Bertz

It's interesting because this year that next tier is really robust. Flaherty. Kikuchi, and Eovaldi are all very fun arms, and Kikuchi in particular I think has a chance to pull an Imanaga and just way out pitch his contract. But if you're not going top of market on a SP, and you're planning a fairly light touch on the position player side, and you fundamentally don't like spending big resources on the bullpen...feels like you've run out of places to improve. Maybe a second SP? Kikuchi and Bieber for instance?

Lot of good rumors here, some notables: - Team is looking big at SP, but Burnes (price) and Snell (style) are unlikely. Fried makes sense, but they will also look at trades and may potentially drop down to the next tier (citing how well Taillon and Imanaga have worked out). Seems pretty clear if Jed takes a big swing it will be at SP - Cubs are looking to add a catcher, but it's going to be a vet to pair with Amaya, not an everyday option. Kelly, d'Arnaud, and Jansen all get namechecked. Part of the impotice here is an increasing belief that with time Ballesteros can stick behind the plate - On the bullpen, the name of the game appears to be depth rather than a big swing for a closer - The team doesn't seem super worried about Hoerner's surgery. They're not going to bring in a starter, instead likely "a left-handed-hitting utility guy who could move around an infield that features Swanson, Hoerner and Isaac Paredes." - Nothing else about the offense was mentioned. I would really doubt anyone of substance gets added. IMO set expectations at like a Ryan Mountcastle type as a direct 1:1 replacement for Wisdom.

I won't write it off completely, Jed not committing to Bellinger in right and Seiya at DH sowed a bit of doubt in my mind, but I'd be very surprised if they acquire a non-catcher you'd expect to be the everyday starter at one position. Someone like a Taylor Ward or a Brandon Lowe that you can at least nominally pencil in across like 3-4 positions feels far more likely

They also mentioned that Bellinger in RF and Seiya at DG is probably where things end up, but it's not a lock. Combined with what you noted about "lanes" I take that as flexibility is a factor on the position player side. E.g. a guy like Mark Canha or Justin Turner over a guy like Carlos Santana. On the pitching side, clearly Jed should go full 2011 Phillies and trade for Crochet AND sign Max Fried.

Jed does a lot of executive speak in this piece but directly calls out a matchup guy against lefties as a to-do

Jon is not connected *at all* but he manages the payroll pages at FG and he's way too online so he logics his way into these predictions and updates them frequently throughout the winter. "This is what makes sense" is a nice complement to "this is what I'm hearing."

I would rather have Paredes or Brewer than Zastyzny, but not enough that it matters. Wingenter and Hollowell have seemed like the favored sons amongst the waiver wire types. Curious if they're slated to make it to ST or if they're just slightly ahead of these guys on the totem pole and get cycled off the roster later this winter.

His age scares me to the point I'd lean no, but I'd consider it. Belli being back means our righty bat doesn't need to provide OF coverage. He's pretty low ceiling so I'd want him to be paired with something a little more exciting at catcher or for the reserve infielder we need. Like I'm very much of the mind we poor more resources into pitching than hitting but if our offseason hitting additions are like Santana, Cavan Biggio. and Carson Kelly, that's over correcting IMO.

In MLB every bat, ball, player, and individual limb of every player is tracked dozens of times per second during every live play. I earnestly struggle to think of anything on the field a scout can provide that can't be seen on camera or recorded via tracking. Even soft stuff is generally pretty well known publicly by most fanbases at this point, not to mention player/coach movement. MLB/Advance scouting very much feels like a "you have to do it because it's the way it's always been done" deal rather than something that actually matters. In the upper minors, we have pretty low rent broadcasts and a lesser version of Statcast. My understanding is teams have full statcast for the minors, but I'm not sure what the video situation is. Soft stuff, I'd imagine you know pretty well for other teams in your league, but not as much for other leagues at each level? I would probably want scouts in the Cal League, the PCL, etc. primarily to pick up on hot goss. I wonder if the seven guys remaining are one for each level for full season and one for each league at the complex level? For amateurs you desperately need scouts. That soft stuff is absolutely essential, since work ethic adaptability, etc. are so key to future growth. Thankfully sounds like this area's not being touched. All in all I mostly shrug at this? Like even the line about the Astros adding scouts misses the context that when they were in their successful run under prior leadership they were the original pioneers of this type of scouting structure and were wildly successful at it.

Statcast likes his defense, DRS has historically liked it but not this year. His contact numbers slipped a bit this year too. If he wasn't 36 I don't think anything in his profile would raise an eyebrow. But as is I'd probably try to keep him to 1 year, but be very happy if we could.

This is where I'm ending up too. - Trade for the best SP you can - Spend ~$20M on relief help - Use the rest of cash on hand buffing up the bench Maybe try and trade for a young catcher instead of signing a boring vet if the SP trade doesn't clean you out too much.

Also the 5 guys in the lineup who are remaining from 2023 are really good! Happ, Suzuki, Belli, Swanson, and Hoerner combined for nearly 18 wins last year. and project for around 15 this year. There's this weird thing where the fanbase has convinced itself the problem last year is that Dansby Swanson and Ian Happ aren't Corey Seager and Bryce Harper. No, the problem last year is that until a few days before the all-star star break anyone who played Catcher or 3B for this team played like they were suffering from a wasting disease.

He does. $3M for one of the half dozen best pitchers in the sport would be quite a needle mover.

Sleeping on it I think one thing the Cody news does is it basically cements SP as the most likely item to tick off via trade? When it looked like Cody was gone, I had roughly this budget in mind for the offseason: Position Players - $30-35M for 3 guys Starting Pitching - $20-25M for 1 guy Relief Pitching - $15-20M for 2 guys Obviously the ranges could shift based on specific prices and of course trades, but that was the rough outline in my mind to successfully execute the shopping list. With Bellinger in the fold, you've spent $27M and still need 3 guys on the position player side (a catcher, and infielder, and a righty bat). You can move some money around, cut some corners, but generally money is a bit tight. Probably about $10M shy of what I'd want to comfortably do all this shopping via FA? I think that means that the inevitable trade this winter, or at least one if there's multiple, needs to involve netting cost controlled talent. And I think SP is the most logical and direct place to do that without it feeling like a cost cutting move. For instance trading for Dylan Cease 100% fits this MO. Trading for Jesus Luzardo fits this MO. etc. You can absolutely save that $10M elsewhere. But likely requires A) doing it piecemeal with multiple moves or B) trading for a pre-arb closer which doesn't feel very Jed.

Two things 1. There is a pretty large element of selection bias here. Tauchman generally only gets to face lesser lefties, which makes his numbers against them superficially solid (TT talked about this last page) 2. From a bench player, being split neutral is kind of bad actually. With an everyday starter you want someone who had a chance to produce, well, every day. From a bench player you want leveragable skills. And being solid at everything great at nothing limits situations where it makes sense to insert you. This is why Tauchman stopped playing in August. He doesn't have anything he does better than both PCA and Bellinger. Contact is his only above average skill and Bellinger's already great there

Yeah dude Juan Soto and like Mark Canha is a total tomayto tomahto situation

It's possible to acquire someone who can start during injury that isn't conversely useless when the roster is at full strength.

Yeah I'd expect next year's bench to be: - Backup catcher - Backup Infielder - Ideally lefty but not mandatory) - Power bat - Being a righty pretty close to mandatory. Positionally they can be a bit agnostic with Bellinger in the fold - TBD - This is the spot the kids will break in, but coming out of camp it might be something weird like a 3rd catcher or a dedicated base stealer. Technically Tauchman could have this spot, but I think they'd prefer someone they're more comfortable cutting

Mike Tauchman got less than 50 plate appearances in August and September combined. He's a nice player, so he obviously won't get non tendered, but on a roster with both Bellinger and PCA he's clearly pretty redundant.

Don't get pissy with me because you work sloppy and wondered why your numbers didn't match up with everyone elses.

You only have 23 players on the 26 man roster, and there's no chance in hell the team non tenders Tauchman.

Player benefits, estimated at $17.5M. Salaries for guys on the 40 man but not the 26 man, which is another ~$2.5. There's also the pre-arb player bonus pool which is $1.7 per team. It's also smart to build in some buffer for guys going on the IL, which is what ultimately put the Cubs over this year.

With Bellinger gone I had 80, and that included about $5M as buffer so you could call it 85 if you want to be super literal. Bellinger opting in cuts $27M, which brings us down to~$53M. Smart money is always to round down, hence $50. But you could maybe call it $55 with a Tauchman trade seemingly pretty inevitable?