Offseason rumors/discussion thread

[TC in Mississippi]

https://twitter.com/MDGonzales/status/1067879963850915840?s=19

Backup middle infielder or starting 2Bmen

He's LaStella's replacement and this is pretty clear sign that Russell is gone. the Cubs have had the luxury of not having to have a backup SS for a few years so they were able to carry a less versatile player with a nice contact bat off the bench in LaStella. Get rid of Russell and LaStella has to go. Bote will be the Iowa shuttle guy if Torreyes sticks.

 

[chibears55]

Cubs make another move...

https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1067891571755032579?s=19

 

[chibears55]

Thought of that too..

Moving on from Lastella

 

[Omeletpants]

He's a bench guy but a useful one. Can basically play anywhere on the infield and maybe some in the OF. Think he's a better defensive version of La Stella but maybe not quite as good a hitter but he's really good with k rate.

I like our bench and LaStella is terrific

 

[beckdawg]

He's LaStella's replacement and this is pretty clear sign that Russell is gone. the Cubs have had the luxury of not having to have a backup SS for a few years so they were able to carry a less versatile player with a nice contact bat off the bench in LaStella. Get rid of Russell and LaStella has to go. Bote will be the Iowa shuttle guy if Torreyes sticks.

Don't really agree this has anything to do with Russell. Cubs need SS depth regardless of whether or not Russell is here because they literally have no one above A+ with talent unless you're counting on Nico starting in AA which may not happen. To me Torreyes is Mike Freeman only with the ability to option him.

 

[beckdawg]

I like our bench and LaStella is terrific

It's not an either or with him. I think it's just adding depth. For example, I don't think this means La Stella is gone but La Stella can't play SS. Ultimately you have to have 3-4 guys on the 40 man who can.

 

[CSF77]

Don't really agree this has anything to do with Russell. Cubs need SS depth regardless of whether or not Russell is here because they literally have no one above A+ with talent unless you're counting on Nico starting in AA which may not happen. To me Torreyes is Mike Freeman only with the ability to option him.

Question is can Torreyes play SS? If so then I see Russell traded or DFA. If not then I agree with you.

 

[beckdawg]

Question is can Torreyes play SS? If so then I see Russell traded or DFA. If not then I agree with you.

Can he play there? Ya probably. Can he start there? No. I don't think so. That's the difference between him and Russell. That's why I see him as emergency depth rather than an either/or with Russell.

 

[CSF77]

Cubs make another move...

https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1067891571755032579?s=19

Ryan is kinda pushing the in house lefty solution. Major league deal so it should end up a Mike Montgomery, Brian Duensing and Randy Rosario competition. Key on Ryan is in 66 innings, he put together a 2.86 ERA with 8.3 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 1.23 HR/9 and a whopping 61 percent ground-ball rate. So I see him as a intriguing in house and so did the Cubs.

 

[CSF77]

Can he play there? Ya probably. Can he start there? No. I don't think so. That's the difference between him and Russell. That's why I see him as emergency depth rather than an either/or with Russell.

I see it as Baez played 160 games last year with 645 PA. I doubt that they need a heavy use SS other than the occasional day off. I'm pretty sure Baez has graduated from slash and will go back to his birth rite.

End of the day Russell has put up 2.9 WAR over the past 2 years. Now that he is getting into the money is a 88 career wRC+ hitter worth investing into?

 

[beckdawg]

I see it as Baez played 160 games last year with 645 PA. I doubt that they need a heavy use SS other than the occasional day off. I'm pretty sure Baez has graduated from slash and will go back to his birth rite.

End of the day Russell has put up 2.9 WAR over the past 2 years. Now that he is getting into the money is a 88 career wRC+ hitter worth investing into?

This is missing the point. The reason you need someone who *can* start there is that injuries happen. I'm fully aware that Baez is very likely to start at SS for the cubs but you're going to have to have someone backing him up plus as mentioned you need injury protection. I don't see Torreyes as a guy who's a lock to be that. I see him more in a AAA depth role.

I mean look he hit .280/.294/.370 last year in the majors. I don't think that's even a guaranteed bench bat. But as Freeman like depth? Sure why not. Freeman was garbage.

 

[Omeletpants]

New proposed Athletics stadium

 

[CSF77]

New proposed Athletics stadium

So is that the reason why they wont fund a team? Sounds somewhat familiar.

 

[CSF77]

This is missing the point. The reason you need someone who *can* start there is that injuries happen. I'm fully aware that Baez is very likely to start at SS for the cubs but you're going to have to have someone backing him up plus as mentioned you need injury protection. I don't see Torreyes as a guy who's a lock to be that. I see him more in a AAA depth role.

I mean look he hit .280/.294/.370 last year in the majors. I don't think that's even a guaranteed bench bat. But as Freeman like depth? Sure why not. Freeman was garbage.

To be honest here, Russell sucks.

He is a over paid back up right now and with Joe's mentality he will end up absorbing PA's running a wRC+ 12% below ML norm. That is some stupid Barney justification to place value to a negative value sum.

So no I do not agree with you on this. Not because of Russell in general but more so from what Joe will do to over rate x amounts of D outs per game to how much run production you lose.

If Russell saves 1-2 outs per game (not runs) over Baez but loses 1-2 runs per game because Zobrist or Happ is on the bench are you gaining anything?

No

So I would rather have a stable line up with wRC+ as the gauge vs UZR150 to who gets the playing time. Sure having a few plus gloves on the bench makes sense. But with Joe you really need to avoid wRC+ that low. Glove seems sexy. Bat will lose you as many games.


If Baez goes DL that is another story. IMO that is where you think trade if long term. Short term you keep a AAAA SS sitting. Dodgers had to deal with this and paid up. Shit happens.

 

[CSF77]

But as far at the numbers go:

wRC+

Happ LF 106 wRC+
Bryant 3B 125 wRC+
Rizzo: 125 wRC+
Baez: SS 131 wRC+
Zobrist 2B 123 wRC+
Schwarber RF 115 wRC+
Contreras C 100 wRC+
Heyward CF 99 wRC+

That is the direction that I would like to see them take. Keep Almora as a 4th OF but test Schwarber in RF some to see if it could be feasible going forward.

But bench:

Almora 89 wRC+
LaStella 86 wRC+
Russell 80 wRC+
Caratini 65 wRC+

I do believe that they should go after a back up vet catcher. A club house leader type. They miss that I believe. Torreyes honestly is meh IMO but as a back up it is ok. Most likely better than Bote. but looking it over honestly this is where they should move if they keep status que.

 

[JimJohnson]

To be honest here, Russell sucks.

He is a over paid back up right now and with Joe's mentality he will end up absorbing PA's running a wRC+ 12% below ML norm. That is some stupid Barney justification to place value to a negative value sum.

So no I do not agree with you on this. Not because of Russell in general but more so from what Joe will do to over rate x amounts of D outs per game to how much run production you lose.

If Russell saves 1-2 outs per game (not runs) over Baez but loses 1-2 runs per game because Zobrist or Happ is on the bench are you gaining anything?

No

So I would rather have a stable line up with wRC+ as the gauge vs UZR150 to who gets the playing time. Sure having a few plus gloves on the bench makes sense. But with Joe you really need to avoid wRC+ that low. Glove seems sexy. Bat will lose you as many games.


If Baez goes DL that is another story. IMO that is where you think trade if long term. Short term you keep a AAAA SS sitting. Dodgers had to deal with this and paid up. Shit happens.

Dude can we let Russell have a full season without injury or off the field distraction before we say "he sucks?" Guy posted a 4.1 WAR in 2016 for Christ sake. C'mon man, you're better than that.

 

[beckdawg]

To be honest here, Russell sucks.

He is a over paid back up right now

He's really not. He was worth 1.5 and 1.4 fWAR the past 2 years which is approx. $12-14 mil in value depending on whether or not you use $8 or $9 mil per war. He's going to make around $4-5 mil via arbitration. It's not even close and that's assuming he's not close to the 2.6 or 3.4 win seasons he posted in 2015/16 or even better than that given you tend to get better as you age in to the 27 year old range.

People want to dump him for the DV stuff but the entire reason I've been saying the cubs wont do that is it's a bad value play. If you want to argue that Torreyes at whatever the league min is and his career 1.7 fWAR over 614 PAs is a better value then that's a different discussion. I don't particularly agree because sure he's close to the value Russell has put up the past 2 years but he has no more upside than that.

Regardless the simple fact of the matter is if you're going to be cheap in FA this year you don't make yourself better by ditching Russell. The roughly $3.5-4 mil you save on him isn't going to be the difference in value he provides. I mean just as an example here $3.5 mil last year was basically Duensing. And even if you're suggesting that dumping him then allows you to play for Machado/Harper, I think that's illogical thinking. If $3-4 mil is what's keeping you from harper/machado it's almost certainly a bad idea to begin with to try and cram them in because if you just barely get under whatever your budget is that problem isn't going away any time soon. You're far better to take your lumps for a year and approach things some other way.

 

[beckdawg]

Circling back to something I've beat to death,

@JeffPassan
Follow Follow @JeffPassan
More
An already-crowded catching market is growing even more saturated, as the Toronto Blue Jays have discussed trading Russell Martin and the Pittsburgh Pirates are open to dealing Francisco Cervelli, league sources told Yahoo Sports. Both are drawing interest from a number of teams.

Martin has one year at $20M left on his deal. The Blue Jays are willing to pay down a significant amount of that, per sources. Cervelli is likewise in the final year of his contract, at $11.5M. Teams love his OBP and makeup, and Pirates have Elias Díaz to play every day.

Martin is an AAV of $16.4 mil. Chatwood for reference is $12.6 mil. If you add in Duensing($3.5 mil) or Kintzler($5 mil) you're basically neutral for 2019. I'd imagine you'd need to give them some cash for 2020 as Chatwood is owed $25.5 mil plus whatever you get with Duensing/Kintzler where as Martin is just owed $20 mil for 2019.

Really seems like this is something the cubs and potentially TOR would entertain. I mean sure Chatwood isn't a great pick up but if they are willing to eat the money on Martin anyways you'd surely rather have a usable player or two rather than just eating the cash. And with Stroman and Sanchez both ending the year on the DL and their 3-5 hardly being set, adding another depth arm in a bad contract swap would at least allow them the option in ST to see if he's fixed things before eating money. Duensing/Kintzler aren't great values either but they really aren't that far off market. Duensing probably would get $1-2 mil were he a FA and Kintzler I imagine would get like $2-3 mil.

The one catch would be that Martin is owed $20 mil more and Chatwood is owed $25.5 mil plus which ever Kintzler/Duesing you add. So, cubs likely would have to pay down some of Chatwood's 2020 salary to make it neutral for TOR but as I said I think the makings of a deal are there. The trade would solve issues for both clubs and if the Jays really wanted to play hard ball they could likely pry a prospect or two away. I doubt anything amazing but it wouldn't surprise me to see a few fringe top 30 types added to make this happen.

 

[CSF77]

Dude can we let Russell have a full season without injury or off the field distraction before we say "he sucks?" Guy posted a 4.1 WAR in 2016 for Christ sake. C'mon man, you're better than that.

He has never broke 100 wRC+ over a whole season. Even in 2016.

WAR IMO is becoming a dinosaur as a measuring stick for value and equaling payment value.

I personally like wRC+ to measure a hitters worth. Because hitters are just that. Sure if they have plus D it inflates and dislike D deflates it some.

But value should. never be based off of a glove first approach. You end up with low scoring games and boring out comes and you lose at the box office.

You are always better off having neutral D and plus wRC+. Sure having a plus D bench player for tightening the D late inning is fine. I just question paying 4M for it.

 

[CSF77]

Circling back to something I've beat to death,





Martin is an AAV of $16.4 mil. Chatwood for reference is $12.6 mil. If you add in Duensing($3.5 mil) or Kintzler($5 mil) you're basically neutral for 2019. I'd imagine you'd need to give them some cash for 2020 as Chatwood is owed $25.5 mil plus whatever you get with Duensing/Kintzler where as Martin is just owed $20 mil for 2019.

Really seems like this is something the cubs and potentially TOR would entertain. I mean sure Chatwood isn't a great pick up but if they are willing to eat the money on Martin anyways you'd surely rather have a usable player or two rather than just eating the cash. And with Stroman and Sanchez both ending the year on the DL and their 3-5 hardly being set, adding another depth arm in a bad contract swap would at least allow them the option in ST to see if he's fixed things before eating money. Duensing/Kintzler aren't great values either but they really aren't that far off market. Duensing probably would get $1-2 mil were he a FA and Kintzler I imagine would get like $2-3 mil.

The one catch would be that Martin is owed $20 mil more and Chatwood is owed $25.5 mil plus which ever Kintzler/Duesing you add. So, cubs likely would have to pay down some of Chatwood's 2020 salary to make it neutral for TOR but as I said I think the makings of a deal are there. The trade would solve issues for both clubs and if the Jays really wanted to play hard ball they could likely pry a prospect or two away. I doubt anything amazing but it wouldn't surprise me to see a few fringe top 30 types added to make this happen.

They need a back up catcher. I would use Caratini in the deal. Chatwood is also ideal to move in it. I doubt they take on Kintzler or Duesing. Cubs most likely eat those deals.