Bertz

The Cubs this winter have either ~$55M or ~$80M to spend, depending on the Bellinger decision. I think, paired with the relatively small number of holes on the roster, there's a fairly high bar in terms of performance certainty for the SP add. Montas certainly does not clear that bar, as any positive you can take from his Brewers stint has to be couched in his only going 5 innings/start. And honestly I don't think Severino clears the bar either. He looks like an ace but he pitches like Jameson Taillon. Eovaldi feels like the sweet spot for me. The stuff is plus, he misses bats, he throws strikes, and he keeps the ball on the ground. He's a playoff hero for two different franchises, so any soft stuff you would want he has. His only negative is age, and I'm on a bit of an island here but i very much have an "age is just a number" attitude towards pitchers. He probably gets 2/$40 or 3/$60. Half of what Kikuchi will get and a third of what the aces will get. Kikuchi is also worth a very long look. He made some relatively straightforward arsenal tweaks in Houston (more sliders, fewer curves) and immediately started pitching like an Ace with a capital "A". There's risk in buying too much into 10 starts, but he's the guy most likely to pull a Kevin Gausman or Zack Wheeler and have a nine figure deal still somehow end up a bargain.

If the team thought Busch was at all viable at 3B he would have gotten more than 1 game there this year, given the low bar of competition. Hell if he was viable there the Dodgers probably don't let him go to begin with 2B is a little harder to say. Nico is a pretty viable excuse for not getting more runway. And I believe during Dansby's IL trip, which would have opened up 2B, Busch was in that deep funk after the league had adjusted to him. Like certainly Busch is not going to be an everyday 2B (again the Dodgers would have simply held onto him), but in a world where our middle infield is less settled maybe 10/20/30 games over there isn't unreasonable.

Fox just came back from commercial with a montage of very easy to lip read F Bombs. Incredible

Caleb had a QBR of 84 today. QBR is a bit of a black box, which sucks, but it does take rushing into account and does take context (i.e. Score, Down, and Distance) into account. Average for a season is usually in the 50's, and the league leaders are typically in the 70's. Trubisky never topped 70 as a rookie, and topped 80 six times as a sophomore. Topped 80 two more times his 3rd year. Fields never topped 80 as a rookie (Unless you count his two passes in his debut vs. the Rams). He did it 3x as a sophomore, but mostly with his legs. Most notably a 96 (!!!) in that game where he put up almost 200 yards rushing against the Dolphins. He has not topped 80 in years 3 or 4 (so far). I try not to get too up or too down on rookie performance, but Titans game aside it feels like Caleb's performing more like a guy in his second year not his first. Considering how early it is that's extremely horsefeathering encouraging.

If the Bears get another possession I'd love to see Amegadjie get into the game

This is obviously not as dominant as the Trubisky Bucs game or the Fields Broncos game, but I think it's pretty meaningful how much further ahead of schedule it is.

I think the Vikings being 4-0 is doing most of the work there. Commanders and Vikings are a lot tougher than they looked heading into the year. 49ers and Packers seem to be a little less scary. Jaguars seem way less scary. All in all I don't think much has changed.

I've said this before but Zach Wheeler is one of the best FA signings of all time. They didn't like steal a guy coming off an injury or a down year. They "overpaid" an all star caliber pitcher and then coached him up into a Cy Young caliber arm.

The Opener is definitely waning as a strategy and you wonder if this game killed it.

Rojas was the 3rd youngest guy to rack up at least 300 PAs in Hi A this year. And while the production was light, no red flags in terms of BBs, Ks, or GBs. Like 1908 I think having him on the top 100 is a bit aggressive, but he's a very very good prospect.

I'll be curious to see if they revisit O'Hoppe specifically. He had an awful 2nd half including an August that was, no joke, the worst month I think I've ever seen from a legitimate hitter: .099/.163/.176 with a 45% strikeout rate and a -7 wRC+. (yes that's a negative number) He was somewhat fine in September, with a strong 124 wRC+ but an elevated K rate at 31%. You wouldn't think too much of a month of that strikeout rate outside of the context of his August, but right next to his August it certainly gives some additional pause. So if you do re-up with Anaheim, you've gotta have a good explanation for that August. Was he hurt? Did he hit a wall fatigue wise (he had never caught 100 games in a season before)? Was there some emotional letdown after almost getting traded?

I'm a bit torn on that Cam ranking. On the one hand if he got mid 1st round draft grades from your publication, 6 weeks of beating up on kids in A ball shouldn't change your mind on him very much. On the other hand, I could have said the same thing about Hoerner and Shaw (and I'm pretty sure with Hoerner I did) and those aggressive bumps were completely vindicated.

Sugano reads very boring and Taillon-y, which I'd hope is a tier below the level Jed's looking at this winter. That said, older less velo dependent guys like Imanaga, Kenta Maeda, and Hiroki Kuroda have come over without a ton of fanfare and still been stellar.

This would be a very good mind to bring into the org for one of those special advisor type roles. And if Jed needs to be shown the door sometime in the next year....

Yeah I think I would like more of these series to go to 3 games

Literally the first batter OFC

The Mets' bullpen will obviously blow it but I'm enjoying the turnabout of the Brewers facing a SP throwing 91 MPH fastballs down the middle and still somehow not being able to do anything.

MLBTR has a good article on the Astros this afternoon Reading between all the lines here Framber feels like the likely productive veteran to get dealt, but Tucker getting dealt isn't crazy.

This is actually the thing I struggle with most this offseason. I am not super desperate for a guy I can latch onto as an "elite bat." But at the same time I: A) Think the #1 thing this offense needs is a lefty masher, and obviously those guys are almost overwhelmingly righties and B) Like you also don't like the way the lineup is balanced after adding that lefty masher I really wish there was a good versatile lefty infielder we could add to the bench as the 10th on the position player side. Gen Z Ben Zobrist essentially. You could add a lefty masher and also this unnamed infielder and put the lineup in a really good position every single day. But this left handed infielder I want doesn't seem to exist. You either get guys who can't really cover defensively like Brandon Lowe, or Miles Mastrobuoni types who have the defense and can hit at AAA but have not shown they can hit in the bigs yet.

So let's sort through some of the FA SP options. I took every pitcher from this past season who threw at least 100 innings, and set up 4 flags: IP - Did they throw at least 150 Innings? A major reason we need a SP this winter is lack of durability from the young pitchers currently in org ERA - Did they manage an ERA under 3.80? League-wide starters had a 4.09 ERA, so 3.80 is a cutoff for results that you'd consider an unequivocally "good" season xStats - Did they manage an xFIP and xERA under 3.80? Between these two numbers, xERA taking contact quality into account, xFIP purely distilling to peripherals, you can largely triangulate skill and avoid a luck based ERA mirage Stuff - Stuff+ and PitchingBot are both available on Fangraphs and have very different approaches to quantifying stuff. I flagged every starting pitcher that at least one of the two flagged as having above average stuff From there, how many guys met each threshold? Below are the FAs that met all 4, 3 of 4, and 2 of 4. 4's - Corbin Burnes and Max Fried 3's - Blake Snell (missed on innings), Yusei Kikuchi (ERA), Jack Flaherty (stuff) 2's - Nate Eovaldi, Nick Pivetta, Luis Severino Michael Wacha. Sean Manaea, Andrew Heaney, Jose Quintana I feel like this largely tracks with perception. Burnes and Fried are stars, the next three guys have a wart or two that keep them a tick behind (they compare to Steele and Shota who came in as 3's for instance), and the 2's are all guys who you probably like but almost certainly don't love. I will note, since he's my guy, that Nate Eovaldi *just* missed being a 3 because his ERA and xERA were between 3.8 and 3.9. I'd consider him like a 2.5. And then I don't want to go through every possible trade option, but some regularly mentioned ones: 4's - Framber Valdez, Kirby and Gilbert from SEA 3's - Crochet (innings), the rest of the Seattle guys 2's - Mackenzie Gore, Brady Singer, Reese Olson

Curious how Houston responds this winter. Last year it was foot firmly on the gas pedal because the farm was trash and the MLB roster had very little of consequence under control past '25. But with Diaz and a couple young pitchers popping the post '25 roster doesn't look totally desolate, though it's definitely not in good shape. Is it still all gas no brakes for one more big year? Or do you deal a Tucker and/or a Framber and try to pull off a somewhat unlikely soft landing?