Jump to content
North Side Baseball

squally1313

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    10,354

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    23

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by squally1313

  1. squally1313
    ...oh great, ANOTHER elite young hitter that jed probably won't pay for
  2. squally1313
    Yeah fine, I was using the above numbers for Eovaldi and Joc (so 34 instead of 40), and didn't really anticipate another 12 in total for the bottom two spots. Think if you can get a Cease (arb estimate: 13.7) or King (7.8), you live with Ben Brown instead of a 6 reliever and/or just ride with a Tauchman/Amaya/MIF/Canario for a little while
  3. squally1313
    Probably leaves room for the Cease/King trade idea being bounced around elsewhere too. I can't see the names TT mentioned getting all that close to $80m (in a Bellinger opt out world), King or Cease at $15m or so in their last year of arbitration should still fit. Still no long term contracts on the books, or an elite bat in the lineup, but Taillon as your fifth pitcher is real appetizing.
  4. squally1313
    11th overall pick getting 4 whole minutes is super encouraging
  5. squally1313
    no you're right, sorry. someone said something somewhere, and therefore we should use the quote to criticize jed hoyer
  6. squally1313
    Did the Cubs publicly rule out specific players?
  7. squally1313
    Actually I've thought a good amount on my own and decided that he sucks a lot at the very, very least and I don't want him anywhere near the Cubs, and those conclusions have nothing to do with the media. But appreciate the implication that we're all just sheep following 'the media' and you're the only free thinker around these parts.
  8. squally1313
    lol yes, nailed it, good work
  9. squally1313
  10. squally1313
    You just got done using Marcus Stroman to justify your point in multiple posts. I'm going to agree that older pitchers are more likely to regress in the aggregate, but that's also not a unique viewpoint. It's shared across baseball and baked into the contracts that are handed out for pitchers of that ilk. Jack Flaherty is going to get more money and more years than Kikuchi and Eovaldi even though they've put up similar production over the last two years. If you choose to play in these waters (with the upside being immediate production at cheaper rates than what a 29 year old would cost you), the onus is on the front office to do whatever they can to identify the skill sets/health profiles that are likely to stay steady for a couple more years.
  11. squally1313
    This is more calling out a larger point, but Hoyer has basically had 3 real off seasons in charge and at least one of them was not in 'playoff push' mode. I don't think you can make any real inferences from 'Jed has never made a move like X' because there's just not enough sample size out there. This isn't like Theo where you could look to what he did with Boston. I'm not saying you can't narrow down general philosophies, but ruling out whole classes of players because he hasn't signed one them in the last two years seems like a stretch.
  12. squally1313
    Agreed on this point, and also, they can flex their muscles all they want as a 'top 5' payroll team, but they're going up against pretty much the undisputed top 2. If Juan Soto signs anywhere besides NYC/LA, then I'll start to question just how big of a big market team Tom wants us to be. But we aren't the Dodgers/Yankees.
  13. squally1313
    Yeah that's all fair. We're in a second straight offseason of there being one free agent head and shoulders above everyone else, and it's looking very likely that they're going to end up on one of two teams that are all the following: bigger markets, historically willing to spend more than us, and a better set up for success. It's one thing to lose like, Harper to Philly or hypothetically Seager/Semien to Texas. But the Yankees and Dodgers setting new overall contract/AAV records isn't going to make me think too much less of Hoyer. Like, Bellinger got the 4th highest total salary and 3rd highest AAV last year. I'm certainly not going to call it an elite signing, given that he's not an elite player and that Boras played it out the way that he did where everyone just got exhausted of the whole process. But people saying 'Hoyer never plays at the top of the market' really just means, in last offseasons terms, he didn't get Ohtani.
  14. squally1313
    Would the nine figure pitcher not be at the top of the market? Not trying to be pedantic, but think it's mildly unfair if the board collectively decides that 'top of the market' is just Soto (and therefore 29 teams would not be operating at the top of the market).
  15. squally1313
    I may be getting some of the nuances wrong, but I don't put a lot of weight in 'well they got one back, so it's fine'. Contreras signs with StL and they suddenly have two second round picks, no? You're still losing a draft pick even if you picked one up separately. If you put some weight/value to a player selected in the second round, you'd put similar weight/value on a second player selected in the second round.
  16. squally1313
    I think the overly summarized version of where I'm at right now, in a non-Soto world, is sign Flaherty, trade prospects for a somewhat controlled starting pitcher (Seattle, Miami, etc), sign a catcher, Jenson, Kelly, whatever, and then get a somewhat cheap RH bat that hits lefties. Your bullpen upgrades become Assad, Brown, and Horton and the increased likelihood that the rotation won't crap out and lead to the bullpen being overworked by May. If Bellinger opts in, that's about your $50m ($20m for Flaherty, $10m for a catcher, $5m for a bench bat, I guess go get another bullpen arm?). If he opts out, go get Teoscar or Santander at some 4/100 type deal.
  17. squally1313
    He's signed a guy with a QO, Dansby, as mentioned above. If you're specifically talking about the additional penalties, sure, but to my knowledge we've never faced this additional incremental penalty (setting aside how punitive people view it as), so saying it's something he's never done before doesn't mean anything. Unless I'm missing something.
  18. squally1313
    I was focusing on the 'additional penalties' part of the original statement, but, fair, I didn't do a good job of separating those two.
  19. squally1313
    3-6 months with most on the lower end (per the original post) would make it pretty likely he's good for opening day. Triantos would be the other name who could make sense. Neither are on the 40 man, but guys like Mastro and Madrigal are so assume spots will be available. Luiz Vasquez is the only name on the 40 man who I expect to still be around next year
  20. squally1313
    Is it small sample size?
  21. squally1313
    It’s a fifth round pick and $500k of international money for a GM that everyone believes needs to make the playoffs or he’s gone. I can’t imagine that would be the line in the sand.
  22. squally1313
    The good player who had a good year might have done the good playing while not fully 100%. That creates some optimism for next year, no? and let’s not pretend like there were any concrete ideas for trading hoerner outside of ‘well we need to open up a slot for the guy in Iowa for…reasons’. A 4 win second baseman making $10-12m a year is not at all the reason for this ‘prolonged mediocrity’.
  23. squally1313
    Oh no our 3.9 fWAR second baseman was actually playing through an injury, now he's getting it fixed and I'm upset that might mean we can't trade him
  24. squally1313
    Agreed that that is how that works, but the whole point of getting a Nick Martinez (not at all tied to him specifically, but going along with your example) is because he's (somewhat significantly) less likely to pitch like ass than a Javier Assad. Martinez just put up a year that was 3.5x better, fWAR wise, than Assad's best year (2024) in 5 less innings. Putting out a lesser pitcher because it offers more flexibility to swap him out for the guys that the lesser pitcher beat out for the spot is a good use of depth, but you risk emulating our bullpen revolving door in the 5th spot....you'll probably eventually end up with a solution, but what's it going to cost you in the meantime?
  25. squally1313
    First part is fair, assuming we don't get pitcher-attritioned on the front end as opposed to the back end like we did this year. Obviously you can't gameplan for a Steele injury, but the forearm injury in September and the thought that we're one of those away from Jameson Taillon, Third Starter as a team with playoff aspirations is pretty depressing. As for the second part, I think dumping a bunch of money into the rotation also helps the bullpen. You go get two starters and keep Assad and Wicks stretched out either in the swing role or in Iowa, and then you tell Brown and Horton that they aren't starting this year and to go see how hard they can throw in two inning spurts. I'd rather go that route than throwing a dart at the 'FA relievers who gave you 1 fWAR last year' board.
×
×
  • Create New...