You're the GM (Game)

[brett05]

That's before shedding any salary too. Not tendering Wood is almost $6 million, trading Castro is $8. If Soler goes in a trade for pitching that's $4 mil so whatever the trade difference would come off as well.

Except for the money they'd be taking on. It's seeming that $20 million may be the right number.

 

[brett05]

That wasn't even praise on Hendricks. The entire point of the comment was people view Gray as "elite" and his k/9 is worse than Hendricks who by your comments is a #5 starter along with him walking more batter per 9. Certainly those aren't the only things that matter when talking about a pitcher but that essentially puts his FIP on a similar level to Hendricks. The point I was trying to make is I think Gray closer to Miller than he is to Sale.

Gray has the better k/9 over 162. And I'd disagree as I think most would. Gray is closer to Sale than Miller. Just last year Gray was 3rd in CYA, Sale 4th. We get it you don't like Gray. No issues there. Some people don't like bacon either.

 

[TC in Mississippi]

Gray has the better k/9 over 162. And I'd disagree as I think most would. Gray is closer to Sale than Miller. Just last year Gray was 3rd in CYA, Sale 4th. We get it you don't like Gray. No issues there. Some people don't like bacon either.

People don't like BACON????? The horror!

As far as Gray goes this is another one where stats don't tell the whole story. I've watched him pitch, making a point to catch at least part of many of his starts last year after hearing that he was a favorite of Jed and Theo (he was their alleged target in the Samardzija deal but Beane wouldn't let him go). He's constantly evolving and he's only had 2 years as a full time starter. He has a decent changeup that he had been throwing quite a bit prior to 2015 but he worked on his slider last off season and relied on that as his out pitch more than the straight change. It's a good slider and it's going to get better. Dude is 26 years old. I like Miller fine and would be happy if he became a Cub but the ceiling of Gray is much higher.

 

[chibears55]

Lmao. .
Think it funny reading everyone guess on who the Cubs will sign or trade for and how much they will spend. ..

It wouldn't surprise me if they ended up with a couple guys that wasn't even on anyone radar ....

As far as trading guys. .. it no secret that between this offseason and next their going to have to move a couple players to either make room for upcoming players that are ready or trade such players cause their blocked. .

 

[TC in Mississippi]

Lmao. .
Think it funny reading everyone guess on who the Cubs will sign or trade for and how much they will spend. ..

It wouldn't surprise me if they ended up with a couple guys that wasn't even on anyone radar ....

As far as trading guys. .. it no secret that between this offseason and next their going to have to move a couple players to either make room for upcoming players that are ready or trade such players cause their blocked. .

You're absolutely right. We all know nothing and it's making everyone nuts. That's offseason baseball before the winter meetings in a nutshell for you. Nothing new here.

 

[beckdawg]

Gray has the better k/9 over 162. And I'd disagree as I think most would. Gray is closer to Sale than Miller. Just last year Gray was 3rd in CYA, Sale 4th. We get it you don't like Gray. No issues there. Some people don't like bacon either.

I'm not sure I'd use award voting as justification. To me, Sale is the type of pitcher who can just go and entirely shut you down and there's not much you can do about it if he's on his game that day. When I think about the term "ace" that is how I view it. Gray is a guy who relies more on ground balls. I'll give Gray credit in that from what I've dug into his numbers he seems to pitch in such a way that he's going to have a lower than average BABIP(presently .268 and that's probably sustainable). However, historically those type of pitchers haven't been considered among the elite over long periods of time.

The top 10 pitchers in terms of fWAR who have less than 8 k/9(Gray is 7.68 on his career) and greater than 2.5 bb/9(Gray is 2.80) are Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver, Lefty Grove, Bob Gibson, John Smoltz, Phil Niekro, Andy Pettitte, Tom Glavine, Mickey Lolich, and Jerry Koosman. While on the surface seeing some of those names like Carlton and Gibson doesn't seem all that bad, you have to keep in mind that K rates are among the highest ever the past couple years and of those only Smoltz, Pettitte and Glavine have pitched in the past 20 years. No disrespect to Pettitte and Glavine but I'm not sure they were ever a top 5 pitcher in baseball in any given year and those are literally your cream of the crop for the past 20 or so years under those conditions. Possibly 1997 with Pettitte but that's the only year either had above 6 fWAR. This sort of bears itself out with the fact that since 1988(Glavine's rookie year) they are 9th and 10th in fWAR. Incidentally, Tim Hudson who I also compared Gray to was 19th.

Now maybe I have a higher opinion on Schwarber than you do as clearly I have a lower opinion on Gray. I don't think it's outlandish to suggest as a hitter alone he could be top 5 in the league. He hit 16 HRs in a rookie year of 273 PAs. If you prorate that over 650 PAs for a full season that's 38 HRs. Only 15 players hit more than 35 HRs last season. Schwarber had an OBP of .355. Of those 15, only Machado, Ortiz, Encarnacion, Jose Bautista, Josh Donaldson, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Chris Davis and Nelson Cruz had an OBP over .350. Obviously he was a rookie and you'd expect at least some improvement so for the sake of argument if you up that to .370 you're now talking about just Encarnacion, Bautista, Donaldson, Trout, and Harper with honorable mention to Cruz at .369.

So, to compare Gray to Schwarber(plus more apparently) just doesn't add up. Gray probably has less top end potential, he's a pitcher with those additional injury risks and he has less control. I'd much rather go after someone like Teheran who is coming off a down year but from a underlying number perspective isn't that much worse than Gray with a 7.7 k/9 for Teheran vs 7.68 for Gray, a 2.53 bb/9 vs 2.8 for Gray and a 3.90 FIP vs 3.36. Or, if you're dead set on giving up Schwarber, I'd rather go after someone like Sale who I think has a higher top end than Gray who's 10.3 k/9 is only .3 behind Randy Johnson's highest career k/9(min 1000 IP).

It's not that Gray is a terrible pitcher because clearly he isn't. I just think talking about him in the same conversation as Sale is pretty foolhardy and I'm not even a Sox fan. If we're talking Sox pitchers, he's far more Jose Quintana than Sale and I'd probably rather have Quintana than Gray too. When you really dig into the numbers, there's a lot of guys who are similar to Gray. Even if we go by his best stat(ERA) he was still 9th last year. Most of the rest of his numbers fall in the 15-20 range. However, the talk on him people have is basically a top 5 or so pitcher and to me there's a clear difference there hence calling him overrated.

 

[CSF77]

They would be stupid to trade Schwarber. He is the best pure hitter to come out for a while and most teams would have passed on him.

He showed the ability to strike out around 16% with a 14% BB rate while pushing out a HR rate that pushes 30-40 per. That is like having Bryant with out the SO flaw to his game. As a DH his value is unmeasurable because they can hit his flaw and let him mature as a catcher later on in his career vs losing D value on the field. A AL team could center their line up around his bat.

The thing is the Cubs have so much hitting talent right now that it clouds over just how good each one is.

 

[beckdawg]

As far as Gray goes this is another one where stats don't tell the whole story.

People say this often but to be frank, I think what they really mean is it doesn't fit their narrative. I mean obviously there's cases where a pitcher gets super unlucky with HR/FB rates and his actual ERA is far above his FIP and other such cases. In regards to Gray, I don't see it that way. If you want to argue he's a pitcher who will out pitch his FIP for his career I think that's reasonable because thus far he's shown the ability to out pitch his BABIP. However, the thing is he's already done that for the past 2 years.

Outside of that I'm not really sure how his numbers are deceiving. He's never at any professional level thrown for higher than 9 k/9. His best walk rate was last year at 2.55. So, to suggest there is more than this strikes me as a reach. I mean obviously he could get marginally better but I don't really see him suddenly jumping to a 8.5 k/9 for example and like wise I can't really see him suddenly dropping below 2 bb/9. And at roughly those numbers he's probably a 3.5-4.5 fWAR pitcher year to year. Obviously that's a pretty good pitcher as I mentioned but my contention was never that he was a bad pitcher. In the AL alone last year there were 8 pitchers(Price, Sale, Keuchel, Kluber, Archer, Quintana, Carrasco and McHugh) with a higher fWAR and outside of maybe Quintana and McHugh I think you'd have a tough time arguing Gray's a better pitcher than those guys.

And I guess that's my point. When you actually sit down and compare them it's hard to make an argument for Gray over those guys plus any number of NL pitchers.

 

[DJMoore_is_fat]

Well, with the Rosenthal story it appears like we'll have extremely limited financial flexibility. If that is the case, maybe we should move Baez to CF. Maybe we could salary dump Castro for a few arms and pick up Zorbrist to play 2B. At that point we can add one mid-tier SP -- like Lackey.

It would definitely be a disappointing off-season but having such little cap space, it's a way to fill holes. I heard Crane Kenney on the radio recently saying Theo was given a large increase. Apparently his idea of "large increase" is different than everybody else.

I know Zorbrist can get on-base but how is his defense at 2B? Who would be the better defender at 2B next season -- Zorbrist or Castro? I believe moving Castro could open up a larger role for La Stella. La Stella/Zorbrist could be inter-changeable parts -- especially with Russell's injury history at SS.

 

[beckdawg]

Well, with the Rosenthal story it appears like we'll have extremely limited financial flexibility.

Unless I read it wrong, didn't he say they'd have $20 mil over what we had last year? If so, that's by no means "extremely limited." Last year their opening day payroll was around $120 mil meaning they'd be in roughly the $140 mil range. They already have 31 guys on payroll according to baseball ref at around $120 mil assuming they tender every player which they almost certainly wont.

Additionally, they are on the hook for $11 mil this year for releasing Jackson. So, realistically you can structure a deal such that a player makes a bit more in 2017 and a bit less in 2016. They can't sign Heyward and Price for roughly $50 mil but you could pretty easily spend $30 mil and get a CF and a pitcher. Wood is roughly $6.4 mil arb estimate which you may not pick up. Cogs is roughly $4 mil who you might look to deal given he's likely to be a 4th OF. In other words, they have options.

 

[TC in Mississippi]

Well, with the Rosenthal story it appears like we'll have extremely limited financial flexibility. If that is the case, maybe we should move Baez to CF. Maybe we could salary dump Castro for a few arms and pick up Zorbrist to play 2B. At that point we can add one mid-tier SP -- like Lackey.

It would definitely be a disappointing off-season but having such little cap space, it's a way to fill holes. I heard Crane Kenney on the radio recently saying Theo was given a large increase. Apparently his idea of "large increase" is different than everybody else.

I know Zorbrist can get on-base but how is his defense at 2B? Who would be the better defender at 2B next season -- Zorbrist or Castro? I believe moving Castro could open up a larger role for La Stella. La Stella/Zorbrist could be inter-changeable parts -- especially with Russell's injury history at SS.

If the budget is $140 million that's a 17% increase over 2015. Where Rosenthal probably has it wrong, and MLB Trade Rumors and others have called him on it, is his assertion that the Cubs salary commitment after arb will be $120 mil leaving $20 million to spend. That $120 number is way too high. Most estimates have it at $105-$110 with MLB Trade Rumors going with that latter number. If that's the case then they have up to $30 mil to spend (at the high end of Rosenthal's range) before they even look at moving some contracts.

As far as Zobrist is concerned there are reports that 9 teams are in on him and he's looking for about 3/$45 million. That's a $7 million increase over Castro for 2016 and a $6 million increase overall. In 2015, over similar PA's, Zobrist was a 2.1 fWAR while Castro was a .8 fWAR. Even figuring that they both go up a bit and that fWAR gap is similar, maybe 1 win difference between them, that eats up the $7 million right there and you have a player who's 11 years older. I'd think long and hard on that one.

 

[brett05]

Beckdawg,
This will be my last on this I believe so the last word is yours. You are saying Gray wouldn;t have at least a .5 to 1.0 increase in his k rate by going to the NL and getting the #8 and #9 hitters to throw too? Gray is a top 10-15 pitcher with the upside of being in the top 5. Kyle had a nice start, but he's not had a full year and dh guys are never that valuable in trade and always overvalued by their current teams (See Ortiz).

You'd never get Sale with a starting offer of Kyle straight up. That conversation falls on deaf ears. I'm not even sure you would get the conversation started with Q either.

Gray projects to have a solid career. I think at the worst he's Mark Buerhle. That's his floor. What's Kyle's floor? I'm not sure, but guys bust all the time. I think Kyle's ceiling is Adam Dunn. Good ceiling to have by the way. Show me the examples of Sonny Gray pitchers that got traded for less than Kyle. I am not sure that they are out there. I could be wrong though.

And for those that need this to be said, I like Kyle. I don't think he'll ever be anything other than a two tools player. That's still pretty solid if he fulfills his promise.

 

[DanTown]

If the budget is $140 million that's a 17% increase over 2015. Where Rosenthal probably has it wrong, and MLB Trade Rumors and others have called him on it, is his assertion that the Cubs salary commitment after arb will be $120 mil leaving $20 million to spend. That $120 number is way too high. Most estimates have it at $105-$110 with MLB Trade Rumors going with that latter number. If that's the case then they have up to $30 mil to spend (at the high end of Rosenthal's range) before they even look at moving some contracts.

As far as Zobrist is concerned there are reports that 9 teams are in on him and he's looking for about 3/$45 million. That's a $7 million increase over Castro for 2016 and a $6 million increase overall. In 2015, over similar PA's, Zobrist was a 2.1 fWAR while Castro was a .8 fWAR. Even figuring that they both go up a bit and that fWAR gap is similar, maybe 1 win difference between them, that eats up the $7 million right there and you have a player who's 11 years older. I'd think long and hard on that one.

Two things

1. Zobrist's "low" WAR number was due to the fact he turned into a massive negative player defensively. While that's something that happens with age, I'm not so sure that's true regarding his play. I mean he doesn't have to be the usual plus defender he was; his bat's elite enough that if he simply is average defensively, you're probably looking at a 3-4 fWAR guy.

2. Zobrist was basically two guys

Pre Injury (1 month): .240/.304/.400 with per 162 numbers of 12 HR - 93 RBI - 58BB/35 SO
Post Injury (Memorial Day on): .281/.365/.456 with per 162 numbers of 18HR - 70 RBI - 83BB/77SO

The other thing Zobrist does is he bats lead-off and he doesn't strike out, two things the Cubs want to heavily address. So while he's "seven million" more than Castro, he does more for you than Castro does. I mean if you don't get Zobrist, who leads off?

 

[DJMoore_is_fat]

Well, I feel a bit better reading TC and Beckdawg's posts. $25M in cap availability would allow us to bring in pretty much any SP other than Price/Grienke/Cueto. Wonder if we made a mistake not jumping on Zimmerman for $110M though? He seems like the best non-TOR starter.

 

[brett05]

Ben's going to cost around $15 million/yr and for three years more than likely.

 

[TC in Mississippi]

Two things

1. Zobrist's "low" WAR number was due to the fact he turned into a massive negative player defensively. While that's something that happens with age, I'm not so sure that's true regarding his play. I mean he doesn't have to be the usual plus defender he was; his bat's elite enough that if he simply is average defensively, you're probably looking at a 3-4 fWAR guy.

2. Zobrist was basically two guys

Pre Injury (1 month): .240/.304/.400 with per 162 numbers of 12 HR - 93 RBI - 58BB/35 SO
Post Injury (Memorial Day on): .281/.365/.456 with per 162 numbers of 18HR - 70 RBI - 83BB/77SO

The other thing Zobrist does is he bats lead-off and he doesn't strike out, two things the Cubs want to heavily address. So while he's "seven million" more than Castro, he does more for you than Castro does. I mean if you don't get Zobrist, who leads off?

if you had to go in house you'd go with Rizzo right now. You want your best hitters at 1,2 & 4 in your lineup. You could go Rizzo, Schwarber, Soler, Bryant and be fine. It's not ideal though and hopefully you get that leadoff hitter from whoever you pick up to play CF.

I'm not opposed to Zobrist but I think he's going to get every penny of what he's asking for if not more. The Royals have made him their #1 priority to retain over even Gordon and he's the top target of the Mets among others. You just have to ask yourself if he gives you enough value at that price tag given the fact that you need starting pitching and a CF. If the answer is yes I'm good with it.

 

[TC in Mississippi]

Ben's going to cost around $15 million/yr and for three years more than likely.

Yep, at least.

 

[DanTown]

People say this often but to be frank, I think what they really mean is it doesn't fit their narrative. I mean obviously there's cases where a pitcher gets super unlucky with HR/FB rates and his actual ERA is far above his FIP and other such cases. In regards to Gray, I don't see it that way. If you want to argue he's a pitcher who will out pitch his FIP for his career I think that's reasonable because thus far he's shown the ability to out pitch his BABIP. However, the thing is he's already done that for the past 2 years.

Outside of that I'm not really sure how his numbers are deceiving. He's never at any professional level thrown for higher than 9 k/9. His best walk rate was last year at 2.55. So, to suggest there is more than this strikes me as a reach. I mean obviously he could get marginally better but I don't really see him suddenly jumping to a 8.5 k/9 for example and like wise I can't really see him suddenly dropping below 2 bb/9. And at roughly those numbers he's probably a 3.5-4.5 fWAR pitcher year to year. Obviously that's a pretty good pitcher as I mentioned but my contention was never that he was a bad pitcher. In the AL alone last year there were 8 pitchers(Price, Sale, Keuchel, Kluber, Archer, Quintana, Carrasco and McHugh) with a higher fWAR and outside of maybe Quintana and McHugh I think you'd have a tough time arguing Gray's a better pitcher than those guys.

And I guess that's my point. When you actually sit down and compare them it's hard to make an argument for Gray over those guys plus any number of NL pitchers.

Most stats that value pitchers in any way rely heavily on SO because it's a more controllable stat than say hits and other things because we have no idea if BABIP is a product of

1. Elite defense
2. Luck
3. Elite way to create "weak" contact

Here's an example, we can compare Sonny Gray and Chris Sale to each other because they both pitched 208 innings (an extra 2/3 for Sale) and made 31 starts

First, the basics

Gray -
2.73 ERA
3.45 FIP
3.8 fWAR
7.31 K/9
2.55 BB/9
.255 BABIP
.217/.273/.316 against

Sale
3.41 ERA
2.73 FIP
6.2 WAR
11.82 K/9
1.81 BB/9
.324 BABIP
.233/.282/.368

Obviously a few things stand out
- Sale had a horrific BABIP for an elite pitcher (.282 in 2014)
- Sale had historic K and K-BB numbers

Now let's look at a few more numbers

Ground ball rate
Gray - 52.7%
Sale - 42.6%

Flyball rate
Gray - 30.7%
Sale - 35.3%

Line drive rate
Gray - 16.6%
Sale - 22.1%

HR/FB rate
Gray - 9.3%
Sale - 12.5%

By every measure, Gray gives up less "bad" contact (line drives, flyballs, flyball/HR) so while he doesn't get strike outs at close to the rate Sale does, he makes up for that with a fairly rare combo of 50%+GB rate with decent K numbers. I mean sure, Sale will strike out more hitters but in a seven inning start, the difference is usually only 3-4 SO; however, in the other 20+ PA, Sale is more likely to give up a FB, his FB leads to more HR than Gray, he gives up more line drives.

Now, the obvious question is how much did each pitcher rely on their defense. The White Sox famously had the 30th ranked total defense according to Fangraphs but the Athletics had the 26th defense so it's not as if Gray benefited from that.

And while a popular argument has been Gray pitches in Oakland thus he has better numbers, the stats don't bear out that Gray (in 2015) relied on pitching at home. In fact, he gave up significantly more HR in Oakland than away.

Tl;dr: looking at stats like K/9 and FIP are circular stats since they measure the same thing (how well can a pitcher limit contact) but you have to measure if a pitcher does have an elite ability to induce weak contact and/or GB.

 

[DanTown]

if you had to go in house you'd go with Rizzo right now. You want your best hitters at 1,2 & 4 in your lineup. You could go Rizzo, Schwarber, Soler, Bryant and be fine. It's not ideal though and hopefully you get that leadoff hitter from whoever you pick up to play CF.

I'm not opposed to Zobrist but I think he's going to get every penny of what he's asking for if not more. The Royals have made him their #1 priority to retain over even Gordon and he's the top target of the Mets among others. You just have to ask yourself if he gives you enough value at that price tag given the fact that you need starting pitching and a CF. If the answer is yes I'm good with it.

If you bat Rizzo lead off, you significantly reduce the amount of times he bats with runners on base. While I understand the idea that your best hitters bat 1,2, and 4, you also can get Zobrist and then bat him, Schwarber, and Rizzo 1/2/4. The idea behind Zobrist is he costs about an extra WAR a year than Starlin (Starlin is 10.5 AAV over the next four; Zobrist can be had for 15-16). If you can get Zobrist, you solve the lead-off problem AND you get a veteran in the clubhouse that fits in. Also, the Cubs retain the flexibility late game to say bring Baez in and play 2B, move Zobrist to LF and sit Kyle. Zobirst is not a move that can be made with Starlin staying on the roster, but he's probably a better value at 2B than Starlin. That's all you're measuring.

So now you have 20-25 million to address the hole you have in CF (but now you can sign a defensive guy like Jackson and live with the production he gives you from 7/9 in the order) and the rotation. Non tendering Wood gives you 30 million and that means you can maybe give Jackson a deal like 3/30 with eight million this year, 10 million next year, 2M/12M team option. To AJ, it's a guaranteed 2/20 and if he's worth the extra 10M in 2017, he still gets good money. To the Cubs, they move some money around and then maybe have enough to get an elite SP like Grienke or Cuteo.

Zobrist - 2B
Schwarber - LF
Bryant - 3B
Rizzo - 1B
Soler - RF
Montero - C
Russell - SS
P
Jackson - CF

Bench: Coghlan, Baez, Ross, Alcantra/Sczur/, Lastella
Rotation: Arrieta, Lester, FA Arm, Hammel, Hendricks
Bullpen: Rondon, Strop, Grimm, Richard (LHP), two of Edwards/Ramirez/Patton/Acevedo/Cook, Brothers/Rosccup (LHP)

Then you just keep affording raises with money as it opens. Arrieta eats up most of the money that they're giving him+EJax still and then you get Almora in CF in 2017/2018 with AJ out of the picture. Then you also replace Montero with Contreras in a few years, and finally you look to replace Hammel with either a young guy (Johnson, Underwood) or you look to FA for a value signing.

Also, signing Zobrist affords you the luxury of replacing any player in the lineup due to injury with Baez and/or Coghlan. That kind of top 10/11 depth is quite valuable as if the flexibility to move guys around to give them off days/match-up with opposing pitchers.

 

[TC in Mississippi]

If you bat Rizzo lead off, you significantly reduce the amount of times he bats with runners on base. While I understand the idea that your best hitters bat 1,2, and 4, you also can get Zobrist and then bat him, Schwarber, and Rizzo 1/2/4. The idea behind Zobrist is he costs about an extra WAR a year than Starlin (Starlin is 10.5 AAV over the next four; Zobrist can be had for 15-16). If you can get Zobrist, you solve the lead-off problem AND you get a veteran in the clubhouse that fits in. Also, the Cubs retain the flexibility late game to say bring Baez in and play 2B, move Zobrist to LF and sit Kyle. Zobirst is not a move that can be made with Starlin staying on the roster, but he's probably a better value at 2B than Starlin. That's all you're measuring.

So now you have 20-25 million to address the hole you have in CF (but now you can sign a defensive guy like Jackson and live with the production he gives you from 7/9 in the order) and the rotation. Non tendering Wood gives you 30 million and that means you can maybe give Jackson a deal like 3/30 with eight million this year, 10 million next year, 2M/12M team option. To AJ, it's a guaranteed 2/20 and if he's worth the extra 10M in 2017, he still gets good money. To the Cubs, they move some money around and then maybe have enough to get an elite SP like Grienke or Cuteo.

Zobrist - 2B
Schwarber - LF
Bryant - 3B
Rizzo - 1B
Soler - RF
Montero - C
Russell - SS
P
Jackson - CF

Bench: Coghlan, Baez, Ross, Alcantra/Sczur/, Lastella
Rotation: Arrieta, Lester, FA Arm, Hammel, Hendricks
Bullpen: Rondon, Strop, Grimm, Richard (LHP), two of Edwards/Ramirez/Patton/Acevedo/Cook, Brothers/Rosccup (LHP)

Then you just keep affording raises with money as it opens. Arrieta eats up most of the money that they're giving him+EJax still and then you get Almora in CF in 2017/2018 with AJ out of the picture. Then you also replace Montero with Contreras in a few years, and finally you look to replace Hammel with either a young guy (Johnson, Underwood) or you look to FA for a value signing.

Also, signing Zobrist affords you the luxury of replacing any player in the lineup due to injury with Baez and/or Coghlan. That kind of top 10/11 depth is quite valuable as if the flexibility to move guys around to give them off days/match-up with opposing pitchers.

Well I think you need two pitchers so someone is going in a trade, likely Soler, but on the surface this isn't a bad scenario, I just think landing Zobrist might be tough. If someone goes 4/$60 do you still want him? Jackson is going to cost 3/$27 unless he takes a pillow contract. At that price I might look elsewhere and give Baez a shot at CF at least part time.