Bertz

I do think Yu is at elevated risk for injury, but even setting that aside you said yourself that ALL pitchers are at high risk for injury. If something happens to Zach Davies, you choose your favorite guy out of the Iowa rotation to replace him. If something happens to Yu Darvish, you choose your third, because the first two are already taking MLB starts. That's on PTR's penny pinching, but those were the realities Jed had to choose from. In a normal season, or with a better team, I take the quality and figure out the quantity later. But this team was thin already, and we're heading into a season that might be apocalyptic on the injury front.

Which you can say all of the same for Arrieta, only Darvish just got done doing the good stuff whereas Jake has been trending away for four years now, with a more recent injury history. If we're just focusing on 2021 Zips, which is fine because I think it's the best of the options, I'll go back to my original point. Arrieta and Davies are projected to put up 3.0 fWAR in 267 innings, Darvish is 3.1 fWAR in 151. You can layer in Trevor Williams and his (encouraging) 1.4 fWAR in 140 innings, but I don't think it's fair to line Darvish up against all three, especially when Williams is getting paid less than Lester. Darvish has 140 innings (40 in 2018, 97 in the first half of 2019) of bad pitching where he fought injuries. Before that and especially after that, he's been a top 30 pitcher when he's pitched. And his bad first half of 2019 resulted in a lower ERA than what Jake just did. I don't think there is, or at least should be, much argument with Darvish's production on a per inning basis. I think deGrom, Cole, and Bieber are the only guys I'd for sure take over him right now. But Darvish has never been a paragon of health and durability, and now he's in his mid 30's. Add to that how brutal this season is expected to be from an injury standpoint, and I think the volume approach is probably the smart play. Taking three pitchers who project to ~3.5 WAR is probably better than having that tied up in one guy this season. And I think that's doubly true in the Cubs' case. The team lost three starters to FA, and PTR has decided to be as miserly as ever. While I get the point you're making with 267 vs. 150, this team needs those extra innings. The options were Yu's 150 and a HEAVY reliance on the Iowa crew, or the route that Jed took (which will still rely on Iowa more than we have in quite a while as it is).

Law is good IMO, but at this point I wouldn't pay just to read his stuff anymore. Whereas my ESPN Insider subscription was like 90% for him. I'm glad he went to the Athletic and not somewhere else, because I wouldn't have followed him. When he was younger he used to get a lot more first-hand looks at guys, so he would buck the consensus more. Now that he's middle aged (and no longer in AZ) he's not really that guy anymore. Eric Longenhagen's that guy now.

This is going to be a fascinating season for the pitching staff. The projections *hate* the pitching right now. Fangraphs has the Cubs projected for the 2nd least pitching WAR in baseball, tied with the Orioles. Pecota has the team at 21st in runs allowed (I don't want to put in the effort to split that between pitching and defense). But, like, you can see what the team is doing: - Kyle and Davies appear to be legit FIP beaters (and thus projection confounders?). If you use a runs allowed version of WAR, they rank 14th and 37th the last two years. FG projections have them as the 44th and 127th ranked pitchers for this upcoming year - Alzolay made a bunch of changes at the alternate site, and was phenomenal in his small sample in the big leagues. But the alternate site stuff doesn't count towards projections, so they see just 21 innings last year. That's understandably not enough to move the needle much on his projections, even if the eye test says he's legit now - Alec Mills is kinda boring, but does a lot of the same stuff with seam shifted wake and spin mirroring that Kyle does. He also has a career 4.06 ERA/4.73 FIP/4.26 xFIP as a starter. Even if you assume his low velocity means that homerun problem is here to stay, that's adequate 4th starter material. And if the deader ball or better luck fixes his dong problem, he might actually be kinda good? - Trevor Williams has a chance to join the long line of ex Pirates who leave and immediately find more success when they learn it's not illegal to throw pitches in the top half of the zone - Jake still has the same velo he had his last year in Chicago, when he was still pretty good (if no longer great). It's not hard to imagine the problem was the Phillies coaching staff and/or defense - The bullpen is the same deal as last year. Take a dozen guys who have elite velo and/or spin, and you will unearth 3-4 solid options to pair with Kimbrel/Wick/Chafin There's a ton of ifs there, but none of them are that outrageous. We're not asking for an injured guy to recover, or someone's velocity to magically come back. There will be some duds, probably a few spectacular ones. At the same time, Kyle's the only guy with a long term commitment. The team can cycle through guys until they find the right combo, especially since Iowa actually has a pretty solid staff for the first time in like a decade. It feels crazy, especially since I'm generally the type to be like "b-b-but the projections say blah," but I'm more confident in the pitching staff than the offense for this season.

So with all appropriate caveats about how much of a horsefeathsrs PTR is and how it shouldn't have been an either/or... you've gotta chalk it up to Jed here. He turned Darvish and Vic into Davies Joc Jake Romine 4 good prospects Plus whatever You'd money can buy in '22/'23. In a season where pitcher attrition is going to be through the roof? Yu was my favorite player on the team by a good bit but it's really hard not to say this is better for the team's competitive outlook.

Decent thread about how maybe tweaking some things could make him serviceable. If we can get 160-180 innings of 3.9-4.5 ERA ball I’d take it. This is interesting. His velocity is still basically where it was when he left. There are still some things to like about his secondaries. He still gets ground balls (xFIP thinks he's been a league average pitcher since leaving). Like, God mode Jake isn't walking through that door, but I'd absolutely buy that a smarter coaching staff can help him still be a #3 starter

Jake isn't great anymore, but unlike Lester there are some reasons to think he might still be pretty solid with some tweaks.

It's interesting that the NRI list is mostly just depth dudes rather than prospects. I expected to see Brennan Davis et al, since the minor league season for guys below AAA is pushed back a month. I wonder if teams have been told not to do that, or if they just don't want guys like Davis down in AZ for 2.5 months prior to starting their seasons.

Kiley had us at 22nd, and basically said that we're on the upswing but lack the top 100 types that tend to drive those rankings.

Justin Turner and 1 of Odorizzi, Walker or Jake would be the only thing where I could see that we could come away with as good or better of a team with moving Bryant then using the money to add stuff. That's true, though I'd wonder why the Mets wouldn't just nab Turner. I've gotta think if the Mets go for KB it's a sign Turner's heading back to LA. It's funny, I just looked at Keith Law's assessment of the Mets' farm: Jed's certainly has a type!

I've generally been among the more pro "trade KB" people around these parts going back to last year, but I'd horsefeathering hate doing it right now. The timing is awful, since there's nothing really left to reinvest that money in. What are you going to spend that $20M on? Travis Shaw and James Paxton? At this point hold on til the deadline and hope for a strong first half.

I'm hoping that from here we follow with a LH infielder to upgrade over Vargas.

Marisnick has a phenomenal glove and is ~average at the plate against lefties. So while Marisnick is a little better, in terms of roster fit this is a pretty much 1 for 1 replacement with Almora. Just trade a bunch of weak grounders for strikeouts.

Obviously we're all biased here, but this feels more right to me. I think on talent alone this is a top 10 system. That said, a big part of a farm's value rests on proximity, and the Cubs are rightly going to get marked down for that pretty heavily. - Iowa is a horsefeathering graveyard to open the year. Abbott, Miller, and Steele are probably the only top 30 guys who will open there? - Tenn will be better, but TBD on how much? Davis, Amaya, and Marquez will open there for sure. But is it just going to be those three and a bunch of (admittedly fun) relievers? Or will we also get some combo of Strumpf/Morel/Weber to help lengthen that lineup? Beyond that, both A Ball squads are going to be hella fun, but they are still just A Ball.

Keith Law ranked the Cubs' system 26th. Given the circumstances though, I'm not too concerned. He had the Cubs in a similar spot last year, and since then they've graduated Hoerner, had a fairly solid draft (which shouldn't move them up or down too much), and added a metric assload of IFA talent (both directly and through the Darvish trade). Keith doesn't have the best insight into IFA even in the best of times, so I'm not surprised he doesn't give that the weight I might think it deserves. I'm most interested to see Eric Longenhagen's eventual rankings. He does his lists a little later than everyone else, and lives down in AZ. So he's likely to actually have recent firsthand looks at guys.

More walks (and probably K's) in the very short term, but in the longer term less area for hitters to cover means more contact. You basically want both changes because they should work in concert to better incenivize balls in play.

Those things don't happen in a vacuum, Home runs and strike outs are correlated even if it isn't a perfectly linear relationship. yes, but softening the ball won't do anything to reduce strike outs unless you believe hitters will adjust to make more contact. Don't see that happening quickly so this change will likely result in the same strikeouts but fewer home runs. assuming they turn into outs, which may not be the case, this will make the game even more boring. for me, walks and strike outs are boring. home runs are good, although triples are more exciting. The consensus for how to "fix" the issues with lack of action is starting to coalesce around "deader ball, smaller zone." Looks like deader (and more consistent) ball is coming now, and I imagine smaller zone would come next year? I wouldn't be surprised if a new CBA is considered the more appropriate occasion to adjust the rulebook zone.

Wentz's ranks in DVOA the last 4 years: 6th, 13th, 20th, 34th Trubisky's: 29th (Rookie year), 19th, 26th, 24th Wentz is probably better than Trubisky, but I think the point is it's way too close for this to be the guy you hitch your wagon to. The only real arguments for Wentz being actually good and not just good by Bears' standards essentially boil down to making it 2017 again through either science or magic.