Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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I think the Saints are beatable outdoors, but yeah I don't know how anyone's going to go into the Superdome and beat them. Therefore we all need to adopt the Panthers as our second team for the rest of the season.
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A Bortlesian performance if I've ever seen one
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Welp, that makes a lot more sense
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A bunch of the guys who I'm pretty sure don't live here year-year round were seemingly at the field this morning There could be plenty of reasons, but a Bryce recruiting contingent is as reasonable an explanation as any.
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I like Merrifield the player well enough in a vacuum, but he'd be a pretty infuriating acquisition in our current position. Why would the team go get him when they could have used those same player resources on a starter cheaper than Hamels, freeing up that money for a run at Harper. Plus, since he's not a viable backup SS, he doesn't actually fill any hole on this team.
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This is almost surely nonsense. The only two ways it makes sense to trade Bryant are if the team believes his shoulder is borked, but in a way that would not show up in a post trade physical, or if his lack of clutch is a real thing and not just dumb noise. Both things are exceedingly unlikely. It would make the offseason really interesting though in a nerdy baseball mogul kind of sense. Freeing his salary would probably let you afford Harper/Machado even if we're poor. On top of that you could get back essentially anything you wanted in exchange, so you can address the cracks in the roster in a much more targeted way than FA typically allows. And Epstein is maybe the only guy in the league with the cachet that an owner would allow him to do something like this.
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I swear if they spend any more than like a million on a backup C and this "we've got no money!" nonsense ends up being true I'm going to have an aneurysm
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2018-19 Other Team Offseason Transactions Not Worth a New Thread
Bertz replied to Cubswin11's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Yeah but he actually plays pretty solid defense at multiple positions. I'd also assume the Mariners would pay down his salary to move him. Or take Chatwood back. Yeah, if our goal is to a bad contract swap with Chatwood, Gordon's a good fit. Money's essentially the same, seemed to be a passable backup at SS last year, and has the speed and contact you like to have in a bench guy. -
Maybe PTR wants Joe to quit instead of firing him to save the $5m?
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Yeah I'm pretty sure Epstein has to say these sorts of things about Russell if for no other reason than to avoid ugliness with the Player's Union. I'd like for the team to non tender him, but they'll trade him somewhere, probably San Diego.
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Seattle's a very good Tyler Chatwood destination. They have the money that they'd probably be cool eating his contract for prospects. Or if we preferred more of a bad contract swap, Dee Gordon's making basically exactly the same salary and is a really interesting option if the scouts liked how he looked at SS last year.
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I'm starting to wonder if people aren't buying it because they don't want to buy it. Sort of like Trump supporters getting facts thrown at them and just choosing not to believe them. Also, I'm not comparing these Cubs fans to Trump supporters on any other level. Yeah it's totally the same. Dave Kaplan and David Fahrenthold are basically interchangeable.
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Sharma in his latest article says that the payroll limit is 246, and that we chose to keep Hamels because Chatwood and Darvish were such busts. Still not sure I buy it, but that's what he's putting out there.
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The Vikings have five wins, but only seven games left on their schedule. Four of those seven are on the road including @Seattle and @New England. Not to mention two games against the Bears and another against the Packers. Absolutely brutal schedule.
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Luckily, the schedule is still pretty light. The Lions, Giants, and 49ers are all in the bottom quarter of the league based on DVOA. And looking at everyone's remaining schedules, I think 10 wins is enough for the division. Like you said, split the NFC North games, and beat the Giants and 49ers, and that should do it.
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Is he? I feel like that was true under Hendry but not really under Theo. Another question I have about the no money theory, why not just backload the deal? The luxury tax affects draft penalties and taxes paid, but in terms of dollars in and dollars out you can still get creative with a contract. I can't see why they would keep Hamels when they very easily could set it up so they only pay Bryce $20m this year. The practical cost would likely be having to build next year's bullpen on a shoestring, but Bryce Harper is worth that.
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I was looking for that quote earlier but couldn't find it, thanks for posting. I kind of wonder if there's a set payroll, but Ricketts is fine going to another number only for Bryce. Like payroll is 230, but if Theo can reel in Bryce then PTR is willing to go into the 250's. So like, we have the $ for Bryce, but if we miss on him Theo can't just turn around and grab Pollock, Andrew Miller, and David Robertson or whatever else $35m buys.
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McCutchen is one of my favorite players of all time, but hard pass. The Cubs offense is fine and still pretty young, so there's no reason to make a move just to make a move. Any move needs to move the needle. Obviously Bryce is the ideal, but if we miss on him go for one of the high risk/high reward guys in the second tier. Maybe that's AJ Pollack, who will give you 2/3s of a really great year each year. Maybe that's a pillow contract for Josh Donaldson. Maybe that's two high end relievers like Miller and Robertson. The team is not hurting for another "pretty good I guess" player (unless they can back up SS), Cutch solves nothing for this team.
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I call bullcrap on Mooney there. These deals are always finalized at least a year out. And with how big and complicated they are, they damn sure are far enough along at this point to know at least what neighborhood it's in financially. Maybe it turns out to be a disappointment, but they know by now.
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Yeah. Bortles had 1.3 TD:INT ratio and a 3.2% INT rate his first two years. Trubisky right now is at 1.7:1 and 2.3% That's a pretty big difference. Not throwing picks is something Trubisky is pretty decent at for a young QB. I think they keep stats somewhere of number of dangerous passes. I'd like to see how that compares because it seems like Mitch has been lucky with throwing interceptable balls that werent caught. It's possible that his INT rate could regress in a hurry. That's tracked, but I don't know of a (free) place that updates it week by week. Most guys have a handful per year; according to FO the average is 1 per every 120 attempts. Mitch has 3 I can think of right now (1 vs SEA, 2 vs NE) in 240 attempts. I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two, but unless I'm forgetting several he's been a little fortunate but not so much that it should materially change what we think of him.
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Cubs Picking Up Hamels Option, Trading Smyly to Rangers
Bertz replied to David's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I feel like Smyly should have had a little surplus value, so I'd guess our PTBNL is something decent. They probably just didn't have time to iron out a deal before today's deadline. That's often what the PTBNL in both directions means. I'm not worried about the depth hit, for all the reasons TT laid out. One of Montgomery or Smyly was going to go if we kept Hamels. I expected it to be Montgomery because he has more value, but they went with Smyly because of money. They obviously need to backfill that depth, but with a guy they can stash at Iowa, not a guy they have to treat with kid gloves in the bullpen (a bullpen that already has Brandon Morrow's glass shoulder). -
Cubs Picking Up Hamels Option, Trading Smyly to Rangers
Bertz replied to David's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Makes sense as a way to cut payroll. I assume we'll get something pretty decent for Smyly, so I'm curious what that looks like. That said, Smyly is a pretty extreme fly ball guy, so not sure why Texas specifically wants him, but whatever. Also likely means that Montgomery is locked in as the swingman again, so I feel a little bad for him. -
My guess is they have the money for Bryce but not much else, so payroll is set at 240-something. Probably 246, which is where the LT penalty is. That's fine, an offseason where we sign Bryce, trade Schwarber for pitching depth, and only make other moves (bullpen, veteran backups at SS and C) as salary dumps allow is still pretty great. If this is the doomsday scenario where we can't even afford Bryce, then Theo has some explaining to do. It'd mean he royally forked up last offseason (both in process and results) by making so many moves that tied up long term payroll.