Offseason discussion/rumors

beckdawg

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Id offer 3yrs with 4th and 5th mutual option

Teams arent going to offer him at 32 5 yrs guarentee for 20+ per. .



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Last I heard he wanted 6 years. Doubt he's going to take a 3 year deal and it's not like the pressure is on him. If he's a FA next year he's gonna get paid by someone. If he's worth 20 wins over the next 6 years that's roughly $160 mil in value. Think it's fair to count on 4 wins the next 3 years and around 3 wins the following 3. Wouldn't surprise me to see something like 6 years and $175mil being what he gets though.
 

beckdawg

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Happ, Jimenez and Candelerio are almost certain MLB talent. Cease has a TOR arm but young pitching is never a sure thing. Everyone else is a crapshoot to be honest.

Candelario is an interesting player but he's more a low floor guy than someone likely to be a star. Feel like a rebuilding team would be smart to try and grab him cheap and use his cheap years to build value for a trade to some desperate team later. Keep thinking Atlanta just makes so much sense given their depth of arms and the fact they are waiting on Maitan while also showing signs they want to compete. Candelario should be a decent regular though.

Cease to me is maybe a better version of Edwards. Hope he stays in the rotation but should profile well in the bullpen regardless. Didn't include him in the list with Happ/Eloy because think he needs to put innings on his arm before you trust him.
 

beckdawg

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Here's the thing with Koji.... over the past 5 years his swinging strike rate is 17.1%. Among relievers with min 100 innings pitched over the past 5 years that's second to Chapman at 17.7%. Here's the other thing with Koji, when they do make contact they are going to hit fly balls(30.6% ground ball rate). Last year his HR/FB rate killed him. 13.3% vs his career 9.5%. It's not even that his swinging strike rate really dropped much. It was still a very good 15% last year.

If I had to guess I'd say he's more than likely a bit unlucky last year with HRs. That's always going to be a potential issue with extreme fly ball pitchers. Some years their HR/FB rate will kill them and other years they will dominate because generally speaking flyballs that don't leave the park are easy outs and also generally speaking HR/FB rates are very flukey year to year. Sure he's going to be 42 so who knows what you're getting but I love this deal. He has a very realistic shot at being a very dominant bullpen piece and the cubs paid apparently $4.5 mil and are only on the hook for one year.

The other great thing is normally someone like that is your closer. But with Rondon the setup/closer guy and Davis as the closer, you can bring Koji in the 6th or 7th inning to get out of a jam and you're not even touching the back end of your bullpen. Davis gives you a .196 wOBA vs RH hitters the past 3 years and .225 wOBA vs LH batters. Koji gives you a .239 wOBA vs LH. Koji isn't as good vs RH batters the past 3 years at .299 wOBA but league average against RH batters is .317. Rondon is .289 and .223 respectively vs LH/RH. Strop is .274/.217 vs LH/RH. Edwards(small sample size warning) is .216/.207 vs LH/RH. Grimm is .265/.290 LH/RH. Duensing is .294/.334 vs LH/RH.

So effectively what Koji has been the past 3 years is Rondon only with reverse splits. Davis is clearly great vs both sides when healthy. Edwards has been great vs both sides though I think his LH split was only like 15 innings. Rondon and Strop give you 2 dominant guys vs RH batters. Koji gives you a dominate guy vs LH batters. I think they already committed to going to an 8 man pen. So, you have those 5 plus likely Grimm in the long guy role. Given they rule 5'd Caleb Smith he has to be a guy or he gets returned. He appears to be a reverse split guy as well so i'm not 100% what their plan is for him. Lefties actually hit him pretty hard last year in AA(.297/.353/.484). Presumably you would fill the last spot with another guy tough on lefties. Duensing at the moment is probably the front runner but wouldn't surprise me if they keep shopping for a LOOGY so they have options going into ST.
 

chibears55

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Uh oh..
Fowler scheduled for physical with
Uggggh Cardinals tomorrow

They sign him Cubs will get Comp pick after first round


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Diehardfan

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@BleacherNation: Sounds like Cubs are close to a one-year deal with Koji Uehara in the $6 million range.

42 YO RH reliever from Boston
Not sure how much he has left in tank
though he hasn't been used a lot last couple years innings wise.


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Probably, not much if it's anything like the Cub's previous ventures into oriental players. Seems like other teams bring in these guys and they're great additions. We get Fukadome, Fugikawa, Choi, Wada...WTF.
 

beckdawg

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FWIW, the cubs roster today stands at 36 + Koji who's not on their 40 man just yet. That does include the rule 5 guy smith. As mentioned before there's been some chatter on the rangers sniffing around Szczur. While the cubs have 3 open 40 man slots they have apparently suggested they intend to go with an 8 man bullpen which would leave them with a 4 man bench. Jay is obviously one(or almora however you split them). Baez is another(or Zobrist however they split time). Montero is one. That leaves one slot for either La Stella, Szczur or some other option. Think La Stella does have options but we saw how well that went down last year. Szczur does not.

The 3 open 40 man slots is interesting especially given the cubs just lost a guy to the rule 5. Would seem to indicate the cubs aren't done. Given Happ is on the fast track and Zagunis already has shown he can hit AAA pitching they probably don't add a 40 man INF/OF. I could see them adding a 2017 version of Federowicz as I'm not sure Caratini is ready for the majors. Assuming Szczur is the odd guy out, they would still have 3 guys they could add. Given where their roster is, that would either have to be a LOOGY that can legit make the roster or some minor league types with options. Would seem likely they will either scoop up some guys put on waivers after signings or they have a small trade in mind with the likely return being a starter with options. Thinking something similar to Aaron Brooks.
 

beckdawg

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Uh oh..
Fowler scheduled for physical with
Uggggh Cardinals tomorrow

They sign him Cubs will get Comp pick after first round


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Jon Heyman ‏@JonHeyman 3m3 minutes ago
Dexter Fowler has a deal with #STLCards. Expected to be big.

Least they seemingly paid big.

Edit:
Jon Heyman ‏@JonHeyman 2m2 minutes ago
Fowler's deal expected to be big with stl, as @dgoold said. Unconfirmed, but word is 5 yrs, at least 16M/yr. 80/9M is rumor
1 reply 13 retweets 7 likes
 

DJMoore_is_fat

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Great pick up for St. Louis. Tough loss for us. We'll have some good battles next year.


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Shawon0Meter

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I'm going to be embarrassed by the "traitor" or better yet "trader" comments Cubs fans will be making. Not so much here, but the Twitter folks.
 

beckdawg

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I'm going to be embarrassed by the "traitor" or better yet "trader" comments Cubs fans will be making. Not so much here, but the Twitter folks.

Hard for me to see a reason to give him crap. He took a hugely team friendly deal last year to return, played his butt off and then is costing the cards a first round pick while getting paid. Good on him.
 

Mr. Cub

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Yuck.

But at least you can't really call him a traitor. He just won for us, not like we lost and he bails, like KD.

He's going there to rub the fresh jewelry in their faces haha
 

DJMoore_is_fat

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I could never hate Fowler. I love the guy. He came here for cheap and helped get us a ring. Running backwards after hitting that blast off Kluber in Game 7 was awesome.

Besides it won't matter -- we're still better than St. Louis.


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BaBaBlacksheep

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If the money was equal I'm sure 10 outa 10 times he'd choose the Cubs. But business is business. Wish him nothing but the best.
 

SilenceS

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According to reports, Cardinals made an "over the top offer" to make sure they signed him while giving up pick. I love it.
 

SilenceS

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If the money was equal I'm sure 10 outa 10 times he'd choose the Cubs. But business is business. Wish him nothing but the best.

Cubs were never bringing him back unless it was a similar deal to last year.
 

DanTown

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I love Dex, but I think people don't realize how much the Cubs and their insane positioning group creates the defense they have. His defense only became passable with the Cubs because his range went from massively negative to slightly positive and the Cardinals don't have that system for him to walk in to. While his bat was good here, it was also incredibly streaky and it's always easier to get out of a slump when you're surrounded by great players because teams, even when you're struggling, still have to throw you strikes. He also derives a lot of value from baserunning and I'm not sure I trust a guy at age 32+ to give me highly positive baserunning value while playing every day in the outfield.

I love Dex, I think he was insanely valuable for the Cubs these past two years, but to give him 5/80 and give up a first round pick seems insane to me. Cardinals basically need Dex to be a 3+ WAR guy every year of this deal and if he's not that because his defense slips + time off due to an injury like he has every year, this deal can get away from you quickly. Someone is going to come in and tell me that $8 million / WAR is the current market rate and while I think I have even used that number in the past, I think that number is far too high to evaluate any deal and I was wrong when I did. Looking at what St Louis is paying for, I think they need Dexter to be about 15 WAR or else they've drastically overpaid the market (especially losing a first round pick).
 

beckdawg

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I love Dex, but I think people don't realize how much the Cubs create the defense they have. His defense only became passable with the Cubs because his range went from massively negative to positive and the Cardinals don't have that system for him to walk in to. While his bat was good here, it was also incredibly streaky and it's always easier to get out of a slump when you're surrounded by great players because teams, even when you're struggling, still have to throw you strikes.

I love Dex, I think he was insanely valuable for the Cubs these past two years, but to give him 5/80 and give up a first round pick seems insane to me. Cardinals basically need Dex to be a 3+ WAR guy every year of this deal and if he's not that because his defense slips + time off due to an injury like he has every year, this deal can get away from you quickly.

Eh... he talked about this. Coming up in Colorado's system they taught him to play shallow for whatever reason. The big change that improved his defense was he started positioning deeper. He essentially decided to do it on his own but the cubs basically were in agreement that it was a good idea. He's always had the tools to have good range but the problem he used to have was balls would get hit over his head because he was positioned so shallow. The defensive metrics knocked him hard for that.

I mean he's not Willie Mays out there but I don't think he's going to fall off a cliff.
 

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