squally1313

An average starter is significantly more valuable than a high end reliever. You have to give Thompson a shot to start.

Those are not the same players. They don’t have to be the same to be similar. As a QOable upcoming next year FA there’ll be plenty of talk about how Devers is also Actually Not That Good too I can guarantee that there won't be any talk about him being 30 years old.

I get that you can't ignore all that sweet team control, but are we really going to let Chris 'I have a .616 OPS in the second half and +30% K rate for the year' Morel hold up any sort of plans to acquire all star level players?

Those are not the same players.

ALL IN Yeah can I be a naive, optimistic Cubs fan for a second and imagine these guys all starting their careers right when the Cubs had their (much too short) era of dominance and they want to get in on the ground floor of version 2.0. Terrible english there, but you get the point.

Mets are, as of like an hour ago, -425. Which is about as high as I've seen a baseball game.

Unfortunately.

Liverpool down 3-0 at half and it really should be 5.

So we are just picking and choosing now? He's a good hitter. Just because he has good peripherals now does not mean he will next year. See his performance in 2019 compared to 2020 and 2021. Or his performance in the first half this year to the second half of this year (somehow didn't quote that one!). I don't think he will remain the hitter that he is now. I could be wrong! But the rest of his career counts, as much as you pretend that it doesn't, and there's roughly 100,000 data points that make up a pretty reliable aging curve for baseball players. Of course there are outliers there (see Willson Contreras in 2022). But you generally want to assume the things that happen more often than not will happen in the future. Apologies for not offering a comprehensive alternative plan, but I don't think that's necessary to further my point of 'I don't want to commit to a long term contract to a catcher/DH in his 30s, even though it would be cool because he's sweet'.

We're one page off from you agreeing with the 2022 periphs being in line with the jump in/breakout performance this year. He's 30 now and is past days of league leading defensive workloads, so what's the hold up? Why didn't he collapse this year? This 115-118 / 30+ combo you're riding is already 0/1 on age 30 seasons! No idea the Baez/Pujols context or relevance :dontknow: I was simply saying that he wasn't BABIPing his way to this performance, which might have been misthinking it because the stats we were referring to were normalizing it. His underlying 2022 numbers are solid. You are not signing 2022 Willson Contreras. You are signing 2023-2026/2027 Willson Contreras and are trying everything you can to determine what that guy looks like. You could, on your end, look at his numbers this year, say this is legit, this is the kind of hitter he is now, let's go get him. In that mindset, you're probably also trying to talk Pujols out of retirement to give you something close to his 140 wRC this year, or if you're the Tigers GM you're trying to cut Baez or sell him for scraps because that 78 wRC is pretty unplayable going forward. Or, maybe, you can look at a slightly bigger picture. I'm going with option B personally. You do realize that 'he doesn't catch nearly as much anymore!' isn't helping your case the way you think it might be right? I guess that's what you were getting at earlier, that this shift away from catching is the key to the increased offense and therefore this switch is permanent and he can go from an above average offensive catcher at 115 wRC to an above average DH at 130? I just don't think he's going to be that kind of hitter going forward (and yes, again, I know he's that kind of hitter now, maybe*). *86 wRC since July 1. Which, I hate shortening sample sizes! But if we're going to continue to laser focus on the last 5 months, I'll point out the last 2. (And then you can point to 125 wRC since August 1. etc etc etc)

Contreras by wOBA: .368 (2019) .363 (2016) .362 (2017) .359 (2022) He's running a .273 BABIP in 2022 to go with that .362 xwOBA, ran .300+ BABIPs those other years Juan Soto has a .409 OBP, .387 wOBA, .415 xwOBA, a 150 wRC+....What's not completely studly about that? Are we wOBA fans now? Here I was going along with wRC, but sure, if it fits your argument, let’s switch over. Could we say that his best days are behind him? Or are we only interpreting certain stats certain ways. Do Javy please. Or how about pujols.

I think this is where a good portion of the schism lies. Contreras has a 132 wRC+, which, for catchers, is #1 in the NL and #2 in MLB behind Alejandro Kirk. If you are #1 in the league, that's elite, right? I don’t understand how this argument keeps coming up. We have more than 5 months of data to go on. Do whatever kind of weighted trend line you want, this is the best he’s ever performed. Are we just throwing out career performance now when projecting future ability? Is Soto just an above average player and not the complete stud hes been for the rest of his career? No, probably not! You good projecting Javy as an 80 wRC guy the rest of his career? I would love to sign 2022 Contreras to a long term deal. That’s not who you’re getting!

I mean, I understand that we can trade our good hitters for prospects and then use those prospects to bolster the roster, either via trade or by calling them up. I would simply argue that, as currently constructed, and considering how few good offensive catchers there are currently in MLB, that signing Willson Contreras to a reasonable contract, if possible, would be a smart move. If the dude demands 6 years, by all means, good luck and godspeed. If 3-4 years @ ~20/yr is possible, bring him back. It will go a long way toward lengthening that lineup. If my choices are: Turner @ 35/yr + Hoerner + Hedges or Hoerner + Madrigal + Contreras @ 20/yr, I'll take this one and use the $$$ toward the rotation or Bell or something <---- I'd take Turner over Madrigal + Contreras going forward, along with A. hoping they can find a catcher who actually produces value (unlike Hedges) for $5ish million and B. taking advantage of either the increased flexibility of having Turner/Hoerner/Madrigal up the middle or seeing if you can get something of value for Madrigals 4 more years of team control. Contreras is a good, if not elite offensive catcher. He's below average defensively, which in total puts him comfortably in the "above average but not elite" group of catchers. That's his current form....all reasonable expectations say that he will trend downwards. I don't know a good way of saying that a good offensive catcher is not close to the top of list of priorities, but it's where I am. You just need offense. Paying $20m/year to hope your above average catcher remains an above average catcher seems like not the best use of resources.

More broadly, the path from 56-75 to legitimate contender is not through a substitution and then another 1-2 FAs. One of the main reasons the lineup looks this bad is because instead of keeping (and potentially extending) good hitters, we traded them for prospects. Prospects that turned our system good, and can (hopefully!) either contribute to the Cubs sooner rather than later or be used to trade for players who can (again, hopefully!) help immediately. Throwing out that lineup without including any of the top prospects in the system or factoring in potential trades of those top prospects isn't quite a fair analysis. And ultimately, if those prospects stink and lose value, we're probably screwed whether or not you slot Contreras into that catching slot or not.

Well, we will have Happ for next year. I don't think that's all the money that's available, and doesn't seem like it would be a ton of money to upgrade a corner infield position. And then yes, you're relying on Davis et al to upgrade the other spots.

Since we both agree the periphs back it up, what does it matter if it's a career year? Why/How is it bad to be a career 115 wRC+ hitter in nearly 3000 ML careers PAs (mostly at a position running a 88 wRC+ since he joined the league) before having what, again we both agree the periphs match up, a legitimate leap in performance coinciding with a dramatic change in usage and roster construction (more in line with a typical 2022 contender)? It feels worth pointing out this 131 wRC+ is not so far from the 27 point difference between his 115 and the position's 88 wRC+ since 2016. It's seems like not a total coincidence given the circumstance Stuff like career year and long term are noise. No one's having much trouble moving the back end of even a 115 wRC+ DH contract and if this whole deep farm thing is real that's not even a thing - FanGraphs' DEF has him at +13.9, DRS at +11 (including +8 in 2021 and a whopping -1 in 2022), he's +20 career in their SB metric, and combined is all of -9 in framing runs the past two seasons (-41 in his career) - Which position cheaply? Cubs DHs have a 110 wRC+ and that's with Contreras. Catcher? They've used 3 this year with Contreras on the roster and signed Gomes on a cheap, short deal. It's not unlikely they bring in someone cheap and low commit like Hedges or Barnhart in the offseason either - The DH is a full time position. Why is this is a bad thing for Cubs and Contreras? - Why is the 34th best hitter in baseball by wRC+ bad? These are not real things to worry about - It's not a lump sump contract. They can sign other stars and have plenty of room to do so! - The closest to a specific player mentioned here is Ohtani which...why would Willson Contreras be the reason they're *out* on Ohtani and not in? These elite players we all want on Cubs don't want to come to these lame, nobody filled rebuilds from a franchise who seemingly regularly tosses elite players aside because 30 - I don't have any idea what point you're trying to make on the wRC difference thing. His offensive production is very good for a catcher. He's going to catch less and less each year, and will spend more time at positions that produce better offense. -Anytime, ever, you want to at least acknowledge that players regress as they get older, even setting aside that's been a horsefeathering catcher for the last 15 years so throw some sort of multiplier on the number of innings he's accumulated, would be great. Taking a 30 year old, career 117 wRC hitter and just penciling in 115 wRC for the next 4 years is not how those things are done. -I've yet to find a way to sort catcher defense on FG that doesn't put him near the bottom of the list of catchers in terms of defensive value added. A mediocre, even 'bad' defensive catcher is still more valuable than say, an average defensive first baseman. But, again, he will give you less and less of that going forward. -Fill catcher cheaply, leave yourself some flexibility to see who becomes available, who develops, etc. I think there are better ways to spend your money. -Because you think he's the 34th best hitter in baseball going forward, and I don't. He's been the 51st best hitter in baseball the last three years, and he's 30. -We have no idea how much room they have. But we have a pretty good idea it's limited. Go find better players. Go trade for a young pitcher and sign him to an extension with Contreras money and pitch Ohtani on that. Or pick a shortstop. Or do like 7 other things instead.

No, it wouldn't. He has a .359 wOBA and .362 xwOBA, a .246 BA and a .253 xBA, a .471 SLG and a .460 xSLG(so still a .200+ IsoSLG)...while running a 131 wRC+. He's at 3.2 fWAR right now! His defense is also being mischaracterized or at least lacks nuance. He's got plenty of arm for the position, only ever really hurt the Cubs in 2018 while catching 1100+ innings (never close to that before or after, includes that month stretch with no dayoff and injured backups)...and again this in a MLB where any team competing is multiple impact players deep at the position...he's caught 591.1 inninigs coming into tonight for 2022 What even are they *supposed* to get for 4/80? A full time plus defensive catcher who projects to 126 wRC+? 3 WAR a season? 4? Would it be inefficient for the Deepest Farm System to fill in a team around Contreras? If it's deep how or why would or could One Man stopping it from happening? I could have made the Happ thing a separate post or not at all You know it's a career year, I know it's a career year, everyone else here knows it's a career year. I'm not saying it's not legit, the peripherals back it up. But it's absolutely above anything he's done before and it's pretty foolish to disregard the rest of his career (or even just 2020 and 2021, where he put up matching 110 wRCs after a 126 wRC in 2019) in any of these exercises, especially when we're debating the merits of a long term deal for a 30 year old. I'm not going to pretend to know all the nuances of defensive metrics, but he rates out as below average at best for catchers, and him moving to DH more doesn't help that. Fill the catching position cheaply, and without any long term commitments. If Amaya or your boy Hearn or whatever becomes a stud, great! If not, keep filling it cheaply. Giving a long term deal to someone who will most likely age into a DH role, and also in his best offensive performance of his career is the 34th best hitter in baseball by wRC doesn't seem like the best way to spend somewhere shy of $100m given the multiple black holes in the rotation, at the corner infield spots, etc. Or, looking at it differently, it's somewhere like 1/3rd to 1/2 of pick your absolute favorite player available in FA or stuck in Anaheim, all of which are players I'd much rather use that farm system to build around.

Sorry, forgot this weird tangent. Um, maybe? He's going to make like $9m next year with no long term commitment, so I'm not sure this is an apples to apples thing? But...if the deal is right? I liked him a lot better when he could at least fake centerfield (and obviously when he was Sorianoing on offense). But I don't think he'd get you a whole lot on the market so...take the cheapish maybe production until Davis gets here and then figure out a way to utilize his hot streaks somehow.

Other than 30+ and glancing at 115, what’s not to like about Contreras’ bat moving forward? He’s got a better than league average CSW% and K rate this year (big jumps are good!), hits the ball hard (116 max EV is a career high), takes walks, hits HRs…The only hole in his offensive game is a 50% GB, and it's entirely possible that's an area the Cubs can improve overall (since they're among the few worst) without losing an overall impact bat There's a bit of bird in the hand thinking but also a DH capable catcher or catcher capable DH is a very Future player too (he's also taken innings at 1B, both COFs, and even an inning 3B in 2021). All the good teams are 2+ deep (Zunino/Mejia, Smith/Barnes, Realmuto/Stubbs, Kirk/Jansen/soonMoreno, Trevino/Higashioka, Grandal/Zavala/Mcguire, so on) at catcher now, Contreras can hit with any of those guys (plus gives them the flexibility to sign and roster someone like Hedges to play defense), aaaaand we all seem to agree he's going to be cheap. Even if it's just him signing the QO ---- BTW Ian Happ with a 29% K rate in the second half entering tonight (152 PAs)...has a K in 3 PAs tonight...Are the Cubs trading him in the offseason? I mean, sign me up for the QO. I sorted the FG leaderboard by offensive value, just to see what someone with his bat but negative defensive value gives you, and the first name that popped up was Rhys Hoskins, career 126 wRC+ hitter, noted defensive liability. 126 wRC+ would be an exceedingly generous projection for Contreras' bat going forward. Rhys Hoskins, who generally gets significantly more PAs than Contreras has or will, has never put up more than a 2.5 fWAR. And yeah, maybe Contreras as a mostly DH/sometimes catcher in a couple years doesn't end up with the real bad defensive ratings, but split the difference between that and an actually realistic offensive projection and you're left with similar overall production. And...two 2 WAR guys are good! We need more of them! Is something like that worth $80m for four years? I'd hope we could find that more efficiently (eyeing The Deepest Farm System We've Ever Had). And again, this is all ignoring the less quantifiable parts of this, both good (he is the man and would most likely provide intangible value somehow) and bad (see: Jason Heyward 2019-2022).

I might have picked the wrong post to quote, but my overall point stands. 'The market not coming together' essentially means no team thinks he's worth a six figure contract. There are a few obvious reasons for that. Say what you will about defensive catching metrics, but Willson has never rated positively there, and he certainly would be worse at another position or spending more time as the DH. The career 115 wRC+ compares favorably to the current 107 wRC+ coming out of the DH spot this year, but I don't know if it's an advantage you want to pay $20m or so a year for, and it's also something you probably need to regress as he continues to slide down the age curve. Absolutely, if he's 90% or more of what he's doing this year, go for it. But I think if this wasn't Willson Contreras, Cub Legend, we were talking about, this would be a different conversation. I think there is some value in having that influence around, whether it's measurable or not. Maybe I've been brainwashed by living in STL for too long but there's a marked difference in how the Cards perform when Molina is around vs. when he's not and I really think there's something mental to it, whether it's accountability or confidence or whatever myriad of other things it could be and I think we saw some of that last night with the conversation he had with Morel before he hit the HR. Is it worth an extra year or an extra couple million per? I don't know, but Jed and Co. get paid a lot of money to determine whether it is or not. Sure, I don't disagree there, and there's probably a weird, meta offshoot of that conversation along the lines of 'baseball is entertainment, and Cubs fans love and are entertained by Willson Contreras, which is worth X'. I just think some of that more...theoretical benefit is showing through what is otherwise a conversation about how good he will be at winning baseball games on a go forward basis.

Yeah, some weird dissonance on the 'actually every team is going to think he's maybe going to suck or at least get significantly worse, so this is actually an opportunity for us' reasoning I’m not understanding the all catcher or no catcher mentality. He’s got a 131 wRC+ this year doing less catching but not doing zero catching. From the sounds of it, JD’s comments at least, that’s what an extension would look like Also the career 115 wRC+ is like 30 points above what the position’s done. It’s not a straight 115 for the purposes of forecasting or even projecting Contreras in a less straightforward role I might have picked the wrong post to quote, but my overall point stands. 'The market not coming together' essentially means no team thinks he's worth a six figure contract. There are a few obvious reasons for that. Say what you will about defensive catching metrics, but Willson has never rated positively there, and he certainly would be worse at another position or spending more time as the DH. The career 115 wRC+ compares favorably to the current 107 wRC+ coming out of the DH spot this year, but I don't know if it's an advantage you want to pay $20m or so a year for, and it's also something you probably need to regress as he continues to slide down the age curve. Absolutely, if he's 90% or more of what he's doing this year, go for it. But I think if this wasn't Willson Contreras, Cub Legend, we were talking about, this would be a different conversation.

Yeah, some weird dissonance on the 'actually every team is going to think he's maybe going to suck or at least get significantly worse, so this is actually an opportunity for us' reasoning

I haven't started it yet but I've heard very good things. In terms of the whys, I'm pretty sure it's not a thing they did just to do the documentary, they've sunk serious money into the club(e.g. they brought in a striker who was successful at a higher level and went down a rung to play for Wrexham) so there's no ROI to be had. And because they've sunk money into the team my guess is it will work out okay for all parties involved. I don't think Wrexham's ticketed for the Premier league, but they can get back into League One(the highest level Wrexham has played at I believe), and probably make it to the Championship too. I want to like it because Rob seems like a really good guy. Not sure I'm with you on the 'serious money' part...from what I can tell they spent $2.5m on the club and then that record transfer was a little under $400k. Obviously a lot more costs involved, but it seems pretty reasonable (I think?) to recoup most of that in selling the doc to FX/Hulu. Agree that it will end up working out, seems like it's headed in the right direction so far, just have this negative feeling that it could be the first step to like...rich guy fantasy football 2.0?

Is anyone watching Welcome to Wrexham? Not the most in depth documentary, but pretty fun through the first couple episodes. Can't figure out if I like the big picture idea...from what I could tell in the episodes that came out, seems like they (the team/trust) almost begrudgingly took the money because they needed it, but weren't thrilled with a couple foreigners with no soccer experience coming in. And I can't tell if this was just designed to get them a documentary, if they just felt like playing a rich man's version of Football Manager, or if it will actually turn out ok.

About how valuable is that plus bad defense plus whatever he does on the bases (I have no idea)