Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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Oh?
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All 30 teams are operating based on basic concepts like the marginal value of a win. The differences between teams are the specifics of their models and how much they use that kind of language publicly. But it's more or less settled science.
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Yeah Canha/Rojas/Kelly/Brujan is a pretty strong bench. Should still leave plenty of financial room for the rest of the pitching we want too. I wonder if they'd let Canha play CF. He's fast enough for it but hasn't done it regularly in several years. Maybe at Wrigley with its tiny CF?
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Yes, sorry, we're in a bad time of year for me to be using ambiguous phrases like "next year" lol. I meant a budget crunch in 2026. I'd love if the team is willing to loosen the purse strings, especially since it's obvious it would only need to be for one year, but I'm now firmly in believe it when I see it mode for the team exceeding the LT by more than a nominal amount. Tom's done it once but only once. And I'd love a relief ace, but honestly there's value in just getting quality. One of the things Jed said in his end of season presser is to avoid another situation like last April he almost needs to approach the bullpen assuming three guys will go down to injury/ineffectiveness right at the start of the year. I'd very much expect, especially when you consider Jed's aversion to multi-year commitments, something like $8M each to Martin and Minter than $16M to Scott. That said there were some rumors last winter that Jed was considering going out of his comfort zone to give Counsell a relief ace to lean on, so maybe that's coming now.
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Following the Kyle Tucker trade, Cubs' GM Carter Hawkins indicated that the team would look to free agency to help backfill the 3B production the team lost with Isaac Paredes headed to Houston. Mark Feinsand reports today that the Cubs are looking at former Mariners and Diamondbacks infielder Josh Rojas. It seems all but certain that Matt Shaw is being eyed as the primary 3B for 2025, but given his limited time in AAA and then risk associated with just handing any rookie a full time job, and strong backup is a necessity. Josh Rojas is a strong defender and a solid hitter, and as a lefty can help compliment Shaw by taking matchups versus tough righties. Rojas can also cover 2B, possibly useful if Nico Hoerner's recovery from surgery stretches into the new season. Rojas was non-tendered by the Mariners last month, and was projected by MLBTR to make $4.3M in arbitration. Therefore even on the open market it's unlikely he costs more than about $5M per year to sign. View full rumor
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Following the Kyle Tucker trade, Cubs' GM Carter Hawkins indicated that the team would look to free agency to help backfill the 3B production the team lost with Isaac Paredes headed to Houston. Mark Feinsand reports today that the Cubs are looking at former Mariners and Diamondbacks infielder Josh Rojas. It seems all but certain that Matt Shaw is being eyed as the primary 3B for 2025, but given his limited time in AAA and then risk associated with just handing any rookie a full time job, and strong backup is a necessity. Josh Rojas is a strong defender and a solid hitter, and as a lefty can help compliment Shaw by taking matchups versus tough righties. Rojas can also cover 2B, possibly useful if Nico Hoerner's recovery from surgery stretches into the new season. Rojas was non-tendered by the Mariners last month, and was projected by MLBTR to make $4.3M in arbitration. Therefore even on the open market it's unlikely he costs more than about $5M per year to sign. -
So I think the team needs to add another SP either way, but I think if you land Sasaki it impacts A) How deep you're willing to dip into the farm for a trade and B) how much you might value talent vs. durability. I think the other thing is how it impacts other teams. Specifically San Diego, I could see the Sasaki decision impacting their willingness to move Cease or King.
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Tanner Scott is great, but I think it's very unlikely this is the year that Jed adds a multi-year deal for a reliever for two reasons: 1. There is a budget crunch in 2025. The team is at ~$185M against the LT next year right now. Retaining or replacing Tucker plus a multi-year deal for Scott would have the team already at the LT before addressing anything else. Unless Ricketts is willing to let Jed rock a $270M payroll for a year it's probably a bad idea to lock into a reliever right now 2. There's a shocking depth of quality relievers who will only require a 1 year deal. Kenley Jansen, Kirby Yates, Chris Martin, and David Robertson are all too old to demand a long term commitment but are still very much getting it done. You also have guys like AJ Minter and Paul Sewald coming off an injury but who were impact guys before that. These guys will want to re-build value and the Cubs' pitching dev and lack of an entrenched closer should make them a valuable destination
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It's very interesting to me that the Luzardo stuff was so hot and heavy, then it fell apart, then Jed immediately pushed Cashman to make the Bellinger deal, and now it's just crickets. In hindsight I'm assuming Toronto was about to pull their offer for Bellinger. And now the Cubs are largely just hanging out until the Sasaki decision?
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Apparently Hyeseong Kim's posting windows runs out on Friday, so we should hear where he's going in the next day or two. He feels like a plausible option here in a post-Paredes world.
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Yeah my two takeaways from this are: 1. We can say with some certainty that one of Workman/Brujan/Mastro will be on the OD roster 2. The team's backup 1B is someone not currently in the organization rather than like Tucker or Happ
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Open the schools
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Pretty sure the next time this guy is right about something will be the first but hey whatever it's slow at the moment
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When a guy gets traded the AAV for his new team resets to the AAV of what's left on his deal at the time of his trade. This was added during the last CBA to prevent teams taking advantage with heavily backloaded deals.
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If you wanted to really move the needle on this Cubs team trading for Pablo Lopez, one of Jax/Duran, and Willi Castro would make them *scary*. You'd have to gut the farm and I'd be nervous about retaining Tucker, but 2025 would be really sweet.
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So Bregman is the last lock to get 9 figures left on the market, and he seems like he could sign any day now. Hopefully no huge dominoes hanging out at the top of the market means FA can keep humming along.
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Figure they're certain to move one of their walk-year pitchers. They clearly want it to be Montgomery but Merrill Kelly in his walk year on a super cheap contract would make a lot of sense for us.
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One of the few deals this winter where I said "that's it?" Curious to see if it's a hometown discount or if the other corner bats are about to have a rough time.
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Well crap, looks like Keith slides to 1B, not 3B.
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Do we think the Tigers would be down to do a young player swap with Jace Jung?
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It most certainly was not 20th. It's tied for 40th right now and 26 of those deals started in 2017 or later: https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/league-info/highest-paid-players/ Like I said I'm nor going to do the work of figuring out who signed first between him and e.g. Greinke, but he signed early that offseason so he was something like 10th/11th/12th. In today's dollars that's a $300M-something contract.
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When Jason Heyward's contract was signed it was around the 10thish biggest ever (I'm not going to do the work right now to find what order the contracts signed that winter got done). The 10thish biggest contract currently is Corey Seager's $325M.
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