squally1313

Busch was graded at 30 for fielding going into this year on the back of playing mostly second base in the minors. The glass half full side of things can point to his improvements and say he's just a drastically better fielder now, the half empty view is that first base is truly that much of a step down, difficulty wise, from a middle infield position, and whatever offensive upgrade you'd get there (depends on the metric: wOBA and wRC look to be substantial step ups, xwOBA not so much) would be given away (and maybe then some) defensively. I don't know. I feel a lot better about Bellinger than I did a month ago but still prefer all of Happ, PCA, Suzuki, Busch, and Hoerner over him as consistent options. We've tried, and failed, two years in a row to have the offensive plan be 'good all over, great nowhere'....but if Bellinger opts in maybe it's the best route and then you just go sign two of Flaherty/Burnes/Eovaldi and/or go prospects for pitching? Like, yeah, good but not great was the plan going into this year, but that was with us hoping on Morel at third and Madrigal in the opening day starting line up. Whereas Bellinger as your starting right fielder next year probably projects as your 8th best offensive starter. I'd still rather Bellinger opt out and we get creative on an elite bat. But $60m and a bunch of blocked prospects (behind an offense that's been 5th in fWAR in the second half) gets you at least 2 legitimate starters, some pen stability, and ideally a Carson Kelly. Steele/Shota/Mariners pitcher/Flaherty/Taillon with Assad/Brown/Horton there as support/amped up pen work is significantly improved over where we are now, and there's still plenty of money for the pen and a catcher after that.

I don't think their internal budget number is drastically different than the CBT number. But I don't think, if they ran back the Bellinger situation again this February, they'd take an approach of like 'we can offer this much and not a penny more because of CBT'. If they're willing to offer a player $30m, they're probably going to be willing to go to $32 or $33 all in (with the tax) if that's what it takes. Ultimately, Tom's number and the CBT number are very much in the same ballpark and therefore the actual disincentives of the tax (minimal), in my opinion, are never really going to be a main driving factor.

I generally tend to agree with you that overall production matters more than a specific facet of the game but pretty much every offensive roster idea thrown about so far has focused specifically on offensive production (because we have enough glove heavy guys) and picking Seiya as the guy to be replaced means your incremental offensive improvement is minimized. I like Bellinger as a person and he's going to end up having a decent year. But if I'm Hoyer and I don't mind being an horsefeathers, I'm doing everything I can broadcast to people that we are going to be heavily in the market for a big RF bat this year, and that Seiya is our DH, PCA is our CF, and Busch is our first baseman*, and let Bellinger see the writing on the wall. *: There are arguments for bringing back Bellinger as a right/center fielder. There are, in my opinion, no legitimate arguments to bringing him back as the primary first baseman making 30x what Busch does to hit and maybe field worse.

The Bleed Cubbie Blue article I'm reading says that they knew they were very likely going to be over back in February when they signed Bellinger. They then went on to add salary in the Paredes/Morel trade, which they very obviously didn't have to do. Crane Kenney is also quoted as saying 'the CBT is not a governor'. I mean, what specific piece of evidence (them being over, them knowing they were over before the year, them adding salary at the deadline) is pointing towards 'they won't go over in the future'. We can be frustrated conceptually that they likely won't approach a $300m payroll. But in line with the budget that many of us understand it to be ($250m or so), the penalties just don't mean anything and there's no evidence pointing to that being a hard line in the sand.

But why would they care if the penalty is some rounding error? They obviously didn’t this year. Like the only actual piece of evidence we have is them seemingly going slightly over, and Jed candidly talking about it in a way that expresses very little concern about it.

“30% penalty’ doesn’t mean anything in terms of actual financial disincentive. It’s like moving into the next marginal tax rate. The question is always 30% of what, and all indications are the cubs plan will be to stick around that line and therefore it will at worst be some percentage of some low number.

Well Suzuki and Happ are both better hitters than bellinger, so I’m not sure why he automatically gets a spot

Seiya Suzuki is comfortably our best hitter but I guess with Dansby and Happ doing their thing we need to target somebody

I don't know what the mechanics would have been to push them back under once they got to midseason and didn't look like a playoff team. But like, Taillon probably could have gotten traded to save the (minimal) tax penalty. But then you're out a known starter for A. the slim chance you had at the playoffs this year and B. on a go forward basis. I really don't think it was as simple as some excel mistake.

Because he's Bad At His Job, duhhhh

Is it a dick move to cut Smyly at this point in the season?

Sure. Just clarifying that late 2000s Ryan Theriot was an average player, and early 2020s Nico Hoerner is a Good player.

It's not a bad comparison when you look at the pure statistics. Theriot in his career went 281/341/350 and Hoerner is at 276/337/377. But you're looking at pretty different offensive climates. 2008 was Theriot's best fWAR year (3.0) and the league wide OPS was 37 points higher than what it currently is in 2024. That and defense explains why Hoerner has pretty comfortably produced a lot more, WAR wise, then Theriot (4.3/4.6/3.3 the last three years).

Brought it up before but going to repeat my idea of a Paredes centered deal for Tucker. Bregman is a free agent this year, Paredes has 19 home runs this year, would only have 14 expected home runs at Wrigley but would have had 29 if he played every game in Houston. You slot Shaw in at third base and do whatever you can to lock in Tucker long term.

Yeah they certainly could be done playing pretty soon here but at least they're getting paid for (multiple) more seasons. Don't know what the market is for a 35 year old first baseman with a .608 OPS.

Honestly, Rizzo is probably the guy for that, maybe as soon as this offseason. I'm so old.

Let's get through this start without needing serious arm surgery, please

This might be the push I need to drop YTTV and go with just an antenna and the ondemand apps

Out of curiosity, would you take under 105 wRC next year?

I'd add Tucker to the list (and probably agree with everyone else that Soto isn't happening). Mostly agreed that the rest of the free agent bats don't do anything for me. Santander is another Happ/Suzuki, Alonso taking playing time away from Busch or Hoerner is dumb. I'd love to call a trade and extension for one of those guys as our big free agent deal but realistically I know Tucker or Vlad is going to hit free agency. I keep leaving myself with this weird problem of like 'well, we need to spend this money somewhere' like I'm Oscar trying to explain the budget surplus to Michael. The non-Soto free agent bats are just whatever, and the pitching options range from old to very old. Someone like Tucker or Vlad would take up a chunk just from arbitration, but most of the pitching trade targets (attractively) come with a bunch of team control. I liked that Luis Castillo idea?

We need to get to roughly 850 innings from starters next year. You've got Shota, Steele, Taillon, Assad, let's be aggressive and give them 150 a piece, whether or not we want to or should. Need another 250. Brown threw 55 innings this year. Wesneski threw 70. Wicks is going to end up around 70. Horton even less. I mean...Caleb Kilian? Brandon Birdsell? We're just going to hope on basically full year health from our top 4 guys and not even really be able to to push anyone back down to the pen to shore up that need? Go get a good starter.

But the original post was already baking in marginal improvements from having multiple top 100 prospects performing at AAA this year and being ready to take over for the Madrigals and Mastros of the world, and you claiming that wasn't enough to be a playoff caliber offense. We're 11th in offensive fWAR for the whole year and 6th since the ASB. In a 12 team playoff league, that's pretty definitionally a playoff caliber offense. Significant improvements are welcome, of course! But we're going to end up with a full year slightly above average offense and slightly below average pitching staff, and our near-MLB ready farm system is full of bats and very low on healthy pitching. It's pretty obvious to me which side needs more help.

Preseason projections for the Diamondbacks by wRC: Carroll 123 Marte 121 Walker 113 Pederson 113

Cubs: .243/.318/.397 Royals: .253/.310/.416 Cleveland: .238/.309/.395 Braves: .240/.306/.408 Second half numbers are even better. To be fair, there's a huge gap to the elites of the world. But there's a lot of argument for this being a playoff caliber offense right now.

In the second half, the Cubs have been: 6th in wRC/wOBA 1st in baserunning 5th in total offense 5th in defense 4th in offensive fWAR On the pitching side: 21st in K/9 16th in BB/9 20th in HR/9 16th in GB% 11th in ERA 19th in FIP 19th in xFIP 20th in fWAR