Stratos

Including Gray, their best players are getting old, almost all of them out of their prime years, plus Contreras will be 32 in May. It's unlikely none of these old guys on the team don't age regress next year, and they need them not to in order to have a good chance. They need Arenado, Goldschmidt, and Gray etc to have years they've put up in the past but I can't see them all doing that, not to mention the other old guys.

Old. LOL.

This seems overly optimistic. I think it's extremely likely they go over the CBT if they sign Ohtani, but no guarantee they go over the CBT if they don't.

The Cubs have committed significant money on several players already, I don't think timing is going to be an issue. I think as a team the Cubs start peaking somewhere between 2025-2027 most of the better prospects are up and still making pre-arb salaries. Ohtani should still be in his prime years for the next 4 seasons or so...unless his arm doesn't recover 100% from the surgery. The good thing is he's been through TJS before and recovered fully (though a 2nd surgery isn't exactly a good sign), but there's no guarantee any pitcher recovers 100% from TJS, e.g. Noah Syndergaard. It will be a matter of if they're willing to go over the CBT threshold and by how much. If they sign Ohtani I can't see them affording another TORP with going over. For the next couple of seasons I think they should go over the CBT line until more cheap surplus starts coming to the MLB team from the prospects.

Hahaha sorry!

i was just testing the profanity censorship system here on these boards LOL

I don't think it's meaningless, because he may not use the opt-outs, like if he doesn't come back pitching as well as before. It's a pretty massive risk for a team to pay Ohtani like he's the ace pitcher he's been on a decade+ long deal when he just had major elbow surgery. I can definitely see something to protect a team from that risk plus player opt-outs in case he does come back 100%, which would be the whole point of an opt-out.

I think the situation last year was fairly straighforward. Morel struggled offensively in the MLB when pitchers adjusted after his hot start last year so they sent him down to AAA. I never believed they moved Madrigal to 3B to showcase him for trades, they moved him there because they acquired Swanson and Nico was now the fulltime 2B and there was a hole at 3B so that was the only place on the field where he was going to get playing time. Last year the Cubs wanted to win games and get into the playoffs. They had guys on the roster like Madrigal, Morel, and Wisdom who could play 3B or DH, and Ross thought the best team on the field was Madrigal at 3B because of his excellent defensive performance which was clearly better than Morel or Wisdom's glove. That puts Morel at DH by default since most of the time since Wisdom had struggled at times offensively. Morel could have played CF but Tauchman had played a decent CF, better than what Morel showed last season at the position. Through 2023 the Cubs probably saw Morel as below-average defensively at 3B and OF, and better at 2B/SS. It's not like they were going to play Morel at 3B and DH Madrigal, it wouldn't make sense. Same reason Wisdom usually didn't play 3B over Madrigal. Madrigal also showed a solid bat after coming back from Iowa which gave him some rope to stay in the lineup, along with his excellent glovework. I agree with you that fans need to stop assuming things. Madrigal and Candelario were seen as better at 3B than Morel during a playoff race, that seems like the long and short of it. It doesn't mean he's doomed to never play the position adequately.

horsefeathers

I can't see a bunch of Plan D scrubs if Bellinger and Stroman are off the payroll and need to be replaced. Maybe Plan B guys.

Don't get your hopes up. Remember last year Ricketts gave Hoyer the green light to spend "whatever it takes" to turn the Cubs into a winner. I think we're a contender so we'll see. Dodgers or someone else might blow our offer out of the water.

Suarez is a pretty decent pickup for the price. He likely gives you some surplus, which is more than you can say about the vast majority of FA's.

I'm not sure the Cubs would bump their payroll up much regardless of how much revenue they take in from Ohtani or any other source.

Mariners essentially gave him up for nothing. Looks like a salary dump.

Belt had a career-high .370 BABIP last year, that worries me regression-wise. He does have a pretty high career BABIP though at .323. He's someone they can consider. He doesn't match well with Mervis in a platoon though if they don't trade Mervis, which they may not if they go with a short-term option like Belt.

I agree that most teams, including the Cubs, have a number they're willing to bid up to for every player that they won't go past, including for a Ohtani. There's a number where Ohtani makes sense, and there's a number where he no longer makes sense, same for every player. This is the same for pretty much anyone bidding on anything. There's some fans (not saying it's JD94) who say "the Cubs shouldn't be worried about the numbers, if they want Ohtani just go out and get him", but that's not the way it works, and it would be irresponsible for any team including the Cubs to act like this. At the end of the day, a team's payroll has a finite limit the owner is willing to set and the Cubs need to build the best team possible using that limit, which means not being foolish and drastically over-paying for players. My one worry is that Ricketts and the Cubs will prioritize Ohtani for all the extra profit he will make ownership rather than how much Ohtani will improve the team, and pay him based on that profit-generation rather than on his ability to make the team better. In other words, I don't want the Cubs to be stuck with a crazy Ohtani contract that will make Ricketts lots of money but over the long term not be what's best for the Cubs winning as many games as possible, which is all I care about.

Unless they sign another Japanese FA

I think Ross put the best team on the field in order to win the most games

That's hard to say, since Madrigal was putting up gold glove caliber defense at 3B and no obvious good bat on the bench to move into the DH slot if Morel moved to 3b.

Then offer something else. Morel + Brown. If Morel played middle infield a full season I think his WAR would be somewhere in the 3's.

Bichette would play 3B for the Cubs I imagine, and I think based on his sub-FA salary and 2 seasons left before FA he would make a very good fit at least until Shaw might be ready. Bichette could still be traded again by the Cubs (ie 2025 trade deadline) before FA if Shaw progresses and doesn't get hurt. Jays are still in a playoff window so would probably demand players at or near the MLB. I'm thinking Morel and maybe a pitcher, like Wesneski + another prospect. Morel could play SS/2B for them and be much cheaper than Bichette, so in theory it works for the Jays. Besides the pen, the Cubs can't get much better in FA this offseason unless they spend well over the CBT line, because they still need to replace the value lost from Bellinger and Stroman. A trade for a very good player with surplus like Bichette would be good for the team for 2024.

He played for the same team as Shota Imanaga last year, which is interesting. A product of the scouting department over there taking lots of looks at Imanaga me thinks. edit: The last several years it looks like.

He's never pitched an inning in the MLB, so GM's need to factor that risk in. I don't see how the calculation would change based on his race. If I were to bet then I'd predict he'd achieve an ERA around the low 3's as most very good SP do, but the data to project future performance available for him isn't the same as GM's had with Gerrit Cole. His numbers seem to compare fairly well to Yu Darvish's when he pitched in Japan, though that was a different baseball era as well and Darvish had somewhat better stuff in Japan it seems. His age is also going to benefit his contract in a big way, not the opposite.

Losing Bellinger is -4 wins, adding Ohtani is about +6 wins next year with him not pitching. Ability to shift Morel to 3B might nab us an extra win, maybe 2 if things go well. So we're up 3-4 wins. Then it depends what they do at 1B and CF to replace Bellinger. Hoskins might nab us a win or 2, though we might see Morel/Mervis at 1B. We also need to add a decent SP to replace Stroman, which makes Hoskins less likely with Ohtani due to money. Based on our pythag run differential last year, if we're able to sort out the bullpen it's possible we'd get over 90 wins next year. All told, Ohtani is replacing what we lose in Bellinger. We're adding about 2 wins over last year plus whatever Morel can add elsewhere until Ohtani can pitch again. That assumes the Cubs are still spending what they did on everything else last year including a TORP thus going over the CBT. If the Cubs don't go over the CBT Ohtani doesn't add anything compared to last year, we're just moving pieces around on the board because we don't project to add too much surplus next season. Replacing Bellinger's surplus will be difficult enough.

JD might age regress, or he may not. It's one year. I prefer Hoskins but he still is a risk.