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squally1313

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Everything posted by squally1313

  1. squally1313
    We've already made a serious upgrade of the backup catcher role, who typically gets the most ABs of any bench position. We probably won't spend the money this way, but for the $24m we just freed up, you could sign Pederson ($14m/year, 151 wRC last year, projected 125 this year) and Randall Grichuk (151 wRC against LHP last year) and come out even salary wise. It's up to Jed to use that money to give us more production than Cody as a 4th/5th outfielder would have, but it's certainly doable.
  2. squally1313
    Not considering anything else, sure. But you can't keep the $27m guy around as a fallback option for the league minimum dude who outhit him last year in over 550 PAs while being 5ish years younger. If Busch falls apart somehow (and there's not really much to say he should, his worst month was a 97 wRC in August and he put up a 117 wRC in September), then you hand out 1B gloves to Caissie and Ballesteros and go from there. Plus we're probably looking at a league average bat at minimum that can cover first being signed for the bench.
  3. squally1313
    Random thoughts: Another trade where we trade away a guy with a particular skill set that seems ideal for the stadium we're trading him to Saw a tweet that says we're covering $2.5m this year and $2.5m of either the opt out payment or the salary next year. Does that matter for luxury tax purposes? Cody Poteet. I don't understand question and I won't respond to it. In terms of the luxury tax situation, I think where I'm at right now, looking optimistically, is that Jed and Tom know they're going to be over the tax in 2026 (and then likely under in 2027 when all those contracts fall off) and so there has always been a pretty strict directive to stay under this year to reset the count. Now, them going over by a rounding error in 2024 started the clock in the first place and made it marginally more important to stay under this year so that the 2026 penalty would be 30% instead of 50% if they went over in 2025. But, I still don't think it mattered much. With Luzurdo in tow, roughly $32m for two bench bats and a reliever. If that falls apart...things get a little interesting. If that goes through, as mentioned elsewhere, we're basically done with a team that should be comfortably favored to win the division and project in the upper 80s by Christmas.
  4. squally1313
    Whatever. Go spend the money.
  5. squally1313
    I assume all of these conversations have taken place, but I wonder if there's been some discussion with Tucker's team on whether starting an extension this season would be something he would entertain to avoid going the free agent route. That would fill up most of the rest of the budget pretty quickly. It's not my ideal use of funds, would prefer anything with Tucker starts next year and generally lean towards optimizing the 2025 team over anything else. but Tucker on a 10 year deal probably does more to lift the chances of success in the next 3-5 year window than any move made around the margins for 2025.
  6. squally1313
    Eh. 2023 Madrigal gave you 1.2 fWAR in 290 PAs, very good defense somehow, and an 85 wRC with an 8% K rate. It may not be replicable, and it almost certainly isn't 2025 Madrigal. But glove/contact is plenty sufficient for me.
  7. squally1313
    I honestly don't see a lot of difference between 2025 Matt Shaw and 2025 Yoan Moncada. Both are likely to struggle, but hold the promise of upside and cheap production, if they're both around I'm not sure you can really give either one a full roll of the dice. Give me 2023 Madrigal or just a glove first guy because that's probably where the biggest questions fall for Shaw, as long as they are cheap, and see what happens.
  8. squally1313
    I would have rather they signed Chapman last year than Bellinger, but that scenario only exists in an alternate, Kyle Tucker-less world so whatever. Every single person would have lost their horsefeathers if we had signed no one last year, and while he wasn't the best he was certainly better than a Jordan Montgomery path. It's fine, wish he would have played better and then opted out, whatever. You can play the market perception game both ways. We have a logjam and a money crunch, the Yankees need a guy like Bellinger and him at 2 years is probably better than Santander at 6 or whatever. Both teams have a bunch of things going on right now and sorting out the combination of money and prospects heading in either direction probably depends on where the other moves fall out. If we had already signed a closer and an upper tier bench bat and we NEEDED to dump Bellinger to get back under the cap, sure, I'd be worried. Absolute worst case, we go into next year with a moderately inefficient allocation of talent. It's probably going to be fine.
  9. squally1313
    Is there anything to suggest workman would have a better April in the pros than Shaw would? Or is this more about wanting shaw to check all the boxes on his way up before giving him the spot? Because if that’s the case, I still lean towards Shaw skipping his AAA graduation ceremony and jumping in the deep end. He’s done more at AAA than PCA ever did, and yeah, it was a rough 6-8 weeks for PCA but he came out of it alright and if our alternate third base plan doesn’t involve league average production anyways…might as well run with Shaw and give yourself the chance that he’s a unicorn?
  10. squally1313
    lol everyone was expecting 9m-10m a year but yeah sure, got to doom boner somehow after everything that happened today
  11. squally1313
    No that wasn’t a shot. I’m pretty sure what Bertz is referring to and what I am are aligned. He would have hit 26 home runs last year if every fly ball he hit was at Houston’s stadium. Tucker being a lefty and not really taking advantage of the Crawford boxes is just another testament of how good he is and how seamlessly his talent will travel.
  12. squally1313
    Claiming 20% of the twitter revenue here from whoever this is here
  13. squally1313
    Hey Roki Sasaki, we just added a fourth Gold Glover to our defense, PCA is probably the best center fielder in baseball, and Carson Kelly is excellent behind the plate. Please ignore third base thanks.
  14. squally1313
    If Paredes played every single game in Houston last year, he would have hit 26 home runs. Tucker hit 23 in 78 games.
  15. squally1313
    Alright let me nuke whatever credit I built up here: Suzuki is now our 5th best defensive outfielder, by a good margin, and has come out publicly in the last 48 hours about wanting to play the field. Does it make any sense at all to explore trading him for an actual return instead of a Bellinger salary dump? The obvious (and most likely correct) answer is no, why would you take away your second best hitter, etc. But there's an argument an essentially full time DH Suzuki tops out at a 3 fWAR guy, and if he moves the needle on, say, a Seattle starting pitcher, maybe you think about it? Totally insane?
  16. squally1313
    Makes you wonder why he's already had so many postseason opportunities. Insane that he already has 247 career PAs in the post season. 80 more than any Cub ever. Even his mediocre postseason numbers give him more HRs, runs, RBIs than any Cub.
  17. squally1313
    Tucker's 180 wRC last year would have been the second best Cubs offensive performance in the modern era (I'm excluding Ross Barnes hitting .429 in 1876, apologies to the Barnes family). 2001 Sosa and that's it. 2005 Derreck Lee? 170 1998 Sosa? 159 2016 KB? 146
  18. squally1313
    Happ Tucker Suzuki Busch Dansby PCA Hoerner Shaw Amaya
  19. squally1313
    Hey Brock what is the max amount of dumb 'this will never happen because Hoyer is a pussy' posts I can quote in a single post?
  20. squally1313
    Now do 2024 wRC/wOBA (after lowering the minimum PA threshold)
  21. squally1313
    oh baby
  22. squally1313
    The worst, most terrified GM in baseball on the verge of turning Chris Morel and the 73rd best prospect in baseball into a 180 wRC hitter over multiple trades in a 6 month period
  23. squally1313
    You're especially all over the place today
  24. squally1313
    Like, Gavin Lux put up 251/320/383 with negative defensive production last year and that was good enough for 1.5 fWAR in 487 PAs. This isn't a Shaw v Lux prospect pedigree comparison, it's more me saying that Shaw can lose 225 points of OPS from his AAA performance and still be ok.
  25. squally1313
    In the same way that Matt Shaw isn't Kris Bryant, he also isn't PCA. PCA more or less bottomed out in AAA offensively, at least in terms of what you'd expect from a top prospect (60 games and 275 PAs of like a 103 wRC). Shaw put up 142 wRC in his 35 games/152 PAs there, and has since had a loud offseason in terms of non-Cub production. Now, Shaw certainly isn't going to give you the defensive production as a backstop, but casting PCAs pre-August offensive production (550 OPS, 55 wRC) on Shaw isn't fair either.
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