Stratos

I think it's a good value move for the Cubs based on what Counsell is capable of. He should pay for himself. 8m a year isn't a big investment in the grand scheme, even if it's expensive for a manager. I think it shows us they genuinely want to win, but I think that's been clear since last offseason. I don't think this signals whether or not they're going to go out and spend 400-500m on a player and/or go over the cap, but it's a great start to the offseason. Going cheap like 2021-22 has ended at least. I hope they do go over the cap, they can reset in a couple years when we have more pre-arb players in starting roles in the MLB.

If they want to give Mervis a shot, Hoskins would be a good guy to have as a backup and platoon option vs LHP. There's essentially no change in our status at 1B from last offseason so if they take a similar approach I wouldn't be surprised, as long as they acquire backup options better than Mancini/Hosmer. Besides Mervis we don't really have other options at 1B longterm besides maybe BJ Murray (not enough power) and McGeary (below-average defensively and more of a DH). I'd be fine putting Mervis in a trade for Alonso if it comes with an extension. As Hoyer says, the books are clear longterm, and they have a lot of good prospects who project to be ready for the MLB over the next 2 seasons to fill numerous positions. If the Cubs are willing to go over the CBT line the next couple of seasons and then trade Happ 2 years into his extension they could absolutely afford one of Soto/Ohtani plus Yamamoto and Alonso on longterm deals and stay under the cap if they're willing to go with prospects at CF, LF, 3B, C, and multiple rotations spots, and they have the prospects in the upper minors to do that.

If I were Counsell I'd manage a team like the Cubs over the Mets, who are always a hot mess. If he can help turn the Cubs into overachievers i'm all for it. Though I think the Brewers front office has a lot to do with that, putting a lot of emphasis on pitching/pen and defense which I think helps them win the close games, which is often cheaper than signing the big bats given their payroll limitations.

I agree. Hoyer must really appreciate Counsell given all the games he's watched against him and pounced on the chance. Hard to pass up adding one of the best minds in baseball to add to the organization's braintrust. I don't see any clear reason for the Cubs to fire Ross outright based on performance, he was adequate.

HOLY CRAP. I thought Ross was a decent manager, but had his blind spots. Counsell as a player always seemed like the biggest baseball nerd in the MLB and an overachiever, and he seems the same as a manager. This is shrewd move and a clear upgrade. I'm glad Hoyer is capable of making the tough choices to get better, similar to trading away our previous core. The 8m salary doesn't effect the payroll, Cubs using their resources well here. 8m buys you about a win (or 2 if you're lucky) in FA and I think Counsell can certainly contribute an extra win or 2 over a season, even just based on the catching infrastructure alone the Brewers have had. Brewers hitting lineup seems to suck every year on paper and they still score runs and win so I'm excited for this. This is a great value move for the Cubs and he can help them in constructing a team in the offseason also.

I think the Cubs would sign a 25 y/o to a 10 yr deal. It's a far, far better idea than signing a 29/30 yo to an expensive 10 year deal, which IMO is a manifestly stupid the vast majority of the time.

I can't really see the Cubs trading any of Wicks/Brown/Assad. They need the SP depth next year. They have a lot of position player prospects to use in trades. They can put Mervis in a deal if they want Alonso and start there. I also see Brown as better than Wicks.

I think that's probably how it's going to go too. Looks more likely the bat may come via trade, and SP via FA. Next season we will have a very deep farm at the AAA/AA levels with many guys knocking on the door with essentially no clear holes in terms of positions. Given what we have in the farm upper levels and on the MLB team, I think 1B is the weakest position, followed by 3B. Shaw is a better prospect than Mervis, and I'm not sure if they'd want to block Shaw at 3B longterm on a trade, and he'll move quickly through the minors (should start the year at AA), and he could be up the 2nd half of 2025 barring injury. Alonso makes the most likely big hitter acquisition IMO. They have more quality options at DH next year and on the farm longterm than at 1B or 3B. Bellinger fills short-term needs, but not longterm ones, and putting him at 1B longterm seems like a waste, and I think he did overachieve a bit last year and will regress somewhat so not interested in an overpay there. Longterm I do believe they'd have the payroll room to also sign one of Soto or Ohtani, but i'm not sure they'd want to go over the cap the next year or 2 to do it, or sign the massive deals needed. You gotta think Soto is going to sign for 13+ years.

There's no way a guy with Morel's athleticism and arm should be a DH. He might not be a 3B, but he can at least be an average-ish fielder somewhere i'd think. They need to completely abandon the super utility experiment, keep him at one position they feel is his best, and if that's the middle infield then trade him. If he ends up being a career DH or bad-fielding utility guy then they nerfed his development. You need skills and not just tools to be decent at several positions in INF & OF, and that starts a long time before even signing a pro contract. I don't think he's that bad a fielder, it's just that Madrigal was playing like a gold glover last year and he was stuck behind a lot of MLB regulars who are pretty good fielders. It was a stupid idea to try to turn him into a super utility because it's very apparent he doesn't have high skills (as opposed to raw athleticism) at anything baseball-wise and he was never going to reach his potential as a defender if he's not getting enough games in at any position to develop the instincts needed to play it well. Morel hasn't played more than a couple dozen games at 3B in any season since 2019. If that's because he wasn't good at it then they need to give up on the idea.

No I just mean as of right now, without Stroman and Hendricks options included, and assuming they opt-in on Gomes, they have about 65m to spend. Hendricks coming back looks likely.

Similar to Hendricks or Stroman?

Other players are getting raises though. Happ and Nico getting about 10m each, which alone eat up Heyward's savings. Without Stroman and Hendricks in the equation, and you assume the Cubs will spend what they usually do on the pen plus factor things like arb & pre-arb players and leaving 5-10m in space, they have about $65m to spend under the cap. 65m to figure out another SP plus 1B, CF, 3B/DH, though Morel can fill one of the 3B/DH. You have to think they'll probably sign a 2nd SP e.g. Hendricks for depth. A significant trade is also pretty likely this offseason IMO given the prospect crunch in AAA next year and increasing 40-man issues.

They save 21m, but actually 23.7m in luxury tax room. I agree that they need to go out and get a good SP to replace him. This winter i'm sure Cubs will at least be involved in any top SP they like this winter.

I like the idea of using the salaries per their luxury tax implications instead, since that's what's relevant to the CBT line. The luxury tax salaries I reference are here: https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/chicago-cubs/payroll/

Cubs are going to have another 40 man crunch, and there's going to be a squeeze for playing time at Iowa next year. Having that many good prospects in AAA is a good thing but you have to assume there's going to be trades this winter. The Cubs have at least one of their top 15 prospects at every position, and virtually all of them will start the year in AAA or AA next year.

Amazing talent, but there's questions like how does he come back from the TJS, and how long can he be effective both pitching and hitting, or even keep that up? You paying him 45m a year in the last half of his 30's if he's not a 2-way guy? Will be interesting to see who wins that bidding war. I have no idea how you'd put a price on that guy with those questions.

Well as 1908 said they'll have to make a decision there. If they don't want him at 3B then we need a 3B. Maybe flip him for someone similar (young/cheap) who can actually play 3B with a team that needs a middle infielder. They could also just give Morel and Mervis a shot and acquire someone like Jorge Polanco or someone else who can play 3B/1B to back them up and/or platoon at times. Someone better than a replacement scrub that can't field like Mancini. You trade Morel for Soto and the Cubs are right at the tax line and don't have a 3B, an 1B, or CF. Between Soto, Alonso, Bellinger, Yamamoto, Ohtani etc I can see the Cubs landing one, but highly doubt they'll grab more than one and push the payroll to $260m or whatever it would take. Next year they either need to spend over the CBT or find more surplus and with cheapo Ricketts we know which direction we'll need to go. We can't keep filling every position with players making FA salaries with a cheap owner and expect to be a 95 win team.

If the Cubs are going judge Morel's ability to play 3B adequately from a month of winter ball and taking some groundballs in camp after not playing the position for a year they're fools and deserve what they get. He needs to play.

Well the Cubs aren't going to know if Morel can play 3B unless they play him there.

The Cubs had Heyward, Smyly, Mancini, Barnhart, Bote, Rios, Hosmer etc on the payroll last year which cost about 50 million and contributed nothing and absolutely cost them wins and a playoff berth had they spent that better, not even mentioning underperformance by guys like Taillon, Fulmer, Boxberger etc. They didn't have enough high surplus players or payroll to make up for these inefficiencies. Sure there's luck and variance, and they absolutely had some luck in 2016 and some bad luck 2018-2020, but the 2015-2017 Cubs having high surplus guys like Bryant, Baez, Schwarber, Russell, Hendricks (who all made under 1 million) wasn't simply luck. They played a lot of good prospects which gave them payroll room to add quality players from outside the org and FA, Again i'm not saying don't trade for Soto, i'm saying if they want to win with Soto in 2024 they should keep as many low cost quality players (surplus) on the MLB roster as they can, including Morel. A prospect like Triantos is expendable in such a trade because the Cubs will get a comp pick anyways if Soto walks next winter.

If Soto is on the team, how is the team not better with Morel on it? They can give him playing time at 3B, he can play SS or 2B if there's an injury, he can play OF if there's an injury. Good hitters on the MLB roster who make league minimum are also a finite resource that you don't seem super keen on acknowledging.

You're removing some talent and adding better talent. You net gain talent yes, but not as much compared to if you traded Soto for minor leaguers who won't contribute next year. Morel was our 3rd best hitter and makes no money so has surplus. As a 1 year strategy it just doesn't make much sense to trade Morel when we can just as easily be trading prospects. The Cubs need to decide if they're trying to win in 2024 or 2026.

See my recent reply to Transmogrified Tiger. In short, we can't just use those run totals, you have to adjust run value for defensive position a player plays. A DH is worth -17.5 runs, a LF or RF is worth -7.5 runs. Soto will mostly DH for us. fWAR already adjusts value for position played. 2024 projections were my own, you're right they aren't out yet. Projecting Morel for around 2.5 fWAR (if he plays a full season) and Soto for about 5.5 WAR seems pretty fair. and accurate. For record, I'm worried about Bellinger going forward because his expected BA and SLG stats are greatly below what he put up in 2023....everything he hit seemed to find a hole, so I think luck was a factor. His 2023 xSLG is shockingly around .430, which is around 100 points below what he put up. Anyways, see my reply to Tiger, I'm not against a Soto trade even on 1-year, but we shouldn't be removing talent from the MLB roster on a win-now move, we should be taking it from prospects in the minors who won't contribute in 2024. Morel was the 3rd best hitter (wRC+) on the team last year, and will probably continue to improve, his wRC+ went up 10 points from last year.

See my reply to Transmogrified Tiger.

The # of good defenders on the team already is not relevant, nor the number with "well-rounded profiles". What matters is the total value of all the players on the team in terms of creating and preventing runs. Soto is a 5-6 WAR player, his value is 5-6 wins above a replacement player, it doesn't really matter how it breaks down. If he DH'ing for the Cubs, which he will most of the time, his value/WAR drops because it's easier to replace a DH than any other position. According to fangraphs, a LF (or RF) is penalized -7.5 runs in value, and a DH is worth -17.5 runs: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/explaining-win-values-part-three/ The issue with the Cubs isn't spending and payroll, they spent enough last year to win and will again this year, their issue in 2023 was efficiency. They desperately need more surplus and efficiency. They clearly overspent on Mancini and Smyly who were terrible, Barnhart also, Fulmer/Boxberger plus Rowan Wick/Adrian Sampson were busts, Taillon underperformed pretty badly in his first year, Rios and Hosmer were crap, Stroman arguably under-performed, and Heyward and Bote provided nothing for the millions they made. That's almost half the payroll in either under-performance or total waste. They got surplus from Nico, Steele, Happ, Bellinger, plus a few pen guys and less significant players (Assad, Morel, Tauchman etc), but the pen was useless at holding leads half the year because they didn't spent enough on late-inning depth. The difference between 2016 and 2023 wasn't payroll, it was efficiency and surplus. The whole point of being a GM is squeezing as many wins out of every million spent as possible. I'm not at all against a Soto trade, even on a 1-year, but trading our DH (who can also play middle INF and potentially 3B) who was 3rd on the team in wRC+ last year for a much better DH plus the cost of 33m is not the impact move I think some people think it is. Soto at 33m arguably still has some surplus, it's a good acquisition. But Soto on a 1-year is a win-now move so we need as much MLB talent and surplus as possible in 2024, so as i've said they should trade a prospect that won't contribute in 2024, like Triantos or Arias, or Rojas etc., not trading away our 3rd best hitter (#2 now that Bellinger is FA) who makes league minimum.