squally1313

I don't know if you could argue that hitting is harder than being an NFL quarterback, given how hard it seems to be for like, 20 of the 32 NFL teams to find one they like. But this was already a rough analogy so I'll stop that one here. Instead I'll mention that we have a very amazing example of a guy not seeing MLB pitching in months and walking into the biggest stage in baseball and performing wonderfully. I miss him so. Would be interested in that research. Don't know if there's a large enough sample size but happy to be proven wrong here.

Rough analogy here, but we live in an era where Joe Flacco wasn't on a roster from January through November 20th and it took him like 11 days to get into starting NFL QB shape. These guys all work out year round, the fact that they're missing team sanctioned fly ball practice means nothing to them. They'll all be ready to go in 5 weeks regardless of when in the next 3-4 weeks they decide to sign.

Pete Crow-ArmstrongCade HortonMatt ShawKevin AlcantaraJordan WicksMichael BuschOwen CaissieBen BrownMoises BallesterosJames TriantosAlexander CanarioMatt MervisHaydn McGearyJefferson RojasBrennen DavisCristian HernandezJaxon WigginsJosh RiveraDerniche ValdezBrandon Birdsell

I want less ABs from him because he got 429 of them (PAs) last year and gave us 1.4 fWAR, which if you project out to 700 PAs gives you 2.3 fWAR, which would put us right at league average for third base and less than what we did last year, and I think we can do better than that internally and especially externally, and I think he's a really bad fit for us in a role where he gets 90% of the starts at DH.

The quote was "his numbers are not that far from A. Garcia from last year." Emphasis added by me. To his point, it shows the path that Morel can take (and is arguably already of). To my point, it's that there needs to be a not insignificant amount of improvement to turn Morel into a quality contributor.

But the fact that he's the second best hitter on the team (based on last years results) but 6th best in terms of overall value (based on last years results) is kinda the whole argument right? The team's offense is better if Belt's bat replaces Madrigal and Wisdom's bat (though, only against RHPs), but how much of that is lost by replacing Madrigal/Wisdom's glove with Morel's glove? And why is it a Chapman or Belt decision? Belt is going to be much cheaper, a short term deal, and easier to fit into the budget in a world where we 'choose' between Bellinger and Chapman. Get them both. Either way, Morel gets 250 PAs at DH against LH, gets 15-20 starts at second to pace Hoerner/Dansby a little, a handful of starts at third, we're talking about like a 100 PA difference here and he gets to feast on lefties while being sheltered defensively.

Slight disagree on the Adolis Garcia comp, those walk and K rates are not the same, but probably not the point here. I'm not saying it's impossible that he gets better on one or both sides of the ball, but I don't think we're necessarily in a position where we need to rely on improvement from a guy with 850 MLB PAs. Yes he's 24 and hit the ball much harder in 2023 than he did in 2022, but his offensive profile still makes him a clear regression candidate, and so you're trying to avoid that as well as needing defensive improvement. What we did at third base worked last year. It's projected to work again this year. It's ugly, but it's cheap. Setting aside the Chapman/Bellinger/pitcher/PTR is cheap discussion, sign Belt to kill righties, let Morel kill lefties and get another 150 PAs in spot starts, injury situations, etc. Externally, between Cody and Chapman, Chapman is projected to be better, and also be cheaper. I trust PCA to produce more value than Morel, if not immediately, very soon in the future.

Yeah I've come off as probably overly negative to the 24 year old guy with years of team control and a season and a half of 120 wRC ABs. But, to I guess continue that trend, it seems like the path to Christopher Morel, Key Contributor, relies on improvement and I still think the most likely outcome is offensive regression. People keep talking about just getting to mediocre defensively (extrapolating those defensive numbers at third for him make him at least twice as bad as those other (bad) third basemen listed), but gloss over the fact that it's really, really rare (read: difficult) to be an effective hitter with a single digit walk rate and a K rate over 30%. If he can work his way out of at least one of those buckets, great. But it's asking a lot given his history, Injuries happen, and we could do a lot worse than giving him 300 PAs mostly at DH and letting him fill in if needed. Nico or Dansby going down for an extended time as an example. But trying to force him into 3B, where we already have an (admittedly very weird and not aesthetically pleasing) platoon that was effective last year and projected effective this year, not to mention a guy sitting out in free agency that can hit and would make our infield defense historically good, all in the name of like....signing JD Martinez? seems like a lot of work.

Those aren't unique to Chicago/Wrigley though, right?

I just hope that the hardworking Rickett's family, a group of people that, to call them 'born on third' is an insult to everyone else we use that term for, don't give into all this mean fan pressure and pay players more than 'they deserve'. I mean, truly, how much is too much. Writing checks for whole tens of millions of dollars when your family is worth around $4b? Can you imagine if their precious profits started to take a hit, and they'd be forced to consider the unthinkable: selling the team and realizing a profit somewhere in the vicinity of $3 billion? We should just be thankful there's a team to watch.

Also this guy, like an hour ago: "The owners will profit whether they win or lose."

lol this is so horsefeathers pathetic

Hawks and Bedard are really trying to bring the famous Angels tweet into the hockey world. Maybe Celebrini can be the Ohtani to Bedard's Trout next year.

Maybe. You seem to be definitively saying that we're done with this offseason. Those four guys are going to be playing somewhere this year. Most people here think that the Cubs are very clearly near or at the top of the list of teams that make sense for one of them to play for. They haven't signed anywhere yet.

My desire for Chapman has been more based on this hole in the budget than a particular desire for a guy like him. Think him and Bellinger are both above average but very much capped at 'below elite', especially offensively, and we already have 4 of those guys in the lineup locked up. That being said, if you want to map out a path for 'not elite offense but elite overall non-pitching performance', you probably can't do much better than three all world defensive infielders, an 80 grade centerfielder, and (for whatever this is worth), a multiple gold glove winning left fielder.

The correct answer is Matt Chapman starting 140 games, with Wisdom upgraded to a more legitimate veteran bat and Madrigal and Mastro competing for the backup infield spot or maybe there's room for both of them, who knows. That being said, the Cubs got the 11st most fWAR at third last year (2.7), and that's with Jeimer coming in and doing basically nothing there. Is it repeatable? A little tougher to thread that needle than, say, just signing the dude who has produced at a 3.5+ fWAR rate his entire career. But, as Bertz said, there are piecemeal options to hold the fort down for 3-6 months, just don't want to be doing that all over the place.

I mean, what else would you say in this situation? "Still plenty of time, we're 100% going to be adding at least one big name, mark that down as a guarantee, Scott Boras, do you hear me, I'm now legally bound to sign one of your players"? Who cares, it's a press conference.

I'm not basing anything off 19 PAs and however you want to extrapolate that sample size to fielding and running. He was obviously pressing. If you believe in the ability that is reflected in his minor league numbers, you could make the argument that assuring him the center field job is his for the entire season would alleviate a lot of those issues. I'm fine with the arguments about contact rate or whatever. He absolutely doesn't need more time in the minors to work on fielding or baserunning.

Why don't the prospects you're referring to seem to fit in the plans for the future? PCA is months, not years away. You sign Bellinger to an 8 year deal, or even a 4 year deal, you have Happ and Suzuki locked in through 2026, where in your standards does PCA get a sufficient opportunity to develop into a 'solid ML contributor'? If he's an unknown now, he's just going to stay an unknown. If Bellinger is a hedge against PCA not turning into a valuable MLB player, sure, fine. But if that's the case, then you trade PCA now, as a top 20 prospect, because the small increased value you'd get from him destroying AAA for a few months isn't at all worth the downside of him struggling.

It's all dependent on Bellinger signing, and even then I would probably make the argument that PCA should still be on the team. PCA should absolutely be starting over Tauchman if those are your two options. This eventually becomes a more philosophical conversation about how WAR translates to wins (but, in a way, aren't they all?), but looking at the defensive leaders in centerfield from last year, it seems exceedingly easy to accrue WAR, even with below average offensive production, with above average/elite defensive ability. Someone like Joey Wiemer from the Brewers last year is probably an example of PCA's bat being worse than any expectations (his ZIPs line is 246/308/408). Wiemer put up a 212/285/390 line in 362 PAs last year and his defense was still good enough to give him 1.2 fWAR. Even if that is maybe fractionally less than what Tauchman did or projects to give, I think you have to still give the nod to PCA just for future developmental purposes.

Man hopefully Counsell is an expert at telling these bums to save hits for the next game.

This is a weird bit

There isn't really a bat out there that we can afford in addition to Bellinger that would represent a third base upgrade. Belt is a better hitter than those two, brings a lefty into the mix, and wouldn't impact anything long term. But not going to die on that hill because it's probably not much of a difference.

Good point on the DH, give those to Busch or Morel depending on who you like more. Of those 5 full time guys, an outfield injury makes PCA full time, middle infield injury puts Morel at second full time, which is good from a flexibility standpoint for sure. I just don't know if the team loses much offensively by signing like, Gio Urshela to play the Morel role, or just have Mastro play it (and giving Busch more PAs), and then creating some value on the pitching side. But I've also become pretty convinced that the trades just aren't there right now, so who knows.

If they sign Belt, they're giving him the starts at first base against righties until proven otherwise. Which is fine, Busch isn't young but he has a ton of control and no major league success and this would almost definitely be a one year deal for Belt. You can believe Morel should be playing more third, but we have 2023 as pretty clear evidence that the organization doesn't trust his glove there. And they've already been talking up Busch at first. Busch and Morel are better hitters but not so clearly superior at this point to make up for their presumed defensive shortcomings. To TTs point, there's probably a handful of starts for them there, maybe during Imanaga starts or whatever, but not 100.