I mean look I said I was tired of talking about this so I'll keep this brief. My feeling is the cubs win the same games with someone of Melancon's skill level and maybe someone slightly below him whomever that might be and that player costs less. If you disagree whatever but I think it's a defensible position and I've discussed why at length already.
As for the moneyball comment, I don't really see what you're trying to point out. There's any number of 100 things that are actually interesting about the book. I'm assuming your point was anyone is replaceable but frankly that's not my chief takeaway. My biggest takeaway was finding value in what others don't which is largely what I'm talking about here. Trading for Wade Davis is fine. I don't love the cost as mentioned but that's not really my issue here. My issue is working toward addressing 2018's needs by building team depth. Unless you want to argue Aaron Brooks is going to be the guy, really only progress they made in the previous offseason to now was Montgomery. Thus far we've seen nothing that address depth for 2018 in this offseason. And all I'm really saying here is you have pieces to move. Szczur isn't going to get you a star player but can he get you a flawed player who might have some upside? Sure. Ditto for Candelario. If either of those players can get you someone like Montgomery who might fill a need in the bullpen today while also providing you with options in 2018 great.
First off, it's easy to say that Melancon is as good as Chapman but do the Pirates trade him to the Cubs? Do the Cubs want to send a good prospect to the Pirates? The Cubs had no idea how many "high leverage" outs they'd need to get so complaining they OVERPAID to get the best (or 2nd best) reliever in baseball is a very strange complaint, especially when the difference between Miller/Chapman was Torres v Schwarber. I more than anyone else wanted Miller over Chapman to pitch him in high leverage but I wasn't about to outbid the Indians offer (Especially if they viewed Frazier as better than Torres).
The Moneyball comment is that you can't just say "I want to find this in free agency". Baseball and contracts is all about finding the inefficiencies; rarely do you want to do what the Yankees just did or what the Giants did and pay the top end of a market for relievers or any other position for that matter. People love to say "8 million a year in FA for 1 WAR" and if you truly spent money that way, your team would suck and you'd run out of money far before you ran out of wins. The good teams try and sign guys who outperform their contract, no matter the contract or the size. But that means you let the market take you somewhere, not you follow the market. And right now, the market for pitchers who can either pitch high leverage out of the bullpen or are starters is insane both via trade and via free agency. Look at what guys like Ken Giles or Tyler Thornburg are going for. The history of relievers is that the position is highly volatile so beyond a chosen few in the history of the sport (essentially the guys close or in the HOF), you wouldn't want to sign those contracts.
And you're not the only team/guy who thinks "hey, let's look at converting a starter to a reliever and see if he can get outs there". A ton of teams are thinking that way so you're seeing guys like Andrew Cashner, who hasn't been good and healthy for two years, get a ten million dollar deal. If he doesn't work as a starter, I guarantee the Rangers will move him to the bullpen fairly quickly and see if he's a Wade Davis type where a little tick up in fastball velocity and a little more ability to throw breaking pitches gets him to another level. But 1/10 is a huge cost with fairly limited long term upside.
You complain about 2018 but what is Montgomery if not 2018+ beyond? They have arms that project around that time both in the rotation and the bullpen and they also have graduated a few good arms. I mean you sound for lack of a better word, spoiled that a team that is competing for the current WS hasn't found enough controllable arms to also be good in the future. I mean its easy to build a projectable team when you're going from bad to good; it's drastically harder to build the teams after you keep winning and we're seeing that.
I mean, in reality the Cubs have
1. Heavily invested in the 2015 FA market (taking them essentially out of the 2016 draft)
2. Drafted a ton of hitters early in drafts
3. Signed tons of money in the IFA on hitters
4. Missed with fairly big deals to IFA pitchers (Tseng, Concepcion, Chang Yong-Lim, Armando Rivera)
5. Watched a few of their first arms drafted (Johnson, Williams, Rob Z) not really flash high ability out of the bullpen
So they haven't gotten here for lack of trying; between failure to sign good IFA and allocating capital in the draft to other things, the middle and back end of their bullpen looks weak in future years. But even in 2018, they have projected a very good closer (CJ Edwards) and a few decent arms (Grimm, etc) and the thing about bullpens is you simply never know where you find a great arm. Rondon was a rule 5 guy and Stropp was a throw-in for Scott Feldman.
