squally1313

God I wonder how MLB legend Rougned Odor and his .271/.296/.502, 33 HR season got left off that list of current or future hall of famers. Must have been a totally innocent slip.

Are we not in the market for a starter?

...of his future?

The tl;dr is that going over the tax for the 2nd straight year is more like a ~25 million cost than a ~5 million cost, and doing so for a 3rd straight year is upwards of 50 million. "Putting it another way: The system in place makes it much cheaper for the Cubs to have a $207 million payroll in 2020 and then a $250 million payroll in 2021 than to have a $209 million payroll in 2020 and then a $211 million payroll in 2021. It’s an absurd extension of the way these penalties are structured, but it’s true."

I have no idea if any of this is accurate, but assuming it is, I found it pretty informative and pretty depressing on the motivations for the Cubs dropping payroll in 2020...though I guess the silver lining is that this article makes it seem like it would just be a one year dip. https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2019/12/19/why-the-chicago-cubs-are-likely-working-to-get-back-under-the-luxury-tax-in-2020/ No, this still does not mean we should trade Kris Bryant.

I think the roster/ownership situation makes being a top 5 team in 2021-2023ish incredibly unlikely, regardless of what current pieces we try to flip for future value. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be favored to win the division the next two years with just some minor moves. If a prospect we trade ends up turning into something, darn, I guess we'll only win 70 games in 2022 rather than 73. This doesn't really bother me too much...in 2015 I understood the fact that almost all of the core was up after 2021. After 5 years (2010-2014) of explicitly tanking, building a 7 year window of contention seemed great. Sure, it would have been nice to churn out prospects post Gleyber/Eloy. That was the way to turn an extended window into something like what the Dodgers have (7 years of 90+ wins, more undoubtedly coming). Didn't happen, and the FO should be dinged accordingly. But I think a lot of us saw this coming.

Wait, are we trading Bryant to some non-MLB entity? Is there an agreement to have no one offer him a contract in two years when his team control is up? Trading him now so that they don't have to look cheap for not paying him in 2 years. Also some nonsense about how they tried really hard to get him to sign an extension but they couldn't so they had to try to make the team better by trading their best player. Yeah that's the part I'm mad about to. But this whole league wide collusion thing...I assume the team that would trade for him is planning on paying him, right?

The owners, in collusion. But I don’t think Ricketts has a lot of pull among them as fairly recent member of the club. Ricketts was allowed to buy the team as long as he was willing to participate in their newest version of collusion, and he was willing. So he may not have much pull but that doesn't mean he has any desire to run afoul of the party line, anyway. Wait, are we trading Bryant to some non-MLB entity? Is there an agreement to have no one offer him a contract in two years when his team control is up?

I think primarily to your point it's money. Because of where their respective arb salaries are, a Javy extension likely looks something like 6/110, a KB one more like 8/240. Secondarily, more athletic guys have traditionally shown to age better. Aging curves have shifted wildly the last ~10 years though so admittedly I'm not sure how true that still is. If it's about money, to the extent that the FO is being forced into trading KB two years before he hits FA, that they can't see the Lester, Rizzo, etc deals coming off the books and make room for both of them....then we're probably screwed anyways. To the Blackhawks point, lock in the fan favorites and keep selling those jerseys.

I love Javy as much as the next guy on here, but it seems weird to me that a player so reliant on his athleticism and fast twitch muscles is always the assumed extension. I guess I get the calculus on KB at $35 a year vs Javy at $20ish plus whatever $15m gets you, but it seems a little bit like fan service, and if that's the case, might as well lock up Rizzo too. Maybe in 5 years we can be the baseball version of the Blackhawks.

I’m going to let them fill that last slot of the rotation before I sound all the alarms on 2021. Hopefully they find someone that can project out past this year to join Yu and Kyle. From there, you’re replacing Lester and Q. I think people seeing a 2020 contender out of the Cubs aren’t expecting much from Lester anyways, so don’t think it would change much to keep that slot as status quo. Q is a weird case, I’ve been a big defender around here, but I think there’s also a fairly large contingent that want to trade him because they think he’s overpriced at $12m. I know the FA market next year is thin. But you’re looking at $35-40m in salary coming off the books between Lester, Q, and Chatwood. Going to be hard to justify banking that money, but who knows, they’ve proved me wrong before. Weirdly I think Q's fate is tied to Javy. If the team is in line with Javy on an extension, they basically have to trade Q to make the money work (assuming they're keeping to the $208 "cap"). If not, it's more of a matter of being opportunistic. Lester probably depends more on his perfromance than outside factors IMO. He only counts $15M against the "cap" next year. And with at least one rotation spot to fill I think they keep him if he still projects well. Eh, Q is making so little money that I don't really see that from a purely financial standpoint. I mean, Chatwood is making more than he is in 2020. Obviously the return is less, but you could probably find someone to take that contract, even if you ended up having to attach a prospect with it. Even someone like Kimbrel, if they really need to make the money work. For Lester, he's projected for 2 fWAR in 2020. Probably somewhere around 1.5 in 2021. If we can't find someone out of the Rea, Mills, Cotton, etc group to give us something like that for 2021 as a 5th starter, we're probably screwed anyways.

That’s where I’m at, you at least can see how it works this year if you keep the core and move some margins around. Next year could be tough to really contend regardless if you keep the core or do trades this year with the pitching needs. Trading KB punts this year, effectively, and then leaves next year as a pretty big roll of the dice that one (or more) of these young pitching prospect is actually good and turns out and you’re able to add Mookie to be able to contend. I’m going to let them fill that last slot of the rotation before I sound all the alarms on 2021. Hopefully they find someone that can project out past this year to join Yu and Kyle. From there, you’re replacing Lester and Q. I think people seeing a 2020 contender out of the Cubs aren’t expecting much from Lester anyways, so don’t think it would change much to keep that slot as status quo. Q is a weird case, I’ve been a big defender around here, but I think there’s also a fairly large contingent that want to trade him because they think he’s overpriced at $12m. I know the FA market next year is thin. But you’re looking at $35-40m in salary coming off the books between Lester, Q, and Chatwood. Going to be hard to justify banking that money, but who knows, they’ve proved me wrong before.

I think the part no one wants to really focus on is that, given the current roster and farm system, there's really nothing you can do now where you could confidently point to 2021 and beyond and say that we'd be contenders. I hope otherwise, but I think it's looking like an inevitability after what would hopefully be 7 years of playoff contention and a clear lack of development at the minor league level.

While I have my own issues with the post, I appreciate the time you put into it. The issue from a Cubs perspective is that the idea seems to go against Theo's main strategy since he got here, which is that young hitting prospects give you a ton of surplus value, whereas pitching prospects are a crapshoot and most of them probably break anyways, so just pay for them when they establish themselves. I can't see that entirely flipping with a trade like this.

It'd be one thing if the rest of this roster was still 2016 Cub good, and we could ship KB off for prospects and a 12th vacation home for Ricketts and have the only impact be that we're now projected to win the division by 12 games instead of 15. But we're not really at that point right now. Trading KB does serious damage to what is a good chance to make the playoffs in 2020 and probably 2021. Whatever it may do to future rosters is much, much more hypothetical, and to me, much less important.

Why is this ‘fourth outfielder’ spot an absolutely necessary part of a 2020 roster to begin with? Don’t Happ and Heyward have plenty of experience there, with similarly mediocre defensive numbers? Didn’t Hoerner get some time out there in the minors last year, with plans for more going forward? Ignoring the other ridiculous roster arguments/hypotheticals, isn’t KB more than capable of playing a corner outfield spot? Doesn’t Tony Kemp still exist? What is this role that exists for Almora that can’t be suitably filled by multiple other solutions already on the roster, to say nothing of cheap FA/trade possibilities? I count 6 guys with outfield experience on the roster right now, 3 with at least some centerfield experience, all of which I consider more valuable than Almora.

I brought up the walk rate because I'm interested in putting people on the roster who are good at the concept of offense. He makes contact once more every one hundred times than the average MLB player. We've established that this contact is poor contact, and we've established that once he makes this poor contact, he is bad at the goal of beating the thrown ball to first base by running. Of course there are other ways to reach first base, but I felt it important to point out that he is also (very) bad at that too. In conclusion, Albert Almora, bad at offense. I appreciate you throwing in his career wRC prior to the debacle that was last season (sure, why wouldn't we leave that out). Should we do trend lines? Should we point out that the only time he put up over 100 wRC was when he hit .342 against lefties his rookie year? Do you think that's something he can do again? For that question, unfortunately, I'm going to ask you to remember that 2019 exists.

Yes....Ricketts wants the Cubs underneath the lux tax. That's what is driving this. Very frustrating. I agree with you, but not the post you quoted. Teams have decided to treat the luxury tax as a salary cap. I think Ricketts is doing what he’s told. By....who? Who do you think is in charge here?

Yes, we have firmly established that Almora makes an above average amount of contact. I understand now that that's established what's secretly really important for 2020 is the degree, but also no not really. Also let's outright ignore K rates 6-7% below league average because because! The 2019 Cubs had a ~74% contact rate good for 30th and ~24% K rate good for 19th You just read about the jumps maybe seconds before writing this post and they instantly became his "only marketable defensive skill at this point." This type of read and react analysis to his defensive metrics don't make it easier to buy your clearly sensationalized conclusions. Maybe DRS probably not but UZR was most definitely not meant to be read in a way that allowed for dramatic new conclusions each season. He reads like an average defensive CF by the metrics, considering the options average works I don't really think this part has anything to do with anything, we're so far from why Smith and Villar even got mentioned in the first place by not me, but two things: 1 - So the backup CFer and OFer putting up a single win for less than $2 million dollars is...something to be upset at? This whole time it seemed like we were arguing that this guy couldn't make a positive contribution at all, and at the end the turns out that there's just not enough WAR to sate the vultures? Booooooooo...Enough for what even? Are multi-WAR cheap bench OFers required to win? 2 - I get the feeling that, despite the first acknowledgement I've been talking about him as a non-starter this whole convo, everything previously mentioned was from the perspective of Almora the starter anyway. Heck, within this last bit he's *still* compared to the absolute best seasons either of those players had as starter We were ignoring the walk rate, so I felt comfortable ignoring the K rate too. When people walk, they get on base 100% of the time. Forgive me for not caring as much about a slow runner putting up a 1.88 GB/FB rate with a LD rate that has declined every year, but giving us an above average amount of...that. I've been hearing about his unbelievable defensive instincts since the day we drafted him. He's been advertised as this stud defensive center fielder, and that was supposed to cover his lack of power, speed, and plate discipline. Well it turns out he also doesn't hit the ball hard, and now we're arguing about whether or not he is an average defensive center fielder. Cool! I was asking you to give me a believable slash line, K/BB rate, whatever where he produces any sort of value in a back up job. We saw what he did last year. In 2018 he rode a .338 BABIP in 479 PAs to all of 1.1 fWAR. Tell me how he improves on that, and before you point to 2017 remember that he was heavily sheltered into facing a ton of LHPs, and we all know how that went last year.

From someone who put his feelings into words a lot better than me: And again, this is all horseshit, a word that’s becoming synonymous with everything Cubs right now. The Cubs aren’t trading Bryant because they think it improves anything, short-term or long. It’s because they don’t want to pay him what he will earn in two years, and they don’t even want to pay him what he will get this year in arbitration. It’s not a “strategy.” It’s simple greed. The new buildings are up, the luxury suites are in, and Ricketts doesn’t have to do much to watch the money flow in. So he’s not going to. https://faxesfromuncledale.com/my-brian-hurt-like-a-warehouse-it-had-no-room-to-spare/

We're going into year 6 of this run, and since 2015 we've won the 3rd most games in the league. There's no real path to becoming the 2016 Cubs in the next few years, and the only real hypothetical path to it in the next 3-5 years is by seriously hurting the 2020 and 2021 rosters. I'm not expecting 100 wins, or even 95+, but 90+ is pretty achievable with this core, and should be enough to let us roll the dice in the playoffs for a couple years.

Almora's career contact rate is 77.4%. The league average for contact in 2019 was 76.2%. Congrats on qualifying for the bare minimum of 'above average', and combining that with a terrible batted ball profile and below average speed. Truly, when your specialty is getting thrown out on a 6-3 by 7 steps, you want to make sure you're doing that at an above average rate. Thank god he gets good jumps, as that's about his only marketable defensive skill at this point and hopefully brings him up to average. He gets a foot and a half head start on a group of players that are all pretty clearly faster than him...cool? He's not a good defensive center fielder, as shown by pretty much every metric. Of those five players, Mallex Smith put up a 3.5 WAR and Villar put up a 2.0. They also put up 75 SBs between them (Almora has 4 in his career). Mallex Smith also put up a 118 wRC, so I'm starting to lose any sort of connection to Almora here. The other three players gave you 1400 PAs of -0.7 WAR. Yay! Seriously, put together a reasonable line in 300 or so PAs, since you at least admit he shouldn't be a starter, that would get you a single win.

It's easy enough to infer that Happ's not the one between the he and New Guy I'd be skeptical of with the bat ...is it?

Ian Happ has a career 112 wRC, so I’m not sure what you mean by some improbable break out to become an every day starter.

Inciarte is a career below average hitter relying heavily on his defense and speed who just suffered what I assume is a fairly serious leg injury (given that he only played 65 games) and just turned 29. You wouldn’t have to give me much odds to say Ian Happ is a more productive center fielder the next two years.