Bertz

For reference, Baseball Savant had Alex Reyes averaging 2811 rpms on his curve last year and said that was 88th percentile in MLB

They will not start the season on time. This isn't something that can be hammered out in a week due to both sides being so far apart unless one side capitulates. Honestly I think it absolutely can be hammered out in a week. Both sides have made all their asks, it's a matter of the owners beginning to actually negotiate. The owners want three things, the players want like a dozen. The owners are going to get all/most of their asks, so both sides just need to figure out which combo of player asks make that a "fair" trade. But right now the owners are doing essentially this move, hoping the players negotiate against themselves The question is when will one or both sides hit a sufficient level of urgency. We always knew that right now there'd be a lot of obstinacy. So where have the groups in private drawn their lines for where they'll cave? There are a couple of milestones that IMO mark the likely dates around where something will happen. - If the sides hammer out a deal by Feb 1, the 2022 season is like 99% normal. The second half of the offseason is crunched into two weeks, and some international players get to ST late, but it's a status quo season in terms of revenue. Despite the acrimony, this plus or minus a week is still probably the smart money. The owners are full of bluster but IMO won't stand for a third straight year or down revenue - If they don't reach a deal until closer to March 1st, we're looking at a borked ST, but the regular season is largely untouched. That ST revenue is material, but I don't believe it's huge. Up until this point I believe would only hurt the owners, players don't get paid for ST. But ehen you get past roughly March 1st you impact the regular season, and once that happens players are staring at lost paychecks. I tend to think if it gets here players will cave - April 1st is likely the date for things going nuclear. Most of the TV contracts stipulate that teams need to provide ~140+ games. Fall short of that and you start getting into catastrophic revenue issues for the owners, and players are staring at ~1/5th of their salary vanishing. I don't see why it would get here, but if it gets past here I imagine we're in it for the really long haul, and at best getting another weird bastardized 2020ish style season

I'd still be shocked if the season gets pushed back, but Spring Training sounds like it will definitely get crunched

Feels like trading Quinn would be a good litmus test for how progressive our (hopefully new) FO is? Everything except Quinn's sack number paints a picture of more of a good season than a great one. Selling high on what is likely an inflated sack total for a guy over 30 is probably the savvy play?

Yeah I really wonder about how much of a non starter playoff doubleheaders are. I also think a lot about starting a series with one team up 1-0. The KBO does this and I think it's a really creative way to increase the importance of playoff seeding.

Yeah, I love the current setup. I literally take the week of the Division series off every year. Unfortunately, I think we're 100% getting expanded playoffs. It's pretty clearly the Players' biggest negotiating chip. Fortunately, it sounds like the MLBPA knows it's a Trojan horse for owners to be less competitive. So we'll see some incentives to maintain competitive balance. Like I'm expecting something like this: - 3 division winners + 3 wildcards in each league - Top 2 division winners get byes in the WC round - 3rd division winner plays against WC#3 in WC round, but gets all three games at home - WCs 1 & 2 play a 3 game set, but they DO have to travel without an off day The owners get up to 10 additional playoff games, but I don't think this actually hurts competitive balance. In fact I think this is a win pretty much up and down the win curve. As a viewer I hate hate hate losing the 1 game wildcard round, but something like this might be much better for the game macroeconomically

"The Wildcat will continue until morale improves"

I like him. Not so much that I'd force him on the new Coach (and hopefully GM), but enough that I'll be a bit disappointed if they don't hold onto him.

I think both say no? Small market owners for sure, they like being able to pocket money during downcycles. I do think we eventually get something akin to the Larry Bird rule in the NBA. Teams and players have both come out in favor of stuff helping players stay with their original teams. That said such a rule would be a concession to help high end players, who are the one group not suffering the last 5-10 years. The next CBA or two are going to focus on lifting up younger players and lower end FAs.

Fields officially out today

For reference, among MLB hitters in 2021... ~30% had max exit velos of 112+ ~40% had max exit velos of 111+ ~55% had max exit velos of 110+ ~70% had max exit velos of 109+ Given these guys are minor leaguers and are still developing physically you would grade them on a more generous curve. That brings Cassie and Velazquez especially into "holy horsefeathers" territory.

Welp. Even though he's pretty average at this point he was a really good fit on our roster. LH good defensive 3B is fairly rare, and checks several boxes.

I've never seen McNeil play 3B, but I'm guessing from all the run JD Martinez has gotten at the position the last few years tells me all I need to know. That said, if he's a reasonable option at the position he fits the Cubs' roster like a glove.

I understand doing 2/90 or something crazy like that to lead off the deal changes the math substantially, but I can't imagine they get away with both less total dollars AND less AAV than Seager (or Lindor). That said if this is the opening offer, it feels like Jed will get to a number that *does* do it. Maybe 8/276? Gives him the highest AAV for a shortstop (and I believe non-Trout position player), and that structure probably is roughly equivalent to a more straight up 8/300? Guys this feels real

Much like even most bad head coaches are great coordinators, I could see Pace being a great Pro Scouting Director or something like that. But you've gotta let him go do that somewhere else, I can't imagine a situation where he sticks around here and it's not a dysfunctional nightmare.

Essential reading honestly

Given Correa's age, I'd think he may prefer 8 years as well? 8 years puts him back on the FA market heading into his age 35 season. If he's still good he could get a three-four year deal. Heading into age 37 you're making out at two years. $8/300 would give him, I believe, the highest AAV for a position player in baseball. He may want to chase the highest total dollars but the shorter deal doesn't seem totally silly?

Realistically, what do we need to add for next year to feel like we're putting Justin in a real position to succeed? Something like this? - 2 starting caliber WRs - 1 starting caliber TE - A starting caliber Center - A starting caliber guard (ideally just extend James Daniels) - A tackle (these last few weeks to determine how good he needs to be) With the cap space open this offseason, that's probably actually doable? You're left bargain hunting on defense, but I'd be happy to finally have a team that can win games 34-27.

Yeah I think this has happened in damn near every game. The glass half full interpretation is that he's seeing so much stuff for the first time, and adjusting pretty quickly. The glass half empty is that this team is so bad that generally in the second half they're losing convincingly and the defenses get softer.

Statistically yes but eye test I think the Steelers game was better as he put up similar stats but on the road and in a high leverage situation. Yeah I know DVOA and I think QBR take score/leverage into account and so they won't be too kind to him tonight. It was also a pretty crummy night with his legs. That said in terms of purely just standing in the pocket and letting it rip probably his best game. .

It's a good point... Fields could be having standard rookie struggles AND be greatly held back by terrible coaching/team, which would dip him into historically poor numbers relative to other QBs. Not to say that other rookies haven't had bad coaching, but its a bit of a unique situation. Also again it's 9 games. He does have some things he needs to work on but if you parse the numbers out, he's doing some things well and has shown enough flashes to keep my faith high. If he's still in this range this time next year, then sure I'll be concerned. I think he's gotta progress a little faster than that. We're seeing with Kyler Murray that sometimes the big jump comes from year 2 -> 3. We're seeing with Tua that guys don't necessarily come out guns blazing the first few weeks of their sophomore year. But I think he needs to be at least average-ish for the bulk of next year to hold out hope that he's the guy moving forward. That said he's improved as the season has gone on, which I think is very encouraging. Since the debacle against Tampa he's averaging 7.7 yards per attempt, which is quite good. The turnovers and sacks have improved (though to be clear, they've gone from ludicrously high to merely very high). His QBR has averaged in the 40's, compared to the 20's through the Tampa game. Passer Rating up from 62 to 79. From a more qualitative standpoint, he seems to be adapting during halftime each week and has stepped up big during a couple of two minute drills You can't just throw out the first half of the year, but if the trendlines keep pointing in the right direction it'll be hard to not chalk this rookie year up as a success.

I mean the truth is you can't really say a ton of concrete things about rookie QBs. Most rookie QBs suck (at least at pure passing), and you're just trying to parse out different degrees of suck and hang your hat on certain splits or signature moments or whatever. And even being the rare non-sucky rookie QB doesn't necessarily make a difference. Baker Mayfield was one of the better rookie QBs ever from a pure pocket passing standpoint and has still settled in as merely pretty good. QBs improve a lot between year one and year two, and hopefully again between years two and three. But the magnitude of that improvement, from the outside, seems largely random. You just kind of have to cross your fingers and hope you got one of the good ones.

Reading the Fangraphs top prospects list reaffirms to me this should happen. Conventional wisdom for the best time to sign a mega deal is when you've got a critical mass of prospects either about to or having just broken into MLB. The Cubs did both last go around, bookending 2015 with Lester and Heyward. Even though Fangraphs paints a pretty rosey picture of the Cubs' minor league system, there's not a near term wave of prospects coming. The cohort of guys opening next year at Low A South Bend looks really impactful, but it's still a half dozen teenagers 3-4 years from the majors. There's still plenty of talent ahead of those guys in the pipeline, but it's not gonna be the deluge like late 2014/early 2015. But financially, that might actually make taking the leap more palatable? One of the problems with the last core was that the homegrown guys were all on the exact same timeline, which meant they were getting expensive all at once. On top of that, Lester and Heyward's contracts were similarly timed, so as they got older and worse, the homegrown guys got older and more expensive (and aside from Javy, worse). Because of that, after the spending spree in 2018, the team was pretty locked into a corner contract wise. And with a miserly owner refusing to lift his self imposed payroll cap, we saw what happened. A mega deal now would hit differently. Like I laid out above, the team's contractual outlook would still be pretty clean for the next 3-4 years. After that depends on a lot of unknowns, but if a few of those teens on the farm are the goods you've got an infusion of high end talent hitting the MLB club on the cheap right as Correa's deal is moving into its back half. That's a great way to blunt even the most albatross-y of contracts. If next year's FA class were better I'd probably say to hold off and focus on short term deals the rest of this winter, but I feel like Jed ought to take this shot in the next year or so. And with Correa's market being fairly small this is probably the best opportunity to nab a high impact guy.