Bertz

Catching market continues to move along, but we're down to only ~3 guys who could adequately backfill Willson.

those steamer projections are a total trainwreck though; half of the top 10 there might not even be starters meanwhile reigning 2-time all-star is squarely backup status, just a complete mess I agree the defensive numbers don't pass the smell test, which is why I zeroed them out. Or do you just not like projections in general?

All of these trade proposals involving all stars (Contreras, Bryant, etc.) talk about getting young players back, which is fine if those young players are going to contribute to the Cubs at the major league level in 2020 and 2021. I'm not interested in 18-20 year-olds that "might" be really good in 2023-2024. Me neither. When I picture a Willson trade, I picture getting back a starter who is at worst half season from being ready and a reliever who I would be comfortable giving 8th inning work on opening weekend. To use the Padres as an example, as they're my preferred destination, I'd look at packages like Cal Quantrill + Andres Munoz or Adrian Morejon + Matt Strahm.

IMO the Contreras trade is more about how solid Vic is and the prospect of getting some ML ready young pitching than it is about any deficiency of Willson's. Here are the Steamer projected WAR/450 values for each guy assuming neutral defense: Willson - 2.6 Vic - 2.0 Castro - 1.7 Because catchers have limited PT, you're basically looking at 450 PAs of your primary guy and 225 of your backup in a typical year, so Willson+Vic projects at 3.6 WAR and Vic+Castro at 2.8. We're talking about roughly a win of difference even when assuming that framing is complete hokum. If we were an AL team that could DH him and squeeze out another 100 PAs it may be different, but as is the dropoff looks small enough to be worth nabbing a few fun young pitchers.

And had 10 HR in his first 2000 pro PA. I really feel a lot of his offensive value is baked mostly in the juiced ball. The OBP is nice but I dont believe the power is real. Yeah Statcast has him in the 8th (!?!) percentile for Average Exit Velocity and Hard Hit Rate. Considering the Brewers just non tendered half their team he's probably a solid depth piece, but that's likely all he is.

Nah, they're incredibly overrated. On average, fans especially but even teams fall victim to optimism bias when projecting out young players. Athletes fall apart at a way higher rate than we are comfortable baking into our projections. Having them under non-guaranteed team control >>>> owing them guaranteed deals. It depends on your grading criteria. If you're talking about how many of these deals work out for teams versus how many work out for players, I believe it's pretty close to 50/50. If you're looking at raw dollars though, teams come out WAY ahead. One Chris Sale or Evan Longoria deal is probably equivalent to four or five deals going the other way. That being said the crazy deals with like three club options seem to be going extinct, so there's a good chance you are right looking forward.

Yeah, Brett's having a mini meltdown on Twitter over this and I don't get it. Bundy when he threw 95 had promise and untapped potential. Bundy now that he throws 91-92 is just a dude. If we ended up with him I would have been fine with it, but he's not very different from other mediocre options like Julio Teheran or Gio Gonzalez. That's a guy you settle for in January not one you proactively acquire the first week of December.

For all the talk of how bad his defense is, can anyone remember games/moments where the Cubs were really hurt by it? I know that there were balls he didn't get to that other OF's may have, but I don't recall embarrassing levels of play from him For me it's less about Nick's defense, which I think is below average but ultimately fine, and more the cumulative effect on the outfield. Schwarber in left, Heyward in center, and Nick in right are each individually okay, but cumulatively it could lead to some real problems. Not to mention Happ as the primary backup.

I really liked Nick, though I question the dominoes that would need to fall for his fit on the team to not be very awkward

What do you think it would take to get him, TT? I don't have a great feel for it. If you want to be optimistic, Margot has now had 3 full seasons without getting all the way across the line to 2 fWAR, so it's easy to envision the Padres seeing this as his level and being ready to move on. They also have a zillion outfielders so they aren't really creating a huge hole by doing so. On the other hand, a functional position player with 3 years of control and entering prime years isn't nothing, and the Padres are shifting to a competitive stage so any trade will have to 'hurt' in terms of taking players from the MLB team's orbit. The one I've been coming back to the last couple days is the basic framework of Quintana for Margot. On the Cubs end, it fits a lot of what the outward narrative has been about their intent. It's a shake up as it creates more innings to be filled without an immediate solution on the roster, which will force them to rely more on the revamped pitching infrastructure to fill those innings since they aren't going to be bringing in Cole/Strasburg. Margot himself and the pitchers they get to replace Quintana increase the years of control they'll have on the roster, hopefully extending the window. Margot also makes a bit more contact than lots of the roster, although he's no Altuve. From the Padres perspective, Quintana adds durability and stability to a rotation that already has youth(Paddock, Lucchesi) and upside(Richards, Lamet) options. Maybe he's a bit redundant with Davies or they want to aim higher if they add another SP, but it's not a huge stretch to see Quintana as a good fit. Margot isn't so high a price to pay and Quintana not so expensive that it ruins the rest of their offseason plans either. The Padres in general are a very good fit this winter, and I would be surprised if our offseason doesn't run through them at least briefly. They're generally a very good fit for Q, Willson, or Happ, and we're likewise a very good fit for Margot, young pitching, and (likely) one of their catchers. The pitching is the most exciting part. If any team has young pitching they could consider "expendable," it's them. They could give up a Quantrill or a Morejon and still have 6-7 guys they'd happily feature in their rotation. They could give up a Munoz or a Strahm and still have 3-4 high leverage relievers. And they have guys up and down the quality spectrum too, so it could be a small Bote deal just as easy as a larger Contreras deal.

Passan's last line is interesting too: I think it has always made sense logically, but also good to know that the big trade is going to kick off the winter. Probably means we'll see it before the end of the Winter Meetings next week.

The team could probably do: - Willson traded for a few young live ML arms - Willson backfilled via FA (Castro/Avila) - Didi at 2B - A RH bench OF (Souza/Pillar) - A FA reliever (Treinen/Harris) For less than $30M. I could get behind that offseason, especially if they managed a Javy extension in there as well. CF is left unsettled, but with 2B very settled you can throw both Nico and Happ at the position, and I would feel very good about one of them managing to run with it.

Our Addison Russell nightmare is over, and the Cubs are going to try and sneak Danny Hultzen down to Iowa. Everything else is as expected.

Perfect bat-first type for the bench with the new extra roster spot

There are enough 2B candidates that we can be REALLY picky. Like just quickly perusing the FA list I see Solid 2B Options: - Cesar Hernandez - Jonathan Villar - Howie Kendrick - Brock Holt - Scooter Gennett Less Solid 2B Options - Eric Sogard - Brian Dozier - Jonathan Schoop - Yolmer Sanchez - Jose Peraza 3B Options who at one point were and may or may not still be 2B Options: - Jed Gyorko - Wilmer Flores - Brad Miller - Asdrubal Cabrera Trade Options: - Whit Merrifield - Adam Frazier And that's not even counting a few Joe Panik/Logan Forsythe types who would be in a tier below the "less solid" guys but who might be acceptable in a platoon arrangement. It's a definite situation where you place a value on each guy, and that's your line in the sand.

The Future Lineup thing has always been a just-for-fun don't think too hard about it sort of thing. That being said given that my complaint about them the past few years has been sloppiness, it's not super reassuring that they have a bunch of guys who will have long-since been FAs on there.

I don't think he was anyone's Plan A or even Plan B, but still relevant

According to Rosenthal, the Phillies are very likely to non-tender Cesar Hernandez tomorrow

I think he's clearly bad, but I think how well that predicts how bad he'll be going forward is the question. We've seen guys like JT Realmuto, Alex Avila, and Jason Castro go from very bad to very good in a single offseason over the past several years. We've also seen the opposite happen with guys like Lucroy, though age is often a viable explanation for many of those. Personally, my guess is that not enough credit is attributed to the pitchers. Like with Willson for instance, I'd love to see his numbers from the last two years pitching to Yu or Chatwood vs everybody else.

Say what you will about each of these guys in a vacuum, I think they're extremely poor fits on the current roster. Get a real SP you can trust to slide into the rotation, or get a someone with minor league options who can be stashed at Iowa. We already have two guys on the roster who we can't quite trust to be either a starter or a short reliever in Mills and Chatwood. Adding a third guy in that vein is good way to end up with the same sort of bullpen problems we had last year.

Catchers are flying fast, if a Willson trade is going to happen it's likely going to be soon.

Really top notch thread title Looks like Craig Breslow's got his first lump of clay, let's see what he can make out of it.

I certainly don't think the free agent market is fixed, but I think it's looking more and more safe to say it's better than the last two years by a significant margin. Four years from three admittedly fantastic months out of the pen is asinine.