Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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I think the big culprit here is that You are conflating Jed not putting every sordid detail of negotiations in the press with him not being active. Like c'mon now, players like Swanson or Stroman don't get $25M a year when only one team is bidding for them. Senga got basically the same money as Taillon (lower AAV but an extra year), so again I'm not sure how you're rationalizing that as losing a bidding war. Do you really think that Jed liked Senga way more but that last $7M was just a non starter? (not that it matters Senga reportedly loved the idea of pitching in the bright lights of NYC) And even if you're right, do you really think the markets for Bellinger/Chapman/Imanaga/Montgomery/etc. are especially robust? That much moreso than e.g. Swanson? After all no one has signed them yet. And none of them has had more than a couple of teams connected to them.
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But like there's still plenty of inventory. People are conflating the date with it being late in the offseason and it very much is not. Let's take SP. This winter there were 7-8 guys you could reasonably consider impact types: Nola, Yamamoto, Imanaga, Eduardo Rodriguez, Sonny Gray, Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery, and YMMV on whether Stroman belongs here There are also 6+ impact starters who have a decent amount of smoke around being available: Glasnow, Bieber, Burnes, Luzardo, Cease, Framber Valdez, several Mariners Even if half of those trade SPs aren't truly available, that's still quite a bit of inventory out there. And there's 4-5 teams who definitely still want impact SP help: Cubs, Giants, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers. (Mets seem like they are Yamamoto or bust). Like if Jed loses this game of musical chairs feel free to excoriate him. But the level of whining and moaning right now with more than half a dozen legit options on the board is wild.
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Not gonna lie, most of this post after "Not Freaking Out" very much reads as Freaking out Also where did this "no bidding wars" thing come from? Setting aside Yamamoto, is anyone left on the market any bigger of a FA than Swanson, Suzuki, or Stroman? Like yeah, it's probably a mistake to next winter pencil Juan Soto or Alex Bregman onto the shopping list. But this weird revisionist history that Jed can only sign the Trey Mancini's and Tucker Barnarts of the world isn't grounded in reality.
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I think you give Davis one last half season before you cut bait. Let's see if that second surgery can get him back to where he was two years ago. You don't have to hold on forever, but I'd give him until at least June before I start thinking about that. Kilian I think depends on other moves. Right now he's probably 9th on the SP depth chart? And that's before any more additions. I like him slightly better than whatever depth rando you can get on a minor league deal, but the 40 man spot is probably more valuable than that difference. If trade(s) deal a heavy blow to that depth and move him up to like 7th though, I do want the slight premium Kilian offers over the Matt Swarmers of the world. Rucker yeah jettison away. He's better than replacement level, but there are so many other arms ahead of him and right behind him that he's not goingnto get another meaningful chance here.
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We can all be mad about Jed mostly foregoing the tippy top of the market, but all this "doesn't have a plan" stuff is more or less a temper tantrum because you want a move now. Players don't magically put up more wins if you buy them in December instead of January.
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I'd expect Jed's being relatively active on the pitching front. There's a steep cliff after the top 4-5 guys remaining, and the roster barring any major trades has pretty enviable depth already. The pitching market is also clearly holding out for Yamamoto before it starts moving again. Fans are yelling for Jed to do something but he probably couldn't sign Imanaga or Montgomery this afternoon even if he wanted. On the position player side, unfortunately the play probably is to drag his feet. This winter from the jump had Ohtani/Soto, then a big gap to Bellinger/Chapman, then another gap before a bunch of 2-2.5 WAR guys. After Jed passed on Soto and lost on Ohtani playing the waiting game unfortunately became the smart play. Especially given the team needs 2-3 bats but can be fairly agnostic about where they play.
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Oops yeah that was supposed to be Machado and Luis Arraez. But the Cubs don't *need* a big bat, they just need to improve. Most of us on a pure aesthetic level would prefer the bat, but for the most part wins are wins. I don't love Matt Chapman, but if Jed is sniffing that his market is weak I understand the interest. I think anything under $100M or so would be a very very good deal.
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Matt Chapman was the 58th best position player in baseball last year, in between Manny Machado and Matt Chapman. Over the last three years he's 30th in between Alex Bregman and Fernando Tatis Jr.
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Doubt it, I don't think they would have taken so much care to stay under last year if they weren't planning to exceed it this year. If we look back at 2015-2020, seems like Tom's orders are to not exceed the tax three years in a row. The Cubs, right this second, are about $50M under the tax, and while the math is a little fuzzy this far out the team looks about $70-80M under the tax in both 2025 and 2026. Then in 2027 A TON of money falls off. So I'm expecting a dip next year or the year after, but it wouldn't be crazy to think Jed's plan after failing to pull down Ohtani is staying under this year and then going over the two after before dipping under again in 27. That would retroactively make last offseason look wayyyyy worse as well.
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Brett Taylor mentioned in a BN article this morning that it's a broader Twitter issue.
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Yoshinobu Yamamoto to...the Dodgers? Really? Again?
Bertz replied to UMFan83's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
There's some buzz on Twitter about Yamamoto going to the Red Sox, but best I can tell it's just based on his Instagram follows? -
Looking at some comparables that Fielding Percentage seems to correlate to something like -15 runs at 3B. Maybe a little less since he does have the athleticism to make some wow plays? But all told it's disastrous enough defensively that I think we'd probably be better off playing Madrigal there everyday. It'd really be best for all involved to find a trade. Let him go somewhere that needs a 2B and play everyday and make some money.
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For reference that fielding percentage is just a smidge better than what Patrick Wisdom did last year
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The article doesn't really get into the availability of Pete Alonso, which is what I was sniffing around for. But if they're willing to move him that wishlist lines up really well for Jed.
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He and his staff in Milwaukee took some of the crappiest defensive catchers in the league and routinely turned them into borderline gold glovers. He might view turning an athlete the caliber of Morel into a viable 3B as a project he could knock out in a weekend. And the urgency on the offensive side of the ball goes WAYYYYYY down if you can put Morel at 3rd.
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I don't think Morel would have been in play at all. The equivalent from us is something more like Assad and Canario. Maybe even drop from Assad down to Wesneski.
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I am starting to wonder if the not playing Morel at 3rd thing was a Ross decision and that Counsell is down to try it.
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The team's 500Ish right now with 4 glaring holes at 1B, 3B, DH, and one SP. I think if Jed adds more than 10 WAR and fills at least 3 of those holes in the process that's right around a 90 win team I'll say as someone pretty vocally out on Bellinger and Chapman if Jed manages to play the market so that he pulls either down with a deal that's only 8 figures that'd be huge.
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I've liked Imanaga all offseason. Pretty much every iteration of what I'd want to see involved him or Glasnow. So if Jed ends up with him as the main SP I'll be plenty happy about how that box is checked. The problem is that pretty much every iteration of an offseason I liked involved getting one of the monster bats available. With that ship having sailed feels like you ought to come down with Bieber and one of the lefties, and with how many teams are about to descend onto this part of the market after missing on Yamamoto why would we expect Jed to successfully pull down two of them?
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Via Sharma and Mooney this AM
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This also applies to pursuing Ohtani IMO.
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Just seems weird to post a point while actively pointing out why it's a dumb point? Glasnow's not Livan Hernandez, he's not going to throw 230 innings, but you're dinging him for a global pandemic and coming back quickly from Tommy John surgery. I swear if he had dragged his feet and not pitched at all in '22 people would be way less worried about him. But they see those 6.2 innings and lose their horsefeathering minds. Justin Steele topped 170 innings last year after never crossing 120 in a season prior. Michael Lorenzen threw 150 innings after being a reliever for nearly a decade. Guy's mid career can add plenty of innings, this isn't some 20 year old following the Verducci 30 inning rule. If Glasnow had shoulder issues (or something shoulder-adjacent like Alzolay's recurring lat issues) there'd be reason to worry about him. But he's had three injuries in his career, two of them tied to his now surgically repaired elbow and one of them being non-arm related with his oblique. Pretending he's like Jacob deGrom or Rich Harden doesn't hold up to frankly any scrutiny.
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Do...do you think he has a good chance of ending up back in the minors?
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