Bertz

Really starting to feel like this is gonna happen

Very weird to me that Eflin got three years and Gibson got one. If I was ranking FA pitchers ordinally they'd only be a few spots apart

Went with 5 years instead of a record setting AAV

Yeah I like Bell a lot. He hits the ball on the ground too much, but he otherwise scratches every other itch and does so without an exorbitant cost. There's also a small benefit in that you don't necessarily have to go LHH in CF, though admittedly that doesn't open up a ton of additional options. But thinking about a lineup such as: Happ (LF) Suzuki (RF) Bell (1B) Mervis (DH) Swanson (SS) Hoerner (2B) Yastrzemski (CF) Morel (3B) Vazquez © Like you mentioned with the lack of a lineup anchor, that is not the menacing middle of the order you'd ideally like. But 2-3-4 each project tonhave wRC+ marks above 120, and 1-8 all project above 100. Even Vazquez is above average compared to the lowly standards of catchers. It's also very strong defensively, with the corner infield spots the only ones not well above average (and Morel got glowing reviews at 3B in the minors, so his struggles last year were hopefully rust). You're capping yourself at ~$25M to spend on the pitching staff, which likely means you've gotta bite the bullet and trade for a guy such as Trevor Rogers. But man that team is deep and well rounded.

Some general points on Swanson in relation to the other shortstops - Over the last three years, he's been just as productive as Bogaerts and Correa. All three have been a substantial amount behind Turner, but Swanson and Bogaerts have identical 12 WARs and Correa is just behind them at 11.7. Swanson was a pretty garbage hitter when he was young, but projection systems only look 3 or maybe 4 years back because those further back seasons offer little to no predictive value - He's the 2nd youngest of the four, which matters quite a bit when looking 5+ years down the road. He's also the 2nd fastest, which tends to be important for a guy staying up the middle defensively - He's the best defender of the four. His metrics in 2022 were clearly anomalous, but so were Bogaerts and so were Correa's last year. You'd reasonably expect Swanson to be a +5 or so defender at short moving forward. Correa would be above average but a few runs behind him, Turner just a smidge less than average, and then Bogaerts clearly below - He has the least raw power among the four shortstops, but by far the most usable in game power. The last three years he's first among the four guys in hard hit rate (% of balls hit 95+ MPH) by a little and first in barrel rate by a lot. He's actually pretty elite on the barrel front, last 3 years he ranks 32nd in MLB, one spot behind Freddie Freeman and a couple spots ahead of guys like Contreras, Kyle Tucker, and Jose Abreu. This is what makes the Heyward comps so weird I feel like Bogaerts has the most Heyward-like qualities - So what's the catch? Contact rate. Carlos Correa is the best contact hitter among the group, his whiff rate is 65th percentile in MLB via Statcast (higher number = good), and he has a lower than average K rate despite a bunch of walks and deep counts. Bogaerts is behind Correa then Turner, then Swanson. And Swansons contact issues are bad. He's 15th percentile in whiff rate, and he's got a 26% K rate the last three years. It's not Javy or anything (Swanson is actually quite patient), but it's bad - Even with all of the above, Swanson is going to get a much smaller contract than the other shortstops. Probably half of what Correa and Turner get, and ~$50M less than Bogaerts. That's an extra $10M for Jed to play with each winter, and multiple fewer years on the back compared to the big boys. That opens up a lot of options here in the short term, and I'd guess keeps Jed more comfortable with adding additional 9-figure contracts in future winters Now ultimately my vote would be to go get one of the two superstars. I generally like this team's depth and they showed out in the second half of last year. I'd rather concentrate more resources in fewer acquisitions, and as part of that go for broke and add Turner or Correa (ideally Turner). But Swanson is still a legitimate impact guy, and his lower cost likely is likely the difference in Jed being able to fill every hole on the roster this winter or having to punt one or two of them.

This is probably just a weird one-off where a team thinks they're smarter than the market. Like two years ago the Braves giving Drew Smyly too much money because his velocity was briefly juiced initially coming back off of TJ surgery. If it's not though, just let the kids handle the other SP spot. If the Matt Boyd/Chris Archer/Michael Lorenzen tier of pitchers require 8 figure contracts, I'd rather just roll with the in house options. Wesneski is better than this tier anyway. I understand wanting to bolster depth, but if our options for spending $8-10M are a guy who's maybe a quarter of a run of ERA better than Sampson or Assad, or upgrading from Dansby Swanson to Trea Turner, how is that even a debate?

Holy Horsefeathers

I was wondering if there are any trades available for players who are highly paid but not necessarily salary dumps. Looking around the league, I can see several who make sense German Marquez - TT got him on everyone's radar around here a month or two back and it still makes a ton of sense Lance Lynn/Lucas Giolito - There was talk early on that the Sox were going to move one of Giolito/Hendriks/Lynn, maybe getting the Clevinger trade done early was to facilitate that? Eduardo Rodriguez - He had a really bad first year in Detroit, but he had some undisclosed off the field issues that forced him to take a sabbatical (probably a divorce?). Assuming that wasn't criminal or drug related it might be worth seeing if a new city and the Cubs pitching infrastructure can get him back to where he was in Boston Manny Machado - This might be a stretch, hut also why the Padres so frequently connected to Xander Bogaerts the last few weeks? Machado has an opt out after this season that currently he'd be in line to use. The Padres could recoup some of the prospect capital they used on Soto, escape that opt-out, and only modestly downgrade on the field. Any non Preller or Dipoto I'd never entertain this, but I feel like with Preller this could happen (even if not with the Cubs). Jed would get his star infielder, get to keep Hoerner at SS, and only commit 6 years on the high end. Win, win, win.

A couple good like state of the market articles this AM The Passan one is especially good. He expects the dam to break and stuff to really start happening this weekend as teams arrive in town for the Winter Meetings

Rogers is probably the most well connected beat guy at this point. So interesting to hear him slowly move towards more positivity on the SS front, but bad to see that he still seems south of 50/50 that it happens.

I think Fields can clearly still use reps so I wouldn't shut him down for the year. And our division mates all have fairly weak defenses so I'm not worried about him getting killed. Against the Bills and Eagles though? I'd look to either hold Justin out with pretenditis or hand the ball off 35-40 times.

Fields comes in at 21, the 4th QB on the list after Herbert, Hurts, and Tua.

Yeah it's tough, there's a very good chance it's a whiff but we won't know until a good bit more offseason has played out. There are very good reasons to pass on him. Maybe the team is confident it will sign a shortstop? Maybe they're about to come down with Josh Bell? Maybe they're going BIG at SP? But if none of those is happening and the reason for whiffing on Abreu is because "we have Jose Abreu at home" and it's just a Matt Carpenter/Patrick Wisdom platoon or a lesser old slugger like JD Davis or Justin Turner we should be pissed.

Yeah this is 100% where I'm at. Josh Bell would still work for me, but there's a pretty steep dropoff after those two.

Don't love this. I don't think Abreu should have been part of a Cubs' Plan A, but he'd be a big part of a lot of Plan B scenarios

I think when looking at trade down scenarios, I'd probably go with one of two options at the more extreme end of things. 1. Move down only 1-2 spots. You don't gain a ton, for example the Bears gave up a 3rd, a 5th, and a next year 3rd when they traded up for Trubisky. But they are essentially free picks, as you are trading down while still essentially guaranteed the #1 non-QB on your board 2. Trade down 10+ spots, and add multiple future 1sts. Given the crazy amount of cap space the team has, I'd lean towards this scenario. Something like the Dolphins 49ers trade for Trey Lance. They moved down 9 spots, picked up a current year 3rd, and firsts in each of the next two years. This type of deal has a chance to be felt for half a decade I don't love the middle ground of 5ish spots, what right now looks like it would most likely be a Panthers trade. Feels like losing an opportunity at the most elite young players while not getting back a stupid amount of draft capital is a worst of all worlds scenario.

A collection of vaguely hot takes on the Cubs off-season, in increasing order of spiciness. 1. Extending Ian Happ is a very bad idea 2. Andrew Heaney is the ideal SP target 3. I'd rather have Brett Phillips in CF than Cody Bellinger 4. I probably prefer Dansby Swanson to Xander Bogaerts straight up, with rumored price tags accounted for I definitely do 5. I'm actually okay foregoing the SS market

It would make a lot of sense. If Jed were to take care of catcher and CF pretty quickly, he could take his time everywhere else. The Cubs only *need* a catcher, center fielder, and one SP. Everything else on the to-do list is optional. But if Jed can get the essentials taken care of by the end of the winter meetings, the rest of the off-season can be a simple matter of adding as many wins as possible with the resources available (which presumably/ideally includes a Turner or Correa).

Sharma and Mooney also name checked Andrew Heaney. I like seeing that as I think he's the guy I'm most out of step with the rest of the fanbase in being high on.

Good writeup on the CF market. It's really frustrating because there's a pretty big "Yeah but" for everyone available. Bellinger's probably broken offensively, while Kiermaier is hyper reliant on speed and just had a major lower body injury. And the trade options all have big questions about either fit or availability. The Dbacks are especially frustrating because at first glance it makes all the sense in the world. They have a stupid number of LHH outfielders and want to trade from that depth for pitching and RHH power. Perfect right? but you start looking at particulars and nobody except mayybe Alek Thomas lines up. Carroll and Varsho - Too good why would the Dbacks trade them Alek Thomas - I'll come back to him in a minute Pavin Smith - Very much not a CF Jake Mccarthy - Ststcast thinks what he did as a rookie was mostly luck Dominic Fletcher - Is he actually any better than say, Darius Hill? Alek Thomas makes some sense. He's a true CF, and his rough rookie year hasn't dissuaded the projections at all (3 WAR next year over a full season). He's going to cost quite a bit (have to assume Wesneski is the primary piece going the other way), and given the org's depth CF is a weird fit to spend a lot of trade capital. Plus Jed explicitly talked about getting more power znd fewer balls on the ground and Thomas would set that back significantly. I actually think elsewhere in the NL West might provide the most promise? Trent Grisham is probably more available than we think (the plan is for Tatis to play CF after his suspension). NaM has been stumping for Mike Yastrzemski on Twitter, which I scoffed at upon first hearing but might be actually be the best combo of productive and available.

Greg and Co. did their collective top prospects list. Good stuff. I think the thing that stands out to me is very aggressive rankings on several pitchers. Daniel Palencia and Porter Hodge are both about 5 spots higher than I expect to see generally, and Riley Thompson is probably more like 10. With those guys being pretty high it pushes others lower. I think Kevin Made gets a little bit of short shrift here. I'd also still take Kilian over several pitchers ahead of him, and Amaya probably 5ish spots higher as well. Those are all nitpicks though, really good stuff and I think it makes a great primer before the national outlets start putting stuff out.