Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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Bregman also appears to be progressing So whatever happens it does appear things are going to start being whittled down after Imai/the holidays held everything up for weeks
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Yeah I think the calculus is something like Caissie + Max Meyer > Cabrera + Griffin Conine I don't knoe their depth chart well enough to know if those are the exact tradeoffs, but it's something like that. And definitely more complicated than oure selling, which is why the Cubs are an ideal partner.
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Oops I missed Busch. This looks like Steamer disliking his bat coming into last year: 108 wRC+ pre season '25 140 actual wRC+ in '25 122 wRC+ pre season '26 So he actually moved the needle a ton, it just started from a low place. He is another guy that will presumably get a bump when ZiPS comes out though. ZiPS had him at 117 coming into last year. I'd guess after last year it'll peg him around a 130 and ~3 WAR.
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They are inherently conservative, and they should be, but I'll say Steamer seems to really regress defense down to a nub. The Cubs have gotten a multi-win boost in the depth charts each of the last few years when they finish folding in ZiPS, and a large chunk of that is that ZiPS seems to actually acknowledge that Swanson and Hoerner are stellar defenders. For Horton I'd guess the weak projection is the lack of strikeouts. I do know Dan Szymborski said in a chat that ZiPS likes him a lot more than Steamer, but TBD what that exactly looks like.
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I doubt they even lose any games. Maybe they lop off a week to soft-launch the return to 154 games a season? But the timing of the TV deals means nothing catastrophic is going to happen. It's just going to be a bunch of annoying bluster like last time.
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This got me thinking. We have ZiPS projections for most but not all of the league at this point. This is how the various available SPs this winter rank in terms of projected WAR. Not yet projected: Cease, Valdez, King, Baz Ranger Suarez - 3.0 WAR Joe Ryan - 2.8 WAR Zac Gallen - 2.7 WAR Pablo Lopez - 2.6 WAR Mackenzie Gore - 2.6 WAR Sandy Alcantara - 2.3 WAR Edward Cabrera - 1.9 WAR Kris Bubic - 1.9 WAR Brandon Woodruff - 1.6. WAR Merrill Kelly - 1.3 WAR Tatsuya Imai - 1.2 WAR These numbers don't mean everything in this day of pitch design, but I do think it's interesting how much the completely unbiased computer projections compare to our general pref list around here (myself included, this isn't me casting aspersions).
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Also found this funny. ZiPS projections: Lopez - 141.1 IP, 117 ERA+, 2.6 WAR, salary just under $22M/year, entering his age 30 season Gallen - 174.2 IP, 110 ERA+, 2.7 WAR, based on Nightengale's report would get $22M/year, entering his age 30 season
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Some Twins people. including Trueblood who covers both teams, have suggested it. I suspect much like the Marlins are aiming to trade Alcantara or Cabrera but not both, the Twins probably look to move Lopez or Ryan but not both.
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I wonder if they're attempting this AND Tucker rather than Tucker OR Bichette/Bregman
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Feinsand thinks the Padres are going to get Okamoto. On the one hand it makes sense because they definitely don't need him to play any 3B, on the other hand Okamoto's bat sounds a bit fringey for 1B/COF?
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Jon Heyman: Cubs one of teams interested in Bo Bichette.
Bertz replied to Jason Ross's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
It's just another game of musical chairs: - Red Sox definitely want to add an impact infielder - Blue Jays, Cubs, Dodgers. and Mets have resources to use on a big move, but TBD if the infield is where they're going to use their bullet(s) - Giants, Angels, Pirates, Padres, and Mariners each want to add another infielder, but each seem fairly resource constrained already - Dbacks might be in the market, but they'd move Ketel Marte in the process so it'd be net 0 And then you look at the options available: Bichette, Bregman, Okamoto, Geno Suarez as first division types in FA. Marte, Paredes, Arenado, Donavan in trade. Andujar, Castro, Moncada as more 2nd division types available in FA. With a couple exceptions (e.g. the Pirates with Bichette) all of these teams should be and almost certainly are talking to all of these players. -
Case in point, two years ago the team had signed literally *nothing* at the MLB level by this point. I think they had made a few waiver claims and that's it. Shota was still a week out, Busch about a week after that. Neris towards the end of Jan, and Bellinger after ST had already started.
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Yeah I've been thinking more about Suarez too. Like we don't really want him because he goes against type (or I guess too much towards type?) but he's really really good. And to your point this team is all about value and Suarez sounds like he's going to get right around $100M and his resume with an average fastball would get more like $150M? Also adding a really good player but still managing to piss off the fanbase is a classic Jed move. I'm also watching Okamoto. I really hope Jed lands him, not so much because I'm enamored with him but rather we *know* the team is going to add a SP of substance, but we're left guessing at what they'll do beyond that. If Okamoto is locked in there's, at least for me, no more worry about whether this team is going to have a proper offseason. At that point it's just the academics of how they choose to round things out.
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I do wonder if there's a young 3B out there that we could do a challenge trade with. Like Owen Caissie for Jace Jung lets say? The problem with the current crop of Iowa bats isn't IMO with the bats themselves, it's the reduncancy across them. If you can diversify that just a bit I think it helps a lot of pieces on the roster fit more snugly together.
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I hate the "except for when he was good he was bad" line of argument broadly, but it's especially poor when a guy was playing with an injury you have no reason to think is chronic.
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I don't expect Bichette but basically any argument you can make for the Bregman fit applies to Bo too. Bichette's going to get a longer contract but that's largely a wash with being 4 years younger. If they do the "sign a 3B trade for a SP" move I wonder if they put any thought into getting Shaw CF reps as part of his super sub role.
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I don't want to go nearly as far as "no big deal" but yeah i think we should collectively acknowledge that, even accounting for the opt outs, this guy essentially got Jameson Taillon money. You have to update your priors when a guy gets ~half as much money as expected. You just have to.
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ZiPS also didn't love him. I'm really curious if his market cratering is because the projections are so soft or because the private side pitch design guys are just that much more bearish on him than the public ones. The other thing that's weird to me is if his market is *this* bad why the hell is it holding everything else up? Was Boras flat unwilling to move on anyone else until Imai/Okamoto got settled?
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Not really?
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Man it was clear the pricetag was coming down the last few days but wow that's quite a haircut. Considering the lack of a QO the industry clearly sees him a tier behind King, and probably Gallen.
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I'm not an expert at the pitch design stuff (if it were a foreign language I would say I can read it but not write it), but if I'm interpeting everything I've read properly the potential issue is with his fastball. There's basically three countervailing factors: 1. The velocity is good, with the expectation that he sits north of 95 over here 2. The movement sucks, living in the "deadzone" without exceptional ride, cut, or carry 3. His arm angle is special, which *should* make his fastball play up at the top of the zone So how gung-ho anyone is about him is basically a question of how they weight the above three factors, plus the bigger picture stuff like his age and his pre-2025 command/performance issues. I get why a team would like him but be willing to draw a firm line in the sand, especially with the number of alternatives still out there. That said I have a hard time seeing him not being worth at least 5/100ish.
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Sign that teams that were in on Imai and didnt get him are moving on?
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Two years ago some nasty post mortems came out about the "Boras 4", notably that for teams calling on Jordan Montgomery Boras wouldn't seriously engage and kept trying to upsell them to Blake Snell. You kind of wonder about whether these guys have been similarly burned. Boras didn't want to move the ball with either until say two weeks ago, and now teams are winning the staring contest because the non-Boras market hasn't really moved since the meetings? Basically he was counting on more of the Valdez/Tucker/Bichette types to be gone by now and now the deadlines are squeezing him. From a labor perspective I support Boras but it feels like hes so big there are inevitable conflicts of interest.
