Offseason rumors/discussion thread

chibears55

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At 26 that is an exception. Heyward going in held 1/2 of his WAR in Defense.
Not really...

Sure the first 4-5 yrs of such deal would/could be great , but then being tied up for another 5+ years after that is what these owners and management most likely dont want anymore
 

CSF77

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Not really...

Sure the first 4-5 yrs of such deal would/could be great , but then being tied up for another 5+ years after that is what these owners and management most likely dont want anymore

Not sure on this reply
Going by Beck's 1 wRC+ = 2 DRS in value.
2010: 4.7 WAR 134 wRC+ DRS: 11 (34/22 His best O season)
2011: 1.9 WAR 96 wRC+ DRS: 10 (-4/20 Heavy weighed D)
2012: 5.3 WAR 121 wRC+ DRS: 17(21/34 Decent valued season weighed towards D)
2013: 3.1 WAR 120 wRC+ DRS: 14 (20/28 Almost balanced value)
2014: 4.7 WAR 109 wRC+ DRS: 26 (9/52 Almost all glove WAR value)
2015: 5.6 WAR 121 wRC+ DRS: 24 (21/48 over 2x the D value over O that made up his WAR)

So what they were buying was a glove first player who's O would vary neutral to 20% better than a replacement.

What they got:

2016: 1 WAR 72 wRC+ 18 DRS (-28/36)
2017 1 WAR 88 wRC+ 18 DRS (-12/36)
2018 2 WAR 99 wRC+ 6 DRS (-1/12)

So as we are seeing O actually factors heavier than 1:2 value. He lost D in 2018 and still added 1 WAR value by going neutral vs sitting dislike wRC+.

So it was a bad investment because they placed too much value on D over O. IMO you are always better off going neutral D and plus O.
 

Castor76

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Not sure on this reply
Going by Beck's 1 wRC+ = 2 DRS in value.
2010: 4.7 WAR 134 wRC+ DRS: 11 (34/22 His best O season)
2011: 1.9 WAR 96 wRC+ DRS: 10 (-4/20 Heavy weighed D)
2012: 5.3 WAR 121 wRC+ DRS: 17(21/34 Decent valued season weighed towards D)
2013: 3.1 WAR 120 wRC+ DRS: 14 (20/28 Almost balanced value)
2014: 4.7 WAR 109 wRC+ DRS: 26 (9/52 Almost all glove WAR value)
2015: 5.6 WAR 121 wRC+ DRS: 24 (21/48 over 2x the D value over O that made up his WAR)

So what they were buying was a glove first player who's O would vary neutral to 20% better than a replacement.

What they got:

2016: 1 WAR 72 wRC+ 18 DRS (-28/36)
2017 1 WAR 88 wRC+ 18 DRS (-12/36)
2018 2 WAR 99 wRC+ 6 DRS (-1/12)

So as we are seeing O actually factors heavier than 1:2 value. He lost D in 2018 and still added 1 WAR value by going neutral vs sitting dislike wRC+.

So it was a bad investment because they placed too much value on D over O. IMO you are always better off going neutral D and plus O.

I think a good part of the Heyward deal was also to take him from St Louis. Might have been worth a year and 2 M per just for that.
 

CSF77

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I think a good part of the Heyward deal was also to take him from St Louis. Might have been worth a year and 2 M per just for that.

Horrible logic.

He has put up 4 WAR over this deal. Or 32 Mil worth of value. He has been paid 59 Mil to date. 6 Mil doesn't cover the difference. His 8/184Mil comes out to 23 WAR of value. or 2.875 WAR per. So going in it felt like a solid valued deal. Right now he should be at 8.625 WAR and sits at 4. So he would have to put up a 5 WAR season again to even get into any conversation of the deal working out. (9 WAR gained for 11.5 WAR paid) Can he do it? He has before. Just a 120 wRC+ and a 20 DRS playing a whole season covers that. And that is not out of his ability. 2x of those and we are looking at this completely different.

Ball is in his court. He has finally gotten up to his previous worst mark but this run has been flat out bad.
 

Castor76

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Horrible logic.

He has put up 4 WAR over this deal. Or 32 Mil worth of value. He has been paid 59 Mil to date. 6 Mil doesn't cover the difference. His 8/184Mil comes out to 23 WAR of value. or 2.875 WAR per. So going in it felt like a solid valued deal. Right now he should be at 8.625 WAR and sits at 4. So he would have to put up a 5 WAR season again to even get into any conversation of the deal working out. (9 WAR gained for 11.5 WAR paid) Can he do it? He has before. Just a 120 wRC+ and a 20 DRS playing a whole season covers that. And that is not out of his ability. 2x of those and we are looking at this completely different.

Ball is in his court. He has finally gotten up to his previous worst mark but this run has been flat out bad.

I didn't say it was the right move. I'm just explaining the possible and probable thinking of the Front Office mindset. If Heyward had been coming Seattle and not StL, I think the Cubs offer would have been 6/126M.
 

CSF77

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I didn't say it was the right move. I'm just explaining the possible and probable thinking of the Front Office mindset. If Heyward had been coming Seattle and not StL, I think the Cubs offer would have been 6/126M.

When they made the deal Fowler was a F/A. Heyward was signed to play CF. Schwarber was listed at LF and Soler in RF. Fowler signed in S/T and pushed a platoon in LF.

I felt it was a bad signing because they could have given Fowler a 4 year deal and ran Schwarber/Soler. IMO they were betting on Almora having a larger impact than he has.

That said if he puts up back to back 5 WAR seasons he pretty much matches his value. Again the ball is in his court.

Add to it the contract was a good signing. In 6 years he put up 25.3 WAR. If you reaaly wanted to say value earned = value gained that is 269.9Mil. So the 184Mil was honestly pretty cheap.
 

CSF77

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But I would run out:

LF: Schwarber in a strait platoon: vs L he put up a 84 wRC+ vs R: 121. So just subtracting those AB's alone improves his net. Absorbing those AB's Bote at first at 3B and Bryant to LF. Bote put up a vs L wRC+ of 134. vs a 79 vs R. So he favors that match up anyways. But due to contract Russell gets those AB for the rest of the season at SS and Baez at 2B and Zo in LF. Russell held a favorable 102 vs L against a 72 wRC+ vs R. The added Def boost also plays up here.

CF: Happ and Almora in a strait platoon. Happ pushed a 118 vs R and 69 vs L. Almora 101 vs L 84 vs R. I don't think that you can argue this one. D doesn't make up for dislike value O.

RF: You pay the man you play the man. 97 vs L 100 vs R. Honestly he needs no advantage as he is league avg as is vs both and the D holds up.
 

Castor76

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Get no real argument from me. As much as I'd love to have Harper, the Cubs have more than enough, if healthy, to put up runs on anybody. I hope all 3 young OF take a next step, Schwarber hitting with runners on, Happ verus lefties, and Almora versus righties.
 

fatbeard

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I felt it was a bad signing because they could have given Fowler a 4 year deal and ran Schwarber/Soler. IMO they were betting on Almora having a larger impact than he has.

Dexter Fowler was literally the worst OF in baseball last year with a minimum of 300 PAs. Arguing that the Cubs should've given him a four-year deal is definitely a "unique" take...
 

beckdawg

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People need to stop with the revisionist history. When they signed Heyward he was going to be their starting CF in 2016. Your RF was going to be Soler who the year prior was fairly terrible in RF and Schwarber in LF. People can say they over paid for defense but if they didn't have a good defender in the outfield that shit woulda been an utter train wreck had Schwarber not blown out his knee and had the cubs not eventually wound up with Fowler which clearly was unexpected.

This is my issue all along with people. They continually want Heyward to be something he never was. if you ignore his rookie year which was weird for a lot of reasons statistically, his best season after that was a 121 wRC+. If you average every seasons prior to 2016 excluding that weird rookie year his wRC+ was 114. He was never a big time offense force. And for what it's worth April-June last year his wRC+ was 113.

The issue in my eyes are a couple things. One, you can't have him in RF and another CF out there unless you're having big production out of Schwarber as well as the infield. You can get by with average production out of CF/RF but basically the rest of your team needs to hit above average. Last year Russell didn't. Contreras was ok but more average. Bryant and Rizzo were above average but not MVP type bats. So, his lack of production showed because it was magnified by others.

The second issue I see is the cubs don't run. A large portion of Heyward's value was his legs. He was 20 for 24 in SB attempts in 2014 with Atlanta and 23 for 26 in STL in 2015. In his 3 years with the cubs he's 16 for 25. There's two ways to take that. One he's older and slowing down thus less effective. The other is he's had fewer opportunities in 3 years than he did in his previous year in STL combined. Frankly, it could be a little bit of both. But my point here is the cubs really haven't even tried to run with him. I don't have stats on this and I'm not even sure if they keep track of these publicly but my gut says Maddon doesn't hit and run much either. So, this would lead me to believe he's running less because of strategy not because a decline in his speed. Looking at statcast they only have data back to 2015 but his sprint speed in 2015 was 27.5 and it was 27.6 last year.

Having seen all this I honestly have to wonder if there is a disconnect between the front office and Maddon. Obviously it got a bit ugly this offseason. And while I am personally inclined to believe the cubs are better off with Maddon than they are without, there's a lot of situations where you wonder if he and the front office are on the same page. Just as an example, how the hell does Adam Warren go from being really good with new york to terrible with the cubs to back to being really good with new york? Then there's Justin Wilson who a lot of people loved in the scouting world. There's various other names too where the cubs really don't seem to get everything out of some of these players the are acquiring which the front office takes the blame for but maybe there's just a disconnect in how Maddon uses players vs the reason those players were acquired.
 

CSF77

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Beck I really think that it has more to do with the top down. They are more money ball where stealing bases leads to outs. So they are more focused on base running in general vs risking outs. Same goes for sacrificing outscro move up a hitter. Pitcher up then yes. Man on 3rd SF makes sense. But in general risking outs are not worth it.

As far as the pitching goes I'm really not sure honestly. Wilson didn't click and lost command. Q got worse so it really feels somewhat related to a bad pitching coach match up with the staff. Some improved while others regressed. It would be a hard guess to ask why here.

Jason's value is tied up in D. That is why I believe Happ gets the platoon majority in CF. 118 wRC+ in a sophomore slump vs R. They will have to focus more on run generation in 2019 vs run suppression.
 

CSF77

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Dexter Fowler was literally the worst OF in baseball last year with a minimum of 300 PAs. Arguing that the Cubs should've given him a four-year deal is definitely a "unique" take...

It would have cost less. When Happ came up RF would have been a opertunity. 2016 Jason gave 1 WAR of value. They had 2 catchers already and could have pushed Contreras to RF vs forcing AB's off of Montero who was a superior framer.
 

anotheridiot

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Well, at least some people are actually backing up my point that the excuse to sign Heyward was that he was playing center field. It did not take long to see all his value go down there. Also, Fowler has always been a terrible outfielder. He was awful in Colorados vast outfield. One day in math class someone might be able to explain why a field, with the same infield dimensions, of bases being the same distance away, the mound in the middle the same 60'6 inches away, can have a bigger outfield. The small wrigley outfield made fowler look like a better outfielder than he ever was. I am sure st louis sees it since they put him in right to make his space smaller. Pretty much same deal with Heyward, but he has the big arm to add to it in right, but still looks completely lost when the sun plays around 4.

As far as the current talk out there, its " Machado is a better fit for the cubs, and if all it is going to cost is 3 years 100 million (again, hoping he would opt out) he is a better fit because Bryant can play outfield. More bumbfounded answers already considering Bryant will stay here and play wherever they want him to after he already turned down a 200 million dollar extension. Something tells me being the only third baseman a cub fan can remember as a great player is important to Bryant, not little league moves all over the field. Maddon claims he does not care, but something tells me he does. You keep bouncing him around all the tea in china wont keep him here.
 

CSF77

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Well, at least some people are actually backing up my point that the excuse to sign Heyward was that he was playing center field. It did not take long to see all his value go down there. Also, Fowler has always been a terrible outfielder. He was awful in Colorados vast outfield. One day in math class someone might be able to explain why a field, with the same infield dimensions, of bases being the same distance away, the mound in the middle the same 60'6 inches away, can have a bigger outfield. The small wrigley outfield made fowler look like a better outfielder than he ever was. I am sure st louis sees it since they put him in right to make his space smaller. Pretty much same deal with Heyward, but he has the big arm to add to it in right, but still looks completely lost when the sun plays around 4.

As far as the current talk out there, its " Machado is a better fit for the cubs, and if all it is going to cost is 3 years 100 million (again, hoping he would opt out) he is a better fit because Bryant can play outfield. More bumbfounded answers already considering Bryant will stay here and play wherever they want him to after he already turned down a 200 million dollar extension. Something tells me being the only third baseman a cub fan can remember as a great player is important to Bryant, not little league moves all over the field. Maddon claims he does not care, but something tells me he does. You keep bouncing him around all the tea in china wont keep him here.

Fowler did fine for the Cubs. As a Cub and as a Card.
 

fatbeard

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It would have cost less. When Happ came up RF would have been a opertunity. 2016 Jason gave 1 WAR of value. They had 2 catchers already and could have pushed Contreras to RF vs forcing AB's off of Montero who was a superior framer.

You didn't know any of this at the time the deal was made. That's beckdawg's point. No one knew what Happ was in the 2015 offseason. We still don't know what Happ will amount to. No one knew what Contreras was, and he has never played a single inning of MLB at RF. Montero's body finally broke for good in 2017 and he's out of baseball completely. Just stop.
 

anotheridiot

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Supposedly the Dodgers are back in on Machado.....

That was the point Mully was making this morning. Teams were out thinking they had to come up with a 250-300 million deal to get him. Making the white sox offer public will make alot of teams think about it.
 

beckdawg

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Beck I really think that it has more to do with the top down. They are more money ball where stealing bases leads to outs. So they are more focused on base running in general vs risking outs. Same goes for sacrificing outscro move up a hitter. Pitcher up then yes. Man on 3rd SF makes sense. But in general risking outs are not worth it.

I mean it might be but IIRC the break even point for stealing being worth it was something like 80% effectiveness which he was in 2014/15. Also while I get the math behind saying stuff like stealing is bad, I think there's other considerations. Getting an early lead can be a big deal. It changes how you manage a game. If you're down 2-0 in a pitcher duel type game you may yank your starter early to get a pinch hitter in and then you're relying on the bullpen the rest of the game.

I'm not saying I have all the answers with regard to that but it just feels to me like the cubs are one of two offenses on any given day. Either they cream the shit out of the team or they can't manufacture runs to save their life. I have to believe a least a small issue with that is playing more small ball.
 

CSF77

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You didn't know any of this at the time the deal was made. That's beckdawg's point. No one knew what Happ was in the 2015 offseason. We still don't know what Happ will amount to. No one knew what Contreras was, and he has never played a single inning of MLB at RF. Montero's body finally broke for good in 2017 and he's out of baseball completely. Just stop.

Same logic applied to Schwarber injured and Soler season long injury .

As Beck pointed out they signed Heyward to play CF. Fowler took a pillow contract in spring. They made a choice to go with a younger player and paid him at market value or above.

So basically they were planning on Schwarber/Heyward/Soler. Fowler fell into their laps then the injury to Schwarber then Soler got injured. LF then became a pivot for Joe at that point and there must have been 10 players out there in 16.

Regardless it was a choice to spend big on Heyward. They didn't have to as they had a lead off CF that they chose not to extend a deal to for what ever reason

And talking how the Cards absorbed a bad contract in Fowler. It pails compared to Heyward. As is Heyward would have to pull back to back 5 WAR seasons to break even right now.
 

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