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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    I like this idea a lot. Garver is very frequently my backup catcher in The Show. But more to real life, I've been thinking about what the rest of an offseason looks like if the big bat isn't a 1B (e.g. Soto or Ohtani), and Garver is a savvy "other bat" for such a scenario. He hits enough that he could be a cromulent starting 1B/DH. We know the Cubs love carrying 3 catchers. Garver would probably only start 20ish games behind the plate (this might be the deal breaker for him), but he'd get back there plenty often mid-game, and would find his name in the lineup most days at 1B/DH. I'd imagine he'd jump at starting ~130 games, even if in his perfect world he'd prefer more starts at catcher. Garver would also free up Wisdom to be traded. Patrick doesn't have immense value, but he should probably bring back a cost controlled setup man.
  2. Bertz
    I'd sort of already chalked up the Brewers trading one of Burnes/Woodruff this winter. But this means they don't get the prospects or to reallocate the dollars. Pretty tough first test for the FO post-Stearns
  3. Bertz
    Do we have confirmation on this? I asked about it a week or two back in the MiLB forum. It seems likely, and I would think Amaya might get one too, but don't have a great way to check (I usually just have to wait for AZ Phil to randomly drop nuggets like this). I do think, more to the point of the article, there are several pockets of depth where I'd expect a trade from in the next ~15 months. Most notably RHH outfielders in the upper minors, the SPs who could reasonably open next year in an ML rotation (Assad, Wicks, Brown, Wesneski), and the entire Tennessee infield from the end of the year.
  4. Bertz
    Yeah the only way we can turn back the clock on innings is if we also turn the clock back on velocity. I love Kyle Hendricks but I don't want to go back to 87 being an average fastball.
  5. Bertz
    Let's put a little finer point on this: - Juan Soto's bat the last three years is approximately 45 runs better than a league average bat over the course of a year - Over that same period, his glove is, depending on how you weight statcast vs. DRS, and whether you consider his positive 2021 germane, somewhere between -5 and -10 - Ian Happ's glove is between average and +5 in LF, again depending on how you weight which inputs - Ian Happ has 11 career games at 1B, and over 100 in the infield more generally. I think you'd expect Happ to be a better 1B, perhaps much better. Certainly in the near term Put it all together, and I think you'd expect the team to be flushing 5-10 runs down the toilet by playing Soto as an outfielder. But again let's return to that +45 bat. Pete Alonso's averaged +27 the last three years. Rhys Hoskins is not quite a +20 bat. Cody Bellinger was +24 this year (and I personally have my doubts that this is his true talent level). Soto's bat is so so so so good. If there are any necessary evils, like keeping a crappy defender at a more valuable position to make him happy in his walk year, it's totally worth it and better than most alternatives.
  6. Bertz
    I doubt the team is going to pass on arguably the best hitter in baseball over it. Like the Astros let Yordan Alvarez play the field ~1/3rd of the time even though he's been a should-be DH since he was a teenager. You sometimes compromise to add otherworldly offense to the lineup.
  7. Bertz
    Yeah more or less. Soto to 1B is cleaner but it is definitely a lot less likely. I'll hope for it but my expectation is going to be for Happ to move.
  8. Bertz
    It's hard to say what the team's preference is around a 6 man rotation since prior to Assad and Wicks balling out to end the year they hadn't had a good 6th starter since Mike Montgomery. I'd expect next year them to do a 6 man coming out of ST. Hendricks and Stroman could use a bit of a breather, and Steele could REALLY use one. You've also got off days almost every week early on. I don't expect it to go much further than that though unless maybe the sign one of the Japanese starters.
  9. Bertz
    Soto's bat is so good that you get him in the door and worry about the defensive stuff later. I'd guess the most likely play is Ian Happ to 1B. It's not ideal, but not close to problematic enough to poopoo the idea.
  10. Bertz
  11. Bertz
    I'd love Glasnow. I think the durability questions are a bit overstated. The forearm in '19 was probably a precursor to his elbow popping. And the missed time in 21 and 22 was just a standard TJ. Even if you are worried about the durability though, I think with Assad/Wicks/Brown/Wesneski (and Horton not that far off) we're in a position to take 120 stellar innings over 180 good innings.
  12. Bertz
    14 WAR seems a bit high? Like if Jed pulled down: Pete Alonso - 3.5ish projected WAR Yoshi Yamamoto - 3.5 Jeimer Candelario - 2.5 David Robertson - 1 Hunter Harvey - 0.5 That feels like a stellar offseason, filling every hole on the roster, and that's only 11. Similarly, I wouldn't want to take too hard of a line on exactly how many dollars arebeing allocated, knowing how well stocked the farm is. Though admittedly while the farm is deep I do think it's doubtful Jed would dip into it enough to have a good offseason under the LT.
  13. Bertz
    One thing to be careful with is that FG is a little less generous with their FV grades than MLB. So I think if you're doing the FV -> $ conversion I'd stick to Fangraphs or ESPN prospect rankings (since Kiley was there when that analysis was run). That would say something like Alcantara straight up or Brown/Wicks + Caissie.
  14. Bertz
    Curious what Soto ultimately costs. BBTV says something like Brown + Caissie. Even given Soto's salary that feels light. The Betts and Lindor trades are a bit messy as comps since they included Price and Carrasco respectively. Also the Betts trade blew up in the Sox face pretty spectacularly, so while it's a comparable situation AJ Preller is not going to gladly use that as a comp. Ultimately though, Soto is the best player likely to hit the market after Ohtani, and the gap between him and #3 is miles wide. Given that the Cubs have depth and need stars get Soto in the building and figure out the rest later.
  15. Bertz
    I could see what's happened with Urias and Ohtani having changed the calculus for him. I also could see his agent having some back channel convos and getting confirmation that teams aren't especially scared of his 2nd half. His two halves could not have been more different, but on the whole his season wasn't that far off of what you'd have expected going into the season.
  16. Bertz
    I know none of us like AJ Pierzynski, and for good reason, but I think he's become a very good broadcaster
  17. Bertz
    My hope is that because it's his throwing motion they want to overhaul it's a lot more feasible to do in the offseason than in-season. But yeah like you said he put in plenty of work this year because it was a gaping hole on the roster before Candelario got here. My expectation is that he's either a DH for us or shipped off somewhere he can play 2B more or less every day (Tigers or Mariners?).
  18. Bertz
    I liked the 1 game wildcard round, but understand that teams didn't find that to be enough incentive. My main gripe with the current format is the nonsensical off days. Why the horsefeathers was the NL off yesterday knowing they're off again for the travel day tomorrow? I have no love for the Braves, but one of the major selling points of the new format is that a team like the Phillies was going to have to burn their top 2 guys in the wildcard round. Now though they can let Wheeler start games 2 and 5 of the DS on normal rest even after starting in the Wildcard round? I assume they wanted to limit the number of games going up against an NFL Sunday, and also build in some buffer for a rainout, but there's got to be a better way.
  19. Bertz
    Have we gotten any sort of confirmation on whether Canario and/or Amaya got a 4th minor league option? I know there is a carveout for guys who suffer major injuries, but I don't know the exact parameters. I'd think particularly with the way the team treated Canario in September the org expects he'll get one, but I'm wondering if/when we'll get confirmation publicly.
  20. Bertz
    I wouldn't move Nico again personally. I think the team needs to be really honest with themselves about whether they think 3B can work, and if they don't then yeah trade him. I love Morel as a dude but I don't love him as a player if he's locked into DH or 1B
  21. Bertz
    To me the biggest wildcard is Morel. Can he be a viable everyday 3B if he just focuses there instead of also having to practice 5 other positions? It's IMO much more likely than shifting Madrigal over there was at this same time last year. But if Morel can just be your everyday 3B, the roster fits together better since tou don't have a dedicated DH. Then you can afford to have more specialized fits like Madrigal and Wisdom on the bench. If Morel's the 3B and we go get a 1B as expected, I think a bench of Madrigal, Wisdom, Amaya, Tauchman, Mastro checks pretty much every box except LHH power. And that could potentially be addressed by swapping in Mervis or someone else for one of the guys above. Morel at 3rd also has the added benefit of only needing to add one bat this winter, freeing up resources for the other holes on the roster. The other "if the season started today" scenario I'm curious about is Owen Caissie. It is very unlikely he cracks the roster out of ST, but given how much he dominated at AA and the PPI, if he comes into ST and balls out how willing are they to roster him? If Morel is no longer locked into the DH spot there's some potential runway there.
  22. Bertz
    Yeah this was the biggest takeaway from putting this together. My guess is that the median offseason is one long term deal, one trade of major consequence, and then bench/relief help on 1-2 year deals. Something like Nola, Alonso, Robertson, and Candelario (if he can be had for two years, someone like Urshela if he can't). There's probably a plan or two where Jed does two long term deals. Like Yamamoto and a Soto trade/extension would be pretty hard to pass up. As would essentially anybody with Ohtani. But I'd guess Jed wants to be able to add someone substantial every winter while still leaving an avenue to reset the tax in '25 or '26.
  23. Bertz
    Yeah if you look at Cots or RR he's already in there. That's part of why I did the exercise like I did because I wanted to build payroll from the ground up and not have to try and keep someone else's assumptions straight while making my own. Correct, from a luxury tax standpoint it's more or less considered that they already paid that money.
  24. Bertz
    Definitely good call on budgeting several extra MLB salaries to account for people on the IL. Maybe call that another $5M? I think you're right about the buyouts too. I wonder if that changed with this CBA, because I swear it used to go the other way. But regardless browsing a couple Roster Resource pages I don't see them added, and it certainly helps so can't complain. I did remember the Player Benefits money, so we don't need to add that again. So we're looking at something a little closer to $30M under the tax. And yeah I think trying to put on my Jed hat I can see him reasoning his way to a pretty wide range of payrolls. I do imagine like you hit on it's player specific? E.g. he'll pass $277M but only for Ohtani. $257 but only for two of the primo guys or if he's able to nab several guys on 1 year deals. etc. Looking at it more and more I do think there's a pretty good chance Stroman gets dealt. He should still have modest surplus value, and freeing up his salary makes a lot of the scenarios we could dream up a lot less tight to pull off.
  25. Bertz
    Assuming Stroman opts in, I'd be very surprised if they add someone from the Giolito tier of FAs. I think with how well Assad and Wicks showed out in the second half, plus having Smyly and possibly Wesnesky in the bullpen, there's not a ton of need for pure depth. I think Jed takes a swing at one of Yamamoto/Nola/Montgomery and if he fails there turns to the trade market. But the goal is certainly a playoff caliber starter IMO. On Yoshi specifically, he'd be my top target in free agency this winter by a wiiiiiiidddddeeee margin.
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