Bertz

Yeah all of these guys will decline. None of the guys who were iffy like Hoskins got extended an offer. Hader is interesting. A lot of relievers who've gotten the QO have had their markets absolutely crushed. With The Cubs likely getting a pick back for Bellinger does Hader's market drop enough to bring him into Jed range?

In the same way that we can look at the Cubs actions and intimate that they think Chris Morel can't play 3rd, I think we can look at the Cubs actions and intimate that they think Matt Mervis sucks. Edwin Rios broke camp with the team as the primary LHH bench bat. It took more than a month of intense suckitude from Rios, Mancini and Hosmer to get Mervis up. Once he was up, he didn't get a ton of playing time. After he got sent down, he stayed down even as Jared Young got called up multiple times. He stayed down even as Miles Mastrobuoni (who was mostly a LHH pinch hitter until September) got called up multiple times. Maybe this is one of the things Ross and the FO disagreed about? But the Jared Young of it all tells me Jed and co also don't like Mervis. I expect him to be one of the other guys in a trade this winter. Padres make some sense?

So what do we think Counsell replacing Ross means for the roster itself? Especially since we don't watch day-to-day it can be hard to separate what the FO is pushing for vs. what the manager is pushing for, but it's still interesting to think about. Some initial guesses: - The team is less likely to carry 3 catchers. It's a bit tough to say how much of this was a specific response to having Willson Contreras as our main guy, but having 3 catchers feels like it was a David Ross request - In the bullpen, less of a focus on funk/being able to keep the ball on the ground and more of a focus on pure stuff and being able to beat hitters in the strike zone. So e.g. expect Luke Little to get more shots at MLB innings than Brandon Hughes - Not that Ross didn't care about it, but for Counsell the platoon advantage is key. I remember multiple Alzolay and Wesneski blowup starts because Counsell stuffed like 7 lefties into the lineup - Catcher framing über alles. That said, he and his staff were able to take terrible framers and not just make them solid but make them absolutely fantastic. Very quickly too - Related to the catcher framing thing, do generally expect a continued emphasis on defense pretty much all over the diamond. So if you're team "play Christopher Morel at 3B" maybe brace for some disappointment - This is the one I feel least comfortable ascribing specifically to Counsell, but his Brewer teams generally had a lot of dongs and a lot of strikeouts. I'm sure they didn't want the strikeouts, but priority 1 was dongs. And with the Brewers' limited resources the strikeouts were the cost Anything else we can think of?

Dansby Swanson got details/assurances last winter about what other stuff was coming down the pipe in the next 18-24 months, Craig Counsell surely got updated versions of those as well. Probably in much greater detail given his job scope.

I'm probably the most vocal cheerleader for Hottovy around. But the Brewers are one of the few teams arguably doing better in the pitching coach department. Hottovy moving upstairs and Counsell bringing someone south with him from Milwaukee would be a real way to fight brain-drain from losing Breslow and potentially others.

Things I'm excited for - I generally liked Ross, but I do think he was slow to allow guys into the circle of trust. Particularly with the bullpen, Counsell's going to be a lot quicker to throw stuff monsters like Daniel Palencia, Luke Little, and Ben Brown into the mix - I don't know how much Brewers devil magic is left at this point (I feel like I haven't wondered how they're pulling it off in like 2-3 years), but now it's gone. If Craig can bring it here awesome, but at minimum the veil is lifted - Brewers fans are going to be sooooo salty about this Things I'm not excited for: - Counsell's a whiner. I get working the umps, it unfortunately works and is thus the right/smart thing to do, but I still kind of hate it

Wow. I think a lot of the criticisms of Ross were mostly dumb and overreactive but by most accounts and measures Counsell's pretty much the best going right now. Pretty ballsy move, right on

As a guy certainly looking for just a 1 year deal at our position of greatest need Hoskins should probably be closer to top of mind.

Two things scare me about Nola, both somewhat interrelated: - He took a step back last year. I don't mean his ERA, that can probably be blamed on the clownshow defense the Phillies ran out every day early in the year. But his peripherals all went the wrong direction as well. Strikeouts, walks, and groundball rate were all worse than his 3-yeat totals from '20-'22. In Jon Lester's deal he was more or less peak Lester in '15/'16, still good in '17-'19, and bad in '20. I worry the descent has started with Nola already, and we end up with only one great year - Nola's innings are a double-edged sword. It's awesome for the Phillies that he threw all those innings, but it does make me worry that he's wearing down/about to wear down. To draw it back to Lester, his drop-off from '16 to '17 was clearly due to the deep playoff run in 2016. He threw 237 innings (regular + postseason) that year and was never the same after. Are we going to look back at Nola's 230 innings in '22 and say something similar? That said, he hasn't lost a ton of velo yet, and 2022 aside his inning totals wouldn't make anyone bat an eyelash a decade ago

This argument is basically the definition of specious reasoning

I mean more or less yeah I do see them as interchangeable. I think most would agree that Wicks would rank first and Assad last, but it's not much daylight between them. - Assad has 150 pretty successful MLB innings under his belt. The stuff I pretty pedestrian, limiting the upside, but a trade partner *knows* he's a quality contributor, and can be cautiously optimistic he can do it as a starter - Brown clearly has the best stuff, but with his injuries, occasional walk issues, and the fact that he hasn't thrown an MLB pitch yet clearly has the highest risk - Wicks had a great cup of coffee, but 34 innings is not enough to consider him established. The Stuff+ metrics are not super kind to him, though the ones on Fangraphs are terrible at handling changeups so he's probably closer to average in that regard There's real pros/cons to each, and maybe you weight those differently than I do, but making one of these guys an untouchable over the others would be pretty silly IMO.

I like BJ a lot. I'll be interested in seeing what people say about him defensively in prospect lists this winter. Cubdom made it sound like he improved there in 2023, making him much less of a tweener than he looked like a year ago. The bat definitely improved, and it more or less looks like he just launch angled himself. But doing that without sacrificing any contact is a big deal. I also like that he's a real switch hitter. He hits for average as a right and power as a lefty, but he's actually good from both sides of the plate: As a lefty: .256/.371/.479 As a righty: .266/.386/.457 And it was similar in 2022 As a lefty: .236/.354/.491 As a righty: .296/.422/.415 I really wish he was a little further along. If we could count on him being an option at 3B in the short term, Madrigal starting out with Murray breathing down his neck would probably be a better 3B solution than most of what's out on the FA/trade markets currently.

The Alonso bit was interesting So one of Assad/Brown/Wicks and probably not much on top of that?

This is a takeaway I have too. I've thought for a while the top end of the domestic FA market was a no go. I'd still generally like to avoid it (give me one of the Japanese starters please), but someone like Jordan Montgomery certainly feels more likely than he did yesterday. And with the resources available, one big signing, one big trade, and a couple smaller signings makes the most sense from a resource allocation standpoint.

I didn't think Hendricks was going anywhere even if Stro stayed. Now that Stroman's gone though there's about a ten thousand percent chance Hendricks sticks around. Only question is if they do it straight on his option or do something like 2/$25M. Even with a surplus of promising youths Jed is not going to back himself into a corner needing multiple vet SPs.

So assuming Hendricks and Gomes aren't going anywhere (either of which would be far more shocking than Stro opting out) payroll now is ~$185M. The first luxury tax level is $237M, so leaving some money for the deadline and such there's probably $40-45M to that level. If Jed can go up to the second LT level (the point where draft penalties start kicking in), it’s $80-85M.

Nice, the reporting said this was going the other way but I thought Stroman would be better served to opt out. This is good news, not because Stroman's not worth the money but because it opens up so much more flexibility for Jed and Co. It does make SP an absolute necessity now instead of a nice to have.

That linked article is really great. It might also have the answer to the homerun problem buried in it I'm not the most knowledgeable about the pitch design stuff, but I *believe* that high spin riding fastballs do great at the top of the zone and terrible at the bottom. See this FG article, and the money chart mapping whiff rates: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-visualized-primer-on-vertical-approach-angle-vaa/ I don't want to generalize about Japanese baseball too much, but I believe their pitchers are still generally taught to pitch to contact and get groundballs. If Imanaga has a more western style repertoire but is trying to pitch low in the zone it might be a simple round peg square hole deal?

I like that Jorge is an actual lefty killer. A lot of our righties are better against lefties, but not WAY better. On the whole that's better, but you do actually want 1 or 2 guys who are like 150 wRC+ vs lefties /100 vs righties. I also like that he's a proven DH. A lot of guys can't actually do it even if it's where they ought to play(the Giambi conundrum). That said, Soler opting out means he feels pretty confident he can net a multi-year deal. As much as I do like some things about his bat, that feels pretty close to being a hard pass. If he could fake it at 1st or we were more confident in getting his 2023 level of production it'd be different.

Kantrovitz staying

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/contract-crowdsourcing-2023-24-ballot-5-of-11/ I was doing the contract crowdsourcing polls for Fangraphs, and the one for the guys coming over from Asia is pretty fascinating. I did not realize how close Imanaga and Yamamoto are. ZiPS actually has Imanaga better on a per inning basis. I've been pretty Yamamoto or bust in free agency but seeing this makes me soften on that.

A little disappointing on Estrada and Burdi but neither is super surprising

I'm of the mind that ideally for his development yeah you'd probably give PCA til Memorial Day before you call him up. But I think the PPI plus the fact that he's plus plus outside of the batter's box (providing some real floor) will have him open the year in MLB. It won't be gifted to him, I'm sure he's got some very real boxes to check during spring training, but it looks to be the way the wind is blowing IMO. That said I'm a big Tauchman fan. I have no worries about him getting significant run in CF. Yeah there's no power there but a lefty with a ~league average bat and nominal splits is pretty valuable out in CF. And the lack of power *should* be less of an issue next year since I expect our primary hitter acquisition(s) to provide it in spades. Canario is also a fun idoesn't. compliment to Tauchman who probably gets an MLB roster spot if PCA doesnt.

I think PCA opens the year in MLB unless he faceplants in spring training. Him getting called up despite such a narrow path to playing time felt like they were trying to get him ready mentally/emotionally ready for big league life. Like I remember one of Theo/Jeds reasons for holding Bryant and Russell down I'm '15 was that rookies debuting with all of the pomp and circumstance of opening day tended to get kind of overwhelmed. It was obviously an excuse, but they probably chose that excuse instead of another because there is some truth to it. That said more broadly I agree. Iowa didn't provide as many reinforcements last year as it should have, particularly on the reliever side. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot more meat on that roster to open '24 knowing that ultimately we're going to need to call some guys up and have them produce more or less immediately.