squally1313
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Everything posted by squally1313
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Drury Zips: .245/.295/.435, 98 OPS+, -3 defense Wisdom Zips: .212/.300/.455, 103 OPS+, -3 defense Chapman Zips: .243/.333/.453, 117 OPS+, +8 defense
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He's projected for 3.6 fWAR next year (is it 'this year' now?) and increases the trade-ability of the Morel/Busch/Murray/Shaw group (doubt Madrigal/Wisdom/Mastro have much value). If you want to not sign him to use that money elsewhere (effectively), great. If you want to not sign him so as not to offend Matt Shaw and throw out a very low ceilinged platoon for the next year-year and a half, no. If we sign Chapman and Shaw balls out through AA and AAA this year, well, hey, Nico will only have 2 years left of control and would probably get us a nice pitcher for 2025. We signed Suzuki to a long term deal in March 2022 with Brennen Davis coming off a year where he put up a 135 wRC+ in AA and then a 150 wRC+ in a short AAA stint. We haven't had to worry about Seiza or Happ blocking a good prospect. If you want to be a win now team, go get proven players. Figure out the 'we have too much talent' problem later.
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Yeah I'm really not super concerned about third base. We were 11th in production there last year completely cobbling it together, we have the additional options/potential internal upgrades that TT mentioned in the form of Busch, Murray, Shaw, Morel magically learning how to play it, etc that we didn't have last year. If you want to sign Chapman because he's one of like 5 guys out there that offers a potential first division starter and we have money to spend, sure, won't be mad about it. But you can absolutely survive on a platoon that's projected for 2.9 fWAR.
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Agreed on not right now. ZIP totals from NL contending teams (basically from when the article was written besides me taking out Soto from the Padres, so not perfect): Braves 53.9 Dodgers 47.8 DBacks 42.2 Phillies 40.9 Cardinals 40.7 Cubs 38.9 Mets 37.1 Padres 36.2 Giants 35.6 Brewers 35 On one hand, you'd think that just spending the $40m or so to get up to the first CBT line would be enough to put us above the Phillies and the Cardinals., if not the Diamondbacks. On the other hand, it has us getting 2.2 from CF, 2.9 from 3B, and 2 from 1B, and the rumored upgrades: Bellinger (2.7), Chapman (3.6), and Hoskins (2.0 per Steamer) would only get you so far. Obviously there would be knock on effects (Bellinger means PCA is the corner backup, not Canario, Chapman means the end of Wisdom, etc). Can obviously upgrade the pitching....Bieber (3.8), Clase (1.8) are both essentially 2 win upgrades by themselves, Montgomery and Snell (3.0 and 3.2) would be good too. Basically: Sign Chapman or Bellinger, and trade for Bieber, thanks.
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He had an .852 OPS in (again, only) 15 games in AA. Let’s make sure we keep a spot open for Chase Strumpf (901 OPS) too I guess
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Matt Shaw has 9 walks in his professional career. I hope he’s good too. He should not be impacting current roster decisions.
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Leaving out Horton, the BBTV site says you'd need to also throw in either Triantos and Wesneski or Shaw or Alcantara. I think everyone would prefer option A there, but goes to show you the price. Basically has Ramirez with slightly less value than PCA + Horton
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The takeaway is that if you weren't happy with the offense last year, you likely aren't going to be happy with the offense this year, regardless of the moves they do or do not make, because you're expecting a level of production/consistency that is incredibly rare in modern baseball.
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As mentioned before, Cubs were offensively above average, if not elite, in April (2nd), July (5th), August (10th), and September (7th). They were bad (or 'flopping') in May (21st) and June (16th). Deeper dive into the May-June stretch: The Good/Fine (over 100 PAs): Morel 147 wRC Happ 110 wRC Swanson 107 wRC Tauchman 106 wRC Seiya 104 wRC Madrigal 96 wRC Hoerner 93 wRC The Bad (over 99 PAs): Mancini 78 wRC Gomes 73 wRC Wisdom 50 wRC Bellinger 54 wRC Mervis 46 wRC
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Cubs offense in August: 103 wRC (11th in baseball), 4.1 offensive fWAR (10th in baseball) Cubs offense in September: 111 wRC (7th in baseball), 5.6 offensive fWAR (7th in baseball) Cubs for the seaason: 104 wRC (12th in baseball), 24.8 offensive fWAR (9th in baseball) What about that group didn't "finish the season"?
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My immediate reaction is that PCAs trade value far exceeds Clase's, but the Trade Value site loves Clase. This trade came out as about perfectly even: PCA and Wesneski Clase, Bieber, Josh Naylor Obviously contingent on a Bellinger signing. That trade adds $23m, call it $25 for Bellinger and you're still under most projections. Opening day looks like this: LF Happ 2B Nico CF Belli RF Seiya SS Dansby 1B Naylor DH Busch/Morel C Gomes/Amaya 3B Wisdom/Madrigal/Busch/Morel Bench/DH: Amaya, Madrigal, Busch, Morel, Tauchman/Canario. Realistically there's a trade here to jettison someone from the Wisdom/Madrigal/Morel group and give a spot to someone else who can play outfield. Steele Bieber Imanaga Taillon Wicks Hendricks Bullpen: Clase, Azlolay, Merryweather, Smyly, Leiter, Almonte, Assad (Little, Cuas, Brown, Brewer, Palencia, Thompson, Rucker)
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I think its more that your expectations of 'consistent offense' are unrealistic in modern baseball outside of the extreme outliers (ie Braves). The 2023 Cubs were not uniquely inconsistent, or uniquely running hot and cold. Yes, they weren't consistently good last year. Neither were 28 of the other 29 teams (and Braves ended up with like, 38 games scoring 3 or less too).
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Rangers had scored 0-3 runs 63 times in 2023 as well. So the Cubs came in below the average of the World Series teams this year. But it's a big number, so they are Bad.
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-Here are a bunch of teams that had a lot of regular season and/or playoff success that put up similar numbers to the Cubs in the stat that you cited. This list excludes the Braves, who put up a 125 wRC in 2023, which has only been matched in the modern era by the 1927 Yankees. -Well yeah, but what about the Braves
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The Cubs scored more than 10 runs 24 times this year. The Braves did it 20 times. Hopefully they went into this offseason trying to improve their roster to have the kind of potential to explode offensively in a game like the Cubs did.
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Phillies had 61 games of scoring 3 runs or fewer. Dbacks had 64 games Brewers had 69 games Orioles had 64 games Do I need to keep going?
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It's important to remember here that Jed Hoyer took over the team at the end of the covid year, 2020, at which time Ricketts was claiming 'biblical' losses, the team was coming off a technical playoff appearance, and really, things were just weird big picture (the biggest offseason signing across baseball was George Springer for 6/150, only three players got over 100m). His two significant signings that year were Joc Pederson (28 years old, 1/7) and Arrieta (34 years old, 1/6). It was very much a 'one last run with the core' season, and we all know how that went, but my bigger point is that it was a strange offseason, no one was totally sure what 2021 would look like etc. 2022 was projected to be, and ended up being, a very bad team. No real point in signing veterans, and no real point for the veterans to want to sign here. Of the signings going into 2023, still very much considered a bridge year, Taillon, Smyly, Mancini, Barnhart, Boxberger, Hosmer were all in their 30s. All of this to say that we really don't know what preferences Hoyer has based on past performance, because he's never ran a team in the middle of their competitive window. No one really thought too much about Imanaga because we were all focused on Shohei and Soto, and I assume absolutely no one saw the Busch trade coming.
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Article: What Did Jed Hoyer Mean By That?
squally1313 replied to Josh Illes's topic in North Side Baseball Front Page News
There are a lot of ways to figure out improvement, and the idea that nothing matters until we get to this 'baseline' of last season is a flawed way of thinking. First off, we were 9th in offensive fWAR last year. We won 83 games and underperformed according to most metrics. Second, there's built in improvement just by not giving Mancini, Hosmer, and 2023 Mervis like 400 PAs at a premium offensive position. The theoretical step down from Bellinger to PCA isn't 'whatever Bellinger did last year'. Etc etc A single bullpen pitcher, all 50-60 innings of him, does not move any needle significantly. Mervis and Busch threw up pretty much identical MLB lines in 80-100 PAs last year. However, in 440-460 AAA PAs: AAA Busch: .323/.431/.618, 13.9% BB, 18.8% K AAA Mervis: .282/.399/.533, 15.2% BB, 22.7% K Those are not the same hitters. Busch might be an even better AAAA guy, and I'm not super thrilled about the idea of just handing him the first base job when someone like Hoskins is sitting out there. But there's more support for Busch being a better hitter than Mervis. -
I was actually referring to Morel, though I should probably be consistent and apply the same statement to both from a big picture. With Morel specifically there's been enough data posted here about the quantity of opportunity he's gotten at third base in the minors and how poorly it went strictly from an errors perspective, and then obviously we saw how much they tried to avoid playing him there in Chicago. As for Busch, it's a weird trade if they don't think his glove plays anywhere beyond a passable first baseman given that Morel and his 5 years of control exist and the poor man's Busch is the starting first baseman for Iowa and it's a really high upside arm they gave up to get him. There's a chance, I guess, that they see Busch as a clearly superior hitter to Morel, which I'm not going to get too into because everyone (probably especially myself) is already pretty dug in on what they think of Morel. My one sentence opinion on that comparison is that anyone who runs 30+% K rates has a really narrow path to success, but also he's got 850 PAs with a 114 wRC, which you can't ignore. Or they just really, really wanted a left handed bat.
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If he had any potential to be a good defender, he probably should have become one by now.
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And here I was told we needed to sign like 10 WAR worth of players just to get back to where we were last year. Turns out we have like $50m to spend and are about 1 player away from being division favorites. Oh well, hopefully Jed wakes up from his hibernation soon!
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Not a shot, but this is really funny coming from someone who's been a huge Morel proponent around here.
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Would really love to know which 4 teams he wanted included on the NTC
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Our rotation was 8th in fWAR, it was the bullpen where things really fell apart. Obviously that hasn't really been addressed in terms of new players, but the hope is for increased health, a couple signings, Counsell > Ross for whatever reason, etc.
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No issues with the concept of a six man rotation, but think if we go that route I want another at least semi reliable starter, not Assad, to fill it out. None of these are serious problems on their own, but when you consider: Outside of Steele not sure how often we want these guys getting into a third time through the order situation With the 13 pitcher max you're limiting yourself to 7 pen guys and just moved your best swing man to the rotation Assad's top level numbers look about the same in a starting and reliever role but his FIP was 1.2 runs better as a reliever Just generally: get more pitchers. You need so many of them these days, and clearly the top teams (Dodgers, Braves) are planning to mix and match throughout the year. Imanaga signing for what he did, based on the rumors, opens up a lot of options (at least until Bellinger and Hoskins sign elsewhere). Would have liked Shohei or Soto, but like where we're at for the time being.
