Bertz

I'm hoping we get to a better pace than we've seen the last 4-5 years. Moving all of the administrative deadlines up by a week or two definitely helps, though it's still very silly that the arb stuff all happens in January. It should be in November ahead of the arb deadline. Plus in that '18-'20 period you had about half the league either tanking or very worried about the luxury tax. Currently from eyeballing I think we might be closer to half as many teams? More active teams should lead to a less deliberate pace. The days of 90% of the off-season being done by New Years are probably over, but I'm hoping we can at least get comfortably north of 50% again?

Sharma is not super rumor-y so you have to imagine he's parroting what the Cubs are feeling internally here

Chase Strumpf, Cam Sanders, Kohl Franklin, Riley Thompson, Luis Devers Danis Correa is another guy in the Sanders mold at risk of getting nabbed. Can throw 100+ and just a phone call away at Iowa, but also has yet to really perform. I'm hopeful that we don't get ransacked too hard. Everyone seems to be in agreement that every team had a lot of tough decisions so the bar to be picked is much higher this year. But the quality and proximity of some of the unprotected names still makes me nervous.

Yeah this is probably a 1 for 1 swap with Mckinstry. I think I like Mckinstry better, but Mastro has minor league options and Steamer likes him quite a bit (2.6 WAR/600 PAs).

This is great to see. Teams were very aggressive in pushing top prospects to open the year in MLB, the Mariners got rewarded and the Orioles got burned for not joining in

Jeffrey Springs might make a lot of sense? Assuming both are under no illusion that what he did this year is his expected level of future performance? But a mid/back of the rotation arm under two years of control at arb prices might land right at the perfect intersection of reasonably available and reasonably priced. MLBTR projects a $3M salary, so you could do something like Senga and Springs and take care of the rotation for <$20M.

The Ray's have so much pitching at various expected performance levels it's hard to get a sense on who this could be for

The officiating woes are especially weird since these last two games were at Soldier Field. That's typically what HFA is is a thumb on the refereee scale I thought Fields was a little too run happy in the first half, but obviously another great game from him. Even the pick I'm not too worried about given that it was more from Justin trying to play hero ball rather than being fooled or making a bad read or whatever. It's still a problem but one I'm not nearly as worried whether they can fix.

I'm starting to eye Will Smith as one of the reliever adds. He had a pretty uninspired run in Atlanta, but after some changes to his pitch mix was really good after the trade to Houston. He didn't get any real leverage work (including not being used at all in the playoffs), but given his long history in late inning relief I take that more as them not trusting that his changes had fully taken yet moreso than thinking he didn't have it anymore. It probably doesn't hurt that Houston's bullpen was like 6-7 deep on legitimate late inning options, so they never really had to press their luck. At his worst Smith's still been rough on lefties. If you bet right he's a legitimate closer, if you're wrong he's still likely a solid lefty middle reliever.

Right off the bat he hits the ball in the air a ton. And he doesn't hit many popups either (which a lot extreme flyball hitters do) so it's not just that we'd be trading groundouts to 2nd for infield flys. If Statcast had been around a few years earlier Heyward would have been more obviously a ticking time bomb, Swanson doesn't have any such red flags. At a 5000 foot view though, it is a similar defense first profile though. He's a plus defensive shortstop, plus baserunner, and merely a pretty good hitter (109 wRC+ last three years). Mostly it's just going to be a substantially smaller financial commitment when you account for inflation. Swanson's going to get 5 or 6 years and 25 per. Heyward got similar AAV but 7 years ago, but Heyward's deal when signed was one of the 15 biggest ever. Swanson's gonna get outpaid by at least 5 guys just this winter alone.

Fangraphs has their 2023 projections out. Playing time projections are pretty silly at this phase of the offseason, but looking at guys on a normalized per 600 PAs basis there's some interesting (and mostly positive) stuff. https://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&type=steamer600&team=17&lg=all&players= This turned into a wall of text, so breaking it up by group and using spoiler tags. The Lineup: The Rotation The bullpen Prospects (Position Players) Prospects (Pitchers)

40 man down to 36 people after the moves. Several ended up as FAs along with some others

Yeah if the Abreu signing comes down as quickly as Levine keeps implying it will I think this is the right read. Honestly I'd view 1B/DH, C, and one SP as the only absolutely essential adds this winter. Everything else is a matter of degree and opportunity. I wonder if we see those three things addressed expediently and then everything else drag until the winter meetings or later when the market is clearer.

I think if the team signs a real 1B, Kiermaier is my preference in CF. Bellinger is cool if we need the 1B coverage too, but if the smoke around Bell/Abreu is real I'd rather go with less of a risk in CF. Plus Kiermaier seems likely to cost a bit less.

Maybe this is my coping mechanism then because boy do I really not like giving Swanson 20+ million. It could make sense for say, the Phillies, but this team is so low on firepower that spending that chunk of change on a guy with 1 full season of above average hitting to his name just strikes me as a different flavor of the Jeff Blauser mistake from all those years ago. I'd honestly rather just spread it all around and/or take more chances on prospects coming through. Yeah I think I'd probably just try to go quality everywhere else and punt on shortstop. Something similar to what you laid out, probably with a more primo SP in lieu of the Happ extension? But Jed alluded to adding a shortstop during his end of season interview tour. Talking up the importance of having a primo defensive 2B along with SS again because of no shift, etc. I know he doesn't do the patented Theo "I'm gonna leave a trail of breadcrumbs to my offseason master plan" move with his end of season chat but the implication still sounded pretty clear IMO. He also REALLY talked up adding power, which setting Judge aside is best done at short this winter. I'd be really surprised if Jed punted on the position this winter. I'm hoping that the talk about Jed's reticence on years is more nuanced than what we're hearing. Like for instance, I think it makes sense to limit the number of multi-year deals handed out? Or as you've mentioned before limiting post-prime years. But like Correa projects as a 5 WAR player next year at age 28. Would a 5 year deal to a 3 WAR player really be that much less risky?

Me too. I'd guess a no shortstop offseason likely involves going hard on the rotation. Senga/Smyly seems to be a level of settling you do to facilitate 30-35M allocated to shortstop, but if you're punting there I think Rodon or Verlander is likely leading the pitching staff. To me though, my read on Jed's drawing the line on five/six years is that Swanson becomes the guy. I mentioned this a few weeks ago but he helps make a lot of other pieces fit together better. Right now it's a tough puzzle to get a SS, two SPs, extend Nico, and address both of 1B/CF. But save ~$10M at short and suddenly you can more realistically address the full to do list.

Curious to see how Kluber, or someone else Kluber-like, would fit into the broader plan. Is the plan someone like Senga, who there's a lot of smoke around, paired with someone like Kluber or Smyly? Or is it a trade for a cost controlled SP and then sign another SP in the $10-15M range? With Senga seeming to be plan A.

Agreed. I'm generally against putting too much stock in rings, but for the considerations of a Dynasty I think they're extremely important. You need a run of regular season dominance like the Astros and Dodgers have had lately AND you need a grouping of rings like the Giants had at the start of the '10s. Either doesn't work it must be both. I think the Braves with their 14 straight division titles are the only exception I'm iffy on.

!!!!

I don't know if they're final or more WIP, but it looks like initial 2023 Steamer Projections are listed on Fangraphs. https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=17 Lots of encouraging stuff, but I'm gonna avoid getting too into the weeds until there's more indication they're final.

Yeah a lot of promising signs for Jed here. Eyeballing the list the team could do something like Turner, Senga, Bell, Heaney, Narvaez For about $80M. Like you've mentioned previously that's probably a bit on the high end of what we could see spent this winter, but that's some talent. Maybe throw an extra year at somebody and try to get down closer to $75M? Jed would still need to address CF and the bullpen on a shoestring (likely via trade), but something like this provides some serious reinforcements.

Bears currently project to have tied for the 3rd fewest wins in football, but because fractional wins aren't a thing and the Bears come ahead in several tiebreakers they are only given a 36% chance at a top 5 pick. But even if they end up picking like 7th or 8th, with 3 QBs currently slated to go top 10 the Bears will presumably have either a premium tradeback opportunity or one of the top 5 non QBs sitting there for them.

The crowdsourced numbers are historically always a little low, but directionally correct. So if you want a mental model of what guys are going to get take those numbers and add $1-2M of AAV and for a few of the bigger contracts maybe an extra year.