Bertz

I think Brett's probably right on the money here

Hoooooolllllllllyyyyyyy Horsefeathers I'd assume Cronenworth comes back this way, hence them getting Kim as well? Maybe Wil Myers too? Otherwise that's ~$40M outlaid in 24 hours. We knew they had some room this offseason but I didn't think it was nearly that much.

!?!

I'm hoping this is a matter of evaluation and not financials. Mooney and Sharma's piece this morning indicated that there is currently *some* money to play with this winter. At least the Kyle Schwarber money. So I'm hoping that our FO is concerned with Kim's ability to handle velocity (Keith Law is I know), or has some other issue with him from a scouting perspective.

Twins, Angels, and Blue Jays I think make a ton of sense. Each has a strong farm, a need at the front of the rotation, and indications are they have at least one big money move in them. Twins especially, as they finished second for him in FA. Phillies and Yankees maybe if the right set of dominos fall this offseason? Maybe the Giants try to compete a year early?

The Padres are so damn fun I feel like this is bad for the Cubs' wheeling and dealing though. Padres were probably the most fun Darvish option, and the Rays made the most sense for a catcher. And neither team was a threat to fill their need through FA. So now it's basically wait for FA to play out and then take advantage of whoever is left holding a bag of money.

I think I've come around to trading Darvish instead of KB: - Darvish is probably the most valuable player on the roster - Even so, Darvish's contract and NTC make him complicated to move in-season - I tend to think "age is just a number" for pitchers. But still, keeping a 34 year old pitcher because you're banking on value in his age 35 & 36 seasons is probably fraught - Darvish is one of 3 players on the roster making real money beyond this year. Moving him now gives you more of a "fresh start" after 2021 (this is not necessarily a positive obviously) - Bryant has fairly modest value right now, but with his history a hot two months will give him a ton by July If the only plan for competing this year is "be less bad than the competition" then you might as well cash in on your lone superstar. Trade Darvish and a catcher this winter, trade at least one of Bryant/Kimbrel in July, extend Baez or Rizzo, and try to put an actual good team out there again in 2022.

The entire NL Central is basically following Jack Donaghy's "into the crevasse" plan from 30 Rock

It's weird to me that Morosi keeps bringing this up, but also keeps saying it's a thing that makes sense rather than it's a thing he's heard. I do like the Padres as a trade partner a lot though. And I've mentioned earlier in the offseason, but pending payroll and whatever other irons are in the fire, I'd happily take Wil Myers back if it improved the prospect return. Like for example if my options are Darvish for Abrams and Morejon or Darvish for Abrams, Myers, and Patino, give me door #2.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/what-the-braves-can-tell-us-about-mlb-financial-losses-in-2020/ If you do care what the Owners lost, I think this is a good look based on the Braves. They're the one team with sort of open books, on account of being owned by a public company. Even still, some assumptions and guesswork are required. But here's the money passage:

A good, substantive, article from Mooney. Which is definitely not the norm for him. Hits on lots of points, but this stood out: So basically, in the first ~4 years the org drafted a bunch of safe arms who could spin a breaking ball, with the implicit idea that a few would add some velocity and exceed their perceived ceiling. But when they had the opportunity to push guys to add that velocity, they didn't take it like they should have.

With Ervin onboard, if we're staying cheap this offseason I'd love to add Robbie Grossman and Adam Duvall to the outfield. Both guys have their problems, but would complement the current group (and each other)well. And they'd probably cost combined about as much as JBJ for this year. It probably requires the DH to keep everyone happy as far as playing time. I also don't love not having a high end defensive CF, but at the same time we'd have five guys who can at least fake CF? So defensively it'd be plus even if it's not in the traditional "strong up the middle" way.

In addition to hitting lefties well, defensive stats seem to paint him as a roughly average CF. I'm very happy to get him free over waivers, I wouldn't have hated trading a little bit for him. Hopefully he's the fifth outfielder rather than the fourth, but really can't complain about him on his own.

I really like this hire when paired with Dombrowski.

The good news is that ZIPS is rarely right How did their projections for last year do against how our pitching staff actually performed? I guess thats hard to figure out since the season was so short, but I'm at the point where I dont care how bad they are projecting our pen to be...we've obviously been able to cobble together something resembling a solid bullpen most seasons. I'm not sure if a projection system can account for the Cubs scooping up trash heap guys and quickly rebuilding them into passable bullpen arms. All teams do this to some extent but it seems like the Cubs either manage to do it more, or have a higher success rate. Yeah the problem is two parts IMO. First, the depth chart has to settle on 8 names, whereas in reality there's probably 3-4 spots that are truly up for grabs, and will be dictated by in season performance. Second is that these are 50th percentile projections. If the Cubs have 10 arms competing for those last three spots like they did last year, you expect one guy to hit his 90th percentile projection, one to hit his 80th, etc. So while these 8 names mean out to a fairly crummy projection, in reality the stock portfolio approach to bullpen arms is gonna net out much better than this, though potentially not til after a pretty rocky start. And that's giving the Cubs zero credit for any Rays' style devil magic. I imagine this year we're going to see if that approach works for the rotation. I expect Jed will bring in a veteran or three, at least one good enough to be pencilled into a spot. But at least two spots are gonna be a battle royale, with Mills and Alzolay the favorites but not having particularly long leashes.

Fantastic read. Every time he speaks it becomes obvious why Breslow is rocketing up this organization.

He was on a Minor League deal with the Yankees last year, and the Yankees are THE premier team at rehabilitating bats. They're basically the hitter version of what the Rays do with relievers. So this is interesting in the same way Ryne Stanek became like 30% more interesting when we saw the Rays and Dodgers like him. Even if there's not anything deeper there though, Iowa is pathetisad on the position player front. So this is still very valuable depth regardless.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/30568689/what-jeff-passan-hearing-new-homes-george-springer-nolan-arenado Passan with a list of teams you should probably expect some spending from this offseason

ZiPS *hates* the pitching staff. My god. Even Yu and Kyle it likes but has pretty modest innings totals for. On the offensive side, no one projects as a star anymore. Rizzo and Baez each project at 3.3 WAR to lead the team.

Miguel Amaya: Still raking I feel like I can talk myself into "actually this season wasn't that bad for him developmentally.". Amaya was up in ML spring training basically the entire time in March. Then he was at the alternate site from day 1, which I think only he, Davis, and Morel can say among notable bats? While the alternate site didn't have "real" games, he got plenty of at bats and got to work with pitchers who were primarily AAA caliber. Now, he's in winter league, which again is typically AA-AAA caliber. You'd probably have preferred he simply get 500 ABs in the Southern League, but probably not by *that* much?

Yeah, I think best guess on payroll is that we're near PTR's cap already. Most teams this offseason who we have a decent grasp on their payroll situation are cutting 10-20% off of last year's pre-pandemic mark. The Cubs, if you count Lester's buyout as part of 2021 payroll, are at 20% right now ($215 vs $170). And that seems to track with what the local guys are saying. They're making it seem like, without a trade, there's enough room for a 2020 style offseason. A few Kipnis types at a few million a pop, and a bunch of Tepera/Winkler style split contracts. So I'm personally assuming there's ~$10 million to play with, plus any additional money saved in trade. Maybe Jed's playing possum. Or maybe the positive vaccine news has made PTR revise payroll upward. Unlikely, but we'll likely find out pretty quickly after the new year. Most of the notable Japanese and Korean guys were posted the first week of December. So their journeys have to find a resolution one way or another the first week of January.

The Twins also seem like a logical destination for Darvish. They finished second for him a few years back, and they could really use someone to push Berrios into the #2 role he's more suited for.