Bertz

I wonder how much of the 1st half was just JF being nervous for the first game. I think we're not giving enough credence to the weather impact. Things started getting a little better when the rain first started letting up midway through the 2nd IMO

I mean, he's going to win it Pretty severe waste either way

Kyle Shanahan brain genius just used a challenge on a 4 yard gain on 1st down in the first quarter

So Wittenmyer fairly confidently claimed last night that Smyly's option is for 10 million, and it's a club option and not mutual. Brett for one seems to be taking that at face value with the caveat that the team itself used the word mutual in announcing it: https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2022/09/10/drew-smylys-incredible-outing-and-the-status-of-his-2023-contract-option/ It's good to have options, but I have a hard time seeing a scenario where keeping Smyly is a good idea. He'd be extremely underwhelming as the sole SP addition, and $10M is way steep for some sort of depth "you can never have too much pitching" type of add.

Opening day 1B

Nwogu on base four more times tonight. Unreal tear right now

7 walks and 26 strikeouts in 18 innings since he came off the IL

Yeah Hughes has been great. I feel very comfortable with him even in leverage spots already. Leiter has been good in relief too. His overall numbers are blech but he's been strong out of the pen, and even early in his starts. He has a 2.70/.3.94/3.33 ERA/FIP/xFIP against hitters first time through the order this year. I don't know how well I'd trust him in a leverage spot, but I'm cool with him. That splitter or change or whatever it is a weapon. I wonder if over the offseason they can coax some more velo out of him if there's no need to worry about throwing 100+ innings? Similarly I wonder if Assad might play up in shorter outings. Could he just do cutter/curve a la David Robertson? When Steele and/or Thompson come back I'd love to shorten up on Assad and see what happens. Given the quality of the stuff, it's not going to take me long to trust Estrada. He's absolutely a guy who even with only a month left in the season could cement a late inning role for next year in my mind. It'd be nice if one of Rucker/Uelmen/Manny could pop, but I'm not counting on it.

If this Yan Gomes' heater lasts a little longer he may get his season line back up to about where you'd have expected coming into the year.

+1 on the love for Block Club. Moved to the burbs in February and still have that subscription on auto-renew.

Allegedly this was the last year for it, and the only reason it was implemented this year was the lockout. I'm in believe it when I see it mode there but that was the messaging in March and I haven't heard otherwise yet, and it presumably would have been mentioned with today's stuff if they were bringing it back.

I'm a big proponent of both of those, so great news. I didn't realize we were getting the "only two pickoffs" rule this soon too. That sounds like a really big deal to me, but from how little discussion it generates maybe in practice it hasn't been?

I wonder if he gets the Owen Caissie treatment and opens next year at SB as a 19 year old. Probably has less to do with his bat and more with how legit they think his glove is?

Nico Hoerner is so god-damned good

Yeah early season NFL is a crapshoot, but I really like that Baltimore game, and similarly the Bengals are -6.5 and Chiefs -6. Those all feel like strong bets if they stay under 7.

Being over the tax would be temporary as Heyward, Contreras, Happ, Gomes, probably Stroman, and possibly Hendricks come off the books after '23. So they'd be able to immediately reset (if that's still a thing). Also, Contreras almost certainly won't accept the QO, so we'd likely "only" be 20-30 million over. :) I'm not sure Rodon is the best FA SP, but he's certainly top 3-5. I'd vote DeGrom as best even if you only get 50% playing time from him. Scratch Rodon and substitute Verlander or the best SP you can sign. I think if you're going to commit to using the assets to trade for Ohtani that you commit to trying to win it all in year 1. I get the sentiment, but it doesn't strike me as particularly good roster planning to bank on being able to replace your starting C, LF, and 1-2 SP for nothing in order to reset. You'll also have increases from Hoerner/Wisdom/Madrigal/Reyes hitting arb, replacing inevitable injury/underperformance, etc. That's functionally sacrificing 2024 because there's no way everything breaks that perfectly. And that's before getting into the lack of realism of the other 29 teams letting you make off with those 3 players at those rates, which strikes me as similarly impossible. You've mentioned before, and the Sharma/Mooney article kind of backed it up, but two big moves feels like the right place to set our expectations for what Jed's going to do. Given everything we know about PTR we should assume that the team has to continue operating mindfully of the LT. And given what we know about Jed and Carter, they're going to err on the side of giving it a wider berth, especially this early on. Payroll right now is $140M-something, depending on where arb salaries come down. There's ~$55M coming off the books for sure after '23, with Stroman possible as well. So I could see the 2023 payroll butting up against the LT ($80Mish to spend this offseason), but I really doubt that long term dollars go much past that $55M of rolloff salaries. Maybe there's a third small multi-year deal, like two years to a non-Contreras catcher or a reliever, but that $55M screams to me a $30M player and a $25M player. Probably a hitter and a pitcher respectively but there's nothing forcing that The flip side is I don't think arb money should be much of an issue, and prevents even a big go-for-it offseason from transporting us right back into 2019. The four guys you called out and a couple relievers are the only arb cases the team has until '25, and unless Nico takes home a gold glove I don't expect anyone to have an onerous arb salary (Reyes with all those dongs might have been on track before this year). Stroman's opt out is a pretty big open question, but otherwise if the FO wants to put itself in a position where it has to tiptoe around the LT line that's a lot more feasible than it was five years ago with KB and Javy's (deservedly) ballooning arb salaries.

Really pleased with the BB/K numbers on both sides of the ball. Much more of this please

Joe Maddon has for a long time had a deep deep insecurity around admitting fault or error, and IMO this is all born out of him not being able to deal with the increasing levels of scrutiny he's encountering. It has nothing to do with data or numbers or paralysis by analysis or anything else. Instead it has everything to do with people increasingly pushing back and asking "wait why would we do that?" rather than just trusting his authority and laughing at his weird metaphors.

Wesneski coming up. I believe the rotation for Cincy was announced so presumably in long relief? Piggybacking with Miley tomorrow?

When taking stock its generally better to start from scratch rather than looking at the current year and doing a bunch of adjustments. Because for instance when you look at 2B, how relevant are Villar and Andrelton Simmons to the discussion? Right now on the position player side I think the only spot we should feel outright bad about is catcher. Everywhere else satisfies at least two of the following conditiins: A) has a quality player (projects >2 WAR/600 PAs) lined up to start B) has a quality youth at Iowa ready to step in C) can be backed up by Morel and/or Wisdom Because of the above, I also think going broad is the exact opposite approach to take this offseason. The team has multiple options almost everywhere, add a bonafide lineup anchor so that Ross has a few months to work through the various iteratons without it sinking the team. For example if we're spending 30ish million to get 4 WAR, I'd MUCH rather have Carlos Correa than Kolten Wong and Josh Bell. And honestly because of Kilian/Wesneski I think the same exact arguments apply to the starting pitcher group. It'd be far preferable to add one Rodon than two guys in the Eovaldi/Syndergaard/Clevinger tier. The org has some depth now, the name of the game this winter should be consolidation.

Unfortunately this article seems to be more Mooney than Sharma, but a few things stood out. On power generally: On the Franimal: And the money quote. On the offseason:

Yeah I think between Mervis and Wisdom you consider 1B covered but not necessarily filled. The team needs to add an infielder of some kind, so if the opportunity comes up to add a 1B you don't say no. But at the same time with limited resources and the expected supply of 1Bs on the market it seems really unlikely to come together. At most I'd expect they add a guy elsewhere who could also cover 1B if need be, like Joey Gallo or Cody Bellinger.

Mervis still swatting dongs, Kilian still not throwing as many strikes as he should be

One thing I've been thinking about recently is how all of the player development gains the last two years are kind of re-writing McLeod's legacy. - The 2014 draft (the Schwarber draft), looked good already but with Cease going full Ace and Steele looking pretty mid-rotationy it's now an A+ - 2015 had previously looked a bit light, basically just Ian Happ, but Effross turning into a front line reliever and Higgins/Hudson looking like depth guys again you would probably give it a nice bump - 2017 is the big one. A year and a half ago you'd say we probably net some middle relievers out of this draft, but with two first rounders that's kind of a disaster outcome. But now? The top 7 guys plus Brandon Hughes have made it to MLB. Thompson looks like a mid-rotation starter, Lange is a late inning reliever with Estrada looking to join him. Hughes, Little, and Uelmen look like quality middle relief. Nelly Velazquez is probably a fourth outfielder, but if he ends up an everyday player this draft is another A+ - 18 and 19 are still too anything definitive, though netting Hoerner has already locked 18 in as at least solid and Davis has a chance to make it a hell of a lot more than that. With Herz hitting the wall at AA, 19 is starting to look pretty bad though. Hodge might have to be the guy if we wanna salvage that draft. But overall it really changes the story. I think we would have said a few years ago that the first half of McLeod's tenure was mostly successful and the second half (save 2018) was mostly not. Now though the results are starting to better affirm the reputation throughout his time.