Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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I'm trying to decide if having such a left handed rotation makes it more or less necessary to have quality lefties in the. bullpen. Lefty starter means a more RHH opposing lineup. But it also means more lefty pinch hit opportunities. But also the pinch hit penalty is pretty severe. But they are also some of the highest leverage PAs of a game.
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NL Central 2024 wRC+ figures vs. LHP Brewers - 99 Pirates - 93 Cards - 92 Reds - 84 I'm even sure if another team in the division mashing lefties would make me consider a 4 lefty rotation as a problem, but certainly the Cubs are well positioned to roll one out there.
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Not a surprise I'm sure but I will be pretty thrilled with the rotation if we end up with Luzardo. The Fangraphs projections are going to be pretty middling, and that's not unreasonable. But I think this is a situation where it's worth keeping in mind the range of outcomes for each player rather than focusing on the median. Luzardo, Boyd, Wicks, Brown, and Horton are all guys who have "fat tails" on the bell curve of their outcomes. There will certainly be a point or two where like 4-5 guys are on the IL at once, but broadly having so many options should allow you to heavy up on the guys getting good outcomes and optimize off the guys having bad outcomes. We won't get lucky enough for it to work out like this, but we would have five guys with star/impact level talent in Steele, Shota, Luzardo, Brown, and Horton.
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If Bellinger stays it means you need to do everything else on the cheap. That said it's not that dire, and simply making Luzardo your other SP does most of the heavy lifting. - There's we expect ~$15M to spend right now - Bellinger staying means you don't need CF/1B for the bench, so really all you need is an IFer - Luzardo costs $6M - $9M for a late inning reliever likely means you either need to trade for that reliever, or alternatively use Workman as your bench IFer and then you can sign someone like Finnegan at about market price to close It's tight but it's doable. I'd also imagine it's all academic. If the Yankees and Cubs can't work it out, once the Cubs start eating more money and/or taking on contracts it will open up a whole new set of teams.
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The Yankees are currently about ~$50M south of last year's payroll, and if you add Bellinger and Bregman they probably project as the best team in the league (until the Dodgers inevitably add Teoscar and Sasaki). I'm curious how much of this is about 2025 dollars and how much is about 2026. Because if it's about 2026 the simple solution seems to be sending along some conditional money based on Cody opting in. For example pay Cody's $5M buyout if he opts out, pay $10M if he opts in. 2025 dollars feels a lot stickier to work through.
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I would think even conservatively Mathis could DH by Opening Day, play 1B by Memorial Day, and play 3B by the ASB
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Potential Landing Spots For A Cody Bellinger Trade
Bertz replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I think you *could* hold onto Bellinger and it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world In practice I imagine there's a focus on exploring all avenues with the Yankees because that's the one option for getting most/all of his deal offloaded. If you're resorting to eating/offsetting money another round of teams likely enter the fray such as the Phillies, Mariners, and Royals. -
I think a few things are true - The Cubs probably overpaid for Tucker. You'd hope that's because they have every intention of extending him, it might also be because Jed's seat is hot. But they overpaid. That's fine though - Because of the limits on roster spots and playing time, one 5 WAR player is worth more than a 3 WAR player + a 2 WAR player. The degree to which this is true scales with how well rounded your team is (the Cubs' depth made a star particularly valuable) - The value of a player is simply what the market will bear. If the market has decided Paredes is worth X, even if he's such a good fit in Houston that he'll specifically be worth 2X there, you're still only getting back a little more than X in trade. The corollary to this is that saying you're not going to trade a guy to try and preserve leverage is meaningless
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As of either today or tomorrow the 2024 period closes and there's a moratorium until Jan 15 for 2025 signings. So at this point I think he couldn't sign anywhere even if he wanted to. That's good news because if he had signed early he'd 100% have gone to the Dodgers (they had the most money remaining by a ton), next year it's down to like 80%.
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I'm glad you hit in the Marlins pitching development. They don't have especially great pitching development, they just sink a lot of resources into pitching. Like they're not the Royals a few years ago banging rocks together hoping to make fire, but this isn't a team like the Guardians where you go "well surely there's nothing left untapped." Of pitchers reasonably avaliable right now, I expect with Cubs' pitching dev Luzardo to be as good on a rate basis is as good on as good as anyone outside of Burnes and the Padres pair. The tradeoff for having to qualify the above with "on a rate basis" is we get a second cheap year (~$10M?) of Luzardo that does not come with any of the others. But the beauty of having 8-9 other viable starters is you can prioritize 120 good innings over 160 okay innings.
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Sasaki will likely make his decision in early to mid January. Money doesn't matter, whatever team gets him will use their entire international bonus pool on him, part of the reason for the timing is those reset on January 15th (he might agree shortly before that but wait until after the 15th to sign). The recruiting for Sasaki is going to be entirely soft stuff. How competitive your team is, how much he likes the teammates, pitching development prowess, geography, etc. The team that signs him is also probably going to need to utilize a 6 man rotation, or at least set things up so Roki is on a 6 day schedule. So teams will just do their shopping, and if he picks you he picks you. You need 5 non-Roki starters either way.
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Cubs Showing Interest in Mariners' Luis Castillo
Bertz replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Ken Rosenthal tonight -
Caissie/Alcantara and Assad for Luzardo and one of Miami's lefty relievers would make me a very happy camper.
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The Cubs' search for starting pitching was seemingly put on pause while the team finalized their deal for Jesus Luzardo, but it appears to have resumed in earnest. Jesus Luzardo had a lost season in 2024 with separate elbow and back injuries, not pitching at all after June 16th. However, in 2023, Jesus was one of the best pitchers in baseball and seemed to be a young budding ace. With that immense talent and two years of control at low arbitration salaries, Luzardo still figures to command a sizable prospect return even after his down year in 2024. View full rumor
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The Cubs' search for starting pitching was seemingly put on pause while the team finalized their deal for Jesus Luzardo, but it appears to have resumed in earnest. Jesus Luzardo had a lost season in 2024 with separate elbow and back injuries, not pitching at all after June 16th. However, in 2023, Jesus was one of the best pitchers in baseball and seemed to be a young budding ace. With that immense talent and two years of control at low arbitration salaries, Luzardo still figures to command a sizable prospect return even after his down year in 2024. -
LFG! Also this feels definitive enough I should probably write it up
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Cubs probably shouldn't be in on another low velo lefty, but curious to see what the damage is here prospect wise.
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Honestly it kind of feels like Long was the prototype for "what if we let our algorithm make a pick?" and it worked out so swimmingly they went hog-wild on it this year. Mathis is definitely a data darling like Long.
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This is so funny to me because a team projected in the mid-80's is pretty objectively where adding a star gives you the most bang for your buck. There's also the fact that these are usually the exact same people in a different year pissed when like a 72 win team doesn't sign the top FA on the market.
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He was announced as a 3B when the pick was put in on draft night. So they're presumably going to at least give it a shot. He had Tommy John pre-draft, but I don't think we know exactly when. I imagine he won't play a position with such strenuous throwing demands until mid-year, but I think we've seen position players back out there at 100% inside of a year. Corey Seager had TJ in May of 2018 and started at shortstop opening day 2019.
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Cubs Showing Interest in Mariners' Luis Castillo
Bertz replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I know Jude specifically put this out there after the the Tucker trade, but Tucker makes this feel exceedingly unlikely IMO. A) Dealing Hoerner now after dealing Paredes feels unworkable from the Cubs standpoint, and dealing Castillo without getting Hoerner back feels unworkable from the Mariners standpoint B) If the Cubs trade for Castillo and extend/re-sign Tucker they are already at next year's Luxury Tax. Castillo no longer feels like a talent warranting painting yourself into that kind of box -
With the org's 3B depth chart taking a huge hit yesterday, I'd like to see the Cole Mathis (when healthy) and Jonny Long at 3B experiments get a lot more forceful. Long especially, he got some decent reviews in the AFL and the bat has an outside shot at being 2025 relevant.
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Yeah kind of like how gathering depth on the pitching staff lets you take some bigger swings on risk/reward, I think on offense having a lineup anchor like Tucker does similar. Scouts love Shaw, the data loves Shaw (already projects as a first division starter), make sure you get a good hedge for the bench but otherwise let it rip.
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They didn't give him a single inning there last year even as 3B weighed the team down. I know there was some talk from Craig about being more willing to move Busch around now that he's comfortable at 1B, but I'd be shocked if he starts more than 15 games somewhere besides 1B or DH. The over/under is still probably a number you can count on your fingers.
