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squally1313

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Everything posted by squally1313

  1. squally1313
    Yeah I don't think you should obsess over the timing of the Waves (c), but the team is clearly in its competitive window with the major league roster, which includes4 very good outfielders, hopefully all signed for at least two years, and two of its top 5 prospects are outfielders with very little to prove in the minors. Not ideal timing, but it's what we've got. And it seems a little rash to empty the chamber on a one/two year window, but the window is slowly getting stretched out (a Tucker extension would greatly help there). Dansby, Shota, Busch, PCA, Hodge are all here for four plus years, Steele for three, hopefully Brown/Wicks/Amaya proves worth of joining that group this year.
  2. squally1313
    I'm going to push back on the distinction of 'rental' just a little bit. This isn't mid July, we'd get a full year of starts out of him. This is a guy who, minimum 200 innings the last two years, is 6th in ERA, 12th in FIP, and 14th in xFIP. You can rely on that production for a team that has serious playoff aspirations immediately. Trading for a hypothetical Michael King with 2-3 years remaining on his contract basically starts with Shaw and/or PCA. Losing a Caissie or Alcantara hurts, but not going to lose sleep over them not sitting behind a fully blocked outfield for what is in all likelihood another 2 years. Or whatever concerns I have will be assuaged by having the 9th, 15th, 18th, and 27th best 2024 starters ERAs (minimum 30 innings, yes I know I'm cherrypicking).
  3. squally1313
    I think this general argument/thought process falls apart if you play it out. Like yeah, it's easy to make Boras the villain here. But ultimately both guys are going to (correctly) want to maximize their future wealth. Getting into some weird theoretical discussion about markets or weather or agents or whatever else is pretty futile when you can just pare it down to 'these guys want the most money they can get'. Now, there's maybe some merit to 'the market values Cease higher due to track record/throwing really hard/has a cool mustache, but I think King will perform/age better based on proprietary models'. But that would drive the first decision (the trade) more so than the subsequent extension conversation.
  4. squally1313
    Trading for one year of a players production and then trying to sign them at theoretical market rates are two different transactions and should be treated as such. The cost of a Tucker or King type player with multiple years of control would be significantly higher than what we gave up (slash what we're discussing giving up). Putting that kind of weight on a future extension when judging the merits of a potential trade is a good way to never make these kind of trades.
  5. squally1313
    Padres just posted on Zips at 40.2, with Cease coming in at 3.8 and King at 3.8.
  6. squally1313
    It's Sasaki and Teoscar and Scott and Yates and Kim, but yeah, stacking up this kind of talent diminishes the return a little bit. It's also fine, I was under no delusions we were going to put together a roster that was going to compete on paper with them. We can certainly compete in a 7 game series, even if that's more so just the nature of baseball than any sort of roster construction result. You shouldn't give Hoyer any credit for the Brewers and Cardinals essentially sitting out the offseason, but it certainly helps. The Michael King article this morning touches on it, but if he sticks the landing on one of those pitchers because we're the non-Dodgers contender with money left and we can solve other teams financial problems, there's maybe a little credit there.
  7. squally1313
    ZIPs is done with everyone besides the Padres, so thought it'd be good to see where we stack up compared to the NL. This is me typing numbers from the graphic into excel and trying to note key pickups that weren't considered, almost definitely missing players and fat fingered numbers here and there, but.... Cubs: 48.6 (less Pressly) Reds: 32.6 Brewers: 42.8 Pirates: 36.1 Cardinals: 35.2 Braves: 53.1 (less Profar) Mets: 43.4 (less Minter) Phillies: 42.2 DBacks: 43.7 (less Burnes) Dodgers: 56.5 (less like 6 awesome players) It's basically Dodgers (huge gap), Braves (pretty good gap), and then us, with the Brewers/Mets/Dbacks/(small gap) Phillies a few wins behind. King or Cease would give us a couple more (4ish over Assad's 1.5ish). Ultimately not an elite team but certainly expectations should be to make the playoffs, realistically as the division winner.
  8. squally1313
    Yeah, that's why he's available and we're talking about guys not on the opening day roster and not like, PCA.
  9. squally1313
    Yeah give me either of the two starters. Suarez doesn't do a whole lot for me, Arraez less than nothing, but adding a top 10 RHP (2nd and 7th in RHP fWAR last year) to the Steele/Shota/Boyd dynamic would be pretty ideal.
  10. squally1313
    I feel like the make up of the Cubs lineup (and projected AAA roster) somewhat minimizes the importance of a good bench. Not saying that it wouldn't be nice to have one, but the lineup is very consistent up and down, or said another way very much not a stars and scrubs set up. There really just aren't that many pinch hitting opportunities that are going to present themselves with our standard line up. Happ, Tucker, Suzuki, Hoerner, Dansby are all probably hitting no matter what. Busch maybe should be. That's 2/3rds of your lineup right there. Yeah, you want days off, but we get an outsized amount of those early on, and yeah, injuries happen, but when they do happen, none of these mentioned names are the preferred choice over Caissie or Alcantara or maybe even like, Triantos. I get we're somewhat maxed out on fringe bullpen options but signing Robertson and 'being forced' to eat a little cash to dump the bottom guy would be great, making a trade for a #2-#3 starter would be even better.
  11. squally1313
    Spend the six weeks after the Tucker deal setting the narrative that Shaw is ready to be a day one starter and presumptive rookie of the year favorite sign bregman to much less dollars and years than the market was expecting he would get trade Shaw(maybe plus? Who knows, not important) to Seattle for one of their elite, cost controlled starters (I can never remember who is who) salary dump rea, taillon, whatever if you have to make it work …project to be a low 90s win team? not saying it’s my ideal plan, but…fun thought exercise
  12. squally1313
    By 2024 ERA, and admittedly dropping the minimum innings down to 30 to include Boyd, we have the 9th, 18th, 27th, and 38th best starters. Those four are also all top 100 in xERA, Steele/Boyd/Shota roughly top 30. Very much cherry-picking good data here (projections aren’t as friendly), but there are a lot of bad rotations out there.
  13. squally1313
    I mean, no. I’m generally willing to overlook the fact that I probably have different views than these guys because they are very good at a game I enjoy watching and should get paid handsomely for their efforts and etc etc etc. Insisting on a very arbitrary and outdated label is where the personality traits start to overlap with the ‘enjoying baseball’ part. But ultimately I’m aware this probably isn’t my best take and he should be free to use his NTC however he wants. I just think it’d be cool, for me, if he came to wrigley and pitched good for us.
  14. squally1313
    You should go look at a lot of teams rotations.
  15. squally1313
    It seems very dumb to cling to these labels in what baseball has become, and have really seen nothing about pressly that makes me think I’d like him as a person, this ‘demand’ to be closer especially. This isn’t leading to an arbitration where they still cling to old school stats for whatever reason, you would think an effective 60 innings would get him his payday regardless of those 60 were 8th innings or 9th innings. but he’s a good pitcher and worrying about personalities with professional athletes is pretty futile, and honestly this is where counsell earns his paycheck. I liked him coming out at the convention and saying plainly that Suzuki was going to DH a lot, need a similar approach here. Pressly would show up as one of the top 2ish pen options and should get the crucial roles until proven otherwise.
  16. squally1313
    Then again if you normalize for PAs, the ZIPs projections has Bregman being half a win better than Shaw for the year, so maybe it makes more sense to use that money and give Flaherty 150 innings instead of Assad/Rea (or Robertson/Pressly 100 innings instead of Morgan/Thielbar. Honestly at this point for me they're all pretty incremental, outside of some huge trade I would just like to see the money spent and the roster maximized one way or another.
  17. squally1313
    Because we have the money and we're at the part of win curve where incremental wins are most valuable and I'll take an almost guaranteed good player in 2025 over a maybe hopefully good player in 2029-2033
  18. squally1313
    That seems pretty harsh for a guy who has been there 6 years and his worst ERA is 3.58. But I guess he was second in the league with 8 blown saves (dumb stat, Clay Holmes and David Robertson round out the top 3), so maybe he was involved in some particularly memorable losses.
  19. squally1313
    2024 Bregman is both a little concerning about the drop off and also a good reminder of just how good he's been the rest of his career. The walk rate plummeted, he had been comfortably double digits every year dating back to 2018 and suddenly in 2024 it was 6.9%. Came without a drop in K rate, which was actually the highest it's been since 2020, but still very good (13.6%). All leading to a .331 wOBA, both the worst of his career and also maybe a little lucky (xwOBA of .319). Career best defensive contributions still got him over 4, but realistically a normal defensive year without a bounceback offensively you're looking at....Isaac Paredes but normal batted ball profile. Plenty valuable, but would be real weary of turning this guy into a long term fixture unless of course he was Tucker's best friend and would help there.
  20. squally1313
    Wouldn't think so. But if all those deals were Santander-esque, maybe he's warming to 1/$25
  21. squally1313
    I'm guessing/hoping the Cubs interest here doesn't go past a one year, one year with an option type situation. Doesn't make any sense that they'd commit long term money given where the rest of the team stands. Would probably push Shaw back down to Iowa, which is fine, only 35 games there in 2024, and let that play out until June or whatever and see where you find yourself.
  22. squally1313
    Well he said he didn't want to go east or west, but I'm choosing to read those words as geographic directions rather than divisions. Worried he's going to want to stay close to home. Anyways, today is a good day to sign Robertson regardless.
  23. squally1313
    Born in Dallas, raised in Irving, committed to Texas Tech, married to a former Cowboys cheerleader, 'avid outdoorsman and hunter'.....got a bad feeling about the Rangers.
  24. squally1313
    Eh, on one year commitments, why not? Unless they think they can get a Tucker extension done that kicks in for 2024, leaving that much money on the table is a really bad look and this is an easy way to do it while keeping the 'clean books'. That and I think the higher end bat options are a little disincentivized to come to a team with 8.5 starting spots locked in. Bulk up on the back end guys who aren't blocked by anyone, go Amaya/Berti/Canario/....Canha? and be aggressive on upgrading those spots with the talent in AAA.
  25. squally1313
    Seriously. Santander for 5 years makes zero sense for us, but getting that kind of bat for under $14m AAV is a bit of a steal.
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