Bertz

It doesn't really let up either. They lose Molina and Brett Cecil next year, but they also have a half dozen guys enter arb, including Flaherty who will not be cheap.

Yeah, I know the middle class of FA's has been hit hard in recent seasons but I think MLBTR way overcorrected this year. For example, based on their estimates we could have an offseason of: - Kyle Gibson - Howie Kendrick - Chris Martin - Shogo Akiyama - Pedro Strop for $30M. That would be great from a team needs perspective, but that seems very unlikely even in an increasingly tough market.

I can't wait to see which impressions of other people's impressions he adds to his repertoire.

Kyle Gibson isn't super exciting, but if he really only costs 2/18 you do that deal 1000 times. That's an absurdly team friendly deal. I'm very skeptical he signs for less than twice that amount, but maybe that's what you have to settle for when you're 32 and the ~8th best starter on the market, even if you're pretty good. Kiley McDaniel had some interesting bits in the Fangraphs FA preview. This especially stood out:

This puts them ~$30M below last year's payroll. So they can probably retain Moose and Grandal now instead of just one, but the hit to their depth seems pretty risky.

Taking a Russell non-tender as a given and using MLBTR's arb numbers, I have us currently at $184M for the 26 man roster and $211M for the luxury tax. Last year's opening day numbers were ~$200M and ~$230M respectively, and between Castellanos and Kimbrel we added about $10M in-season.

Steamer Projections came out on Fangraphs today, and they're mostly pretty generous. A few notable things I see: - Steamer HATES Willson. Absolutely despises him. only projecting for 1.3 WAR. Doesn't even like his bat that much - Steamer also doesn't like Bote or Happ very much, and considering those are supposed to be the fewgood parts of the bench that's obviously an indictment of the depth overall - Steamer is very generous to the bullpen, basically viewing it as an average unit right now before we add anyone - While not amazing, the rotation still projects as a top 10 unit - Overall the FG depth charts currently have the Cubs 6-7 wins better than the Cards, and 8-9 better than the Reds and Brewers

IMO, I don't think it needs to be all that high on the list, assuming that a Top 5 SP is brought in to replace Hamels. Even if you throw out Mills because he lacks options, you still have Chatwood and Alzolay on hand, and if we're getting to 8th starter territory we're either to the 'unreasonable contingency' point or other names have had time to assert themselves(Abbott in particular, maybe Miller). To me, there were two ways to approach the 5th starter spot this offseason: Go get someone established or use the volume approach and allocate resources more towards the other holes on the roster. That's not a choice we've had previously during the Theo era. I realize that the former was always more likely, and that's why this realistically doesn't matter that much, but it still sucks to have that determined before FA even truly starts.

Like Brett alluded to they ended up being very right to cut bait on Smyly, and this is a similar situation. We haven't seen him since May 2018 and a lot can happen on the road back from TJ surgery. This sucks though, probably have to move "starter with MiLB options" a little further up the offseason wish list.

I'll believe the Cards are willing to go all out for a guy like Lindor when I see it. It's just not their m.o. to put themselves that far out there. I do suspect something big, but more in the Josh Donaldson neighborhood.

I would want the pitching additions to be pretty badass to balance it out, but they could *probably* get away with just Kendrick and a mid level CF on the position player side of things.

I thought Eduardo Perez was the best fit for that job but Beltran's the man so it's hard to say anything negative

Looks like I'm 29,000 now. Checking through emails I was 44,000 when they emailed in April 2017, so yeah they're burning through people real quick

Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, and Carlos Correa were all #1 overall picks. Verlander and Bregman were #2's, while Greinke and Rendon were both 6th in their respective years. Max Scherzer and George Springer were #11's (Springer in probably the best draft class of this century), and Trea Turner 13th in his year. The merits of tanking can be debated, but this series does not make the argument you seem to think it does. High draft picks being good doesn't = tanking works. Strasburg was drafted a decade ago, and is on his second contract. Rendon 8 years ago, and under no circumstances does a tanking team draft in the double digits. The Nats are not a tanking success story. Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander have nothing to do with the Astros tanking. My point was more that this series dominated by high end picks is a weird place to flex against tanking. That'd be like using this series as evidence of the death of the starting pitcher. There's a real argument to that effect, but here of all places? Also the Nats didn't tank, but the only real distinction is intent. They were set up for a decade primarily because they had back to back #1 picks, giving them not only those two stars' production but the salary space to add Scherzer and others as well. Just because it came via good old fashioned incompetence from Ralph does not mean the Nats are evidence against the tank. 2019 finally gave us concrete on the field evidence against tanking with the Phillies and White Sox. That's where the evidence is. And what hilarious evidence it is. Those are the graves to dance on.

Yup. But in the meantime most (domestic) superstars stars go in the top 10 picks, so teams at the bottom of the standings are going to get first crack at them. And most of them are going to fail miserably and most of those teams are going to keep picking there year after year and sucking. Yes, which is why if you want to intelligently make the "tanking = bad" argument in 2019 you point to the Phillies or White Sox rather than the horsefeathering Astros

Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, and Carlos Correa were all #1 overall picks. Verlander and Bregman were #2's, while Greinke and Rendon were both 6th in their respective years. Max Scherzer and George Springer were #11's (Springer in probably the best draft class of this century), and Trea Turner 13th in his year. The merits of tanking can be debated, but this series does not make the argument you seem to think it does. So teams should sign and trade for great players and give big contracts to the ones they draft? Yup. But in the meantime most (domestic) superstars stars go in the top 10 picks, so teams at the bottom of the standings are going to get first crack at them.

Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, and Carlos Correa were all #1 overall picks. Verlander and Bregman were #2's, while Greinke and Rendon were both 6th in their respective years. Max Scherzer and George Springer were #11's (Springer in probably the best draft class of this century), and Trea Turner 13th in his year. The merits of tanking can be debated, but this series does not make the argument you seem to think it does.

Underrated cool dude on this Nats team of cool dudes is Daniel Hudson, whose chapter in The Arm is fantastic

The Ricketts are ghouls, but these quotes don't really say a lot in either direction IMO. That being said we are royally horsefeathered if we try to get under the luxury tax this year or next. That became a likelihood when the ink dried on Heyward's contract, and became a certainty when we added Darvish and Chatwood. If the plan is to compete without paying taxes that's not a real plan, at that point just have another fire sale and let Theo run off in the night in a gorilla suit.

Per MLBTR, Akiyama has reportedly told his team that he plans to come over to MLB. So move him from "probably an option" to "definitely an option."

Something with the pill (density or holding ball flight better or something) and the seams being lower allowing less drag, I think that’s how. I’m not a scientist and haven’t read an article on the ball lately. I’m sure it’s in every article about it if you google it. Here's a good write up on it from Dr. Meredith Wills in the Athletic (she also talked through this on Effectively Wild not too long ago) She goes on to say that it's the third one, That basically the laces are thicker and tighter than they used to be, leading to less "bulging" around the seams (think of your shoes right after you tie them vs. a few hours in).

If we see a Nats comeback with Max Scherzer doing some Kirk Gibson sort of thing I might have to stop watching baseball because that can't really be topped.

2018 had the least....uhhh...juicy?...ball of the last 5 years, and Castellanos had his career year. He's not just some mirage with the bat. The guys who are going to be hurt most by fixing the ball are the Tommy La Stellas and Eric Sogards of the world. Sluggers are, if anything, going to be helped because fewer of their dongs are artificial.

I liked what Castellanos brought to the roster a lot. And the idea with Myers is to add a B- approximation AND a talented rookie for approximately what you'd pay NC directly. Given the number of holes on the roster, I just don't think we can make Castellanos work. We have, IMO, 6 problem spots on the current team, and I'd want to add external help for at least four of them prior to ST: - High End reliever - CF - 5th starter - 2B - Mid-level reliever - Bench guy who mashes lefties Filling two of those holes while keeping payroll nearly flat and not expending any prospects is a big win IMO. Relatedly, I kind of hate the idea of Chatwood in the pen. He'll probably be solid there, but $13M is far too much for "probably solid." IMO give him the 5th starter job or ship him out.

He's been brought up before (by TT?), but I'm looking at Wil Myers right now and he's a very interesting option. Even in a down year he mashed against lefties, and his poor defensive numbers are mostly from the Padres hilariously bad plan to play him in CF. He's still fine at 1B/COF. What's more interesting though is that he may provide an opportunity to essentially buy a young starter at a position of need. Myers is owed 3/67.5 on his deal, and a separate rumor is also that the Padres are shopping guys like Luis Urias and Adrian Morejon this winter. If we did something along the lines of Chatwood for Myers and Morejon, we'd only add ~1M in LT money this season, while adding a RH masher for the bench and a high end ML ready pitching prospect to be our presumptive 5th starter. I'd want to further balance the deal to make 2021 and 2022 less onerous from a payroll standpoint (i.e. Myers' deal is underwater by more than just a Morejon), but this would be an interesting way to fill two holes on the 2020 roster while mostly keeping the powder dry for other moves. One additional wrinkle with Myers is that his contract was extremely front loaded, so while he is still owed $67.5M in real dollars, it's only $41.5M from a LT standpoint. Given that with the Padres payroll is low enough that they only care about real dollars, and that the Cubs care more about the LT, that assymetry would make a deal even more attractive for both sides (think similar to last year's Russell Martin trade). There are certainly limits to how much we could ignore cashflow in favor of LT figures, and Myers is a big enough outlier that he's likely beyond those limits, but overall it would still help facilitate a deal.