Bertz

I eyed Noda throughout last year (he's also a pretty cool dude one Twitter from what I've seen), but I don't think he's an option post-Busch. I think the additional bat needs to be someone you can count on a little more. I like Belt or, while not a lefty, Justin Turner as guys we can adding into the offensive mix.

Not pulling in Robertson annoys me. I wonder if he wanted a guarantee of the closer job. He's about 25 saves away from 200 for his career, and might want to hit that milestone before he retires. Saw a little smoke around Bellinger and the Angels last night, shortly after the Cubs put out a "we'd totally be fine giving CF to PCA" message through Morosi. That's good, hopefully that's a sign this whole process finally starts moving.

I agree, though I will say they would at least be putting together a *significantly* higher octane bullpen than they did to open last year. Stanek is an absolutely elite stuff guy and Almonte's pretty high end as well, he's basically Michael Fulmer plus an additional 2 MPH. Add in that Little and Palencia are available at Iowa basically from jump and we would have opportunity for a smothering bullpen....if Hottovy can get them to throw enough strikes.

Just gonna re-up this

Get comfortable

Leverage is ultimately about alternatives. Who are Bellinger's alternatives?

I honestly wonder how much of this is luck. His actual slugging percentage was 40 points under his expected via Statcast. It's not the whole story but I'd guess it's a majority of it. Overall it's hard not to be ecstatic about Swanson. The degree to which you'd clearly most rather have him going forward amongst last winter's big 4 shortstops is wild. I'm sure some of the more meatbally fans can't deal with his offensive streakiness but he's a legit star between the lines and it also sounds like in the clubhouse.

Honestly I expected one of Soto/Glasnow and then basically this. I didn't think the offseason would drag this much, but my expectations going back to the payroll thread right at the start of the offseason was just one, maybe two, FA deals longer than 1-2 years. There was always going to be some opportunistic "let's see who we can nab on a short term deal" play because Ricketts is too cheap to let us live perpetually above the LT. But my point is that the Dodgers never sign mid tier or even upper middle tier FAs. They sign legitimate superstars, short term signings and trades, and otherwise rely on development. "We should be more like the Dodgers!" and "We should sign Bellinger and Chapman!" are COMPLETELY incongruous statements. It's wild to me how many baseball fans completely miss the forest for the trees.

I love how everyone always says they want to be more like the Dodgers and then proceed to recommend a course of action that would make Andrew Friedman recoil in terror.

I'm not especially worried about Caissie's strikeouts. Everyone gets scared by the K rate starting with a 3 but whild his contact numbers are below average they are quite far from alarming. It's a Kyle Schwarber deal where the K's are more a product of seeing 4.2 pitches per plate appearance than majorly deficient contact ability. What I am worried is the thing that has sunk Schwarber: Defense. Caissie's defensive reputation took a good step forward this year, so I'm hoping he's not such an egregious butcher out there. The other thing that has held Schwarber back is BABIP, but I'm hoping in a post shift ban world Caissie won't have to worry so much about that.

It's the Harper offseason of '18-'19 and it's not close. They picked up Hamels' option, and then it was like the Padme/Anakin meme with us all thinking "they wouldn't do that and then literally nothing else, right?" We still felt good about the roster too. They won 95 games and would have won a couple mor. and the division if not for the death march.

I don't think there's a ton of difference between any of Boras' Big 4, at least for 2024. The Cubs are looking at similar-ish production from each of CF, 3B, and #5 starter, and each guy projects in the 3-3.5 WAR range.

I am curious what the second bat ends up being at this point. Bellinger is clearly plan A for the primary bat and if/when he ends up happening the position player group looks something like this: LF - Happ SS - Swanson RF - Suzuki CF - Bellinger DH - Morel 2B - Hoerner 1B - Busch C - Gomes 3B - Madrigal Bench - Amaya, Tauchman, Wisdom, Mastrobuoni This is actually a pretty complete group. I honestly wouldn't be totally surprised to see Jed let it ride, knowing that it's easy to fold in the kids from Iowa to plug any gaps. He did intimate that they're adding multiple bats though, and the things that stand out to me about the above are: - Madrigal is really not an ideal starting 3B - Wisdom aside, and he's got a *very* specific offensive niche, that bench is really light on pop - If Busch fails that bottom of the order has potential to get dicey quick You know who would really tie this whole group together? Brandon Belt. He would slot in as the primary DH and push Morel and his power to a 10th man utility role. He'd be a starting caliber 1B in case Busch fails (boo!) or starts taking on more time at 3B (yay!). He has a 142 wRC+ against righties the last three years, and we know Jed explicitly called that out as something they were looking to add to this group. The contact ability is sliding quickly as he gets older. As is the durability. But on a one year deal I think he's a fairly perfect complement to the current group (+ Bellinger probably).

Yeah with Busch on board and it being increasingly clear Morel's not going anywhere Hoskins' fit on the roster took a nosedive. He's a RHH lowball hitter, he's a little better hitter than Morel/Wisdom, but cut from the same mold and defensively redundant.

Look at it the other way though. Who are the teams that you could still see handing out a 9 figure deal? Yankees and Angels for sure. Rangers, Blue Jays, and Giants are unlikely but possible? There's a slim chance that some unlikely mystery team like the Nats wants to make Bellinger their modern day Jayson Werth? We as Cubs fans are worried about Jed losing the proverbial game of Musical Chairs, but honestly it currently looks like there are more chairs than players. This is part of why locking in Imanaga and Busch was so big. I think it's pretty clear the team wants Bellinger back, but if he goes elsewhere the team can pivot to one of the other three and not really lose that much (I might argue that Bellinger helps the 2024 Cubs the least but that's beside the point). You can play a similar game with the DH options, in fact Ken Rosenthal kind of already did this morning. Again if you don't anchor on one specific guy you've gotta have things get pretty team friendly pretty fast. I'm personally most worried about the remaining reliever. There's only like 2 FA arms left I'd be happy with, and like 3-4 more I'd be okay with.

Didn't the Seahawks run a ton of 12 personnel under Waldron? This might be a really perfect fit.

So I'm not aware of this guy ever actually breaking anything, but people treat him like he's not full of crap so who knows. It's not like anything real is going on. Also not sure how this makes sense for the Cubs unless Jed has something unexpected up his sleeve. Like even if he signs Chapman you'd probably keep Madrigal and trade one of Morel/Wisdom?

I still think something like the first Carlos Correa deal makes the most sense for all sides. If Bellinger keeps playing how he did last year and proves last year wasn't a fluke he'll opt out and get his $250M+, and might even have a crack at $300M. If he takes a step back but still produces, think like a 110 wRC+ and 3ish WAR, he's still so young snd won't have a QO attached so he'll opt out and easily get north of Brandon Nimmo money. If he turns into a pumpkin he already locked in that $100M. From Jed's point of view he probably signed a one year deal and can hand the position off to one of the kids next year. If things go south he doesn't have to deal with it for the rest of the decade.

Lots of good nuggets in here, with the biggest probably being Owen Caissie getting some work at 1B (finally!)

No you see the players are going to ignore the $2 billion that's already been spent on free agents and the other half billion still in the hopper and go to war because the vibes are off.

Really good read from MLBTR. 2018 looks to be the most analogous year to this current one, and even then his guys didn't do especially well. Now it's questionable which way the causation arrow is pointing, but interesting food for thought. Wouldn't be surprised to see Boras close a few deals in the next little bit to clear the decks some. Especially the pitchers, since they need the mid-February reporting date a lot more than the hitters.

TT put it better/more succinctly than I can at some point last week, but basically while you'd maybe put the odds below 50/50 on any individual member of the 3B crew putting together a season where they're worthy of being the everyday guy, given the volume of guys one or more of them probably ends up being worth it. My guess is that Madrigal is the primary guy, with Busch and/or Wisdom sliding over there for certain matchups. Ultimately though, I think one of the kids takes the job by June or it's addressed at the trade deadline. I'm fine with the uncertainty, but I do think it basically necessitates Bellinger coming back. If Jed had pulled down Soto or Ohtani we could play the "it'll probably be fine" game at both CF and 3B, but without a true lineup anchor we can't risk the entire bottom 3rd of the order being a wash.

Two things - The first two offseasons under this CBA have generally been viewed as very good for the players - The players that have signed thus far this winter have generally made what was expected Unless a bunch of guys get left out in the cold at the end of the offseason I think this is going to be viewed more as an annoyance than something worth going to war over. Like the DH market is probably going to get squeezed but everyone else looks like they're going to get their money, just a month later than expected. And that timing can be chalked up to some combo of Boras/Diamond/Ohtani unless it happens again next winter.

Doesn't detail exactly what updates he's making but hard not to notice several changeup-heavy guys including Kyle. Wouldn't be surprised to see Wicks get some lift as well.