squally1313

On the one hand, the Cubs were projected to be 24th in overall catcher fWAR going into the year. So I think it was safe to say it was a concern or at least something they consciously decided to punt on for soft skills. On the other hand, they were projected for 1.8 fWAR for the year and have been worth -1.5 so far this year, so we're talking about basically a 2.5 win swing in the wrong direction from even those feeble projections.

There's always the risk that his elbow goes boom between now and November, but I think I'd rather have Taillon around as a reliable piece for 2025/2026 in the event we don't make a substantial move to improve the rotation, and I think what you could get for Taillon now vs what you could get for Taillon in 4 months (upon signing someone better) isn't going to be a huge difference.

But that takes away the money that people are trying to clear for free agent signings that will immediately improve the team going into 2025.

I think you have 6 guys (Happ, Busch, Hoerner, Swanson, Steele, Shota) that based on career or current performance can be relied on to give you 3 WAR next year. All of those players are signed for the next 2 years (some significantly more). Morel and Seiya are pretty clearly DH only options going forward, and I'd prefer not to have both of them around. Getting rid of Seiya frees up money, Morel probably brings back more capital. For the other two outfield spots you have Cody and PCA with Caissie and Alcantara not too far off, and the Canarios of the world still floating around. Soto is an obvious enough difference maker to pursue, but beyond that, with the uncertainty of Cody's option I don't think we need to do anything drastic here. Catcher is a black hole, it doesn't seem like Mo Baller is going to solve that problem anytime soon, go find a solution sooner rather than later. The more creative the better, but as others have mentioned just get back to replacement level and it's basically a substantial improvement. For third base, I think you either blow away the Rays for Paredes (including names like Shaw, Triantos, Alcantara, Ballesteros) or you go sign Chapman a year too late and figure out a long term solution later. The starting pitching is fine. Worked through plenty of injuries and are still 9th in overall production there. I don't think moving Taillon is going to generate anything of value (other teams understand peripherals too), and hoping to free up cash for Soto seems like a fools errand. Steele/Shota/Wicks/Assad/Taillon/Brown is a perfectly acceptable base and that's before Horton, Birdsong, etc. For the bullpen, I don't know...spend whatever money you have left on more arms to throw at the problem. But feel like that solution, to the extent it exists, needs to come internally. I'm honestly not sure if that sums up to a good team or not. Paredes/Happ/Swanson/Hoerner/Busch gets you to like...16 WAR, with the goal being around 25 (9th in baseball last year), so you'd need 9 from CF, RF, DH, and C. Pitching you're shooting for 18 or so (8th in baseball last year)....Steele/Shota/Wicks/Taillon/Assad/Brown certainly seem capable of giving you 15 as starters, which means you're kinda just asking the bullpen to not be terrible. Realistically, you need one or two of these top 100 prospects to click, and to click at a position of need. But, there's a bunch of them, it's not far fetched.

I think he’s a good, not elite hitter. Agreed he’s been very unlucky. But he simply can not play defense. He’s tried, it doesn’t work.

The amount of bending over backwards people do for Chris Morel, who has played in 308 Major League Baseball games and accumulated less than 3 wins total in his career, is truly outrageous. Maybe by the time he gets to 1500 PAs he can finally do what Happ, Swanson, Hoerner do annually.

The continued calls to trade our best outfielder that is signed for 2 more years after this are so insane. He’s good!

Why trade the dude who has been productive his entire career to clear a spot for Shaw when you can just trade the atrocious fielder who is ‘just about to put it all together’ but has been worth like 2 wins in a season and a half.

What’s the plan to replace the guy with a 2.99 ERA in 80 innings that we control for the next two years? I’m fine with trades, but don’t think anyone wants a full scale rebuild so making sure we still have a rotation next year that is playoff worthy.

Gross

Trading Ian Happ will make us better next year

Yes, agreed. Devils advocate, because why not, after this year: Dansby: 5/125m turner: 9/245m

You act like trading away the valuable pieces of the team doesn’t hurt the long term prospects of team success.

Things definitely do need to change. Ian Happ and Nico Hoerner are 2nd and 3rd on the team in offensive fWAR. We have a third baseman who leads the team in PAs and has given us 0.2 fWAR. Cody Bellinger has given us 1.0 fWAR and is outpacing his xwOBA by 28 points. Our catchers are an abomination. PCA has a 48 wRC. The bullpen is an obvious disaster. I would focus on those things. Happ has been a weird whipping boy for a while now, I guess it's Nico's turn now too? But they aren't the problem.

Do you think you could get players better than what Happ and Hoerner are projected to give you the next two years? Ian is on pace for about 3 WAR, Hoerner about 3.5.

Do you guys have a preferred Hawks blogger/writer that actually analyzes all these moves? Used to read/subscribe to the Committed Indian pretty religiously back in the good years but those guys have all filtered away and now that they're finally trying again would like to get back into it, but feel like you guys do a better job breaking this stuff down than anywhere else I've found.

They looked pretty dangerous the first 15 minutes or so or have been pretty uninspired since. Obviously losing balogun doesn’t help. But open it up a little bit here.

I think you still have the roster crunch everyone wanted them to take care of in the offseason. While I assume people were hoping that the major league roster would perform better and it would be a logical conclusion to trade from the farm and bolster the major league roster....you could still do that in the next month or so if you're picking up talent with multiple years of control. Dumping major league talent (almost all of it with multiple years) means you're either making the logjam at AAA worse or you're back to getting a bunch of teenagers and relying on guys like PCA, Caissie, Shaw, etc who realistically aren't going to be any better in 2025-2026 than the guys you already have.

Choosing to omit his most recent two years of (good) performance but focusing on the (less good) stuff that happened before then and earlier this year is certainly a choice.

I have no problem with Steele doing what he did. Wanting Craig Counsell, the dorkiest baseball player of all time and someone who was ejected 3 times a year in Milwaukee, to channel Lou Piniella or whatever and thinking that will somehow magically help is dumb. Jokes about trauma and therapy and jock straps are especially dumb.

But you're still wrong. Heyward had a .668 OPS in a much friendlier offensive environment in his first two years (79 wRC) while playing a corner outfield position (to his credit, at a mostly elite level defensively). Dansby has a .717 OPS with the Cubs, which is a 99 wRC, playing the most important position in baseball besides catcher (I think?). Sure, a 99 wRC is basically the definition of league average (or 'MID', I guess), but stripping out everything else he brings to the table (he's added the third most defensive value in baseball since the beginning of last year, 29th most in baserunning) is a really lazy and bad way of trying to judge a baseball player given the information available. And again, he's been a much better hitter than Heyward was.

Yeah the 2022 Braves and their....7th in baseball wRC was the key to Dansby being a good hitter. That explains how terrible and unproductive he was last year.

No one is denying that Dansby is having a very subpar year by his standards but when you include 'decidedly average player' in reference to a guy who was 8th in offensive fWAR the year before he hit free agency, 14th in fWAR over the 3 years prior to free agency, and 21st the year after he signed his contract, you're losing a little credibility in your analysis. Like, he has the 31st highest AAV contract in baseball and has been something like the 45th best player in baseball (hitters and pitchers) since he signed. This is not the disaster that everyone is making it out to be.

It's been 3 months, and in June he bested his career OPS by 25 points. Maybe we can pump the brakes just a little bit on the Downfall of Dansby Swanson