Bertz

Sobering question for next year: given that payroll is likely coming down, can you really justify tendering KB at his ~$22M?

Yeah I would love to see if a Q-Alzolay piggyback could work. SSS but Alzolay has been murder on righties. So teams would have to choose if they want to load their lineup with righties even though Q's only going 3-4 innings.

Bears >50/50 to make the playoffs now. They're not a good team (currently 19th in DVOA, and that's not schedule adjusted), but two banked wins are two banked wins.

Yeah, the issue is more of opportunity cost than what we gave up IMO. Eloy is looking like a DH who doesn't walk and Cease is looking like he needs to move to the pen. Nice players, maybe even good, but far from being stars. If Q had stayed good in 2018 I'd have 0 issue with the trade.

The division is wrapped up within all reason, it's time to put preparing for the playoffs ahead of winning games. Part one of that is seeing if Kimbrel still has it when the pressure is on. Part two will be getting Chafin and Q as many innings as possible. Ah. I didn't consider the "this game doesn't matter, we need to see...how Kimbrel does in high leverage situations" slant. That's completely counter intuitive, to be generous, but I get what you are saying. I mean also in September Jeffress had a FIP over 5 coming into this appesrance and Kimbrel has struck out so many guys that his is literally negative, so I think he gave us the best chance of winning last night as well.

Really? You seem way way more confident about that than I think anyone can reasonably pretend to be. The division is wrapped up within all reason, it's time to put preparing for the playoffs ahead of winning games. Part one of that is seeing if Kimbrel still has it when the pressure is on. Part two will be getting Chafin and Q as many innings as possible.

I'm sure it's a tough convo to take the closer's job away from a guy with a sub-2 ERA, but man I don't know how you can justify Jeffress holding onto the closer's role. Kimbrel really should have gotten a chance out there tonight.

Between a ton of non tenders in addition to normal churn, this winter will have a lot of upside arms available. Depending on your thoughts on Mills we have either two or three open rotation spots. Love what Lester has done for this franchise, but I have no interest in having him back unless he miraculously finds 2-3 MPH under his pillow like Kershaw did this winter. He's neither safe nor an upside play. I think way to go is probably something like: - Trade for a pretty good #3 (Jon Gray?) - Sign a vet who had a bad 2020 to a pillow contract (Kluber, Quintana, Minor, Ray, etc.) - Battle Royale between Mills, Alzolay, et al Although who the hell know how much money is going to be available to the FO. Is even something as modest as the above going to be an option? Yeah, unfortunately, I don’t see it making a lot of sense to bring Lester back. I think they’re definitely staying under the LT. Which would give them about ~$25 mil to spend and stay under iirc. I think they almost certainly do the vet signing you mentioned (Q, Ray, Minor, etc). I think using resources to trade for a SP is unlikely and if we trade for a SP it will come via the return in a KB, Willy, etc trade. Q, Desclafani, Ray and Garrett Richards are some of the main/realistic FA options for me. Wouldn’t mind signing 2 of those and then having Mills/Adbert battle for the 5th spot with Abbott, Thompson, Brailyn, etc potentiality being mid-late season rotation options. I think the non tender deadline is going to be enough of a bloodbath that even a guy like Gray will be borderline. Agreed they're definitely not trading any of the upper crust of prospects.

Between a ton of non tenders in addition to normal churn, this winter will have a lot of upside arms available. Depending on your thoughts on Mills we have either two or three open rotation spots. Love what Lester has done for this franchise, but I have no interest in having him back unless he miraculously finds 2-3 MPH under his pillow like Kershaw did this winter. He's neither safe nor an upside play. I think way to go is probably something like: - Trade for a pretty good #3 (Jon Gray?) - Sign a vet who had a bad 2020 to a pillow contract (Kluber, Quintana, Minor, Ray, etc.) - Battle Royale between Mills, Alzolay, et al Although who the hell know how much money is going to be available to the FO. Is even something as modest as the above going to be an option?

It's deep too, which is important with the no offdays playoffs this year. In that context I'd rather have 6-7 good relievers than 2-3 awesome relievers. And for Game 3 of the Wildcard round I'd lean on the pen. Give Lester (or hopefully Q by then?) three innings and then go with the parade of relievers.

From Rosenthal this AM

My guess is that they will keep expanded playoffs, but not these expanded playoffs. They're probably gonna do the plan from February where the top one or two seeds get a bye and you do the whole choose your opponent thing. It still sucks, but I don't think the lack of incentives to make good teams better will still be there like they are this year.

I'm still dumbfounded that they didn't bring in Brad Hand just because it wasn't a save spot. When your team's on a 6 game losing streak. In 2020. Jesus.

Brad Hand not pitching this inning is ludicrous. Make them pay

If Jeffress isn't going to miss bats he needs to throw strikes He clearly has cojones for days, and I appreciate what he did in the first few weeks of the season, but now that the pen isn't a dumpster fire he shouldn't be getting such high leverage duty

But also

OMG

Rizzo's slow, so I understand generally erring towards holding him, but Naquin was moving to his left and I don't believe has much of an arm.

HOLY HORSEFEATHERS I didn't think he had any chance

KB is now at the point in his slump where he's taking his horsefeathers at bats with him into the field. Cool.

Reds are up late and Brewers are up big, so all three teams chasing us are likely to be within a game of each other at night's end

How do we feel about facing the Cardinals, rivarly bragging rights aside? For some reason Flaherty, Hudson, Wainwright looks great on paper but doesn't really terrify me, especially if we can neutralize one of them with Darvish. The only hitter that truly scares me is Goldschmidt. They have other solid hitters but not ones that scare me. Of course they are probably saying the same thing about our lineup... I wouldn’t mind playing them at all. They aren’t that good and they will have played all these games here leading in to it. They likely have to be playing and trying hard through the final series too so it’s possible their rotation/bullpen can’t be entirely lined up and rested. I think I’d rank preferred opponents in round 1 as: 1. Giants 2. Cardinals 3. Rockies 4. Marlins 5. Mets 6. Phillies 7. Brewers (I don’t want to have to deal with their nonsense, despite them being the worst team listed here). 8. Reds (Bauer, Gray, Castillo in a 3 game series wouldn’t be fun). Yeah this looks right. Maybe quibble a bit with the exact order, but I think in a three game series those first four teams and those second four teams are very different levels of scary. Regular season the Cards are maybe the best of those 8 teams, but they have less top tier talent to leverage in a short series and will be at the end of their death march. They are clearly in the less scary tier IMO. The Marlins are surprisingly relevant in that first round. They suck, but Lopez and Sanchez is actually a pretty good 1-2 punch.