2024 Divisional Rivals Thread

[KeithStone53151]

8 minutes ago, TURBO said:

But, but, they have Craig Counsell...

It's honestly gotta suck(for Counsell) to go from the team that deals with SP injuries by bringing up prospects(gasser/rodriguez) to the team that reinserts the beyond washed up Hendricks into the rotation. But that begs the question of how they intend to trade for guys like crochet and Robert with a mediocre farm in a very sellers market currently. I guess if they NEED to finish 2 games over 500 and 5 back from the wildcard...they should add at the deadline

[wiguy94]

3 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

It's honestly gotta suck(for Counsell) to go from the team that deals with SP injuries by bringing up prospects(gasser/rodriguez) to the team that reinserts the beyond washed up Hendricks into the rotation. But that begs the question of how they intend to trade for guys like crochet and Robert with a mediocre farm in a very sellers market currently. I guess if they NEED to finish 2 games over 500 and 5 back from the wildcard...they should add at the deadline

Cubs have a pretty consensus Top 3 farm in baseball, so don't know where you're getting the mediocre farm system from.

[KeithStone53151]

14 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Cubs have a pretty consensus Top 3 farm in baseball, so don't know where you're getting the mediocre farm system from.

Fair enough, forgive me for assuming they'd try to fill the significant number of holes in their roster with their prospects if they were actually any good

[Jopal78]

8 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

It's honestly gotta suck(for Counsell) to go from the team that deals with SP injuries by bringing up prospects(gasser/rodriguez) to the team that reinserts the beyond washed up Hendricks into the rotation. But that begs the question of how they intend to trade for guys like crochet and Robert with a mediocre farm in a very sellers market currently. I guess if they NEED to finish 2 games over 500 and 5 back from the wildcard...they should add at the deadline

I’m sure the 8 million dollars a year Counsell is getting has him sleeping well at night.

The Cubs GM is pretty conservative, so I  doubt they would make a major move giving up blue chip prospects to fight for the 2nd wild card if they can continue to tread water until the end of July 

[Fear The Chorizo]

10 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

I just spent a lot of time getting dumber on the cubs forums. The biggest takeaway is that they all seem to think the cubs are going to be buyers at the deadline. What am I missing? They are ahead of 3 teams in the entire NL...

They have to think the Cubs will buy because of the perception of the team having a core of talent that should make them a contender.

Problem is that core actually isn't good enough.  As an organization, they are wandering through big market mediocrity, and their GM is great at building a team that winds up as just that.

[Playing Catch]

57 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Problem is that core actually isn't good enough. 

I just went through current fWAR leaders at each position.

The Brewers have the current divisional fWAR leader at EVERY position except for 1B (Adames tied with EDLC at shortstop). This includes Frelick in RF (for all of you Frelick-haters*). Now granted, the pitching has not been as good as the lineup. But on an every day basis, the Brewers have been so much better than the rest of the division, and it's not really that close.

*It is only taking into account his playing RF, not CF, LF, DH, or 3B

[homer]

A lot of the Cubs starters are vastly underperforming career numbers. Swanson (career OPS 733, this year 650), Happ (791, 718) Hoerner (714, 661) and Bellinger has gone back to being mediocre. They might be banking on those guys to all start hitting over the next month.  In regards to their prospects, they could probably call up Horton at some point but even if he turns things around in AAA he will probably have an inning restriction. 

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

They have to think the Cubs will buy because of the perception of the team having a core of talent that should make them a contender.

Problem is that core actually isn't good enough.  As an organization, they are wandering through big market mediocrity, and their GM is great at building a team that winds up as just that.

In defense of their GM, he has stockpiled their minor league system, his oldest regular is Swanson at 30. (Tauchman 33 has played his way from a bench bat to a regular) Next, other than Bellinger he doesn’t have any bad contracts at the major a league level (how the worm has turned there, Boras got 90 million for an oft injured slightly above average CFer).
 

Now where playing .500 probably gets you in the postseason the Cubs are good enough to shoot for the post season.  Happ, Hoerner, and Swanson are all having the worst seasons of their career none are “old” for major leaguers so they should all be expected to progress towards their career  norms over the remaining 90 games. Besides their ice cold trio the Cubs bullpen is too leaky 

Add a couple of bullpen arms, perhaps a catcher or corner infielder and a 2nd half bounce  back from the aforementioned 3 hitters and the Cubs should be playing meaningful games into late September. 

 

 

[Brian]

12 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

Cubs have a pretty consensus Top 3 farm in baseball, so don't know where you're getting the mediocre farm system from.

But Counsell is like a poop joke, he always stinks. 😂

[StearnsFTW]

1 hour ago, homer said:

A lot of the Cubs starters are vastly underperforming career numbers. Swanson (career OPS 733, this year 650), Happ (791, 718) Hoerner (714, 661) and Bellinger has gone back to being mediocre. They might be banking on those guys to all start hitting over the next month.  In regards to their prospects, they could probably call up Horton at some point but even if he turns things around in AAA he will probably have an inning restriction. 

Horton is hurt.  I doubt you'll be seeing him in Chicago this year.  I'm sure they're going to be very careful with him.

 

 

[KeithStone53151]

1 hour ago, homer said:

A lot of the Cubs starters are vastly underperforming career numbers. Swanson (career OPS 733, this year 650), Happ (791, 718) Hoerner (714, 661) and Bellinger has gone back to being mediocre. They might be banking on those guys to all start hitting over the next month.  In regards to their prospects, they could probably call up Horton at some point but even if he turns things around in AAA he will probably have an inning restriction. 

He's probably their best performing top prospect, but he's gonna be limited on innings this year, next year, and probably for a degree the year after that. This year he's maxed out at 5 innings in an outing and it's doubtful he throws 100 innings this year. 

And there's certainly a very reasonable path to them contending and buying, but it's far from the certainty you'd assume in 5 minutes in the cubs forums. It might be 50/50. I hope they do honestly because it will make them worse long term and not good enough short term.

[Fear The Chorizo]

2 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

In defense of their GM, he has stockpiled their minor league system, his oldest regular is Swanson at 30. (Tauchman 33 has played his way from a bench bat to a regular) Next, other than Bellinger he doesn’t have any bad contracts at the major a league level (how the worm has turned there, Boras got 90 million for an oft injured slightly above average CFer).
 

Now where playing .500 probably gets you in the postseason the Cubs are good enough to shoot for the post season.  Happ, Hoerner, and Swanson are all having the worst seasons of their career none are “old” for major leaguers so they should all be expected to progress towards their career  norms over the remaining 90 games. Besides their ice cold trio the Cubs bullpen is too leaky 

Add a couple of bullpen arms, perhaps a catcher or corner infielder and a 2nd half bounce  back from the aforementioned 3 hitters and the Cubs should be playing meaningful games into late September. 

 

 

I would add to this that at present, the Cubs don't have any MVP-caliber, silver slugger, or cy young-type talent on their roster, either.  That's a big reason there appear to be few bad contracts in their organization....although I'd argue they are paying too much for slightly above average MLB talent at too many positions - which continues to hamstring how aggressive they are in offseason free agency/impact trades.

[tmwiese55]

Nitpick, but I'd certainly call Swanson's contract bad.   I'd have said it since it was signed and its even moreso now.  He has roughly 5/140 left on his deal for his 31-35 year olds seasons.  Even when he's right he's just an average/ok hitter.  Right now, you're paying 25 mil a year for what you can get out of a AAAA player for league min. 

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, tmwiese55 said:

Nitpick, but I'd certainly call Swanson's contract bad.   I'd have said it since it was signed and its even moreso now.  He has roughly 5/140 left on his deal for his 31-35 year olds seasons.  Even when he's right he's just an average/ok hitter.  Right now, you're paying 25 mil a year for what you can get out of a AAAA player for league min. 

Ha! He was a 4.8 bWAR and won the gold glove at SS last year. Sure, he’s having a down year at the plate but for his career he’s Wily Adames with slightly less power.  Fringe major leaguer indeed 

[tmwiese55]

5 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Ha! He was a 4.8 bWAR and won the gold glove at SS last year. Sure, he’s having a down year at the plate but for his career he’s Wily Adames with slightly less power.  Fringe major leaguer indeed 

"right now", which is what I said, he has a 220/290 and 640 ops.   Last year in that stellar year you spoke of he had a whopping .744 OPS.   In his good years with ATL he's generally been a .760 area guy.   He's signed for 5 more years. for 25-28 mil per year

[SeaBass]

46 minutes ago, tmwiese55 said:

"right now", which is what I said, he has a 220/290 and 640 ops.   Last year in that stellar year you spoke of he had a whopping .744 OPS.   In his good years with ATL he's generally been a .760 area guy.   He's signed for 5 more years. for 25-28 mil per year

He's still generated positive WAR this season (0.9 fWAR) despite an 84 wRC+ which means a hefty part of his value is based on defense.

In 2023 he finished with 4.7 fWAR and in 2022 he had 6.6 fWAR. That's with wRC+ values just above average at 104 and 116 respectively.

He's struggling with the bat this year no doubt, but can't ignore the defense.

[tmwiese55]

8 minutes ago, SeaBass said:

He's still generated positive WAR this season (0.9 fWAR) despite an 84 wRC+ which means a hefty part of his value is based on defense.

In 2023 he finished with 4.7 fWAR and in 2022 he had 6.6 fWAR. That's with wRC+ values just above average at 104 and 116 respectively.

He's struggling with the bat this year no doubt, but can't ignore the defense.

Well my post was about hitting, as it said.   

Either way, this overall was about bad contracts, You don't need to pay 25 mil per year for good D and just ok offense. And that just ok offense was in his prime, think what it will be in his mid 30s.  And its already starting in the 2nd year of the contract.    And then also how will that great D be holding up as he gets to 32/33 years old. 

[SeaBass]

6 hours ago, tmwiese55 said:

Well my post was about hitting, as it said.   

Either way, this overall was about bad contracts, You don't need to pay 25 mil per year for good D and just ok offense. And that just ok offense was in his prime, think what it will be in his mid 30s.  And its already starting in the 2nd year of the contract.    And then also how will that great D be holding up as he gets to 32/33 years old. 

So you think he would have gotten that contract if he wasn't a shortstop? Lol. Cool you only want to talk about his offense, I guess nobody should engage in the conversation then since you're rejecting the entire purpose of his means of earning a paycheck. It's not like the Cubs didn't know what his career OPS was when they signed him.

Trea Turner is signed until he's 40 at $27M+ per year. I think the Cubs feel just fine being committed to Swanson until he's 35. There's no reason he can't be productive until then the last 3 months of offensive struggles included.

[tmwiese55]

49 minutes ago, SeaBass said:

So you think he would have gotten that contract if he wasn't a shortstop? Lol. Cool you only want to talk about his offense, I guess nobody should engage in the conversation then since you're rejecting the entire purpose of his means of earning a paycheck. It's not like the Cubs didn't know what his career OPS was when they signed him.

Trea Turner is signed until he's 40 at $27M+ per year. I think the Cubs feel just fine being committed to Swanson until he's 35. There's no reason he can't be productive until then the last 3 months of offensive struggles included.

When did I say he's have got it if he wasn't shortsop? I never said he wasn't good at D, in fact I think I said he and Willy are both good at D several times. My point is big time money isn't worth it for good D, blah O.   You can get guys to play good D for cheap, we have 2 right now. Hoerner just won a gold glove at 2B and came up playing SS.   My guess is Cubs management is the opposite of fine right now watching their big FA signee have to be batted bottom of the order while they're in last place knowing they owe him for 6 more years. Saw him get out with bases loaded tonight. The Cubs fans around me at the games I went to so far this year have already turned on him.  But like you said, they knew the numbers more than me and are smarter baseball guys than me, they can think that if they want. IMO they're wrong though and the money would be better spent elsewhere.

I also didn't say other teams wouldn't also regret their big contracts so I don't know how Trea matters.  That said, his OPSs were in the 900s most years, it dipped his last year with LA.  Then put up 778 last year and has been hurt most of this year while a journeyman stepped in for probably league min and did just fine in his spot.  Yes, I think Phi is going to be kicking themselves for about 6-7 years at the backend, not sure how that makes the Cubs happy to be paying their guy 25 mil the next 5 years to hit poorly, they're happy and proud their only wasting 25 mil for 6 years instead of 10?  Somehow you pointing out Trea helps my point, he was elite much better than Swanson and has already started declining starting at age 29. But, he's also one showing my previous point about paying elite guys being better, he was elite and now as he's dropping off he's still good for a few more years. If you're just good, when you drop off you're just a guy then, that's whats happening with Swanson,

ETA: sorry, just realized this is in a different thread than the other discussion. So some of this is a combo of that, if you didn't read that this might not make full sense and been too much. 

[SeaBass]

11 minutes ago, tmwiese55 said:

When did I say he's have got it if he wasn't shortsop? I never said he wasn't good at D, in fact I think I said he and Willy are both good at D several times. My point is big time money isn't worth it for good D, blah O.

I'm going to admit I misunderstood this, I thought you were trying to have it both ways when I was thinking the Cubs knew his offensive capabilities going in... and yeah I get what you're saying now. Fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion.

I think I still disagree on behalf of the Cubs, their market and spending power allow them to make these types of signings and absorb the risk. Not the Brewers though but they wouldn't. I'm also not going to default to Swanson declining offensively or defensively just because he's over 30. It's been two months and three weeks of struggle in a season where there is significant decline in offensive statistics throughout baseball. I think you're also being overly harsh predicting he'll be bad at age 32 or 33. Maybe overall trends support that but once it goes to the individual level it's more difficult to apply it to everyone.

I have now read the other thread (but hadn't before my previous post) and I wouldn't want the Brewers to sign Adames to a similar one either. Adames does have some intangibles that can't be measured by statistics but end of the day production is king.

Have to kind of disagree on Turner too, I do think the Cubs should be happy with their deal by comparison. I'd take Swanson's deal and production over Turner's just because it's shorter and for less total money. It'd be like adding 3 years and $110M at the end of Swanson's deal. Even being personally more optimistic about a player's early to mid 30s I'd have big reservations about Turner's age 37, 38, 39 & 40 seasons.

[LouisEly]

18 hours ago, tmwiese55 said:

"right now", which is what I said, he has a 220/290 and 640 ops.   Last year in that stellar year you spoke of he had a whopping .744 OPS. 

He's a shortstop - very few SS put up more than that whopping .744 OPS.

Last year 56 players had 100 PAs at shortstop.  Swanson's 104 wRC+ ranked 13th.  His 4.7 fWAR ranked 7th.

In 2022, 49 players had 100 PAs at shortstop.  Swanson's 114 wRC+ ranked 7th.  His 6.6 fWAR was #1 among all SS.

He's easily a top-10 SS in all of baseball, top 15 just offensively, and top 10 SS make a lot of money.

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 hour ago, LouisEly said:

He's a shortstop - very few SS put up more than that whopping .744 OPS.

Last year 56 players had 100 PAs at shortstop.  Swanson's 104 wRC+ ranked 13th.  His 4.7 fWAR ranked 7th.

In 2022, 49 players had 100 PAs at shortstop.  Swanson's 114 wRC+ ranked 7th.  His 6.6 fWAR was #1 among all SS.

He's easily a top-10 SS in all of baseball, top 15 just offensively, and top 10 SS make a lot of money.

If teams are into paying veteran top 10 SS the going rate in free agency, then yes those guys make a lot of money.

However, SS is a position that an organization can prioritize in the draft to have a steady stream of players manning that spot adequately at a much more budget-friendly cost.  It's also a position where you don't want to get stuck with an over-the-hill player everyday who happens to have a bloated longterm contract.

[tmwiese55]

1 hour ago, LouisEly said:

He's a shortstop - very few SS put up more than that whopping .744 OPS.

Last year 56 players had 100 PAs at shortstop.  Swanson's 104 wRC+ ranked 13th.  His 4.7 fWAR ranked 7th.

In 2022, 49 players had 100 PAs at shortstop.  Swanson's 114 wRC+ ranked 7th.  His 6.6 fWAR was #1 among all SS.

He's easily a top-10 SS in all of baseball, top 15 just offensively, and top 10 SS make a lot of money.

Its a record year for offensive SS this year.   Yea, prior to this year Swanson has been fine its not like I'm saying he sucks. But we're talking about the contract the next 5-6 years.   People can overpay for ok hitting SS if they want, its my opinion its not good strategy. use of money But of course a market like Chi can afford to not be the most efficient.

Just think we ran Arcia out of town as an elite defensive SS for not being a good enough hitter, and that was when he was cheap young on rookie contract. Now we're talking about teams not being upset about getting that production for 25 mil per year and the guy entering his 30s.  Obviously Swanson has been more reliable than Arcia was back then, but 25 mil per year or 800k, Arcia had some .750ish years in there too.   Funny part of of that is Atl let Swanson go for the exact reasons I'm saying and replaced him with Arcia for next to nothing who did just fine last year.   And Brewers fans in general, we watched our system produce good defensive SS after another from Hardy, Escobar who we had to trade, Arcia, then get Adames for a relief pitcher, and now have Turang and Ortiz who can do it too.  It's not hard to get good D at SS is what I'm saying so shouldn't have to pay this much unless they can really hit.  And for the origin of this, is this a bad contract? If he stops being a competent 750+ ops and is instead 700 or lower like "right now" as I said then its a real bad contract since you can get D and  that kind of offense for league min and my guess is the Cubs are not happy about the prospects of it right now.

[Thurston Fluff]

20 hours ago, SeaBass said:

He's still generated positive WAR this season (0.9 fWAR) despite an 84 wRC+ which means a hefty part of his value is based on defense.

In 2023 he finished with 4.7 fWAR and in 2022 he had 6.6 fWAR. That's with wRC+ values just above average at 104 and 116 respectively.

He's struggling with the bat this year no doubt, but can't ignore the defense.

I usually take players value that's mostly based on defense with a grain of salt. The problem with using WAR is defense is both hard to measure and it's overall value is hard to quantify. The value of the same player changes depending on external factors. A shortstop's value with a high K, fly ball pitcher is less than for a contact, ground ball inducing pitcher for example.

[SeaBass]

35 minutes ago, Thurston Fluff said:

I usually take players value that's mostly based on defense with a grain of salt. The problem with using WAR is defense is both hard to measure and it's overall value is hard to quantify. The value of the same player changes depending on external factors. A shortstop's value with a high K, fly ball pitcher is less than for a contact, ground ball inducing pitcher for example.

Right. I think the poster I was responding to and I came to an understanding of where our opinions lay. By nature free agency tends to lead to teams paying an inflated price.

I think there's reason for a team like the Cubs to spend on a guy with above average offense and production at a premium defensive position like SS where other teams are willing to accept lower offensive thresholds for similarly good defenders. For the Brewers it makes less sense to spend because obviously they are only able to carry very few players at a time with premium salaries.

In the end it all boils down to teams having different philosophies of attacking value on the margins. Some just don't mind spending big money on what they perceive to be proven players.