Baseball

FFUD Hot Stove Roundtable – Round 2: The Scales Continue To Tip

By Sam Fels 1810 0

Gathered the three baseball wisemen here to go over the offseason again. The Sox appear to be done…and so do the Cubs, but in wildly different fashion. How are we all feeling?

So we’re just over a month away from pitchers and catchers, and it feels like the Sox are pretty much done. Everyone feeling their oats?

Air Traffic AJ: It’s pretty hard to look at this off-season and not feel positive about it, especially considering the absolute duds the previous two had been. The Twins signing Donaldson last night in a clear response to Hahn’s moves makes me think the Central may not be as up for grabs as I originally thought. The ceiling of their starting pitching is lower than the Sox staff, however, so it’s gonna be interesting. Most importantly it’s gonna be fun and watchable.

Wes French: Echoing AJ, the Donaldson singing takes some air out of the sails. The White Sox did a lot of work towards becoming a viable AL Central threat, but looking at that Twins lineup leaves you feeling like it’s all a 2nd/3rd place effort even with a lot of the remaining uncertainties becoming positives – How Robert starts, what Kopech gives, how the rotation looks after Giolito/Keuchel/Gio.

AJ: Sam, you’ve been pretty vocal thus far about the off-season the Cubs have had. If the ultimate goal for them is to be under the luxury tax cap this season and it costs them Quintana is there enough pitching to keep them up with the Cards and the newly resurgent Reds?

Sam: Fuck and no. 

I’m not wholly in on the Reds yet because I don’t think the lineup is that good as Joey Votto is continuing to decompose. They’ll still beat the Cubs 13 of 19 infuriating times though. The only hope if Q were to be moved is that Lester discovers something that can make him more effective at 36 than 35, but everything is trending the wrong way and he’s not exactly the most flexible guy when it comes to changing what he does. Not only does Chatwood in the rotation make it more volatile, but it robs them of an at least an interesting bullpen weapon. He and Alzolay together would have given the Cubs two possible multi-inning pieces out of there which could have covered for some of the shortness of the rotation. You could easily see Lester continuing to decline, Chatwood being the Pollock painting he’s always been as a starter, and some combination of Alec Mills and other goofuses getting continually rocked without Q. 

 That said, a Q trade is more palatable than a Bryant one. 

 Speaking of starters and bullpen switching, is Reynaldo’s future as something of a Hader-type? Come in and fire smoke for two-three innings 50 times a year or so?

 AJ: I think Reynaldo has a three month audition window to show he belongs in the rotation. I want to see what his numbers look like with a premier pitch framer like Grandal scoring him a few extra strikes per game. One of Lopez’ biggest issues is nibbling once he gets ahead in counts, and if Grandal can turn some of those nibbles into Ks he could be a viable 4th-5th starter easy. If that’s not in the cards for him, I very easily could see him coming in the 7th and just unleashing devastation for an inning and a third. He’s gotta have that chance to be a starter, however. Rodon coming back healthy is no guarantee, and it’s never a bad thing to have too many young viable starters.

 Wes: I think I would already have Lopez ticketed for such a role if i were making those sort of decisions. Alas, I have not been given any kind of say in the matter and I think that they’ll bring him along and keep working with him like he’s a viable starter at least until June this year. If everyone can stay healthy and show signs of success outside of Lopez, Cease/Kopech/Dunning/Lambert/Steiver (at various levels of the org), and Lopez doesn’t show any kind of consistency or improvement I think it needs to be strongly considered. The bullpen is going to need a power arm from somewhere, and the other internal options like Zack Burdi, Ian Hamilton, and Jayce Fry aren’t exactly encouraging at this point. It’d be ideal to not have to spend a truckload on the bullpen as this thing starts trending in the right direction and Lopez is the easiest to transition to that type of role, especially being the farthest removed from his debut and having plenty of shots at sticking in the rotation. 

 AJ: What’s the expectation for David Ross this season? Is he an advanced stats guy, or is he the more media friendly reincarnation of Robin Ventura? I personally think the Cubs could benefit from the use of an opener, especially if Quintana is traded for a pack of Topps cards and a copy of MLB the Show 2014. Also what kind of leash does he get from ownership?

 Sam: We were just talking about this on the podcast. First off with Ross, no one has any idea and if they say they do they’re lying. He’s obviously exactly in tune with how the front office sees the team, but who knows what that means given the restraints. I think they feel like players walked on Maddon a bit or tired of his shtick or both, and Ross definitely commands respect from the vets so you’d think the younger players will follow. I hope/suspect he’ll be a little more advanced in-game than Ventura, but again, no one can be sure. 

 I’m with you on the opener. The Cubs do have two intriguing, multi-inning possibilities out of the pen in Chatwood and Alzolay. The latter certainly can’t take on a starter’s share of innings this year, if he ever can. They both have electric stuff, though with varying problems with that stuff. You don’t know what you’ll get out of Lester, but if Q were to stick around you’d have three dependable (at least innings-wise) starters and Lester. You could easily have each of Chatwood and Alzolay throw 2-3 innings twice a week to cover for what you don’t get from Lester and a hole at the #5 spot. 

 But the reality is that they’ll trade.Q merely to save money, slide Chatwood into the rotation where he’s yet to prove he can be, and now both the rotation and pen are short. 

 Maybe I’ll just get on the Mariners train now and enjoy the fruits in three years. 

 Wes: Julio Rodriquez is gonna be a monster, we’d all be smart to buy shares now and revel in our intelligence in 2022-23. 

 I have a feeling the Cubs are gonna struggle to pitch the ball all season long and we’re in for some “fun” 14-10 type games. I think the NL Central is full of flaws, so 84 wins might just do it, but from the way you’ve spoken all winter, Sam, it seems you believe the Cubs could have trouble breaking even that number. 

 Of course, Yu, Hendricks and Q could all throw 175+ masterful innings and then you just need to survive the Lester clunkers and get to .500 in 5th start spots. Craig Kimbrel being his pre-2019 self would go a long way, too. 

 AJ: Question for all of us: If Lopez advances in his skills and both Rodon and Kopech come back healthy, what do the Sox do with their rotation?

 Wes: Assuming the rest of the staff is healthy/effective, I’d think that Gio G switches to a swing man/relief role that he was very effective in with Milwaukee last season. But you’re still looking at six guys with Giolito, Keuchel, Kopech, Cease, Lopez and Rodon.

 They’re going to want to bring Rodon along quite slowly, I’d think, being that he’ll come back in the 2nd half of the season, so he’d probably spot start during some long stretches where a 6th could be introduced to help rest everyone else/be used in longer relief situations to better control his workload and keep his innings as effective as possible. Cease is also going to top out around 160-175 innings, so I’m sure having too many SP options come August wouldn’t be too much of an issue. 

 This would be a very awesome problem to have. 

 AJ: I think at the end of the season if Rodon comes back healthy, Lopez advances like we all hope he does, and Kopech comes back in good shape you would have a six-man rotation from August on. You would be able to manage Cease, Kopech and Rodon’s innings as need be as well as give Gio Gonzalez some time as well. If September comes around and the playoffs aren’t an option Dane Dunning could conceivably be thrown into that mix as well. Like Wes said, it’s an excellent problem to have. 

 Sam, what’s your take on the Sox this year as a Cubs fan (for the time being, at least)?

 Sam: I think they’re exciting and am looking forward to watching them but I don’t think they’re a sure thing. Neither do I think the Twins are either, to be fair.

 I’m not as high on the Keuchel signing as some. He was regressing last year and his margin for error is so small. The batted ball numbers aren’t encouraging. Which still makes for something of an iffy staff. Giolito is great, but we have no idea what Cease is and it’s all questions from there on out, be it health or development. Wes, you may get your share of 14-10 games on the Southside, too. 

 That said the Grandal signing seems perfect for them, and even though I think Mazara sucks when Robert and Madrigal are up it’s hard to find a true hole in the lineup. It’s also hard to see anyone regressing, though I guess I could see where Abreu’s age kicks in a bit along with playing the field every day. Maybe TIMMY! can’t keep his BABIP around .400 again, which will really hurt his output because he never walks and still hits too many grounders (though that’s trending the rifht way). But again, this feels more around the edges than the heart of it. 

 They definitely need Kopech to come back healthy and contribute. You’ll never get me to believe in Rodon and I think his future is a lot like Reynaldo’s in that he’d be a great reliever. He just walks too many guys right now. 

 All that said, I feel like this will be the most fun season on the Southside in a very long time. And now with no Hawk around, I can watch comfortably!

 

 

 

Baseball

Trading Quintana, DH, Other Stuff

By Sam Fels 1705 0

Dreary Fridays lend themselves to notes and the like. So we’ll do that for baseball too today.

-As the Cubs still look for ways to dig under the luxury tax threshold like Fantastic Mr. Fox, one option that will probably gain steam (if it hasn’t already) is moving along Jose Quintana. It certainly wouldn’t cause the hysteria that a trade of Kris Bryant or Willson Contreras would. Q doesn’t have the same sheen as those in the eyes of Cubs fans, mostly because he walked into Theo Epstein’s office in July of 2017 with a shotgun and made him give up Dylan Cease and Eloy Jimenez for him, both of whom has since shot to multiple All-Star game appearances

Wait, I’m being told that’s not what happened. Huh.

Anyway, the actual act of finding takers for Quintana should be far easier than for Bryant and Contreras and their rightly astronomic prices. Quintana does make essentially nothing for this season–$10.5M–which for a #3 or #4 starter is still a bargain. and Q was a little better by some metrics than you might think, with a FIP under 4.00 and a fWAR of 3.5 (much higher than Darvish, to illustrate). Teams are going to want that.

Still, on the other side of the coin, there’s something more depressing about trading Q. With Bryant and to a lesser extent Contreras, while the main goal has always been the money there was a companion argument of replenishing the pipeline with some arms the Cubs simply don’t have and at least providing more that will be here after 2021. If you squinted, you could see the benefits of it while acknowledging they don’t come close to outweighing the drawbacks.

But with Q, you feel it’s just a salary dump. Surely you wouldn’t get anything in the rotation in return that was cheaper, unless it was a flier on some prospect or two. And they almost certainly wouldn’t be anywhere near major league ready. Which means you would have stripped your rotation even further, and the rotation wasn’t good enough last year after Hamels got hurt. Which means you rotation would be the Kyle Hendricks (pretty much a known at this point), the hope that Yu Darvish’s second half is the new normal, the four-to-five innings you’re getting out of Jon Lester at 36, and then praying to whatever god happens to be listening at that moment (hat tip to The Dag for that one, and also hit me up).

Doesn’t really feel like you’re going anywhere with that, does it?

Even sadder, there hasn’t been any mention of the Cubs getting below the the luxury tax this year so they can spring out ahead of it the following season with no repeater penalties, as the Yankees and Dodgers have done in recent years. You would think the theory was that by that time the money from Marquee would allow the Cubs to do that, except now the prevailing wisdom is that they’ve royally boned this whole network thing, sparked by not having a deal with Comcast yet, and that windfall might never actually come. Say, why does Crane Kenney still have a job?

The fear is that the Cubs will always want to be below the luxury tax, which means they might lose more than you already thought they were going to before the Free Agent-acolypse of the winter of ’21-’22. Or at least until we know what a new CBA looks like, which means the Cubs might be half-assing two seasons instead of one. That’s fun.

Of course, there’s always the hope the Cubs could make a baseball trade for Quintana, or at least use what little wiggle room it would give them to bolster this year’s roster with…well, maybe it’s best to not look at what’s still available. This was all well-timed.

-Kris Bryant and the Cubs settled for $18.6M and avoided arbitration. Hopefully this isn’t the last time they talk, and that money is going to seem a complete joke if he stays healthy all season and put up another 7-WAR season.

-Jayson Stark was having some fun today about predictions for the coming decade, and one idea I’ve kicked around here before. It’s bringing a modified DH to the NL and AL, where your DH stays in the game as long as your starter does. Basically instead of one guy hitting for a spot, he hits for a specific player. From there, you’d have to pinch-hit for every reliever or let them hit for themselves.

It seems to split the happy medium of those who cling to the “strategy” of the NL game and those who have no need to see pitchers hit anymore. How long do you leave your starter in? If he’s getting torched and has to go in the 2nd, how do you stretch your bench throughout the rest of the game? Would relievers who can go multiple innings be even more valuable? Could you leave in another DH for a reliever who does go two or three innings and whose spot comes up multiple times? Would this end the idea of an opener?

To me all those questions are kind of exciting. Certainly with a 26-man roster now the answers are a little more available. I hope this is what they go to soon.

-There’s also a bit about automated strike zones, and how they zone will probably have to be amended to deal with the strict interpretation that cameras would give you. I say “FUCK. THAT.” The example Stark uses is a pitch that nicks the bottom of the zone and a catcher catches an inch off the ground.

But that’s been the problem. Strike calls shouldn’t have anything to do with where the catcher catches it. Hitters shouldn’t even be looking at that, and neither should umps. That’s where the zone is, so adjust. It might lead to some ugly arguments or controversy for a couple months, but you’d get past it. I suppose it won’t be the end of the world if the zone is moved to the top of the knees or wherever, but the idea that we’ll all lose our shit because of where the catcher catches a pitch is the exact problem we’re trying to solve.

Baseball

Is This Anything?

By Sam Fels 1579 0

I guess this is what we Cubs fans have been reduced to this winter. Considering whether or not something that would normally sound like galaxy-brained four-dimensional chess that everyone would  laugh out of the room is actually a thing worth pursuing. Or even based in any kind of reality. But hey, the way things are going with the Cubs, maybe it’s better to just live in a fantasy world.

So here it is: A second report connecting the Cubs to Nolan Arenado. It seems utterly ludicrous, and the kind of thing you wouldn’t get away with in MLB The Show, but here we are. The Cubs won’t pay Kris Bryant but they will pay Arenado the $70M he has the next two years and then the ensuing $199M over the five years after that if he doesn’t opt out in 2021. Say, wouldn’t somewhere around $35M keep Bryant, the better player, around for a while? Well, this is where you have to start moving pieces around in dimensions and methods that don’t exist, so let’s look at the viability of everything suggested here by Brett, Passan, and others.

One, the big flashing light on Arenado. He plays in Coors Field, and if you take him away from that, you’re only getting an above-average offensive player. That has some legs. Arenado’s career slash-lines on the road: .265/.323/.476 for a 109 wRC+ or .336 wOBA. Not exactly Vegas-neon there, is it?

Let’s try and be a little more fair. Last year, Arenado ran a 118 wRC+ away from home. But the year before that it was 104. But in 2017 it was 126. So he’s not incapable away from Coors, it’s just hard to know exactly what you’d be getting, though you’d be sure it would be less than the sum of what you get with half a season amongst the thin air, weed, and every third person in attendance owning a brewery. I would also point out that when not at Coors, Arenado plays most of his road games in San Francisco, San Diego, or LA which are bad hitter’s parks. But that’s a bit of a stretch. Also, as Brett alludes to here, there is a school of thought that bouncing between altitude and not-altitude affects players negatively. Which is true.

Still, Arenado hits the ball really hard, with a 42% hard-contact rate and we’ve talked at length how the only Cub to manage that last year was Schwarber and Castellanos. You’d like to think that would play anywhere, but you can’t be sure. And Arenado doesn’t strike out much and makes much more contact than most of the hitters in the lineup, which the Cubs could certainly use.

Ok, now here is where it starts to get really nuts. The idea is that the Rockies would somehow be slaked by receiving Willson Contreras and Jason Heyward in return, which would free the Cubs up to trade Bryant for ready or near-ready pitching and players from another team. This seems a little backward, as most likely part of the bounty gained from trading Bryant would have to go to prying Arenado loose. Because simply getting Contreras back and Heyward’s contract doesn’t seem near enough for a team’s best player, especially for a team that would be signaling a complete tear-down by moving Arenado. They’d want young players, prospects and such.

Yes, the Rockies would get to save some $28M in real dollars between Arenado’s and Heyward’s salary the next two seasoins, but you’d have to subtract whatever Contreras gets in arbitration and also consider the fact that Contreras is just a year younger than Arenado. Also, the Rockies would be losing the production of, y’know, NOLAN ARENADO, and replacing some of it with the scarecrow production of Jason Heyward. And that’s assuming you get Heyward to agree to this, which is no gimme.

Then, and you’re going to have to stick with me here, the Cubs would take the money saved by not paying Bryant his arbitration award to sign Castellanos, which arguably would be about the same thing. So they’d lose something like $45M in luxury tax dollars but bring back $35M in Arenado, and then basically swallow that up and more by re-signing Castellanos. Which would still leave them over the luxury tax. Everyone got that?

Even if we ignore all that, would the Cubs be better? It’s not clear. Arenado is certainly an upgrade defensively, and the Cubs would have one of the best left sides of the infield of all-time between him and Baez. They’d lose a little in offense, which they would gain back by having Castellanos in right. Though that outfield defense might give all that advantage back. And we still have no idea what Victor Caratini is over a full season offensively and it almost certainly isn’t anywhere near what Willson gives you.

Basically this feels like a lot of running all the way out to come all the way back and pretty much end up where you were in the first place.

The whole thing would hinge on what the return is for Bryant, and how much that helps you starting in March and how far away the rest of it would be. Which we have no idea about, and the packages that have been whispered from DC or Atlanta get a big “FUCK OFF” from me.

What I will say to all of this on the positive side is it’s odd to me that Castellanos remains on the free agent market. Most every other big ticket item has signed, which if you wanted to convince yourself of it could mean he’s waiting for something. He’s not short on suitors, we know that. We know he loved it here, we know the Cubs loved having him here, but the hoops to jump through still seem far too small and far too numerous (other than Ricketts remembering he comes from one of the richest families in the world and not really sweating luxury tax and revenue sharing fees).

I will say that if by some acid-induced vision the Cubs pulled this off, and the return for Bryant was huge and its impact at least close to immediate (say no player ready later than 2021), then shuffling these chairs to remain stationary actually sets you up better for the future. Right now, other than Hoerner and Alzolay if you squint, what the Cubs will be in ’21 and ’22 (assuming they sign ANYONE) is on the field now (if you want to mention Amaya or Davis or Marquez here, fine, but I bet they would be part of anything for Arenado too). Which…is not ideal. You could swallow it, is what I’m saying.

But the amount of moving parts here, and the amount of things that could go wrong is just kind of mind-boggling. I’m going to go ahead and say this isn’t anything.

Baseball

My Only Hope

By Sam Fels 1774 0

It’s not the best place to be if you’re like me, where the only respite from the dreariest possible Cubs offseason is the Hawks. If you lean more to the Bulls, well, it’s not much better for you, is it? When was the last time we were envious of White Sox fans? Fuck. What a state. Thank god for Liverpool (HAHAHA Killion you moron!).

In that state, I will reach for any straw I can that will leave me any hope of continuing as a Cubs fan any longer (yes, a Kris Bryant trade simply to save money would probably cause me to turn my card in, and I’ve been consistent about this). I don’t want to have to be something else. I’ve been this all my life. But eventually, there’s only so much you can take. So when I saw this making the rounds yesterday, first saw it on Cubs Insider, it was at least a flash of hope. A brief streak across the sky.

There are caveats of course, and plenty, as Evan mentions within this piece. Clearly whoever David Kaplan is talking to hates Kris Bryant, as the idea that he’s not even a top-30 player in the league isn’t something you’d hear spewed out of the gaping maw of the biggest meatball on a barstool in Bridgeport. Fifth Feather might say it just to piss me off, but he wouldn’t mean it. Second, whoever willingly talks to David Kaplan also must have their own issues, because I’d rather be speedbagged in the face by a werewolf than deal with Kaplan, and I know I’m not alone. Third, David Kaplan can’t count to six.

Now that that’s all out of the way, the idea or report that the Cubs’ asking prices for either or both of Bryant and Contreras isn’t a huge surprise. They should be! One’s a former goddamn MVP who only trails Betts and Trout in WAR since coming into the league and the other is what, the second-best offensive catcher in the league now that Buster Posey can’t bend his knees? Technically he was even better than Grandal at the plate (127 wRC+ vs. 121), and you can take Mitch Garver’s numbers and shove them. Nothing that happened at Target Field last year is real, other than them losing to the Yankees in October. That’s as real as it gets. Also, Contreras is due to make pretty much nothing this year, only upping his value.

So their prices should be in the stratosphere. These players don’t just come on the market, trade or free agent, that often. If you had to trade them, and make no mistake the Cubs most certainly don’t have to, you need to be getting multiple pieces back that help right away to soften the blow of not having a genuine difference-maker anymore. Otherwise, you’re just hurting yourself.

The hope is that Theo Epstein, who must know deep down how stupid this all is and dreams of drugging his boss to get him to see reality as it is, keeps the prices so high the next six weeks that a deal either can’t be done or he gets an actual good baseball trade out of it (Gavin Lux and Dustin May and that’s just for starters, assholes). Given the more likely scenario of the former, then he can go to Ricketts and say, “Look, I tried, but I’m not going to make a bad trade that hurts the team short- and long-term just to save money. That’s not what you hired me for.” That’s the hope, at least.

Because as we all know, and Theo knows, even this team as constructed right now isn’t bad. It’s still got as good of a shot as anyone to win the Central, and that’s with a hole in center, second-base (which might even be filled by Hoerner some point soon), and the bottom of the rotation. Still, all that would require is a bounce-back year from Quintana, and you’re basically a 90-win team as is right now (and Q’s underlying numbers suggest he was way more effective than most realize). The more you think about it, the nearer it gets to impossible that the Cubs could make a trade that Theo would think is acceptable.

Still, there’s the problem of getting under the luxury tax, which seems to be the directive. Right now, the Cubs need to shed about $6M to get there, according to most projections, and probably more to have any flexibility during the season. The elephant in the room is that it should be Jason Heyward’s name being thrown about, because that’s really the only obviously bad contract on the books. Does Darvish’s $22M look so bad after Zack Wheeler just signed for $21.5M? Dear reader, it should not.

The hurdles with Heyward are obvious. You’ll never clear all of his $23M. He has a full no-trade. Even eating half of his salary probably still requires throwing in a non-lottery ticket prospect to sweeten the deal, even if he agreed to go. And yes, he gave the speech that ate the cat that ate the rat in the house that Jim Thome built. I know all that.

But it’s that deal that’s affecting everything. Even with his plus-defense in right, he’s been a one-WAR player during his time here. He hit 20 homers in a year when everyone hit 20 homers. At this point, his power is probably not coming back, because one’s bat-speed doesn’t tend to get better in their 30s and velocity is only becoming more prevalent from pitchers. Even if you can clear $12M off the books, that’s under the luxury tax with minuscule flexibility. Yes, you’d probably have to fill another hole, which might just involve throwing Bryant out to right more often and letting Bote play third. It’s not ideal, but it’s a fuckton better than having Bote play every day because you have Heyward in right and no Bryant.

Who might be interested? Might I suggest the other side of town? Right now, Nomar Mazara is slated to play right, and ladies and gentlemen let me tell you, though he looks the part perfectly he is very much not the part. He didn’t hit in Texas with the juiced ball, so he’s probably not going to. He’s also a butcher in the field. Already with Eloy in left and the glove on his head, the Sox need outfield defense. And with the amount of kids they have, they could always use more leadership which they keep telling us Heyward provides to cover for the fact he’s been going to bat with several sticks of pasta instead of a bat. The Giants are always mentioned, because they need a true hero defensively to cover the Costco parking lot that is right field at Oracle Park (that’s what it is now, right? Who the fuck can keep track?)

Just an idea. But crowbarring Heyward off the roster would be a much less damaging way to shed money than losing actual contributors. Anyway, this is my hope. It’s forlorn I know, but it’s all I have.

Baseball

No, The Nationals Don’t Have Enough For Kris Bryant, So Shut Up

By Sam Fels 1871 0

I’m going to have to keep doing this until it actually happens I guess, but as some in greater Cubdom try to rationalize trading Kris Bryant, which can’t be rationalized, I’m just going to have to sit here and tell you how stupid all they are. Because they’re stupid, y’see. And I’m not. Clearly.

The latest round of nonsense, which has been around for a while, is the Nationals somewhat panicking over losing Anthony Rendon and missing out on Josh Donaldson (if they do) and putting in an offer for Bryant. That’s nice. Everyone should at least call. He’s a great player. But the Cubs should immediately hang up the phone after telling GM Mike Rizzo to do one. In reality, that’s what they should do to every GM who calls, and the same to their shithead owner when he calls and says he doesn’t want spend the money and make him fire everyone, but I’m drifting into fantasy land again. I would even suggest taking that phone and hitting Tom over the head with it repeatedly, but I’m the angry sort.

The Nationals supposed “offer” would center around…well, centerfielder Victor Robles. That’s nice. Robles is nice. Everything’s nice. The appeal is that the Cubs would have centerfield locked down for a while, which they haven’t since…fuck, Bobby Dernier? Dexter Fowler was only here two seasons, so does that even count? It was where Corey Patterson and Felix Pie died. It’s where Albert Almora is currently dying. So on some level, I understand. You’ve never seen a regular CF at Wrigley for a decade. Just hasn’t happened. Might be cool to have. Everyone loves new, especially when you’ve waited so long.

When it comes to Robles, the first thing the supposed experts have to yell right in your face because that’s what they do is, “HE’S ONLY 22!!!” Hey, I miss being 22 as well. Well, not really, I kind of sucked at being 22. Late-bloomer, I am. I mean, I miss the not ever really being hungover, which I could do then. Can’t really now. I’m getting off point again, aren’t I?

Anyway, the thing about yelling about he’s 22 is trying to project how much Robles could improve. And that’s certainly possible. He already was one of the best defensive centerfielders in the game, and the Cubs have undervalued their outfield defense some the past couple years. So with him and Heyward, hey that’s pretty good. And his defense certainly doesn’t figure to drop off through his 20s unless like, he gets hooked on Italian beefs and Off Color Brewery (it’s happened to many others).

But no one has any idea what he will be with the bat. Robles was below average offensively in his rookie season. He’s almost certainly never going to hit for power,, even if 17 homers at 22 looks promising. Everyone hit 17 homers last year. His hard-contact rate was simply sad at 24.6%. It’s just not really part of the projection. Maybe he’ll get there, but no one can say for sure. He hits a fuckton of grounders, which with his speed is fine, but I think we’d like to do a little better than fine when trading, y’know, the best Cub of all-time and fuck you.

Robles never walks, and probably isn’t going to either. He kind of did in a 40-game stint in AAA in 2018, but that’s 40 games. He doesn’t strike out much either, which again is nice, but it’s not like he’s making a lot of loud contact. He’s basically grounding out a lot. Maybe Cubs fans are getting Juan Soto and Robles confused. I’m not sure.

The thing with Robles is we don’t have a huge stretch of minor league performance to point to, which is what happens when you reach the Majors at 21. Which is a good sign in itself. He dominated in 77 games at High-A, but that’s High-A. He was just as good in 37 games in AA, but that’s just 37 games. And that was mostly on batting average and a decent number of doubles. Quite simply, no one can be sure of what he is and what he will be. Everyone’s guessing. You gotta do better than a guess for Bryant.

Robles screams of a plus-Juan Pierre or something, with actual very good defense but simply has to get up around 200 hits to be effective. Hard pass, thanks, because the Nationals literally have nothing else. Their best pitching prospects are probably two years away at least when Ricketts is going to let everyone walk anyway. The others have been bad at AAA. While Carter Kieboom would allow for a ton of Marvin The Martian jokes, he’s more contributor than centerpiece and isn’t that what Nico Hoerner is supposed to be?

If you’re somehow going to justify a Kris Bryant deal, and you never will, you better be getting three pieces back who are at least good and ready to be part of things no later than 2021. The Nats don’t have it. Move the fuck on.

Baseball

The Devil Is Always In The Details, But Not Absolution

By Sam Fels 2245 0

This one’s been making the rounds the past 24 hours or so. Brett over at Bleacher Nation did some awfully deep digging into the CBA to find out what a second year over the luxury tax threshold would cost the Cubs in total. It’s…dense, but worth your time.

If you can’t make your way through it, and again it’s dense, basically not only would the Cubs incur slightly more in penalties straight from the luxury tax, but their revenue sharing totals or rebates and other things would also get clipped. It is an easy path to see where it might cost them an additional $40M-$50M, not just the few million in salary and luxury tax. It’s complicated, but it’s there.

The first reaction you have to reading this…good god is this CBA fucked. Now you see why all work stoppages really end up about being owners vs. other owners, and it’s also galling that owners will happily agree to a system that costs them money as long as that money doesn’t go to labor. But that’s an America-as-a-whole problem, because our country is evil and stupid. We’ll leave that discussion for another time.

You could read this and totally absolve the Cubs of blame here. I wouldn’t expect any team to not “miss” $40M or more. Even if I think the Ricketts family could easily absorb that (and they probably could), that’s a lot of filthy lucre. But it doesn’t absolve them to me.

For one, as transparent as the Cubs were about the rebuild and process , this is the kind of thing they’re close-lipped about. It’s easy to see why, because other owners and Rob Manfred wouldn’t want anyone going out of line and saying what the real reasons are as it would only be ammo for the MLBPA in the next negotiation, and make everyone look bad. You could easily see the union taking that and saying, “Even some of your owners think this deal sucks!” It’s understandable, just not likable. Tom Ricketts is happy to take this bullet because he’s going to make his money anyway.

Second, it’s hard to feel any sympathy when you’re out there admitting that your renovation costs went $500M over budget. Especially when almost all of them aren’t aimed at people like you and me. I’m never going to step foot in a luxury suite. I’m never staying in Hotel Zachary. It’s unlikely I’ll even eat at that Big Star, even though I do love me some Big Star tacos. Hey, the wider concourses and bigger concessions and nicer bathrooms are great, but they feel like lowest on the totem pole when it came to what the Cubs really wanted to get to in remaking the park and neighborhood.

You go $500M over budget, that’s not just cost overruns. That’s incompetence. Which is usually a word that follows Crane Kenney around. And that’s playing a role here, no matter what the CBA rules are.

Third, this CBA isn’t exactly new, and the Cubs had to calculate for this from the way back. They had to know the really good team they were building even in 2014 would get expensive. And while some of the contracts haven’t worked out, it’s not like they weren’t part of the plan. They told Jon Lester before he signed that Jason Heyward was part of their plan too the following year. Maybe they didn’t see Heyward having such a huge free agent year in St. Louis and driving his price up, but it couldn’t have been that different than what they budgeted.

They knew that Arrieta was going to be a free agent after ’17 and need replacing, and it was clear in 2016 that he probably wouldn’t be worth the investment. Does that Darvish contract really look so bad now and was it really so unpredictable? What’s the other outlandish deal out of the blue we’re talking about here? Quintana is cheap. Kimbrel isn’t making that much in comparison. These can’t have put them over the edge.

This all should have been part of the plan. And if it’s the revenue they aren’t getting from Marquee, fuck even a wayward drunk like me could have told them three years ago that having your own network doesn’t work out to YES or NESN-like proportions anymore. Someone probably should have within the organization. But much like the Hawks, they were too busy snorting their own geniusness. That’s just bad planning.

Fourth, might it not be easier to get under the tax next year? One, it should go up a little bit, and second all of Lester, Quintana, Chatwood come off the books. That’s some $48M right there, which obviously gets partially eaten by arbitration raises but still, there would seem to be more wiggle room then if you bite the bullet now. The Cubs are only on dock for $96M for 2021, and even if we allot some $70 M to the arb-eligible players, that’s way south of the tax.

If I keep going, trading Kris Bryant to avert this also robs you of a big chance of postseason revenues. I don’t know how much they are but I know they’re something you’d notice in either direction. And it does so for the foreseeable future. That doesn’t add up. You’re still telling me you have to move your most important player because your luxury suites were too expensive because you can’t get a fucking decent estimate, and that shouldn’t wash with any fan.

Of course, that would still involve not tying yourself in to any huge commitments next season, which would still make for a pretty boring offseason now. And we’re in the midst of that. But it would involve not, y’know, moving along the best player you’re ever going to have and seeing what the next CBA has in store.

It’s a more complicated situation than we realized, but the Cubs are still fucked in the head.

 

Baseball

My Brian Hurt Like A Warehouse, It Had No Room To Spare

By Sam Fels 1984 0

I’m with you, dear reader. I know you’ve come here of late, perhaps the past couple months, and all you find is anger and despair. That’s not very fun. And we could sit here and say it’s not our fault. We didn’t make the Hawks, Cubs, and Bears so frustrating, and the White Sox a bit confusing. Thank god we don’t cover the Bulls yet! There’s probably a more reserved tone we could take at times, maybe see the long view a bit more. Find the positives. Find the path to happiness again and such.

But then I read this like this.

Let me help you out with the hammer:

Trading Schwarber and Bryant would seem excessive for a team that intends to contend in 2020. The Cubs, however, are hellbent on avoiding the fates of teams such as the Phillies, Giants and Tigers, who entered down cycles after going all-in for extended periods in recent times. The Giants and Tigers are headed for their fourth straight losing seasons. The Phillies have not had a winning season since 2011.

The Cubs are three years removed from their World Series title, and their window is starting to close. Left-handers Jon Lester and José Quintana are entering the final guaranteed years of their contracts. Schwarber, Bryant (assuming he loses his service-time grievance), shortstop Javier Báez and first baseman Anthony Rizzo are under club control only through 2021, Contreras through ’22.

The clock is ticking. A recalibration is in order. Let’s not forget, the Cubs are changing managers from Joe Maddon to David Ross. If the front office does nothing, it would place unfair expectations on Ross to win with Maddon’s team, a team that was less than the sum of its parts in finishing 84-78 last season.

I don’t even know where to start. And this isn’t Ken Rosenthal’s doing, he’s just reporting what he hears. So let’s just take it in order.

First of all, the “intends to contend in 2020” is goddamn laughable when you’re out here so publicly flogging your best player, the best player you’ve had in a generation, and the best player you’re going to have in a generation. Even more so when you’ve made it clear you’re not trying to trade him for help right now. I would argue until my dying day, which the Cubs seem intent on bringing about sharpish, that this is still a team that needs more minor tinkering and moves around the edges to win the Central again, but we’ve been down that road.

It’s the “hellbent on not being the Giants, Phillies, or Tigers” that is just…I mean galling doesn’t even get there. Enraging? Exasperating? Utterly incomprehensible? Pure nonsense? You can mix and match your own adjectives and see what you come up with.

I really shouldn’t have to point out that the Giants won three World Series in five years, and their being bad now is a trade I doubt you’d find any Giants fan unhappy with. We all know there’s a price of success, especially success at that level. And the Giants certainly made their missteps afterward and maybe even during, though anything built on that level of power pitching has an itchy foundation. The Giants also had another playoff appearance two years later (you may remember it), so in total they had seven years of being a relevant team at worst. Seven, keep that number in mind.

So to the Phillies. They won a single World Series, just like the Cubs have and seem intent on only doing. Except they went to two consecutive Series, made the playoffs five straight years, and weren’t all that far from adding a second consecutive title. Yeah, the crash was hard, but the core of that team when it was all over were all in their mid-30s, something NONE of the Cubs current core will even be in 2021 or 2022. The Phils’ success came later in their careers. The oldest at that time of reckoning for the Cubs–or so they seem hellbent on telling you it will be– will be Rizzo at 32. The youngest of the Phillies was Utley at 33 when their cycle came to a close. It’s just not a clean comparison.

Right then, the Tigers, who don’t come with any of the flags that the previous three teams mentioned have. They do have two WS appearances, which the Cubs have yet to manage, but fine, no one cares when you only win a total of one game in them. The Tigers were competitive for seven season out of nine. A couple dice rolls here or there and they add a third or maybe fourth Series and maybe even win one. Again, nine seasons. Seven competitive.

The Cubs have managed five. That’s if you even include this past one, which I will because they were better than their record, or should have been. But you don’t have to, which makes it four. Five. How is five years an acceptable run at it? Especially what’s already here? And why would we assume punting on this one and maybe the next one guarantees anything beyond that, given that you still might see the Ricketts not pay whoever’s left or whoever develops into another piece in that time?

Rosenthal mentions their window closing, and uses Quintana’s and Lester’s contract situations as reasons why. Except they’ve pitched themselves to the bottom of the rotation and also their contracts ending opens up $35M+ of payroll that you could, oh I don’t know, improve the team with? I know, I’m fucking nuts and should be locked away from society for your safety. Out here with ideas like that. I mean, starting with Baez, Bryant, Rizzo, Contreras, Schwarber, Hendricks, and Darvish with $35M in space to use however you see fit seems like a nice base to me, but again, the sky is plaid in my world.

The last sentence is just weird and paradoxical, because if last year’s team was less than its parts it would seem that David Ross is kind of in a sweetheart spot as the team would have an excellent chance of improving simply because of market corrections and health. Not that you’d want to count on any of that, but still.

And again, this is all horseshit, a word that’s becoming synonymous with everything Cubs right now. The Cubs aren’t trading Bryant because they think it improves anything, short-term or long. It’s because they don’t want to pay him what he will earn in two years, and they don’t even want to pay him what he will get this year in arbitration. It’s not a “strategy.” It’s simple greed. The new buildings are up, the luxury suites are in, and Ricketts doesn’t have to do much to watch the money flow in. So he’s not going to.

I recognize that Ryu at $23M a year or so is a risky investment, and he’s just about the only difference-making starter on the market right now. And I will accept a baseball trade of Contreras to find another starter, if possible. What I won’t accept is the idea of an extra $20M-$25M breaking the Cubs financially. There is nothing the Yankees have, or should have, that the Cubs don’t.

So fuck off with all of this.

Baseball

Here’s Another Strand To Their Lies

By Sam Fels 1831 0

You probably already have figured this out by now, but every time I write about the Cubs from here until spring training, if I can even bring myself to do it depending on what happens, might send me into a rage that causes me to spontaneously combust and the article will remain partially finished. I will leave specific instructions to the minions to print it as is so you’ll know when and where exactly it happened, because I don’t want you to be uninformed.

Anyway, Joe Sheehan usually puts it better than I do:

That was in response to the Lerners saying they can’t afford both Strasburg and Rendon, which they definitely can, but it applies anywhere. And so it is with the Cubs and the Ricketts family. And one thing they’ve seemingly kept under wraps, as Sheehan pointed out in his newsletter today, is that we will be operating with a completely new CBA in just two years.

So the idea that the Cubs will not be able to afford everyone when they’re a free agent…you simply can’t know that because we don’t know what the CBA will look like. Perhaps the owners and union have some inkling on where things are going based on preliminary discussions. Or perhaps the players will get their head out of their ass and hire an actual lawyer to head their union instead of a middling, power-hitting first baseman whose basic negotiating tactic has been to present his belly to be tickled.

Again, as Sheehan pointed out, the MLBPA failed to peg the luxury tax to revenue for the whole league. The tax threshold jumped 16% between ’10 and ’17, while revenues went up 70%. But you can’t renegotiate that now, only in the future for what’s to come.

Still, the fear for the Cubs has always been going too far above that threshold for a second straight season, which is at $208M for this season. After arbitration and such the Cubs are projected to come in above that again or right at it, which is what apparently has Tom Ricketts shitting himself in public so you can understand his suffering. They want to get in under that mark.

But how far above this are we really talking? Some have the Cubs coming in at $182M before any free agent additions, while some others have them around $210M. It seems unlikely the Cubs are in for much more than a $3M-$4m payment this year at the 30% rate, if they even get above the threshold. Obviously their arbitration numbers will grow next year from where they are now, but also Lester’s money comes off the books as does Chatwood’s, as does Jose Quintana’s. That’s $43M right there.

And then the year after there’s a new CBA, which could peg the luxury tax at $250M for all we know. Or possibly not even have one, depending on how hard the players want to go at this (and it should be exceedingly hard). Let’s be nice and dream, and say that the Cubs come to their senses and decide they’re going to keep everyone because y’know, they’re good at baseball and that’s sort of the idea here. And I’m going to say it costs $125M total to keep Schwarber, Rizzo, Bryant, Contreras, and Baez. Fuck, let’s call it $135M, because Bryant likely should end up with $10M more than any one else at least per year. And it’s another $30M for Kimbrel and Hendricks after that, but Kimbrel will only have one more season left. Darvish gets $19M. Heyward is in at $24M. That’s $208M for a reliever, 2/5ths of a rotation, corner outfield spots, and three-fourths of your infield as well as a catcher.

Sounds like a lot, but you also have Hoerner around who will make nothing, perhaps a fully developed Happ, and also two years to fill in those blanks with your system, which should be enough time to come up with something. Basically, if the luxury tax bumps to where it should in 2022, you’d have to work to get there.

Let’s call it all told $245M in 2022. That’s after your own network for two seasons and assuming no new hotels or luxury suites, though you never can tell. It’s higher than say a $220M bill with salaries and luxury tax penalties tacked on that you might get this year or next, but is it astronomical? Is it fuck.

If you want to convince me that, at most $15M over two seasons is enough to break the Cubs financially, I want to see some fucking books opened. Again, this isn’t about “can’t” afford. It’s about “don’t want to.” And it’s all a lie.

Baseball

Turns Out, You Can Turn Off What Turns Me On

By Sam Fels 2036 0

I don’t even know if we have younger readers. I know we have a couple younger writers, but maybe everyone who reads this remembers when “Cheers” was on NBC. Maybe even when Diane was the female lead (not even close to as funny as Rebecca and I’m not even going to entertain an argument about it). But let me take you back anyway to 1996.

The heart and soul of the Blackhawks wanted to be paid what he was worth. He made no bones about it for a few years. The Hawks hung around the fringes of championship contending, though never really looked like they could threaten the Wings or Avalanche. Perhaps with another move or two, and not even major ones, they could have. But the owner was one of the biggest assholes on Earth who thought he was larger than any player, and the Hawks traded pretty much everyone’s favorite player that summer instead of paying him what he was worth. And right after that, they were irrelevant in this town, in that sport, everywhere for 13 years until that shithead owner died. You could fire a cannon through the UC on most game nights and maybe hit one person.

Jeremy Roenick was never the hockey player that Kris Bryant is the baseball player.

And that’s exactly what should happen to the Cubs if they are going to seriously pull the trigger one what increasingly looks like a likely Bryant trade. They should draw 15,000 a game and Hotel Zachary should collapse onto Tom Ricketts’s head. But it won’t, because somehow–and I really have no idea how–enough Cubs fans have convinced themselves this is just the way it has to be or that it might even be good business.

I don’t know how many times I have to scream this until there’s blood fountaining out of my eyes, but a Kris Bryant trade has nothing to do with baseball. The ideas of “extending the window” or “long-term health” are goddamn smokescreens to fool a surprisingly large portion of the fandom who became infatuated with the rebuild and apparently never want it to stop. It is simply about not paying Kris Bryant what he’s worth because the Ricketts family wants to keep a little more for themselves. Because of the way baseball is structured and the way the park is now, they don’t have to actually draw full house to turn a profit. They’re not the only ones skating on this.

The offers rumored for Bryant are utterly ludicrous, and yet I see far too many people trying to justify it after looking up from their Top 100 prospects list that I’m sure they don’t jerk off on daily. Austin Riley and Cristian Pache? The first struck out half the time last year and got replaces by fucking Charlie Culberson and Adam Duvall, and the second is someone you’d have the privilege of waiting two years for to not be as good as Kris Bryant. Oooh, a .,747 OPS in AAA, excuse my while my throbbing erection bursts!

The Dodgers? Here I was under the impression that the Cubs and Dodgers were supposed to be fighting over the NL pennant for near a decade, and now the Cubs are just going to hand them their best player? Well it must be for Walker Buehler, another franchise turning player? Nope. Oh, well then maybe Gavin Lux and Dustin May, two of the higher regarded players around who are ready now? Sure ain’t, fucko! It’s for Alex Verdugo, who couldn’t keep Joc Pederson or Chris Taylor out of the goddamn lineup. How is this not making everyone want to pull out their own esophagus?

There is not a trade for anyone other than a list of about seven that makes any sense for Kris Bryant, Repeat this to yourself until you believe it or until you keel over. I don’t really care which.

I’ll give the Hawks this. As much as can be said about them right now, and I’ve said it all, they are trying to win. They may not know whether it’s now or in two years, and they probably don’t know how to go about either, but they idea is the same. And it has to be, because the NHL is still so gate-dependent. The Cubs have given up on that, and they’ll get away with it because I’m apparently the only one angry about it. This is completely fucked.

And yet so many have convinced themselves it’s the right, or just acceptable move. We’re less than two years removed from Bryant not just being in the discussion of best 3rd baseman in the game. It was fact. You didn’t hear a peep from anyone about it. And then two injury-riddled seasons later and suddenly everyone thinks he’s Keith Goddamn Moreland? “Oh he’s not clutch!” Fucking die. Or did I hallucinate the homer that bailed the Cubs out of only the World Series in Game 5? “He’s not that good.” You’re too stupid to live and you’re taking up my oxygen.

The Rickettses fucked up on their budgeting for all the things that didn’t have to do with baseball, and now they’re going to make you pay for it by punting on the next two years at least to watch a hardly impressive Cardinals team or a suddenly improving Reds one zoom by you. Every time Tom Ricketts leaves the house he should be pelted by rotten vegetables because he has the business sense of a Twinkie but will never pay for it because Papa is godly rich and has all the money anyway.

“Sports is a business,” is always the rationale, and it’s not wrong. But we use that so often it’s lost all of its meaning. At the very end of it, the idea was that the “business” still, however tenuously, balanced on getting people interested and in the park and their eyes on the TV. You could only do that by winning. And now that’s out the window. And no one cares. They’ll win if it comes along to them, but not if it costs that much. And this is Chicago, which at least used to be one of the most pro-labor/union towns anywhere. What the fuck happened?

I hope the White Sox win three consecutive World Series, and I hope they beat the Cardinals to do it so you’ll have what you decided was ok to miss out on because it made sense in your own convoluted Moneyball brain (which you completely missed the point of) right in your face. And I hope the most obnoxious Sox fan in your life (redundant I know) never lets you hear the end of it. Lucky for me, I have about five of them, three of which work for this site. It’s what you and the Cubs deserve.