Bertz

Yeah it's pretty easy to keep this team flat talent wise year over year. More or less "trade" 3-5 position player WAR for 3-5 pitcher WAR. But I think if you want to improve you've got to really attack upgrading the pitcjing staff. Much like the Dodgers last winter, where it seemed like they should be done and then they kept going and added Scott and Yates. Also agreed that the SP playing time will sort itself out. The sad reality is you're never going to make it through February-April unscathed. Like hell Colin Rea opened the season in the bullpen and made 27 (!!) starts for us.

Yeah, I would say setting aside for a moment any roster management issues the entire quartet has earned the opportunity to open next year in MLB. But there's some differing levels of urgency on getting them up - Caissie *has* to open next year in MLB. Whether it's here or Miami or Kansas City it just has to happen. There's nothing to gain at Iowa anymore unless/until he gets his ass kicked by MLB pitching for a bit and has to go down and lick his wounds - Alcantara has not hit at quite the level of the others, but he's also probably ready. He's got a 125 wRC+ from Memorial Day onwards (~250 PAs) and a 138 from 6/25 on (180 PAs). He's also entering his last option year. Thankfully he's the easiest to toss on the bench. He has big platoon splits to compliment Happ/PCA/Mo/Caissie and has legit defense/baserunning value - Moises still has defensive development to do so it's not ideal but he can hang out in Iowa a little while longer if need be - Jonny Long is arguably the most MLB ready hitter of the lot. That said he hasn't been parked at Iowa for as long as the rest so again its not a disaster if he opens next year back at Iowa. He could also stand to get a longer look at non 1B positions too which could buy time I would, assuming Tucker's gone, plan for Alcantara on the bench from the jump. With the other three it's a modified version of Horsefeathers, Marry. Kill called "Start, Trade, Option."

So I will say I topline I agree. I don't expect a 9 figure contract this winter unless it's something barely over that threshold, like Kevin Gausman money (5/110) to a SP (Bieber?). That said I think a few things are worth keeping in mind: - The team has a high floor and few holes. They're far better positioned to spend on luxury items right now than they have been since at least the Darvish offseason - Tucker aside, no one on this market is going to get way more than Swanson. Framber Valdez is probably the #2 player on the market and he's looking at like Max Fried money - This has never been confirmed publicly AFAIK, but TT has previously put together a pretty convincing argument that teams are more willing to sign a QO guy if they already have one going out. That's because instead of full on losing a second rounder, it functions as basically just dropping back 20 spots. With Tucker leaving Jed should have a little less reticence to play in those waters

Some assorted thoughts on the state of things and the direction I'm thinking. This was supposed to be brief but...well it very much isn't - The team is ~$80M south of the luxury tax line if we assume no options get picked up. I would tentatively expect ~$10M to be set aside, ~$20M to be spent on boring stuff (bench/bullpen depth), and ~$50M to be spent on fun stuff - I think the smart money for pretty much as long as Tom owns the team is to expect that the payroll cap will be roughly the LT line. However, I think if Tom is ever going to let Jed significantly cross the line for a year, this year makes about as much sense as any between the playoff run and all the expiring contracts after next season - IMO the big picture direction of this offseason boils down to Kyle Tucker + whatever pitching you can get by trading Owen Caissie vs. Owen Caissie + whatever pitching you can get for Kyle Tucker's ~$40M salary. I lean towards the latter, though I suspect I will flip flop 2-3 times over the next two months. Worth noting: if PTR is willing to juice payroll that very quickly tilts my scales more towards keeping Tucker - The argument for letting Tucker leave is re-allocating that money and opening a spot for the kids. So you could theoretically extend that logic to re-signing Tucker and moving Seiya. However I don't like that idea as I worry though about removing the primary source of RHH power from the lineup. Ideally you could move Happ, though that NTC seems pretty locked down. I'm not going to begrudge the guy loving Chicago though, and it isn't especially painful having to hold onto him - The roster is remarkably ready to go right from jump. Jed could honestly take a nap until MLK Day, add some free agent scraps to the bench/bullpen, and I think this team still comfortably wins a wildcard (though not as comfortably as this year) - The flipside to the roster being so complete is that it's tough to make meaningful upgrades. Re-signing Tucker, getting a rockstar SP, or building a bullpen of doom are pretty much the only multi-win upgrades available IMO. Mayyybe Bregman or Bo Bichette at 3B? - I understand that Shota has not earned a lot of confidence over the last few weeks, but I tend to think letting him go would be an emotional knee jerk reaction. That said, if either Tom is willing to juice payroll or Jed already knows for sure he is going to let Tucker walk the calculus changes. In either of those cases I think there's a strong argument to letting Shota walk and making it a two SP winter - I don't have a great sense of what to do with the bench. Just letting the kids fill the bench works on paper, but I suspect you're putting them in a poor position to succeed and develop. So how do you handle the kid/vet balance? And can you even get good vet(s) given the lack of playing time you're able to promise? I don't have a firm answer. I will say this is a moment where I'm very happy to have Craig Counsell - Speaking of the kids, I know everyone has minor league options still so you don't *have* to do anything, but I think you really ought to cash in at least one of the Iowa bats this winter. If you re-sign Tucker probably two of them. Relatedly, you don't absolutely have to do anything with them but I don’t think all three of Brown/Wicks/Assad should still be in the org by the end of the winter (Assad is the guy to move here IMO) - I want a bullpen of doom, and I want it to be a bullpen of doom right from Opening Day. I think this accomplishes two things. First, like I mentioned above there's not a lot of places to upgrade this team. The argument against spending big on relievers is largely about opportunity cost, but there's not a lot of other opportunity on this roster. Second, if you come into the season with 4-5 impact arms it gives you time and opportunity to let Tommy Hottovy cook and find the next Keller/Pomeranz/etc.

Going back even further, a 99 wRC+ from when he got called up in May onwards. So that includes his *brutal* late June heading into the break. Figure true talent right now he's an average bat and a +5 defender? And at 23 years old, I agree hard to swap that out.

The Cubs were 6th in runs scored from August 29th to the end of the season, why not use that as your baseline for what the real offense is?

What possible reason could there be for only focusing on June 1st onward?

For starters there's no disconnect. The team was 5th in runs, 7th in wOBA, 4th in xwOBA. The difference between their actual runs scored and their Baseruns (which strips *all* context to estimate offense) is .05 runs per game, which is essentially a rounding error. None of these specific numbers are park adjusted so there's not any bias there either.

You speak very confidently for someone who does not understand how this stuff works

Wow! I knew he had gas but still wow. Curious what the plan with him will be next year. He's Rule 5 eligible, so there's a bit of a delicate balance between giving him SP opportunities to get reps and pushing him up the ladder as a reliever to see if he's worth protecting. Palencia and Little both performed as SPs in Low A (and Palencia in High A) so they're not great comps.

I'm as "focus big picture, avoid recency bias" as anyone but yeah I don't think you can let Shota see Chourio/Vaughn/Contreras. The way they were on him, whether it's sign stealing (not very likely), they see him really well (medium likely) or pitch tipping (very likely) I'm skeptical it was fixed in five days. There's a pocket of the lineup where Shota can slot in and get some reps, but he's just not the choice for getting even the plurality of the outs tomorrow IMO.

I'm still thinking it through, but I'm leaning towards being okay with that.

Yeah I expect the Tucker/Schwarber/Bellinger musical chairs to be one of the biggest stories this winter. I could see it going several different ways.

That ballpark was tailor made for him, sending him to New York for a potential contract year was definitely doing right by him

Philly is in an interesting spot, this was sort of supposed to be their year. As the proto Preller there's no way Dombrowski folds his hands for the second offseason in a row and coming off of *that* exit.

Craig did say he's probably not going to be able to provide "bulk" again this October. So I'd assume 2 inning stints max

(I almost always do this for big games)

Contreras was so obvious and over the top I kind of think it was just headgames. Unfortunately unlike the stupid "we had Priester warming up in the bullpen" gambit I think it worked.

About a third of Peralta's starts against us are clunkers, and his last two times have been strong. So we're clearly due.

Even as this board's resident Ben Brown fanboy slash xFIP truther, I think starting him over Boyd today would be crazy. Saturday (assuming we get there) as the tip of a bullpen game spear? Hell yeah let's ride. Not over Boyd though.

His career postseason ERA is now more than two runs higher than his regular season one. Not small sample either, nearly 200 innings. Crazy.

Awesome I think too if Mathis rakes that's a great sign. When the AA/AAA guys go and crush it that's largely just meeting expectations. Mathis is far enough down the ladder it'd feel like it means a bit more.