champaignchris

It would be fun if Chatwood were really good this year. But I’m not going to hold my breath.

That Cain contract is going to age incredibly poorly for the Brewers. He’s 33 and he’s got three more years and $51M left after this year. Even if the Cubs got 2018 Adam Jones OPSing .732 and playing a bad right field, he’d be pretty easily worth the $3M the D-Backs are paying him just to get Almora’s bat out of the lineup.

Surely Ian Happ could be OPSing more than .480.

Outside of Hader, their pitching staff is horrible. That's where the pixie dust comes in. They went pretty far with that bad pitching staff last year. Cedeno, Gonzalez, Knebel, Miley and Soria were all on that pitching staff last year when they made their big run to win the division at the end. They and maybe Peralta too are either hurt or gone now.

Brewers are 12-7 with a -2 run differential. That seems sustainable They have pixie dust/devil magic going on. I expect it to continue as long as Yelich & Cain are in Brewers uniforms. Outside of Hader, their pitching staff is horrible.

Joey Votto popped up to the first baseman for the first time in his Major League career tonight. 13 years and 7,000-ish at bats. That’s bizarre.

Hamels, Zobrist, Strop, Cishek, and Kintzler are free agents. Rizzo, Quintana, Brach and Morrow all have club options. Rizzo for two more seasons. Brach, Quintana and Morrow for one more season.

If the team keeps looking as mentally out of it as it did tonight, you can scroll up your predictions by a few weeks.

Also at the root of this is the failure to develops ANY MLB caliber pitchers. It’s not a complete wash. Godley became the starting catcher on the WS team and Blackburn became Montgomery. But still, develop a 4/5 starter and two serviceable relievers at some point in the last 7 years and then you don’t have to spend the money to fill out the pitching staff. Prioritizing collegiate bats early really worked out for the team, but you’d figure eventually a 4th or 5th round draft pick could come up and be a contributor.

Also Gerrit Cole. I forgot about him.

Not surprised. That takes the biggest position player free agent off the board for 2020. Probably the only guy the Cubs would have been remotely interested. I suppose Puig could have a big enough year to gather some interest and Ozuna could have a bounce back year. Although it's just as likely that Ozuna continues to show that 2017 was a fluke and Puig burns down a large section of Cincinnati or something. Maybe J.D. Martinez has another monster year and ops out, although given the market recently, that would be really, really ballsy on his part considering he'd still be guaranteed $62-ish million through his age 34 year. After that, we're left with Mad Bum, Betances, and... ...and I'd still not be surprised if Betances were extended before he ever hits the open market.

A couple things have become apparent about that 2017-2018 offseason... 1. Previously, the Cubs had emphasized arm health in the pitchers they acquired. They certainly signed guys who’d had major arm injuries, but they’d all had a few years under their belts showing they were back to health (Lester and Lackey) or were extreme buy-low candidates (Rondon). Theo completely threw that strategy to the wayside in signing Morrow, Chatwood and Darvish. 2. Theo completely misread the market environment under the new CBA. Look no farther than the Chatwood signing. (I was all in on the Chatwood signing, by the way.) He got him early in the offseason for 3 years at $13M per. He could have had guys with similar pedigrees like Chacin, Minor or Mikolas for half the AAV and/or fewer years. Alex Cobb ended up signing for just a couple $million more per year than Chatwood despite a much better resume. The Duensing signing and trade for Kintzler also seem to indicate a misreading of the market. Those three players - all acquired since the end of 2017 - are combining to make $21M this year... that’s $10M more than Bryce Harper is making in the first year of his contract with the Phillies, by the way. We can also question whether Cole Hamels is really going to be $13M more valuable than Drew Smyly this year. I think the other misfires with the pitching staff meant that Theo couldn’t gamble on finding out and had to pay a premium for the more sure thing.

I think walking Rizzo in front of Baez is generally going to work out poorly for the opposing team this year.

Of course he got booed. Philly fans are the worst... Counterparts gif. Strong.

I could see the Cubs going after Bogaerts if he’s available. But I’m guessing the Sox never let him out of Boston.

The number of very good pitchers who hit arbitration and don't end up making 40+ million is...substantial. Pitching is fleeting, take the money. So if Nola is the benchmark, what's a Hendricks extension look like? $3M signing bonus, $9M in '20, $12 M in '21, $12 M in '22, $15M option in '23 with a $4M buyout? I was pretty damn close.

Will be interested to see how this compares to Mikolas, Nola, Snell, Severino, etc.

I’m looking at these Severino, Mikolas, Nola and Snell extensions, plus the fact that Yu Darvish is the only Cubs starting pitcher signed through 2021 and wondering how the Cubs haven’t extended Hendricks.

Rick Porcello is a pretty reliable inning eater and will be several notches below Sale and Bumgarner in price. Probably give a similar performance to Hamels this year at less than $20M a year. The entire bullpen besides Edwards is going to be a free agent, assuming neither Morrow’s or Brach’s options are picked up. I just can’t see Morrow’s $12M being worth it. Even if he manages to pitch 65 innings. Witch he won’t. If Brach has a nice bounce back year, maybe he’s back. Cishek, Strop, Duensing, Cedeno, and Kintzler will all be gone. Montgomery and Chatwood will both be back, but I’m assuming the Cubs are desperately hoping one of those two will seize a starting spot so they don’t have to spend the cash on a Porcello type. But even if they’re both in the pen, the Cubs will be looking at signing 4 or 5 bullpen arms unless some of the dumpster diver specials Theo has signed this offseason or someone from the farm catches on. And there’s very little sex appeal among next year’s bullpen free agents. (I’d be shocked if the Yankees allow Dellin Betances to leave the Bronx.) Zobrist will be gone and I assume he’ll get replaced by some 4th or 5th outfielder type. Corey Dickerson is better than that, but might be a decent semi-cheap pick up.

25.4 per year...or put another way Brandon Kintzler plus Cole Hamels plus .4 million Horsefeathers Theo just as much as Tom Now think about what Russell is making Chatwood + Duensing + Descalso + Russell + Kintzler = $25.9M. That's 5 guys that will have pretty negligible value this year and you could still have Hamels. (BTW, I will cop to being all in favor of signing Chatwood, although it quickly became apparent over last offseason that the Cubs could have waited and signed him or someone very like him for quite a bit less.)

No. It probably puts the Phillies solidly in wild card contention and gets the Giants out of last place and somewhere around 3rd place in their division. Probably. The Giants will spend. They just have a ton of bad contracts right now. The Phillies have said that they'll spend and have been throwing money all over the place (in relation to other teams, that is). The Giants are in a pretty bad salary hole right now, but will probably be able to content in 2 or 3 years. And they desperately need outfield solutions right now. The Phillies have some nice young talent that should get better. They could be contenders really soon with Harper. So, neither team is a sure shot chance to compete for the WS over the next couple years that the Cubs, Nats, Dodgers or Yankees would be, but there's a pretty reasonable chance that they'll both compete for a WS at some point during the first half of a hypothetical 10 year contract.

The longer this goes without Harper signing with another team, the more likely it is he signs with the Cubs. Right?... Right? RIGHT!?!?!? This offseason is silly.

Insert kid-coming-home-from-dentist-"Is-this-real-life" .gif here.

The Giants will be worse than the Diamondbacks.

are they gonna cycle out their 8000 stupid different camo uniforms though If it isn’t vintage Dave Winfield-era brown and banana yellow, I don’t want to see it.