Bertz

- In answering a question about the 40 man crunch, Sharma doesn't say much that's concrete, but the one thing that stood out is that he grouped McKinstry with Quiroz and Hermosillo, which is not what I would've guessed about how highly he might be viewed. - Sharma also used the strongest language I've seen yet that the Cubs are looking for more of a game manager profile at catcher, and Contreras isn't going to be pursued unless it was as a bat with a catching afterthought. He also says he doubts Willson will take the QO because of that dynamic and his desire for long term security. Jensen, Hill, and Perlaza being included in that mini camp seems notable with the 40 man situation. I assume they're all under consideration for protection and this is an opportunity to make the final call. And yeah the Contreras stuff seems way stronger and more definitive than I expected. I guess the question at catcher this winter is more about whether they add a Omar Narvaez or Christian Vazquez to replace Higgins rather whether they allocate big resources to the position with a Contreras re-signing or a Sean Murphy trade.

Ah, I was wondering that about Marquez's salary. I remember there being some changes to this sort of situation in the new CBA but was fuzzy on the details. I think Marquez as THE guy is a little scary, but not necessarily bad. Like I said I think whatever is wrong with him is probably something dumb or just general Coors difficulties. That said it'd be a little unnerving to have the main add for the rotation be coming off a 1.5 WAR season. As much as I've railed against two SPs, I probably embrace it in this case. But like you said maybe the way to think about the second guy is how bullpen-able he is. Lean towards guys like Lorenzen who have a successful relief history, or guys like Chris Archer who seem like a fit there. Maybe I need to rethink Smyly too, given his curveball and his success first time through the order as a starter.

I'm very curious about the second SP, and what exactly the thinking there is in terms of caliber of guy. I assume the team is not going over the luxury tax this year, so if the offseason plan already involves a substantial FA starter and one of the shortstops, which most rumoring have indicated, you're capped out at about $10M on this guy. I also assume that a major prospect trade probably isn't on the table, so as reasonable as something like PCA+ for Brady Singer or Tarik Skubal is, it's probably not likely. So what does that leave? There are a couple of guys in trade I see in the goldilocks zone of low salary, modest prospect cost, and sufficient impact. Pablo Lopez, German Marquez, and if he's even made available Lucas Giolito. Those latter two have had rough seasons, but there's nothing that looks seriously wrong under the hood so I imagine Hottovy would have them fixed in 45 minutes. There's also more upside plays. We know the Cubs really tried for Andrew Heaney last winter before the Dodgers scooped him up, and so maybe there's another FA or two that they see as being a tweak or two away from more impact performance. They could also go the trade route, Trevor Rogers looks like one of the more obvious pitch lab guys in the league, you could also look at some of the pitchers who have stalled out for the Tigers, Royals, Lastly, there's also the possibility Jed just just goes for a boring back of the rotation guy. We know Mooney is a terrible writer, so him having taken liberties with the Stroman comp is maybe the most likely scenario. Smyly would seem to have the inside track here, given the chatter about how happy both sides are. I really hope this isn't the play, as I frankly don't really see the point of locking in on a #4 starter knowing that you have to rob the roster elsewhere for the resources, and if he's bad you can't just banish him to Iowa like you can a Wesneski.

Feels kind of mean for the managers to bat both Brennen Davis and Brendon Davis 6th in their respective lineups. I've been fooled checking the box score 3 times already

https://twitter.com/drivelinebases/status/1574560984295174145?t=UuU5lQXsdo1twBXCU60LiA&s=19

Fun fact: Steamer projects Mervis for a line of .260/.318/480 (121 wRC+) right now

There were plenty of WR options out there in FA better than Pringle. One of those was widely mocked by fans due to his perceived overpay and he is one of the best WR in the game through three games. There were absolutely limits to what the Bears could do (they weren't gonna make a blockbuster trade and you never wanna narrow in on one position in the draft), but they treated FA like... well like most first time GMs treat FA. But there was powder there (and now all roles over into an almost unusable amount in 2023). So I'm not lost as to what's occurring, but it wasn't the best foot forward with Fields. Even in that context where, "okay I know they're gonna be a team that leada with the run" and the last two games look like they're treating Fields like he's a rookie 6th rounder from Conference USA. Yeah seeing what we've seen so far, I'm pretty okay with the approach to the O-line. It hasn't been perfect, but it hasn't been "it's gonna get Justin killed" bad like we feared and with the infusion of youth it should presumably improve a good bit as the year goes on. There weren't enough resources allocated at WR though. There was a volume approach tied to the O-line, but at WR there was not nearly a sufficient amount of quantity given the lack of quality. Plus, I'm just generally not as sure you can throw volume at WR and assume things will work out, at least not with such a young QB.

Yeah Football Outsiders has the team finishing 8-9 at this point. The Bears aren't good but this schedule is a joke.

Mooney says that the plan on the pitching front is possibly two Stroman-esque adds rather than one full on Ace. I'd assume that'd have to be one trade and one FA, something like Senga and Pablo Lopez? Otherwise, given that one of the shortstops sounds like fait accompli you'd have to push past the LT.

If I looked into your posts from last year, would I find you saying the same things about Steele? He thinks everyone is a reliever. He said at one point like a month or two back it might be time to shift Stroman to relief. Thompson from his first start against the Padres through July had a 3.86 ERA, matching 3.84 FIP. The xFIP was 4.29, so he was probably a bit dong lucky, but that's still a solid mark for a #4 starter. And the numbers were substantially better in the second half of that run after he added the slider (2.52 ERA, 3.74 xFIP). He was a mess in August, but he was clearly gassed. He lost more than a mile off his fastball (93.9 in the stretch above, 92.7 in August), it's pretty clear the team was trying to have him just push through it to get his innings. A competitive team would have IL'd him to get him a breather at least two starts earlier. To me the only doubt about Thompson is whether he's just going to hit the wall again at 90-100IP next year. So like shifting him to the pen to give Wesneski more run is an acceptable plan, but shifting Thompson to the pen for some uninspiring (and moderately expensive) veteran like Smyly absolutely is not.

Since 8/7: 22.1 IP, 13 H, 10 BB, 40 Ks, 0.40 ERA (only 1 run!)

I've been pretty adamant about Keegan in the rotation, but I think I'm actually moving towards Wesneski starting the year in MLB and Keegan indeed being in the pen. No idea what to do with Sampson this winter. I'd love some confirmation he does in fact have minor league options. Fangraphs says he does but sometimes this sort of stuff gets wonky with the guys who went to Asia for a few years and came back.

Yeah, I'm generally of the opinion that there's essentially no predictive value in rookie QB performance. But there's no shrugging off these kind of year 2 struggles. I believe Josh Allen is the only QB in the modern era to be straight up bad in year 2 and then go on to be an impact guy. One of the Ringer guys, I think Kevin Clark, suggested a few years back that a team in the QB desert should start just taking first or second round QBs every year until they get it right. I think that's an overcorrection, but I'm perfectly happy to do every other year. You have like an 80% idea on who your QB is after year 2. If you don't love what you're seeing at that point, you don't have to wait until the end of year 3 or 4 when you're 100% sure to finally make a move

I have some quibbles, but I think this is in the neighborhood of what I'm expecting this winter. The big one, and I know I'm in the minority, but I kind of hate holding onto Smyly. I also am pretty unfazed by Morel's issues in the second half here, but I don't think there would be anything too egregious about getting him a month at Iowa. The team's at ~$140M for payroll going into the winter if we assume the Franimal is non-tendered. Correa adds ~$30, Senga another ~$20, plus another $15-20M for Narvaez and the bullpen. We know Jed likes to have money to throw around at the deadline, so even if spending up to the LT is on the table this year, you've probably only got another ~$15M to spend in the offseason. Probably a pick two scenario with Smyly/Choi/Kiermaier. That's the tough choice this offseason, you probably have to just ride with internal options at one of C/CF/SP#2. I personally am very comfortable with the internal SP depth, and that's the way I'd go, but I think there's good arguments for and against not addressing each of the three.

Insane luck to get Morel out right there. It's like MLB the show how wild pitches always magnet their way right back to the catcher

Would love to know what the FO is thinking about Mckinstry. At first glance, the bat has been pretty uninspiring, and it doesn't seem like he's been unlucky. His wOBA is .278 and his xwOBA is .281. Minor difference, like a single base hit. However, I think he's probably been unlucky is his BB and K numbers. Coming into tonight he had a walk rate of 7.4% and a K rate of 25.7%, both numbers worse than league average. But he's 45th percentile in chase rate, 40th in swinging at pitches in the zone, and 80th in contact rates. Those numbers don't scream "poor at both walking and striking out" to me. Quite the opposite in fact. There's not exactly thunder in his bat, but I think the batting results are supposed to be closer to like Rafael Ortega. From a very good defensive infielder that's actually a pretty valuable bench piece.

That's 100% what's gonna happen. They should trade Hendriks and potentially even one of Giolito/Lynn and lick their wounds a bit for a year before coming back strong in '24. Instead they're just gonna re-sign Abreu, add another modest piece (a LH bat for OF?) and assume everything will be fine.

Leiter's been sneaky good out of the pen

The way they've been trading homers presumably the next Mervis dong is now imminent

Are we assuming they are bringing Smyly back? If so, we already have Hendricks, Stroman, Smyly, Keegan, Steele, Hayden, Alzolay, Mills and Sampson before signing anyone. I'm assuming Smyly makes it to FA, and Mills definitely gets cut. But even still yeah I'm very happy with the depth and think the team just needs another guy you'd be happy with starting a playoff game. Like if we end up here Stroman Big Offseason Add Steele Thompson Hendricks + Alzolay and possibly Sampson in long relief + Wesneski, Kilian, and Assad at Iowa That feels like plenty? Especially since getting a second SP probably means foregoing on either adding a catcher or adding another LH bat.

Hayden's now started his career with 20 strikeouts to 2 walks IMO the biggest question this offseason is whether the team thinks we need to add one SP of substance or two. I imagine Jed will go with the latter but personally I feel very comfortable leaning on the youths.

Alfonso Rivas really sucks

The contact rates for Canario improved substantially, and stayed improved even during his initial struggles at Iowa. I tend to think it's genuine development and not just a hot streak. I think you deal one of Canario/Davis this winter and assume the other will get 400+ PAs in CF next year.