Bertz

Mooney this AM. I was lukewarm on Stanek as the primary late inning add. As a second addition I'd be much more on board. I'm surprised about Junis. I figured with Smyly and the crop of optionable SPs another long man wasn't really in the cards. Curious if that's viewed as a need or if they just liked him in particular.

There are many examples of highly productive players who suddenly and permanently stop producing. The error bars around minor leaguers and foreign players are of course wider, but the degree to which that's the case is much smaller than conventional wisdom would say.

They weren't playing in MLB but it's not like they were playing on Mars.

I think there's four things to consider with the projected standings before wringing your hands too much: 1. The basis for playing time is the Fangraphs/BP generalized depth charts. If the have something stupid not based in reality, like having Carlos Rodon slated to throw 157 innings, it can inflate/deflate a team's projected win total. The ZiPS standings Dan Szymborski runs account for the probability of random injury, but as far as I know not the probability of a guy getting passed on the depth chart. The daily updating standings on FG/BP are not dynamic at all 2. Like Rob said, teams with depth tend to outperform the FG odds, because they are better able to withstand injury/underperformance and also they're more likely to have legitimate talent at the bottom of the depth chart that breaks out and earns playing time 3. Projections are inherently conservative. Real life will have a much much higher spread between teams and away from .500 4. The offseason isn't over. Jed could get drunk tonight and add 8 wins to the team's bottom line with one really eventful phone call to Scott Boras. While that's exceedingly unlikely, adding another ~3 wins seems likely and closer to 5 not totally out of bounds

Not so fun fact, now that we have AAA Statcast data we can see exactly how bad some of these guys are. Chase Strumpf at Iowa last year had Nick Madrigal level power numbers and Patrick Wisdom level contact rates. He's patient and kept the ball off the ground but he is really, really bad.

Cubs fans on Tuesday: "Why can't we have a Bobby Witt Jr.?" Cubs fans on Friday: "Our 21 year old all-world defensive CF wasn't a finished product offensively. He's trash and we're better off trading him!"

Caissie and Shaw!

To me I'm not worried about any pitching. Even if Jed pulls a last minute Snell/Montgomery, the age and injury history of the rotation means that if anyone deserves innings, they'll get innings. Maybe they come a few weeks later than we'd want but they're going to get their chances. Offensively there are two guys I am a bit worried about: Canario and to a lesser extent Wisdom. I brought up Canario in the mega thread a few days ago, but the tl;dr is that it's pretty hard to see him actually getting significant playing time short of a rash of injuries. Right now he'd be the 4th or 5th outfielder in the pecking order and behind Morel/Wisdom at DH. After the team adds another bat, that guy will either directly or indirectly knock him back a spot. Not only that, PCA and Caissie are not very far behind him on the development curve. I would expect something akin to Mastrobuoni's playing time last year. That would be fine except we're on his last option year. If we get to November and he's got ~250 MLB plate appearances and no minor league options, he's going to have to get sold off for pennies on the dollar. Especially since Canario seems relatively valuable at the moment this feels like more of a problem than typical back of the roster churn. Wisdom’s less of a prospect so it matters less, but I don't love how much overlap there is between him and Morel. And if we add Chapman he's suddenly completely redundant. Although the one thing about Wisdom is that if we are in the beginnings of a sinker/splitter Renaissance he will start getting far more advantageous matchup opportunities than he's gotten the previous two years. Maybe having Chapman, Morel, and Wisdom all in the same lineup a lot of days wouldn't be as unthinkable as it would have been last year.

Honestly if I'm one of the pitchers and I've come this far, I wait another two weeks and see which large market team had a pitcher come into camp injured. I wouldn't wait much longer than that though because then it impacts your season. The hitters don't really have a drop dead date until like early March? I do expect shortly a run on lesser players pretty soon. They'll want to get into camps before they start or at least very shortly after. And they don't have as much to gain by holding out.

Dodgers fans basically had the same criticisms of Friedman before this year. He hadn't overextended for a FA in his decade running the team. The glass half empty argument was that Betts fell into his lap, Freeman made a lot by 1B standards but not in absolute terms, and otherwise there'd been a ton of smoke but he'd never committed significant resources to a single player before. It was all short term FAs and trades with a couple medium sized extensions to Turner/Muncy/Taylor. This stuff is basically true until it's not. To Squally's point it'd be stupid to assume Jed will operate the same way when he enters an offseason with a team unequivocally ready to win team as he has when he's entered the last few offseasons with a team that has multiple major holes and question marks.

It's my favorite genre of Jed criticism. It's just so patently silly on it's face. Like do they think when Jed signed Dansby Swanson he initially offered $175M and Swanson immediately responded like this?

They have straight up said their payroll is going to be down from last year. Unless they manage some salary dump trade of Jansen/Yoshida (seems incrediblt tough to do on the eve of ST) they're not signing one of the big dogs. They probably can make a mid-sized signing like JDM though.

The numbers next to Alcantara through Ballesteros is where they would rank globally if he went beyond 100 names on his top 100. Feels criminally low on Gray and Murray and criminally high on Kilian but otherwise not much I'd more than quibble with.

People are going to think you're hot taking but I agree with this...at least for 2024. I think Tauchman & PCA is a better internal option in the immediate term than the group of guys fighting for time at 3B or #5 starter. I think also leading with a pitcher gives you the option to sign a Belt/JDM and cram a little more WAR onto the roster. Conversely I don't think it makes as much sense to sign a $10-15M pitcher like Lorenzen in the scenario where Jed pulls down one of the bats. I do still ultimately hope that we sign Bellinger of the four though. For me the arguments for Bellinger being the guy are: A) Age and profile. A 28 year old position player is a safer long term investment than a 31 year position player or literally any pitcher B) Soft factors. The team loves him, he works well with the coaches, etc. I think especially since it looks like these guys are all going to miss a chunk of ST this could matter particularly in the immediate term C) Lineup Diversity. Tying back to the Madrigal article yesterday, we've already got two players *very* similar to Chapman in the batter's box. Bellinger's flyball/contact/patience combo is generally rare generally and certainly not already redundant on the Cubs D) The possibility for a creative contract. With Bellinger's wild career arc, and his very young age, I think he's the most likely to do something like the Carlos Correa deal. If Bellinger proves last year wasn't a fluke he easily gets $250M+ next winter. If he takes a step back but is still productive (3+ WAR), he much more easily gets Dansby Swanson money as he'll have proven '21/'22 Bellinger isn't coming back and also shed the qualifying offer

Yeah to your point I'm not sure there's any team besides the Cubs and Giants that's more than 50/50 to jump in and grab a guy. If Jed's comfortable ending up with any of them I don't think he needs to worry about a quick run of signings and him left without a bag. If anything it's the opposite because some teams would want one or two guys but not others. E.g. the Giants are not going to sign Bellinger if the miss on Chapman. I think the Cubs and Angels are the only teams that would potentially be in on all 4.

So I guess here's a meandering list of points rattling around my head regarding the Boras guys - I think each of the four is an approximately 3.5 win player - If you forced me to take the over/under on 3.5 WAR for each guy I'd take the over on Snell/Chapman and the under on Bellinger/Montgomery - I think each of CF, 3B, and #5 starter is currently below average but not bad. I like internal options at CF the most by a smidge - Chapman and Snell would cost the team a pick in the 45-50 range, Bellinger a pick in the 75-80 range, and Montgomery no pick - Rough expectation seems to be that Chapman gets $125M, Montgomery $150M, Bellinger $175M, and Snell $200M - Purely for 2024, I think one of the SPs and a bat like Belt or JDM probably leads to the most wins - I'm a big believer in lineup diversity. Bellinger's a plus there while Chapman’s a big minus. Combined with Bellinger's age is why I ultimately prefer him most out of the four, despite the above points - I do think Jed is more or less obligated to sign one of the Boras 4. I'm sympathetic to some guys just not having reasonable price tags, but no one pointed a gun at Jed's head and forced him into this waiting game strategy. - Put another way, take the above and replace horsefeathers with "unreasonable negotiator"

Personally, I think any of the Boras 4 would have a similar impact on bottom line wins. CF, 3B, and 5th starter are all adequate 1.5-2 WAR type positions, and I'd project each of those four guys for 3-4 WAR. I think most fans want Bellinger most for a variety of reasons, and many of those reasons are very good. But if Jed foregoes Bellinger for one of the other three, I expect a lot of angst but will personally think it's mostly unwarranted. If Jed does not pull down one of the Boras 4....woof. I think you pull in one of Belt/Soler/JDM, add another late inning reliever, and sign one of the high profile rehabbing pitchers. It's probably not as disastrous for 2024 wins as it would feel, but man you'd really have to question if Jed is ever going to have the stones to go for it in an even halfway aggressive way.

Having Madrigal and Hoerner on the same team is not ideal, but it's in the same way that having Wisdom and Morel on the same team is not ideal. Having two guys playing largely the same positions with largely the same offensive profile limits how well you can matchup against certain days. When we've got a legitimate alternative at 3B yeah Madrigal needs to be shown the door. But before we think too much about that we need to have that alternative capable of playing at at least the ~2.5 WAR/600 pace Madrigal projects at. Right now our alternatives are Mastrobuoni, 3 guys we're not sure can handle the position defensively, and 2-3 kids in the upper minors that we hope in short order can handle the position offensively. Signing Chapman would be great in a vacuum, but add a third Morel/Wisdom type to the lineup. Introducing diminishing returns in the same way having Madrigal+Hoerner does.

I think they know they're going over a cliff after '25 and rather than try and thread the needle they're just saying screw it and maxing out the next two years. They're Dombrowskiing basically.

YMMV on whether it matters with Jed in charge but talk has been they wanted to retain just one of Altuve/Bregman so the latter seems very likely to hit FA now

This draft is also apparently insanely deep at WR. Matt Miller had 14 (!!) go in the top two rounds in his mock yesterday. Grabbing an LT at 9 and then trading back into the 2nd round (whether via Fields or otherwise) to grab a WR is not a very disappointing backup plan.

Dodgers/Padres can start using the 60 Day IL this week, and other teams next week. Don't be surprised if there's a flurry of moves around then. For instance I believe the Cubs immediately 60 Day IL'd someone (Roberts?) and then signed Fulmer last year.

I'm hoping that they have something lined up that they're simply waiting for Chapman/Bellinger to get locked in to execute on.