Bertz

Agreed with this, I really like the no offdays Division Series. I'd keep this moving forward, maybe have 3 home games followed by two away games for the higher seed instead of 2-2-1? I think both changes probably shift the odds a little bit in favor of the higher seed.

Brett's write-up is pretty spot on too. There are a few additional things I'd point out though if you want to be less pessimistic about the payroll: 1. The last two years payroll has averaged ~225. That may be a more accurate baseline than just 2020, as clearly the idea was to splurge, then get just under the tax, and repeat. So if you lop 25%/15% off of that baseline, you're talking more like 170/190 2. Marquee is now fully up, and they got their carriage deals with all of the providers you would have reasonably expected. For ~5 years this was supposed to be the payroll silver bullet, and now it's here That said, Brett is generally captain optimism, and he is vaguely connected, so if he's saying to pump the brakes, you probably should pump the brakes. Also, the next time PTR exceeds expectations will be the first since he poached Theo.

If everybody is selling who's going to be buying? In terms of teams who are going to net add payroll, I'd guess we could count them on one hand. Mets, Phillies, Blue Jays all look likely. White Sox and Nats wouldn't be shocking. And maybe one or two of the rebuilding teams might try to take advantage and start shopping early? But mostly it's going to be teams moving payroll around, e.g. let's say the Cubs traded Baez and signed Marcus Semien. In that scenario they're not adding money, but they are still buying. It sounds like we're going to see a record number of non-tenders this winter, so I expect to see a lot of "team X cuts $40M in arb players and adds back $25-30M in FA." It's going to be ugly.

To me, this is the nightmare scenario. If the core guys don't have value in trade, then let them go. Everyone is on non-guaranteed deals, there's no gun to the FO's head forcing them to keep the band together. And we've seen that for whatever reason (the velocity thing sounds pretty compelling to me), the whole has consistently been less than the sum of its parts with this group. I understand not going scorched earth, as I imagine for each individual the smart money is on a bounceback. But there's no reason we should be betting on four concurrent bouncebacks. And certainly not spending ~$70M for the privilege. Do something to start working towards the next great Cubs team. I personally think the pitching is good enough and the division is bad enough that you can do a "retool not rebuild" kind of thing. But even if you don't, start the teardown process now. You don't have to make nine trades this winter to tear it down to the studs in one go, but make like three. The FA market is also going to be absolutely flooded with mid level players this year. For a front office that prides themselves so much on their talent evaluation, this is what they're so highly compensated for. If Theo wants to continue being the highest paid non-player in baseball, he probably can't just sit on his hands for a third straight offseason.

We know most teams are going to cut spending this winter. Here, we finally get some numbers for a team. The Rangers are cutting payroll by about 1/3rd, from ~150 to ~100, though it sounds like they were already planning to do some cutting pre-COVID. I wouldn't be surprised if we see most teams cut something like 10-20%. This FA market is going to be a bloodbath.

A good article on the different schools that various front offices fall into, if you want to look at the different directions we could go post-Theo.

It's really hard to say where payroll is going to be this offseason, and that obviously informs what's possible. I'm hoping that with Marquee going full force they still run something like $200M, but safe bet is always going to be that the Ricketts will disappoint. I mentioned this in the game thread, aside from Heyward the FO can potentially clean the slate this winter. There are currently only five guaranteed deals on the team: Yu, Kyle, Bote, Kimbrel, and Heyward. The first three are clearly positive value, and Heyward's clearly immovable. Kimbrel's harder to say, but he's looked like 2018 Kimbrel for the last 6 weeks. I'd bet that's enough for teams to consider him fixed and take on his money. I 100% trade Willson this winter. With him actually being valuable and Caratini and Amaya behind him he's gotta go. Bryant as well. I'd rather have Bote starting and ~$22M to spend than Bryant for next year. He'll probably bring back a couple of fun arms but honestly I trade him regardless of the return. Anything beyond that depends on how high payroll can go, though Schwarber probably goes for me as well.

And Happ if he's willing to sign an extension. he's the one guy that'll have real value in a trade I think Willson will too, but yeah that's fair. That said if Theo wants to, he can pretty much clean slate it this winter outside of Heyward: - Heyward is unmovable. His big year probably would have made him an option to trade in a normal winter, but this offseason is not one to move big money - Kyle and Yu, even with big $, are so good they're easily movable - What Kimbrel has done since ~mid-August is probably enough to give his contract some real surplus value, but at minimum he could be moved without eating any money - Bote makes like $3M a year and is a league average player. Very easy to trade right now Everyone else is on a non guaranteed deal. If the FO wants to they can completely remake the team at this point.

And Happ if he's willing to sign an extension.

Yes, a solo homerun is a play we've all seen hundreds of times? Hasn't every baseball fan?

Now would be a good time for pissed KB

That was a really interesting note at the start of the broadcast about the futility against pitches 95+. I'm trying to find that data for prior years, because it would explain SO MUCH about what's gone wrong the last few years. If the Cubs are particularly susceptible to velocity, in an era where velocity is spiking, that would explain the downward slide the core has been on every year. It would also explain their problems in the clutch. Further, it'd be a HUGE indictment of the FO. Because while I'm having trouble finding that data publicly, that should be a pretty easy analysis for FOs to do.

TATIS Oh my that bat flip and stare down just now is giving me the vapors

It's real

Ummm, the radar does not look that bad so not sure what's going on.

Extending a veteran guy 2-3 years from FA is a terrible idea. It almost always works out poorly: Braun, Longoria, Tulo, Howard, Miggy, etc. I legitimately can't think of an occasion where it worked out...was one of Jeter's deals this far from FA maybe? The problem is the guys are making real money by this point, so you're not getting that big of a discount. And if you're not getting a huge discount, that's a lot of risk to take on for a fairly small reward. Add on top of that Yelich was recovering from major knee surgery, and just a horrible idea from Stearns.

...wasn't Ross a MLB catcher for multiple seasons? Like, IRL? I kind of wonder if that's doing some of the harm right now. He obviously has a strong grasp of what's going on on the field. Is he spending too much of his attention on the micro level field general type stuff ("Kimbrel is dropping his arm when he throws the curve") and less on the macro level game and series management stuff? Because I feel like his issues are usually reacting too late to problems moreso than making nonsensical decisions.

Generally I'm of the school that the tactical stuff we see is not the most important aspect of a managers job. By all accounts Ross is very good at the soft skills part of the job. But the guy REALLY needs to work on the in game stuff. Luckily that's not that hard to learn. Play a bunch of The Show this offseason or something.

They're done. Their one shot was to do a 2016 Indians thing with Woodruff as Kluber and Williams/Hader as Allen/Miller.

Reds have 1st and 3rd with no outs and the middle of the order up...and 6 pitches later inning over

Sooo cool but winds blowing out 20-30mph to RF? Interesting. Yeah I can't remember a day this chilly with winds out that strong. This game on paper has the makings of an absolute drubbing. But these types of games make me the most nervous. It seems like they always end up going the exact opposite of how they're teed up. Like WS Game 3 where Josh Tomlin blanked the Cubs 1-0 with the wind howling out.