Stratos
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Everything posted by Stratos
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Everyone thinks the Cubs are down on Mervis. He's a good hitting prospect, nothing has changed. But you also don't bank on a position being filled by a rookie if you plan to contend. I highly doubt the Cubs would go into 2024 with Busch as their only good option at 1B either. Busch gets the shot at 1B over Mervis because he's the more advanced prospect so he gets first crack, it's not a reflection on Mervis, it's a reflection on Busch vis a vis Mervis. But Mervis is also there in case Busch struggles or is hurt. There's lots of things the Cubs can do with Busch and Mervis. Maybe Morel can't play 3B well and heads back to DH, Busch goes to 3B, and Mervis is the 1B. We don't know. The Cubs like options and depth as they should. The Cubs really have no idea what Counsell is going to end up doing or what injuries will happen or who will perform vs struggle, they're just giving Counsell lots of solid options. We have no definitive idea who will end up at 3B, 1B, and DH and neither do the Cubs. Giving Busch a shot at 1B and using Morel/Madrigal at 3B and whomever at DH is a good starting point. Nobody last year thought Bellinger would end up at 1B and Tauchman our starting CF and Madrigal really good defensively at 3B.
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Why would trying Morel at 3B not be the plan? Mervis can DH
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Famous last words.
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If you're average at holding leads in an era where the pen throws more innings than ever before you're probably going to be not much better than an average team, which they weren't. If you have a pen filled with very average arms your pen is most likely going to be average. If the Cubs are content with being average they are stupid. If these FA relievers aren't "a good value" for Jed and Ricketts is too cheap to pay for them then Jed needs to make a trade. Trading assets for assets is not a net loss.
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Agree with this post. Lots of fans seem to overreact about everything. If Cubs want LHB in the lineup Mervis can always DH. It doesn't make much sense to trade him right now. Maybe next year sure. He's still a good hitting prospect
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Yankees blowing smoke over Bellinger? https://www.mlb.com/yankees/news/aaron-judge-expected-to-bat-third-play-center-field-in-2024 Yanks have some solid OF prospects though.
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So I guess if we sign a pen FA it's some 4-5m signing like Fulmer was, or slightly better? Let's hope for a trade I guess....
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Well I said that's what I expect to happen, not what I wanted. But I wouldn't have a big deal putting in an opt out for an expensive longterm FA deal. If I can get 2 or 3 good seasons at the youngest ages of a FA contract and avoid the later years of a deal that's a win. Can take that money saved and just sign another player. Even if you theoretically gave them an opt out every single year it's not a big deal, especially if you get concessions from the player in terms of AAV or guaranteed length.
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Player opt outs I meant
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I feel like the guarantee will be lengthy enough like 6 years but with some opt outs. Depends how confident Belli is I guess. If I were a GM I'd like opt outs for longterm deals, it gives the players incentives to keep putting in max effort as opposed to possibly starting to coast a bit.
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Depends why we think they underperformed their Pythag W/L list year. Some of that is distribution luck, some of it is poor high leverage pen performance. If they get Bellinger i think they're a slightly better team on paper than OD last year.... hopefully. More depth via prospects at upper levels.
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Jed's choice is to wait or give Boras exactly what he wants, which is almost certainly a pretty stupid contract. Or sign a guy like Keirmeyer or Bader and just not try to get one of these Boras guys? Which do you prefer?
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Signing Counsell should have been sign #1 that they wanted to be more like the Brewers than the Dodgers. How much they spent over the LT during the last window with the previous core is about the most we can ever hope for with this ownership.
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A good thing is that with just under 40m to spend we can be pretty darn confident that Jed at least wants one of the top 4 Boras players left, and probably Bellinger. But we don't know if he'll get him. Jed should be happy to get just market value for Bellinger from Boras, if he's looking for good value signing it's probably not happening.
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How does that work? Honestly don't know.
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What's the most excruciatingly boring Cubs offseason?
Stratos replied to Stratos's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I knew I was missing one lol -
Maybe more similar to the Conforto deal.
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Maybe a few weeks. Suzuki did that one year he was hurt before OD
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AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Similar deal to Bellinger's i think?
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What scares me about the Boras vs Jed battle is that the Cubs need Bellinger/Chapman to be ready for ST and OD more than those guys need to be ready for ST/OD. You sign a longterm deal and the stats from this season don't matter. Boras is in a good leverage position over the Cubs and other teams. He knows what he's doing. Waiting on one of these Boras clients also means Jed doesn't know how much left he has to spend on the pen or another bat etc. But even if we sign one of these guys in March they'll be ready by early May. Missing them for 1 month is a loss, but not a total loss. Baseball needs an offseason deadline.
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We have Busch, the poor man's Hoskins, who fits the Ricketts' spending tolerance better...that tolerance being league minimum salary 😂. This year i'd rather have Hoskins but longterm Busch is still pretty nice. Gave up a good prospect for him though. I'm glad to have another lefty power bat, so maybe Hoskins wasn't the ideal fit that way. Unfortunately the Brewers actually signed a decent player. Oh well. Maybe the Cubs don't grab another corner INF/DH bat, but I think they may., someone decent coming on a good value leftover on the FA heap. They do have Mervis, Canario, among others to try at DH, but I think they do better as depth/bench pieces over OD starters.
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Quoted for truth.
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There's not much back and forth right now I imagine. It's a staring contest right now. Boras has a general number he wants and teams aren't matching it, so he's waiting them out until they match it or get close. Someone like Paxton who can only demand a short-term or 1 year deal has to sign sooner than later because this year is important to his earnings next offseason. A guy like Bellinger or Snell etc who will sign a longterm deal doesn't have to worry much about his stats being affected by a late ST this season, the money over the next several years is much more important. Snell can wait until the trade deadline if he wants like Kimbrel, it doesn't really matter. Burning 13m of a half season of salary is better than leaving 20m on the table. Hoskins probably signs before the other Boras guys. Bryce Harper only signed in March.
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Well they did it last year so not going to assume they won't do it again. Fulmer + Jonathan Villar incoming.
