Stratos

Jed mentioned that he didn't see a big issue with their approach to bullpen construction, and mentioned the success they had in their pen signings last year and that they failed in their pen acquisitions this past offseason. In another offseason someone like Morejon might be a realistic option but IMO probably a big longshot this year with all the holes in the rotation and OF they need to fill. But stranger things have happened.

I'd like them both back.

I still like Cabrera's potential. Maybe you get 80-100 innings from him next year (of unknown quality). Brown maybe you get another 2 months of starts. Steele and Horton i would start with the assumption they aren't useful. The Cubs may need to acquire another 5-6 SP this winter, which is a difficult ask for Hoyer.

Busch is good and cheap, I don't know how trading him would make us better without having a good 1B prospect to replace him.

I'm not sure how the Cubs feel about Busch vs LHP. He had a 117 wRC+ vs LHP, but did it affect him vs RHP? I'd like to give Busch another shot at fulltime duty, so I'm not sure id grab a pure 1b to platoon, but at least find someone on the bench who can play 1B., like a bench OF we sign? I'm down for King and Morejon. Arozerana is an option. Lowe doesn't seem to fit.

I think bottom line is the 3 best arms in the org were on the IL, plus some key bullpen signings were hurt too, among other injuries. They got 3 good arms at the deadline but when your rotation and pen is gutted from injury it's difficult to recover.. In 2016 they got Chapman to improve the team, but this deadline they were trying to plug holes from injury. The team trended poorly going into the playoffs. Their best hitter was hurt etc. horsefeathers happens. If you want to win a ring things need to go right and we just had a lot of bad luck/ timing. Jed decided to put the money into the offense. He spent big on Bregman instead of an ace pitcher like Cease and given how pitchers get injured these days I think he made the right call. Steele, Horton, Brown getting hurt isn't their fault. Horton was always an arm injury waiting to happen but considering the other picks after him in that draft they took the risky high upside over someone with no standout tools like Brooks Lee.

Yeah. Hard to see losing more than a month of games, and probably less. I can't see either side being willing to lose i e. half a season.

Yeah for sure, but i also mean via trade etc

For next year i would assume a decline in the team's offensive production and improvement in the pitching (hard to be as bad and injured as they were). So the good thing is if they pitch better that can make up for a decline in offense via i.e. PCA not being as good and Seiya likely leaving. Hard to see the team improving much overall though, unless they raise payroll a bunch. At least corner OF is the easiest position to find if Happ/Seiya leave.

Somebody start the offseason thread.

Matt Shaw should never play 1B ever.

Did you see Machado shut it down running to 2nd while a grounder was hit with 2 outs earlier in the game?

Jason Adam been to the Cade Horton school of pitching mechanics.

Somebody fire the Padres color guy