Bobson Dugnutt

The two SS off-season is still in play!

I still think Denver can stumble into a win one of these next two weeks, but certainly not counting on it. They’re just so bad. Does the #3 pick make trading down unlikely? Two QB draft with two QB needy teams ahead of them (assuming Seattle isn’t going to run it back with Geno). Still a great spot to be in, with the opportunity to have the first non-QB selection of the draft.

I believe he is, yeah.

Oh man I totally forgot about Tom Loxas. That dude has been pretending to be an insider for over a decade!

Denver has Cardinals at home and @Rams left on their schedule. Hoping they can stumble into a win one of these two games.

A little bit of that, and also that the most important number is the 17 million. Players aren't going to be looking up the individual OPS or WAR of all their new potential teammates, but if they've got an offer from the Cubs who are saying "we're going to be in the playoffs next year" it is more clearly demonstrated that Jed isn't blowing smoke when he drops 35 million AAV on 2 players and says there's more coming. Fair enough. I suppose I get the logic to a degree. I’m still very leery as to how meaningful it is to other players. But what do I know…maybe the do give more of a look to a roster with a name like Bellinger instead of a 5-headed monster of Ortega/Hermosillo/Valazquez/Heyward/Morel even if the actual level of production isn’t all that different. 2019 just feels like ancient history. I tend to think the “Cubs are open to signing TWO shortstops” and “Ricketts has mandated that Hoyer spend whatever it takes to turn the team around” leaks were crafted to signal that intent to spend. But if the Taillon/Bellinger signings add to that perception, all the better.

Yeah Bellinger was not brought in with the intention of playing 1st. Is the flexibility nice, sure. There are certainly scenarios where Bellinger and Davis are both crushing it and that's a way to get them both into the lineup. But Bellinger's been one of the worst hitters in the league the last two years but has played monster enough defense to mostly compensate for it. They're planning on the latter continuing while trying to mitigate the former. Even setting aside the 1B part of it, any team that paid 17 million for Bellinger did so with belief he'd be a better hitter than recent form, otherwise they'd find a far cheaper option for bad bat CF defense. With that in mind, I don't think Plan A is Bellinger at 1B, but I think that option as a contingency could very well be part of it. That contingency could be Davis going nuts to start the year like you said, or it could be Mervis falling on his face while Velazquez looks good. Or it could be that the plan is to sign Swanson but if it falls through they don't want to lose the option to pay Nimmo or trade for one of Arizona's outfielders. I also think for a team in the Cubs' position, banking a signing like Bellinger(and Taillon) even if you aren't 100% sure how he'll be used is something that's done as a signal of intent to other players they may be working with that may be hesitant about the team's competitive intent. His positional flexibility just keeps more potential options open that can be bigger upgrades than the post-prime crowd or buy low bounceback guys. I keep seeing this type of sentiment surrounding Bellinger. Even acknowledging the positional versatility and strong defense, as well as the Cubs’ own belief that they can fix the bat, why should signing a guys who’s OPS’ed .648 over has past ~1100 PAs signal anything beyond, “we needed someone to play CF” to any other FA. Not trying to be snide by any means, genuinely curious. Feels like they’d have to do quite the sell job to any other FA that they can be the ones to do what the Dodgers couldn’t for this signing to carry any meaning. Does his name and track record from 2019 and prior carry that much weight? For the record, I’m not even against the signing, because, again, someone has to play CF. Might as well be him, assuming it doesn’t preclude other more meaningful moves.

Man, this would be such a depressing outcome. Upside is one year of potentially backing into a WC spot. The approach certainly has some problems, but I wouldn't view it as a one year thing. Quite the opposite really, it's kicking the can down the road again on doing something super fun in the name of sustainability. The main appeal is that you've kept the majority of your powder dry. You've signed no QO free agents, you've traded no prospects, and you've added less in multi-year FA contracts than you have rolling off the books a year from now. If Stroman indeed ends up opting out, you open next offseason $100M+ under the Luxury Tax. Given the prospects currently in the upper minors, plus that we'd essentially be swapping Heyward/Hendricks for Swanson/Taillon, we'd be starting next offseason at a baseline of closer to 85 wins than the 75ish they started this winter at. At that point $100M can do some real horsefeathering damage. But like the FO hasn't brought in a Star since Darvish right before horsefeathering ST 2018. That sucks. It’s better than nothing and makes them more watchable I guess (by nature of having fewer black holes), but I don’t see a whole lot in next year’s FA class worth keeping the powder dry for. Ohtani, Devers, Machado and…stuff. And this FO and ownership group hasn’t proven they’re willing to pony up for that level of player anyway. So if they sign a bunch of 35 year old mid-rotation and complementary lineup pieces for this year, I’m not going to be brimming with confidence that next year is the year they change course after 5 years of operating like a middle market franchise. A couple moves that address roster spots for the next several seasons rather than banking on the Ricketts being the ones willing to give Ohtani $400 million+ is much more preferable IMO. Besides, if they do want to play in those waters (and they should) it shouldn’t preclude them from anything this off-season.

If Jed's willing to blow past the LT, even with the caveat that it's predominantly with 1 year deals, he can make a very good team even with Swanson as the crown jewel. For example, something like Swanson Vazquez Corey Kluber Michael Brantley Adam Ottavino Taylor Rogers That plugs every hole on the roster with a legitimately good player. The defense would be fantastic and the offense would be good, though sorely lacking a "the guy." The pitching staff would be similar, I'd probably feel good with every pitcher we have on the mound except Hendricks (which there's no getting around). Probably about half the opening day Iowa staff too. Again though lacking a guy you'd throw out there in game one, or hell maybe even game two, of a playoff series. Is it the team you're gonna pick up to use in MLB the Show? Absolutely not. Is it going to win a lot of games? I really think so. It's not sexy, but loading up on depth and grinding opposing teams down really works (at least I'm the regular season...). But you've gotta spend. If you're punting on adding a star, you've gotta be buttoned up absolutely everywhere. Every horsefeathering inning and every horsefeathering plate appear needs to be taken by a guy you're happy to have on the roster. Otherwise you've gotta hope to get an unexpected superstar performance from internal options, or hope that the Cardinals faceplant. Neither is a smart thing to count on. Man, this would be such a depressing outcome. Upside is one year of potentially backing into a WC spot.

If I had to guess, I feel like the Giants land Correa with the money they would’ve given Judge and then Swanson is our consolation prize. There’s really nothing about Swanson to excite me about locking him up for 8+ years, but he’s a clear improvement. If that’s how the SS situation plays out, are they going to try to sell Swanson/Bellinger/Taillon as fulfilling the supposed “do whatever it takes to turn the team around” mandate? Or, hopefully, are they still looking for impact elsewhere? I think (short of Correa), it’d take Senga+Murphy for this off-season to generate any sort of excitement for me.

I’m clinging to the hope that the Bulls pick lands in the top 4 and the Blazers fall back down to earth, but not too far that the pick doesn’t convey.

Ooof Illinois looks pathetic today.

Yea I think trenches on both sides will be the FA focus and very likely R1 focus. I'm sure Miami will resign Chubb who woulda been the biggest edge name. Davenport next biggest edge name possible after him. Lots of OT possible to hit market. I'd put money on that spot being one of their big signings. They'll need to sign some bodies at LB with Morrow being a FA. But hopefully not a $20M LB like Smith. Edmunds is the biggest LB on market. Spotrac who's valuations I don't necessarily trust put him at 4/57. He might be closer to Vander Esch probably another LB in that $10M type range among LB FA. Should be some nice options on The DLine: [tweet] [/tweet] Daron Payne and David Onyemata interest me at DT. Marcus Davenport and Yannick Ngakoue on the edge. For OT, are Brown, Wynn, and Jenkins the biggest names out there? I know pretty little about the current OL landscape but at a glance these three seemed like the best combinations of age + talent.

Looking forward to the off-season, who are the OL FA to keep an eye on? I’m assuming the focus in free agency is going to be on both sides of the line.

Who are you considering the 3rd?

I keep hearing about the pass totals being low because the run game was so successful. It worked on two drives. The rest of the game it was bad. If the run game were so successful, then they would not have had four 3 and outs. It seemed like they just moved away from it from the 2nd quarter until maybe mid 3rd. When they were leaning on it, it was working. 160 yards on 19 carries between Montgomery and Herbert is not “bad.”

I believe on one of the CHGO pods Corey Wootton said the first TD to Pettis was on his 4th read.

Interesting. It's the website that was created in the fallout of Joe Ricketts burning DNAinfo to the ground, so I'm happy to promote them whenever possible. I think they took the paywall off at the start of Covid and apparently never reimplemented it. But yeah, love Block Club. You can also support them by buying this magnificent tshirt like I did: https://blockclubchi.weebly.com/store/p27/chicagostyleispartycutshortsleeve.html

Damn, only 6-10 snaps? Isn't the 2nd preseason game basically the 3rd preseason game in the past? I don't expect to see the starters in the 3rd game (but maybe I'll be wrong). With a new offensive system, tons of new players, young QB etc. I would have expected more than 3-4 drives from the 1st team offense all preseason. That's less than even Nagy gave them (albeit he had 1 more game to play with) I think they said it’s because of the short turnaround between games. Still, 6-10 does seem low.

Generally agree but a bit odd of a lineup for a "showcase game" that theoretically is going to be watched by many nationwide. No Contreras, Wisdom or Morel. Contreras and Wisdom are literally on the advertising for the game: Edit: nevermind, you posted yesterday's lineup. Today's lineup has not been released yet as far as I can tell. Lol that advertisement is pretty bleak in the first place. Fast forward to today and 38 year-old Joey Votto is the only one of the four playing in the game. Edit: Nevermind. Missed your edit.

Extend Willy.

Wow.

Maybe? But that begs further questions because no team is going to give value for Hosmer, and you're already giving so much value in the Nats deal you almost run low on reasonable options to convince someone to take Hosmer's deal. Plus their history so far has been not very willing to pay much of a prospect price to unload him, hence why he's still there. Combining the messages of these two tweets, it sounds like they might finally be willing to move off that position. Sounds like a monster package would be going to Washington to acquire Soto/Bell and unload one of Hosmer/Myers.