Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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I do not want to "masterful gambit sir" having Colin Rea as the 5th starter, but if the team thinks they are sufficiently better than the Brewers there's a lot of logic to pushing the inevitable Alcantara/Caissie for a SP trade to July. Especially now that we know Alcantara has an extra option. AZ Phil's opinions are dumb meatball radio caller stuff, but he is legitimately an expert at the administrative aspects of minor league rosters. I trust him implicitly there.
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I've been really surprised at the lack of trade buzz around Alcantara this winter. He's nominally blocked by PCA, the most exciting pure talent at Iowa (moreso than Shaw even), and a true CF in a winter where the options on the market there are quite sad. I'm wondering if the industry is softening on him, or the total opposite where he's played himself into something approaching untouchable status in the team's eyes. The surprising late season callup plus the team not adding a true bench CFer this winter (it appears that will be covered by Canario and/or Brujan?) would seem to point to the latter.
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If this ends up going down, I'd suspect Jed softened on his long term deals for relievers stance in this case for these reasons: - A professional courtesy to Craig Counsell. There was rumor that Jed was considering multi-year deals last winter in deference. It didn't end up happening then obviously - The rising costs in the SP market making the ROI on reliever deals not look quite so bad - The rest of the bullpen is VERY cheap. Caleb Thielbar at $2.75M is their top paid reliever and Nate Pearson at $1.35 is second - Unlike Flaherty or someone like that, you can fit Scott and a Tucker extension under the 2026 LT, barely I do still ultimately expect a one year deal to one of the old guys though.
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A steady chatter has been building throughout this week around the Cubs' pursuit of a new closer. Most reports however have had them foregoing Tanner Scott, the top reliever on the free agent market, and instead targeting the next tier down with Kirby Yates' name often mentioned. Jon Morosi this evening lists the Cubs as a "top suitor" for Scott's services however. Additionally, Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic also notes the Cubs pursuit of Scott: However, it is worth noting, Sharma ultimately comes down on the side of Scott being beyond the Cubs' financial comfort zone. The Mets have generally been seen as Scott's top suitor, so with them signing AJ Minter this afternoon, perhaps there's an opening. Morosi also notes that Scott is likely close to a decision. The relief market is expected to move quickly after Scott signs, so either way the Cubs may have their new closer on hand soon. View full rumor
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A steady chatter has been building throughout this week around the Cubs' pursuit of a new closer. Most reports however have had them foregoing Tanner Scott, the top reliever on the free agent market, and instead targeting the next tier down with Kirby Yates' name often mentioned. Jon Morosi this evening lists the Cubs as a "top suitor" for Scott's services however. Additionally, Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic also notes the Cubs pursuit of Scott: However, it is worth noting, Sharma ultimately comes down on the side of Scott being beyond the Cubs' financial comfort zone. The Mets have generally been seen as Scott's top suitor, so with them signing AJ Minter this afternoon, perhaps there's an opening. Morosi also notes that Scott is likely close to a decision. The relief market is expected to move quickly after Scott signs, so either way the Cubs may have their new closer on hand soon. -
Jordan Wicks looks skinny. Hopefully that means that he can regularly throw north of 93 without his obliques turning to ash.
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I have never been to Toronto but have heard nothing but incredible things about it as a city. But what about dumb horsefeathering move that would be from a pure baseball standpoint. The Blue Jays seem poised to rebound significantly from last year's debacle, however: - Their best players are primarily pending free agents (Vladito, Bichette) aging pitchers (Gausman, Berrios) or both (Chris Bassit) - Their farm system is butt, ranked 24th by MLB.com at midseason and 23rd by Fangraphs - They have shown no ability to get the best out of pitchers. Just last season they traded away Yusei Kikuchi and Nate Pearson and saw them make minor mechanical/repertoire changes and immediately begin to thrive after year's of mis-management north of the border
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The Padres A) Just missed on a guy they've been courting for years B) Have 6 (!!!) spots open on their 40 man C) Haven't made a transaction of note since July There's a real chance we're about to see some absolutely insane Preller-ing over the next week or two.
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Looks like the inevitable has happened. There's no way he's dumb enough to pick the Blue Jays, right?
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Setting aside my feelings on ranking a player with 1/3rd of a season in Low A as a Top 10 overall prospect, there's also a time value of money component here. For instance, if Busch gives the Cubs 15 WAR from 2024-2029, and Hope/Ferris give the Dodgers 20 WAR from 2027-2032, is that a bad deal?
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It's not hard to see that totalling $25M. For instance something like Yates - $12M Canha - $8M Moncada- $5M That's not to say they won't go cheaper, but I think you could reasonably spend anywhere from $15-30M on this part of the shopping list.
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This feels like a good succinct way laying out the rough expectation from here. Maybe broaden opportunistic beyond SP (though SP would certainly be the ideal).
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lol
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I'm torn on Montgomery, and admittedly haven't thought about him since Rea. On the one hand, he seems like one of the most obvious bounce-back candidates in the league. The number of guys who have signed late, ate crap for a season, and then resumed their careers like. nothing happened is fairly lengthy. And with Montgomery especially, it's easy to draw a line from abbreviated spring training -> not at 100% physically -> velo drop -> poor performance. If Montgomery is throwing 93+ a few starts into the season it's pretty easy to say he's back. On the other hand, particularly after Rea I don't know that I want to burn yet more roster spots on projects. If Ben Brown or Cade Horton are striking out 35% of the batters they're facing at Iowa, and all of the Cubs' back end veteran types are pitching adequately, how many bullets do we have to sit around watching get wasted in Des Moine? Ultimately I guess I'd chalk it up to cost. If AZ eats enough salary that Jed can acquire Montgomery without having to skimp on the bench and bullpen options he wants, I'm probably up for it. If Montgomery though is the difference between Kirby Yates + Mark Canha vs. Paul Sewald + Conor Joe I'm going to have a fit.
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International Free Agency Thread, 1/15/2025 Class
Bertz replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
I saw someone the other day say $100K, but I thought I remembered it being wayyyy lower, like $10k or $20k. I'm not sure if that's something that changed last CBA? -
I would imagine Alonso signing will move the position player group along broadly. I'd also like to think given that we need a backup 1B it would help move things along for us finalizing the bench.
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Getting greedy, I wonder if there's an arbitrage opportunity here. Sell IFA funds to the Dodgers at a huge premium to help them get Sasaki over the line, and then buy back all/most of that IFA money at a discount from the Padres because the IFA market's fairly picked over at this point. My understanding is that the Padres in anticipation of Sasaki did not allocate their full allotment in LatAm, so I don't think it's as simple for using their IFA money as calling guys up and saying "We're back on."
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International Free Agency Thread, 1/15/2025 Class
Bertz replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
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The Zombro/Tread stuff is a really interesting sub-plot to this offseason. Because he is so public-facing, there is real opportunity to tie his fingerprints back to specific transactions. For instance, Greg Z was able to tie back the Cody Poteet acquisition to a video Zombro posted shortly after: https://baseballtribune.substack.com/p/cody-poteet-a-gold-mine There's enough digital ink spilled from Zombro that when Ben Brown adds a new changeup or whatever we're going to know exactly how to assign that credit. It'll be interesting to look back a year from now.
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In the context of this conversation, how so?
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This is literally from the Rogers article you're referencing
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And so this is different from the situation I laid out because....?
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Were you in a coma last February?
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I wonder if this was the strategy behind signing Rea. Not necessarily Bregman specifically (I expect he will at worst be able to settle for Matt Chapman money from the Tigers), but just this sort of move broadly. Right now, the only absolute needs on the roster are backup at 1st and 3rd. There are other areas for obvious improvement, but that infield depth is all that they cannot live without. There's also, as discussed ad nauseum, about $30M we suspect Jed can play with (and this rumor would suggest that's not being funneled into a superpac somewhere). So is the plan to fill the absolute holes on the roster, and then in early February Jed flies to Orange County with $30M on his debit card and posts up outside of Boras Corp or CAA like this? There are a few guys on the market that the team simply cannot make work as a team fit, like Jurickson Profar. But through positional flexibility you can broadly make most remaining free agent position players work, and there's obvious room for pitching still.
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If Jed's willing to eat a qualifying offer, I wonder what Nick Pivetta could be had for. He's someone who it seemed like at the time probably ought to have accepted it, and now it seems like he *really* messed up by not taking it. If you offer him a good salary, could you get him for something especially team friendly like 1 year plus a club option?
