squally1313
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Everything posted by squally1313
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Can you give him a $20m signing bonus too? Make him a $35m guy for his purposes in 2025, but keep the luxury tax hit to arb number.
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This is good. I think the Cubs have agency and taking Busch (a player without anything close to an in house replacement) off the table does not mean the Cubs can't get this deal done. I get their loyalty to Bregman but I also don't understand trading their 6 fWAR, $35m/year RF and then turning around and signing an older, 4 fWAR 3B to $25m/year. Or else just throw prospects at them. There's other options. I don't really know how the extension conversations/rules work, and I guess I don't know why they have to put an extension starting in 2025 in place. Can they sign a contract tomorrow and have it not affect the luxury tax calcs until 2026? Even with some sort of signing bonus? Making 2025 Kyle Tucker a $35m guy takes away at least some of the appeal.
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I think you have to consider the trade for Tucker and the extension of Tucker as two totally separate things. You are trading for one year of a 6 fWAR outfielder that you only have to pay $16m. That's really valuable, especially for a team that is probably an 83 win team right now and is trying to stay under the first rung of the cap. A long term deal would be nice, because he is very good at baseball and it is certainly not my money, but realistically Kyle Tucker on a long term deal that pays him his worth doesn't have much trade value right? Like if we traded for him, signed him to a 10 year deal, and he was still this hot commodity, his agent didn't do a very good job in negotiating the deal and getting him market value. I'm fine making the trade with the very real chance we have Tucker for 6 months. I want to push our chips in, the subsequent Bellinger-for-similarly-overprice-midrotation-starter makes too much sense, I have less problems than others handing the job to Shaw out of the gate (and go sign Solano or whatever). Players seem to like it here, whatever leg up that gives us in the extension negotiation, great. But this is a 2025 trade.
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Can you expand on this? Like, compared to who? Not doubting you, know you're relatively deep in the weeds with multiple teams here, really generally curious. My general belief is that we are generally just day to day followers of one team (Cubs), and we get aggregated news of the other 29 teams, and so we think there's just stuff going on elsewhere, all the time, but in reality the Cubs are contributing a comparable amount to the overall news cycle. Like, relative to the other moves made, we made a semi-big trade at the 2023 trade deadline, we signed one of the bigger FAs last offseason, we made the Busch trade, we made a bigger trade (Morel/Paredes) at the 2024 deadline. Yeah, it's no Soto or Ohtani, but outside of the coastal elite teams are we still 'boring'?
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Fried to the Yankees, 8/218
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Happ/PCA/Tucker, Seiya DH, Caissie waiting in the wings.
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yayyyyyy booooooooooo
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I think it's one thing to go to Seiya in the middle of August and tell him he's going to be mostly DH the rest of the year based on the presence of PCA and two GG outfielders, and as such he didn't play the field after August 24th. It's a little different going into a new season with three (or more) outfielders locked up multiple years in front of him. The Cubs coming to him about potential trades when he has a NTC probably annoyed them a little bit too, so might as well make their frustrations public.
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A team that is floating their best player on the trade market who is scheduled to make $16m this year does not have any interest in a noticeably worse version of that player for 2/$38m
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The Astros want no part of Suzuki
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There's a few different ways to recreate the total value in the aggregate (cheap major league talent, a couple of the top pieces, a bunch of the mid level pieces). Being discussed a lot more in the link below. Also worth noting that Tucker probably doesn't carry quite the same reputation as Soto/Betts. https://northsidebaseball.com/forums/topic/54181-kyle-tucker-trade-rumors-the-theory-and-praxis-of-bringing-astros-slugger-to-cubs-in-blockbuster-deal/#comment-3925610
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It's three years of Paredes at like....$20m total vs one year of Tucker at $16m. They lose 2-3 wins in 2025 but get an asset back for 2026-2027 when the implication is that they aren't signing Tucker long term (because why float his name out there otherwise).
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1. I agree that impact is pretty muted if it's just a 2025 reshuffle, but I still think it's an upgrade (Tucker>>>Bellinger, Castillo>>Assad, Shaw<<Paredes from a stacking WAR perspective, and going beyond that analysis you get the elite middle of the order bat and give your top prospect a clear opening to be the minimum salary producer they've needed for years). Tucker is obviously the prize, but we still need reliable pitching and getting someone like Castillo is huge. 2. I know the players/agents don't care about the luxury tax and whatever else, but if I'm Jed I get Tucker through arbitration, stay under the tax line this year to reset, get Tucker on a monster extension starting 2026, blow through the limit next year in what should be our prime contention year (along with 2025), and then let all those contracts with 2 years left fall off and pivot from there around Tucker, PCA, etc.
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My back of the envelope math has Paredes for Tucker and Bellinger for Castillo as a net $8m cash loss, while filling the other starting spot you're trying to fill. That leaves....$20ish million? For the Kelly contract, a bench bat, and the bullpen. It's a little tight, and obviously depends on how you view the Bellinger to Tucker upgrade vs the Paredes to Shaw downgrade. But even a pessimistic view on those two deals from an offensive standpoint would say it's neutral at worse, and picking up a starter like Castillo for net $8m is probably better than you're going to do elsewhere. Obviously, you have to actually make the moves to get it done. But in a video game world, I make those moves every time.
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I'll continue to beat the drum that if you really want Kyle Tucker (and you should, he's fantastic), the Astros have a big hole at third base they are trying to replace and we have a third baseman with probably the best batted ball profile imaginable for their ballpark. A lot of people here are chomping at the bit to send off our 4 win 2B to then move Shaw to a position he didn't play much last year, I'm here suggesting we move our 3-3.5 win 3B (albeit with an extra year of control) to pick up what would clearly be our best player instantly. You do that move (which allows you to hold onto most, if not all of your prospect base, three years of Paredes is probably worth more than one year of Tucker), you move Bellinger for a starter (call it Castillo), and you've made clear upgrades in right field and the rotation while downgrading third base.
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Cubs Showing Interest In Additional Late Inning Relievers
squally1313 replied to Bertz's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I mean, we did sign Robertson 3 years ago. -
It's great that we can all have it both ways. Every time a bad catcher* signs with another team, we can complain about Jed not signing him. And then when we finally get a bad catcher, we also get to complain that he's not good and it's a bad signing. No matter what happens, the outcome is the same! * 'bad catcher' can be substituted with 'mediocre catcher' or 'overly injured pitcher' or however you describe the next move that tangentially involves the Cubs
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Really it's Sasaki to get to 90. We got 2.8 fWAR from the starters not named Steele/Shota/Taillon last year (in 388 innings). Boyd helps. Another top line guy in the rotation is still the best bang for your buck in terms of replacement value.
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This is the same guy, right?
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$144m payroll huh. Found PTRs burner
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Morosi: "Cubs Among Viable Candidates for Garrett Crochet"
squally1313 replied to Matthew Lenz's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Equating Matt Shaw, consensus top 30 prospect in baseball, with Matt mervis is pretty disingenuous -
Rumor: Cubs, Sox, Mariners in talks on 3 team deal
squally1313 replied to Rex Buckingham's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Too much for me, I think. Cubs are going from Assad (1) to Crochet (4.5) and then from Hoerner (4) to Shaw (1.5?)*. Wicks and Caissie is a lot for a win. I think Caissie becomes more important in a post Hoerner world where there's less uncertainty about offensive production (ie if Shaw falls on his face), and a rotation where 60% of it is Crochet/Steele/Boyd still needs plenty of depth. Would rather let them figure out Ballesteros or else go further down the minor league rungs since the Sox aren't close to contention. *Plus roughly $15m in cap space over the next two years. Edit: Said another way, we've got a 2 year window right now and the Sox very clearly don't, so I would prioritize keeping pieces who can provide help in that window (Caissie, Wicks, Horton) and try to sell them on Cam Smith, Jaxon Wiggins, Christian Hernandez, etc. -
Rumor: Cubs, Sox, Mariners in talks on 3 team deal
squally1313 replied to Rex Buckingham's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
And that's with picking up like...$7m in cap space. Lineup: Happ/Seiya/Cody/Busch/Paredes/Shaw/Swanson/PCA/Amaya. Bench is....very unsettled Pitching: Crochet/Steele/Shota/Taillon/Boyd and last years bullpen Fangraphs has our total number at $201m right now with the first lux tax cap at $241. Let's say the number is $230m internally for whatever reason, going from Nico's $11.5m to Crochet's $3m is another $8.5 and so we'd be at roughly $37.5m to address the bullpen/catcher/bench. Would be fine going cheap on catcher (and maybe bench) and going to get a high quality bench to go back to the discussed 10 guys/9 spots arrangement, but gives you some flexibility. Depending, of course, on what other prospects would be included. -
(gigantic shrug) It's a podcast. Were these guys discussing the Matt Boyd deal before it landed? Anyone have the Busch or Paredes trades in advance last year? They're filling space.
