squally1313

As mentioned before, Cubs were offensively above average, if not elite, in April (2nd), July (5th), August (10th), and September (7th). They were bad (or 'flopping') in May (21st) and June (16th). Deeper dive into the May-June stretch: The Good/Fine (over 100 PAs): Morel 147 wRC Happ 110 wRC Swanson 107 wRC Tauchman 106 wRC Seiya 104 wRC Madrigal 96 wRC Hoerner 93 wRC The Bad (over 99 PAs): Mancini 78 wRC Gomes 73 wRC Wisdom 50 wRC Bellinger 54 wRC Mervis 46 wRC

Cubs offense in August: 103 wRC (11th in baseball), 4.1 offensive fWAR (10th in baseball) Cubs offense in September: 111 wRC (7th in baseball), 5.6 offensive fWAR (7th in baseball) Cubs for the seaason: 104 wRC (12th in baseball), 24.8 offensive fWAR (9th in baseball) What about that group didn't "finish the season"?

My immediate reaction is that PCAs trade value far exceeds Clase's, but the Trade Value site loves Clase. This trade came out as about perfectly even: PCA and Wesneski Clase, Bieber, Josh Naylor Obviously contingent on a Bellinger signing. That trade adds $23m, call it $25 for Bellinger and you're still under most projections. Opening day looks like this: LF Happ 2B Nico CF Belli RF Seiya SS Dansby 1B Naylor DH Busch/Morel C Gomes/Amaya 3B Wisdom/Madrigal/Busch/Morel Bench/DH: Amaya, Madrigal, Busch, Morel, Tauchman/Canario. Realistically there's a trade here to jettison someone from the Wisdom/Madrigal/Morel group and give a spot to someone else who can play outfield. Steele Bieber Imanaga Taillon Wicks Hendricks Bullpen: Clase, Azlolay, Merryweather, Smyly, Leiter, Almonte, Assad (Little, Cuas, Brown, Brewer, Palencia, Thompson, Rucker)

I think its more that your expectations of 'consistent offense' are unrealistic in modern baseball outside of the extreme outliers (ie Braves). The 2023 Cubs were not uniquely inconsistent, or uniquely running hot and cold. Yes, they weren't consistently good last year. Neither were 28 of the other 29 teams (and Braves ended up with like, 38 games scoring 3 or less too).

Rangers had scored 0-3 runs 63 times in 2023 as well. So the Cubs came in below the average of the World Series teams this year. But it's a big number, so they are Bad.

-Here are a bunch of teams that had a lot of regular season and/or playoff success that put up similar numbers to the Cubs in the stat that you cited. This list excludes the Braves, who put up a 125 wRC in 2023, which has only been matched in the modern era by the 1927 Yankees. -Well yeah, but what about the Braves

The Cubs scored more than 10 runs 24 times this year. The Braves did it 20 times. Hopefully they went into this offseason trying to improve their roster to have the kind of potential to explode offensively in a game like the Cubs did.

Phillies had 61 games of scoring 3 runs or fewer. Dbacks had 64 games Brewers had 69 games Orioles had 64 games Do I need to keep going?

It's important to remember here that Jed Hoyer took over the team at the end of the covid year, 2020, at which time Ricketts was claiming 'biblical' losses, the team was coming off a technical playoff appearance, and really, things were just weird big picture (the biggest offseason signing across baseball was George Springer for 6/150, only three players got over 100m). His two significant signings that year were Joc Pederson (28 years old, 1/7) and Arrieta (34 years old, 1/6). It was very much a 'one last run with the core' season, and we all know how that went, but my bigger point is that it was a strange offseason, no one was totally sure what 2021 would look like etc. 2022 was projected to be, and ended up being, a very bad team. No real point in signing veterans, and no real point for the veterans to want to sign here. Of the signings going into 2023, still very much considered a bridge year, Taillon, Smyly, Mancini, Barnhart, Boxberger, Hosmer were all in their 30s. All of this to say that we really don't know what preferences Hoyer has based on past performance, because he's never ran a team in the middle of their competitive window. No one really thought too much about Imanaga because we were all focused on Shohei and Soto, and I assume absolutely no one saw the Busch trade coming.

There are a lot of ways to figure out improvement, and the idea that nothing matters until we get to this 'baseline' of last season is a flawed way of thinking. First off, we were 9th in offensive fWAR last year. We won 83 games and underperformed according to most metrics. Second, there's built in improvement just by not giving Mancini, Hosmer, and 2023 Mervis like 400 PAs at a premium offensive position. The theoretical step down from Bellinger to PCA isn't 'whatever Bellinger did last year'. Etc etc A single bullpen pitcher, all 50-60 innings of him, does not move any needle significantly. Mervis and Busch threw up pretty much identical MLB lines in 80-100 PAs last year. However, in 440-460 AAA PAs: AAA Busch: .323/.431/.618, 13.9% BB, 18.8% K AAA Mervis: .282/.399/.533, 15.2% BB, 22.7% K Those are not the same hitters. Busch might be an even better AAAA guy, and I'm not super thrilled about the idea of just handing him the first base job when someone like Hoskins is sitting out there. But there's more support for Busch being a better hitter than Mervis.

I was actually referring to Morel, though I should probably be consistent and apply the same statement to both from a big picture. With Morel specifically there's been enough data posted here about the quantity of opportunity he's gotten at third base in the minors and how poorly it went strictly from an errors perspective, and then obviously we saw how much they tried to avoid playing him there in Chicago. As for Busch, it's a weird trade if they don't think his glove plays anywhere beyond a passable first baseman given that Morel and his 5 years of control exist and the poor man's Busch is the starting first baseman for Iowa and it's a really high upside arm they gave up to get him. There's a chance, I guess, that they see Busch as a clearly superior hitter to Morel, which I'm not going to get too into because everyone (probably especially myself) is already pretty dug in on what they think of Morel. My one sentence opinion on that comparison is that anyone who runs 30+% K rates has a really narrow path to success, but also he's got 850 PAs with a 114 wRC, which you can't ignore. Or they just really, really wanted a left handed bat.

If he had any potential to be a good defender, he probably should have become one by now.

And here I was told we needed to sign like 10 WAR worth of players just to get back to where we were last year. Turns out we have like $50m to spend and are about 1 player away from being division favorites. Oh well, hopefully Jed wakes up from his hibernation soon!

Not a shot, but this is really funny coming from someone who's been a huge Morel proponent around here.

Would really love to know which 4 teams he wanted included on the NTC

Our rotation was 8th in fWAR, it was the bullpen where things really fell apart. Obviously that hasn't really been addressed in terms of new players, but the hope is for increased health, a couple signings, Counsell > Ross for whatever reason, etc.

No issues with the concept of a six man rotation, but think if we go that route I want another at least semi reliable starter, not Assad, to fill it out. None of these are serious problems on their own, but when you consider: Outside of Steele not sure how often we want these guys getting into a third time through the order situation With the 13 pitcher max you're limiting yourself to 7 pen guys and just moved your best swing man to the rotation Assad's top level numbers look about the same in a starting and reliever role but his FIP was 1.2 runs better as a reliever Just generally: get more pitchers. You need so many of them these days, and clearly the top teams (Dodgers, Braves) are planning to mix and match throughout the year. Imanaga signing for what he did, based on the rumors, opens up a lot of options (at least until Bellinger and Hoskins sign elsewhere). Would have liked Shohei or Soto, but like where we're at for the time being.

Guess Jed finally woke up from his nap lol am i right guys

Dodgers are most certainly involved somehow.

I mean....it's one thing to focus on increasing interest in the actual game of baseball (you know, the sport itself, and also the thing people pay money to watch/consume). Do you really think it's possible to turn the MLB offseason into some financial windfall or win over The Youths by like, forcing Jordan Montgomery to sign early? Look around here, it's not exactly a bunch of young people complaining about the lack of moves. I get that usually ends up being a letdown and has especially been one for Cubs players this year, but, uh, the players don't really owe us anything and all you'd be doing is giving the owners more leverage. That's not the say that Manfred wouldn't want to do that, but I don't think we should be pining for it just to make our workday message board posting more exciting.

Well yeah but who cares about them, think of how bored we've been on this thread for the last two months

You can make an argument for it. But the 108 wRC he's projected for is based on a .330 wOBA, which is one point off his .331 xwOBA last year. Happ's projections were regressed too.

Is this purely from an entertainment standpoint? Or are there potential benefits to the players by limiting the window?

That's fine....make Bellinger 70 in CF and PCA 90 then, and give Bellinger all of PCAs corner starts. It was a quick exercise.

We can't assume that though, and the couple projections that are out for 2024 on Fangraphs actually have Happ as the better hitter (mostly driven by walk rate, where Happ's was almost double Bellinger's last year), 112 to 108. As much as you can 'predict' health, Happ has missed 20 games in the last 3 years (8 in his last 2), compared to Bellinger's 117 (50 in his last 2).