Bertz

I don't have a PFF sub so I can't get super granular, but from what I have seen I think it's three things: 1. Like you said they graded much higher at run blocking than pass blocking (I know I saw numbers to this effect mid-season, doubt much changed) 2. PFF loved Jenkins and Jones, and thought everyone else was mediocre to bad. So even if we take their grades as gospel, the Bears line had glaring weaknesses that were exploitable 3. Justin does hold onto the ball too long at times. It was more consistently bad early in the year, but like there were multiple sacks in that last Detroit game that were totally on him. It never totally went away.

Cubs got tied for the 2nd most votes in "Most Underrated System" and got some down ballot votes for "Best Farm," "Best at Developing Pitchers" and Best at "Developing Hitters."

This presumably shifts Jazz over to become the primary SS, which might make the Marlins more likely to have interest in Madrigal? I remember reading early in the offseason they wanted to improve their contact, not sure if they consider that mission fully accomplished after signing Segura.

This is a finding in the same vein as the OP, and a quick and dirty metric you can use for sussing out who is making good swing decisions. And once again gives you some reasons for optimism on Nelly Velazquez (who led the team last year) and Chris Morel (who was above the league average). Might also show where there's some low hanging fruit for Seiya, as he had a comically low in-zone swing rate. Unlike something like exit velocity though it's not unequivocally a positive. As mentioned Seiya came in below average, while Jonathan Villar finished 2nd on the team by this metric.

I don't love the idea of trading for anyone except maybe Tee Higgins. He's a legit stud and young enough that you can sign him to a mega extension and he should be highly productive through all of it. But I feel like everyone else who's potentially available is either old enough to give you doubts or I question how impactful they truly are.

For me I think the clear top priority for that last bench spot is mashing lefties. From there it's basically a choice of whether you want someone who can hold their own against righties too (someone like McCutchen) or someone who provides defensive value (e.g. Farmer or Adam Duvall). I lean toward the latter. I'm with you in not being especially worried about Morel's splits though. His peripherals were better against lefties than righties, so last year was likely a batted ball fluke. But as much as I'm a huge fan of Morel, he is a source of some elevated risk in the lineup. And even if he does produce, it'd be nice to have the freedom to move him around as needed and backfill him at 3B with a Mckinstry/Farmer platoon.

He plays really good defense too, correct? Probabiy? He mostly plays shortstop, and is just okay there. But the little bit of 3B he's played the numbers have been good and generally you'd expect even a below average SS to be good at 3B.

This isn't a bad idea either. .296/.356/.523 against lefties over the last three years. Makes a ton of sense in particular if you're bearish on Wisdom's ability to play 3B.

With the Twins adding Correa, the Cubs should call them about Alex Kiriloff or Matt Wallner. It would be nice to have someone at Iowa breathing down the necks of Mervis and Hosmer for LHH 1B/DH at bats.

Assume this iteration of the Correa deal goes through. Knowing what we know now about his injury red flags and where everyone's prices ended up exactly, which of the 4 shortstops would you have liked the Cubs to end up with? For me it goes: Turner Correa Swanson Bogaerts

Unreal

It's gonna be really hard for me to move off of this or thereabouts being the ideal scenario.

They probably wouldn't have need for Madrigal. I think part of the impotice for making the trade would be getting Cronenworth back over to 2B. That said it's an interesting idea, Kim would give us an insane infield defense and like you said another heavy flyball guy. Though I don't love his bat in general. I'd love to know what the team thinks about the internal 3B options defensively. Wisdom was very good there in '21 and really bad in '22. Morel was really bad in very limited play time in '22 but had a very strong reputation coming up through the minors. Mckinstry was fine there last year, but considering his work elsewhere would he be good with more playing time? If you told me any or all of these guys were somewhere between +5 and +10 defensively as a full time 3B I'd believe you. They all have questions offensively too, but they're small enough you'd be comfortable with some insurances they're a plus defender. Kind if like CF, 3B probably ends up being in a pretty good spot by the end of this season. But it's hard to say who ultimately gets the lions share of the playing time, and how much damage is done to the team's chances while it gets sorted out.

I'm concerned he has so much money to spend that the talent to get won't be there. The result, Poles will overspend on mediocre talent. Net gain: a 5-12 record. They really could have spiraled themselves into a Browns/Lions scenario of multiple losing seasons and top picks I mean, NFL fans go through this every year. Literally just saw it again with Jags. Everyone said they overpaid on mediocre talent. And that's kind of true. They still. Improved 6 games. Calling on them to be a 8 win team is not a high bar. Go look at all the 7-9 win teams. There's still a lot of trash and roster holes on those types of teams. We're not talking about closing every roster hole or finding multiple All Pros to get there. Also they would have won 6ish already this year with normal luck in one score games, there's not as much ground to make up as there looks like from simple W/L record. I mentioned like a month back and I still think it's true, the team has so many resources available that some rando who's into Madden's franchise mode should be able to get this team to 8+. The test of whether Poles is a dude is if he can get this team all the way into competing for a bye territory. To me the biggest worry is Fields regressing. We've seen recently with Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield that guys can still suddenly go "Oops I'm bad now lol" even after 3 years in the league. That is terrifying given that any hopes of major improvements bank on Fields being at minimum the guy he was for the last 10 games or so this season.

Go full bore and get Josh Jacobs. There's an embarrassment of riches available, so if there's a time to overspend for a RB it's right now. Ideally there'd be a WR worth giving stupid money to, but there's not so add a playmaker where you can.

The ideal IMO is to trade down to 4 (decent chance Colts end up there?). You still get one of Carter/Anderson, and you probably end up with at least a 2023 2nd and a 2024 1st. It's not the insane haul of picks you get by dropping down to e.g. the Panthers down at like 9/10, but I'll take the relative bird in hand in this situation.

There is probably more veteran RHH bat incoming to round out the roster. It's possible the team simply goes with Madrigal or Velazquez instead of a vet, but seems more likely they open next year out of the org and at Iowa respectively. Trey Mancini has been talked about extensively all offseason, so he's probably the smart money, but here's a few other potential options that are at least somewhat interesting: Adam Duvall Cons - Clearly the worst bat on this list due to major contact issues. And it's not even clear he can serve as a platoon guy. He's generally mashed lefties, but in his career year in '21 (where he got by far his most playing time ever) he had very stark reverse splits, so you can't even totally count on him for platoon duty Pros - A very good defender, so much so that it's not crazy that he could be an everyday guy and push Bellinger to 1B (or the bench if he's struggling). The weirdness I laid out with his splits is probably a one year anomally Tommy Pham Cons - He essentially hasn't produced since COVID, despite plenty of opportunity. Even though there's quite a bit to really like under the hood, he's passed through three different orgs since he was last productive. So how likely is it to actually get him back on track? With the Joc Pederson thing and the stabbing, it's not totally clear if he's a bad dude or simply a redass Pros - He's still very patient, relatively fast, and hits the piss out of the ball. Statcast thinks he was a top ~50 hitter in baseball in '20 and '21. It feels like whatever adjustment(s) are required to be that guy he was in 2018/2019 are pretty minor, despite them not having been made yet. Even when struggling he's generally been a strong platoon bat (115 wRC+ vs lefties last year) Andrew McCutchen Cons - Similar to Pham in that Statcast paints a picture that his productivity simply does not back up. He hasn't had a good full season since leaving Pittsburgh Pros - Statcast thinks he's still been a very good hitter in Philly and Milwaukee. There's an argument he's part of the shortlist of RHH who potentially stand to gain significantly from the shift ban, which might be the explanation for the Statcast/real world disagreement? Also like Pham, either way he's still mashed lefties the last several years so he's rosterable even in the worst of scenarios. Unlike Pham, he's an all-time likable dude Gary Sanchez Cons - After his early career highs, the last several years his offense has generally been good *for a catcher* rather than actually good. He drastically underperforms his Statcast numbers every single year, but it's not totally clear you can blame the shift. He's a poor defensive catcher, but not necessarily so poor that he'd definitely be willing to shift to primary 1b/DH duty. Reverse splits 2 of last 3 years means he's not a definite offensive fit with Mervis/Hosmer/etc. Pros - He hits the ball hard at an elite level, and he has a good eye as well. We just saw with Willson how much gain you can realize from an offense-first catcher when dialing way back on that wear and tear from behind the plate. Ross has generally really enjoyed the strategic options opened up by having three catchers on the roster AJ Pollock and Luke Voit might also be theoretically possible, but Pollock seems likely to be too expensive (I'd imagine he's still in line for a multi-year deal?) and Luke Voit has reverse splits which don’t really jive with what the Cubs need.

I'm a hopelessly optimistic fan but even I can't muster an iota of goodwill for Strumpf. He's not good. I'd probably need to go 50 or 60 deep on a top prospect list before I'd mention him. I mean his best case scenario is like Michael Chavis with a few more walks?

IMO it's hard to see post Smyly and Hosmer. Like TT said there's definitely some cleanup at the tail end of the roster that needs to happen, but that probably looks like Madrigal or Velazquez traded for their weight in relief help. YMMV on whether that would qualify as substantial. To me, there were two exceptions to this where I could see something happening. First was Rafael Devers, but it looks like that window just closed. The other is a third SP addition to replace of Hendricks. The team has been fairly cagey about him all winter. The last thing we heard was that they were going to Driveline him, and that program was slated to start in early December. Well it's been a month, and still most discussion around Kyle still sounds very wishy washy and aspirational ("if he's healthy..."). IMO that's kind of weird, as if healthy the dude clearly gets first crack at a rotation slot coming out of spring training, and if he's been back on the mound for a month the team should have a pretty good idea if he's healthy. So if you told me that Kyle got hurt again on the hush hush and Smyly was signed as a fifth starter, I'd absolutely believe you. And SP is probably the one position you could still go hard on the trade market.

Would they? Roster Resource has Hudson as the de facto closer, and while there's plenty of talent and 2022 performance in their pen, it is light on MLB late inning experience for a championship contender. My guess is before selling off Hudson they'd kick someone a prospect to eat the last year of Treinen's deal while he rehabs his shoulder. I mean we saw first hand in '19/'20 with Descalso and Kintzler that for whatever reason it's usually not actually all that simple. I don't know if opposing teams jack up prices exorbitantly knowing the circumstances, or if owners/the league squash it because they don't like the optics, but we just don't see as many of those moves as you'd logically expect. And the Dodgers have Philips, Graterol, Vesia, Almonte and Ferguson who project similarly or better to Hudson and aren't just kids they'd be throwing into the fire. Their pen isn't so good that they'd needlessly shed a reliever, but they likely need to move some salary and Hudson/Treinen are the clear two most reasonable options.

Two Cubs-specific things I think are interesting here. First, by this crude measure the Cubs have added the most talent in baseball this offseason. Second, the Dodgers are just a razors edge under the LT. You wonder if they might deal a reliever just to free up a little room. Like they'd probably just give away Daniel Hudson under the circumstances, while Jed's expressed a desire to still add another veteran or two to the mix. Hudson's a well revered dude around the league and not going to be insistent in 9th inning duty.

I'll go with 85-87 wins. Run prevention and overall depth will be enough to boost a slightly below average to average offense. Yeah I think this is about right. The team is not going to bottom out, there's just way too much depth to let that happen. But at the same time, that depth cuts the other way a bit. It's going to take some time to iterate through and find the best version of this team. If Ross and Jed mostly nail it coming out of ST, the team can win 90+ games, but realistically there's going to be missteps and the team is going to be in the mix for the latter two wildcard spots. I do think it's weird that there's this notion that the position player group will be boring? They're likely to be top 5 in steals and defense and top 10 in dongs. This isn't some group of slap hitters or vintage Oakland teams that walk to the point of being passive. The starting pitching group, even if effective, is likely to be pretty blasé, but the position player group is extremely watchable.

Saga might finally be ending

I like staying under this year. They going over for one 5 war player takes you from a 79 win team to an 84 win team if things break right. And if they don’t you have to pay larger penalties next year to stay decent. This way you weather Heywards final year and have a big chunk to spend next year, the farm reaches maturity - or at least you know what you have in Davis, the pitchers, and Amaya heading into ‘24 - and you can spend big next year. There are so many question marks on this roster that even if things go reeeeally well and you are in the wild card or division drivers seat come July, there no way to forecast WHICH things went well and which things needs addressed at the deadline. Not to mention that a decent run this year makes you more attractive to FA next year. Lets be honest this wasn’t an attractive destination this off-season. In many ways this is 2015 all over again. Don’t expect this to be the year. Compete this year. Window really opens next year. Yeah it's definitely not cut and dry, but I would have preferred to go over this year, even if it was just for some unexciting1 year deals. Payroll to open next offseason is slated to be $100Mish under the tax if Stroman opts out as expected, and $80Mish if he doesn't. That's enough to land two stars and some complimentary parts (admittedly skimping on those though if Stro's still around). I'd much rather have added another couple wins to this year's team and had things be a bit tighter next winter beyond the marquee additions. The meat of the farm system is slated to start hitting MLB the second half of this year, so unlike this winter I don't think next winter there's going to be much need to simply add warm bodies to fill various positions. A primo hitter, a primo SP, and the typical cadre of cheap relievers and maybe a bench guy should be sufficient. My guess is the thing Jed's hung up on is the FA penalties for luxury tax payers. We know Jed hates signing qualifying offer guys regardless, and the penalties are a lot sharper for teams that were over the LT the prior year. I believe in the draft it's a 2nd and a 5th, and then the IFA penalties double. I could see Jed avoiding that like the plague.

Assuming the Hosmer thing happens, I think the biggest disappointment for me is that it would seem like confirmation the team is staying under the Luxury Tax. The club is $18M under right now. That's just about right for a Hoerner extension ($8Mish more than his arb salary?), a little more relief help (<$5M), another low end bat (~$2M), while leaving a couple million for the deadline or for Happ to beat his arb projection. Hosmer himself though is still a decent hitter, and likely to get a boost this year. Statcast says he would have hit 28 dongs the last two years in Wrigley, compared to 20 in real life. That's the second most of any park in MLB behind Cincy. Also as a heavy GB guy he's been heavily impacted by the shift. He has a .339 wOBA the last three years while batting without the shift vs. a .247 against. For reference, that's roughly the difference between Ian Happ last year (.339 wOBA) and Jonathan Villar (.250 wOBA). Neither adjustment makes him a star again, but I do think they get him up to that 110-115 wRC+ neighborhood. And if he sucks he's making league minimum. Cut him by Memorial Day and bring up whatever Iowa bat is showing out most.