Bertz

Really strong ZiPS projections for Swanson. 4+ WAR the next two years, 3+ the two after that, and even in year 6 he'd still prorate out to just over 2 WAR on a per 600 PA basis.

I've been wondering about this too. Lots of guys I've looked at this winter play left side of the infield and have noodle arm grades. Justin Turner was another I noticed recently. I kind of wonder if outfielders wreck the grade curve a bit here? They get a lot more running start 100% effort throws. Like Javy by this measure is also only 70th-80th percentile, and we know he's got a mega elite arm. Swanson's good enough at SS right now that he probably stays there for most of his deal. Probably the last year or two though we should assume he'll be at 2B. Which I wonder if that impacts any Hoerner extension talk? Probably not?

He sounds very confident in the Conforto thing

Didn't make the connection til I saw it on Reddit but the two biggest contracts in Cubs' history have now been given to guys traded for Shelby Miller.

Cubs need a big bat, but as a pure DH and a righty I don’t think Martinez was a great fit for the Cubs.

Just from 20-21 he was 34th in WAR, still ahead of Trout and Devers, also ahead of Nolan Arenado, Sean Murphy, Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, Brandon Nimmo, Trevor Story, etc. yeah he had anomalously high value from baserunning & fielding efficiency, pretty reminiscent of a former Braves standout our offense is still very likely quite worse than an already pitiful offense from last year despite now spending pretty significant money from an artificially tight budget 3 years in a row? Quite the anomaly!

I think especially if you're cruising past the luxury tax it's a tough pill to swallow to sign Eovaldi, but I don't have a super high opinion of him though. The upside is there compared to your Smylys and Klubers, but I just don't think that HR rate is gonna stay low enough to be more than an averageish SP. For me, the biggest questions are 1) is the LT a hard limit now that you've banked Swanson? 2) can you trade for a C that's better than the remaining FA(Jansen, maybe Murphy, etc)? and 3) what type of arm can you get for Madrigal? 4) what AAV is gonna be needed to extend Hoerner now? You basically have to trade for a catcher if you want to fill every spot with an unequivocally good player. My guess at a good but more likely offseason would probably be to trade for the other SP and handle everything else via FA, and catcher's just going to be someone uninspiring who gets high marks for the more nebulous parts of the job. But yeah the LT is the big question now. I am cautiously optimistic, the way things have played out they can a still do one more multi-year deal and still start next offseason at approximately the same payroll they started this one at (and that's assuming Stroman opts in).

Dansby Swanson is 13th in position player WAR the last three years ahead of players such as Carlos Correa, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Corey Seager, Fernando Tatis Jr, and Rafael Devers. because of the career year Just from 20-21 he was 34th in WAR, still ahead of Trout and Devers, also ahead of Nolan Arenado, Sean Murphy, Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, Brandon Nimmo, Trevor Story, etc.

So Swanson got within a rounding error of exactly what the ZiPS projections thought he should have gotten.

Dansby Swanson is 13th in position player WAR the last three years ahead of players such as Carlos Correa, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Corey Seager, Fernando Tatis Jr, and Rafael Devers.

My ideal path forward from here is something like: - Nate Eovaldi (2/40) - Trade for Danny Jansen - Sign Taylor Rogers (1/10) - Sign Michael Brantley (1/15) - Trade Madrigal for the best young reliever he can net you You blow past the luxury tax, but so much comes off after this year that you can be very active in FA again next winter and still duck back under the tax then. And that's a really good and deep team. Light on stars but good essentially up and down the entire roster.

The former, but not by much.

That'd be my hope. I'm sure Jed doesn't want to give up the Contreras pick but Eovaldi is really good and can probably be had on a two year deal.

Very good news. Curious where the money nets out, and whether Jed and ownership are willing to cross the luxury tax. But the realistic paths to an actual good team next year all flowed through Swanson at this point, so the biggest domino is down.

I love this idea. Carrasco has been a guy I've really liked around the league for a while. I'm not sure there's another guy out there I like more as the other SP. I don't care for McCann but at this point short of Jansen we're not getting a catcher I like so whatever. Carrasco, McCann, money to cover McCann's 2024 salary, and a 45 grade prospect in exchange for some org filler? This would only work though if Jed misses on Swanson or if Jed's willing to jump the LT. $24M on top of whatever Swanson ends up making would probably take a second bat off the table if we're adhering to the luxury tax.

5 years at first blush is silly, but the total $75M is very reasonable. I think this is clearly a smaller scale version of the Turner/Bogaerts/Correa thing.

Yeah this is great, Lance is awesome. A few pieces of additional context I'd throw out there: - Research has shown that athletic players tend to age better. My understanding is it's less about the athleticism, and more about how if you impact the game in multiple ways even if one area collapses the others can still keep your head above water (Jason Heyward as an extreme example) - Part of the reason that hitter contact goes down with age is as a tradeoff for power. Swanson clearly made that trade in the '19/'20 offseason. Pre pandemic Swanson had a 9.4% walk rate, 22.5% K rate, and .140 ISO. Since he's at 7.6%, 26%, and .186 (with a less lively ball) - Swanson since the pandemic is running below average walk rates, but Statcast has his chase rates in the 65-70th percentile range the last three years (and higher = good here). So like I know the instinct is to see high K's and low BB's and think he's Javy at the plate but very much no - Barrel rate is one of the stickiest Statcast era hitting stats. Over the last three years among guys with 1000+ PAs, Swanson is 43rd out of 160. Within a stones throw of guys like Manny Machado (40th), Freddie Freeman (42nd), Willson Contreras (49th), and Kyle Tucker (50th) I feel like there's a losing the forest for the trees deal with Swanson (with the fanbase generally, not calling you out specifically or anything). He's probably not as good as Turner or Correa, but he's *really* good. Like he's actually been better than Correa for the last three years by Fangraphs WAR. Contact is a very real issue but it's the difference between him being an all star and an MVP rather than the difference between being a bad player and a good one.

The thing that makes me pessimistic on this compared to the alternatives is I have a hard time seeing that deal work without a 3rd team unless the Jays are willing to ship off Jansen to beef up the farm system. Mayyybe there's a 'Conforto's ask is reasonable so we trade Happ and an arm for Jansen and sign Conforto' type permutation but that feels aggressively unlikely given the near radio silence on everything that's not the SS pursuit. That's fair, though I'd guess it's fairly likely they would take a deal for just prospects. Their farm has thinned out considerably the last two years, and if we treat Moreno as an MLBer instead of a prospect its downright bad. Even if it's just loading up knowing they're going to turn around and spend that capital in July I Toronto would be very interested in refueling their farm. It is an illustration of just how dangerous this game Jed's playing is. Like all it takes is one GM to say "Happ or no deal" and Jed's essentially completely holed off from making substantial upgrade at catcher. He'll probably end up with a few good deals by waiting this long into FA, but you've gotta imagine it bites him hard at at least one position.

I think the glass half full explanation would be they're going hard after Jansen. People are fairly wondering where the offense is going to come from if Swanson is the premier addition this offseason, and Jansen would be a good way to inject some more juice into the lineup. Also he's a cheaper financial option so if the LT is a major consideration he opens up more there as well. Otherwise yeah it's tough to see what the thought process is. Both from numbers and reporting Narvaez seemed like the logical conclusion after Vazquez, but that ship sailed and it seems it did with little fight. Is Oakland going to flip Manny Pina, who'd fit right into that Vazquez/Narvaez mold? Is the plan to lean all the way into defense and go with Hedges? Like you said do they think they can fix an offensive-forward guy like Alfaro? Do they have really good reports on one of Barnhart/Perez/Casali? I'd believe anything.

There are still good alternatives to Narvaez, but how confident should I really be that the alternative Jed is planning to go with is one of the better ones.

Shockingly reasonable contract. I think 5/150ish was the expectation coming into the winter. Wonder of the Twins, who sounded a bit lukewarm on Swanson, reconsider.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-absurdly-preliminary-2023-zips-projected-standings/ Based on this article, 74 was the number at the outset of the offseason (I think maybe the Hunter Renfroe trade had happened but that's it). Adding Taillon, Bellinger, and Boxberger, they're probably at like 78. So getting to 81 is easy. I think even if Jed limited himself to boring 1 year deals from here out he'd hit 82-83. The thing about Swanson is that, setting aside Rodon or a trade for a superstar (either of which would be very silly after passing on Correa/Turner), almost all of the paths to 85+ wins from here flow through him.

Boxberger is good. Something funny about him is that for the most part he's been really good when playing for teams big on pitch design and pretty bad when he hasn't. I think there's a decent argument his time with the Royals and Marlins is unfairly weighing down his projections. Like TT said I'd like to see the team go a bit bigger on the other FA reliever. But do that and maybe grab another live arm in trade (for Madrigal?) and the pen should be a really strong unit.

Now that we have Statcast there's no reason to look at a high BABIP and assume it's just good fortune. There's no indication under the hood that Swansons performance the last three years is built on luck. To the contrary, he's underperformed his xwOBA by a smidge despite being a pretty fast dude.