Bertz

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Ewww I hope not. If the team can't make his salary work straight up in 2019 then just let him go. It's already worrisome that the 2020 Cubs are locked into Lester, Darvish, and Chatwood for a combined $60 million (includes Lester's 2021 buyout). I don't want to add 36 year old Cole Hamels at ~$15m to that. Eh, if it can save them ~$5 mil on AAV for LT purposes it might be worth it to do like 2/26 on Hamels (assuming the hit is $20 and not $14 like some think, if it is $14 then just exercise the horsefeathering option). If Chatwood is pitching on this team in 2020 it’s because he figured it out, IMO, he’s only making ~$12 mil and if he’s not producing he won’t have a spot. I still have highish hopes for Darvish over the next ~3 years and think he’ll be plenty valuable this year and next ~2. Lester might be awful but we all knew that was likely the case come 2020 on that deal. Hopefully Adbert or someone else internally/through trade is ready to step in by 2020 if needed. If things are so tight they need to extend him just to save $5m, then just let him walk and save the full $20m. I like Hamels for 2019, but he's a luxury. If Theo needs to be captain efficiency this winter to make Bryce work (totally fair, IMO), then the rotation is best addressed via trades and depth and not via money. The problem with the rotation isn't the specific guys, it's being locked into yet another player with significant guaranteed money. We all were drooling about this rotation at this time last year, and now they look...pretty good, I guess? What is this same group of guys going to look like next year? Because they're pitchers, smart money says the answer is almost certainly "worse." Worse probably doesn't mean bad, but it does leave something to be desired. Fulfilling those desires will be that much harder with Cole locked into a rotation slot and PTR's wallet being $15m lighter.

Most likely or trying to work out a 2 year deal at less aav Ewww I hope not. If the team can't make his salary work straight up in 2019 then just let him go. It's already worrisome that the 2020 Cubs are locked into Lester, Darvish, and Chatwood for a combined $60 million (includes Lester's 2021 buyout). I don't want to add 36 year old Cole Hamels at ~$15m to that.

Exactly. He was bad for us, and is obviously not worth $5m, but he's fine. You'd rather spend that same money (and maybe more importantly, that roster spot) on like Jesse Chavez, but spending $5m on a guy who is actually only worth like $3m isn't worth much consternation.

I think it's pretty simple: if the Cubs can run a $260m+ payroll they'd be foolish to let Hamels go. He was legitimately great here in Chicago, and the bump in velo and change in pitch mix offer pretty compelling evidence that he was simply a different guy than at the end of his Texas days. There's a lot of Justin Verlander going on there. And it's a one year deal, so even if he is merely fine that's worth it for the depth it provides. Conversely, if the team can't afford both him and Bryce without significant financial maneuvering, then they'd be dumb to hold on to him. While there was a lot of Verlander going on here in Chicago, there was a lot of John Lackey going on at the end of his time in Texas. That was probably just dumb HR/FB luck, but his 2017 was just bad, no luck about it. You can't paint yourself into a corner where you need to clear 10's of millions in salary to afford to do whatever you need to do. I'm personally of the mind that Chatwood et al won't actually be that hard to move, but it's hardly something you can safely count on.

Wow, there was about 1000% chance the Packers were going to drive far enough for the field goal if not for that fumble.

Clickbait. Any mock before May 1st is clickbait.

I know they changed the rule a bit after the Trea Turner, Padres-Nats trade but I'm not sure what it is. I think they moved the date up though that it's not a full ~year after the draft anymore. You can now trade guys the winter after they've been drafted, but there's no more PTBNL shenanigans allowed like the Padres did with Trea Turner.

It's kind of surprising that this is happening, since some of the underlying factors that have led to lower participation rates in baseball (fewer scholarships than Basketball and Football, youth travel ball being hella expensive) are not getting any better. and actually are probably getting worse. You kind of have to assume that RBI and other similar inclusion initiatives are working, which is fantastic news. There are a lot of bad things we can say about MLB as an organization, but it's really cool that this isn't one of the things that they have horsefeathered up.