Stratos
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Everything posted by Stratos
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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.
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Jed has a number he wants. Boras has a number. Who blinks first? We'll be here until the all star break.
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Don't underestimate the power of Ricketts cheapness.
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OH MY horsefeathers GOD A BORAS CLIENT IS ABOUT TO BE SIGNED. Paxton to Dodgers, not inked yet.
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Here's how you can break Boras: a big market team like the Cubs waits for any substantial Boras FA to sign with another team late in the offseason (e.g. after mid-January) that they never had any intention on signing and make a fake leak to a major journalist that they had offered e.g. 30 million more than the winning bid the player actually signed for (a total lie) but were unwilling to wait out Boras because they wanted to get their main roster pieces ready for ST. This will make the player upset at Boras for leaving a lot of money on the table by waiting too long. Other Boras clients will notice this and in future offseasons some Boras clients will insist that he not wait late to sign. If Boras is going to continually plant lies in the media to gain negotiation leverage then the Cubs should do the same.
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I know what they're doing, it looks like they're trying to stay under the LT line. You don't do that with a 10.5m reliever. So far all they've done is signed the cheapest "quality" SP available and filled 1B with a rookie at league minimum plus signed a reliever who had a 5.02 ERA last season. Almonte agreed to a 1.9m deal to avoid arbitration in Sept., looks like he's meant as one of our new pen "upgrades". They'll probably sign one of Chapman/Bellinger, add a decent reliever, maybe another usable bat that isn't too expensive, and slide under the LT again. I hope i'm wrong but it's not like we haven't seen this act before. All this hot air about the Cubs going to be a big spender the rest of the offseason is probably just Boras spreading his usual nonsense for leverage.
