What does the Darvish signing mean after 2018?

JP Hochbaum

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I hate to look past this year but the next 3 year window is quite astounding what we can do. What does the signing do for the Cubs for the next 3 years?

2018:
Lester 27
Chatwood 12
Quintana 8
Hendricks 4.1
Darvish . ~ 25 assumed

2019:
Lester 27
Chatwood 12
Quintana 10 team option
Hendricks Arb
Darvish ~25

2020
Lester 20
Chatwood 13
Quintana 11 team option
Hendricks Arb
Darvish ~ 20

2021
Lester 10
Darvish ~ 20

Through 2020 we have a 5 man rotation set, and it is relatively cheap in big market standards, because of its flexibility.

Lets say Quintana is effective but someone at AAA steps up and deserves a spot. We can shed his contract. Lester should still be a good 2-3 starter up until he costs 20 million in 2020 or 10 million in 2021.

Soon Hendricks hits arbitration and if he continues to pitch as he does his arbitration dollars could get quite high, which means the Cubs could decide not to tender and go with someone cheaper.

Why is this important? Well in 2020 and 2021 is when we have to start offering multi year deals to our young hitters. When that happens we will know who is worth signing long term and who is not worth it and let them walk.

We have a legit amazing 3 year window, and it can be extended if Theo and company can get pitching through the system eventually.
 

chibears55

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I hate to look past this year but the next 3 year window is quite astounding what we can do. What does the signing do for the Cubs for the next 3 years?

2018:
Lester 27
Chatwood 12
Quintana 8
Hendricks 4.1
Darvish . ~ 25 assumed

2019:
Lester 27
Chatwood 12
Quintana 10 team option
Hendricks Arb
Darvish ~25

2020
Lester 20
Chatwood 13
Quintana 11 team option
Hendricks Arb
Darvish ~ 20

2021
Lester 10
Darvish ~ 20

Through 2020 we have a 5 man rotation set, and it is relatively cheap in big market standards, because of its flexibility.

Lets say Quintana is effective but someone at AAA steps up and deserves a spot. We can shed his contract. Lester should still be a good 2-3 starter up until he costs 20 million in 2020 or 10 million in 2021.

Soon Hendricks hits arbitration and if he continues to pitch as he does his arbitration dollars could get quite high, which means the Cubs could decide not to tender and go with someone cheaper.

Why is this important? Well in 2020 and 2021 is when we have to start offering multi year deals to our young hitters. When that happens we will know who is worth signing long term and who is not worth it and let them walk.

We have a legit amazing 3 year window, and it can be extended if Theo and company can get pitching through the system eventually.
As i mentioned in yu darvish thread, it gives the cubs 3 yrs to take their time and develop their kids in system and whomever they sign in IFA...

I believe also Darvish salary will be 21 per not 25 and he can opt out after 2 yrs., which he probably wont unless he pitches lights out and feels he can make more money...

Also, having their rotation set and most postion players tied up for next few years will allow them to focus more on that guy in Washington next off season...

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JP Hochbaum

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Yes his AAV is 21. But it doesn't mean he gets 21 per year, thats the average. I am confident that with the opt out his first two years will be heavily front loaded.
 

anotheridiot

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I hate to look past this year but the next 3 year window is quite astounding what we can do. What does the signing do for the Cubs for the next 3 years?

Lets say Quintana is effective but someone at AAA steps up and deserves a spot. We can shed his contract. Lester should still be a good 2-3 starter up until he costs 20 million in 2020 or 10 million in 2021.

The cubs show absolutely no want to produce a starter from their system, Alzo will be trade bait or turned into a reliever. Fans want them to leave the core alone but want the free agents like Harper.

Here I thought the new norm for starter ace material was going to be 30 million like Grienke and Kershaw got, so if they could get this guy for this money, those next tier guys like cobb are going to be on one year deals.

Now its just seeing if Jake goes to the Brewers or the Cardinals.
 

Iceman2385

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The cubs show absolutely no want to produce a starter from their system, Alzo will be trade bait or turned into a reliever. Fans want them to leave the core alone but want the free agents like Harper.

Here I thought the new norm for starter ace material was going to be 30 million like Grienke and Kershaw got, so if they could get this guy for this money, those next tier guys like cobb are going to be on one year deals.

Now its just seeing if Jake goes to the Brewers or the Cardinals.

The beauty is the cubs potentially should be able to sit this trade deadline out, at least not spending big like they did on Chapman and Q. Maybe they will just look for a 2nd tier reliever and that’s it. My hope is Alzo doesn’t become trade bait this season. If he looks legit, we could trade Chatwood if he’s performing well or even trade someone like Kyle Hendricks or even Q in a year or two if we got a haul back. Plus Yu could always opt out in two years to make room for Alzo. I believe the cubs next goal is to develop pitching, but it takes time. I believe they will eventually get there.
 

CSF77

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Theo has said that they are going to be limited this year. So the soft cap is pretty much a hard cap for the Cubs.

The threshold increases over the next few years so that is where they will get some breathing room to take on Arb pay increases.

That said I really don’t expect a major signing until Lester is off of the books now.
 

The_Real_Truth

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What does the Darvish signing mean after 2018? Hopefully it means we have one more year of Yu left cuz he tore it up in 2018 and is about to tear it up in 2019. Then he can opt out and some other team can eat his bad/decline years.
 

Raskolnikov

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The Cubs better have a plan for his mechanics adjustments because Darvish has been very very inconsistent the last 18 months. His K's remain high, and maybe that is what matters at Wrigley. The fact that Texas is a long ball park might be attractive to the Cubs. I'm not sure what they were thinking personally, or why Darvish is more coveted than Arrieta. I trust the work ethic, competitiveness, and stuff of Jake more than I do the history and recent struggles of Darvish (pretty certain toward the end of time in Texas and end of season he was tipping pitches too, but perhaps that is precisely what they know they can fix, or they project the Cubs defense will return him to ace form).

It was actually a great chance to let the Dodgers injure themselves with another albatross, but instead they picked it up.

I agreed with everything the OP said in the "Get over Darvish" thread...he isn't all that and this was a huge mistake potentially. Together with Lesters imminent decline to a #3, Hendricks predictable regression to the mean we already saw last year...and the K issues of the line-up...it just feels to me like the potential 5 year window shattered by Epsteins own bricks.

At least you guys got one. Not much else matters, but I don't think another will be seen under this GM. The core may very well still be viable when another gets their hands on it and overhauls...but these albatross mistakes are going to hurt for a good bit.
 

beckdawg

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The Cubs better have a plan for his mechanics adjustments because Darvish has been very very inconsistent the last 18 months. His K's remain high, and maybe that is what matters at Wrigley. The fact that Texas is a long ball park might be attractive to the Cubs. I'm not sure what they were thinking personally, or why Darvish is more coveted than Arrieta. I trust the work ethic, competitiveness, and stuff of Jake more than I do the history and recent struggles of Darvish (pretty certain toward the end of time in Texas and end of season he was tipping pitches too, but perhaps that is precisely what they know they can fix, or they project the Cubs defense will return him to ace form).

It was actually a great chance to let the Dodgers injure themselves with another albatross, but instead they picked it up.

I agreed with everything the OP said in the "Get over Darvish" thread...he isn't all that and this was a huge mistake potentially. Together with Lesters imminent decline to a #3, Hendricks predictable regression to the mean we already saw last year...and the K issues of the line-up...it just feels to me like the potential 5 year window shattered by Epsteins own bricks.

At least you guys got one. Not much else matters, but I don't think another will be seen under this GM. The core may very well still be viable when another gets their hands on it and overhauls...but these albatross mistakes are going to hurt for a good bit.

Unless you believe Arrieta is his peak self he's not even close to darvish. If you exclude 2014 and 2015 where he was pitching like arguably one of the best pitchers ever he's not all that special. Those two years he had a 9.4/2.1 k/bb 9 and a 2.08/2.31 ERA/FIP over 385.2 innings. The rest of his career he's thrown 775.1 innings with 372 ER, 314 walks and 667 k's which when you boil that down is a 4.31 ERA and a 7.7/3.6 k/bb per 9. Even if you want to exclude his time in Baltimore his numbers aren't that amazing without 2014/15. With chicago as a whole he threw 803.0 innings, with a 8.9/2.7 k/bb per 9 and a 2.73 ERA. But if you exclude those two years he drops to 417.1 innings, 3.34 ERA with a 8.4/3.3 k/bb per 9. In other words, there's a clear difference between 2014/15 and the rest of his time in chicago. His ERA is a run and a quarter higher and he's +1/-1.2 in k/bb per 9.

Arrieta is going to be 32. There's little reason to believe he's going back to 2014/15 numbers. If you wanna believe the rest of his time in chicago is a good measuring stick fine but honestly that's being fairly optimistic as you'd expect him to decline with age and the thing is that if his stuff declines his 8.7 k/9 doesn't have a lot of room for him to fall and still be a #1 starter. And we saw his velocity already start to decline last year.

As for Darvish, he's literally lead the league in K per 9 since he joined the majors. And there's sufficient reason to believe that playing in texas hurt his numbers. He has a career 3.66 ERA at home vs 3.14 on the road. Typically players pitch better at home. For example, Arrieta has a career 3.43 ERA at home and 3.71 on the road. Also the dodgers adjusted Darvish's pitch mix when he came over. This lead to some really fantastic underlying numbers. After the trade his k per 9 was 11.05 and his bb per 9 was 2.35. Those are seriously absurd rates. That's a 23.8% K-BB rate. On the season as a whole only 4 pitchers had a better rate than that Sale(31.1%), Kluber(29.5%), Scherzer(27.3%) and Kershaw(25.3%). In 2016 only 2 pitchers had a k-BB rate better than that. Jose Fernandez was 26.9% and Scherzer was 25.3%. In 2015 only 3 pitchers had a better rate than that with kershaw at 29.1%, Sale at 27.2% and Scherzer at 26.9%.

In other words, Darvish has SERIOUS upside. Granted you could argue at 32 he may also decline but he's got a lot farther to go. You could cut 2 k per 9 off his career rate and he'd still be better than 2017 Arrieta. And if you compare the money he's making($21 mil AAV) to what Scherzer and Kershaw are making it's nuts. Kershaw probably opts out and makes even more than this but if he doesn't over the next 3 years he'll make $35.23 mil AAV. Scherzer will make $37.15 mil AAV over the next 4 though some of that money is deferred. They are making 67.7-76.9% more than Darvish will be making.
 

Raskolnikov

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Unless you believe Arrieta is his peak self he's not even close to darvish. If you exclude 2014 and 2015 where he was pitching like arguably one of the best pitchers ever he's not all that special. Those two years he had a 9.4/2.1 k/bb 9 and a 2.08/2.31 ERA/FIP over 385.2 innings. The rest of his career he's thrown 775.1 innings with 372 ER, 314 walks and 667 k's which when you boil that down is a 4.31 ERA and a 7.7/3.6 k/bb per 9. Even if you want to exclude his time in Baltimore his numbers aren't that amazing without 2014/15. With chicago as a whole he threw 803.0 innings, with a 8.9/2.7 k/bb per 9 and a 2.73 ERA. But if you exclude those two years he drops to 417.1 innings, 3.34 ERA with a 8.4/3.3 k/bb per 9. In other words, there's a clear difference between 2014/15 and the rest of his time in chicago. His ERA is a run and a quarter higher and he's +1/-1.2 in k/bb per 9.

Arrieta is going to be 32. There's little reason to believe he's going back to 2014/15 numbers. If you wanna believe the rest of his time in chicago is a good measuring stick fine but honestly that's being fairly optimistic as you'd expect him to decline with age and the thing is that if his stuff declines his 8.7 k/9 doesn't have a lot of room for him to fall and still be a #1 starter. And we saw his velocity already start to decline last year.

As for Darvish, he's literally lead the league in K per 9 since he joined the majors. And there's sufficient reason to believe that playing in texas hurt his numbers. He has a career 3.66 ERA at home vs 3.14 on the road. Typically players pitch better at home. For example, Arrieta has a career 3.43 ERA at home and 3.71 on the road. Also the dodgers adjusted Darvish's pitch mix when he came over. This lead to some really fantastic underlying numbers. After the trade his k per 9 was 11.05 and his bb per 9 was 2.35. Those are seriously absurd rates. That's a 23.8% K-BB rate. On the season as a whole only 4 pitchers had a better rate than that Sale(31.1%), Kluber(29.5%), Scherzer(27.3%) and Kershaw(25.3%). In 2016 only 2 pitchers had a k-BB rate better than that. Jose Fernandez was 26.9% and Scherzer was 25.3%. In 2015 only 3 pitchers had a better rate than that with kershaw at 29.1%, Sale at 27.2% and Scherzer at 26.9%.

In other words, Darvish has SERIOUS upside. Granted you could argue at 32 he may also decline but he's got a lot farther to go. You could cut 2 k per 9 off his career rate and he'd still be better than 2017 Arrieta. And if you compare the money he's making($21 mil AAV) to what Scherzer and Kershaw are making it's nuts. Kershaw probably opts out and makes even more than this but if he doesn't over the next 3 years he'll make $35.23 mil AAV. Scherzer will make $37.15 mil AAV over the next 4 though some of that money is deferred. They are making 67.7-76.9% more than Darvish will be making.

I just see the competitive never quit fire in Arrieta, and to be clear he was pretty damn special in 2016 after the all-star break again.


I tried to point out a noticable difference in his body posture as a root cause of his struggles, as his shoulders have turned forward and inward due to his over weight training himself out of balance. He can be corrected by a personal trainer with his work ethic.

Darvish on the other hand gets taken deep way too often, is the same age, and I really doubt has the same competitive spirit I would trust paying 100 million to, and trust to be the club house leader whose work ethic leads by example and nobody can say he doesn't at least try to earn his paycheck.

Combine sowing discord by not paying your own hero for some greener grass, and I disagree with the move.

Clearly he could work out, and I recognize the upside with defense and wind blowing in...he will be a nightmare at times. Last I checked he don't have no championships though, isn't october proven, and the taste of betrayal by Cubs office over some math and analytical projections is too hard for me to wipe out.

Reap what you sow. We'll see Cubbies.
 

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I just see the competitive never quit fire in Arrieta, and to be clear he was pretty damn special in 2016 after the all-star break again.


I tried to point out a noticable difference in his body posture as a root cause of his struggles, as his shoulders have turned forward and inward due to his over weight training himself out of balance. He can be corrected by a personal trainer with his work ethic.

Darvish on the other hand gets taken deep way too often, is the same age, and I really doubt has the same competitive spirit I would trust paying 100 million to, and trust to be the club house leader whose work ethic leads by example and nobody can say he doesn't at least try to earn his paycheck.

Combine sowing discord by not paying your own hero for some greener grass, and I disagree with the move.

Clearly he could work out, and I recognize the upside with defense and wind blowing in...he will be a nightmare at times. Last I checked he don't have no championships though, isn't october proven, and the taste of betrayal by Cubs office over some math and analytical projections is too hard for me to wipe out.

Reap what you sow. We'll see Cubbies.
You live in a cardboard box under lower Wacker Drive and you are judging the angle of someone's shoulders?
 

Raskolnikov

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You live in a cardboard box under lower Wacker Drive and you are judging the angle of someone's shoulders?

you can see it plain as day in photos from 2014 to 2017. His shoulder angle has changed due to some element in his lifting.

Yes ommy I am not a parrot, I notice things from my box, if only you could see from your tower what an ass hat you are.
 

Omeletpants

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you can see it plain as day in photos from 2014 to 2017. His shoulder angle has changed due to some element in his lifting.

Yes ommy I am not a parrot, I notice things from my box, if only you could see from your tower what an ass hat you are.
Stop stealing internet from the Billy Goat Tavern, got no money, live in a cardboard box, poser.
 

beckdawg

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Darvish on the other hand gets taken deep way too often, is the same age, and I really doubt has the same competitive spirit I would trust paying 100 million to, and trust to be the club house leader whose work ethic leads by example and nobody can say he doesn't at least try to earn his paycheck.

Again the numbers don't really bear out your opinion. Darvish's career HR/9 is 0.99. For context, Arrieta's career rate is 0.84 though last year it was 1.23 compared to Darvish's 1.30(HR in general were way up for everyone last year). However, again you have to factor in where Darvish spent the majority of his career pitching. On the road his HR/9 is 0.89 vs 1.08 at home which obviously was mostly Arlington. Espn has a handy tracker for this sort of data. You're welcome to look through it and make of it what you will but the summary here should be obvious. Effectively it's one of the worst 5 parks to pitch in. And that's to say nothing of NL vs AL discussion where clearly facing a DH vs a pitcher matters.

As someone who digs deep into stats because it's my jam, there's basically no reason I see to take Arrieta over Darvish. The bedrock of most current thinking on pitching basically comes down to evaluating k and bb rates. There's been more added to it lately with stuff like soft contact rate but fundamentally that's where things start. Simply put, K's are never a bad thing for obvious reasons and the fewer guys you walk the better. Those numbers have never been a huge strength of Arrieta. Even in his best year his K-BB rate was 21.6%. Darvish's career rate is 20.7%. And if you want to dig into some of the deeper subjects like soft contact rate, Arrieta's past 4 years have gone 22.1%, 22.8%, 22.9% and 20.0%. Darvish's past two years post TJS have gone 22.8% and 20.5%

And can we please not dive into this nonsensical "competitive spirit" angle? These are professional athletes who've spent their life to get good enough at a sport to earn $100+ mil. MLB players give a fuck. If you want to argue Arrieta's nutty health regiment may keep him healthier... ok I guess I can see the logic there though I don't necessarily agree. But it's not like Darvish is sitting on a couch this offseason. He spent most of it prepping with Kershaw who's the best pitcher on the planet. He also worked his way back from TJS which isn't a cake walk.

And as for earning his paycheck, do you realize what the $21 AAV equates to in performance? Typical stats thinking right now is a win is worth roughly $8-9 mil in FA right now. That in other words equates to something like 2.3-2.6 wins a season. Jhoulys Chacin was worth 2.3 fWAR last year. Marco Estrada was worth 2.6 fWAR. That's the range of expectation we're talking about him living up to. He's made 131 career starts. and put up 19 fWAR. Typically in a season 32 starts is a "full" season. So, he's made a little over 4 seasons worth of starts which puts his average per "full season" at 4.75 wins per. So, he's averaged close to double the production you are expecting to pay him for.

Overall, I really don't see the argument here. Arrieta wasn't taking a $21 mil AAV deal. If he were going to the cubs would have re-signed him long prior to this offseason. And Darivsh at $21 mil AAV is a steal. So much of a steal that I frankly doubt he pitches more than 2 years with the cubs. I imagine he opts out after year 2. If that indeed happens you're then talking about a 2 year $45 mil deal plus whatever incentives Darvish earns to get the tail end of his prime years.
 

CSF77

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Again the numbers don't really bear out your opinion. Darvish's career HR/9 is 0.99. For context, Arrieta's career rate is 0.84 though last year it was 1.23 compared to Darvish's 1.30(HR in general were way up for everyone last year). However, again you have to factor in where Darvish spent the majority of his career pitching. On the road his HR/9 is 0.89 vs 1.08 at home which obviously was mostly Arlington. Espn has a handy tracker for this sort of data. You're welcome to look through it and make of it what you will but the summary here should be obvious. Effectively it's one of the worst 5 parks to pitch in. And that's to say nothing of NL vs AL discussion where clearly facing a DH vs a pitcher matters.

As someone who digs deep into stats because it's my jam, there's basically no reason I see to take Arrieta over Darvish. The bedrock of most current thinking on pitching basically comes down to evaluating k and bb rates. There's been more added to it lately with stuff like soft contact rate but fundamentally that's where things start. Simply put, K's are never a bad thing for obvious reasons and the fewer guys you walk the better. Those numbers have never been a huge strength of Arrieta. Even in his best year his K-BB rate was 21.6%. Darvish's career rate is 20.7%. And if you want to dig into some of the deeper subjects like soft contact rate, Arrieta's past 4 years have gone 22.1%, 22.8%, 22.9% and 20.0%. Darvish's past two years post TJS have gone 22.8% and 20.5%

And can we please not dive into this nonsensical "competitive spirit" angle? These are professional athletes who've spent their life to get good enough at a sport to earn $100+ mil. MLB players give a fuck. If you want to argue Arrieta's nutty health regiment may keep him healthier... ok I guess I can see the logic there though I don't necessarily agree. But it's not like Darvish is sitting on a couch this offseason. He spent most of it prepping with Kershaw who's the best pitcher on the planet. He also worked his way back from TJS which isn't a cake walk.

And as for earning his paycheck, do you realize what the $21 AAV equates to in performance? Typical stats thinking right now is a win is worth roughly $8-9 mil in FA right now. That in other words equates to something like 2.3-2.6 wins a season. Jhoulys Chacin was worth 2.3 fWAR last year. Marco Estrada was worth 2.6 fWAR. That's the range of expectation we're talking about him living up to. He's made 131 career starts. and put up 19 fWAR. Typically in a season 32 starts is a "full" season. So, he's made a little over 4 seasons worth of starts which puts his average per "full season" at 4.75 wins per. So, he's averaged close to double the production you are expecting to pay him for.

Overall, I really don't see the argument here. Arrieta wasn't taking a $21 mil AAV deal. If he were going to the cubs would have re-signed him long prior to this offseason. And Darivsh at $21 mil AAV is a steal. So much of a steal that I frankly doubt he pitches more than 2 years with the cubs. I imagine he opts out after year 2. If that indeed happens you're then talking about a 2 year $45 mil deal plus whatever incentives Darvish earns to get the tail end of his prime years.

Or Layman's terms: Go back to your south side rebuild talk and leave the contending talk to the north side.
 

The_Real_Truth

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To say the Cubs betrayed Arrieta is just a flat out lie. They tried to sign him after 2015 and were met with crazy unreasonable demands from the Arrieta camp (Bor-ass). Then again after 2016, same thing. This year Boras has been saying he wants 7 years 200 million+ for Arrieta. Why would you even negotiate with that??? To the Cubs credit they offered Jake the contract they gave to Yu. Jake said no. Not sure what else you want them to do.
 

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