3B), it's tough to imagine a roster where there's room for all 4 of Bellinger, Busch, Tauchman, and PCA. Mayybe if Morel looks like he can fake it at 3B as well as Wisdom you kick Wisdom instead of Tauchman, but it's a tossup.

Looks like Diego Cartaya, the Dodger catcher. As for why, his batting line tells a pretty compelling story:

In this vein, I think my biggest criticism of the current front office approach is not really recognizing the half-life or potential for decreases in value of the assets they've accumulated. Paper clip trading your way to success is fine in the macro lens, but at a certain point the value you've accrued has an opportunity cost for not using your assets to maximize it. You see it in how they're probably not putting *everything* they could into one of the 3 year window they created with the current core, and stacking too many high level prospects until some inevitably lose value due to lack of opportunity(a la Busch, who you just traded for as a potentially distressed asset) feels like an avoidable problem. That said, I do think the amount in which they have true excess is probably overstated by us, and they also aren't counting on all of those guys making big league impact. But maybe pick a lane a beat earlier and risk selling the wrong one if you have a real chance to make yourself a more clear contender.

Horton is 49, not 29. Sometimes I get a little annoyed that Fangraphs' publishing schedule for prospect content is so delayed and inconsistent. Then I see the content from another largely one person operation like Law's list and think maybe that's just how it has to be to not sound ridiculous.

If the destination is the same both times then yes they're equivalent, though there is something lost in delaying ST for the player if it comes to that. But in December you also have potentially more suitors and can get the best of both worlds instead of hoping against hope a higher offer comes later. This isn't as much the case for Bellinger, but for say Rhys Hoskins? I have to think his 2/34 with opt out(or something very close to it) was available in December. Now because other options dried up he ended up with that deal on a Brewers team that's going to try to thread the needle of transitioning eras instead of a team with a more desirable competitive situation(or a more desirable city than Milwaukee).

This was a really interesting read, Carl is a personal favorite going all the way back to the Garza trade. I wonder if the Cubs plan to tweak the arsenal further, maybe add him to the pile of guys trying a splitter to bring back some swing and miss and potentially help against LHH?

This is somewhat new from Hawkins, and I think it lends credence to the idea that 3B is going to be a matchup by committee. Take this chart more seriously than literally, because I'm taking some shortcuts by dividing opposing P into velo or not(when there's nuance based on pitch type and where they work in the zone), but I think it's illustrative of how frequently there may be different faces at the position.

I suspect that this finding is similar to one I shared a while back about players with low K rates and steep launch angles, that it is representative of hitting *talent*. Or if you want to be more precise, bat control and the ability to adjust your swing successfully. So even in the case that a subsequent season's batted balls aren't quite the same(in terms of quality or quantity), the ability to do this once portends the ability to make a different adjustment to maintain overall offensive success. This tracks for me given that Bellinger has been successful at different levels of K rate even before 2023, and he's certainly no stranger to high end offensive pedigree given his draft and prospect status(to say nothing of the ROY and MVP on his mantle).

It's also 1 year of Burnes at 15 million coming off his worst season. Maybe they could've consolidated the value more, but that seems uncertain given how teams have clung to prospects, and in their position they're probably better off with more bites at the apple in looking for good players to be a part of their next core.

Rhys Hoskins