Stratos

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.

The more I look at Lowe the more I agree and like this idea. If Bellinger opts-out, which is more likely than not, I agree Lowe can be that extra quality bat and probably not to sign a Joc/O'Neill type and spend that money on Lowe. Seiya moves back to RF. As you say, Lowe can DH when Nico comes back. He's about just as good a bat as Joc or O'Neill and provides HR power we need to add to this lineup, even more power than Belli would provide most likely. Until Nico comes back (which may hopefully only be a month or 2 max) we can get by at DH. We can possibly sign a bench OF bat, some cheap bat-first bargain fliers, plus some young guys already on the 40-man like Canario, Mervis, Alcanatara etc can compete in the mix in ST as well. Tauchman is in the mix also, but I'd prefer more power. This still leaves money for everything else we're looking at in FA: catcher upgrade like Jansen, a quality SP, possible late-inning reliever etc. I'm sure Jed will also be looking at the trade market like he did with the Busch trade. I think Jed will be looking to keep our top prospects including Alcantara, Caissie, Shaw, Cam Smith. I think guys like Canario, Triantos, Ballesteros (if they think he can't be catcher) who lack a position here longterm compared to other prospects are expendable in trade, and i'm fine with trading any other prospects including any of the younger ones in the low minors. I'm not sure how they project the SS Rojas and Fernando Cruz but like Jackson Ferris i'm willing to trade them to upgrade the 2025 MLB team.

Agree 100%. And agree that Lowe is the better hitter.

It would depend on how Jed wants to allocate the money. Lowe will cost about 10m next year. If we're conservative and say Nico isn't 100% until e.g. June, are the Cubs going to want to spend 10m on an upgrade for 2-3 months when we have other needs, like catcher, the pen etc? We do have Shaw who could potentially step in for a few months in a pinch and hopefully hold his own, he seems close to ready, and sign a cheap backup. Or they could try for a cheaper option than Lowe/Torres and get creative via trade (probably my preference). Or find the next Tauchman or Wisdom. I'm pretty done with wasting millions on post-prime vets barely above replacement like a Whit Merrifield. Lowe is fine but if Lowe is acquired then someone costing 10m is out. Someone mentioned here like Jansen, Holmes, O'Neil/Joc ., or a downgrade in the SP we can afford etc. Busch is potentially another option with Belli at 1B, though that seems unlikely.

https://ivyleaguecubs.com/2024/10/23/source-cody-bellinger-leaning-towards-opting-out-and-testing-free-agency/

Given how young he is he's basically like a top college pitcher prospect but international. It would make sense he were treated like any other international player. Not sure if that's happening though, besides the posting fee. I think the smaller market teams should get a fair shot at him too.

Per the last paragraph, Is there data to back this up? You're talking overall risk (injury + age) and not just age regression right?

I'd do those, maybe swap Eovaldi with Flaherty. Could platoon Joc with Canario or an acquired RHH bench bat. If Bellinger stays then they may have to go dirt cheap on the rest of the pen and bench.

He was 31 when he signed, and Jed was willing to pay higher AAV to avoid more age regression risk of a longer term deal. The point is that Jed doesn't like signing significant contracts to older players and tries to keep the team as young and as close to peak years as possible and there's great reasons for that. Velo peaks in the early 20's but velo isn't 1:1 with overall performance. Pitchers peak in their late 20's, around 27-29. We should try to stay as young as possible on FA on all sides of the ball. The older a player is north of age 29 the more age regression risk for hitters and pitchers. I already stated i'm not sure i'd sign Fried for 6 years. Yes he could easily regress especially towards the end of the deal, like Lester did. I definitely wouldn't sign Eovaldi for 2-3 years, unless it was a ridiculous value we couldn't refuse compared to everything else. I was out on Verlander, on Scherzer, on the Darvish extension. Yuck. In FA the Cubs should want to stay as young and short-term as possible. In FA it can be hard to they should just do the best they reasonably can and Hoyer does that, at least for the larger contracts. A lot of those deals above were just stupid. Robbie Ray coming off an outlier career year, Darvish signed to a 6 year deal at age 36, Rodon is always injured as is Degrom. Jed clearly tries to stay as young and healthy as possible in FA and his approach on SP is absolutely correct. He shouldn't have even brought back Hendricks and Smyly at those prices. It's pretty unlikely he's going to sign Eovaldi or even Kikuchi unless its a deal he can't refuse, like very short-term or cheap deal per their talent aka the best value.

I think he's a little rich on most of the 4+ year deals.

I think if he signs Eovaldi it's because the years/AAV is undervalued compared to everyone else. This seems to be how he signs the other significant FA's. Maybe i'm wrong but Jed has never signed any FA over age 31 on a multiyear deal over 10m AAV. Smyly and Neris were closest.

Once you hit 30, the older you are the more age regression risk. Same with hitters. In FA most players are at least 29 y/o (besides mainly stars who got to the MLB quicker than most, plus non-tenders, DFA's etc) so in FA and generally the Cubs should try to stay as young as they reasonably can, especially when spending larger sums. Hoyer has definitely been trying to do this on the larger contracts and should do a better job on the smaller ones. I mentioned Fried because based on performance, age, velo trends, and health I think he's the best FA pitcher available. Burnes is up there too though some red flags on the K/9 and velo drop in recent years. There's other solid choices like Flaherty (could be the best option based on the contract).