squally1313
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Everything posted by squally1313
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That's like, 2.5 pitchers at most, in an era where you need at least 5, ideally 6 or more. I love Kyle Hendricks more than anyone and absolutely enjoyed his little renaissance last year, but if he's the second starter you're listing off, that means we need a TON of starting pitching.
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There's still a rough fit....PCA hasn't earned a starting role, Bellinger and PCA are almost definitely capable of taking 20-30 starts in the corners. This is mostly devils advocate here, since I think the utility of PCA as a trade asset in a Bellinger future is better than what I'm about to lay out, but: 3B: Wisdom/Madrigal, the end. Reinforce at the deadline if necessary. LF: Happ 130 games, Bellinger 15, PCA 15 CF: Bellinger 100, PCA 60 RF: Suzuki 130, Bellinger 15, PCA 15 1B: Alonso 130, Bellinger 30 DH: Morel 100, Alonso 20, Happ 20, Suzuki 20 That puts you at Bellinger 160 Happ 150 Suzuki 150 Morel 100 PCA 90 If you think that's too down on Morel, give Happ and Suzuki 10 more spots in the corners. Basically: it can work. I think it can also work (better) with Tauchman, Canario, etc playing the PCA role and/or like, a JD Martinez/Justin Turner playing the Morel role plus whatever pitching that gets us.
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I don't know if I would have liked this path on November 1, but I definitely don't mind it now. Keep all the top prospects out of the Alonso and Jansen deals, no problem rolling with Wisdom/Nick/fine I'll mention Morel here at third, and if that Bellinger market collapses, you fit him into the budget comfortably and also now get to decide what to do with a semi-redundant PCA.
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So uhhhh who's going to sign all these free agents?
squally1313 replied to Bertz's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
But they can't. You want to make it more likely that the best teams win the World Series, you either go Premier League style and just give it to the team with the best record, or you have two, maybe four teams make the playoffs and make them play like 21 game series. Both of which will obviously never happen. They aren't going to lengthen the playoffs and they aren't going to cut into regular season games. They tried to give the best teams an advantage with a bye and you had idiots like Brandon McCarthy talking about how the week off was actually a disadvantage. Ultimately if you're going to make every team play at least three series and you realize that in a best case scenario the favored/best team has a 65% of winning each series (probably high), that's at most a 27% of winning it all. There's no real good answer here, and IMB and Rob both made good points in their own ways. Unless you run a perfect farm system and/or you luck into Acuna/Albies/etc and the deals they signed, winning 100 games is horsefeathers expensive (and/or impossible, if you're a small market team that FAs will never sign with). Winning 75-85 games, staying competitive into late summer to pump the attendance and subscription numbers, is way easier and cheaper. -
Blackhawks 2023-24 Season - Bedard luck this year
squally1313 replied to bukie's topic in Other Sports
Feel like they kinda also need to sign their Keith and Seabrook too. -
Yeah but that's too simplistic of a viewpoint right? You're also replacing the roughly 450 PAs that Mervis Hosmer and Mancini gave you at first that produced -1.8 fWAR. You're (hopefully reasonably) expecting Suzuki to be the second half player he was and not the first half player. Same with Taillon. Obviously there will be regressions to counteract that, but the team also underperformed last year so even just the same individual performances would likely add up to more wins than what they had in 2023.
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You can argue/doom boner that the Cubs simply won't spend the money. Fine, I hate Ricketts too. But to say they are running on out realistic scenarios is just wrong. Let's say they have $60m to spend in AAV. Here are available players that get slot into positions of need (first, center, third, DH, starting pitching), their projected AAV, and projected fWAR. Montgomery, $21m, 3.2 fWAR Snell, $25m, 3.3 fWAR Imanaga, $20m(?), 2.6 fWAR Chapman, $20m, 2.6 fWAR Stroman, $22m, 2.6 fWAR Bellinger, $24m, 2.4 fWAR Giolito, $15m, 2.3 fWAR Paxton, $8m, 2.3 fWAR Hoskins, $14m, 2.0 fWAR Manaea, $12m, 2.0 fWAR Montas, $8m, 1.9 fWAR Soler, $16m, 1.9 fWAR Bader, $9m, 1.6 fWAR Most of those dudes, especially the first 10 or so, would be clear upgrades to our current roster. And that's before considering the fact that we have a top farm system, a pretty hectic 40 man situation, and an expectation to win now (ie, all good trade conditions).
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Yes Nice, good for you. Games don't start for over 3 months.
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I would be willing to wager a lot of money that there will be at least one starter in the rotation or the lineup that currently isn't on the roster. This is just pessimism for the sake of pessimism.
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Lol at the last sentence. This place got a pretty impressive infusion of doom boners this offseason. I'm still pretty optimistic that by March we'll have put together a team that is favored to win the division. There's still more than enough paths to that end. No, we won't match up to the Dodgers or the Braves, but we were never going to in 2024 regardless. I wish we would have made a big swing, but there's room in the budget and relatively easy upgrades to be made to last years team to cancel out the losses.
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You're more optimistic than I am. Let's hope so.
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Good call, was just reading off Fangraphs for AAV. Digging a little deeper, he deferred $57m interest free until 2028-2040, which reduced the present value to $148m, so it's technically like $24.7m for most purposes.
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Freeman got 6/162 (25/year) going into his age 32 season and coming off fWARs of 4.4, 3.2 in covid year, and 4.9. Matt Olson got 8/168 (21/year) going into his age 28 season and coming off fWARs of 4.1, 0.6 in covid year, and 5.0. Both of those deals have looked really good, generally from an increased quality in play. Last year there weren't any primary 1Bs out there under 30 or nearly as good. Rizzo (33) got 2/40 coming off a 2.5 year, Abreu (36) got 3/58 coming off a 3.8 year. You would definitely say that Freeman and Olson are worth more than their contracts, but that's because they are 6-7 WAR players based on their 2023 performance, with wOBAs 40+ points higher than what Bellinger put up in 2023.
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Do you think there's enough money in the budget for a Bellinger/Hoskins/Montgomery offseason? Per FG projections, that's adding $59m in salary next year from those three. Feel like that's already in the upper limits of where we think they're willing to spend, and that's with no other signings (bullpen, etc). Trades for Bieber/Cease/etc are doable but you're pulling your top trade pieces off the table. Do we want PCA as the fourth outfielder for two years if it means that Horton has to go to get a good enough pitcher?
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Blackhawks 2023-24 Season - Bedard luck this year
squally1313 replied to bukie's topic in Other Sports
Bedard goes out and gets 2 points by himself last night. It remains pretty clear/concerning that the Hawks need roughly 8-12 actual NHL caliber players to fill out the roster, and you wonder how they're going to do that quickly and effectively now that it's pretty clear that Bedard doesn't need much seasoning. -
This outcome is totally fine offensively (and honestly, given where we're at so far, would be a pretty good outcome for the offseason). And I agree that I was probably coming off as putting too much emphasis on the mythical best 9 man lineup that can tossed out every day with no injuries. My issue with a Bellinger and Hoskins signing coupled with PCA starting in Iowa, on the bench, platooning, etc is that it heavily implies that very little was done to address the short term needs on the pitching side. You throw that kind of money at Hoskins and Bellinger and you take Morel and PCA off the table in trade talks and you're limiting yourself on what you can get pitching wise unless you start talking about Horton or a significant amount of the pitching depth we've built up. Basically, in a world where Taillon and Hendricks aren't fighting for the role of #2 starter, very much agreed you can roll out that group of guys and everyone would get plenty of ABs. But instead of giving them each 135 games, give 5 of them 145 games, give the rest to Tauchman, and get yourself someone to slot in behind Steele.
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But assuming the market doesn't totally collapse for Bellinger, you'd still be outbidding everyone for a centerfielder and then pushing him down the spectrum a year into his 6-8 year deal. There's no realistic projection for Bellingers offensive production that puts him as an elite first baseman and you'd be paying him more than anyone else who plays the position. Moving him to a corner outfield spot just pushes Suzuki or Happ (two above average but not elite offensive players) down the spectrum as well. To clarify this and my above post, none of this is a shot at PCA, and none of this is based on his 2024 MLB performance. This is a function of the players available in free agency, the roster spots currently open/locked in, and the fact that we already have two cornerstones who glove their way to elite production, and I'd like to complement that with someone who will slug their way there.
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Yeah I think the main argument for Bellinger is that, mainly given the current roster makeup, Bellinger represents the best use of $150m-$200m, with the secondary argument being that a PCA trade opens up the potential options significantly. The team needs offense. PCAs like, 90% ceiling is probably a center field Hoerner, so even in the best of outcomes you're still looking at another glove first guy. A very valuable glove first guy, to be clear, but you're really starting to test the limits of how you want to get to that 40-45 fWAR number. We need to figure out a way to find an offensive upgrade, but he can't play short, second, left, or right. You aren't going to pay a first baseman $200m (because, in my opinion, using Freeman and Olson's contracts as benchmarks, there are no $200m first basemen available), the best third baseman upgrade is a glove first guy not worth that kind of money, the only real DH option went to the Dodgers, and catcher there's obviously nothing. Bellinger represents premium offensive production relative to centerfielders. And PCA represents maybe the most valuable trade chip out there for a team looking to rebuild, cut costs, etc.
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I think I'd be fine with Gio on a short term deal, but not sure I'd want to lock up his lack of ceiling for that long. Give him like 2/35, give him a chance to go prove it and land a big free agent deal.
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It kinda sounds like you want the right to post whatever you want, but you don't want other people to have the right to respond. You made a couple posts criticizing Jed in response to the Matsui signing, I responded by essentially saying your criticism was dumb and/or tiresome and/or misplaced. Freedom to post applies to everyone right? You're free to post your thoughts, I'm free to respond that your thoughts are bad.
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No one is policing anything. People are criticizing your posts.
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If you're still stuck on the breather/break thing, apologies. All I was doing was saying that I thought your particular opinion there was bad, which I think is fully in bounds in a message board/discussion setting. I'm not sitting here responding to every one of your posts with some sort of attack. But you posting your opinions and then me posting the opposite opinion without any sort of interaction isn't a discussion. I'll try to focus my responses on the content and limit the snarkiness, but if people disagree with my takes I'd rather they call me out on it than just ignore me. Otherwise I wouldn't be posting here. Edit: And apologies to everyone for being a major contributor in bogging down this thread. I, maybe sadly, think there's value in these kind of discussions, but probably don't belong here. Will leave it alone after this.
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I'm much sadder in that I usually stay away I'm drinking and if you see me on here late at night it's almost definitely because I'm swamped with work, angry about that, and using this to procrastinate even more.
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Zips had them as a 78 win team, Pecota had them as a 75 (was 77 until it updated for Seiya's spring injury) win team,
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Would I rather have a dead board or a board where people used every minor signing as an excuse to trash the Cubs, the team we are supposedly fans of? Man, such tempting options with apparently no other path. i keep thinking about this narrative that the cubs have this theoretical limit, and how the most recent example is last offseason, where they, to fit that narrative, cheaped out on the shortstop market…as if Dansby didn’t go out and put up the best season out of all those options. And somehow that isn’t a good thing. Jed put together a team last year that exceeded projections, that by advanced metrics played like a 90 win team, and we’re still currently in a position where there’s about a dozen paths to opening the year as the division favorite with a top five farm system. Which in my mind is not bad? But it’s not the dodgers, so apparently the whole thing is broken.
