Stratos

Thank you for posting all this. - What's their "Fld" stat? I assume "fielding" but what does it measure? Swanson is at -0.5 which seems odd. Busch had a high BABIP (his xBA in 2024 was .221) so maybe that's the key with their low projection. He has a nice swing and approach though. They project Seiya at 2,2 WAR, maybe the xBA and all his time projected at DH. Bellinger stays around his stats last year. These projections aren't surprising, they see basically our whole rotation ERA's regressing. This team doesn't look very good here. Projecting a whole lot of average-ness.

Amaya has some upside but i don't think the FO should make decisions for next year based on 2 good months when the others were terrible (including Sept). Anyone can hit well for 100 AB's. I hope they see him as a 2nd catcher at this point until he proves otherwise and can find an upgrade to pair with him.

Belli is a good player and think the HR can go up from last year but he's still a 20-25 HR guy. We could really use more HR. But he brings other things to the table, a good all- around player, virtually no holes in his game. This lineup is looking exactly the same as last season. That's a bit worrisome. At least we have a full year of Paredes. Counting on finding a catcher to get more power and an offensive boost to the lineup will be tough. Especially since catchers don't play every day. Jed has been good at filling holes when needed though. Amaya could do better next year but it's not something we should count on. He was terrible every month but July and Aug. A Bellinger trade is unlikely but isn't off the table. Jed is very flexible and does things we dont expect so I think they'll still look at Soto and any other options that could boost the offense.

Agree. Boras has other clients and can get a feel for the market. No harm in him waiting. Situations can change a bit, you never know.

Not sure what he gets but I think over 4m.. I wonder what he projects for IP next year. Maybe 90 IP? His K/9 wasnt that good this year including the playoffs. I wouldn't give him much.

If they traded Alcantara+ for Cease and signed him to an longterm extension Cease would be 30 y/o at the start of the extension. Why not just keep Alcantara and sign 30 y/o Burnes as FA? Fried is only a year older too. Possible to even sign Cease next offseason as FA. I agree they'll likely need to trade some of their prospects. If it were me i'd keep most or all of the very best prospects who are in the upper minors (top 5 or so) and trade guys like Triantos, Bellasteros etc. They also need to hold on to some prospects to deal in deadline trades if needed. Alcantara, Caissie etc are still very young. If they stay in the minors another season its not a big deal and they may even need it. If Soto isn't signed then Alcantara/Caissie can figure into the solution in the OF/DH in 2026 and beyond. That's 5 players for 4 spots with PCA, Happ, and Suzuki. Happ is gone after 2026, Seiya after 2027. Could trade both of them not long before they hit FA and reload the farm. Now you have some cheap pre-arb players that will free up payroll to spend on star players and extend other guys, maybe Steele or PCA. Which is why I support signing Soto. By the time Cam Smith might be ready Paredes will be more expensive and close to FA, so if Smith progresses well then trade Paredes a year or 2 months from FA and restock the farm. Let Nico walk in FA for a QO or trade him at next year's deadline and have Shaw replace him. We'd have the payroll space to acquire multiple elite players like Soto.

What's your point? The Dodgers had a luxury tax payroll of 340m in 2024. That's about 100m more than the Cubs, which is literally what Freeman, Betts, and Ohtani cost in 2024 towards the LT. Cubs FO can't play the same strategy as LA.

If we got 2.5 wins each out of catcher, 3B, and Hendricks' SP spot in 2024 that's 7.5 WAR improvement and we'd have been around 90-91 wins. If we had Soto in 2024 and found a way to add all his 8 WAR we'd have been at 91 wins or so too. I do recognize the value in having a very high WAR player like Soto, so I agree with you on that and which is why I support going after him, but I also know that it's not the end of the world if we don't acquire him. That's my only point here. There's some other options for some very good players that can get us close to the upgrade in production Soto would bring for the same AAV spent.

I'm going to go borrow 500k from the bank and buy myself a Lamborghini. I won't have to pay back the loan until 5-10 years from now (with interest). This is a winning investment strategy. Everything will work itself out.

They deferred Ohtani's salary

I said good young players, not good young prospects. A good young player is putting up good WAR in the MLB. A good young prospect is a potential good young MLB player. Baez, Contreras, Hendricks were good young players for us in 2016. Prospects are risky, a good young player already putting up numbers in the MLB is far less so. If fans think we're going to be a consistently good team by signing stars and trading away the farm for 1-year players they're fooling themselves. Trading prospects for cheap controllable guys like Busch and Paredes is more productive than an Alonso or Cease trade.

We dont have a payroll anywhere near the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, etc. so the FO can't behave like them and expect similar results. If we're going to have a payroll just under the cap and trade away most of our good prospects then we're taking away a lot of our surplus potential. If the Dodgers are outspending everyone they don't need to worry much about surplus, but we still do. You also seem to focus on the short term gains without much regard for the longterm consequences. Maybe because you're older and think you may not be around towards the end of a 12 year contract lol. That's not really fair to the rest of the fanbase though.

Where did I say that?

Yes but Burnes or Fried plus Hoffman or Scott for the same AAV as Soto also changes the rotation and late inning relief significantly. I'd go Soto here too but when FA guys are making FA money they're all generally paid what they're worth in value, so as long as we sign quality players at positions we need upgrades it matters far less who exactly we choose than we tend to assume. The point is if we don't get Soto its not the end of the world. We didn't suck the last 2 years because we didn't sign some other star like Turner or Ohtani, we sucked because we spent 50m on Hendricks, Smyly, Neris, Gomes, Mancini, Barnhart, Bote and got zero or negative WAR out of them. "Intelligent spending" isn't the issue, it's that Jed failed at it too frequently.

Ok well what would Brown/Wicks/Wesneski be projected to give us in the rotation next year at the #5 spot? Assuming Assad is our #4. Wicks was -0.1 WAR last season, Wesneski 0.2, and Brown was worth 1.3 WAR between SP and pen, and anyone else in the org we probably assume is near replacement level. Plus moving one or a combo of both to the rotation takes away the value they would have added to the pen while they're a SP and the value they provide as depth for injuries to the rotation. Regarding Soto, we're just as deep in corner OF options and DH types on the bench and Iowa as we are SP who could fill in as a #5. But for fun let's go by their total projected value as what they'd add to the team. Soto adds about 7 WAR and Burnes or Fried + Hoffman adds about 5 WAR. Ok we're better by 2 wins with Soto. Even a 3 WAR pre-arb player (who costs almost nothing) would add more wins than Soto. That's why good young players are the most valuable assets in the game and why we should think twice before trading away good prospects for only 1 year of a good MLB player making arb salary. Plus the risk is is far, far lower than a Soto-like contract and is very unlikely to lose all its value through performance regression. Young players are flippable for more assets before they hit FA or you get a QO pick, while watching a star player depreciate in value every season especially in their late 30's brings nothing back. Similar to why cars are such a bad investment.

I think we tend to overestimate the improvement Soto would provide per the dollars he'll cost. Assuming any FA's we sign will give us in WAR the value we paid for them, it doesn't matter a ton who we sign, at least not for 2025, as long as who we sign is an upgrade. Example: Let's say we have a 40 million block of money to spend. We could spend that on Soto with some crumbs leftover, or we could use that to sign Burnes and Hoffman. Which is better? Assuming Bellinger projects as a 3 WAR player and Soto a 7 WAR player next season, Soto is a 4 to 5 win upgrade. Burnes or Fried would be about a 3.5 WAR upgrade from Hendricks, and Hoffman a 1-2 win upgrade totaling about 5 WAR. Its a wash. There's many combos we could use that would be just as valuable an upgrade as Soto for 2025. If Soto were a catcher or 3B or some other horribly deficient hole we had last year the upgrade to our potential win total from 2024 would obviously be greater. Sorry to be a buzz kill for all us Soto lovers 🙂 I agree on the trade front. If you transfer value sitting in the minors to the MLB roster and add an MLB player who would provide surplus value (which let's assume a FA making FA money is unlikely to do) then the WAR per million spent on this roster is going to go up and we can assume wins will go up because the money savings can then be used to spend to further upgrade and add more WAR to the team in FA.

Who would you be willing to part with for Cease?

Maybe in Sept the Cubs wanted to see more of him to help make a decision come this winter. Hard to say.

I think Seiya needs to protect the plate more with 2 strikes. If you take borderline pitches with 2 strikes you're leaving it in the hands of the umpire and sometimes you're going to lose. There's been times when Seiya has been too passive at the plate, but he's improved this it seems. I think he just hasn't adjusted yet on his 2-strike approach and remains too passive there. I agree with the argument that maybe his politeness to umps and also the language barrier could mean he doesn't chirp to umps like other players and could be an argument towards the effectiveness of chirping. Ross/Counsell should recognize that though and chirp on his behalf.

Wisdom had 158 AB's over 6 months. I'm sure it's really hard if not impossible to put up the same performance as you would getting 100 or 300 more AB's over the course of a season. Part of it was he probably wanted to get Wisdom a bit of playing time to keep him as sharp as possible. He's doing no good rotting on the bench. I get the point though, after 3-4 months you should realize that a certain strategy may not be working and maybe change the strategy. However, we don't really know if Wisdom's issues were lack of AB's or age regression or just a bad year or something else. If the Cubs think the power and bat quickness is still there i guess it's possible they bring him back on a cheap deal. If not they need a replacement.

It wouldn't matter if the Dodgers had Ohtani, Betts, Freeman, and Soto in the same lineup. We have Ian Happ.

Being in the city you like is nice and all, but how much of your salary would you give for that? Would you give up 5-10 million dollars to live in one nice city in a big market over another nice city in a big market? He's from the DR, every American city is probably heaven to him. Most players take the money. Kris Bryant is playing for the Rockies and Baez is in Detroit lol. Rizzo didn't accept an extension, he wanted to get paid. They all did. If we beat the Yankees offer and he's very likely coming here. He probably grew up dirt poor, he can help his family a lot with that money. Mom, dad, children, grandparents, siblings, cousins etc. If Soto does well in the WS and the Yanks win the ring I'm a lot more worried it will make Yanks fans think he's now a "Yankees legend" like Judge and pressure the Yanks FO to up their offer than I am Soto getting a taste of victory and heroism and wanting to stay more as a result.

Haha no worries friend.

Which Rogers?

Lowe would at least be flippable before he's a FA. They could keep him for all of 2025 and trade him next offseason. By 2026 Shaw as well as Triantos should be able to play the infield in the MLB, and there will be a bunch of DH options or guys to play OF and put Seiya at DH like Caissie, Alcantara, Ballestos etc. plus other options in trade or FA. In 2026, unless you can get a clear upgrade like a Soto or Vlad Jr, I like the idea of OF/DH filled by Happ, Seiya, PCA, Alcantara, Caissie. That's 5 guys for 4 spots and 3 of them are dirt cheap and hopefully provide a bunch of surplus. The money saved (e.g. like the 27.5m spent on Bellinger this year) can go towards a Soto/Vlad type or a TORP, a good catcher, or any other high-end player. My ideal would be to sign Soto (obviously), keep everyone mentioned for 2025, trade Happ next offseason or at the 2026 trade deadline (he'll be a FA after 2026). 2026-2027 would be OF/DH of Soto, PCA, Suzuki, Alcantara/Caissie if all works out. In the mix on INF would be Swanson, Paredes, Shaw, Busch, Nico. Nico is FA after 2026 or is traded before that. Cam Smith ETA as a potential regular is probably 2027.