Bertz

Guessing it's this

Cubs Twitter is acting as if we should take this seriously :dontknow:

Woah I kind of did a "Sure Jan" yesterday because it was Nightengale, but Puma's legit connected on the Mets. It sounds like the Mets are going to stay under the tax, at least for this year. They're currently ~$35M under, so maybe they prefer Bryant + another few bench/pen guys + wiggle room at the deadline to just Springer? It's not unreasonable.

The splits question is an interesting one. It doesn't tie into this directly, but I thought this article from a few months back was interesting: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-southpaw-advantage/ By this same logic you'd *think* that guys with weird release points would do better than their raw stuff would indicate against opposite handed hitters. But in practice most of the funky guys I could come up with off the top of my head, e.g. Chad Bradford, were extremely vulnerable to opposite handed hitters. Is that a testament to how terrible their raw stuff is? Maybe it depends on arsenal? I think, anecdotally, the funkiest guys are sinker/slider types. Those pitches have the largest platoon splits. But if you have a guy whose game is tunneling the high fastball with the curveball, maybe a lower release point doesn't make them any more vulnerable to opposite handed hitters? So good news for Patterson, bad news for Miller?

McHugh would be the perfect incentive laden MiLB deal type

This is a very Cleveland trade. Gimenez as the headliner is kindaweak, but it still nets out pretty wellfrom a dollars/WAR standpoint. Cleveland are obsessed with the "portfolio approach."

Not Bauer clearly

Curious if this is going to be in addition to or in lieu of one of Springer/Bauer

Here's some data to back up Bryan's interest in these low approach angle guys. And coincidentally, looks like Jack Patterson's got some of this going on as well Clearly appears to be a thing the Cubs are in on

So out of curiosity, I plugged the three names Rosenthal specifically mentioned into this tool: https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator/ If you're not familiar, It's pretty cool. It uses established research to convert prospect rankings into dollar values, and for MLBer does the old Dave Cameron dollars/WAR move. It's certainly got problems, any sort of tool that completely strips context out of the equation will, but I like it a lot as a quick and dirty way to sense check these sorts of hypothetical deals. Anyways, when you plug the three names Rosenthal mentioned into the tool, you get a value that matches what Contreras is worth. The tool gives Willson $28.3M in surplus value, while the prospects are at $30.4M. Considering how many assumptions go into something like this, that difference is negligible. Considering this is Rosenthal and how connected he is, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the current proposal on the table from one of the sides.

Bauer and Contreras would probably butt the Angels right up against the luxury tax, which sounds like is their line.

So I assume we have to hear something about Sugano by lunch time at the latest? Otherwise he's likely going back to Japan?

That is extremely annoying I really hope this is because we're aiming higher for our starting OF spot and Grossman wanted a full-time gig. But my confidence in that being the case is...not high. Same. And I fear aiming higher is JBJ and I am not a big fan of his or his fit on this team. I’d rather have Grossman over him to begin with all factors included. JBJ's a good news/bad news thing. Like if the rumor is true we can play in the 8 figure salary end of the pool. That's exciting! But I think like you if that's the case I have other guys I'd rather target.

That is extremely annoying I really hope this is because we're aiming higher for our starting OF spot and Grossman wanted a full-time gig. But my confidence in that being the case is...not high.

Very relevant to this conversation. Interesting to me that you'd let Rea go if you think you're really going to go 9+ deep in starters. To me that says one of these: 1. It's beyond courtesy, more like an unwritten rule that you've gotta let a fringey guy like that take his talents to the NPB/KBO 2. The org is gonna bring in multiple additional starters, whether they be MLB or Iowa 3. Rea was WAY further down the depth chart than I was giving him credit for

I will be happy if/when Javy hits better but for reasons I can't explain I have a visceral 'they should just deal with it' reaction to players needing in-game video to be successful. That was my gut reaction too. Though this on twitter from Eno was a good point ~90% of the player-improvement tech is pitcher focused, so we probably do need to throw hitters this bone.

This is good, though I think the best solution I've read came from a few years ago: http://www.captainsblog.info/2019/02/02/solving-baseballs-free-agency-freeze-requires-addressing-a-crisis-of-competition/24919/

If you want to feel better about Javy's (but also Yelich's) chances of rebounding next season

I wonder if that came down to a conversation where the cubs wanted him to convert to reliever and he wanted a shot at being an SP somewhere. My guess is he's further down both the SP and the RP depth chart than I realized. Like if he's currently 8th on the SP depth chart and 11th on the RP one, that's a guy you'd like to have around but you're not gonna fight for him to stay. The Cubs have had their problems from a labor relations perspective, but they're pretty good about doing guys solids like this.

Cleveland makes A LOT of sense for a Contreras deal. This is a laughably deep farm system. Though who knows how much of Lindor's salary they're willing to reinvest after they trade him

Welp, Rea's gone. Hopefully more Iowa SP depth gets brought in.

I really like Profar's fit as a bat, but I worry about his 2B defense. He was borderline unplayable in 2019, and I know at one point there was a little bit of talk about the Yips. The numbers say he was still bad last year, but in very limited time (so it could be a rust/reps thing). So if he's actually a 2B/LF, he's kind of a perfect fit on the roster. If he's just a LF, much less so.

I would imagine at the moment the battle for the fifth starter spot would be Rea and Miller fighting it out, with Abbott as someone they would hope is viable around midseason. I'm certain it won't come to that though. There'll be at least one veteran added, possibly more. I'm hoping that they use Rea exclusively out of the bullpen. He looked fantastic in short relief before they started yo-yoing him back and forth. There's clearly merit to taking a finesse guy and letting him air it out to the point he's touching 96. Especially since most of our other relief guys (save Kyle Ryan) are spin or velocity monsters with modest-at-best command. I also HATE the idea of bringing Lester back. There are three things a SP can give you: reliability, upside, and flexibility. Lester gives you reliability in terms of innings, but nothing else. His upside is gone at this point, and because of his status with the org he has a WAY longer leash than his current ability would dictate. It's a recipe for a 5.50 ERA in July still getting run out there every 5th day. My ideal would be to add at least two, ideally all three, of the following: - A super high upside veteran on a pillow deal. James Paxton, Corey Kluber, Garrett Richards, Chris Archer, etc. A guy who, while it's certainly not the mean outcome, could legitimately fill Darvish's hole in the rotation - Another pre-arb SP with minor league options. Spencer Howard as part of a Contreras deal would probably be my platonic ideal here? - A decently high floor SP on a Minor league deal. Wade Miley, Gio Gonzalez, and Anibal Sanchez have all paid off huge as MiLB signings in the last few years. Obviously if they're on a minor league deal they're not a guy you can count on, but someone more likely to give you 5+ IP/start and an ERA south of 5 than Tyson Miller is You open 2021 with this rotation: Hendricks James Paxton type Davies Alzolay Mills But this rotation is certainly not going to go 162. Paxton and Alzolay are severe injury risks, while Mills and Alzolay are significant performance risks. You run these top 5 guys out there, but between injuries, ineffectiveness, plus some planned stretches of utilizing a 6 man rotation, you will give plenty of starts to the Iowa guys. Likely enough to figure out which one (or hopefully two!) of the Iowa kids are ready to perform moving forward. I'd love to have 4 spots pretty well figured out going into next offseason. From there bring in another quality vet, and have Brailyn lurking as the injury/performance replacement.