The point I was making is that the cubs could have dealt Soler at the same time they trade for Chapman and possibly got Miller instead.
I don't consider that to be true judging by what Miller went for compared to Chapman but even still, when the Cubs traded Soler, he was no longer valuable. Sure it would have been great to trade Soler when his value was higher but then you're trading more of an unknown, former top prospect, for a reliever. You're less sure of what Soler would be at that point in a trade. While I would have traded for Miller over Chapman for the two extra years of control, I doubt Soler was the difference in that deal.
Basically, they traded nothing to get Wade Davis. They had seen Soler for two regular seasons with over 700 PA+, that's a ton of time and data points to add to a player's career evaluation.
If you want to argue that by last offseason Soler was garbage or w/e fine but that's not really my point. My point is that they boxed themselves into a corner where they literally had to trade for Chapman and Davis because they had no other option. But the reason they had no other option was lack of foresight. Headed into 2015 the cubs could have signed Andrew Miller. The yankees gave him 4x $9 mil. Who'd the cubs sign? Jason Motte(1 x $4.5) and Phil Coke(1 x $2.25). And it's not like they had an elite bullpen in 2014. That offseason they gave Fujikawa(remember him? no?) 2 yr/$9.5M. They also gave Veras 1 year $4 mil, James Russell 1 yr/$1.775M, Weasly Wright 1 yr/$1.425M, James McDonald 1 yr/$1M and Schlitter 1 yr/$500k. Headed into 2016 what did they do? Clayton Richard 1 yr/$2M, Cahill 1 yr/$4.25M. And headed into 2017 you had Duensing 1 yr/$2M, Koji 1 yr/$6M.
You're literally proving my point. No one can accurately project out bullpens. Literally teams spends tens of millions of dollars trying and still If teams could accurately project talent, the Cubs wouldn't have gotten Strop and Arrieta for a rental of Feldman. Considering how much bullpen arms fluctuate year to year, why would you ever give an older bullpen arm a multi-year deal? The problem with Davis at that price is that he's never surplus value. If you sign Jon Lester and pay him 22 million a year for six years, you basically tell yourself that you underpay to get a Cy Young level pitcher the first few years, then he's probably a fair contract value the next few years, and he's an overpay the last few years but the cost was worth it to get him in the first place. No logical GM thinks "I expect Lester to be good in year 6 as year 1"; the question is does he give you enough value at the beginning to make the end palatable? That's what makes me question a deal for Davis or any other closer for four years; you know that by the end of it you're drastically overpaying and how much does Davis help you right now? Would I rather trade a prospect and get what I perceive to be similar 2018 value (Davis v Britton) and not have those negative years? Depends on the prospect and what my farm system looks like.
I'm sorry but that's setting yourself up to fail. From 2013-2017 I don't think you could ever argue the cubs were in a position that they didn't need bullpen help going into a season. So while you can cite numerous examples of bad FA contracts given to closers, what's the alternative? Because if it's what's above is that any better/worse? The "good" example of the cubs doing this is I guess 2016 with Chapman where they literally threw him so much people believe they hurt him. It was him and Montgomery as the only two guys Maddon wanted to use in 2016. Obviously in 2017 Davis in Chapman's role just didn't work because the rest of the bullpen shit the bed before they could get to him. What I'm saying here is that what they are doing hasn't worked. I don't even think that's debatable here. Even in the case of Chapman he very nearly lost them the world series. It appears the cubs were a bit lucky there.
Miller would have been an interesting case because he was younger, he had dominant seasons prior, and had the history/pedigree of being a former starter. If you're signing a four or five year deal to a reliever that starts at age 29 and takes him to 32/33, that's a vastly different discussion than signing a guy to a four year deal at age 32/33 to 35/36.
Bullpens for the vast majority of teams are year to year. Guys get hurt, guys get effective, guys become less effective, etc. There are so few arms in the bullpen that I would ever trust to sign long-term. I'd much rather put together year-to-year and mitigate a lot of that risk.
Regardless, I think as I've illustrated above the cubs have easily thrown away $6-8 mil each year the past 4 years on bad 1 year rentals who you know going in have very limited upside. What's the difference between that and signing someone like Davis? I mean at least with Davis you know his upside. And of course if he turns in to Melancon that sucks but it's not like what the cubs have done in contrast to that approach is any better. Like I said before if you just think Davis is a bad investment for the cubs that's fine. But don't target Britton of all people. Go after fucking Colome and pay what you have to. He at least solves the issue for several years rather than leaving you in the same hole going into 2019.
There's a vast difference between the 2020 and 2021 Cubs having to worry about paying Wade Davis 16 million a year and potentially not having a lights out closer. I'd argue that going year-to-year on bullpens sucks but think of this year: you wasted a ton of money on Koji but got Duensing at 2M. Or the Dodgers got Morrow for a cheap one year deal and he was a sub 2 FIP. If any of us or anyone in baseball had an ability to predict bullpen performance out even to one year, that person would never write here again and would have thirty teams in MLB paying millions of dollars for their service.
Regarding control, I don't see the difference in paying a high price prospect for Colome's multiple years of control than paying multiple low cost prospects for one year of control that equals the same amount of time. In fact, I'd argue that it's better to trade multiple low ceiling guys than one high ceiling guy unless you're sure you're selling a high ceiling player that won't pan out.
If Britton cost Trevor Clifton and EJM, two former prospects that had higher value in the past, would you be upset over that?
Would you trade Albertos for Colome?
And I suppose you can suggest that not signing Miller in 2015 is hindsight but is it? The Yankees were smart enough to give him 4x$9. They were also smart enough to trade for chapman on the cheap which set them up to ransom the shit out of the cubs the following trade deadline. I'm willing to give the cubs front office all the credit in the world for what they do right but they quite clearly have shit the bed when building bullpens. They gotta be smarter there. And I feel like trading for Britton is the same losing playbook they've used for 3 straight years.
One, the Cubs won the 2016 WS and played in the 2015 and 2017 NLCS so what on earth "losing" playbook" are we talking about? Two, the Cubs have put faith in certain young players to develop (i.e Carl Edwards) who haven't done so. Three, you keep talking about Miller but gloss over the terrible deals that went to relievers. Everyone missed on Andrew Miller.
As I said trade for Colome. Can't get that done? Call up toronto and try for Roberto Osuna. Get creative. It's not that i'm entirely opposed to dealing prospects. But cover multiple years of issue when you do so. Miller would have solved their problem through 2018 had they made that deal. Colome had they managed to get him last offseason solves last year + the next 3. Likewise Osuna solves your longer term issues. Could have also tried to trade for Kimbrel headed into 2016 rather than chapmann midseason. There's dozens of other options they could have taken that have more appeal that what they have done/seem to be doing.
Kimbrel, Giles, Chapman, Miller, etc all went for massive prospect packages. The Cubs had to trade that package to get Quintana. They simply don't have enough high value prospects left to get valuable relievers.
If I have an issue with Theo and the organization, it's they have simply not done a good job drafting outside of the top 10. It would be nice if they get some depth from their drafts. Maybe that's a year away but they've been here five years and the only home drafted talent on the team is guys they drafted top 10 (Baez, Bryant, Happ, Schwabrer) and a ton of arms/players they got in a trade.
At the end of the day, you think signing Wade Davis "solves" the bullpen and my point is I highly doubt that he does. Simply giving a contract does not mean it solves anything; the player has to actually perform. And my point is Davis' contract will start to impact you on other more important moves that paying Davis so much money is a huge negative to the Cubs.
