squally1313

what site are you still looking up stats on that doesn't have them and why aren't you using fangraphs for that I didn’t use anything to determine he had a good season in 2016. I always go to fangraphs for stats So you brought up 2016 (incorrectly) being the best year of his career, justify it by saying you didn't feel like looking up his peripherals, and then reference his 2017 xFIP being better than his ERA. Got it.

Plus he won the World Series, so by definition it's at least tied for the best season of his career, along with his other WS wins. Just like it was Heyward's best season.

I don’t get why people keep saying that. 34 for a starting pitcher is not exactly his peak but he seems like he fits the mold of a player who can still pitch very effectively well into his 30s. He is only 1 season removed from arguably the best year in his career. Last year was a down year but he also battled injuries for much of the year and he seemed to be stronger and more effective when he came back from his DL stint in Sept/October. In addition, his xFIP suggests he was better than his mainstream numbers suggest. He’s had seasons worse than last year and bounced back. I get it he’s in his mid-30s, is coming off a down year, and has a lot of miles on his arm. But I wouldn’t quite shut the door on Lester as a TOR pitcher just yet. His fWAR the last four years are 5.6, 5.0, 4.4, and 2.7. I don't mean to get into that common argument about the definition of a TOR pitcher...3.5 WAR would have been good for 18th in baseball last year, so by definition at least a dozen teams would have considered that performance at an ace level. But obviously the Cubs have their sights set higher than most other teams. Obviously we can't expect anyone to repeat a 2015 Arrieta season, but in 2015 the Cubs got a combined 12.3 from Jake/Lester. In 2016, it was 8.2, with what is likely a career year from Hendricks. 2017 was 5.1. This is a long way of saying that in 2015 and 2016 we had at least one, arguably two pitchers that pitched like top 10 pitchers in baseball. While I expect Lester and Hendricks to remain top 25ish pitchers, I think it'd be overly pessimistic to expect top 10 production from them. Quintana has the talent, track level, and appropriate age to get there, so I'm happy to see Zips expects that level of performance.

Cobb is projected for 2.5, which probably gives you another 1-1.5 over Montgomery when you move him to the bullpen. Given that most of these projections appear pessimistic, the one that stood out in a good way was Quintana's. 4.9 is better than he's put up in the last three years. I'd love if he took the mostly fictional role of 'staff ace' this year, especially because I just can't see Lester pitching at a high level throughout the year at this point in his career.

With aging curves the way that they are, players are incredibly underpaid at the beginning of their career, starting in the minor leagues. The MLBPA never really had an issue with it back when everyone was getting hundreds of millions of dollars to play through their late 30s, but now they aren't getting that 'catch up' money on the back end because it makes no sense from a team building perspective. Either bump up the pay scale for the young stars, or shorten the length of team control you agree to when you sign as an amateur. But good luck getting all the veteran players who have all the say at the MLBPA to agree to that.

Assume that just means like, top 3 protected right? Very slim chance they even fall out of the playoffs in the first place. Edit: Top 5, and apparently we threw in a second round pick. Whatever.

I'm close, but then I remembered that until a couple weeks ago I had Cobb penciled in. Now that we don't have to juggle a potential Yelich addition to the payroll, we can knock this one out.

It is way different. But for years, it was a lot less likely that in order to get a guy for the bullpen, you had to give him a multi-year deal. I think now that you do, it makes sense to grab the guy you really like and hope you start your window in year 2 or 3 of his deal. In some cases, yes. But the White Sox picking up Avilan and Soria wasn't them slotting those two guys into their long term plans. They took on that salary, are going to throw them in a bunch of (most likely) low leverage innings for three or four months, and then try to flip them for prospects. It's essentially like taking on a bad contract to 'buy' prospects, just with a little delay/uncertainty built in.

I feel like for years, it was common knowledge that if you were not going to be competitive, it didn't make any sense to spend money on bullpen talent. Now it's almost becoming the opposite. It's an interesting development.

I just went back and watched the highlights from Cubs/Nats game 5 thinking maybe we had one good night, and jesus, what a disaster of a game that was. The biggest highlight was Davis K'ing Bryce to end it, but even that as this point doesn't do a whole lot with Davis off to Colorado and Harper a year away from taking over right field at Wrigley.

Based on a RealGM site... Cleveland owns Brooklyn's 2018 first rounder, but that's probably going to be too good of a pick for someone like Niko. Nothing else really stands out.

11.81 K/9, 5.06 BB/9, 7.59/2.65/3.36. Lights out?

Anderson strikes me as an obvious piece that would be going back to Baltimore. Cheap, league average production that's locked up forever. He's definitely not moving Moncada off second base for the Sox. Orioles want pitching, though, and it's easy for the White Sox to offer that. I also wonder about Tim Anderson perhaps going to the OF. There's some flexibility there if they do make this move. Unless they think Anderson is a good enough athlete to play center, there's no way his bat holds up in the outfield. I guess you could keep him at short and tell Machado he's playing third, but that's not going to help them in the negotiations. It would take a lot more than Anderson to get Machado, but I think he's a valuable enough piece to save the Sox some prospect cost.

I don’t think you let Tim Anderson’s bum ass get in the way of making a Machado trade/decision, but that’s just me. Anderson strikes me as an obvious piece that would be going back to Baltimore. Cheap, league average production that's locked up forever. He's definitely not moving Moncada off second base for the Sox.

Unless you think Garcia can keep up that .392 BAPIP (21 points ahead of anyone else last year) despite being 53rd in Hard contact and 75th in Line Drive right, I think you'd basically be looking at Abreu, Machado, and hoping Moncada finds a way to lower that K rate quickly.

Only way Kipnis makes sense is if we find a way to dump Zobrist (which would be an intriguing upgrade in my opinion), and I can't see that happening with a full trade clause.

Short term fix instead of someone like cobb?

Sign Cobb, make Chatwood the swing man. Gausman away from the hellhole of Baltimore could be really good.

Cobb?

I could see the Cubs accepting Russell or Baez for Hand, Manuel Margot and a prospect. Can't imagine the Padres agreeing to that. Margot only makes sense if you dump Happ, Almora, or Schwarber. Him and Almora appear to be pretty identical players, and not really something we need two of at this point.

#otherplans but damn it would be fun for a year If I squint hard enough, I can see a situation where the Orioles start 2018 with him, promptly fall out of contention, and Machado makes it clear he's going to explore free agency after 2018, therefore becoming a rental. But even then, the Cubs would probably have to be in a situation where at least one of Russell/Baez/Bryant was injured.

I get that it'd be inner-division, but the first one that came to mind was a package centered around Gleyber. Given that Machado only has one year left, I can't see the Cubs getting involved. The money needed to lock him down after 2018 is already earmarked elsewhere.

The only way I can see equal value is by the Padres throwing in Gore, and the Cubs in their current position trading for an 18 year pitcher doesn't make much sense. That's for Baez or Russell at least. I guess I could see Happ for Hand + a top ten prospect or two.

That is my biggest off-season fear. Morrow is going to go Justin Wilson on us. Little bit of apples to oranges...Wilson has thrown at least 58 innings each of the last five years, his effectiveness just disappeared down the stretch for us. There's no reason to believe Morrow won't be effective when healthy, but keeping him healthy is a huge question mark. If I had to bet on 2018 WAR/WPA between those two, I'd pick Wilson. Of course, if we're relying on either of them to get into October, we've got bigger issues. Right now we're projected to win the division by 7 games, and that's with Chatwood and Monty as the 4 and 5 starters, and Strop as our fourth best reliever. Obviously this is based on the more primitive projection systems at this point. To Maddux's point above, load up on relievers on relatively cheap/short term deals, see what ends up sticking early in the year rather than having to pay a huge premium come July to lock in your October bullpen.

Yeah, Stanton, Theo and Ohtani end up in a hotel room and things get WILD. [bbvideo=560,315] [/bbvideo]