squally1313

For what

I love watching Kyle Schwarber hit postseasons dongs. Kyle Schwarber would have zero postseason home runs from 2021-2023 if he stayed with the Cubs.

Yeah the most non-rational side of me misses Schwarber just because he just looks and acts like he was put on earth to be good at hitting baseballs and terrible at everything else (see also: Castellanos). In a weird way, because I realize the 2021-2023 Cubs teams wouldn't have been noticeably better at all with Schwarber, I'm kinda happy we (poorly) decided to non-tender him and he got to go hit playoff dongs for Boston and Philly. Absolutely flawed, absolutely super fun player. Good for him. That being said, as much as 'not getting the premiere free agent' can be an unequivocal mistake, not getting Bryce Harper was a unequivocal mistake.

I mean, yeah, I was fine with the guy striking out 21% of the time and throwing up a 646 slug. His 25.6% K rate with the Phillies is less ideal, and his 200+ drop in slugging is especially not ideal.

To nitpick, every single person here would have grown beyond tired of Castellanos by now, and probably a long time ago. Dude signed a 5/100 deal and has given them 0.2 fWAR in 1200+ PAs the last two years. .478 OPS in the playoffs last year too. Couldn't have timed his hot streak any better, but he's a combined 268/308/437 for the Phillies.

I'll love him forever, but I just don't think he fits into the plans. He's a guy that you really can't peg as anything higher than a 5th starter on a contending team, and as of now we don't really have a third or fourth starter. Assad isn't it (4.93 FIP as a starter, 4.30 FIP overall), but his stuff plays up out of the pen and he's shown that ability to give you multiple effective innings in relief. I'm fine, pending spring training, giving a slot to Wicks, given his pedigree, youth, past ability to get strikeouts, his profile being kinda perfect for Dansby/Nico, and the fact that he should be stretched out enough to handle most of a full season load (126 innings total this year). Justin and Jameson are fine, though I think Steele got pushed pretty hard the second half and pretty clearly hit a wall, hoping it's not an injury risk going into next year. I think this is the offseason where we need to make significant educated guesses and be right. If you want to ride with Dansby/Happ/Suzuki/Nico (plus a top bat) as your core, then you have a three year window where roughly half your lineup is filled with everyday players. And then you have PCA, Alcantara, Canario, Caissie, Shaw, Triantos I guess, Mervis even more I guess, that other 3B that Tom loves, all sitting in the upper levels of the minors. While I know that 'logjam' will eventually work itself out if given the chance, there are significant holes to be filled on April 1st next year, and these are all pieces who can get us players who can do that. Find a bad teams young, controlled pitcher, give them an outfielder or third baseman they can build around for when their window opens in 2 years. Then do it again. Apologies for being significantly off topic there...to circle back, can't give Kyle $15m knowing what we know about the market, PTR, etc. To reiterate, I will love him forever.

We can't have it both ways. The Phillies won 87 games last year and 90 this year. As mentioned, the Cubs probably outperformed them this year. We can't both confidently declare that the 2023 Cubs team was a clear step below what it took to achieve success but then also say the Phillies Way was successful. The playoffs are a crap shoot. Make it as often as possible, however you go about achieving that goal.

Leafs scored a goal with 6 seconds left to make it theoretically 3-2. I believe the Blackhawks challenged (unless it was automatic) that it was an offsides play, which it was ruled that it was because it was an offsides entry at 51 seconds. So without the review it's 3-2 with a center ice drop, 6 seconds left, after the review it was 3-1 with a neutral zone (Hawks side, right?) drop, 51 seconds left.

16 team playoff would be painful. Would love it just being the 8 division winners, would settle for a 12 team/old NFL playoff model.

Tired: Trade for Juan Soto Wired: Trade for Mike Trout

The Hall injury hurts. Got the feeling Bedard was leaning on him pretty hard to get acclimated. Even more in the deep end now. Encouraging to see them sticking around until the end last night, even though the advanced stats (especially with Bedard off the ice) were very ugly. Back to back against two likely playoff teams at their home opener is a tough way to kick it off. Canadiens should be an easier test, but overall a very rough schedule to start the year.

Is your suggestion to trade one of Happ or Seiya in this scenario? Reteach Happ centerfield? If all three are going to be in the lineup, I want Happ and Suzuki in the corners.

We don't know if it will be bad. Sure, there's a decent chance. If you avoid any long term contracts with a risk of them ending bad, you end up with a bunch of not elite players.

It was an extreme hypothetical to show that there should be more nuance beyond 'I have a max number of years and that's that'. Players occasionally take less annual value to lock up longer term security. The other advantage to spreading out the deal is freeing up cash (and luxury tax space) in the short term. And to reiterate my less analytic stance that I've brought up before, you just aren't going to get me to care about contractual cash obligations in 2030 or beyond. Future problems, plenty of ways to solve them.

Hypothetical: which of the following Alonso contracts would you prefer: 5 years, 100m 8 years, 125m

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/layoffs-havent-hindered-playoff-teams-historically/

I'm going to make a very high level guess (83 wins this year minus Bellinger's 4 makes 79, everyone else is kinda easily replaceable) and say that the 14 WAR he's looking for is to put together a mid 90s win team. That rough math would put us at 93, which is one better than the Brewers 92 this year Couple issues/observations with that: I think the statistics bear out that we were a better team than the 83 win result. The easiest place to point to is run differential, but I think the floor is a little higher than you think. It seems really, really difficult to put together a 93+ win team without ample production from homegrown, cost controlled players. At a certain point, probably soon, we're going to have to rely on a few of the prospects coming up and being major contributors.

If this is a short term reset for the Padres, can we get Seth Lugo too? A mid rotation starter (2.8 fWAR in 26 starts, 3.57/3.83 ERA/FIP) for $7.5m/1 year solves another issue pretty cheaply.

I know this isn't the ideal outcome but he can just be a bad defensive baseball player. He's been in the Cubs system for 7 years as a dude who was never supposed to have his bat carry him. It's a little naive to suggest something along the lines of like 'well why don't we just hit him some groundballs for a few months and take care of this issue'. 'He hasn't had a chance to really work and settle anywhere' makes it seem like he's been a professional baseball player for 7 years spending 40 hours a week in the batting cage. The fact that he hasn't found a single position anyone feels comfortable putting him at is an indictment on him, the organization, or both. The middle infield is filled. Less than zero interest in moving Dansby or Nico off positions they are elite at. Generally agree with TTs assessment, but I think the third option is 'maybe'. I don't think the Cubs should go into next year with Morel as a non-DH starter and a view of 'maybe he can do it'. But I think a rebuilding team can, and I think a team like the Dodgers could too.

AL East went 0-7 in the playoffs this year.

I just can’t imagine they haven’t already tried with Morel. Wisdom was abominable in may and June, madrigal wasn’t much better. He still couldn’t slot in. im pretty sure morel would be like, a third piece in a José Ramirez deal. His contract is super reasonable for his (elite) performance.

I think ultimately we're on the same page then? I don't think he's a very valuable player in his current form. I see paths to him becoming a valuable player, but they mostly require consistent, starter level reps both at the plate and in the field, and I don't think we have the cushion, talent-wise, WAR-wise, however you want to define it, to slot him into our every day lineup next year. And I think, crucially, other teams are in positions to give him the reps he needs. He's a controllable, projectible player who is fun to watch. I think a non-contending team would trade 2 years of a good pitcher for 4 years of Morel. I think a top team up against a punitive luxury tax limit would take the cheap 1.5 WAR knowing that they can make up for it elsewhere. I think we need more next year.

Not sure what to do with 'no stat has enough information to prove me right or wrong' Why are we talking about him as a second baseman? Don't we already have a really good second baseman? Didn't we kinda build the whole thing out of a really good middle infield? Morel took over second base in early July when Dansby went down. Something like 14 games. Dansby got back on 7/22. From that game on, Morel didn't start in the infield until 9/19, and didn't get a middle infield start until the second to the last game of the year (we were out of it, Nico got hurt). In that time we had Wisdom (mediocre defensively at best), Mastrobuoni (who knows), Madrigal (who learned how to play it on the fly seemingly), and Candelario (mediocre) at third. I assume someone in the organization knows what they're talking about when they came to defense, and after his two week run as our starting second baseman he was basically never invited back to the infield. Probably no reason! Any logical person in Morel's shoes would have looked at the roster post Dansby/Cody signing and seen third base as the obvious spot to fill, both in the short term and in the long run. If he couldn't find a way to get substantial playing time there this year, that's a knock against him.

Show your work

Yeah there's no one really out there super intriguing to go pay to take over third base, unless you want to sell the farm for Jose Ramirez. But I also think it's telling that they obviously didn't trust Morel at all at third last year, and I assume that was in the midst of him putting in plenty of work defensively. I guess he's fine as a DH option, would be even better if we found some lefty to take the heavy side of the platoon (Morel was .893 against lefties, .798 against righties). But I think that Wisdom and Morel are pretty redundant, and Wisdom giving you 90% of the offensive production with the ability to moonlight as a mediocre corner infielder makes the difference negligible, so then it's just a matter of getting the most you can by flipping one of them.