Bertz

Lots of good stuff in here, but two things that stood out especially

Thinking through a full offseason, trying to keep Jed's comments from earlier in the week in mind, maybe something like this? - Do TT's deals for Marquez ($15M) and Jansen ($3.7M) - Trade with the A's for Seth Brown - Sign Correa to something a bit higher AAV to avoid going 10 years ( 8/$280) - Sign Brett Phillips (1/$2M) - Re-sign Drew Smyly (2/14M) - Sign Taylor Rogers (1/$10M) - Sign Carlos Estevez (1/$5M) Payroll is in the $215M-$220M range, so there should be room to extend Hoerner and leave room for deadline moves. Lineup RF - Suzuki LF - Happ DH - Brown SS - Correa 3B - Wisdom SS - Hoerner 1B - Mervis C - Jansen CF - Phillips BN - Morel, Gomes, Madrigal, Mckinstry This team is good defensively everywhere except maybe 3B and good offensively everywhere except definitely CF. People are going to hate Phillips, but he is a monster defender and actually a decent hitter against righties, so platoon him very strictly until Davis/Canario are up and push him to his rightful bench spot. Pitching Staff SP - Stro, Marquez, Steele, Smyly, Hendricks CL - Rogers SU - Estevez, Hughes MR - Heuer, Wick, Leiter, Estrada (or other Iowa reliever du jour) LR - Thompson, Alzolay It lacks the true Ace or monster closer you like to have anchoring your staff, but this group of pitchers has a chance to be pretty sick. Hottovy needs to work his magic with the new guys, but Estevez was the 15th hardest throwing reliever in baseball this year (min 50 IP) and Marquez the 21st SP (min 100 IP), so it's no longer like we're asking him to spin straw into gold. Taylor Rogers had an ugly ERA but everything under the hood looks fine, to the point that I'm not sure even this fairly hefty 1 year salary will get him in the door. There's also quite a few quality arms at Iowa, so when some of these guys wash out we can "next man up" pretty well. It wouldn't make the Dodgers nervous, but I think this squad compares favorably with any that played on Wildcard weekend. It does so without skimming too much talent out of the farm, and only adding one long term deal. So Jed's still in prime position to add more talent at the deadline and next winter.

I like hearing this about Bain a lot, but after buying into Jensen's changes way too quickly I'm gonna try to stay patient

Yeah I actually think Ron Washington is not a bad idea. He's player-friendly, has actually stayed around the game (so he presumably gets 2022 baseball), and he's old enough for the Reinsdorf seal of approval.

A guy I've started eying is Seth Brown with the A's. He's a pure platoon bat, and despite some solid athleticism a bit of a clod everywhere he plays defensively. But there's some very real power there and the cost should be minimal, probably a few of the 40 man fringe types. Also I was very anti-Jansen at the deadline but I'm coming around on him. Something like Correa, Jansen, Brown, and Kevin Kiermaier would lead to a pretty killer lineup, and leave $30Mish to throw at the pitching staff.

I hate Bob Costas so horsefeathering much

WOW That ball was demolished

Assuming they don't have an amazing comeback, absolute disaster by the Braves to lose today. Now you've got to try and split the Wheeler/Nola gauntlet and sweep the other two games. Really tall order. Similar story with the Yankees later, you *CANNOT* lose the Cole start today.

The "we'd love to have Wade Miley back" talk felt like platitudes but this combined with a lot of comments from both sides the last two months seems pretty real. I wonder if they'd do something like 2/$14M rather than 1/$10M. Smyly gets significantly more guaranteed money, the Cubs lower the cap hit and ensure they will still have an adult in the room in '24 (Hendricks and Stroman both have options rather than guarantees for '24).

Always love these from Bryan, even he does tend to have a few things that are silly (Adrian Sampson is not going to be in the horsefeathering bullpen). It does a great job of visualizing the depth (or lack thereof) in the org. I think specific to this thread rather than the minor league forum is how horsefeathering loaded the outfields and rotations are for both Iowa and Tenn. If you're looking at areas with surplus to trade from, you've got them. They're also places to keep in mind with Jed's remarks about moves that make sense for 2023 but maybe less so beyond. For example, it's pretty obvious that CFer is going to be on a 1 or 2 year deal rather than someone like Brandon Nimmo.

That's interesting. He also pretty implicitly called out adding a shortstop with this remark He said something similar when he was in the booth that last weekend of the season, and combined with the power remarks it really does seem like he wants one of the star shortstops. I wonder if the thought is getting Correa/Turner to take something more like 7/250 instead of 10/300, or if he's got his sites set more on Swanson/Bogaerts, who inherently are looking at sub $200M contracts.

The Bears currently project to pick 7th in next year's draft so a 1st is a complete non-starter

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/10/mlb-projected-arbitration-salaries-2023.html

It sure seems like DH is where you could add a significant amount of power with a shorter term deal. Jose Abreu. J.D. Martinez. Add one of the shortstops. Trade for Danny Jansen. Slowly fold Mervis and Davis in. Big influx of power, even subtracting Contreras. Yeah I think a full time or semi-full time 1B/DH looks a lot more likely to me than it did this morning. We could also revisit the Bellinger or Gallo idea that was thrown around on here a little while back, though both guys were quite bad this year at the plate. I'd think despite the perfect positional fit either would have to be bat #3, e.g. after Correa and Jansen. There's also some obvious dot connecting you could do there with retaining Willson too, but Jed also said this: I think that non SS bat(s) of substance will be on a short term deals, so I don't think Willson returns unless it's on the QO contract.

Didn't watch, just going from Brett's writeup, I think these stood out: I had been assuming that on offense it was going to be a shortstop and then complimentary pieces. This makes me think a second hitter of substance will be added to the lineup. Also interesting to see the effusiveness about the power>hit philosophy. Would not be looking to buy real estate in Chicago this winter if I was Nick Madrigal. Sounds like quantity over quality on the pitching staff, as he *really* trusts Breslow and Hottovy. I'd expect two guys in the Heaney/Eflin/Manaea tier of FA rather than one guy in the Rodon/deGrom/Verlander tier. Feels like a near certainty Nico's getting extended, to the point they might already be close.

Yeah I think it's mostly adrenaline. His spin's up in line with the amount his velo is up

Mets down 2-0 early Man if they blow this god only knows what Steve Cohen does this offseason but it'll be fun from the outside

Looks like ESPN's QBR gave Fields a 76.8 today. That's a really high mark. For reference Lamar Jackson, Pat Mahomes, and Josh Allen are all between 79 and 81 YTD. Curious to see where PFF comes out.

Yeah hard not to feel good about this one. Fields was good, maybe very good depending on who's fault that early missed TD to Mooney was. The non-Mustipher parts of the O-line were good. The defense, particularly the secondary, was apocalyptically bad in the first half but got their horsefeathers together and rebounded really well. Kyler Gordon was finally looking like a guy the last ~third of the game. There's also the soft stuff. The team coming back like they did says great things about them. Once again the halftime adjustments were noticeable and impactful. With Fields playing well Eberfluss and Getsy started showing some stones. Etc Just really encouraging stuff pretty much all around.

Good half from Kyler Gordon. Hopefully this is the turning point game for him