Bertz

If the reason Jed isn't interested in Soto, why would he be interested in Ohtani? You don't give out the largest contract in North American sports history if you don't have championship aspirations in year 1 Fangraphs has the team, as presently constructed, with a .489 (winning percentage 79 game pace). ZiPS likes several Cubs (most notably Swanson) more than Steamer, so it'll likely add a win or three after it's incorporated. https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings

I know you know how wrong this is. If you have a finite budget and you're looking at a couple players that on their own would eat up ~50% of it, you're obviously going to focus on resolving things with them first before moving onto others. If options get scarce somewhere else you want to improve (e.g. 1B) you might move that up, but outside of market context you obviously start big and work small.

This "one player away" thing is so pervasive considering how dumb it is - First off, I'm not sure it's even true on the merits? A team that projects in the low 80's for wins adding a player worth 5+ by himself is just about the textbook for maximizing impact on the win curve - There's no indication Jed would add Soto and then just turn his phone off til March - Even if we assume Soto will not sign an extension, you get a leg up on resigning him. If he signs elsewhere, you have $35M that was earmarked for Soto free to use on others (Pete Alonso, Alex Bregman, Corbin Burnes, etc.)

I am mostly anti-Montgomery. Giving him ~$150M is not unreasonable in a vacuum, especially with no QO, but it's paying a premium for safety and stability and durability. A team with the cache of minor league arms the Cubs have should be doing more hunting for impact. It's part of why I'm so full throated in my support of the Glasnow idea. On the FA side I like Imanaga, who has a 3 WAR projection in 120 innings. Like the Cubs' rotation is not impervious to injury. Steele's huge innings jump is a major red flag, Taillon’s had two TJs, and Hendricks is not far removed from a major shoulder problem. But even still the volume is there that I don't love paying a premium for the safe option. Maybe to be safe you need to add two arms to mitigate risks, but this FA market has a really great crop of secondary SP options.

No. It's Jed. You don't want it to be true because what Jesse's saying isn't great but it's Jed. Like before Jed got the big chair this was an annual thing between them: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28607798/jed-hoyer-qa-where-cubs-stand-kris-bryant-more

Also with the benefit of hindsight its pretty clear that whole kerfuffle with the Mets radio announcer the day after Thanksgiving is that Shohei was at Citi Field that day and that guy got told to STFU after his initial tweet.

So my read on the situation from various reports flying is basically that Shohei's just finished making the rounds to all of the suitors and hearing their pitch. This weekend teams will come to LA, make their bids/closing arguments, and then it should be done? So we're looking at Sunday or Monday probably?

He was first to get wind of the Darvish trade among many many other things over the last few years. He is an idiot but he is very well connected to Jed.

Not quite, it's a bat short so back of the napkin I think it'd be closer to 88. That said Bellinger being able to play either 1B/CF and going for two SPs really limits downside risk on that team.

Passan has the Cubs in on more or less everybody. I hadn't seen them tied to Cease or Montgomery previously, even if they made logical sense

Rogers was also one of the first to pump the breaks on a Bellinger reunion IIRC so I don't think that's it. Like 1908 says I'm just curious what the backup plan is behind Ohtani if it's not Soto. Maybe there's more to the Bregman stuff than is out there publicly?

Rogers is easily the most well connected beat guy here in the Jed era, so that is really not great to see

My gut says this goes down tomorrow. We're getting increasing chatter about teams being out, and that's paired with a decent flow of player movement after things were absolutely frozen a week ago. His decision last time came out lunchtime on a Friday (he probably made the call end of the day JPN time?), and tomorrow's the last Friday before the winter meetings.

I think there's some value in a local guy confirming it. I do kind of wonder if there's like a backlog of stuff that's going to happen boom boom boom once Ohtani makes his decision. Like if I recall correctly, in 2015 Zobrist, Montero, and Ross all happened within like a day of Lester. Now granted it was the winter meetings, but it felt like those there was a specific progression there.

Paredes is somewhat ironically the best evidence for Cody Bellinger's offense last year being sustainable. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/for-bellinger-and-paredes-it-pays-to-pull/ On the whole, I wouldn't be a fan of a trade. I liked Paredes as a prospect, I like him as a major leaguer, but given the expected cost of acquisition I would want to be way more sure he's legit.

Didn't Mozeliak basically say "never say never but we're probably done with the rotation" like two days ago? I highly doubt they add Cease to what they've already done. They'll focus on other needs.

19 plate appearances is a weekend. It's nothing, and he was clearly pressing super hard to impress in his limited looks. Like he could certainly fail but his cup of coffee was completely meaningless IMO. The thing about Pete is the bar is on the floor for him offensively. He's probably a +10 defender or better in CF. And while he ran the bases like a nincompoop during his September callup I'd guess with his speed even if he is overly aggressive he'll be a + baserunner. Kevin Keirmaier is the obvious analog. We're hoping for more power and more durability but broadly that's the archetype. KK has been worth 3.3 WAR/600 plate appearances over the last three years as a league average hitter. So while he and PCA aren't perfect parallels outside of the box it shows that Pete can be 10ish runs worse than an average hitter over the course of a season and still be a starting caliber player. For reference, that -10 runs equates to a wRC+ in the mid 80s. So like PCA is so overwhelming of a defender he can legitimately hit like a backup catcher and still be a positive contributor on an everyday basis. I'm not especially worried about him being a backup catcher on offense though. Even if his approach is abysmal he'll have the speed to run decent BAs and the power to crush enough mistakes to put up quality slugging numbers. Think someone like Adolis Garcia or early career Javy. The upside is massive. Generally after a bit of an adjustment period at each level Pete began running normal K/BB rates. If he has e.g. his AA plate discipline numbers in the long term hes probably a 120 wRC+ kind of guy. And that with his Kevin Keirmaier starter kit outside the batters box is a 5-6 win superstar. If we land Ohtani or Soto, I 1000% give Pete CF right from opening day. If Jed has to settle for something more disappointing like Rhys Hoskins and Jeimer Candelario I still probably give CF to PCA right away but I could be convinced to give him a little more seasoning in AAA first.

Yamamoto is a bit if a different beast than the hitters. Indications are that he's more all-star than superstar. He's young and should hopefully stay that way for a while, but his appeal is more as a foundational core piece than as some monster for 2024. Short term he's probably not too different from Snell/Rodriguez/Montgomery/etc. Soto and Ohtani though, they provide a path to a fundamentally different team than any alternatives. They are game-wrecking offensive forces. None of the other players potentially available provide that kind of offensive impact. They might get to a similar value via defense, but they do not transform the lineup like the two big boys. If I'm Jed and I miss on those top two bats, I probably focus on short term deals for bats and poor a bunch of resources into the pitching staff. Go with a deeper more run-prevention focused unit and keep powder dry to hopefully finally add that monster bat next year. Though at that point you'd need to seriously question if Jed has the stones to pull down a really big fish.

There have been rumblings since the trade deadline that the Mariners would like to do a young SP for young hitter swap. I don't know if there's been anything that Gilbert is specifically more available than the others or if he's just the most popular amongst fans.

The Yankees farm is also kind of ass (including their recent graduates), so if Jed loses out it's because he didn't like the price not because he couldn't match the price.

I think I've read they often talk in generalities. Like if you use the Future Value parlance that Fangraphs uses you might say "Juan Soto for Chris Morel and a couple of 40 FVs" and then after agreeing to the framework haggle about who those specific 40 FVs will be. I'd be shocked if Soto gets dealt before Ohtani signs. Even if we hear about a Soto deal first, it's likely that Ohtani already happened and it just took longer for word to get out. Preller would be incredibly dumb to not use that extra leverage of Ohtani being off the board, even if he had a deal he'd be satisfied with already in hand.

Funny you mention this! I brought it up in the other Glasnow thread yesterday He didn't throw a lot of MLB innings early in his career because he was bad and the Pirates were too dumb to fix him, but nothing to do with health. He had an elbow strain in 2019, and those are very often a precursor to UCL tears. That tear ended up occurring midway through 2021, taking him out until September of 2022. Last year he had a hamstring strain in ST and missed the first bit of the year. So three injuries of any real consequence in his career, two of those being directly tied to his elbow which has since been reconstructed. He's a pitcher who throws hard so definitely be on guard for durability issues, but like the level of consternation does not stand up to scrutiny. Expecting 200 innings from a guy who's never passed 160 isn't a smart bet, but expecting 90 because he had the temerity to have TJ right after the pandemic isn't much better.

The collective pissing and moaning about Glasnow's injury history, like less than a week after most of the same people went gaga for the idea of rehabbing Brandon Woodruff's busted shoulder (which is sooooo much worse of a situation), makes me want to pull out what little hair I've still got. More to the point, Glasnow is probably the second best pitcher in baseball on a per inning basis (behind, ironically, deGrom). Sure the over/under on his innings is somewhere in the 120-150 range, but these are the sorts of risks you can take when your rotation already goes 8ish deep with options that are at least decent. Getting Glasnow on a one year deal is one of the smartest most impactful moves Jed can make this winter. My only reservation is that at $25M I'm not sure it can live as part of a plan that includes Ohtani or Soto, and those guys are by far my top priority this winter.

Let's pull out a globe and speculate wildly

I absolutely adore Bregman. He's no longer a superstar without the rabbit ball, but he's got probably the best plate approach in MLB right now (as good as Soto is he's a smidge passive). So with a wide opening at 3B and a need for some offense I'd be ecstatic to add him. That said, going back to the other thread from today, I think adding some thump, particularly left handed thump, is a bit more pressing on the offensive side of the ball. So I would not poo-poo Bregman, but I would prefer a Soto or Ohtani. My perfect world is probably to add Soto or Ohtani this winter and then Bregman out of free agency next winter. As much as I've harped on "you can't count on guys reaching FA" in this case that might be the more realistic scenario. I understand the Astros listening, but really doubt they'll actually go through with kneecapping their team right now. Yet Bregman has a good shot of actually reaching FA since Altuve is on the same timeline and seems higher priority for an extension.