Bertz

Self scouting is important for everyone, but yeah this team is gonna live or die by it. The Giants were a similar team entering last year, and then Gabe Kapler turned into a precog and pulled all the right levers all year and they were amazing. There's no reason to expect that kind of thing from Ross (or frankly, even Kapler again) but it shows the magnitude of impact a high end managerial performance can have with this type of roster. My guess is this ends up being a high 70's win team, but kind of like the 2014 squad we feel really good about the team running out there by the second half. I think it's going to take some time to work through the playing time battles, and like you mentioned you just know that there's gonna be a hiccup with one or two of them (Ross sticking with Heyward far longer than is reasonable seems most likely). But when Davis comes up the OF alignment is pretty set, and I would think whatever landmines end up on the pitching staff will have gotten the axe and been backfilled from Iowa by Memorial Day or sooner. I'm not worried about the deadline. On the position player side, Catchers rarely get dealt in July, and no one else of consequence is liable to be dealt. On the pitching staff, if walk-year guys like Miley and Smyly and Givens are shoving enough to have significant value, then I doubt the team holistically is struggling enough to sell.

Fangraphs had it at #7 post deadline last year, and their individual player grades got a little stronger over the offseason (but they haven't finished other teams so no new rankings yet). https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2021-in-season-prospect-list/physical-attributes?sort=-1,1&type=4&filter=&pos=&team= They're the high mark, everyone else is largely in the teens. Basically the talent is probably in line with last time, but aside from Davis all the funnest pieces have still yet to play in full season ball. So it's an eye of the beholder thing with how you weight talent vs. proximity. Pretty much everyone thinks it'll be a consensustop 3-5 system next year even after graduating Davis.

It sounds like there's more and more expectation of an expanded roster for April, and the Cubs' backend starters specifically are expecting there to be piggybacking the first few turns through. So I think this is the rough guess at the opening day 28 man roster C - Contreras, Gomes 1B - Schwindel 2B - Madrigal, Hoerner SS - Simmons, Villar 3B - Wisdom LF - Happ CF - Ortega, Hermosillo RF - Suzuki, Heyward DH - Frazier SP1 - Hendricks SP2 - Stro SP3 - Miley, Thompson SP4 - Smyly SP5 - Mills, Steele CL - Wick SU- Martin, Givens, Robertson MR - Norris, Chavez, Effross On the position player side, it'll be interesting to see who gets the bump when rosters get cut down. Smart money is probably on a phantom IL stints for Heyward, but I do wonder if he's a threat to be outright cut if he's still not performing. Pitching-wise dropping Thompson down to Iowa to stretch out is probably easiest. That said they can largely follow a meritocracy with the pitching staff. Of the vets only Hendricks and Stro are signed past this year, the rest can easily be cut if they're not performing.

I don't blame you for feeling this way but there's a lot of interesting storylines to this season despite a likelihood of being a little worse than mediocre. 1. Is Suzuki actually a superstar? 2. Brennen Davis call up watch. 3. Is 2021 Schwindel a thing? What if he is? 4. To a lesser extent, same thing but Wisdom. 5. How good is Nick Madrigal? If he can sustain last year he's a valuable piece. 6. Killian call up watch. 7. Not about the big league squad but I'm really excited to see how all these prospects on the precipice of top 100 status do. 8. Nelson Velazquez watch. Maybe a thing? 9. Stroman doing his thing. I'm as disgusted as anybody with this payroll BS and the fact that they passed on a really good player at one of the biggest positions of need in the lineup, but there is a lot I'm looking forward to seeing this year. I've got two more for you, as this *should* be the year the revamped pitching development infrastructure starts paying off. 10. Which member(s) of the loaded AA rotation (Marquez, Jensen, Espinoza, Vizcaino, Bain) get up to the bigs in the second half? You should not assume a talented guy opening the year in AA makes the majors. Odds are however between five talented guys opening the year in AA, at least one makes the majors 11. The absolute gas that will be coming out of the pen in the second half. We already saw Manny Rodriguez and his 97 MPH sinker debut late last year. There's also spin god Ethan Roberts, Brendon Little regularly bumping 97 from the left side, and Ben Leeper who sits 98. And those 5 starters opening the year at Tenn? Each sit mid 90s as starters, so if they break into MLB via the pen they'll be threatening 100

I believe the Athletic guys also intimated this weekend that there's still some money left in the banana stand. Probably not a crazy amount, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's ~$20M Jed is sitting on (including what he customarily holds back for the deadline). Payroll starting with a 1 instead of a 2 is the biggest problem, and that's surely on PTR. Payroll being ~$175 instead of ~$195 seems to be Jed making choices like you alluded to. While there are obviously shades of gray, Jed basically had three possible paths to take this winter: 1. Keep the Powder Dry - This is mostly what Jed did. He completely avoided the QO, he didn't trade a single prospect, and made only two multi-year FA deals. To his credit, Stroman and Suzuki were arguably the two best non-QO free agents available besides Scherzer. He didn't go full Cleveland, which there was some worry about 2. Be efficient, but make one or two "uncomfortable" moves - This is the route I wish he had taken. I understand austerity, I'm sympathetic to it, but I think sometimes when you take it too far you're cutting your nose to spite your face. Like if we passed on Trevor Story now just to end up with Dansby Swanson a year from now, a very likely scenario at the moment, that's a failure across whatever time horizon you look at. Similarly we held onto all of our prospects, but how many do we end up having to deal for $0.80 on the dollar next year because we've got a big time 40 man crunch? There are diminishing returns to hoarding assets and I think if we end up being sellers at the deadline again we're gonna see it 3. Ball Out - We saw last offseason with the Padres how much damage you can do with a critical mass of good but not quite consensus Top 100 type prospects. Combine that with the funds available and Jed could have really done some damage. Also, given that there's a big gap between the payroll ceiling and the LT level, it's likely that the team could have back loaded deals to fit more talent in this year (the LT looks at average annual salary, while cash flow is cash flow. When there's a divergence there's possibly some opportunity) I never wanted nor expected door #3, but I think another decent sized move on top of what we got was prudent. I know I'm a broken record on this, I really think sitting out the SS fray was a mistake both for 2022 and beyond. Even if you're less panicky about the medium term SS options than I am, Jed could have done a SP trade (especially after Alzolay got hurt), or brought in a LH bat of consequence, or something else and I don't think it would have meaningfully hurt the 2023+ clubs.

I would think that's one of those that hurts like hell for a while but is very unlikely to actually injure you?

I like Jed a lot, I think he's very good. That said, he seems to pretty clearly have a small market set of sensibilities. He and Theo were good about not leaking disagreements, but the ones we've gotten make it seem like in their partnership Theo was Chris Traeger and Jed was Ben Wyatt. Without Theo in the room, I'm a little worried about whether he'll have the stones to say go grab Juan Soto in a year or two. I love Wilson, but this is one where I'm very comfortable with Jed at the wheel. Catchers are like pitchers where they're such injury risks that you don't want to lock them down until you absolutely have to. I know we're all irked that no one except Kyle stuck around long term, but at the same time after the Arrieta debacle last year I don't actually think "I don't care whether it's a good investment or not he's one of our guys" actually holds up when push starts coming to shove.

Yeah I'd hope the Coors thing is mostly just fans and old school writers at this point. Going back to at least Matt Holliday every star who's left Coors has still been a star post Coors. Arenando has seen a decent dip. With Cardinals: .250/.310/.480 105 wRC+ With Rockies: .295/.351/.546 120 wRC+ I think wherever you pulled that data is off a bit (maybe including playoffs or ST or something?). FG and BR are showing him a little higher last year, .255/.312/.494. That's a 121 OPS+. And he was projected for a 117 going into last year: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/zips-2021-projections-colorado-rockies/ He's not quite the guy he was a few years ago, but he already showed that in 2020 with the Rockies.

Coors + he sort of had the yips at the end last year. Though that was probably just a shoulder injury rather than any scary mental issue. Here are the terms Haven’t we gotten over the concept of a Coors effect or is there a certain type of hitter that does not translate to playing for a team at sea level. We’ve seen several players now leave the Rockies and not see any sort of dramatic drop off in their numbers. Yeah I'd hope the Coors thing is mostly just fans and old school writers at this point. Going back to at least Matt Holliday every star who's left Coors has still been a star post Coors.

Coors + he sort of had the yips at the end last year. Though that was probably just a shoulder injury rather than any scary mental issue. Here are the terms

I have vague and small-sample memory of what this might involve. Visa issue? PED suspension? Criminal/legal issues? Care for alcoholism or mental health? I believe it's a catch-all for anything non baseball related? Given that he's on the 40 man and was locked out, visa issues seem very likely.

I think we already assumed Triantos would go to MB, but this makes it seem that much more likely to be the plan

Pretty much, yeah. There doesn't appear to be a reason for the Padres to do a Hosmer deal anymore, and the Cubs have never been tied to Trevor Story. That's pretty much it as far as relevant players out there. I'd expect up to three additional moves, any being pretty minor: 1. Another starter. The rumor yesterday was Smyly, so that's the tier we're talking. This seems the most likely 2. A LH platoon bat for 1B e.g. Colin Moran or Mitch Moreland 3. A small trade or two to clean up the back end of the roster e.g. an Alec Mills trade after they add the starter above

Yeah my guess is because of the injury history his options topped out at $200-something, and he knew if he had back to back healthy seasons he'd clear that $300M bar easily. The weird things to me are A) Why wouldn't the Astros take this deal and B) If Correa couldn't get there how did Seager do so easily? Of the scenarios where we don't just sign him ourselves, this works out about as well as possible for us. He's now either on the market for us next year, when the roster around him would be much more fitting, or he gets hurt again and shows that he in fact wasn't worth the risk of a long term deal.

I believe all of the signings so far can be accomadated by known 60 Day IL stints or obvious cuts (e.g. one of Ramirez or Hermosillo, Alcantara, etc.). I believe this would take us past that point however. Not sure if there's another injury we don't know about or if trade(s) are coming.

While this roster leaves a lot to be desired, here are some things I really like about it - There's a real diversity of offensive styles and approaches. Madrigal is the most extreme contact bats in the league. Wisdom one of the most extreme launch angle guys. Schwindel's power/contact profile is very unique. Frazier is one of the ~10 most patient guys in the league. Suzuki scouts and projects to have a phenomenal plate approach. Hoerner is a prolific all-fields hitter, etc. This group is not nearly as good as the one that just left, but that team every day ran out Rizzo, Baez, and six guys with essentially the same approach. That's one of the big theories behind their disappointing lack of consistency - While there's a clear lack of top end talent, no one on the position player side except Frazier projects as bad (<1 WAR in full time play). Offensively, six guys project as average or better bats, while everyone except Simmons and Gomes project to at least a 90 wRC+, (meaning they're within 10% of being a league average bat). Simmons and Gomes obviously have defensive value to lean on, and three of the others (Hermosillo, Ramirez, Wisdom) are really liked by one projection system and really disliked by the other (so there's reasons for optimism but they come with wide error bars) - Defensively the team is very strong. Schwindel sucks, but 1B defense is pretty marginal anyways. I'm also not sure there's a plus defensive CF on the roster. Hermosillo probably is, and Hoerner has the speed to be but not the experience. But everywhere else is very good. Contreras has gotten his framing up enough that his other skills make him plus behind the plate. Madrigal is good at second, Wisdom good at 3rd, Simmons still great at short. Suzuki is reportedly a plus or maybe even plus plus RF, and while Happ was a bit of a putz in CF should be plus in left. Keep Frazier purely at DH and this team will pick it - I'm pretty nervous about the rotation. Not a ton that I'm excited about except for Stroman at the front and Kilian being a phone call away at Iowa - I feel great about the pen. It's solid enough right now after all of the vets that were brought in, but then you have a phenomenal Iowa pen as well. Spend April-May working through the vets to see who still have it, and any that prove they're cooked get replaced by live arms from Iowa. This group is gonna absolutely shove by the summer It's a very Oakland-y roster. Not a ton of star power, depth of high floor options, very strong defense. Honestly, if Alzolay were healthy and Jed hadn't chickened out on the shortstops, I'd be pretty full throated in my praise.

We should start a Cubs sign another reliever thread And another

I'm not a swing analysis guy but looks like Brett Gardner IMO

If this is the team, what is the point in trading for Hosmer? His bat would be a very slight nice to have for the bench, but the 'why' always has been and always will be the goodies that would come with him. You'd presumably be getting Robert Hassell or Luis Campusano, either one being our clear #2 prospect, and an MLB ready SP in either Chris Paddack or Ryan Weathers.

They're not out on Correa because they signed Villar, but they wouldn't have signed Villar unless they were pretty sure they were out on Correa. My guess is they're leaving the door open on a Hosmer deal, and probably looking for another SP (Brault seems destined for first man up from Iowa status) but this is the team.