Bertz

It's gonna be really hard for me to move off of this or thereabouts being the ideal scenario.

They probably wouldn't have need for Madrigal. I think part of the impotice for making the trade would be getting Cronenworth back over to 2B. That said it's an interesting idea, Kim would give us an insane infield defense and like you said another heavy flyball guy. Though I don't love his bat in general. I'd love to know what the team thinks about the internal 3B options defensively. Wisdom was very good there in '21 and really bad in '22. Morel was really bad in very limited play time in '22 but had a very strong reputation coming up through the minors. Mckinstry was fine there last year, but considering his work elsewhere would he be good with more playing time? If you told me any or all of these guys were somewhere between +5 and +10 defensively as a full time 3B I'd believe you. They all have questions offensively too, but they're small enough you'd be comfortable with some insurances they're a plus defender. Kind if like CF, 3B probably ends up being in a pretty good spot by the end of this season. But it's hard to say who ultimately gets the lions share of the playing time, and how much damage is done to the team's chances while it gets sorted out.

I'm concerned he has so much money to spend that the talent to get won't be there. The result, Poles will overspend on mediocre talent. Net gain: a 5-12 record. They really could have spiraled themselves into a Browns/Lions scenario of multiple losing seasons and top picks I mean, NFL fans go through this every year. Literally just saw it again with Jags. Everyone said they overpaid on mediocre talent. And that's kind of true. They still. Improved 6 games. Calling on them to be a 8 win team is not a high bar. Go look at all the 7-9 win teams. There's still a lot of trash and roster holes on those types of teams. We're not talking about closing every roster hole or finding multiple All Pros to get there. Also they would have won 6ish already this year with normal luck in one score games, there's not as much ground to make up as there looks like from simple W/L record. I mentioned like a month back and I still think it's true, the team has so many resources available that some rando who's into Madden's franchise mode should be able to get this team to 8+. The test of whether Poles is a dude is if he can get this team all the way into competing for a bye territory. To me the biggest worry is Fields regressing. We've seen recently with Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield that guys can still suddenly go "Oops I'm bad now lol" even after 3 years in the league. That is terrifying given that any hopes of major improvements bank on Fields being at minimum the guy he was for the last 10 games or so this season.

Go full bore and get Josh Jacobs. There's an embarrassment of riches available, so if there's a time to overspend for a RB it's right now. Ideally there'd be a WR worth giving stupid money to, but there's not so add a playmaker where you can.

The ideal IMO is to trade down to 4 (decent chance Colts end up there?). You still get one of Carter/Anderson, and you probably end up with at least a 2023 2nd and a 2024 1st. It's not the insane haul of picks you get by dropping down to e.g. the Panthers down at like 9/10, but I'll take the relative bird in hand in this situation.

There is probably more veteran RHH bat incoming to round out the roster. It's possible the team simply goes with Madrigal or Velazquez instead of a vet, but seems more likely they open next year out of the org and at Iowa respectively. Trey Mancini has been talked about extensively all offseason, so he's probably the smart money, but here's a few other potential options that are at least somewhat interesting: Adam Duvall Cons - Clearly the worst bat on this list due to major contact issues. And it's not even clear he can serve as a platoon guy. He's generally mashed lefties, but in his career year in '21 (where he got by far his most playing time ever) he had very stark reverse splits, so you can't even totally count on him for platoon duty Pros - A very good defender, so much so that it's not crazy that he could be an everyday guy and push Bellinger to 1B (or the bench if he's struggling). The weirdness I laid out with his splits is probably a one year anomally Tommy Pham Cons - He essentially hasn't produced since COVID, despite plenty of opportunity. Even though there's quite a bit to really like under the hood, he's passed through three different orgs since he was last productive. So how likely is it to actually get him back on track? With the Joc Pederson thing and the stabbing, it's not totally clear if he's a bad dude or simply a redass Pros - He's still very patient, relatively fast, and hits the piss out of the ball. Statcast thinks he was a top ~50 hitter in baseball in '20 and '21. It feels like whatever adjustment(s) are required to be that guy he was in 2018/2019 are pretty minor, despite them not having been made yet. Even when struggling he's generally been a strong platoon bat (115 wRC+ vs lefties last year) Andrew McCutchen Cons - Similar to Pham in that Statcast paints a picture that his productivity simply does not back up. He hasn't had a good full season since leaving Pittsburgh Pros - Statcast thinks he's still been a very good hitter in Philly and Milwaukee. There's an argument he's part of the shortlist of RHH who potentially stand to gain significantly from the shift ban, which might be the explanation for the Statcast/real world disagreement? Also like Pham, either way he's still mashed lefties the last several years so he's rosterable even in the worst of scenarios. Unlike Pham, he's an all-time likable dude Gary Sanchez Cons - After his early career highs, the last several years his offense has generally been good *for a catcher* rather than actually good. He drastically underperforms his Statcast numbers every single year, but it's not totally clear you can blame the shift. He's a poor defensive catcher, but not necessarily so poor that he'd definitely be willing to shift to primary 1b/DH duty. Reverse splits 2 of last 3 years means he's not a definite offensive fit with Mervis/Hosmer/etc. Pros - He hits the ball hard at an elite level, and he has a good eye as well. We just saw with Willson how much gain you can realize from an offense-first catcher when dialing way back on that wear and tear from behind the plate. Ross has generally really enjoyed the strategic options opened up by having three catchers on the roster AJ Pollock and Luke Voit might also be theoretically possible, but Pollock seems likely to be too expensive (I'd imagine he's still in line for a multi-year deal?) and Luke Voit has reverse splits which don’t really jive with what the Cubs need.

I'm a hopelessly optimistic fan but even I can't muster an iota of goodwill for Strumpf. He's not good. I'd probably need to go 50 or 60 deep on a top prospect list before I'd mention him. I mean his best case scenario is like Michael Chavis with a few more walks?

IMO it's hard to see post Smyly and Hosmer. Like TT said there's definitely some cleanup at the tail end of the roster that needs to happen, but that probably looks like Madrigal or Velazquez traded for their weight in relief help. YMMV on whether that would qualify as substantial. To me, there were two exceptions to this where I could see something happening. First was Rafael Devers, but it looks like that window just closed. The other is a third SP addition to replace of Hendricks. The team has been fairly cagey about him all winter. The last thing we heard was that they were going to Driveline him, and that program was slated to start in early December. Well it's been a month, and still most discussion around Kyle still sounds very wishy washy and aspirational ("if he's healthy..."). IMO that's kind of weird, as if healthy the dude clearly gets first crack at a rotation slot coming out of spring training, and if he's been back on the mound for a month the team should have a pretty good idea if he's healthy. So if you told me that Kyle got hurt again on the hush hush and Smyly was signed as a fifth starter, I'd absolutely believe you. And SP is probably the one position you could still go hard on the trade market.

Would they? Roster Resource has Hudson as the de facto closer, and while there's plenty of talent and 2022 performance in their pen, it is light on MLB late inning experience for a championship contender. My guess is before selling off Hudson they'd kick someone a prospect to eat the last year of Treinen's deal while he rehabs his shoulder. I mean we saw first hand in '19/'20 with Descalso and Kintzler that for whatever reason it's usually not actually all that simple. I don't know if opposing teams jack up prices exorbitantly knowing the circumstances, or if owners/the league squash it because they don't like the optics, but we just don't see as many of those moves as you'd logically expect. And the Dodgers have Philips, Graterol, Vesia, Almonte and Ferguson who project similarly or better to Hudson and aren't just kids they'd be throwing into the fire. Their pen isn't so good that they'd needlessly shed a reliever, but they likely need to move some salary and Hudson/Treinen are the clear two most reasonable options.

Two Cubs-specific things I think are interesting here. First, by this crude measure the Cubs have added the most talent in baseball this offseason. Second, the Dodgers are just a razors edge under the LT. You wonder if they might deal a reliever just to free up a little room. Like they'd probably just give away Daniel Hudson under the circumstances, while Jed's expressed a desire to still add another veteran or two to the mix. Hudson's a well revered dude around the league and not going to be insistent in 9th inning duty.

I'll go with 85-87 wins. Run prevention and overall depth will be enough to boost a slightly below average to average offense. Yeah I think this is about right. The team is not going to bottom out, there's just way too much depth to let that happen. But at the same time, that depth cuts the other way a bit. It's going to take some time to iterate through and find the best version of this team. If Ross and Jed mostly nail it coming out of ST, the team can win 90+ games, but realistically there's going to be missteps and the team is going to be in the mix for the latter two wildcard spots. I do think it's weird that there's this notion that the position player group will be boring? They're likely to be top 5 in steals and defense and top 10 in dongs. This isn't some group of slap hitters or vintage Oakland teams that walk to the point of being passive. The starting pitching group, even if effective, is likely to be pretty blasé, but the position player group is extremely watchable.

Saga might finally be ending

I like staying under this year. They going over for one 5 war player takes you from a 79 win team to an 84 win team if things break right. And if they don’t you have to pay larger penalties next year to stay decent. This way you weather Heywards final year and have a big chunk to spend next year, the farm reaches maturity - or at least you know what you have in Davis, the pitchers, and Amaya heading into ‘24 - and you can spend big next year. There are so many question marks on this roster that even if things go reeeeally well and you are in the wild card or division drivers seat come July, there no way to forecast WHICH things went well and which things needs addressed at the deadline. Not to mention that a decent run this year makes you more attractive to FA next year. Lets be honest this wasn’t an attractive destination this off-season. In many ways this is 2015 all over again. Don’t expect this to be the year. Compete this year. Window really opens next year. Yeah it's definitely not cut and dry, but I would have preferred to go over this year, even if it was just for some unexciting1 year deals. Payroll to open next offseason is slated to be $100Mish under the tax if Stroman opts out as expected, and $80Mish if he doesn't. That's enough to land two stars and some complimentary parts (admittedly skimping on those though if Stro's still around). I'd much rather have added another couple wins to this year's team and had things be a bit tighter next winter beyond the marquee additions. The meat of the farm system is slated to start hitting MLB the second half of this year, so unlike this winter I don't think next winter there's going to be much need to simply add warm bodies to fill various positions. A primo hitter, a primo SP, and the typical cadre of cheap relievers and maybe a bench guy should be sufficient. My guess is the thing Jed's hung up on is the FA penalties for luxury tax payers. We know Jed hates signing qualifying offer guys regardless, and the penalties are a lot sharper for teams that were over the LT the prior year. I believe in the draft it's a 2nd and a 5th, and then the IFA penalties double. I could see Jed avoiding that like the plague.

Assuming the Hosmer thing happens, I think the biggest disappointment for me is that it would seem like confirmation the team is staying under the Luxury Tax. The club is $18M under right now. That's just about right for a Hoerner extension ($8Mish more than his arb salary?), a little more relief help (<$5M), another low end bat (~$2M), while leaving a couple million for the deadline or for Happ to beat his arb projection. Hosmer himself though is still a decent hitter, and likely to get a boost this year. Statcast says he would have hit 28 dongs the last two years in Wrigley, compared to 20 in real life. That's the second most of any park in MLB behind Cincy. Also as a heavy GB guy he's been heavily impacted by the shift. He has a .339 wOBA the last three years while batting without the shift vs. a .247 against. For reference, that's roughly the difference between Ian Happ last year (.339 wOBA) and Jonathan Villar (.250 wOBA). Neither adjustment makes him a star again, but I do think they get him up to that 110-115 wRC+ neighborhood. And if he sucks he's making league minimum. Cut him by Memorial Day and bring up whatever Iowa bat is showing out most.

Yeah. I get not wanting to gut the farm, but you've brought up Seth Brown and he could probably be had for like Madrigal and one or two guys at the back of the top 30 prospects? It's not overly onerous. Hosmer is probably going to draw more heat than he deserves. His contract is lol-worthy,bad. that's AJ Preller's problem. Hosmer is solid against righties and with his heavy groundball rates is probably near the top of the list of guys who will benefit from the shift ban. For league minimum that's not bad.

Yeah if you look at the Mockdraftable charts for the OL guys Poles drafted last year I believe to a man they're all high on speed and mobility and low on size and strength. Plus he kept Whitehair who is in that same mold. It's probably the thing we can most definitively say about his player preferences. The other I feel fairly comfortable taking as fact is that for WRs he seems to like either speed freaks or big long-wingspan guys. Doesn't seem as into the Allen Robinson/Keenan Allen types.

This is an interesting idea. While the overall offensive production has waned Sanchez still has pretty elite power numbers. You do have to wonder if dropping catching either mostly or entirely could do quite a bit for his bat. He's also a guy who might get a benefit from the shift ban. I believe he's a guy that gets the full 3 guys o. the left side treatment. Depends what else Jed does whether I'd be down for something so speculative, but it's interesting.

Saw someone mention that a lot of 40 man rosters are full right now, so it is a really good time to sneak dudes through waivers. I bet they think they can keep him. If not I'd still not be too torn up. It's great that he has experience and rapport with a lot of the guys in the org, but he's not a particularly good hitter or defender.

The Bears have infinity dollars to spend and after tags/extensions there's likely to be zero true superstars available in FA this offseason. Poles should fill literally every hole on the roster with a starting caliber player via FA. Every single one.

I had internalized that the Cubs had gotten fairly fast and were likely to be a pretty good basestealing team too, but this caught me off guard. I hope that the team adds two bats from here, a lefty and a righty. But if they only add one I wouldn't hate having that Deluzio dude as a speed/defense goof in the last bench spot.

I know he had a pretty serious knee injury, but if he's even vaguely healthy Brandon Belt is a really really really perfect fit in this roster. - He's generally a plus glove at 1B. The Cubs don't need their bat to be the primary 1B, but it would be ideal - He's the #2 least groundball-y hitter in the league after Trout - He has elite patience/plate discipline, which is a quality a bit lacking in the bottom half of the lineup - Prior to this year he hasn't needed to be platooned. Ross could choose to do so as a load management tactic, but it's likely not a need Even at his best the power is more good than great, and there's a good bit of swing-and-miss in his profile now that he's older. But as a complimentary guy rather than THE GUY the Giants always wanted/needed him to be that's fine. I'd strongly prefer him to Mancini, and vastly prefer him to every other option.

The spin/movement data on Wicks is pretty exemplary based on Lance Brozdowski's absurdly well researched mid season list. I think more than anything calling Wicks a fifth starter is laziness from BA after seeing 92 in the fastball velo column. I also think worrying about HR/FB rates is a little ill advised. We know in MLB they're mostly luck. We can't assume they are in MiLB becausethe talent distribution is wider, but it should still generally be our default assumption. For Wicks specifically, it was only an issue at Tenn. I think the clear explanation is that the bump to AA is really hard, and he paid the price on a couple pitches he was used to getting away with. But like he gave up 5 homeruns in a period where we'd expect him to give up 3, that's noise until we get a lot more data. I think the things I'd actually hold against Wicks at this point are: 1. That forearm injury he had in August is usually shortly followed by a TJ surgery 2. As mentioned the reports on the change in pro ball have been more good than great 3. He didn't really get much if a velo bump last year. And given that the Cubs have shown they know how to coax that out guys, and that they often like to do veli before working on a guy's spin/movement profile, I'm more than a bit worried it's never coming

What? This isn't true at all. The team projects to hit a bunch of dongs. Like there's plenty of real things to complain about on this team without making stuff up.

I'd forgotten about Brown, I love this idea. He's a guy you definitely have to platoon, unlike Conforto when he's right, but he's likely a better bat than anyone else left in FA. He's also a much better athlete than most 1B/COF types, and Jed seems to be placing a premium on that athleticism. And at league minimum you can still do other stuff even if trying to stay under the LT. BTV says Brown + Puk for Madrigal + Kilian is about fair?