Stratos

You didn't "pick a player who had a similar career line" as Tucker because Justin Turner didn't have a season above replacement level until age 29 and he's not an OF. Turner had a 0.3 career fWAR at Tucker's current age. You picked the outlier aging case that most conveniently backed your argument, you can say otherwise but its not the 1st time you've done this debating with me. If we're going to project what a player will do from age 29-38 then every competent projection system in the world is going to assume the typical average case, which is what I tried to eyeball, not what Justin Turner did, who has an extremely weird career line and age regression. I'd much prefer the Cubs spend payroll like a large market team but they don't. They spend like an upper mid-market team, ranked 10th and 9th in tax payroll in 2024 and 2023. I'd love if Ricketts spent more and extended Tucker. Hoyer is in a tight spot. If the FO is forced to have tax-line level payrolls I see no issue if the Cubs FO behaved somewhat like the Brewers but had the money to extend any key players and add better FA's, so similar to the Braves. They can trade guys like Happ, Suzuki, Nico before they hit FA, reload on prospects and keep the prospects they want and trade others for guys like Tucker/Paredes etc. Rinse and repeat, seems better than watching your best & most expensive assets depreciate in value every season. Nobody should complain the Braves don't sign "star" FA's and let their FA's walk if they won't extend. They won a WS and had 2 straight 100-win seasons before some injuries hit.

If you're going to cherry-pick literally the best-case scenario you could think of on the modern age regression distribution curve in Justin Turner, who's an aging freak of nature, and use that as your expectation for age regression you're going to wrong like 95% of the time. If any FO does it their team is going to suck. 35-37 wins makes Tucker about a 61-63 career WAR player and a likely 1st-ballot HOF. Joey Votto has 58 career WAR, was quite a bit better than Tucker at the same age, and aged pretty well at an easier position and didn't rely on stolen bases to pad his WAR (unlike Tucker). I tried to argue in good faith and give a more typical regression pattern for Tucker, and that doesn't even assume injuries. Sure maybe peaks at 6 WAR or similar. I know you're never going to concede a point so whatever.

How often do they go to arb with a player? Especially a key player? This seems uncommon.

Sportac projected 16.7m, and MLB Trade Rumors/Fangraphs guessed 15.8m.

The Cubs are 3rd in revenue but were 9th in luxury tax payroll last year, and 10th in 2023. The calculation changes if we have a higher payroll. The FO can't think like the Dodgers or Yanks. Its going to be a long time until having a 3.5 WAR player making 40m AAV looks ok. Are we fine with signing Tucker to something like 10/400 if his WAR per age looks something like this?: 29 y/o - 5.0 WAR 30- 5.0 31- 4.5 32- 4.0 33- 3.5 34- 3.0 35- 2.5 36- 2.0 37- 1.5 38- 1.0

So the question is whether these mega-deals for 29 y/o types are typically worth it? Guys like Pujols, Rendon, Trout were money in the bank and still hit the skids. A 10/400 deal at age 29, that's a lot of eggs to put in one basket with a lot of risk where the data isn't exactly in your favour.

He's probably going to want 10 years after his 2025 walk year. Why would he sign for 9 years more when he can get more on the FA market?

We all know a 5 win player like Tucker is rare and very valuable. The question is how long does he stay a 5 WAR player? Most humans are better athletes in their 20s than their 30s. He was 27 this year. If we sign him to a 10/400 extension (40m AAV) that starts when he's 29 and he regresses to a 4 WAR player when he's 31 and 3.5 WAR at 33 are we still good with that contract? It happened to Machado and Pujols among many others and they were better than Tucker. The payroll considerations come in the form of being able to eat some salary for an overpaid player in their mid/late 30s (and still win) in order to have peak Tucker early in the extension.

78 games isn't a big sample. He's projected for about 5 WAR again.

How old were they when they put up those seasons? What kind of seasons have Bryant and Javy had since age 30? How has Rizzo done in his 30's compared to his 20's?

I doubt it, but they did try to parade end-of-career Arrieta in front of us to help make us forget they stopped spending money post-COVID. I agree Sosa is a money calculation though. But not sure how many fans are going to line up to buy his jerseys. My old one is still in the closet and probably won't be worn again. Other fans miss him. They'll use the convention to try to gauge fan interest i guess. Better than marching him out in front of 40k at Wrigley and risking tons of boos.

Cubs want to find the next Flaherty-type hence Boyd. Buy low, sell high. They made a mistake re-signing Smyly. Should have tried to find the next Smyly. They initially bought low on him but re-bought high on him at post-prime ages

I would think if they 100% wanted to move Bellinger, which they did, then getting him off the books ASAP would be the goal. They wouldn't want the Yanks or other teams spending on other players and closing those trade opportunities. Unless the Cubs plan to raise payroll i'm not even sure if I'm in favour of an extension that Tucker would demand. I'm probably out on a 10/400 type deal. He'll be 29 when the extension would start thus close to post-prime at a position that's easy to replace internally and in FA. As has been shown, signing guys that age to mega-deals rarely works out well. It's not the ideal scenario but I'm ok moving prospects for a Tucker-type player still in prime age rather than using mountains of cash to get him or keep him (given our current payroll) at post-prime age. We can always get more prospects via draft or trading guys in the future before they hit FA like Happ, Seiya, and/or Nico. Having a Tucker is harder than having a Cam Smith.

If you look at Hoffman's career, he was terrible in his 20's, even as a reliever. 2 years ago he gained almost 3mph and took off. His walks significantly decreased too which is crazy, his transformation is pretty incredible. I think Jed would much rather the Cubs find/create the next Hoffman than pay for the current one, and the Tyler Zombro hire will help them. Maybe a guy like Pearson comes in with a new pitch like a FB with better movement that stays off barrels. Buy low, sell high, like Mark Leiter Jr. I like them grabbing controllable guys in middle relief they can work on for an entire offseason & enjoy the results for multiple years. I'm definitely not counting on a Tanner Scott or Hoffman signing. Maybe a Yates or Robinson.

If Tom gave Theo more payroll in 2017+ after being showered in World Series cash Theo could have afforded a quality FA SP and kept Cease instead of feeling the need to trade him for a cost-controlled SP like Quintana.

and I replied: The gap between the first two is Rickett's fault. Second gap is Hoyer's fault. The last one is all on me. I was wrong, Cubs were 7th in payroll but 9th in luxury tax payroll haha.

The defense, stolen bases, and speedy base running definitely give him a pretty high floor. Steamer has him at 2.6 WAR next year which makes no sense. If I were to guess I'd say 3.5.

Adames is a big loss for them. But never bet against the Brewers lol

It's going to be tough for the Cubs to score any of these 3b/2b guys if they can't guarantee a starting job for them. But it was either Jed or Carter post-Tucker trade who said that Shaw wouldn't be gifted a starting job, he'd have to earn it. I wouldn't mind this signing, I like him better than Rojas.

Is having a top 10 pen for a team with lots of resources that wants to win the division and a World Series unrealistic? Our bullpen was 17th in FIP and xFIP last year. It was 12th in ERA but I wager having 5 gold glove-caliber defenders and the wind blowing in made that a mirage. Our starters were 18th in xFIP, likely helped by the same factors. Is this how they plan to build a 95 win team? Is it even good enough for 90 wins? This entire team is mid. Mid offense, mid rotation, mid bullpen, mid FO, horsefeathers ownership.

They also have Ben Brown in the mix. I assume he's on the MLB roster. If anyone is in Iowa staying stretched out I think it would likely be Wicks over Brown. After Hodge and possibly Merryweather the pen looks very average. Ideally I swap out a guy like Miller and find a better arm at setup. Pearson's FB is just too straight to be a late-inning setup guy with a tight lead for me, it's HR city. IMO the setup guys right now are in pencil, you can't count on Hodge and Merryweather either. Hodge has the stuff but the control in the minors has been bad. I guess they're just trying to acquire decent arms and figure things out as they go and hoping a couple pop off and establish a late-inning role, even though this hasn't been a good strategy the last 2 years, at least in he first half. Even Brown isn't reliable with the neck. I guess this is just the reality these days.

They can easily spend 40m even if they don't sign a big name player. 1 SP for 15-20m AAV, 1 closer-type reliever, and one solid corner INF bench bat has them there. They go low on the SP around 15m and they could add maybe a 2nd reliever and/or 2nd bench bat.

I think Jed may have a purposeful strategy not to spend big on SP. There's a lot of variance with pitchers including getting hurt frequently. They may not want to risk a season on a 30 million AAV man getting hurt, even needing TJS etc. A 4 WAR pitcher goes down with TJS and a team on the playoff fringes like the Cubs have been are basically out of the playoffs for sure. Theo did similar with draft picks. Pitching prospects flame out at a higher rate so he drafted position guys and used FA and trades to grab SP.