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Stratos

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Everything posted by Stratos

  1. Stratos
    If that happens I'm not watching next year. Doubtful they reduce payroll
  2. Stratos
    Or Nuke Laloosh
  3. Stratos
    Any relation to DJ Herz?
  4. Stratos
    He's had an elite chase rate the last 2 seasons too. But below average K's/whiffs, could explain the soft contact. Threw the change-up the least last year. .161 xBA on his fastball. He had a very low .222 BABIP, very high 85% LOB%, and a low 7% HR/FB last year, which all seems pretty unsustainable and not usual for him, so regression is virtually assured which seems obvious given his ERA. His xFIP last year was 4.46, but Jed doesn't seem to look at xFIP much based on past signings. We didn't get him for much so who cares I guess.
  5. Stratos
    I can't see the Cubs trading Bellinger before they have some other deal in place. They could be gauging interest for future moves. Honestly, Seiya in RF and a better bat with more power at DH that likely comes cheaper than Bellinger is a possible move. Money saved could be spent elsewhere, like pitching/catching. Soto is also a move but that's far-fetched until we see the Cubs meeting with him at least. It wouldn't be that hard to trade for a bad-fielding MLB hitter who can DH and hit better than Belli. They'd be trading Belli's defense in RF and position versatility for more thump, and we already have several guys in the lineup that are glove-first players (PCA/Nico/Dansby) & no elite hitters so that may make sense. Less likely they go 3-4+ years on a FA given all our hitting prospects. The risk is losing the depth Bellinger brings for PCA/Busch at CF and 1B in case of injury. For CF depth we still have 3 young OF prospects in Iowa on the 40-man (Alcantara and possibly Canario can play CF), plus Tauchman who is passable in CF (good hands/instincts, very average speed/range). Mervis, Ballesteros, and whomever is our corner INF bench guy could cover 1B if Busch is injured, though they're all a likely downgrade from Bellinger.
  6. Stratos
    The Cubs paid around 17.5m for 1 year of Bellinger 2 offseasons ago coming off 3 bad offensive seasons. He's not THAT overpaid. Maybe by 3-5m AAV at most? CF is a hard position to fill with a good player and there's no CF in FA this year even close to his ability. There's a bunch of teams that would want him, he wouldn't be that hard to trade, Cubs would probably just have to eat some money at worst or take on somebody else's overpaid player.
  7. Stratos
    On an MLB deal with no options though? I can't remember. Let's hope he's the 3rd stringer, but i'm not signing a career -0.3 WAR guy for 1.3m to be a 3rd stringer who has no options left.
  8. Stratos
    Omg no. Please no. Amaya doesn't have options left either. Grabbing a 1.5 WAR type FA catcher will cost them 8-10m AAV, probably a 2-year deal. Thaiss is either a placeholder in case a better trade or signing can't be made, or he's Jed's 2nd catcher and Jed thinks he can get more WAR out of that 8-10m AAV by spending on another position, which doesn't seem especially likely to me. Thaiss is a replacement player, a guy you invite to ST on a minor league deal, not someone you want on a 1.3m contract while waiting to acquire a better catcher. The good thing is that he can always be traded later in the offseason if they get someone better i guess. No reason worrying yet.
  9. Stratos
    Thaiss has platooned vs RHP the last few years and he still can't hit.
  10. Stratos
    I'm very much hoping Amaya is the backup catcher on this team. Amaya can block balls and has above-avg power and that's it. He's too slow to ever have much hope about his AVG.
  11. Stratos
    Exactly. He's a replacement player. He can't do anything well except take walks and block balls. He can't hit a baseball. Not for avg or power, he can't run, he can't put the ball in play. Below average pop-time and framing. He's passable to be the 3rd catcher to fill in for injuries but he'd suck as the guy sharing starts with Amaya. Have to assume he's AAA depth (let's hope).
  12. Stratos
    Probably a decent chance we see Cowles in the MLB at some point this year. Only a career 3 games in AAA but he's older and probably more advanced. A likely bench INF candidate at some point. Plays SS/3B/2B, sort of a poor man's Matt Shaw (with more historic K% issues lol). Vazquez in the convo too for the INF bench but might not have the bat. I guess Mastrobuoni might be still around too, though there's gonna be lots of infielders in AAA. Then there's Madrigal, and also Wisdom. Non-tender deadline is Nov 22.
  13. Stratos
    If I were either of them I'd probably go to another team. On the small chance that maybe they have better or different systems at preventing injuries and it makes some kind of difference. I agree Davis is probably gone for good for the reason you stated too. I still like Davis a lot when he's healthy, I hope he does well.
  14. Stratos
    We have no idea what is a Ricketts directive or not, or what Jed believes in or not. All of these discussions are done behind close doors. The only thing we really know is that Tom very likely sets the maximum payroll since its his money and not Jed's. If Jed could have a 280m payroll every year he would. We have no idea about Jed's true feelings on big star contracts, for example. If Jed disagrees with something Tom wants it doesn't matter, Tom is the boss. Is Jed going to quit because of it? I wouldn't, there's only 30 of his job in the world. Jed and most other people are going to publicly go along with it, he certainly isn't going to air his disagreements with his boss in public. I think Tom likely sets certain parameters (e.g. max payroll) and Jed does everything he can to win within those parameters. We don't know what those parameters are. Jed going into 2025 with an expiring contract isn't good though, I think it would mean that Ricketts is at least not 100% happy with Jed's work within those parameters the last few years, which is understandable given the results.
  15. Stratos
    They could do it, but they'd have to trade Paredes for a good young/cheap SP. But there's not much difference in Paredes + Fried vs Adames + good young SP in terms of payroll and WAR. It just seems like a bit of a wash, other than Adames being a bit than younger than any of the top FA SP besides Flaherty.
  16. Stratos
    They should play Paredes full-time at 3B or trade him. For me i would rather keep Paredes than sign Adames and spend all that money on a position we need. Your roster puts our young SP depth into our rotation which leaves us vulnerable when injuries happen, and our pen isn't very good.
  17. Stratos
    Why would he not extend Jed then? I think it's difficult to know what is Jed and what is a Tom directive. We're all just speculating with no real evidence.
  18. Stratos
    That means maybe Ricketts doesn't renew himself next offseason?
  19. Stratos
    Like I've said before, Morosi is full of BS. He's just throwing out names and speculating as usual.
  20. Stratos
    These may all be Ricketts problems, not Jed problems. Hard to say. Ricketts I'm sure didn't want to do another Theo tank after 2021 to help rebuild, he wanted butts in the seats for most of the season
  21. Stratos
    I've calculated that if the Cubs sign Soto, Sasaki, Jansen, a closer-type (Holmes or Scott etc) and trade Bellinger for a bag of seeds they will be improved from 2024 by about 9-10 WAR/wins. I went conservative on Sasaki in his first year based on innings and youth and counted him for only 2 WAR. The odds of all this happening is basically about 0.005%. Swap Bellinger for Soto and a TOR FA for Sasaki and we're up about 7 WAR from 2024, which is still around 90 wins, assuming nobody from 2024 improves or regresses or if some do its a wash. And this is before any possible trade.
  22. Stratos
    Ok so you do this all manually? I'm using Firefox, seems like its only manual. I would suggest having a way to drag and drop or something?
  23. Stratos
    Most of the guys behind him aren't the most exciting prospects. I agree the GB% has been really good so far. I think arguing that he can't throw strikes is totally accurate though. His BB/9 with the Cubs last year was the same as his seasons in college. They went high-risk, high-reward with that draft pick, is what it is. At least he's not Burl Carraway.
  24. Stratos
    I think he beat it by a million dollars.
  25. Stratos
    I use dark mode on the site and the headers look dark too in that mode so they're very hard to read. Not really sure how to "add" free agents to the team. Guess we just explain them in the text box and add up the salaries ourselves? That would seem like something to automate.
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