Bertz

Relevant to this ongoing discussion we've got a projection for Bichette: a SLG-heavy .800 OPS AND 3.9 WAR. Relatedly that Brandon Belt projection is very nifty for a guy who's going to get something like 1/$10-15M. He's my guy if our big move on offense is a RHH such as Bichette.

I waffle basically every day on Alcantara. TT's previously laid out a good case for trading him now, yet at the same time he is one of three guys (along with PCA and Horton) in the minors where a superstar possibility feels relatively realistic. I think ultimately I would trade him, but it has to be for a star. Even if on paper Alcantara can be moved in a deal for someone boring like Patrick Sandoval, I feel like the upside just would make me hate it. If he takes his star turn in another org I want to be able to go "well we got Juan Soto out of it so who gives a horsefeathers".

Yeah let's not go crazy on what Bichette costs. Bichette was 48th in MLB in position player WAR last year. Ian Happ, who half the fanbase wants to fire into the sun, was 56th. A Bichette trade will hurt, but let's not act like it'll be something wild like what the Nats got for Juan Soto.

So looking at the Blue Jays roster and their prospect list on FG, they do have reinforcements coming behind Bichette. Their #2, #4, and #6 prospects are SS's/3B's who have reached AAA. They could also shift Espinal to SS and give Cavan Biggio more of a fulltime look at 2B. Their OF looks pretty bleak organizationally besides Varsho and Springer. Like FG has Nathan Lukes, who was a 28 year oold rookie last year, as their starting LF. So if you do something like PCA, Nick Madrigal (as a bridge infielder), and some pitching, I can see how that makes sense from Toronto's POV? Like I wouldn't do it given where they are in the win curve, but it's not completely nuts. On our side Bichette obviously does a ton. There simply aren't options available at 1B/DH that offer his level of impact at such a low salary. I'll also say as someone very anti-Bellinger if we add Bichette for PCA he suddenly makes wayyyyyy more sense on this roster.

I would think so. They currently here at the outset of the offseason project for the 5th most WAR in baseball. They're going to want major league impact right away. Mayyyybe PCA since he's MLB ready right this second?

Cards were the runner up on David Price I believe? So there's some precedent there for them actually being willing to shell out on a top of the market SP option. That said, I'm a bit worried about Jed offering the dollars necessary but Yamamoto ultimately not wanting to come to Chicago. Him wanting to spend the next 8-10 year of his life in St. Louis feels....significantly more unlikely.

Ah yes. The minor leagues, particularly under the old salary structure from the last CBA, were famous for everyone uniformly having optimal nutrition and conditioning.

Assad was chubby and added velo when he got into better shape. Jordan Wicks is already in great shape and thus doesn't have that sort of low hanging fruit available to him.

I didn't realize he wasn't already an AGM. Guys who regularly chat with the media are usually already at that AGM level. I guess the fact that he's already so visible is a nod to how much the FO thinks of him. We probably also see this promotion paired with hiring someone from the outside as well. I also saw in the Athletic this AM that Hottovy has been doing more front office-y type work this winter. Very much feels like backfilling for Breslow is a team effort, which makes sense.

In a vacuum that's a nifty deal for Gibson. Outside of a vacuum though their offseason increasingly looks like it will end up being Sonny Gray, Gibson, Lynn, and whatever Tyler O'Neil brings back in trade. Not very inspiring when the Brewers are vulnerable and to this point the Cubs haven't done jack

Yeah I was just noodling with a Moncada/Cease trade and yeah it doesn't work with an Ohtani or Soto offseason. You end up having to do one of the following: - sign someone kind of sad like Garret Cooper or Donovan Solano to start at 1B - Trade away so much pitching depth that Drew Smyly is back to being like the 5th or 6th starter - Really take a sledgehammer to the farm system That said if Pete Alonso or Cody Bellinger are the big bat it might work since they make ~$10M less than Soto and ~$25M less than Ohtani

The Cubs have laid out how they develop pitchers. You work on velo, then you work on movement, then you work on command. That's the progression, in that order, under the Breslow school of pitcher dev. There's no way Wicks hasn't picked up a set of weighted balls prior to his 3rd offseason in the org. And at 24 and already pretty strong I don't think changes to conditioning are going to magically unlock another gear like they did for e.g. Assad. It'd be awesome, but unlike someone like Ferris It'd be foolish to assume it's coming.

That feels pretty fair, and BBTV thinks it's actually a slight overpay. I don't love Moncada but I'd do it to get Cease in the door. One additional benefit of dealing with the Sox, and this applies to the Angels too, is they're so bereft of talent you might be able to get away with a quantity over quality trade, as evidenced by the Bummer deal.

I think it was literally just someone on Twitter being like "wouldn't this be sweet?" rather than anything approaching a rumor. Bichette would probably cost Justin Steele, because with the Blue Jays right in contention it's not just a matter of matching value over a ~5 year horizon you've got to come pretty close on matching value in the immediate term as well.

Shoulders =/= elbows. It's probably at least a coinflip Woodruff's washed, and even if he's not do you want to burn ~$15M on what we're all hoping is a very competitive 2024? He would have been an absolutely perfect signing last year or the year prior, but I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze currently.

Unless you're comfortable with Sanchez or Garver's defense or Counsell really stumps for Caratini, this is not the winter to willingly back yourself into the catcher market. That said, the Marlins are bereft of bats enough that we can probably pretty easily make a deal without Amaya.

After Lynn, the Cards are $30M south of where they were last year, and I don't know that there's a ton of reason to expect them to exceed last year by much. My guess is they pull down Sonny Gray and then trade Tyler O'Neil or Dylan Carlson for a younger SP.

Yeah the groundballs and hopefully soft contact should hopefully stick around and mitigate some of this. There might be a bit of natural regression too. His contact rates against were 81.2% after his debut, there are several guys who ran season-long contact rates right in that range and had K-rates in the 20-22% neighborhood. That's still below average but not scary below average. MLB Pipeline, who last updated their stuff in early August, have Ben Brown at #5 in the system and #86 in the industry, while Wicks is #10 in the system and not in the top 100. I don't do Baseball America anymore but pretty sure I remember them being similar. And Stuff+ is very much designed to work well in small samples. 35 innings is not actually that small a sample for these metrics.

The thing is, we don't even have to just look forward. As recently as August 1st or so I think general consensus was Brown >> Wicks. The thing that concerns me about Wicks is the complete lack of swing and miss after his debut. He ran an 11.6% rate from that point on, which is approaching position players pitching levels of contact. And if you look at his Stuff+ numbers, they're pretty abysmal, which would back up those contact rates. There's an important caveat to that last point that public Stuff+ numbers are laughably bad at handling changeups, but even still there's a good chance that he's just forever going to be well below average on the K front. The number of guys who are good pitchers with a sub 20% K rate and sub 50% GB rate is very small. It's possible, but it's a tightrope walk. Miles Mikolas is probably the reasonable best case scenario (i.e. we're not ascribing soft contact superpowers to him) and look at how inconsistent his career has been.

As most Mooney articles go, this morning's was mostly a lot of words about nothing. But the above stood out to me. We've thought a lot about big trades, but I'm wondering now about stuff that might be better described as medium sized like Fowler and Montero.

As I start letting myself believe this might actually happen, some of the things you've laid out have been bouncing around my head, plus some related stuff: - Assuming that Ricketts do not allow extra budget under an Ohtani scenario, I agree that we see several subsequent trades. With Ohtani, you're basically paying for a pitcher and a hitter, but only getting one of those in 2024. On top of that, getting Ohtani in the door is likely predicated on assurances about how competitive the team around him will be - Because of Ohtani's place on the roster, Jed needs to hold tightly onto the cost controlled SPs. Given the need to shift to a 6 man rotation next year (plus the budget constraints this year), Wicks et al are more important than ever. Conversely, with DH locked up for the next decade Jed can be pretty liberal in dealing away prospects on the wrong side of the defensive spectrum. 1B is their only path to everyday at bats at Wrigley Field in the foreseeable future - Given Tom Ricketts actions circa 2019-2020, I have been operating under the assumption that Jed is not allowed to cross the luxury tax 3 years in a row, with a reset in 2026 seeming most likely. However, with Ohtani in tow payroll in 2026 would already be approximately $200M even with no other deals between now and then. I won't pretend to know Ricketts' 5 rear plan, but I'd expect Jed to be very judicious with multi-year contracts in between Ohtani and 2027 when a ton of guys roll off to free agency. This further points to multiple trades this winter The payroll stuff is what I keep coming back to. Based on our expectations for payroll, things get really tight really quick with Ohtani on board. Jed's otherwise been very reticent to back himself into a corner resource-wise. Is that just the cost of doing business for bringing in a player of Ohtani's caliber, or is Ricketts finally ready to quit with the alligator arms routine?

An actual adult confirms

Top domestic SP option off the board

Bob Nightengale has the Dodgers going after Dylan Cease. He's pretty plugged into the White Sox, so while normally you look at what Bob says and think "opposite" there's probably something here. I don't think it says anything about Ohtani or anyone else though. The Dodgers need multiple veteran SPs.