Cubs current roster 2018

[TC in Mississippi]

there cannot be a salary cap without a salary floor. The reason it works in other sports is it forces teams to take contracts of superstar players, whether they are living up to it or not. It helps the entire league. Whatever percentage players contracts are advancing should be the percentage the tax level ends up growing. You cant continue to get 25 million dollar players if each team is not expected to have one.

I don't disagree with you and I believe that will be addressed in three years or so with the new CBA one way or another, but for now this is the system and you're just not going to see a lot of teams pass that tax threshold very often, and then only for short periods of time. Again two years is doable, three puts in the 50% area and that's not workable.

 

[chibears55]

https://twitter.com/jcrasnick/status/955526201686323201


Maybe this will start eliminating some teams...

Got me thinking also that it just might be bullshit to make cubs other teams up their offer thinking its the brewers going at 5 yrs

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[TC in Mississippi]

https://twitter.com/jcrasnick/status/955526201686323201


Maybe this will start eliminating some teams...

Got me thinking also that it just might be bullshit to make cubs other teams up their offer thinking its the brewers going at 5 yrs

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I'm honestly not sure what the deal is here. LA and NY can't get him and stay under the tax. I guess theoretically NY could move someone like Robertson, nobody is taking Ellsbury with 3/$68 mil left on his deal, but it doesn't look like they want to do that. LA would have to move all of Kemp's money and then some and Texas would be at around $160 mil for a team that looks to be at best a 4th place club in fairly strong division. Realistically it's the Cubs and Twins unless Milwaukee is serious and, like someone mentioned, it could be just driving up the price on the Cubs. Honestly I think he'd like Jake to sign first but that isn't likely to happen with all of Boras' guys digging in their heels.

 

[chibears55]

I'm honestly not sure what the deal is here. LA and NY can't get him and stay under the tax. I guess theoretically NY could move someone like Robertson, nobody is taking Ellsbury with 3/$68 mil left on his deal, but it doesn't look like they want to do that. LA would have to move all of Kemp's money and then some and Texas would be at around $160 mil for a team that looks to be at best a 4th place club in fairly strong division. Realistically it's the Cubs and Twins unless Milwaukee is serious and, like someone mentioned, it could be just driving up the price on the Cubs. Honestly I think he'd like Jake to sign first but that isn't likely to happen with all of Boras' guys digging in their heels.

I dont think the twins even talked to him yet except over the phone

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[TC in Mississippi]

I dont think the twins even talked to him yet except over the phone

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I don't know about that. They have been the one constant team in on him since the beginning and were rumored to have made the first offer. They've also very publicly declared him to be their #1 target.

 

[chibears55]

I don't know about that. They have been the one constant team in on him since the beginning and were rumored to have made the first offer. They've also very publicly declared him to be their #1 target.

I get that..
Just wondering how much that interest is..

Are they interested if he wants to join them at a low cost or basically sitting there as his last option..
I havent heard anything about them making an offer

I think the cubs brewers this mystery team at 5 yrs are the only offers ive heard about

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[CubsFaninMN]

I don't know about that. They have been the one constant team in on him since the beginning and were rumored to have made the first offer. They've also very publicly declared him to be their #1 target.

You're right. The Twins were quoted as saying "We've talked to his agent. There is no reason for a face to face meeting for a while, anyway." And no reports of any such meeting in the Mpls media either, much less the national media.

 

[beckdawg]

The problem you have is quoting a guys AAA numbers (which are god awful considering age) and comparing that to a different guys MLB numbers. Sczuzr for most of his career in the minors was in the mid .350s for OBP. I mean, why would you ever take Heyward or Almora out of the game for Hannenman? What situation does he even help you? Szczur in 2016 played in the OF only 41 times off the bench and had 200 PA but only 353 innings in the field so he basically was a spot starter who barely got in as a defensive replacement and I bet a lot of those innings were low leverage.

If you're going to ask me what's more important: a righty who can play LF and has shown a great ability to get on base versus a lefty who can field but doesn't hit then the answer to me is the righty especially considering the other OF. The Cubs already have two lefty OF so a third lefty means very little.

And Zagunis is far more likely to contribute in a high leverage situation with his bat than Hannenman and I don't consider Hannemann's speed and defense to have the same ability to help the team.

You could literally make the same argument for Szczur. Why would you ever take Jay/Almora or Heyward out for him? As for Hannemann's role, who do the cubs have that can pinch run? La Stella doesn't run well at all. Zobrist at his age is average at best. If Happ isn't starting possibly him but they don't really have anyone particularly good at running on the bench. Secondly, they don't have anyone particularly strong defensively in the OF after Heyward/Almora. Happ and Zobrist are average and Schwarber is obviously worse than average. The way you'd use Hannemann is simple. if you're winning in a game you double switch him in late innings situations such that he rarely bats. For example, you're going to have situations where you pinch hit for a pitcher and need to bring someone in. You then just double switch him into the 8th or 9th guy remaining in the last inning or so and get a stronger defender into the game. He wouldn't even have to hit.

As for him batting, Almora and Heyward aren't going to play 162 games. I personally don't want Happ starting in CF. IMO he's not particularly good there. In my view you start him at 2B vs RHP and LF vs LHP or some mix of that. Heyward I suppose is ok in CF but you're really not moving him to CF often. Maddon likes to go at least 2 or 3 times a month with a pure bench game and if you're doing that I want a strong CF.

And moreover, Zagunis has the same problem with the majority of the cubs. He's far better hitting against LHP. He hit .253/.387/.414 vs RHP and .319/.467/.609 vs LHP in AAA last year. Obviously the OBP is good as you would expect with him but his slugging and BA are way down. So, as a pinch hitter he offers you the same thing most cubs do which are strong numbers vs LHP. However, as I've already illustrated the cubs aren't particularly strong vs RHP which is a problem when you consider roughly 75% of all PAs you see come against RHP. The other thing is because of his splits when are you ever going to play him? Against RHP you're going to want Heyward and Schwarber in as lefties. I suppose there's a case to be made for Heyward in CF but A) I think Almora is better vs RHP than people think and B) even if you sit him is Zagunis the guy you'd play in RF? My money would be on Zobrist in RF as he's a .254/.351/.421 career hitter vs RHP and clearly a more proven player. Against LHP, Almora is starting in CF. He crushes LHP. Heyward likely is still in right because of his glove. And in LF I would imagine you'd either go with Happ or Zobrist.

That's why I don't think Zagunis works. As I said before, if you don't like Hannemann because he's not really ever going to be more than below average to average with his bat that's fine. But I think the solution isn't in the cubs organization right now. If you're talking about the last guy on the roster he needs a couple things IMO. He needs to be a strong hitter vs RHP. If he's an OF he needs to be able to play all 3 positions with above average defense. If he's in the iF he needs to be able to play SS or 3B. And I suppose Joe could go crazy with a 3rd C but that doesn't strike me as likely.

In terms of people who might do that, Daniel Nava is a stretch from the defensive stand point but from a bat stand point he hit .341/.423/.474 vs RHP last year over 156 PAs and on his career he's a .281/.374/.404 hitter vs RHP. He's probably only a corner guy though. Colby Rasmus hit .291/.333/.582 last year vs RHP over 117 PAs and is a career .252/.318/.463 hitter vs RHP. He can play all 3 OF positions but think his hang up is he's kind of a club house cancer if you believe past reporting. Austin Jackson is pretty average as a hitter but a decent defender. He hit .291/.345/.411 last year vs RHP and is a career .279/.333/.402 hitter. Cubs obviously had him before so he would fit their profile. Jon Jay hit .289/.364/.384 last year vs RHP. He's a bit weak defensively in CF but if he were to take a cheap deal wouldn't be a bad guy to return either.

If you're not going with Hannemann I think you'd sign one of those guys to a cheap deal before you would go with Zagunis.

 

[CubsFaninMN]

I really think the Cubs are waiting to sign their final SP and then see where they are against the cap -- er, I mean, the luxury tax line -- before deciding who, if anyone, they can afford to sign as the final bench guy, be he a catcher or an outfielder. And if they end up extended really far with the SP, they can then just pull up AAA talent and figure they can live with it, if need be.

Basically, for the contenders, three pitchers are holding up an additional 6 to 8 non-pitcher FA signings, I think. Several teams need to wait until they sign one of the pitchers, or fail to sign any of them, before they know how much they got left in the tank for any other signings.

Maybe we need a simple rule -- any FA with an offer on the table who has not signed with a club by February 1 isn't allowed to play in the coming year. It would keep the high end FAs from freezing out the entire FA class. And would be in keeping with tbe various trade and signing deadlines already in place at the major league level.

 

[CubsFaninMN]

This reported Gimenez signing (Darvish's favorite catcher) may be Theo killing both of the birds in his sights with one stone...

 

[TC in Mississippi]

I really think the Cubs are waiting to sign their final SP and then see where they are against the cap -- er, I mean, the luxury tax line -- before deciding who, if anyone, they can afford to sign as the final bench guy, be he a catcher or an outfielder. And if they end up extended really far with the SP, they can then just pull up AAA talent and figure they can live with it, if need be.

Basically, for the contenders, three pitchers are holding up an additional 6 to 8 non-pitcher FA signings, I think. Several teams need to wait until they sign one of the pitchers, or fail to sign any of them, before they know how much they got left in the tank for any other signings.

Maybe we need a simple rule -- any FA with an offer on the table who has not signed with a club by February 1 isn't allowed to play in the coming year. It would keep the high end FAs from freezing out the entire FA class. And would be in keeping with tbe various trade and signing deadlines already in place at the major league level.

Your proposal of a deadline puts even more power in the hands of the owners who, thanks to rolling over the MLBPA in the latest CBA, have way too much in the process already. I would go the other way and impose a tax on clubs for signing players after February 1st.

 

[CubsFaninMN]

Your proposal of a deadline puts even more power in the hands of the owners who, thanks to rolling over the MLBPA in the latest CBA, have way too much in the process already. I would go the other way and impose a tax on clubs for signing players after February 1st.

So, you blame the fact that many 30+ year old FAs, with good 3- and 4-year offers on the table, not agreeing to any of them on the *teams*, for refusing to pay guys beyond their prospective productive careers?

Good to know what username Scott Boras is using on this forum...

 

[chibears55]

Your proposal of a deadline puts even more power in the hands of the owners who, thanks to rolling over the MLBPA in the latest CBA, have way too much in the process already. I would go the other way and impose a tax on clubs for signing players after February 1st.

Only problem with that is the player may be the one waiting it out til after Feb 1st...

I think eventually itll settle down and become a normal thing where you see long term extensions being done with the 27-28 YO putting them closer to 35s, and the 30-31 Yo will get the 4-5 yr deals..

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[CubsFaninMN]

And Austin Jackson is now gone. Signed with SF on a 2-year, $6 million deal. No idea how the two years break out, but it seems to me that, if it was three-and-thres, that would have been affordable for the Cubs, even if they add Darvish for $28 million or so in his first year. We have about $32 million left under the luxury tax cap.

That sort of sets the bar on one more FA pickup. Gimenez signed a minor league contract, with a non-roster invitation to spring training. Even if he ends up on tbe 25-man, he'll be playing for league minimum, still leaving some room for one more FA signing, if they choose. Assuming none of the Tier 2 OF FAs go for more than Austin did...

 

[TC in Mississippi]

And Austin Jackson is now gone. Signed with SF on a 2-year, $6 million deal. No idea how the two years break out, but it seems to me that, if it was three-and-thres, that would have been affordable for the Cubs, even if they add Darvish for $28 million or so in his first year. We have about $32 million left under the luxury tax cap.

That sort of sets the bar on one more FA pickup. Gimenez signed a minor league contract, with a non-roster invitation to spring training. Even if he ends up on tbe 25-man, he'll be playing for league minimum, still leaving some room for one more FA signing, if they choose. Assuming none of the Tier 2 OF FAs go for more than Austin did...

If they sign Darvish I think they're done. They have enough positional depth with guys like Caratini, Zagunis, Hanneman to avoid spending that money and you always have to leave room for a trade.

 

[TC in Mississippi]

Only problem with that is the player may be the one waiting it out til after Feb 1st...

I think eventually itll settle down and become a normal thing where you see long term extensions being done with the 27-28 YO putting them closer to 35s, and the 30-31 Yo will get the 4-5 yr deals..

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I don't like seeing players salaries get devalued and putting that deadline onus on the players and not the owners will do that. Put the onus on the owners to meet the deadline instead and they are going to bargain in better faith with offers that are more fair to the talent. There could be conditions though. Maybe base it it on value somehow? I don't think, for instance, that the owners should be penalized for not signing depth players.

 

[CubsFaninMN]

Talent is, and has been, dramatically overpriced. No we do not want to go back to the bad old days of teams owning players as if they were slaves, but the pendulum has swung way too far the other way, such that only big market teams can even consider building good player cores and keeping hold of them for more than three or four years.

There has to be a compromise position. As of now, the FA market is slow, and many fine productive players are going to be forced out of the game, simply because the high end talent is so overpriced that your team almost has to be in New York, Chicago or LA to be able to even afford to get up to the luxury tax cap, much less exceed it. And even then, you get at most two Tier 1 starters. Small market teams can only afford one, if that, and that's only when they are coming off a rebuild and have a team full of kids making league minimum.

That's why I disagree that teams are at fault for not paying $10 million or more per a pitcher's peak year WAR point out to well beyond a time that they will even have a positive WAR. If you have bought into the metrics to the point that you are paying per WAR point, you also have to buy into the projections of how long they will maintain that WAR level.

That, and it is not fair to anyone that the agents have created the expectation of the free agent process being there to get a cash-in for your performance to date, and not to come up with a reasonable salary for what you ars expected to contribute over the course of the contract. There can be processes to adjust such contracts based on over- and under-performance deltas from expectations.

If the game makes so much money that the players can fairly claim they require eighth-of-a-billion dollar contracts, then just have the league collect all the revenues from all the teams, and then give each team a quarter of a billion a year to spend. It would certainly even the playing field. If the league can't afford that, then I'd say the claim that a high-end pitcher is worth $30 million a year might get proved to not be a fair claim after all.

So, no -- honestly, I don't think players are getting screwed by the CBA. The game is.

 

[TC in Mississippi]

Talent is, and has been, dramatically overpriced. No we do not want to go back to the bad old days of teams owning players as if they were slaves, but the pendulum has swung way too far the other way, such that only big market teams can even consider building good player cores and keeping hold of them for more than three or four years.

There has to be a compromise position. As of now, the FA market is slow, and many fine productive players are going to be forced out of the game, simply because the high end talent is so overpriced that your team almost has to be in New York, Chicago or LA to be able to even afford to get up to the luxury tax cap, much less exceed it. And even then, you get at most two Tier 1 starters. Small market teams can only afford one, if that, and that's only when they are coming off a rebuild and have a team full of kids making league minimum.

That's why I disagree that teams are at fault for not paying $10 million or more per a pitcher's peak year WAR point out to well beyond a time that they will even have a positive WAR. If you have bought into the metrics to the point that you are paying per WAR point, you also have to buy into the projections of how long they will maintain that WAR level.

That, and it is not fair to anyone that the agents have created the expectation of the free agent process being there to get a cash-in for your performance to date, and not to come up with a reasonable salary for what you ars expected to contribute over the course of the contract. There can be processes to adjust such contracts based on over- and under-performance deltas from expectations.

If the game makes so much money that the players can fairly claim they require eighth-of-a-billion dollar contracts, then just have the league collect all the revenues from all the teams, and then give each team a quarter of a billion a year to spend. It would certainly even the playing field. If the league can't afford that, then I'd say the claim that a high-end pitcher is worth $30 million a year might get proved to not be a fair claim after all.

So, no -- honestly, I don't think players are getting screwed by the CBA. The game is.

We're going to agree to disagree then. The game isn't getting screwed, except for it's woeful lack of youth outreach the game is healthier than it's ever been and this CBA doesn't change the balance of power at all. The big clubs still have all the advantages but by driving down the salaries they're getting those advantages at a lower cost. There are a few major problems in terms of large market/small market balance and one of those is that smaller market teams that get revenue sharing are not required to spend that money on the team and most just pocket it. Also the $50 mil check all clubs are receiving this spring for the sale of MLB Advanced Media to Disney is also not required to be spent on the teams. The other thing is that smaller market teams are not held to any performance standards on their competitive balance picks. If you get these picks and fail with them year after year there should come a point where you stop receiving them. There also needs to be a franchise revocation clause, admittedly hard to do at this point, because some guys are just bad at running teams. Should Jefferey Loria have been allowed to run first the Montreal Expos and then the Miami Marlins into the ground? Or how about Peter Angelos that uses medical standards far above the norm and pays contracts with nobody bidding against him? The players salaries are not causing problems so undervaluing them is not the answer.

 

[CubsFaninMN]

We're going to agree to disagree then. The game isn't getting screwed, except for it's woeful lack of youth outreach the game is healthier than it's ever been and this CBA doesn't change the balance of power at all. The big clubs still have all the advantages but by driving down the salaries they're getting those advantages at a lower cost. There are a few major problems in terms of large market/small market balance and one of those is that smaller market teams that get revenue sharing are not required to spend that money on the team and most just pocket it. Also the $50 mil check all clubs are receiving this spring for the sale of MLB Advanced Media to Disney is also not required to be spent on the teams. The other thing is that smaller market teams are not held to any performance standards on their competitive balance picks. If you get these picks and fail with them year after year there should come a point where you stop receiving them. There also needs to be a franchise revocation clause, admittedly hard to do at this point, because some guys are just bad at running teams. Should Jefferey Loria have been allowed to run first the Montreal Expos and then the Miami Marlins into the ground? Or how about Peter Angelos that uses medical standards far above the norm and pays contracts with nobody bidding against him? The players salaries are not causing problems so undervaluing them is not the answer.

Happy to agree to disagree. But let me just put it this way:

You are giving a party. You are held responsible for entertaining your guests. At your last party, you could get every guest two party favors. This time, you have 10% more money to spend, but the price of party favors has gone up 20% because the manufacturers, whose costs have only gone up 10%, have gotten greedy and want to stuff as much money in their pockets as possible while they think they can get away with it. So, you either give everyone inferior favors as compared to the last party, or some people get two, and the rest only get one.

Good players -- not great, but good -- will be forced to retire in the next few weeks because the cost of the high-end guys is so high that clubs can't afford these good players. They have to bring up guys making the league minimum, often to the detriment of the team and thus the enjoyment of their clubs' fan bases, sometimes zimply to recover from the money they are still paying out to those two pitchers they signed to 6 year deals four years ago, who aren't even playing anymore. And who are costing the club a total of $30 million they could have spent on five to ten FAs who would at least give their fans a more enjoyable brand of baseball than their AAA replacements, who are only up in the bigs because they're cheap.

Forcing good, popular players out of the game because the new AAV baseline high-end pitchers MUST be offered has gone from $10 to $15 million per WAR point may be good for the three or four pitchers who pull in those deals. But for the good players who have to sell insurance, or at best play in the Northern League for $100 a game, it's not, IMHO, good for them, the fans OR game.

But, hey, you're free to feel that the major league game is better if it has 10% extremely well-paid multi-millionaire stars and 90% kids making the league minimum. It seems to me we're heading directly to that point. To me, I just don't see that as good for the game, but hey, that's just my opinion. YMMV.

 

[Omeletpants]

Forcing good, popular players out of the game because the new AAV baseline high-end pitchers MUST be offered has gone from $10 to $15 million per WAR point may be good for the three or four pitchers who pull in those deals. But for the good players who have to sell insurance, or at best play in the Northern League for $100 a game, it's not, IMHO, good for them, the fans OR game.

.

To be considered a good player and then unemployed you would have needed to play a number of years. With any decent money mangement you have a solid nest egg and are not selling insurance