Bertz

Do we think Theo tweets from his burner account one last time before handing the reigns over to Jed?

This sucks, but I am glad they're doing it now. I'm sure some if it is lip-service, but he's not wrong when he says that with the long term decisions that need to be made this offseason it makes more sense for Jed to be the guy. I do also wonder if this means the offseason is going to be more oriented towards selling than "threading the needle.". It doesn't have to but it easily could when we look back. I'm also curious if they do bring in a #2 behind Jed, or if that's earmarked for someone internal. Kantrovitz maybe? I would like to get another prominent outside voice brought in. I also wonder about money. $10M is not nothing, especially in this market. Theo will certainly get some on his way out the door, and Jed will hopefully get a healthy bump. Does some make its way back to player acquisition?

The budget is keeping them from adding to a team that clearly has some flaws, shortcomings, redundancies, etc. The only way to change that and still try and win without bottoming out is to move on from one of the better/more expensive players and use that money/trade capital to deepen the roster. Not saying I like it, but I get it. Moving KB for Kieboom (or whatever prospect(s) you want to consider) and NT'ing Schwarbs free's up about $30 mil, it also gives you a player(s) for KB who you presumably control longer. I think there's a decent argument that whatever KB returns + 2-3 of DJ, Eaton, Wong, Brantley, other NT/FA position players and a non Bauer FA SP for that ~$30 mil can give us a more competitive team in 2021 vs just running it back with the core and a few Kipnis level FA adds on the margins. But everything I have read sounds like PTR wants to cut payroll and not trade $30 million to spend the same money on 2-3 other players. They will have a competitive team (in a lousy division) for 2021 without making any changes. The problem is we have no idea how much payroll is getting cut by. Right now it's ~$45M less than last year with just guys hitting FA. That's about a 20% drop. We know there's not that full $45M available to Theo to spend, but is there $15M? Or is it so bad he still needs to cut another $10M? Has the good news on vaccines moved the number up, making some of the more dour reports from the last few weeks excessive? We just have no idea, and so it's hard to be too attached to any specifics. I tend to think it's explicitly because of that lousy division you have to make some moves. That's the one specific I will latch onto. There will be no better opportunity to start guys like Bote and Caratini and not have it cost you a playoff spot. Make a few trades to improve the long term outlook (I vote KB and Willson, but I'd listen to other ideas), and use the limited funds and the huge market of mid-tier players to patch the holes with cromulent veterans.

His spin and velo both spiked in limited action last year. Even still, this provides a hopeful piece of evidence for this market not being a total horsefeathering disaster.

A few less talked about teams that I think make sense for Kris Bryant: Mets - JD Davis is about as much of a 3B as Ryan Braun was. Jeff McNeil can play it but I think they like moving him around a la Ben Zobrist. Acquiring KB for primarily $ and keeping the farm intact is exactly the type of move they've said they're looking to make Giants - Longoria is still fine so it wouldn't necessarily be for 3B. They're looking to add but might be a year early, so getting KB on a 1 year deal for mostly money improves them while keeping the powder dry for next winter Tigers - Same exact deal as the Giants Padres - This is admittedly a long shot, as it would require Wil Myers coming back our way to make the money work for them. You'd lose the ability to reinvest KB's salary in the FA market, but you'd actually be getting a good prospect return back for taking on the rest of Myers' deal. This sort of buying prospects move deprioritizes 2021 more than I think we expect the FO to

Okay this is actually pretty cool. I think she's been in the league office the last few years.

I'm not clicking the link because I don't want to reward him, but BPs stats thought deGrom and Nola were better than Bauer: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/62195/cy-young-awards-in-2020-the-problem-of-opponent-quality/ So if you're going to say "BP told me to do it" then explain Bauer at #1.

As a team that might be sneaky buyers this winter I hope they do something dumb.

Sadly, I don’t think they do in this market. True or false, the owner will all be PTR this year. Most of the insider types have indicated that they expect the stars are still going to get paid, and it'll be the middle class of players that are going to get worked over. Darvish is only owed 3/59, and Kyle 3/43.5 with a club option. Those are ludicrously team-friendly contracts against the backdrop of Trevor Bauer being expected to get 4-5 years at 30+ million per.

Unwarranted "Don't you know who I am" is one of my favorite flavors of douchiness. Like even at the height of his powers I'm not sure he warranted that reaction outside of St. Louis.

Good piece, though it's striking to me that Brett is quickly transitioning from absurdly optimistic to be much more on the dour end of things. I think he underrates how good of shape the pitching is in. The team desperately needs a mid-rotation starter, but this is not a bad offseason to need a short term patch for the middle of your rotation. This pitching staff is good enough, and this division is bad enough, that you can probably slide a Mike Minor into the rotation and be decent favorites next year even after losing some real talent on offense. IMO that's how you "thread the needle." I know it's not this simple, but it seems to me like the obvious path forward is to trade KB and Willson. KB to net the $ for other moves, and Willson to get you that real infusion of talent for 2022+. It also works out that we have solid in-house replacements for both, so you can allocate your resources to the best available players rather than being locked in to specific positions of need. The exception is if there's a mandate to cut additional payroll. The ~$25M that trading KB and Willson would save is enough have an adequate offseason in this market. But if PTR says you need to cut like 10+ before you can begin reinvesting anything, then salvaging this offseason quickly becomes untenable. Go full bore, trade Yu and Kyle who will each bring back massive Quintana-esque returns.

When PTR and Theo confirmed he was coming back, they couched all of their statements in language like "We expect...." or "The plan is for..." Theo's so careful with his words, there was clearly an "unless" involved and this makes by far the most sense.

I'm a bit worried this is because he's been beating up on guys a few years younger than him in Instructs, but still nice to see

I think the Mets are an underrated option here. JD Davis is about as much of a 3B as Ryan Braun was, and they seem to like using McNeil in a Zobrist style super utility role.

My wishlist for this offseason is: - Vet #3 starter - RH OFer who can at least fake CF - LH IFer - Young near MLB-ready SP who can hang at Iowa with Abbott - Young MLB-proven bat-first position player The latter two obviously come via trade, but the first three probably can be knocked out via FA. I'd say Paxton/Grossman/Wong would be my top choices respectively, but I'd be perfectly fine with something more like Minor/Pillar/Profar. With how big of a question mark payroll is though it's hard to get too attached to specific names.

Food for thought, though I don't actually agree with this take. I actually thought Gausman getting one was a somewhat encouraging sign for this winter. If he'd done what he did over a full season, total no-brainer, but over only 60 innings that's actually somewhat aggressive. And Semien not getting one is slightly surprising, but his 2019 was very clearly juiced ball aided. And here in 2020 Statcast backs up the idea that he declined in all phases. It's not good news certainly, but I thought the QO decisions were one of the first signs the bottom isn't going to completely fall out from the market this winter.

It's interesting how many high end pitchers were briefly Cubs before going elsewhere and blossoming. Like I saw in Sharma's latest article that Liam Hendriks was a Cub for like 10 minutes in 2014ish. Reading between the lines, this seems part of why the FO pushed so hard to go from Maddon/Bosio to Ross/Hottovy

I lean towards this being Cleveland being Cleveland during the Pandemic. Them not being willing to pay a reliever $10 million should surprise zero people, even less as a result of the pandemic, and then when you notice he's lost alot of velocity the past two years despite relative health and the shortened 2020 it just seems like them making a tough call I think it's bigger than Cleveland. It's them coming to the conclusion that he has no/negative trade value at that dollar amount. Exactly. Thought this was interesting though. Teams might be incredibly austere early in the offseason and then open it up a bit in Jan/Feb depending on how much better things look?

https://twitter.com/lindseyadler/status/1321883110708051970?s=19

I don't think one gif is enough for this one

This is really bad. Wong you can argue would have happened anyway because of how flooded the 2B market is going to be, plus the fact they already have Edman. And everyone else prior to this was certainly going to happen regardless. But in a normal market Hand would be due 3-5 years at 15+ a year. Hopefully this is just Cleveland being Cleveland, and this offseason is more bad than apocalyptic.