Stratos

Even if they signed Bellinger to a longterm deal but without a NTC it could work. Even with a NTC he can still be traded, like Darvish was. Happ or Seiya can be traded down the line also. I think the plan all along may have been to sign Yu Darvish on a good value deal and then flip him after he has a really good season. I think the same could possibly be said for Taillon (though not a "really good season", but they probably thought they can extract better performance out of him with the pitch lab magic etc)

The Cubs should be spending as much on total payroll as possible, so if they don't at least spend up near to the CBT line I totally agree. Total spending is different than how they spend, however.

My point was just that Jed has a lot of options so he has the luxury of being flexible. I don't agree with the "go get your guy even if overpaying". At the end of the day, every player has a n inherent value determined by the Cubs, and they need to numerically quantify it and put a price on that value. Everyone is worth something, everyone can be underpaid or overpaid. I don't see the reason for them to pigeonhole themselves You're right, lower revenue teams do use this sort of Moneyball approach. What if a team with a much larger payroll used the same approach? What if the Rays had the Cubs payroll? I think it's worth the experiment.

Exactly my point. I do complaint about the Mancini contract, but looking at the options last year it was very thin. I believe only about 7 of the top 9 or so 1B on the FA market last year had a good season worth anywhere near their contract. Belt and Drury. We can count Bellinger too I guess, some credit to Jed there too I guess. As far as Barnhart, the options weren't great last offseason also, I guess they went with defense-first at cheap cost and focused their money on other priorities. A lot of players from last offseason's FA pool had disappointing years.

I believe the Cubs organization is at a point where the FO can afford to be even more patient than normal, largely due to the strong farm system. This allows him more options and flexibility than usual in FA. Jed doesn't NEED to sign a FA CF like Bellinger. He has Tauchman, Canario, and PCA if needed. He can also acquire a stopgap in a small trade if needed, or sign a guy like Bader until PCA is ready. Jed doesn't NEED to sign a FA SP like Imanaga or Montgomery, in the short-term he can also trade prospects for a SP with 1 or 2 years of control left until Horton, Wicks, and Brown may all be ready to join Steele, Taillon, Assad, and Wesneski as rotation options. He doesn't NEED to sign a FA 1B or DH. He also has Mervis, Morel, Canario, and Wisdom as options there, and can also make a trade for one. Similar with Chapman. We have Morel + Madrigal + Wisdom, then Murray + Slaughter in AAA, plus Shaw in AA who might even be ready by the end of 2024 or next season. Plus trade options on the table too. If all those guys get the flu they have Triantos, Mastrobuoni, Strumpf, and Bote in the upper minors or on the bench as well as backups. We have a lots of depth this year as most positions. I think Jed will use this flexibility to wait out the market and pluck the best value deals that present themselves when comparing all the options in FA and in the trade market. We can be sure he has done all his prep work with teams and agents and is simply waiting until the market presents the opportunity to pounce. If a FO's job during the offseason is primarily to maximize the amount of talent and potential number of wins the team is likely to achieve given the payroll budget they're provided by ownership, in both the short and longterm, then this is a logical approach. Jed's been working in the high levels of MLB front offices for 20 years for big market teams who have won a few World Series rings, so this isn't his first rodeo, so for now I trust he knows what he's doing.

del

Should have signed Abreu, Josh Bell, or Rizzo last year instead of Mancini and Hosmer. I mean c'mon Jed! Navarez or Zunino > Barnhart. LET'S GOOOOOOO!!

I tried my best to figure out the teams needing an 1B, or could really use an upgrade based on the 1B's they had last year. I have no idea about whether any of these teams have an 1B prospect they're planning to play next year. The most obvious team that's a potential contender that's needing an 1B is the Brewers. Most of the others that could really use an 1B are just bad teams: MIL, WAS, KCR, COL, DET, CHW, LAA, MIN (maybe?), SDP (maybe?) This doesn't include teams that may look for a DH, but if I were Hoskins and healthy I'd want to play 1B to prove i'm healthy and boost my value for next FA period.

I guess when there's no news you just have to make up your own trades to fill air time lol

I think the whole idea of needing a "core" is overblown.

I wouldn't do the 3rd one.

How do you know this? How do you know that Ricketts doesn't set a max payroll and largely leaves it up to Jed to figure out how to maximize the wins with that money? That's also exactly what they've said is how it happens. I think if there's going to be major spending on a player Jed and the FO go over it with a fine-toothed comb to make sure it's the best move for them, and then take all that data/evidence and show it to Tom to get his final ok on spending that money. I think he generally trusts Jed to do his job. Tom's not a baseball guy, WTF does he know about winning ballgames? IMO it's all data-driven. They've worked out the math and in their analysis they conclude that these huge 300/12 type deals don't produce as many wins for the team as e.g. 2 separate 150/6 deals. We don't really know what that math is, but I think they probably have a good argument. I wouldn't call these mega-contracts, but just as an example if the Cubs could have cut bait on Heyward and Lester halfway through their contracts we would have been much better off. The likelihood that a player on a mega-contract outperforms that contract is close to zero. The best they can do is live up to it, and that doesn't happen often.

I don't know the exact solution but the disparity between payroll between the richest and small market teams seems to be increasing and it isn't good for competitiveness and the sport in general. They need to do something next CBA. Total spending isn't the issue, it's the distribution.

And the 50 million signing bonus. Cost the Dodgers 35.5 AAV equivalent.

Maybe they should figure out how to make the playoffs less random. I say a 7 game divisional series is the bare minimum they could try.

On the plus side, if I become a Dodger fan for the next few years life is suddenly super amaziing! We just got Ohtani and Yamamoto baby!!

Fair enough. My assumption is Yamamoto will be about as good as Steele, but hard to say.

Yes, the only way anyone wins the WS now is by luck. The Dodgers won 100 games this season and just added Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Glasnow. Urias was worth 1 WAR last season, but if they let him walk they still added about 15 wins. Lucky for us Ohtani can't pitch yet.

The Dodgers now have 4 players who are better than anyone on the Cubs. Any time Glasnow is healthy you can count 5. Maybe the Dodgers sign Soto and Sasaki next year, that would be fun.

After this season the Dodgers will be running out Ohtani, Yamamoto, Glasnow, and Kershaw in the rotation, and have a lineup anchored by 3 of the 4 best players in baseball with Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman. This is insane. And the offseason isn't even done yet, they could keep adding...

He cost them $425 million. Who the heck else was going to be in on that? F*** the Dodgers. Ohtani and Yamamoto can now afford to buy the Dodgers and move them to Tokyo.

Yeah because of the stupid deferred Ohtani contract.

Well to be fair the Dodgers this offseason haven't been just re-signing their own players to big deals and handing out huge dollars to old people.

Looks like Christmas is cancelled in the Derwood household...

Taillon will probably do better next year but he gives up way too many flyballs and it's been a trend each of his last 3 seasons. That's not good. There's no path besides pure luck where he doesn't give up a lot of HR if he pitches like that. I like his curveball but his fastballs all suck. Hitters hammer them.