Baseball

Stop Acquiescing To These Capitalist Pigs

By Sam Fels 3387 0

I’m gonna take a break from the Cubs offseason wishlist to address something I’ve seen far too much of the last week.

Every day I open Twitter or Facebook, which I recognize is the start of the problem right there but it’s pretty much unavoidable given what I do, and I see someone–and frequently people I know personally–say something like, “I’ve come to the conclusion/place/idea that I’m ok with the Cubs trading Kris Bryant if…”

What comes after the “if” doesn’t matter, because absolutely no one should ever be ok with the Cubs trading Kris Bryant. It should be the kind of thing that makes you consider trading in your fandom, although I guess if we’re all still here after the Addison Russell mishegas and Fredo Ricketts’s Trump fundraisers, we’re never going to go away.  Which is exactly why they bought the team and exactly what they’re counting on, so I realize I’m pissing into the wind here. Save your breath.

Still, it’s the kind of thing that should have a fanbase in complete revolt. The fact that you have basically been conditioned to shut up and take it a symptom of what’s wrong with baseball right now, and really the country as a whole (but we’ll leave the latter out of it for this).

Here’s a list of players that would be an acceptable return for Bryant:

Cody Bellinger

Walker Buehler

Mookie Betts

Juan Soto

Christian Yelich (and that’s not a gimme)

Ronald Acuna

Mike Trout

Maybe Alex Bregman

We’ll throw Jacob deGrom on there to be nice. And that’s it. And none of those names are coming back for Bryant.

And yet there’s a growing faction of Cubs fans that are somehow convinced that trading Bryant is some version of four-dimensional chess that only Theo can see but they don’t want to admit they can’t see it because that would just mean they’re merely a peon. It’s not. It’s not even close. The idea of trading Bryant is merely an acceptance that the uber-wealthy Ricketts family don’t want to pay a player what he’s earned in two years’ time.

This isn’t about some “schism” between Bryant or Scott Boras and the Cubs. There’s no such thing. Pay him the most money, and he’ll be a Cub for life. This isn’t hard, and yet everyone wants to code this into some sort of larger puzzle. Again, it’s simple greed. The Ricketts want to keep more and more of your money and they certainly don’t want to have to give it to “labor.” They’re the stars after all, not Bryant and Rizzo and Baez. After all, they’re the only owners to bring a World Series to the Northside. And don’t you forget it.

The idea of some “grand plan” or “advanced thinking” is merely what they use to poison your water. If they can convince you that moving Bryant is actually the “smart” thing to do, because they’ll never be able to afford everyone, then you might not notice what an utter travesty this would be. This isn’t the NHL or the NFL where there’s a hard cap and you do get punished for producing a bevy of good players. You can pay whatever you want.

And if you somehow believe that the luxury tax would cost the Cubs or the Red Sox or Yankees or Dodgers living in the black, and you’d have to be the most gullible doofus on the planet to believe that or the Ricketts kids would have to be the stupidest people on the planet and the worst business people in history (and they might be!), remember the luxury tax is just another instrument of greed imposed by other owners who simply want money for free. It’s the Bob Nuttings and Derek Jeters and descendants of Bud Selig of the world not wanting to have to put a good product on the field consistently, which they easily could, to turn massive profits. It’s about bleeding their cities and fellow owners dry for money they’ll never have to earn. And yet all the owners go along with it because they’re raking in the cash too, and as long as it’s not going to the players, they’re just fine with that.

There is simply no way the Cubs can trade Kris Bryan and be better next year. And it should be about next year. You already went through the rebuild. And you go through those things to get a player like Kris Bryant, because they come around once a generation. You hoard those prospects in trades and spins at the international pool and make all those draft picks in the hopes you find a Kris Bryant. You don’t find one and then just decide to cash in and find another one. That’s not how this works.

The idea that the Cubs have to look forward to the future in any way is wool being pulled over your eyes to justify the Ricketts not having to spend to keep this team together. I’m sure if you got Theo in a private conversation at a bar and pumped him full of two or three beers he’d tell you he’d hand Bryant $37M a year tomorrow and wouldn’t look back. He’s not being allowed to. Because the Ricketts, one of the more born on third broods in the world, think they know better because they’re in the Lucky Sperm Club. Or they just want to keep more money for themselves.

They’re obviously not alone. The Red Sox, a team that has had their own channel for a long time now and one of the biggest brands in North American sports and the most expensive ticket in baseball, don’t want to pay Mookie Betts what he’s earned even more than Bryant. It’s not because they can’t, they’ve just decided they don’t want to., And they’ll tell you whenever they hire their new GM that he’ll lead the way in modern baseball thinking and trading Betts will be a part of that. That a team can run more efficiently than just ponying up $30M or more to players, who again, have more than earned it. They’ll tell you they need to get under the luxury tax threshold. They won’t tell you why, and no one will ask. Because the Red Sox and every team like them would absolutely turn a profit with a $300M payroll. They just don’t want to.

(I should admit that if the Red Sox payroll trimming allows the transfer budget for Liverpool to sign Kylian Mbappe next summer, then I’m all for it).

The Cubs are built to win now, and easily could win again in 2020 with as simple as one or two moves. And that’s with Kris Bryant, who is comfortably a top five player in baseball. If you somehow believe he’s perma-crocked at age 27, then again I can’t help you. Maybe hiring a new medical team that doesn’t send him out there every day with a knee that sounds like a Crunch bar would be a start to making all the non-believers see again.

As baseball is intertwined with America, this is just another symptom of the sickness. A group of barely qualified, probably barely literate rich kids tell you they can run a business more “efficiently,” which only means they can do it more cheaply and skimp on the actual workforce. That’s all trading Kris Bryant would be. And I don’t give a flying fuck what prospects he could bring back. We did that in 2011 and 2012 and 2013. That was then. I don’t care about 2022 or 2023 or 2024. The Cubs are here and now and anything they tell you about restocking the system or looking toward the future is utter horseshit. It’s a smokescreen. It’s meant to blind you to what’s really going on, which is unadulterated greed.

Imagine the Cubs trading Ryne Sandberg in 1986. If you’ve been around here a while, remember when the Hawks struggled in 2012 and some floated the idea of trading Patrick Kane for Ryan Goddamn Miller? Remember how we laughed everyone out of existence on that one? Two Cups, one Conn Smythe (undeserved, but still), one Hart Trophy later and looks even dumber now, doesn’t it (if we ignore all the off-ice being a monster stuff for a second)?

Trading Bryant would be no less galactically stupid or destructive.

Don’t fall for it. Don’t talk yourself into it. Don’t convince yourself you can see the logic. None of it is there. They’re only pretending it’s there so you won’t see what’s actually there. Don’t let them think you’re that stupid. That’s what they’re literally banking on.

Baseball

Burden In My Hand – White Sox Offseason Wish List: Nick Castellanos

By Wes French 1734 0

Right field has been a black hole of SUCK on the Southside going on, oh, a decade? Magglio Ordonez and Jermaine Dye are the last great players to man the position for the White Sox, and the ineptitude of management to fill the O-E-O/WS MVP sized hole is a bit jarring. Yes, dead last in the entire MLB in 2019 in OPS jarring. The likes of Carlos Quentin, Avi Garcia, and Adam Eaton were passable if unspectacular in stints over the years, but the Sox have also trotted out the likes of Jason Coats, Willy Garcia, Andruw Jones (the ol’ KW past his prime special!), Brent Lillibridge, Rymer Liriano, Alex Rios, Moises Sierra, Michael Taylor, Blake Tekotte, Trayce Thompson and Dayan Viciedo since Dye hung em up in 2009. Folks,,,,, that’s not great!

John Jay was brought in as part of the “recruitment” of Manny Machado last offseason and thought to be the everyday right fielder, but injury kept him out a majority of the year. The cast of characters used to fill in were all way, way under-qualified for every day MLB duty – Ryan Cordell, Charlie Tilson and Daniel Palka all saw far more at bats than any competent team would dare give them and they responded with that league worst performance at the position at the dish. The defense was also meh at best, but with a suspect free agent class the Sox don’t really have the current lineup to hide a defensive wizard they get no offensive production from (otherwise they’d just stick Robert in RF and let Adam Engel patrol CF, but alas).

So who out there is available, plays RF (even barely), can get on base, park a few baseballs into the Rate bullpens and would actually be willing to take Rick Hahn’s checks? Dear reader, you already know him, or got a small taste of him after last year’s deadline.

Nicholas Castellanos, come one down!

Why Him? Castellanos can hit a bit, as the Sox know all too well from being the victim of his bat for almost six years as he came along in Detroit. His 2019 is a little misleading as his high average (.321) helped him to 16 homers and 36 RBI in just 51 games after a trade to the Cubs. That comes out to a scorching 154 wRC+. Prior to the trade, though, he carried just 11 homers and 37 RBI on a .273/.328/.462 line for a wRC+ of 105 in 100 games.

This does help to give him two straight years over 121 wRC+ and that makes him exponentially better than any Sox RF in 2019. He’s also gone .337 and .354 the last two seasons in OBP while averaging 25 homers and 81 XBH, and if he can continue that trend the White Sox probably wouldn’t care if he just hung out in the Goose Island section or had a beer with the #108 guys every half inning.

He’s also only 28, making him pretty young to be a free agent. He won’t come with a QO compensation penalty. Since JD Martinez isn’t available, Castellanos also represents a chance to sign an impact bat this offseason, deal with the defense for a year or two, and plan to use him at DH/LF with Eloy down the road and develop or sign your next RF later. Maybe that plan sees them sign Edwin Encarnacion on a Nelson Cruz-like one year pact (OR SIGN GRANDAL ALREADY LIKE AJ SAID) and just like that you’ve got some instant impact offensive upgrades to a team that sorely needs it.

One other plus – signing him would mean he can’t kill the Sox anymore (or maybe he’d find fun ways to ruin them from within…). This is some recency bias, but since 2018 Castellanos carries 7 HR/22 RBI/.413 OBP/1.065 OPS(!) in 28 games against the Sox, good for a wRC+ of about 185, or otherworldly. Small sample size and all that, but fuckin’ a does he MURDER White Sox pitching of late.

Why Not Him? Oh, that “defense”. Castellanos debuted as a third baseman and Detroit was all too generous to let him try and be that for four seasons while they lost a million games. He made the move to right field in 2018 and is the worst defensive RF in that time, posting -28 DRS (defensive runs saved) and a -17.6 UZR. I don’t know if that all actually makes him the worst RF since 2018, but being responsible for 28 runs scored against seems really bad.

If you want some kind of silver lining, Castellanos did actually improve by 10 full runs in DRS over 2018, and by 8+ points on his UZR, giving him a more palatable -9 DRS/-4.4 UZR in 2019. Still not good by any metric, but not comically bad. He might even be improving, and maybe he gets to a point where he’s league average and look at that I just talked us into Nick Castellanos, league average RF for the Chicago White Sox by 2021.

Honestly, if you sign Castellanos and you already have Eloy Jimenez being the ungraceful elk that he is in LF, you probably need to be ready to take him out of the field within a year or two. So the knock is, will he hit well enough to cover occasionally killing you in the field. And if you’re already looking at re-signing Jose Abreu and you’ve got Gavin Sheets and Andrew Vaughn on deck…is this really the best way to allocate funds/roster space?

How Much Is This Free Resort Weekend? MLBTR comes in with an estimate of 4/$58M and Fangraphs is in agreement with a 4/$56M estimate of their own. Unless some wild market creates itself out of nothing for lil Nicky here I can’t really see him getting more than 4/50, possibly even having to settle for something like 2/25 or 3/35 and a few option years. The bat has enough juice to get him a multi-year pact, sure, but that defense is brutally awful and the game is no longer kind to players of his abilities. Damned kids and their analytics. Without 30+ annual HR potential or a near .400 OBP, there just isn’t any one tool that really carries the weight to justify giving Castellanos that much term, so you’re really banking on his being younger than the rest of the FA OFs and hoping that defense is really improving and the 2018/Cubs version of the bat is the one you’re buying. Whole lotta optimism in there.

The Sox have already been reported to have interest, which probably doesn’t need to be read much into as they should have interest in any OF available via trade or free agency this winter. They’d probably be wise to explore other options and make Castellanos a plan B, waiting out the diminishing market for his type of player to mitigate the commitment for such a walking red flag.

Now that I’ve thoroughly fleshed out that I’m not really on board with a run at him, I have to admit that if the Sox do end up with Castellanos it will be a massive upgrade over the trash heap of career minor leaguers and Machado friends and family that Hahn tried to float by the masses last year. It could absolutely be worse, but I’d hope they explore a few more avenues or wait to see how many other teams are really falling over each other to add what might just be a slightly over league average DH to play everyday RF.

Baseball

We Can Plant A House, Or We Can Build A Tree – No, Screw You AJ, We’ll Take Zack Wheeler

By Sam Fels 1367 0

Earlier today, our comrade and Sox correspondent AJ wrote up why and how the Pale Hose should be interested in Zack Wheeler to boost the Sox rotation that needs it. But here’s the thing: no one cares about the White Sox, and really everyone’s energy should be put into putting the Cubs back among the elite of MLB (THE! ELITE! THE THE ELITE!). And I don’t mean just us here. I mean everyone in the world. Do you really want to live through another season of the Cardinals boasting about their geniusness when they were essentially a mediocre team that had everything fall into its lap? Of course you don’t. No one wants that. And the only person who minds the Twins winning the AL Central again is Fifth Feather, and he’s a miserable little man living in his hovel and laughing at all of you constantly. He doesn’t like you, never will, so why should you do anything for him? Exactly.

So let’s get Wheeler to the Northside instead.

Why A Spoon, Sire?: AJ laid it out, but basically Wheeler is the youngest available and realistic starting pitcher on the market. Stephen Strasburg is not walking through that door (and the Cubs might and probably should be gunshy about signing any pitcher out of a World Series team who has gone longer on innings than ever before, given how their Brandon Morrow and first year of Darvish experiences worked out). Gerrit Cole is not walking through that door. I’d love it if one of them did, but it’s not going to happen. Funny how Cubs and Sox fans are dealing with the same thing in that sense, no?

That doesn’t mean Wheeler is exactly young, as he’ll turn 30 in May of next season. But the rest of the Cubs rotation is old, as so will Kyle Hendricks and Lester, Q, and Darvish are over 30. Adbert Alzolay won’t be ready for the rotation this year, if ever, and the Cubs just have to get younger there.

While Wheeler doesn’t have the strikeout numbers of some, he’s been pretty solid in that category. And while the injuries are a worry, more encouragingly is that Wheeler’s stuff seems to be getting better the farther he’s gotten away from his TJ surgery. Look at his four-seam velocity:

Or the vertical drop on his curve:

Or the sweep of his slider:

So that’s all very encouraging. If you want to go by spin-rate, both his curve and slider have picked up spin-rate from 2018 to this past one. So while he did miss two and a half seasons thanks to injury, that’s also wear and tear he hasn’t piled up. So the fear of his stuff drying up in his early 30s isn’t as high as it might be, and he appears to be on the upswing you might have expected at ages 26-28, had he a clean bill of health.

Ein minuten bitte, vous einen kleinen problemo avec de religione (he was from everywhere): As AJ said, the injury worries are still there. But he made 29 starts in 2018 and 31 this year, and really just being around 30 is basically what you expect of any starters but the top echelon these days. With the presence of Chatwood and hopefully Azolay in the pen and both being stretched out enough to go multiple innings now, the Cubs can absorb a pitcher or two that don’t make the post 33-35 times per year. And Alec Mills and Colin Rea are lying around as well.

There’s another slight worry, and that’s his ERA-. That’s league-adjusted, and it didn’t love Wheeler last year, giving him only a 98 where 100 is average. It was much more kind to him in ’18 with an 87. The reason probably is that Wheeler gave up a lot more hits in 2019, 46 more in just 13 more innings. Some of that is pure luck, as Wheeler’s BABIP rose to .311 from .279. But the latter number is more the outlier as Wheeler has a career BABIP of .300 on the nose. Wheeler’s hard-contact rate against and his exti velocity both saw a tick up this year. But as we keep saying, whose didn’t? Among starting pitchers, Wheeler was in the top-10 in average exit-velocity against. And as I’ve pointed out, the stuff seems to be getting better.

Little Silver? Little Gold?: MLBTR has Wheeler getting $20M for five years from the Phillies, because the Arrieta signing has gone so well, Nick Pivetta turned into Grover, Aaron Nola really struggled in the season’s last month. You don’t think of Wheeler as a $20M pitcher, but given his last two years that’s probably what he is. If you go by the last two years cumulative, he’s got the same WAR as Patrick Corbin had. He’s the same age as Nathan Eovaldi was last year, with some of the same injury concerns, and Eovaldi got $17M a year to sit on a trainer’s table in Boston.

MLBTR lists half the league as possible suitors, because again, why wouldn’t you want a plus pitcher on your team. That’s only going to drive his price up. But still, he’s going to get a salary a class below Strasburg and Cole. And the Cubs will have some $30M coming off the books when Lester’s and Quintana’s deals are up. Because of the bargain they’ll still be getting Hendricks at, they can splurge a bit in another spot.

And the Cubs could use another pitcher with really good stuff. That’s the kind of thing that matters in October, and this is still a team that should keep in mind how to negotiate 11 bonus wins after the 162.

Fetch. And AJ smells anyway. You don’t want to play in front of him, Zack.

 

Baseball

Burden In My Hand – White Sox Offseason Wishlist: Zack Wheeler

By Andy Jonathan 1595 0

The White Sox need another starter, perhaps even two. The immanent return of Michael Kopech should satisfy one of those needs, but successfully returning from Tommy John surgery is no sure thing. In addition to that, you can almost guarantee that his innings are going to have a cap on them, as the most he’s ever thrown in a season is the 140 he tossed before his elbow went “TWANG” in 2018.

So Kopech fills in for Ivan Nova, but that still leaves the Black Hole of Sadness that is the Sox 5th starter. Carlos Rodon won’t be back until August at the earliest, and he faces the same questions Kopech does. Reynaldo Lopez hasn’t cemented his spot in the rotation of The Future™ as of yet, either. Besides, you can never have too much starting pitching (or so I’m told).

So that brings us to the next person on the White Sox offseason shopping list. He’s a front line starter who comes with some risk attached but (other than Gerrit Cole) is the youngest available free agent starter on the market. I of course speak of Zack Wheeler.

Why Him?: First off like I said above, he’s the youngest starting pitcher available on the market this winter that the Sox would realistically (as much as I want Cole or Strasburg) pursue. He has that first round draft pick pedigree that Rick Hahn loves so much (though to be fair that’s a hangup of most GMs) and would immediately make the Sox starting rotation a thing to be feared.

He’s had an ERA of under 4.00 every year but 2017 (when he missed an extended period of time due to various maladies), has a 22.8% K rate, an 8.5% BB rate and has been a 4+ WAR player the last two seasons.

His fastball sits in the upper 90s with movement, and he has a nasty slider that he throws in the low 90s for his strikeout pitch. He also has a plus curveball and an average changeup that he doesn’t throw a whole lot in the zone. He also has a 44% ground ball ratio compared to a 32.5% fly ball that would play well at The Down Arrow.

Him lining up with Giolito, Kopech, Cease and Lopez gives you four starters that will rack up strikeouts at a hilarious pace, and would hopefully take some of the onus off the bullpen to have to eat up so many innings. Plus with him just entering his age 30 season, the threat of a downturn in velocity seems pretty low.

Why Not Him?: First and foremost, injuries. Wheeler has had issues staying healthy, as he’s never broken 200 innings in his career. In 2015 he had Tommy John surgery to repair a torn UCL which cost him all of the 2016 season. In 2017 he got tendinitis in his bicep which cost him some time on the IL, then after than he had a stress reaction in his right arm (a stress reaction is basically a broken bone that hasn’t totally broken. I had to google it.) which resulted in him being shut down in August. He also missed time this past season with a shoulder impingement.

In addition to the injury risk, he’s another righty which with Carlos Rodon out would make the current starting rotation entirely right handed. In and of itself this is not a terrible thing, as if the stuff is good then the results will be good. Still it’s not the worst thing in the world to be able to vary the handedness of your starters from time to time. Especially when the Indians and their bevy of left handed mashers is in your division.

He was also issued a qualifying offer from the Mets this last week, so any attempt to sign him after he turns it down results in the Sox sending a 2nd round draft pick to NY. Thus far, Rick Hahn has been loath to part with ANY of his draft picks…but the time for the Sox hoarding them is well past.

How Much Is This Free Resort Weekend?: FanGraphs has Wheeler looking at a four-year deal with about an $18 million AAV running at a grand total of just under $80 million total. This contract would blow past the $68 million the Sox gave Jose Abreu as the highest ever issued by the team (pathetic). Being that the Sox are most likely going to have to overpay due to the fact that the South Side isn’t currently the mecca for free agents the Northside is, I would think four years and $85 million might be enough to get Wheeler in a Sox jersey.

If the free agent market is slow enough, his injury history could potentially suppress that number even further. Either way, the $85 million would probably be the cap that Rick Hahn would set for himself, especially with all the other needs (DH, RF, 2B potentially) to be filled out in addition to starting pitching. I’m a big fan of Wheeler, and I think he’d fit in nicely here. It’s a bit of a stretch, as I see the Yankees becoming a problem if they miss out on Gerrit Cole and I don’t see Hahn outbidding them, like, ever. If the dominoes fall the right way however, Wheeler could be another pillar of an awesome pitching staff.

 

 

 

Baseball Everything Else

Burden In My Hand – White Sox Offseason Wishlist: Yasmani Grandal

By Andy Jonathan 1672 0

Now begins the season outside of the season, and potentially the most important one in the tenure of Rick Hahn’s career as general manager of the White Sox. With the team looking poised to possibly contend in 2020, Hahn must now shift gears. Trading away players like Chris Sale is easy. Everybody wants a Cy Young-caliber ace who strikes out 1.5 people per inning. Now Hahn has come full circle, as he was once the seller now he must be the buyer (Darth Vader quote goes here).

As with anything involving Jerry Reinsdorf and the Sox front office the first, last, and only question will be about money. Is he willing to spend it? The implication after the failed pursuit of Manny Machado was that THE MONEY WILL BE SPENT, most likely in ways that our mere fan-brains could not possibly understand. Now it’s time for them to live up to that bold declaration by rolling down the MLB equivalent of Rodeo Drive and making it rain.

What do the Sox really need? Well based on every metric that counts any type of offensive production, the Sox were the god awful-est at the DH position and any outfield spot where Eloy Jimenez is not currently standing, waving at his mom.

On top of that, other than Yoan Moncada and Zack Collins (who is an unfinished product in and of himself) the Sox are very light hitting from the left side of the plate. So who fits the bill?

Enter: Yasmani Grandal

Why Him?: Because he checks almost all the boxes above, and some that I didn’t even mention. Grandal is a switch hitting catcher who hit 17 dingers from the left side of the plate last year. He also tagged 11 of them from the right side, so it’s not a situation like Yoan has where all his pop comes from a single half of the plate. In addition to that, he’s an excellent pitch framer, 6th best overall in the league for any catcher who caught more than 1700 pitches. In the “Runs From Extra Strikes” category (which converts strikes to runs saved on a .125 run/strike basis, and includes park and pitcher adjustments according to Statcast) he’s the 3rd best in the league (the fact that Tyler Flowers has become one of the top framing catchers in the league will not be discussed here.) In addition, while he only had a DRS score of +1 last season, the previous 3 went +9, +17 and +13.

Despite James McCann‘s assistance with turning around the career of Lucas Giolito, he was dead last in framing last year which cost the White Sox 16 runs. Ask Reynaldo Lopez or Dylan Covey (if you can get through to him in his padded room where he mutters “sinker didn’t sink” to himself over and over) what they could’ve done with a few more strike calls going their way last season.

He also can play 1B and DH, which would result in a combo of Jose Abreu, Zack Collins and Grandal at DH at any point in the season which would instantly provide the best output at that position since before Adam Dunn shuffled off into the sunset. Yes, I am operating under the assumption that Jose will be back next season because duh. Did I mention he hits the shit out of the ball?

Why Not Him? Age maybe? He’s entering his 30th year on the planet this season, so by the time his deal is up he will most likely be 35ish? I dunno, this signing makes far too much sense for the Sox to pull it off. Can’t wait for the news media to interview Kenny Williams at spring training in his Mercedes golf cart and have him tell us all if he took off his solid gold Oakley sunglasses you’d see just how shocked he was. /wanking motion

How Much Is This Free Resort Weekend? Ahhh to the meat of the problem for the Sox: he’s not going to work for free. Last offseason he shot down an offer from the Mets (always a wise plan) for four years, $60 million and settled on a one year “prove it” deal with the Brewers. He then proceeded to mash almost 30 home runs with 80 RBI and was worth 5.2 WAR.

I would guess the bidding would start around $22 million for at least four years, and that’s the base. Grandal bet on himself last season and put up when some others thought he was crazy. The Sox had interest in him last year, and with a majority of the stuff they need contained in one human being Rick Hahn needs to find a way to get this done. Offer him four years, $90 million with a team option for a 5th at $25 million/or a $3 million buyout. I would think that would be enough to seal this deal, because I want to see what Giolito and Lopez can do with all those extra strikes Grandal can frame for them. Not to mention the two starting pitchers Hahn should sign this offseason (don’t worry, they’re next).

Baseball

We Could Plant A House, We Could Build A Tree – Cubs Offseason Wishlist: Hyun-Jin Ryu

By Sam Fels 1343 0

We know that the Cubs need an upgrade in the rotation. We know that they know this. We also know that they’re probably just going to fill it by promoting Tyler Chatwood to it while claiming poor as Tom Ricketts lights another cigar with a $100 before having a money fight with his brother. Or they’ll dive around a money tank like Scrooge McDuck. Whatever. That doesn’t mean we can’t hope or that it’s all a slow-play. Which I thought last winter and all I got was this stupid rock. Anyway, if you’re going to upgrade the rotation, a Cy finalist seems like a pretty good idea, no?

Why A Spoon, Sire?: Well this one’s as obvious as Thor was yesterday, and that’s because Ryu is really good. Unless a 2.32 ERA and 3.08 FIP aren’t your thing, in which case you’re just baseball stupid. It’s ok, a lot of people in this town are! Including some who run both baseball teams! Being stupid doesn’t preclude you from your dreams, this is America after all!

Anyway, Ryu actually saw a drop in his strikeouts this year, but also cut his walks to almost nothing, which meant he was still carrying damn near a 7-to-1 K/BB ratio, which plays just about anywhere. Ryu was also able to up his grounders to a rate not seen since his rookie year, which he did by upping the use of his change-up at the expense of a cutter. That change produced a 53% ground-ball rate. Ryu found a way to get more downward tilt on that change, which made it a real weapon. And change-ups are something you can keep going for a while.

Ryu’s sinker also produced an obscene amount of gopher-killers, but isn’t something he goes to as much. Still, it might be something he uses more of as he gets more into his 30s. Ryu never threw all that hard, but his four-seamer is barely above 90 now so he’s had to get a little more creative.

Ryu had a bit of luck last year, with only a .278 BABIP. But the Dodgers had an excellent defense simply everywhere, and he would enjoy at least the same level of infield play in Chicago. If he keeps his grounder-heavy ways, that should play out just about the same here.

Ein minuten bitte, vous einen kleinen problemo avec de religione (he was from everywhere): The first problem with committing to Ryu is health. He missed all of 2015 and 2016 aside from one start, and only made 15 starts last year. Even this year he only made the post 29 times, and he’s only cracked 30 starts once, which was his rookie year and now six seasons ago. If you have him in your rotation, you have to have backup plans. Which was fine for the Dodgers who had about eight or nine starters either on their roster or in the holster at AAA. The Cubs really only have Chatwood right now and maybe Alec Mills, and I would need a fair amount of Pepto if they had to rely on Mills for more than a spot start or two.

Second, Ryu is 32, so you’d have to conclude he’s probably been as good as he’s ever going to be and you’d be paying for the downside of his career. As a pitcher who doesn’t rely on strikeouts, you’d be a little more comfortable with him as he ages, but the margin for error with him is also that much smaller.

Third, coming off that season might delude a couple teams into paying more than they should, which we will get to directly…

Some Silver? Little Gold?: The other way this might break is that because of his injury history and his age, combined with the frugalness/analysis/collusion of teams in the free agent market these days, Ryu’s price-tag and years he gets might not be all that high. Remember, Dallas Keuchel had a Cy Young in his closet, some of the same profile as Ryu, and was younger and he waited until June to sign. The idea that any team is going to give Ryu much more than three years is probably a little far-fetched.

MLBTR has Ryu getting three years and $54M, and $17M-$18M for a #2 or maybe #3 starter is hardly the worst idea in the world (the Cubs will be paying a combined $30M for their #4 and #5 mind). If the Cubs would still be interested in Cole Hamels for one year at $12M give or take, would taking on the better, younger pitcher for an extra two years for another $5M or $6M really be so outlandish?

Could It Happen?: Unlikely. Ryu is probably going to have a lot of suitors that will drive the price and years north of where you’d want to go. But if the market slow-plays again, or outright just ignores pitchers over 30, then the Cubs could lurk here and get a pretty nice deal. Again, you wouldn’t want to go more than three years, but that is basically where the Cubs have the clock set anyway. With Lester and Q almost certainly phasing out after this year, you could slide Ryu down the rotation if you felt like you needed to and with only a two-year commitment left you’d have space for more. Especially if Alzolay by some miracle proves ready for the rotation in 2021.

Probably another dream, but not total fantasy.

 

Baseball

We Could Plant A House, We Could Build A Tree – Cubs Offseason Wishlist: Go**amn Thor

By Sam Fels 1746 0

Hello there. Over the next couple weeks, I’ll be cycling through some realistic, and not so realistic offseason targets for the Cubs, either via trade or free agency. Today, we start with the not s0 realistic. 

Now that the World Series is over, and as I’ve said already, I’m going to wake up every morning terrified that this is the day the Cubs do something truly stupid. Not that it’s ever been in the Theo DNA to reach for the truly outlandish, but it feels like the walls are closing in on the front office. There’s the pressure of its first truly disappointing season (again folks, they won 95 games in ’18 with half a Kris Bryant), the expectations of fans, and the demands of ownership both for a winner to fill the park and get eyeballs to Marquee while also squeezing the payroll. There seems to be a reckoning coming for the Cubs in two seasons when just about everyone who matters aside from Kyle Hendricks (and possibly Yu Darvish matters now?) are free agents and just how the Cubs will get out of that.

That’s a lot of pushing from opposing sides, which could leave an irrational pimple like me to pop. I’ve concluded that the Cubs will make a big trade, involving a name we all love, and that’s just how it’s going to be. My deepest fears are that it will be Kris Bryant, which I’ve already spent months outlining just how stupid that would be, and will spend many more weeks doing so even more.

But there’s going to be one. So my only hope is that it brings someone fun and good back. Which is why we’re kicking off with Noah Syndergaard.

Why could this happen? Because the he hates the Mets and they hate him. Any Met who ever bothers to point out that the Mets are run in a very Mets way generally ends up not-a-Met before too long. And Syndergaard nearly ended up not-a-Met-anymore at least year’s deadline. Also, Thor will be due his own windfall of cash in two seasons as well, and even though they’re a New York team the Mets seem to find a lot of ways to not pay people anymore. Call it PBSD (Post Bonilla Stress Disorder).

Now hey, maybe the hiring of Carlos Beltran signals a turn to rationality for the Mets. And maybe Blake Lively will leave Ryan Reynolds for me. This is the goddamn Mets we’re talking about. They’re always likely to do something stupid. In fact, they want to do something stupid.

Why A Spoon, Sire? Because it’s Thor! He’s 27, can throw a fastball through three live horses the long way if he wanted to, with a devastating slider and a very improved change-up. He’s got Cy stuff. And he’s under team control for two more years. So even if he’s projected to make $9.9M this year, considering what he can provide he’s the biggest bargain financially you’ll find. He’s been a four-WAR pitcher the past two seasons, with a FIP under four and a 2.80 one in ’18. In a season where everyone was giving up hard contact, Thor simply didn’t, with hard-contact rates under 30% in ’18 and ’19 and a line-drive rate under 20% this year. Quite simply, he can be a dominating presence, and you can’t have enough of those.

Ein minuten bitte, vous einen kleinen problemo avec de religione (he was from everywhere): The thing with Thor is that when you see the stuff, you’re sure he should have deGrom like numbers. And he kinda doesn’t? He’s always struck out a hitter per inning at least, but never gotten into the 11 or 12 per nine innings range where the citizens of Olympus live. And…well actually that’s it, because Thor has put up ERAs under 3.00 twice and another season of 3.03. While deGrom has stolen the headlines with his Cy Young and likely another one on the way, Thor would be the #1 on a lot of teams. It’s not his fault the Mets have been pretty much garbage since his rookie season or that they somehow stumbled into one of the few pitchers better than him on the same rotation.

The other knock on Thor is health, which is a valid concern. But he’s also coming off a season where he threw 197 innings, a career-high, and he’s basically made every start asked in three of his five seasons. With someone who throws this hard there’s always questions about durability. But hey, you can’t make a Molotov cocktail without lighting a fire here and there.

Some Silver? Little Gold?: Ah, here’s the problem. Syndergaard isn’t coming cheap. And we don’t mean in terms of money. The Mets probably know they have a golden ticket here, and sadly they’re not so stupid to miss what that means. So you’re not going to get him pried loose by giving up thrift store fodder.

So what could they use? Wilson Ramos wasn’t exactly terrible for them last year, but he’s going to be 33 next year and has fallen off some of his big years with the Nationals and his one year in Tampa. He’s got two years left on his deal, though the second is a team option and both are at $10M. They couldn’t really find anyone behind him.

So Willson Contreras would be an upgrade, considering he was the best hitting catcher in all of baseball last year in wRC+. He’s an offensive upgrade on everyone, whether you like it or not. He’s also five years younger than Ramos, with what at least appeared or could be argued was improving defense/framing. The Mets had a middling offense last year and could use the boost.

Sure, the Mets could probably more use an upgrade in centerfield, but I don’t think Albert Almora is getting this deal done somehow.

Would Willson for Syndergaard be enough for the Mets? Probably not. But you wouldn’t have to throw in too much more than that, especially if you took Ramos back to split time with Caratini.

Could It Happen?:

But we can get to reality later.

 

Baseball

We Know Your Nature – 2019 Cubs Player Reviews: The Pen And The Rest

By Sam Fels 1577 0

I finally wrap up our Cubs season review, perfectly timed with snow on the ground and the World Series now over and waking up every day from here until March thinking, “Today is the day the Cubs are going to do something stupid, isn’t it?” Anyway, I didn’t feel like giving everyone in the pen or bench a full write-up, so let’s just speed through them and get on with our lives, shall we?

Craig Kimbrel – Jesus God. It was a desperation move, and it played out exactly like one as Kimbrel couldn’t overcome the delayed start to his season, and then the rush job to the Majors. He was bad, he was hurt, and then he was bad. His velocity was down a full two MPH from 2017, the last time he was some galactic creature batters couldn’t handle. He was good in ’18 but the walks had crept up, and that didn’t stop in 2019 either. Perhaps with a full spring training and a clean bill of health, Kimbrel can recover a portion of the lost velocity. He’s never going to be CRAIG GODDAMN KIMBREL again, but there’s little reason to think he can’t be a good to very good reliever. David Ross might want to think about talking to him about moving into something other than a strict closer role so the whole pen can be fluid, but I won’t hop on one foot waiting for that to happen.

Kyle Ryan – Pleasant surprise, of course after I declared he was a new suckbag. Hard to know if he can be counted on again, because he’s the type of reliever that just turns into discarded hygiene products for no reason other than he’s just a reliever. Gets a ton of grounders. Worth taking another look at.

Steve Cishek – Thanks for everything, but remember when you leave your right arm is probably staying here.

Brandon Kintzler – Returned to being the solid reliever he’s been most of his career. Probably worth a one-year deal if he’s willing, but also used earlier in the game and not counted on as a prime set-up guy. Gets lefties out, so hopefully Ross isn’t afraid of using him that way like Maddon was if he’s still here.

Tyler Chatwood – I have this dream where Chatwood and Alzolay are used as multi-inning weapons once or twice a week each, maybe more. That shields the rest of the pen, takes some pressure off the starters, and lets Chatwood come out and blow 97-98 MPH past guys like he was later in the year. It’s probably what he’s best at. The reality is he very well might have a chance at the fifth spot in the rotation. It’s hard not to notice the near 4-to-1 K/BB ratio in the last two months when he became accustomed to the role. It might not be what he wants, but he is good at it.

Rowan Wick – The Pitching Lab’s first success? Probably could have been slotted into a prominent role much quicker than he was. Strikeouts faded laster in the year as he was used more and more, which is a concern. Still gets a ton of grounders. Has a job to lose come Arizona.

David Phelps – Get the fuck outta here with this.

Derek Holland – Great entrance song. Everything else sucked.

Brad Wieck – See, this is really how you’re supposed to find relievers. You find something in a pitcher that his current team doesn’t, or that can be changed or harnessed, you pick him up for nothing and get him firing upon arrival. This big lummox isn’t there yet, but there were signs of hope and is definitely worth another spin. Struck out nearly 17 hitters per nine innings as a Cub.

Dillon Maples – It’s just never going to happen, is it? There is an absolute monster in there somewhere, but it’s buried in fastballs that hit the screen or the mascot. Might be time to wave the white flag on this one.

Duane Underwood Jr. – Yeah sure, let’s see more.

Clearly there need to be upgrades here. You can’t go into next season with questions hanging over Kimbrel and unknowns like the Fabulous Wick-er Boys and some kids. I would say two solid vets, not too expensive, is the prescription here. We’ll get into our shopping list next week.