Bertz

It is generally not a great idea to spend a bunch of time/effort/resources trying to re-fight last year's battles

Numbers are a little lighter than I expected, likely because a lot of these guys lack counting stats

Wiggins had a mostly lost year but he's a pitcher at AAA who will be on the 40 man next year. You're never more than a couple weeks of good performance away from being an MLB option at that point. I would expect, barring more injury, that he spends a majority of next year in the big league pen.

Big fan. One of the nice things about plainly needing so much pitching is that high risk high reward guys like Bubic or Jack Flaherty or Shane Bieber are firmly on the table.

I mean there is exactly 1 top end guy and he's going to command a contract that we know is not going to happen here (and unlike Ohtani/Soto I'm personally all that wistful about it). It definitely sucks that there is not a Max Fried or a Dylan Cease in this class. A 7/$175 pitcher would fit like a glove rjght now. But there's not, not even really close unless the Japanese guys are more well thought of than I realize. So I think it's really a situation like "Here's $60M and 3 roster spots, try to buy as much WAR as you can" as opposed to trying to fill specific roles or niches.

This is fair I think he'd take the offer but it's not a slam dunk. It's a pretty dogshit FA class on the position player side. That said Happ had a rough (though not disastrous) platform year, the CBA is going to make this not a fun year to be a FA, and he obviously loves it here. I'm sure there are specific deals where I'd be like "okay yeah I'm down for that" but broadly I don't have any interest in moving Shaw or Ramirez, the farm would be in dire straights if we made a trade without touching the big league club, and the FA class on the pitching side is pretty deep even if the top end (Skubal aside) is uninspired. Basically we have money to spend and there are guys worth spending on so I'd prefer to address the situation with the checkbook.

Big deal IMO

This is long and a bit rambly but some various thoughts heading into the winter - 2027 payroll is currently ~$170M, 2026 payroll ended around $265M. The CBA will impact things but I'd guess there's at least $80M to play with - Seiya obviously warrants a QO, but I'd let him walk after that. He's a good player and a very cool dude but I can't really justify giving him a 9 figure contract - I'd offer Happ a QO because honestly I suspect he takes it. Giving us a one year bridge to Hartshorn and giving Happ an opportunity at a platform year that's closer to '25 than '26 feels like an obvious win-win - I would lean no on a Matt Boyd QO, but it's close enough I'll be fine either way the team decides to go - The team needs a veteran catcher, you can't just roll with Amaya and Ayers. Kelly has probably priced himself well beyond what we're looking for (good for him). I'm eying Gary Sanchez since he can also be part of the 1B/DH mix, and who knows maybe he brings some valuable state secrets south of the Wisconsin border - We don't have an option or QO decision, but I would like to hang on to Michael Conforto. I wouldn't overextend myself to do so, but Justin Turner type money to be our plurality DH and give Shaw a little bit of platoon support in right? Sounds great to me - I lean towards letting Rea walk. That said I feel worse about simply covering innings heading into '27 than I did each of the last two years, so it wouldn't be crazy to hold onto him - I wouldn't majorly invest in the bullpen. Palencia, Webb, and Zeferjahn is a good top 3. Rolison is a very good lefty specialist, and between guys returning from injury, guys on the outside looking in for the rotation, and guys at Iowa there's depth. If the team has more money than I suspect sure add another setup man, but broadly just stick to the normal NRIs and waiver claims - The minor league SP depth is weird. It's relatively talented but also no one is obviously ready enough to provide short term support if needed in April. So you need to operate on the assumption Assad opens the year at Iowa, which sucks for him personally but is the reality of the situation - I still like Edward Cabrera. There are shades of Ben Brown a year ago, where some bad luck seemed to lead to loss of confidence and things snowballed. Start and stop with the injuries certainly didn't help either. It's not nearly as clear cut of a case as Ben, though I think the solution is the same. Plan should be for Cabrera open the year in the pen in long relief. Mid season once the right combination of trust in Eddie and injuries on the staff hit he can slide back into the rotation and hopefully stay there for good. Just gotta hope he doesn't subsequently develop bone-itis like Ben - The team needs 3 starters. There are endless permutations of what those 3 can look like, but they need at least 3. And they're closer to needing 4 than they are to needing 2 - Despite the glaring SP need I would lean very much against a controllable SP trade. Wanna trade for another Braxon Garrett swing man type? Fine. Wanna trade marginal prospects for Nate Eovaldi and his healthy contract? Sounds good. But I have very little interest in something like revisiting Reid Detmers

Yeah the Iowa rotation is probably the biggest open question right now - Caple and McCullough deserve to be there but will they instead open at Tenn in the name of preserving depth? - Assad doesn't deserve to be there but probably will be in the name of preserving depth - Is Sanders healthy? - Wiggins gets another shot at the rotation, right? - Does Kipp get more runway at sticking in the rotation? - Does Wicks get DFA'd? - I believe Franklin and Conrad have to be added to the 40 if we want to keep them? - Given how few of the guys above are someone you could count on for start in April, you probably have to add a Vince Velazquez type veteran or two? It's a very weird short term situation for a group that is actually fairly talented.

Brutal end for the Phillies. Man you survive Chris Sale and have Cristopher Sanchez going tomorrow and you're feeling great, then NOPE Moot point now but I wonder if the plan was to have Duran take the game to the house

Waiver claim right after Swanson got hurt. Hoerner's our backup SS and if god forbid Hoerner got hurt after Swanson we'd have been horsefeathered. Him being on the roster now is a sign Bregman can't play the field yet. They need a reserve infielder in case they do pinch hit shenanigans with Shaw.

Yeah I think this is the approach. Not quite piggyback but sort of piggyback? And hell if the offense gives us a decent lead maybe just try and get 8 or 9 innings out of two guys. It's a shame there wasn't enough runway to get Cabrera right. He was, even in a somewhat challening first half, generally tough on righties and the first time or two through the order.

I mentioned this in the other thread but while obviously you want to win tonight at bare minimum you need to lose in a way where the Pads have to use their high leverage relievers, ideally ride them hard. Like lose a 4-3 game where King only goes 3.1 and that has some positive lifts for the next two days. That said King is a really good matchup for this offense. To whatever extent you can count on micro-level matchups working out how you'd expect the Cubs should get a W tonight.

No, that's part of why he's been a late bloomer IMO. He's got a fastball, cutter, and two breaking balls and early in his career they bled together too much and lefties torched him.

Yeah King's ERA makes it look like he's back to being the star he was two years ago, but really at this point he's just a boring average sinker/slider righty. It's baseball so you can't make firm predictions about a single game but King is the exact type of guy our lineup tends to eat alive. Pivetta's been throwing up zeroes since he came off the IL but has lost the ability to miss bats. Very reminiscent of Boyd earlier this summer. Hopefully the luck runs out tomorrow. IMO the big thing is we can't let the Padres win a game where they don't use the meat of their bullpen. If the Padres go like King-Vazquez to get 9 innings tonight because Boyd got knocked around or the bullpen coughed up a 4 run lead or whatever it'll be tough to come back knowing the next two days are essentially 6 inning games.

https://www.mlb.com/amp/news/hot-streaks-late-in-season-important-for-mlb-playoffs.html Late season performance doesn't matter

Cubs get past the Brewers, Dodgers get bounced in the DS, Cubs fans get irrationally confident, Cubs get pantsed by the Braves or Phillies.

Are they really not activating Steele for today? I thought with this game being (almost) meaningless that was a slam dunk

People love to say "XXX is key in the playoffs" and most of those are made up but hitting a lot of homeruns is one of the very few things that's been definitively proven because it's relatively easy to math out.

Thought this was interesting. Even teams that are objectively crushing it with minor league pitching dev are having a tough time getting anything out of LATAM.

Fangraphs doesn't have chase rates that low in the minors, but it does have swing rates. Hartshorn's was 41%, which by extension means we now know his chase was 17% 17% Chase / 88% Z contact is rarified air. It's not a slam dunk star, while there's a lot of Soto and Tucker and Betts in that vicinity there's also some like Robbie Grossman and Jonathan India at their peaks, but still that's exciting especially knowing what kind of power Josiah has.

This feels super super super important: So 26% is shared revenue, and that is mostly but not all national TV money. Let's for the sake of round numbers call it 20% that they can count on still getting from the central pot even without playing ~20% is local TV, which has some leeway for missed games (30ish, depending on the team) but much less than the national deals The remaining 55% is not broken out, but it's presumably mostly game day revenue. So if owners want to absolutely maximize their free lunch they're looking at ~1/3rd of their typical revenue? However the national TV dollars are essentially just borrowing from 2029. You also, presumably, have major deleterious effects on the next set of rights deals. I just see no reason to believe owners are willing to do that. If I had to place odds on how this plays out, it'd be something like: 4% - A deal is reached before spring training is impacted. This would have been 0% six months ago, but Monfort and Moreno are two of the mkre problematic owners from a labor standpoint and they're on the way out 10% - A deal is reached where ST gets a bit of a haircut but before the regular season is impacted 70% - Like last time, a deal is reached where 162 games are played but with a scheduling adjustment (the league setting Opening Day a week early was not an accident IMO) 10% - We miss games, but basically just enough to be obnoxious. Teams play like 148 or something stupid like that 5% - We miss enough games to horsefeathers with local TV contracts, but few enough to avoid this 60 game national TV cliff 1% - We cross this national tv red line 0% - We miss a full season or more

I was wondering how they'd fit Steele onto the roster and it looks like this is it. Hollowell gets some innings today, Steele takes his spot and gets into Sunday's game.

This is a good article, I frankly don't expect to lose any games but that 60ish game mark looks like an absolute red line.