Offseason Stuff

[Steve_A]

Well with all the news of Ross being named the manager and Bryant's grievance underway.
This is how I think the Cubs should go about the offseason.

Trade Bryant to the Braves for prospects and salary relief
Decline Q's option
Trade Happ / Garcia and a couple of prospects to the Tigers for Boyd
Sign Moustakas to man third
Sign Akiyama https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=akiyam000sho to man center
Sign (G) Cole

Not saying these things are do-able but the team will look like this

SP
(G) Cole
Darvish
Boyd
Hendricks
Lester
(Mills)

RP
Chatwood
Hultzen
(Mills)
Ryan
Wick
Wieck
Kimbrel

Lineup
(CF) Akiyama
(SS) Baez
(1B) Rizzo
(C) Contreras
(3B) Moustakas
(LF) Schwarber
(2B) Hoerner
(RF) Heyward

Would like to hear what you all think about it thanks.

 

[CSF77]

#1. Q holds value. He is worth the opt. And teams will trade for it also. Dropping Q means they have to replace 2 pitchers.

#2. Even Cole's team mates feel that he is going to LA. Cubs are not even on the radar.

#3. Akiyama. Too early. We don't even know if he goes to MLB yet. I'm not against this because it is a low risk deal in a dead season for CF.

#4. Bryant most likely will stay. Braves most likely retain Donaldson. Braves IMO will push for MadBum and bolster their rotation.

But that is your perfect season. Not really a feasible one.

My perfect.

1. Trade Russell and commit to Horner at 2B

2. Move Contreras to RF. Settle on Heyward every day CF.

3. Make a play at Grandal. I wouldn't expect to win it. But promote Pereda if Grandal signs elsewhere. Give it to Caratini. Staff comes first.

4. Make Alozay into your #5. Sure you want to limit his innings but that is why you are paying Chatwood and Mills still.

5. Bryant depends on how this case ends. I doubt MLB will give that power to the players so I see this as a future topic battle in the next contract. Cubs followed the rules and Boras can f-himself. But the fact that Bryant pushed this he is good as gone. It really comes down to return offers.

On Q I would retain. Unless they decide to go after Ryu then sure trade Q at that point.

 

[Steve_A]

#1. Q holds value. He is worth the opt. And teams will trade for it also. Dropping Q means they have to replace 2 pitchers.

#2. Even Cole's team mates feel that he is going to LA. Cubs are not even on the radar.

#3. Akiyama. Too early. We don't even know if he goes to MLB yet. I'm not against this because it is a low risk deal in a dead season for CF.

#4. Bryant most likely will stay. Braves most likely retain Donaldson. Braves IMO will push for MadBum and bolster their rotation.

But that is your perfect season. Not really a feasible one.

My perfect.

1. Trade Russell and commit to Horner at 2B

2. Move Contreras to RF. Settle on Heyward every day CF.

3. Make a play at Grandal. I wouldn't expect to win it. But promote Pereda if Grandal signs elsewhere. Give it to Caratini. Staff comes first.

4. Make Alozay into your #5. Sure you want to limit his innings but that is why you are paying Chatwood and Mills still.

5. Bryant depends on how this case ends. I doubt MLB will give that power to the players so I see this as a future topic battle in the next contract. Cubs followed the rules and Boras can f-himself. But the fact that Bryant pushed this he is good as gone. It really comes down to return offers.

On Q I would retain. Unless they decide to go after Ryu then sure trade Q at that point.

Q: Most of the predictions say to pick up the option on Q so I might be wrong on this one
but the one thing that I really can't wrap my head around is who'd want to deal for him
or why'd you want him around at the price if your contending or soft resetting?

Cole: Yeah I know that he wants to go home,
but hasn't players whom said they wanted to head home signed elsewhere before?

Akiyama: He says he wants to give it a try in one of the articles I read and even if he is a Fukudome,
he never had an obp below .359 in his tenure here.

Bryant: I thought you were the one wanting a soft reset. Why not trade him with all the fuss around him and
not even the slimmest of signs of an extension possible?

Outfield: So you're proposing to put Heyward in center for nagative value and trying out Contreras at a new position for negative value for an abysmal outfield?

Grandal: Why in the world would the Cubs sign another Catcher? Caratini / Amaya / Pereda what more do you need?

Alozay: Kid had a 4.80 era in the minors last year. Yes he's shown flashes of excellence but why just hand it to him?

I think yours is equally a non feasible one but that is your perfect off season as well.
Fun to debate things though btw.

 

[CSF77]

Cole: Yeah I know that he wants to go home,
but hasn't players whom said they wanted to head home signed elsewhere before?

Not on radar. This is a Cub fan fallacy where they feel that every player wants to be a Cub. It is just not true at all.

Reality is he wants to go back to LA. Even in the NY Post they were worried that they had little shot at him and the Yank's were his childhood team.

But sure money talks in the end. Theo is not going to break the SP record here for a contract. I see 8 years over 280M here.
Some one will come close to this.

 

[Steve_A]

Not on radar. This is a Cub fan fallacy where they feel that every player wants to be a Cub. It is just not true at all.

Reality is he wants to go back to LA. Even in the NY Post they were worried that they had little shot at him and the Yank's were his childhood team.

But sure money talks in the end. Theo is not going to break the SP record here for a contract. I see 8 years over 280M here.
Some one will come close to this.

Never said that he wants to be a Cub dude.
Don't start judging people by adding things to their quotes.

Not debating the fact that he's an unlikely target.

 

[CSF77]

Bryant: I thought you were the one wanting a soft reset. Why not trade him with all the fuss around him and
not even the slimmest of signs of an extension possible?

That was before this whole issue came up with his grievance. I doubt that is sitting well with Theo right now. I don't see him as a Cubs going forward now.

Q: Most of the predictions say to pick up the option on Q so I might be wrong on this one
but the one thing that I really can't wrap my head around is who'd want to deal for him
or why'd you want him around at the price if your contending or soft resetting?

10.5 Mil is not much for a back of the rotation arm. A team in a small market would take it. Part of the issue might have been the market size for him and expectations. With the Sox he did fine under Sale's shadow. Cubs gave up also and the pressure was on for him to merit it. He was a 4-5 WAR pitcher and he is not old or anything. 10.5 mil is worth that.

Outfield: So you're proposing to put Heyward in center for nagative value and trying out Contreras at a new position for negative value for an abysmal outfield?

Heward was around league avg at CF. He was not this cravat out there. Contreras has the arm for RF. He is athletic. And if Castillanos could do it well...

End of the story is Wilson put up a -8 in framing. Better than his -16 the year before. And David taking over Framing will be enforced next year. I believe it will come down to going hard after Grandal and moving Contreras off position. Or trading him.

But lets face it if Wilson was a flat 0 in framing he would be in the top 3 catchers in baseball. It really comes down to if they can get anything more out of Wilson as a framer.

 

[beckdawg]

Personally I wanna see them make a strong play to get Lindor from Cleveland. He's probably not on the market quite as much as Betts will be but Cleveland doesn't have the money to re-sign him and they are smart enough to move him before they lose most of their leverage so it wouldn't shock me. Cubs have a bunch of useful guys in the middle infield they can deal away. For example, they could include Happ and Russell as MLB ready players and it's really not making the team worse. You'd obviously need some decent prospects too but the point here is you can consolidate some of that middle infield depth into one of the best lead off hitters in baseball.

If they got lindor they could move Baez to 2B and then potentially look at Hoerner in CF and their infield defense would be pretty insane with Baez and Lindor.

 

[Castor76]

Well, let's get into this. The Cubs have about 182-190M in payroll if they literally did nothing and filled from within. Boston is sitting at roughly 220M. Boston has already expressed the need to cut payroll. Boston also needs closer help. So, if they were willing, the Cubs pick up Morrow's option and package him with Quintana and Bryant for Sale and JD Martinez. That's 40.5M going to Boston and 53.75M coming back to the Cubs. For Boston, it's trading 3 years of JD for 2 years of Bryant and gives Boston another 22.5 M coming off the books at the end of the season.

The downside for the Cubs truly is that the market at 3B is either too expensive to really replace with quality or barren. Same at SS if they moved Javy to 3B. But I go with Happ at 3B and move Nico to CF, which lead me to my next move.

Call up Philly and the Mets, presuming they're not on his no trade list, and see what I can get for Heyward and 40M, which would free up 11M on this year's payroll.

Then it's call KC and offer up Russell and whatever else it might take to get Whit "I'll get his name right this time" Merrifield. That adds about 5M to payroll. After that, if they really wanted to shed payroll they could see what they could get for Chatwood.

Line up of
Merrifield 2B
Rizzo 1B
Martinez RF
Schwarber LF
Baez SS
Contreras C
Happ 3B
Hoerner CF

Rotation of
Darvish
Sale
Hendricks
Lester
Chatwood/Alzolay/Mills

Keeping Chatwood gives them a payroll around 197M to start the season.

You could remove Bryant and Martinez from the deal which would take about 6M off the payroll.

 

[Castor76]

Personally I wanna see them make a strong play to get Lindor from Cleveland. He's probably not on the market quite as much as Betts will be but Cleveland doesn't have the money to re-sign him and they are smart enough to move him before they lose most of their leverage so it wouldn't shock me. Cubs have a bunch of useful guys in the middle infield they can deal away. For example, they could include Happ and Russell as MLB ready players and it's really not making the team worse. You'd obviously need some decent prospects too but the point here is you can consolidate some of that middle infield depth into one of the best lead off hitters in baseball.

If they got lindor they could move Baez to 2B and then potentially look at Hoerner in CF and their infield defense would be pretty insane with Baez and Lindor.

If they move Bryant, the Cubs could move Javy to 3B with Lindor at SS and Nico at 2B. That could be one of the best defensive infields in baseball.

 

[Steve_A]

Heward was around league avg at CF. He was not this cravat out there. Contreras has the arm for RF. He is athletic. And if Castillanos could do it well...

I think you where the one who said it messed with his rhythm and crushed his production at the plate if I'm recalling correctly.

But lets face it if Wilson was a flat 0 in framing he would be in the top 3 catchers in baseball. It really comes down to if they can get anything more out of Wilson as a framer.

Completely agree with you there.

 

[CSF77]

I think you where the one who said it messed with his rhythm and crushed his production at the plate if I'm recalling correctly.


Completely agree with you there.

It was leading off. His production was 180 leading off vs anywhere else.

He has spot started in CF in the past. This is a non factor.

 

[CSF77]

Personally I wanna see them make a strong play to get Lindor from Cleveland. He's probably not on the market quite as much as Betts will be but Cleveland doesn't have the money to re-sign him and they are smart enough to move him before they lose most of their leverage so it wouldn't shock me. Cubs have a bunch of useful guys in the middle infield they can deal away. For example, they could include Happ and Russell as MLB ready players and it's really not making the team worse. You'd obviously need some decent prospects too but the point here is you can consolidate some of that middle infield depth into one of the best lead off hitters in baseball.

If they got lindor they could move Baez to 2B and then potentially look at Hoerner in CF and their infield defense would be pretty insane with Baez and Lindor.

Cleveland most likely trades him because he is going to ask for Machado type contract. Cleveland has not gone over 60M on a player. So it is foregone that this will end up as a trade.

As far as a match up deal. I would think that they would want Amaya and Horner. 2 pitchers and call it.

Trying to push Happ and Russell is another story. Russell comes with contract, issues and less control. Happ has control so that one works. So if you try to push both you need a prospect like Amaya to push it through. Thompson has rebounded nice in AFL and would be a decent arm to offer. This deal is unlikely that Cleveland takes as I see them wanting a prospect package.

 

[CSF77]

But going into the season today the team is:

Schwarber LF
Happ CF
Hayward RF
Bryant 3B
Baez SS
Horner 2B
Rizzo 1B
Contreras C

Bench
Caratini C
Russell UI
Almora OF
Bote IF

Darvish
Lester
Hendricks
Q
Chatwood

Pen
Kimbrel
Ryan
Wick
Underwood
Weick
Mills
Alozay
Hultzen

So we are talking real upgrades here.

the first one would be the pen. The 8th inning is Shakey. So it all starts with signing Dellin Betances. This also gives insurance is Kimbrel falters again.

the 2nd priority is the rotation. And it really comes down to adding a #2 pitcher and trading for it. Boston is a good partner here but Sale is the wrong guy that they would want to deal. Price is the guy that moves contract for them.

• 16-18:$30M annually, 19:$31M, 20-22:$32M annually
• no deferred money

32 mil is a big deal and is doable. Chatwood and Q make up 23.5M. the 2 teams can split the 8.5 mil difference. Boston gets out of 64mil of future contract and the Cubs gets a #2 starter.

3rd lead off.

If they went with Rizzo again and used Happ and Schwarber to split the RH batters it might work again.

Rizzo
Bryant
Schwarber
Baez
Happ
Contreras
Heyward
Horner

IMO the focus should be pitching right now. If there is a clear upgrade on the table and the Cubs can pull it off with out going over tax then they need to go after it. But that line up has been able to score runs in the past.

 

[anotheridiot]

I think we can thank God that Ross wont leadoff with an anchor, regardless of numbers when options are Nico and Javy.

I also doubt we will go out and trade for another DH in JD Martinez, the only reason it took him so late to sign is EVERYONE sees him as only a DH, I though we already had one of those for inter league games.

The message to this cubs team is going to go thru Rizzo, and its not, I want to be a pitcher, I want to lead off, I want to be in the lineup every GD day when I am in a 2-40 slump. Get your ass in the cage and work it out on your time.

I see David Ross being like Mr. Hand. Your time and his time, and his time are between the beginning and end of every baseball game.

This KB grievance might keep Nico off the roster until June, but eventually, they are only hurting themselves looking for this extra year of control when the guy is gonna be making league minimum anyway.

dont rule out the Eloy rule of telling a player to sign the contract or start the year in AAA. That was a stroke of genius on the south side.

 

[Steve_A]

the 2nd priority is the rotation. And it really comes down to adding a #2 pitcher and trading for it. Boston is a good partner here but Sale is the wrong guy that they would want to deal. Price is the guy that moves contract for them.

Are you nuts? Price has only topped 150 innings once in three years!
Why in the world are we giving up more innings and youth for a washed up veteran like Price for?
On top of that we take on 64M going forward?
If we're adding that much money to the future roster than what's to stop the cubs form adding Mad Bum or Strasburg?
You make zero sense dude.

 

[CSF77]

The message to this cubs team is going to go thru Rizzo, and its not, I want to be a pitcher, I want to lead off, I want to be in the lineup every GD day when I am in a 2-40 slump. Get your ass in the cage and work it out on your time

What does this mean?

But I get your hate of Rizzo leading off. Your logic is flawed though. Batting 1 or 3 matters little if your issue is his Baserunning speed. He is still the same guy. But with an extra PA per game.

To me is comes down to success as a lead off and Rizzo is the only one on this team.

 

[CSF77]

Are you nuts? Price has only topped 150 innings once in three years!
Why in the world are we giving up more innings and youth for a washed up veteran like Price for?
On top of that we take on 64M going forward?
If we're adding that much money to the future roster than what's to stop the cubs form adding Mad Bum or Strasburg?
You make zero sense dude.

Boston will trade Price they will not trade Sale. Let's start there.

The Cubs are swapping 2 back of the rotation pitchers for a front of the rotation. There is no real loss in this trade

The 64 Mil is a real gripe and I agree it would be a leap of faith that Price rebounds. He has the track record of success going on. Injury is always going to be a concern for any pitcher.

 

[Steve_A]

The Cubs are swapping 2 back of the rotation pitchers for a front of the rotation. There is no real loss in this trade

The 64 Mil is a real gripe and I agree it would be a leap of faith that Price rebounds. He has the track record of success going on. Injury is always going to be a concern for any pitcher.

What is your love with brittle older lefty types like Ryu and Price?
They are going to be 33 and 35 next years old dude.
The likelihood of them beating their age gets thinner and thinner and you still want to take on money for that?
64Mil could probably cover 3 years of Wheeler or Mad Bum.
Rather have them then guys close to their mid 30's and on the wrong side of 30.

 

[Steve_A]

dont rule out the Eloy rule of telling a player to sign the contract or start the year in AAA. That was a stroke of genius on the south side.

Nico is not in the same ball park talent wise as Eloy. Let him prove himself first.

 

[fatbeard]

Some thoughts:

1) Lindor would be an incredible get, but there's just no way that happens for Happ + prospects. He's an MVP-tier player. Maybe Alzolay + Hoerner + prospects, but then why would the Cubs do that? It's just not sustainable to keep dealing your young talent away in bunches, even if Lindor is still very young himself.

2) The Cubs have been patching up holes in the rotation and bullpen for several years now, and the effects of age and attrition can no longer be papered over. As Epstein said, the SP was not the separator they expected it to be this year. Bryant and Quintana are your two most attractive trade chips, and the Cubs will have to look really hard at leveraging them to address these growing long-term threats to the roster. Like Lindor, Bryant is an MVP-tier player and should net a big haul, ideally centered around a young TOR-quality SP. Quintana should net you several quality young bullpen arms, hopefully with the swing & miss the Cubs pen lacks. Chatwood replaces Quintana in the rotation, and honestly, the difference between Chatwood and Quintana is negligible now that he's got his BB issues under control again.

3) Heyward almost certainly is your everyday CF next year, because there just aren't any other good options out there.

4) Assuming Grandal opts out, he's a really interesting option that lets you move Contreras to RF, but it would probably be cheaper to just keep Contreras behind the plate and sign Castellanos to play RF, although I think he's really a true DH. Then again, it would be really cheap to just move Contreras to RF and make Caratini the everyday C, then sign a cheap veteran backup and use those dollars on shoring up the pen. Caratini's emergence has given the Cubs a lot decent options to address C in ways that improve the overall roster.

5) I really don't see why anyone would take Russell back in a trade. There are plenty of replacement level all-glove SS out there who aren't going to make your franchise look like shit. Why would you take on a guy who makes you look like a bag of dicks and then pay him +3.5mil on top of it? He probably gets non-tendered and then has to work his way back on to a roster in ST on a league-minimum contract.

6) Baez with his career 4.9 BB%/28.1 K% and .310 OBP is not leading off for any team, ever. Just no.