squally1313
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Everything posted by squally1313
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Cubs sign Hector Neris to 1yr /$9m with options
squally1313 replied to Jason Ross's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
We should probably pencil that into 2025 when we think about future dollars available right? 90 pitchers threw more than 60 games last year, he's essentially done it the last 5 years (when you prorate out 2020). -
You could make the argument for that as a personal preference, but it would seem to go very against the grain given how much they value up the middle defense.
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Jake Odorizzi as essentially a free flyer is fine. Can never have enough pitching. Rosario doesn't do much for me, Crawford I see the value but when you already have a Madrigal and a Mastro and a Hoerner and Morel/Madrigal/Mastro middle infield plan in case of a Swanson injury, there's probably not any room on the bench for him.
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Kinda forgot he could play outfield too, good call.
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https://blogs.fangraphs.com/projection-fight-club-2024/ Some more discussion about Zips projections and the other options out there, with a few Cubs names (Busch, Chapman, Madrigal, Imanaga) showing up on the 'most controversial' lists. Separately, there's a blurb about Tony Kemp that makes me think he's an intriguing bench option, though I don't think we have the space for him at the moment.
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Just because he gets reps at third doesn't mean he'd be a good first baseman. If that's the case, then we can no longer give Bellinger a point vs Chapman in the 'position versatility' argument for playing first base The rest seems incredibly dependent on the bat. Can he increase the walk rate, decrease the K rate, or validate the 40 HR/year pace he was on last year? If so (ie: if he improves on last year), he can DH, play first, start the 'how valuable is Hoerner in a trade' conversations. If he's a 115ish wRC bat (higher than all of his projections) without a defensive position....that's a DH that starts 100 games while letting the normal starters take 'breaks' there. And honestly trade bait. If he's worse offensively? Get what you can, emergency backup, etc.
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29th in wRC, by far the best offensive projection on the team (Chapman 62, Happ 89, Busch 98, Morel 140, lol Cody 152, Mervis 153, Dansby 162). Just hate his base running and defense.
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The goalposts keep moving. I mean, Zobrist, Heyward, Lackey, and Chapman weren't even on the 2015 team. Travis Wood gave you all of 1.2 fWAR in 2015 and 2016 (all in 2016!). They brought the kids up in 2015, let them sink or swim (KB and Russell have over 500 PAs as rookies, first time for Soler over 100 PAs, rushed Schwarber up), and then figured out where they wanted to supplement from there.
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Dansby projected for 25th, Hoerner for 31st. For anyone who's curious, Happ is 83rd, Busch is 89th, Seiya is 96th in the top 100. So yeah, 7 in the top 100 would be pretty impressive, and more than the Dodgers (5) and Braves (6). However, that again makes the lack of top end talent pretty glaring given that we knew the huge gap in overall talent. Dodgers go 4, 18, 20, 43, 48, Braves go 1, 16, 21, 37, 39, 52.
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I know, the projections are pessimistic, wrong, whatever. But Bellinger isn't projected to be a 3 WAR guy next year, and that is presumably with the computers thinking he'll spend most of his time in centerfield (and crediting him accordingly). So if you want to give PCA a legitimate shot, you're either waiting for an injury, temporary solution, or you just signed a 2.5 fWAR first baseman to a long term deal, $20+m/year deal. Basically: Sign Chapman because we have the money lying around anyways. Win the division with that team. Upgrade from there.
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I guess, to look at it another way, if you want to go all in on immediate success, which is fine....wouldn't you focus on taking those prospects that are all two years away in your mind, but in theory have plenty of value on the market, and trading those guys for immediate contributors? Why beat everyone else on the open market for two non-elite guys when you could consolidate all this talent that isn't ready and you want to block anyways into guys with higher ceilings or more reasonable contract terms? Or is that something else that you don't think Hoyer does?
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I'm pretty confident that we'll be the betting and projection favorite for the division on opening day. We have, based on the rankings that came out today, 5 prospects in the top 50, all of which are in the upper levels of the minor leagues. We currently have zero contracts outside of the dead money on the books this year that annoy me. The next three years are going to be just fine. There's no path to becoming the Dodgers or Braves in the short term, and there probably never was at any point this offseason. Bellinger and Chapman doesn't put us anywhere close.
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Let's pretend that's the case. What's your plan then? Fill the lineup with long term contracts of non-elite guys?
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But neither of these guys are that good. You don't worry about prospects when you discuss Juan Soto or Ohtani or Jose Ramirez or whatever. Chapman is projected as the 29th best offensive player, which seems generous, and Bellinger is projected for the 81st best, which seems pessimistic. Split the difference and these guys are the 50th or so best offensive players in baseball that would be locked in at over $20m a year. And we just took ourselves financially out of any elite talent hitting the market.
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No one treats them like gospel. They're a third party, unbiased projection that people, in my opinion, should prefer over gut instincts or biased/selective memory because on a large scale they will prove closer to being accurate than anything we have.
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The issue with signing both those guys to me is that that's essentially your team for the Dansby Swanson era (final name still to be determined), and there's no chance for me that it turns into a powerhouse. We lose the financial flexibility to pick up elite level talent, and we severely limit the opportunity for any of the offensive prospects to turn into elite talent for the Cubs. I'm generally pro the 2023 team, the current roster, and dealing with having too much talent when we get there. But when your offense through 2026 is Happ, Bellinger, Seiya, Chapman, Swanson, Hoerner, a catcher, a DH, and a first baseman/centerfielder, and you can't afford an elite talent to fill one of those slots, you have an offense without an elite bat and very little chance for one to develop.
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Compared to what? That link had Zips going 17-13 against the Vegas over/under lines, and said historically the average is 19-11. Further down he says the average error on OPS+ is 16 points, and ERA+ is 20. Which, to your point, is a pretty big swing. But....what else do we have to go on? I think compared to most, if not all projection systems, from gut feelings through deep statistical analyses, ZIPs is superior. If we just toss out all prediction models in general, what do we really have to use as support in these conversations? I think even the biggest ZIPS people here acknowledge the limitations. But, as one of those people, I think it's more fun to figure out the 'math' , for lack of a better term, of putting the best team together vs like, comparing personal biases about players.
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This is a small sample size all around, obviously, but using the stat RngR, defined as follows: RngR (range runs): The number of runs above or below average a fielder is, determined by how the fielder is able to get to balls hit in his vicinity. In 560 innings at third Madrigal had a RngR of 1.6, and in 180 innings of third base between 2022 and 2023, Morel had a -1.6 RngR. I don't pretend to know anything about defensive metrics, but going to assume higher is better. Obviously then you could pick at the idea of what 'vicinity' means, which brings me to my next point: For hitting, you have typically have thousands of data points and hundreds of thousands of data points to reference against. For fielding...for me, you kinda just got to trust that they know Morel's bat is clearly superior to Madrigal or Wisdom, they've seen him play defense in the system for like 7 years now, and they still refused to give him more than 5 games worth of time there. I spent years thinking defense was worthless in an era where Ks are up, walks are up, home runs are up. But eventually I just accepted the data, trusted that teams and sites like FG were valuing this stuff appropriately, and bought in.
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Do you want an 86 win team with a ton of flexibility and logical future openings for the farm system we've spent years building, or do you want an 89 win team where you have 6 of the 9 line up spots (the outfield, chapman, dansby, nico) locked in for the next three years at double digit salaries, with 5 of those players being very much on the wrong side of the aging curve? Basically, getting both probably makes us the 2024/2025 division favorite, but I think it greatly diminishes the chance of becoming a Braves/Dodgers type team with this group of players.
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We traded for the biggest bat at the deadline last year and just traded a pitcher in our top ten who was years away for the guy who will most likely be our starting first baseman. What he lacks in historic major league performance, he makes up for in team control, minimum salaries, and absolutely wrecking minor league pitching. There's been like, three trades this offseason with comparable or better prospects included (Soto, Sale/Grissom, maybe this Polanco trade). What you're looking for just doesn't really exist anywhere in baseball. The farm system is good, and deep, and all of those dudes I listed above are certainly capable of helping in 2024. I'm not sure how prospects ever 'prove themselves' in your world where you need established starters at every position on opening day.
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Hayden Wesneski for Hunter Harvey, who says no
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I'm kinda the resident Morel hater and if the MLB forced the Cubs to put up one player for an expansion draft, Hendricks or Morel, I would 100% want Hendricks gone.
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- shota imanaga
- jameson taillon
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Bored, putting off work, etc. An extremely pessimistic view of the 2025 roster is as follows: Offense (years of control remaining): Swanson (5), Nico (2), Happ (2), Seiya (2), Busch (4), either Bellinger (6?) and Wisdom (2)/Madrigal (2) or PCA (4) and Chapman (2?), Morel (4) as the DH, and either Amaya (2-3) or you need to find a catcher Pitching: Steele (3), Imanaga (4), Taillon (2), Wicks (4), Assad (4), and then Azlolay (2) and whoever else (a bunch) This is essentially the team I expect to field in a couple months, where I expect we'll be slight division favorites. Probably looking at roughly $50m in annual salary to add to this This exercise ignores, at league minimum salary and already in the upper levels of the minors: Horton, Shaw, Caissie, Alcantara, Ballesteros, Triantos, Brown, Murray.
