Bertz

I'm finally reading this year's Football Outsiders Almanac, and there's some good nuggets in here: - FO only gives the Bears a 27% chance at the playoffs. They're the 21st ranked team overall, so bad but not terrible, but they're expected to have the toughest schedule in the NFL by A LOT - On the topic of Pace's proclivity to give up draft picks, Pace has given up the equivalent of 3.2 first rounder since he took over based on the Chase Stuart draft model (the one that gives more value to mid round picks). By the traditional Jimmy Johnson chart it's 2 first rounders. Unfortunately they don't show what the numbers would be if you back out the Mack trade, which I'd be very curious about - A big portion of the Bears section is recapping how much Trubisky and Files sucked last year, which I didn't need advanced analytics for? They do confirm that both guys sucked about equally, and their difference in traditional stats was mostly schedule - "Chicago opponents threw 36% of passes in the middle of the field, the highest figure in the NFL. Chicago's DVOA on these plays matched league average". This was something that has bugged me for a few years. Feels like the Bears get shredded up the middle, turns out it's a yes and no kind of thing - They're pretty high on the offensive line all things considered, especially since they were really bad (particularly against the run) prior to the bye last year. Ifedi especially gets more love than I'd have guessed - The advanced numbers are not nearly as high on Robinson and Mooney as the traditional ones, though the author's are quick to acknowledge how hard it can be to decouple QB play from WR stats, even advanced ones - Conversely, the advanced numbers are much higher on Montgomery than than the traditional ones, primarily because of how bad the line was his first 1.5 seasons as a Bear And here's the full blurb on Fields:

Yeah I don't think either gets anywhere close to $200M. Honestly though there's a lot of that with this FA class. I think as of right now I'd only expect Carlos Correa to top that amount, but there might be like a dozen $100M deals. Yeah, when I was working on my plan I saw a lot of good to really good players, but no great ones. Even Correa's been too up and down for me to be super comfortable giving him that $200M deal, though I'm guessing someone will do it. I was most shocked at how little production Seager's had since 2017. My perception was that he never really stopped playing at a 6+ WAR pace when he was on the field. Instead it appears to very much be a KB situation.

There was a Tweet on Friday that had when everyone we traded for last pitched that I really wish I had saved. But most of the guys pitched mid week last week, so we'll see them all get starts likely in the next 2-3 days. I think the exception is Bailey Horn, who I believe got put on the Development List. (Basically it's like the IL but instead of being hurt you go hang out in the Pitch Lab for a few weeks.)

Yeah I don't think either gets anywhere close to $200M. Honestly though there's a lot of that with this FA class. I think as of right now I'd only expect Carlos Correa to top that amount, but there might be like a dozen $100M deals.

I look to the Blue Jays and the Padres last winter for what I think makes the most sense for the Cubs' offseason. More the former than the latter. The Blue Jays had basically a blank slate for payroll, and used that to fortify their team with one superstar and a bunch of 1-2 year deals for talented guys who had down a down 2020. The Padres also threw some money around, but mainly leaned on their epically farm system. They gutted the middle tier of their farm, but were able to bring in 3 TOR starters while only giving up one of their top 5 prospects. The Cubs have a similar payroll blank slate, and a similarly deep farm (though without that top tier like SD). It's a little early to get hung up on specific players, or even specific positions of need, but broadly I'd like to see. 1. Sign one of the big boys at shortstop 2. Sign a RH OFer to help balance out the VERY lefty crop of OFersalready in house (Tommy Pham?) 3. Bring back Rizzo 4. Bring in a #2/#3 starter who will be around for multiple seasons. The rotation will probably need more love than this, but how well Mills/Steele/Thompson do from here out will determine exactly how much I think all but the cheapest permutations of the above result in the Opening Day 2022 team being better than the OD 2021 squad. And unlike this year, the pen won't be the only part of the roster that can reasonably expect reinforcements from Iowa. It's not a world-beater of a team, but a solid wildcard/bad division contender. And with the arrow pointing up given the youth.

Burl Carraway with only one walk in his last four outings, covering 5 innings. 8 strikeouts over those outings. It is not particularly impressive, but with his stuff we all knew that when his command got up to "adequate" he was gonna start moving fast. This might be a sign that's happening.

I honestly have no idea why you think that. They traded away everybody and will stink next year. They got what they could get to field a team. How does one witness this trading deadline and think it’s just a retooling? They gutted the roster and have garbage left. We don't need to stink next year. Jed has implied in his comments that they want to be competitive again as quickly as possible. Hence the "reload" phrasing as opposed to "rebuild" that the team has been very specific about. Yeah, there's no reason to think they won't be trying next year. Jed said it publicly during his "we're sellers" press conference, he's been saying it on background to the writers all month since, and the Kimbrel deal backs it up. If they're bad next year it'll be because they make a bunch of bad bets this winter. But they're gonna make those bets.

Relevant: Brandon McCarthy remains the best. Why isn't he hired by someone to produce some content? I think he's the hands-on part of an ownership group for a soccer team? Sort of like what Jeter is to the Marlins.

Canario getting the bump is a good sign. I assume PCA is a procedural thing?

If you're down on the trade I really recommend this piece from Dan Szymborski. Madrigal projects to ~13 WAR the next 5 years, at or above 2.5 per year, and at or above a .297 average each year. Similarly, Heuer projects to a 3.50 - 3.80 ERA every remaining year of his. These guys are part of the core right now. No wishcasting or development needed. Maybe Madrigal's style isn't part of your baseball aesthetic, or maybe you preferred actual prospects, but this was a coup from a value standpoint. And considering the team has a whole crop of carved up hams down in the DR and AZ I think it's a fantastic compliment to what's already in house and what they did with other deadline deals.

Keith Law on Kilian.

There's no law saying the Cubs can't trade Nico (or Madrigal) plus something for pitching and sign a good SS in the offseason. Yeah, I kind of wonder if we don't see Nico start getting time in CF again when he's off the IL. Next year he can own center (or at least the RH half of a platoon) until Davis is ready, and then shift into a Zobtist/supersub role.

Yeah, just to get to the relatively modest payroll of this year would leave a crap ton of money available. They'll definitely spend some, but I doubt they'll spend enough. Yeah, the team will enter the winter ~$100M short of where they were to open this season. Which itself is the lowest they've run since 2015. They could do something like Corey Seager, Tommy Pham, and Marcus Stroman without even running a top 10 payroll. I imagine the plan is something akin to what the Blue Jays did last winter. Sign a star to a mega contract (probably one of the shortstops) and then try to be opportunistic with short term deals and pillow contracts.

What's that a reference to? Jarred Kelenic

Yeah, an underrated aspect of today is how much of a beautiful mess this game is going to be

Madrigal was #42 on Fangraphs' Trade Value series like a week ago https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2021-trade-value-41-to-50/ He also projects north of 2 WAR each of the next five years. I'm very okay getting immediate safe value to contrast all the teenagers with limitless potential we're getting in other deals.

Wow good for Michael breaking that! Gimme Vaughn and pitching plz

Post Schwarber deal so.... :dontknow:

It's happening