squally1313

5 teams won 92 or more games this year. They've played 7 games, all at home, and are 0-7. The lesson: take as many playoff shots as you can.

4 losses and you're out after 162 is similarly crazy, honestly. The only way to fairly assign a champion is going Premier League style and ditching the playoffs entirely, which will never happen. Punishing the lesser playoff teams by throwing them into even more of a coin flip/more coin flips is all you can really do.

I think the Twins are getting seriously slept on. Astros rotation is real thin, and the Twins have a bunch of dudes that came up during the year and have put together real solid seasons.

I'd love to tell you that you're wrong on the first one, but you're probably right. Agree on the second part based on your work. Can't fully eliminate injury risk, but set aside the pride they have in their pitching lab/development for one signing and just get a late inning dude who is unquestionably good.

Tom if the Cubs sign Ohtani and trade for Soto who should play first and who should play DH

I think the correct way to phrase the argument for leaving Soto in left field is that it's theoretically easier to find offensive production in the pool of first basemen than it is in the pool of left fielders, and so Soto in left/hypothetical generic first baseman is going to give you a better offensive output in total than Soto at first/hypothetical generic left fielder. But, that doesn't apply here, because Ian Happ exists and is a good hitter for any position and so we're fine.

In theory, yes, but until we catch up to the Dodger's ability to churn out talented players from their system, I don't think we can take the same attitude on free agency and expect to keep up.

What do you mean by 'entitled to'? Freeman signed an 8 year deal that bought out 3 years of arbitration after having one good year (which came after 2 bad ones). Juan Soto making like $25m next year in his last year of team control and being incredible his entire career is not at all the same situation.

I realize that I'm already doing pretty good in these arguments but I want to step back and take a slightly less nuanced approach and say that I absolutely do not give a single horsefeathers about the potential ramifications of the Ricketts paying Pete Alonso $22m in like, 2031 to be a mediocre first baseman. First off, not my money. Second off, you don't give these contracts expecting to extract positive WAR/dollar value every single year of the deal. Pete Alonso will be 29 next year. If he comes here and mashes dongs for 4-5 years during this very openly stated competitive window, I could care less if he turns into 2018 Chris Davis in 2031 and 2032. We'll figure that out later.

Freeman got paid through his age 37 season. Matt Olson through 35. No way Soto, the better hitter, has to take a deal that only pays him through age 33.

Disagree on how those two should be deployed in the field between those two positions, but certainly agree it should have nothing to do with their respective salaries.

What would you pay Freddie Freeman if Freddie Freeman was 26 years old and also walked a ton more and had a .400 wOBA and not a .383 wOBA. Please give the number of years too, not just some total dollar amount. Freeman got $27m a year two years ago.

Ian Happ: plays a perfectly acceptable left field, has played 11 games at first base in his major league career Juan Soto: plays a terrible corner outfield, has played 0 games at first base What part of that would lead you to moving Happ and not Soto?

Juan Soto is a better hitter than Freddie Freeman, pretty comfortably, unless you think that Freeman has just found a way to consistently out BABIP him by 80+ points like he has the last two years. Soto has a better K rate, a significantly better walk rate, he hits more home runs, I could go on. Freeman is a better baserunner. Freeman signed his deal going into his age 32 season, and got 6/162. If you're signing Soto as a free agent going into 2025 at his age 26 season, you should expect, based on the above, to pay him significantly more per year than Freeman got, based on production, lack of expected dropoff, and general inflation. So instead of $27/year, you're paying $35/year. And you would assume he wants a longer contract, because all players do. So make it ten years, at $35m/year, and you're looking at $350m. The last two years combined: Freeman - .364 BABIP, best in baseball by 13 points among qualified hitters, Soto - .273, fifteenth worst in baseball

For the third consecutive year I will be a Kyle Schwarber fan.

My man, Tim posted 25 names and I did the work on the first 20, and it ended up that like 15 of them were worth signing to a 5 year deal from 30-34. And that doesn't include Encarnacion. Just go to the last page. And even beyond that, this is just how contracts work. 'I guarantee Hoyer would love for Swanson's contract to be a few years shorter'. Yeah, ideally you just sign one year deals for everyone and reassess at the end of the year. The Cubs tell Swanson they aren't going beyond 5 years and guess what, we don't have a shortstop who put up 5 WAR this year. Players want security through their 30s and if they are good players someone is going to give it to them. You want elite free agents, you kinda need to play the game.

Lol BBTV has Morel for Alonso as a 'moderate overpay' by the Cubs. DO IT

That's fine with me. He takes Stroman's spot (and his money) after 2024, and we can still pay the dong hitting first baseman to give us, apparently, 15-25 wins from 2025-2030.

Edwin Encarnacion, the 24th player on your list, from ages 30-34: 267/366/533, 189 HRs, 143 wRC, 18.1 fWAR Separately, but also related, this whole "Don't guarantee contracts past age 32 for anyone" should lead to being real successful in free agency.

Looking at those numbers (their fWAR production in their age 30-34 years) above....about 15 of the 20 of them?

Good luck signing anyone if that's the approach

He had the lowest BABIP in baseball and his xwOBA (.372) would have been the highest on the Cubs by 14 points (over Suzuki).

Here's an unorganized plan I would like to see: Given recent rumors, trade for Alonso. Call it $17m for 2024, 2025 and beyond we're past the Stroman, Hendricks, Smyly, Mancini deals. Would not take one of our top guys, but probably a few from the second tier. Sign Bellinger. Tell him he gets to play center field for as long as he wants. Trade PCA for a young, quality starter with a couple years of control. On the trade value site the list of pitchers within 10 points/whatever of PCA is: Logan Gilbert, Hunter Greene, Eury Perez, Pablo Lopez, Framber, Gallen, Bobby Miller, Brayan Bello, Kyle Bradish, Joe Ryan. Andrew Painter if we want to get creative and the Phillies like the idea of PCA shoring up the outfield defense. Think PCA is going to be a really good player. But I don't think you want to make the whole plane out of Nico Hoerners and we already have essentially two. Canario and Mervis have the winter and spring to prove which one should be the DH. If you can get anything of value of Morel, especially on the pitching side, pull the trigger. Wisdom/Madrigal are fine for now at third. Sigh a couple bullpen dudes. Don't know who they are, don't care. Make sure they are good. Rotation is Steele, Stroman, PCA pitcher, Taillon, Hendricks, with Wicks, Ben Brown, Horton (and then the Kilians of the world) in AAA. Bullpen is Azlolay, new bullpen dude x 2, Smyly, Assad, Wesneski, Leiter, Merryweather, Palencia, Keegan, Hughes, Heuer, Cuas I guess, etc Lineup is Happ, Hoerner, Alonso, Belli, Seiza, Swanson, DH, Amaya/Gomes, Wisdom/Madrigal, bench is Gomes, Madrigal, Canario/Mervis, Tauchman

Candelario gave the Cubs a 106 wRC (0.2 fWAR) playing essentially half first, half third, which should not be too hard to replace. We got terrible (sub 300 OBP) offensive production at first base and the DH, in theory the two easiest positions to fill. We basically need to find starters in center (where we have a top 15ish prospect in baseball), third, first, and maybe DH, and we need those four positions plus catcher (just call it 2 fWAR, whatever) to total about 15 wins. That plus 15 from Happ, Dansby, Nico, and Seiya (16.4 this past year) gets you to 30, which would have been 5th in baseball. To 'only' repeat our offensive performance (9th in baseball), we need like 10 WAR from those 5 spots. It shouldn't be too tough on that side of the ball.

Generally confused by him saying 'Taillon was who we thought he was' and also 'he pitched way worse than expected' in the same sentence.