squally1313

(Quietly) how much more would we have to give up with Kris Bryant to get Bregman

And here I thought his last moment would have been walking off Wrigley Field after basically completing the Cardinals collapse and ensuring their elimination. Ah well...always next year. Just kidding, there's no way he'll make that far.

I've got a friend of a friend (etc) with connections and heard a similar rumor...after the 2016 MVP season, 8 years/200m. So basically the last four years, plus the first four.

Most importantly, they still have to live in Cleveland. Well there's Great Lakes Brewing plus the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame... Had friends that lived in Cleveland during college. Visited them for a weekend, spent the day at Great Lakes, had a great time. Went back the next year, asked what the plans were. "Well...how about Great Lakes?"

Yeah, I think we need to focus on someone who can play both middle infield positions but is more than just a 'backup'. Zobrist is going to be 38 next year, and with the way Baez plays, he's far from a lock to stay healthy. It doesn't seem like Happ is an option at second anymore, which means we're suddenly pretty thin.

I don't know guys, this thread turning into a thread about a show that started off promising, then quickly developing some flaws you could look past, and then eventually developing some terrible, unforgivable flaws that made everyone quit on said show feels like a nice little conclusion here.

Yeah that lineup is pretty Joe-proof. The most likely way he'll screw it up is if Zobrist goes back to 2017 (or just being 38 years old in general) and Maddon inevitably keeps throwing him up at the top.

I think Caratini's potential offensive upside is definitely better than any of the FA catchers out there, but I'm not as sold on his defensive/framing abilities. Overall to your point, he's cheap, he's fine, whatever...focus on the bigger issues.

For as thin as the bullpen was stretched last year, do you really want to give two 'bullpen' spots to guys who are locked in to only pitching every 5 days?

The 'obviously' at the end horsefeathering kills me.

Committed pretty strongly to Joe next year, and their relationship (spoke out against the Atlantic article this morning). When asked about the coaches: "Haven't gotten to that point yet."

This doesn't really factor much into our plans per se, outside of luxury tax implications, but it just occurred to me that KB's arbitration number is going to be pretty interesting based on his performance this year. Has anyone ever gone down in salary from A1 to A2?

I like most of this but I'd rather trade Contreras and keep Caratini. Outside of like 'I think we could get a really good pitcher for Contreras'...no.

Most of this makes sense apart from Bote in the OF. If he isn't playing 3B or 2B, his value is close to nil. Bote is the guy you want as the backup infield guy, though I don't know what he'd be like at SS. Prob not good. Bote's greatest value to the Cubs is as a trade chip. Unfortunately, there aren't many Jim Hendrys around anymore who would value him incorrectly. Yeah David Bote will be 26 by the first week of next year, and finished with a 95 wRC+, which would place him 16th out of the 20 third basemen with enough PAs to qualify. I have no idea if his stellar defensive numbers are indicative of his actual ability there. Just from the eye test I remember a handful of great plays, and a couple bad ones. But I think his value is a league minimum backup who can put up league average production.

Most of this makes sense apart from Bote in the OF. If he isn't playing 3B or 2B, his value is close to nil. Bote is the guy you want as the backup infield guy, though I don't know what he'd be like at SS. Prob not good. Good point, and I guess the easier solution is to just keep him as a solid third baseman, and send KB out to the corner outfield spots when needed. Bote isn't going to pass as the backup SS, but that should be an easy enough position to fill.

It could be tricky to improve the offense without hurting the defense, which dragged our team offensive WAR to 5th in baseball despite being 13th in just the offensive portion of that. Then again, we still put up the top defensive numbers in September after essentially going from Russell to Murphy, so maybe that's more a team approach that's leading to those numbers more than the defensive skill sets.

Almora and Heyward is your center field platoon next year. Sign Harper. Spend a month trying to get Happ to play a Zobrist level second base, if not, he's pitching bait. If he can, he's valuable in a post-Zobrist era and can bounce around the field in 2018. Get Bote to passable in the corner outfield positions, he becomes the bounce around guy (maybe even the platoon with Schwarber in left). Sign some defense first backup catcher (Caratini to AAA or for a bullpen flier) and a backup shortstop/middle infield guy who can spell Zobrist a good amount and Baez for ten games. Darvish covers up any regression from Lester, Hendricks and Q will be fine, tell Chatwood/Monty/Smyly they're competing for one spot.

I might contradict myself like 4 times here, but whatever. Anti-Joe: Basically the whole purpose of this thread. His bullpen decisions that at the seem made no logical sense, sticking with Almora as leadoff hitter for a month too long, Murphy as leadoff hitter in general, potentially screwing up the Morrow plan, definitely screwing up the Russell response, etc. Pro-Joe: Basically the Rizzo quote. This was a team that was projected to win around 95 wins this year. None of those projections included 6 weeks of garbage from Rizzo, essentially a lost season from KB, 40 ineffective innings from Darvish, Chatwood doing what he did, and basically having to patch together a bullpen of castoffs (without your closer) for the last 6 weeks. And yet....95-67. Maybe he deserves a share of blame for a couple of those issues, but if so he also gets credit for a team where the skill players weren't on the field nearly as much as anticipated. Anti-Joe: Seems like his main skill set isn't really needed with this group anymore. I see the Chavez quotes, and I know the confidence this team generally has, and I give him all the credit in the world for developing that over the last four years. But this is a team that's going to have Lester, Rizzo, Baez, Heyward, Contreras, and Strop (plus a few others) in the locker room for a good amount of time. They're the ones leading this team, and setting the expectations for success and for the atmosphere. Get someone in there who is tuned in with Theo/Jed in terms of in game decisions, and stays out of the way otherwise.

I was at the game last night and not a chance I'm reading through all of this, so apologies if this was already discussed. But from what I remember Schwarber pinch hit for Strop when Gore was already in left field, and then Hamels came in Schwarber's spot, not Gore's. From all accounts, Gore is a terrible defensive player too, and I'd honestly have more confidence in Hamels at the plate than Gore. It just stuck with me last night for a while that Maddon essentially decided Gore was a better fit in left field than Schwarber for a tie game going into the 10th inning.

Good news! Williams has been pitching great in general for at least a month now. He's been good, yes, but looking at his second half numbers, seems like there's quite a bit of luck involved. 1.08/3.02/4.13, .243 BABIP, 94.4% LOB%, 4.4% HR/FB. His September has been really strong, shutting down Milwaukee his last two outings, a rough outing against St Louis, and then two more scoreless outings against Cincy and St. Louis going back to 8/29. But he hasn't pitched past the 7th inning all year, so hopefully we get patient Cubs back and can get into a bullpen that had to pitch 6 innings last night.

I suppose that is possible, but when you get outliers like that, I think you have to start assuming that he has a different (and very bad) approach in situations with men on base and late in close games. I really wanted to refute this, and still don't really believe it based on the thousands of data points we have across baseball that say there's no such thing as clutch, etc. But um...then I looked at 2017 and 2015. Not good. Career Low Leverage: .824 OPS (120 wRC+) 655 PAs Medium Leverage: .891 OPS (133 wRC+) 493 PAs High Leverage: .434 OPS (-4 wRC+) 118 PAs

It’s honestly absurd how the Cardinals and the Dodgers both choking down the stretch, something that would have caused me infinite joy pretty much every other year, is somehow hurting the cubs.

Seems like an odd time to give Zobrist a day off. Heyward at cleanup is also pretty perplexing. I get that Nova is terrible against lefties, but that's what Schwarber is for.

Or, you know, we could just win more games in our five games than the Brewers do in their four.

I'm....fairly sure that you're joking, but given the amount of work you put into that, on the off chance that you aren't...no.