Bertz

LMG? More like LFG!

Right that's the disconnect. There's a "is Shota worth $22M" question and a "would you rather spend that money elsewhere" question. I think the answer to the former is yes, or at least close enough to yes to not be worth sweating. The latter's more of a judgment call. But if we're arguing the former while the subtext is a disagreement on the latter I don't think it's gonna go anywhere.

If you think $22M for one year for 2.3 WAR is a bad deal there's just a fundamental disconnect here that's not going to be crossed.

I guess a few random things: - As someone who focuses primarily on peripherals I don't want to speak out of both sides of my mouth, but Shota did put up an above average ERA and an xERA that was nearly average (45th percentile). "Shota was bad last year" feels strong - Shota's contact numbers against didn't decline nearly enough to explain his drop in strikeouts. He has some positive regression coming in that department, which actually already started in the second half (he was back up to nearly 23%) - Shota's fastball still graded out as a plus pitch this year because of the unicorn movement profile. Stuff+ of 102 (100 average) and PitchingBot Stuff grade of 52 (50 average). Also with the extreme rise he gets you very much do not want him throwing his fastball down more - It's likely at least some of Shota's loss of velo is due to the hamstring injury he had. His velo was 91.8 in '24, 91.2 this year before the hammy injury (in the cold of April no less), and 90.7 after the injury - 1/$22M just isn't a big commitment. Zac Gallen had a messier year than Shota and got a QO. Last winter a busted Walker Buehler got $22M because of two good playoff starts. We can't be like "the Cubs should act like a big market team!" and then quibble when they pay $22M for a pillow contract - We'll see what the other projections systems spit out, but Steamer has Shota worth 2.3 WAR next year. I'd absolutely pay $22M for that

Joe Adell is kind of a fun option for a RHH bat Cons - He's purely an outfielder, can't help with 1B or 3B - Even in the outfield, he was horrific this year - He's no longer quite Patrick Wisdom bad like he was a few years ago, but there's a lot of swing and miss to his game - He's pretty clearly a platoon bat Pros - He has huge power and top of the scale swing speed. Like here are his statcast numbers, look at all that red - He's a god damned monster against LHP. .261/.320/.583 the past two years. Yes you're reading that right that's an ISO over .300. He has hit at a 43 homer pace against LHP - He's clearly a platoon bat. Yes in one sense that's a limitation, but in another it means he doesn't have to take any playing time from Caissie/Mo against RHP unless he earns it - He's under control for two more years - He's only going to be 27 next year, so between age and the Angels' general incompetence you can reasonably wonder if there's a good deal more upside to be tapped - Speaking of upside, he had a disastrous defensive season this past year despite being plenty fast. You do have to wonder if better coaching, better positioning, etc. is a very easy way to juice those defensive stats

Pitcher homeruns are by far the flukiest thing in baseball. Like in Taillon’s three seasons here he's had two separate half-season long stretches of giving up dong after dong. He's come out fine on the other end both times. Shota is probably more Jameson Taillon at this point than 2024 Shota, and it's fair to be disappointed in that, but it's totally worth paying 1/$22M for that.

Great news. This opens the 45 day window so he has to sign before Christmas. Hopefully the other major imports are right behind him.

Gallen feels a lot like Shota to me. He's likely still a pretty good pitcher, he's very unlikely to be the pseudo-ace he was at his peak, and the qualifying offer assures it's not going to be super cheap to find out. Like Shota, I'd guess it's best for both the Dback and Gallen for him to just accept the offer.

Gut feeling is we're looking at something like this: - Shota accepts his QO - Jed circles back to the conversations he had last summer and pulls down a cost controlled starter in the Gore/Ryan/Cabrera neighborhood - Add a RHH bat in the $10-15M AAV range. Maybe that's Okamoto, maybe that's a trade for Taylor Ward, maybe that's Paul Goldschmidt - Sign a second tier FA closer. Robert Suarez, re-signing Brad Keller, etc. - Something a bit surprising or weird a la the Matt Boyd signing last winter. Cody Ponce? - Trade for a late inning reliever. Maybe one stop shopping and add Jose Ferrer into a Mack Gore trade or Ronny Henriquez into an Edward Cabrera trade? - Just a laughable number of small trades and waiver roulette using all the open 40 man slots

Shota got tagged

The Rockies' situation to this point has been SO BAD that this still probably helps, but lol

Each of the last three years the Cubs have had to use 8 starting pitchers. In '24 if they'd had a 9th they would have used him and moved Hendricks out of the rotation sooner. Last year Brandon Birdsell was viewed as depth coming into the year but had his AAA season mostly wiped out by injury.

I would suspect this does two things: - Frees up Jed to move one of the Assad/Brown/Wicks trio, maybe two pf them. I think if you are eyeing a big trade this winter one of the Iowa bats plus one of those three arms feels like it'd form the bulk of the return - That 2027 option is pretty nifty. We're losing multiple veterans to free agency, and you hope that the kids step up to fill a healthy bit of that void, but this provides some insurance if they don't

Javier Assad right now

It's tough. I compared it earlier this winter to Mike Tauchman last winter. On a $/WAR basis it feels obvious, but you hope/expect that the roster moves towards a place where he's not a great fit.

The fact that we heard about the Shota and Kittredge decisions within a few hours of each other and more than a day later there is nothing on Rea is a bit weird, right? A sign he's also getting traded?

I am not 100% sure but I believe the Orioles are paying his buyout because of the timing. So it's a $1M savings instead of standard like $50k cash considerations. Not earth shattering but if you know you don't want him better now than in January

I certainly do not believe Tom Ricketts' spiel about every dollar of revenue going back into baseball operations. But the benefits to cable dying and Tom buying up the whole neighborhood is that there's now once again a fairly direct relationship between team quality and revenue. Ownership cutting payroll just for horsefeathers and gigggles is just not a thing that's gonna happen.

He did leave the door cracked But yeah this and Trueblood's article this morning have me very annoyed. I don't think the "wait out the market" gambit works with a roster this complete. Though I will say I suspect this means Shota's gone and we're getting two SP upgrades of substance. The details matter a lot but I think that's one of the clearest paths towards having this team be better on April 1st than it was on September 30th.

The Jed Hoyer offseason playbook of flexibility and hunting for good deals has been broadly successful. The problem is that flexibility needs to go two ways, you need flexibility on your roster in order to facilitate the flexibility with the market. Two years ago it worked out great where Jed had Boras cornered. Last year it kind of blew up in Jed's face. When he whiffed on Scott and Bregman there was nothing left on the market worth buying and he just had to eat ~$10M that probably could have done something fun in November or December. As the roster gets better, the odds of a 23/24 style windfall go down and the odds of a 24/25 style kerfuffle go up. This roster currently has few holes: one or two (depending on the Shota situation) rotation spots, most of a bullpen, and one or two bench guys. The top handful of free agent bats are good enough to force their way into our lineup, but that's it. So like maybe you can get a great deal in January, but if those available deals end up being for Josh Naylor, Gleyber Torres, and Trent Grisham it ends up being moot. On the SP front I know we had the Boras 4 situation, but generally great options don't just sit around forever. The one place where the team is thin enough to just add talent where you can and worry about the exact fit later? The bullpen. I don't want Jed to go all Dombrowski and spend a quarter billion before Thanksgiving, but I need him to be less passive. Saving $9M on Kittredge can't be for some January mystery box. It needs to be earmarked for something. Maybe it's Keller like you write here, maybe it's the difference between the Michael King tier of FA SPs and the Dylan Cease tier. Upgrading a 92 win team has to be a different process than upgrading a 72 win team.

After the way his season ended Shota wasn't going to get that nearly $60M team option. The choice became his player option vs. accepting the qualifying offer vs. the Cubs just letting him walk. The calculus from Shota's POV between the player option and taking the qualifying offer is really close Pros for the Option: - Nearly $10M more in guaranteed money - A choice of which of the next two offseasons to hit FA Pros of the QO: - Nearly 50% higher salary this year - Getting the QO out of the way. Guys can only be tagged once, and in the player option scenario the Cubs could still tag him with a QO and depress his market after the option years - The Cubs had some sort of team option after the player option. I don't quite understand this part, specifically the timing, but I believe this meant that if Shota really showed out, got Cy votes or something, his earning potential would have been capped because the Cubs would use their option So if the team wants to keep him it was always a coinflip on which avenue it would take. If the team doesn't tag him it generally means they have bigger plans (yay!) or they think he's cooked (boo!).

Legitimate shocker, wow

There was an Athletic article a couple weeks back with an interesting and relevant quote: It's a little tough to parse if the mention of Luzardo was Mooney bringing it up on his own or something Jed said just didn't want that part to be on the record. But the takeaway seems clear that Jed would like a do-over, not on the deadline but on the trade talks last winter. I expect Jed to be more aggressive than we're used to this winter, but still less aggressive than we want. For instance: - The team dumps Shota for a two SP winter. Aggressive! But the two SPs are Shane Bieber and Sandy Alcantara. Good, very legitimate improvements, but my socks are still firmly on my feet - The team signs Devin Williams. Aggressive! But the rest of the bullpen is kids or "let Tommy Hottovy cook" types that require a Greg Zumach Twitter thread to get us on board

I'll be curious to see what they do with Rea. It's similar where you can picking it up either way. On the positive side they're going to trade from the Assad/Wicks/Brown pool which will inherently be for something fun, or on the negative side he's going to hold down the 5th starter spot until Steele is ready. But I feel like declining it is closer to being an unambiguous sign they plan on doing something(s) fun with the rotation.

Shota literally just declined a deal for one year with an option at similar numbers.