What Would You Think is a Fair Trade for Chris Sale?

[CSF77]

Quinta a 1/1A is very questionable.

Career ERA: 3.56 WHIP: 1.27 H/9: 8.92. BB/9: 2.53. SO/9: 7.15.

He is on the cusp of TOR and MOR. A stellar season would push him up. I personally would like to see what his ERA would be in a NL environment. Maybe 2.60-2.90 range I'm guessing. SO/9 a tad low.

Still he is not a 1 or even a 2. Unless that rotation just sucks.

 

[TL1961]

I wouldn't make any claims just yet. Schwarber can walk at a similar rate to Bryant and he's shown far better contact. Across all levels Schwarber has a 14.5% walk rate and a 19.3% k rate. Bryant was at 12.8% and 26.6%. Now to be fair, AAA is probably going to push Schwarber's numbers down slightly. Bryant also had 55 HRs in 773 minor league PAs. Schwarber has 31 in 558 PAs. So, Bryant has a bit of an edge there at a HR ever 14 PAs compared to 18 for Schwarber. But the fact he's even in the conversation with arguably one of the more dominating minor league players over the past 10 years says enough on it's own.

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say he will be more valuable than Bryant because Bryant's on a 7 WAR pace over 162 games and unless Schwarber is Mike Trout you really don't do much better than that. I would however suggest he may be equally valuable though Schwarber strikes me more as a Rizzo profile than he does Bryant. There's obviously a defensive argument to be made here too. But as I said right after they drafted Schwarber, if you put those walk/k rates together(college at the time) with 25-30 HR power he likely has and compare that to past players you get a rather scary good list of hitters.

Regardless, I wouldn't touch any of Schwarber, Rizzo and Bryant. If you sandwich Rizzo between those 2(R/L/R) you have potentially 3 hitters who could have a .400+ OBP. Last year there were only 3 players in the league with a .400 OBP(Bautista, McCutchen and Victor Martinez) and only two more(Stanton and Werth) above .390. Obviously if you get that out of C you are probably talking multiple time all-star but even if he's only a part time catcher and plays LF the majority of the time you have guys like Manny who have shown what kind of value that sort of bat can have in LF despite being a train wreck defensively. Manny had career 13.6%/18.5% walk/k rates though possibly more power at 17.6 PA per HR obviously at the MLB level vs minors and put up 66.3 career fWAR which is good for 78th all time.

Either way, it may just end up being splitting hairs. I mean as an example does it really matter who was more valuable between Ortiz and Manny in Boston's prime days? If Schwarber is 80% of what Bryant has shown this year thus far then those 3 give the cubs easily the best future heart of the line up of any team I can think of and that's before you start talking about Russell likely bating in front of them, Soler presumably after them...etc. Barring injury, I am not sure how teams are going to outscore these guys in the future. They are 5th in the NL runs/game without all of them being in their prime and without Schwarber, Soler and Castro having a down year/injured. Their average age is 27.1 which is the second lowest in the NL behind Arizona at 27.0 and third in the MLB with houston being youngest.

There is not one chance in a hundred that Schwarber becomes a better player than Bryant. No chance!!

Bryant can play D. Bryant can run. Bryant is a VERY smart, savvy player.

AND he will be the better hitter.

I hope Schwarber becomes a star. But right now, he has no position to play defensively, and he's too heavy.

Bryant will win MVP. Schwarber will struggle to be a full time player, or if he is, he will hurt defensively.

 

[CSF77]

There is not one chance in a hundred that Schwarber becomes a better player than Bryant. No chance!!

Bryant can play D. Bryant can run. Bryant is a VERY smart, savvy player.

AND he will be the better hitter.

I hope Schwarber becomes a star. But right now, he has no position to play defensively, and he's too heavy.

Bryant will win MVP. Schwarber will struggle to be a full time player, or if he is, he will hurt defensively.

So why so mad at Schwarber? He has paced Bryant's progress and even got to the show sooner.

Add to it, this year 14 HR's total. OBP: Minors: .425 Majors: .391. I don't think that this is struggling

Most scouts feel that he has 30 HR power with a .300 BA. He doesn't strike out at the pace Bryant does. That is why most feel Bryant is good for .280 per.

Schwarber is faster than he looks...ie legged out a 3B his 1st AB standing. It was not a fluke. D wise that is a concern but his bat in LF would not be a major issue.

Now my opinion is if they end up using Baez to get a SP then it makes sense to move Schwarber to LF. Montero is needed for the staff more than giving the job to Schwarber when his catching skills are far inferior to Montero.

Just my opinion. They have better catching options in the pipe if they want to go that direction. I would rather them use F/A there when the time comes. Catching is more of a craft and having a vet managing the staff pays off more long term.

 

[TL1961]

So why so mad at Schwarber? He has paced Bryant's progress and even got to the show sooner.

Add to it, this year 14 HR's total. OBP: Minors: .425 Majors: .391. I don't think that this is struggling

Most scouts feel that he has 30 HR power with a .300 BA. He doesn't strike out at the pace Bryant does. That is why most feel Bryant is good for .280 per.

Schwarber is faster than he looks...ie legged out a 3B his 1st AB standing. It was not a fluke. D wise that is a concern but his bat in LF would not be a major issue.

Now my opinion is if they end up using Baez to get a SP then it makes sense to move Schwarber to LF. Montero is needed for the staff more than giving the job to Schwarber when his catching skills are far inferior to Montero.

Just my opinion. They have better catching options in the pipe if they want to go that direction. I would rather them use F/A there when the time comes. Catching is more of a craft and having a vet managing the staff pays off more long term.

I'm not hating on Schwarber. But a blind man can see he's overweight and has no position to play.

Bryant is a terrific athlete. He is fast. He is good defensively.

Schwarber is a bat. He's the type of softball player the Cubs used to build around. You don't win in MLB playing poor defense. Poor D, not fast. Not athletic.

Not hating him. Hope he hits a TON. But it is not hard to see Bryant being a top MLB player. I don't see that with Schwarber. I am not sayin he won't be better than Darwin Barney. I am saying he won't be better than Kris Bryant.

 

[beckdawg]

There is not one chance in a hundred that Schwarber becomes a better player than Bryant. No chance!!

Bryant can play D. Bryant can run. Bryant is a VERY smart, savvy player.

AND he will be the better hitter.

I hope Schwarber becomes a star. But right now, he has no position to play defensively, and he's too heavy.

Bryant will win MVP. Schwarber will struggle to be a full time player, or if he is, he will hurt defensively.

So you've already decided he's bad defensively? It's ironic you talk about Bryant being able to play defense because a lot of scouts this time last year were suggesting they didn't think he'd be able to play 3B long term. I wouldn't go so far as to suggest Schwarber is going to be Yady Molina behind the plate but most everything I've read and I read a lot suggests he's shown enough to stick behind the plate for the time being. I'd also point out that Bryant's scouting ratings prior to 2015 were 55 on his hit grade and 75 on his power(using mlb.com here as it's easy access). Schwarber is 60/65 respectively. Bryant's obviously got more power and I mentioned that. However, Schwarber has a better contact profile hence why he has a slightly higher hit grade. You're honestly talking about Schwarber like he's some second rate player. His underlying numbers suggest he's quite similar to Rizzo at similar ages/level. Rizzo is presently one of the 10 best hitters in the game. Even if he doesn't stick at C his bat still profiles quite nicely in LF.

Regardless, I think you missed the entire point of my comment which was that it's far to early to make declarative statements. When Baez was in A+/AA he had 40 errors. Now some are suggesting he's a plus to potentially even better than that defensively. I'm not necessarily one of those people but the point being players can get better defensively. In fact, the cubs seem to believe defense in college/HS isn't being taught as well which is why they've drafted guys with questionable positions(Bryant was questionable at the time, Schwarber is as well, and Happ this year has positional questions).

Edit: also for what it's worth Bryant's run grade prior to 2015 was 40 which happens to be identical to the grade Schwarber has.

 

[TL1961]

So you've already decided he's bad defensively? It's ironic you talk about Bryant being able to play defense because a lot of scouts this time last year were suggesting they didn't think he'd be able to play 3B long term. I wouldn't go so far as to suggest Schwarber is going to be Yady Molina behind the plate but most everything I've read and I read a lot suggests he's shown enough to stick behind the plate for the time being. I'd also point out that Bryant's scouting ratings prior to 2015 were 55 on his hit grade and 75 on his power(using mlb.com here as it's easy access). Schwarber is 60/65 respectively. Bryant's obviously got more power and I mentioned that. However, Schwarber has a better contact profile hence why he has a slightly higher hit grade. You're honestly talking about Schwarber like he's some second rate player. His underlying numbers suggest he's quite similar to Rizzo at similar ages/level. Rizzo is presently one of the 10 best hitters in the game. Even if he doesn't stick at C his bat still profiles quite nicely in LF.

Regardless, I think you missed the entire point of my comment which was that it's far to early to make declarative statements. When Baez was in A+/AA he had 40 errors. Now some are suggesting he's a plus to potentially even better than that defensively. I'm not necessarily one of those people but the point being players can get better defensively. In fact, the cubs seem to believe defense in college/HS isn't being taught as well which is why they've drafted guys with questionable positions(Bryant was questionable at the time, Schwarber is as well, and Happ this year has positional questions).

Edit: also for what it's worth Bryant's run grade prior to 2015 was 40 which happens to be identical to the grade Schwarber has.

Every scout outside the Cubs organization says Schwarber is not a catcher, and even the Cubs are only hoping to teach him the position. So, yes, that says "bad defensively".

And I have eyeballs. Bryant's baserunning is an asset, regardless of some score somebody slapped on it once upon a time. Schwarber will never be as good a baserunner.

So, yeah, I can already see that.