Bertz

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.

Yeah if you could get a 1st and a 2nd for him right now I’d do it in a heartbeat. Would get us out of a lot of problems imo. That’s not to say I regret the Mack trade...if Trubisky wasn’t garbage it would have been an amazing trade. And even though he is, it was still a good move and got us a division title. But Mitch is garbage so we need picks and cap flexibility to try to build a team around the next Bears QB Yeah, I would do that trade again 100 times out of 100. It really sucks that they rolled snake eyes on a QB, but It was the right move. Honestly, I'd trade everything not nailed down except maybe Roquan if offered appropriate value. At minimum though we need to send out a few WRs and DBs by Tuesday, and consider Mack/Floyd trades in the offseason.

Will be interesting to see if the Cubs add Pereda to the 40-man. I'd do it at the expense of Taylor Davis. If that whole "best defensive C in the minors" thing is even close to true they've got to. There's plenty of space on the 40 man. https://www.thecubreporter.com/10062019/projected-cubs-post-2019-world-series-roster Speaking of the 40 man, AZ Phil has us at 33 spots on the 40 man filled heading into the offseason (he technically said 32, but he also wrongly thinks we're going to decline Q's option). Russell's a safe bet to go, and I also count 5 guys who are out of MiLB options and questionable to make the opening day roster: Mills, Underwood, Hultzen, Kemp, and Webster. I'd assume two or three of those guys don't make it to ST, that effectively leaves us at an even 30. That should give us ~7 spots we can use to protect guys for the Rule 5. Amaya, Rea, and Tyson Miller seem like locks IMO. Then probably Pereda and Higgins, and two out of Mekkes/Minch/Swarmer?

Full context: he's an established starter at what's been deemed a position of need (if the Cubs are making this trade) still in his 20s, isn't a FA until 2023, and being traded between division rivals including a perennial WS contender. I think you're way underselling what the Pirates would ask Sure, if they ask too much they ask too much, but I see no reason to assume they will until we hear that they already have. If they do, you move onto one of the many comparable options: Brian Dozier Jonathan Villar Cesar Hernandez Scooter Gennett Brock Holt Ben Zobrist? And that's assuming Howie Kendrick has earned a starting role and isn't an option. I like Frazier because I think he's the best of these guys by a small margin, and the best fit for us by a large margin, but these guys don't usually cost a lot because there's not a ton to differentiate them from a half dozen other guys.

The problem with Frazier right off the bat is going to be the trade cost, especially in division. You'd end up paying a superstar's trade package to get the ages 29-32 seasons of a solid but unspectacular 2B (being sent to the bench?). Develop guys like Frazier or maybe luck into a FA or claim and don't trade for them at full retail price I think you are overestimating what 2nd division starter types cost. These are the guys for whom the market has really bottomed out the last 3-4 years. A guy like Frazier probably costs one of the guys you suggested for Villar, and a guy like Villar (assuming no one thinks he's actually a 4 WAR GUY) is more likely to be non tendered than net a top 10-15 prospect.

I'm really excited by the catching pipeline as well. I tend to view catchers through a lens very similar to TINSTAAP, so volume is key. Between Amaya, Pereda, and those two guys at the lower levels hopefully we've got depth at the position for a while, even if we end up dealing Willson somewhere.

I was looking at Adam Frazier from the Pirates. They're probably gonna tear it down, and he's starting to make money in arb, so he could probably be had for a modest price. Strong contact guy, good defender at 2B, appears to be able to fake it in the OF as well. I'd absolutely love a bench of Happ, Vic, Frazier, Bote, and someone who can mash against lefties.

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I'll say this. Espada is my preferred choice. In my mind, Alex Cora had the best resume you could possibly have for a manager job without already having manager experience, and it obviously worked out as well as you could hope. Espada has basically the same resume as Cora, minus the stint as a tv studio analyst. For Ross, we basically already know that he has the soft skills to succeed in the role, especially with our group of guys. Considering that most of a manager's job nowadays *is* the soft skills, that's a big plus. The other two parts of the job are handling the media and handling in game strategy. Ross's TV experience means that we certainly don't have to worry about his ability to handle the media. That basically just leaves the in game stuff, which is not that hard (though he'll inevitably flub something in embarrassing fashion, every rookie manager does). All that is to say that neither of the two is a bad choice, even though there will inevitably be histrionics either way.

Marte is a good player, but he's a tough fit on this team. He has a severe and consistent platoon split. Over the last three years, he has a 76 wRC+ against lefties, and a 121 against righties. For reference, Schwarber is at 85 and 120. He was also a really bad CF last year defensively. That doesn't mean you can't go after him, he's a good player, but you basically have to pair him with with a Kevin Pillar type. I feel like if you have to get a RH caddy and deal with so-so defense either way, I'd probably prefer shifting Heyward over and finding a full time RF.

Is it bad that I feel like the Astros and Yankees have gotten off way too light on this stuff and so I'm glad it's blowing up for at least one of them?

I've been playing around with payroll numbers this year, and while it sucks that things are tight for us they're also really tight for the Brewers and Cards. The Brewers are right around last year's payroll already, before adding anyone. They do have about a dozen players in arb, so they could scrounge up ~$10M if they non tender several guys, but they're probably at best looking at enough to re-sign Moustakas. It also sounded last year like they stretched to get up to $120M, so they might not have any room even if they do clear a little money. The Lorenzo Cain deal got them a division title and was totally worth it, but it's going to hurt badly the next three years. The Cards are currently $5-10M south of where they opened last year. They've previously indicated that they have a little bit more payroll wiggle room, but regardless I'd expect they don't have any more than the 20-30 available that we do. They can re-sign or replace Ozuna, but likely not much on top of that.

The Saints were 14th in defensive DVOA enteringthis week, so that's not it. Guys are allowed to have bad weeks, but Trubisky has played in 4 games this year and looked really bad in three of them. The other was against the horrid Redskins.

Yeah I’m guessing they either did a second interview/have had follow up stuff with Ross or spent more time with him in the first interview. Also wonder if Espada maybe only had a few hours in his initial interview because of the CS/travel so maybe a two part interview was already planned. Yeah I think it's probably something like this. Second interviews are generally to get the candidate a chance to talk with people they didn't speak with the first time. Ross might still go through one, but it also might be that, for example, Espada is going to do some meet and greet with Tom Ricketts whereas Tom already knows Ross well enough.

Now that NFL teams actually do trades, I honestly wonder if we see a fire sale. Like you could move Robinson, Burton. and a couple defensive backs prior to the deadline in a few weeks, and Mack over the offseason. Just start over clean. This year depended on Trubisky taking at least a modest step forward, instead it's been a substantial step backward.

A lot of big ideas in here, most of them good IMO

Based on the article on this in The Athletic this morning, the FO's POV on this is that they mostly had the right minds in the org already, but that they did not have the proper level of influence and authority to execute on the level of an org like the Astros: A lot more in the article on the folks themselves, highly recommend reading it all.

Not really. One, it's pretty clear he wants the Cubs job, so it may be that there's no point in interviewing him (at least until the Cubs job is filled by someone else). Two, 90% of a manager's job nowadays is the soft skills. It's entirely possible that given his relationship to our guys he would legit be valuable for us, but just another guy for any other team.

[tweet] [/tweet] Something I didn't notice upon first read. Considering that Scouting Director is the most historically prestigious title after GM it's no wonder that that's the one they're going to use to bring in someone notable from outside the org.

It's obviously impossible to judge any of these from the outside but Breslow at least has basically the perfect resume for his role. Him and Brian Bannister up in Boston were basically the OGs at this stuff from the team side of things.

ASB 2015. Then 2018 took a small step back, and 2019's ball really went insane

Do we actually know that this whole ball thing hurt the Cubs offense more than other teams? I know the general theory, that guys like Schwarber, Bryant, Baez hit longer home runs than the average player, but I'm wondering if that's a team wide thing, and if it's more selective memory (people remember the bombs and think every HR they hit is 440, while filtering out all the basket shots). It'd be nice if it was true, but seems...hopeful. I don't know where to find FB distance distribution by player, but it does show up in HR/FB rates: Here are league-wide HR/FB rates, with the percent increase over 2014 in parentheses 2014: 9.5% 2015: 11.4% (20% increase) 2016: 12.8% (35%) 2017: 13.7% (44%) 2018: 12.7% (34%) 2019: 15.3% (61%) Now here's where a few of our guys are since 2015: KB - 15.8, 18.8, 16.0, 11.2 (injury), 18.0 Schwarber - 24.2, 0 (injury), 24.0, 24.5, 24.1 Rizzo - 14.6, 16.2, 16.9, 13.6, 19.9 Javy - 6.3 (only 80 PAs), 12.7, 19.7, 24.3, 24.4 Willson - N/A (Minors), 23.5, 25.9, 9.3, 27.3 It really looks like it may have helped Rizzo, but those other guys just kept doing what they do. I think it makes intuitive sense too. A FB that would go 350 ft in normal conditions gains a substantial amount of HR probability with a 10% bouncier ball. But a ball that would normally go 400 ft gains very little (basically only balls hit to straightaway CF).

I do think a de-juiced ball would help the Cubs offense, which was basically the crux of my last foray into the Schwarber thread, but I don't think it specifically helps or hurts our pitching staff. Like Yu and Strop got burned by the juiced ball, but the team as a whole was middle of the pack in HR/FB.