I was on BP Wrigleyville the other day, looking at this fine article written by Isaac Bennett, about the 25th man on the roster. You should read the whole thing, but the relevant bit follows:
Matt Szczur
Path to the Roster: The case for Szczur is trickier than some may realize, as the Cubs don’t currently have another option to replace Heyward in center field. Carrying each of Schwarber, Soler and Coghlan on the roster means that the team has a fairly serious dearth of legitimate late-inning quality defensive options in the outfield. After Baez, Szczur is likely the next man up. It’s also a bit of a myth that he adds nothing offensively, as in a limited sample he has slugged .476 against left-handed pitching, making him a reasonable pinch-hit option against a tough southpaw. Further complicating his case is the lack of minor-league options remaining, meaning he either makes the squad, or likely finds a home elsewhere. His surest path would be Maddon choosing to carry just seven relievers, which would allow Szczur the opportunity to then grab the 25th spot. The odds here are lower—far lower—than those for La Stella.
I agree with Isaac here. Heyward is probably the only player on the roster that can play CF that I'd actually want to play CF more than 10 games a season (sorry, Matt). For as rock-solid as our corners might be, we have a surprising dearth of CF, at least for 2016. We assume that since Heyward is an elite defensive RF that he can just magically slot into center with no issues.
I'm not so certain that's true. The positives are there: Heyward is a well above-average offensive centerfielder, and center field is pretty small in Wrigley. That being said, the Cubs only play half their games in Wrigley, and the smaller outfield is counteracted somewhat by the fact that Soler and Schwarber are the corners. Neither figure to have average range on their BEST days. It's a huge ask for a guy who hasn't played meaningful center in half a decade to slot in there.
Dexter Fowler isn't just the best remaining CF on the market, he's pretty much the only one. He's proven he can play a decent CF; he'd only get better with Heyward to his right. I'm much happier about the defensive capabilities of a Schwarber/Fowler/Heyward than a Schwarber/Heyward/Soler one. The upside to this is that you can also use Heyward as the backup CF instead of the primary: that allows Bryant and Baez to get the occasional spot start at a corner instead of at CF.
Obviously, this leaves Soler as the odd man out. That brings me to the only real weakness I can see in this lineup: #4 starter. As it stands, an Arrieta/Lester/Lackey staff is a top-shelf start to a rotation. After that, you are leaning on Hammel or Hendricks to get you through the playoffs (and the regular season). I think the Cubs have an abundance of options for the 4 and 5 (add Trevor Cahill, Adam Warren, even Travis Wood or Clayton Richard could get another look with all of the lefties hanging around), but I'd be happier if we had a young, promising arm that we could mold into a cost-controlled #2 or #3. The problem with the Rays talks is that they just signed Steve Pearce and aren't really looking for Soler (they want Baez). That said, they are only one team among 29 possible trade partners. If the Cubs could spin Soler for even a cost-controlled #3 or #4, that would go a long way for young, affordable pitching in the future while also making the 2016 squad more competitive.
The counter-argument for re-signing Fowler has two main thrusts, far as I can see. The first is money. I think I've finally just decided to never care about money any more. I don't know how much they are willing to spend, and you probably don't either. I've been surprised year over year (both high and low), so I'm assuming that the Cubs will make their own determinations with respect to value (and they aren't reading this anyway). The second is blocking outfielders in the future. In all honesty, I don't care about that. You can't really operate under the assumption that you have to make room for Almora or McKinney in 2017. They might never make the majors. Someone might get hurt, or traded, or become bad. Even if you were assured of their success, that's a problem for 2017. Let's worry about 2016. Are we a better team in 2016 with Fowler? Almost certainly.
Signing Fowler allows us to have Coghlan and Baez back up the starting outfielders, with the ability to put Heyward in center whenever you want to give Fowler a day off. Playing Schwarber at catcher for 30 games opens up some time there for Baez and Cogs as well. The only piece you lose is potentially Soler, and you can probably extract value from him easily.
Last thing; signing Dexter Fowler means the St. Louis Cardinals can't. Honestly, I run on schadenfreude these days, so that's all the reason I need.
Comments
I was doing my part until today.
mylesQuote Reply
It could triple AND double in the same amount of time
mylesQuote Reply
♫♫ … Back where we belong…♫♫
Suburban kidQuote Reply
I concur with this piece. Fowler in CF, Heyward in RF, Soler for a young-ish cost-controlled starter seems like good offseason baseball to me.
Smokestack LightningQuote Reply
I’d prefer to be as far down the Barstool Sports’ ranking as humanly possible.
mylesQuote Reply
hey jabronis, please only link to Rant Sports articles (preferably written by ChicagoBearJew)
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
Sorry about your bet, SK.
berseliusQuote Reply
If you could send me 10k, that would be great.
berseliusQuote Reply
I wouldn’t be disappointed if the Cubs missed out on Fowler and picked up Jackson instead. But would much rather have Fowler. I can’t believe he’s only 29.
berseliusQuote Reply
I’ll have to liquidate some of my OV stock first.
mylesQuote Reply
Hoyer’s recent comments have made it sound like it’s been tough getting other teams to want to trade young SP, especially in the AL, where there looks to be more parity. You’d think that Cleveland would be a good match, though.
I’d have a couple of mid-term concerns about trading Soler though, given his upside. First of which being that he’ll still be under team control in three years when Heyward probably opts out.
PerkinsQuote Reply
It also doesn’t help that Dave Stewart set the market very high in acquiring Shelby Miller. If I’m Cleveland, Tampa, or San Diego, Soler and a couple of impact prospects is probably the start of negotiations, and that’s a tidy sum.
PerkinsQuote Reply
Sign Fowler. Don’t trade Soler. Get rid of redundant Coghlan. Four man OF rotation keeps everyone fresh, Maddon style. GBTS is the jabroni behind this idea.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
The roster crunch would be less of an issue if they carried a seven man bullpen, but Maddon seems to like the extra arm at the expense of a bench bat.
PerkinsQuote Reply
Oh I think my “bet” has paid off.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
And still fail to score with less than two outs.
ceruleanQuote Reply
Speaking of Coghlan.
ceruleanQuote Reply
Haven’t listened to it yet, but so many people have told me “you’ve gotta listen to this!” that I almost want to refuse out of spite (again, part of my all-schadenfreude diet).
mylesQuote Reply
myles,
You seem to have successfully assimilated our “don’t tell me what to do”-ness. We’ll raise your pay by 2000%
berseliusQuote Reply
berselius,
myles,
One truly devoted to such a credo has to reject such lavish generosity of a 2000% raise declared upon him.
Also, this statement is a lie.
ceruleanQuote Reply
Jake Arrieta is in the best shape of his career apparently. The “best shape in his career” stuff is getting an early start.
dmick89Quote Reply
Muskat’s mailbag from the other day.
dmick89Quote Reply
So… he just didn’t take any days off once the season ended?
Smokestack LightningQuote Reply
It may be early, but it’s a step down from the usual. What you usually hear is that they are in the best shape of their life. Arrieta is only in the best shape of his career.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
It’s almost like the Cardinals and Pirates said “fuck it, unless we get luckier than shit, the Cubs already have this thing won.” I’m surprised at the lack of moves by both of those teams this offseason.
dmick89Quote Reply
Then again, perhaps this was the smartest thing they could have done once the Cubs landed Heyward.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89,
Yeah, I don’t think a panic move to sign Fowler for a bazillion bucks would have been too smrt.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Suburban kid,
Well, not Fowler, but there were some other moves that could probably have been made, but neither team showed any interest. I’m glad, but it’s just odd that the teams with the two best records let a team get so much better than them without much of a fight. Neither team is close to what the Cubs are. That’s awesome.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89,
I think the Cardinals did fight for Heyward, Lackey, Price, and possibly even Zobrist. They lost those battles though.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
The Cards did sign Leake for what I thought was an overpay, though, so they sorta made a panic move…but not really.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Rice Cube,
True that was a little panicky
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Forgot to mention on Friday that my boss brought up that same DARPA article. (dying laughing).
berseliusQuote Reply
Congrats on the new job at BP
MylesQuote Reply
Myles,
???
dmick89Quote Reply
Myles,
(dying laughing)
berseliusQuote Reply
Can confirm
GBTSQuote Reply
GBTS,
Big if true.
berseliusQuote Reply
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Suburban kid,
Thank god he lost. I don’t think I could have handled the media if he’d actually won. I also don’t think I could have handled it personally being that I’m from Iowa. Cruz blows too, but at least it’s a much clearer path now for someone (Rubio) who isn’t as fucked in the head.
dmick89Quote Reply
Rubio is still all kinds of messed up though. He bought a gun on Christmas Eve to protect his family from ISIS. It’s hard to take any of the Republican candidates seriously. The thing about Trump is, he’s basically what the Republican Party has worked on creating the past 7-8 years. In my opinion, the only big difference between Trump and the other candidates is that Trump is willing to say what the others want to say but don’t.
MillertimeQuote Reply
It’s a good idea in theory, but I doubt Heyward would be too thrilled to have his playing time cut down and I’m not sure Fowler would be willing to sign if he’s going to get less playing time. That leaves Schwarber and a true platoon between the two isn’t the worst idea in the world, but I’d rather not limit Schwarber’s chances to hit lefties like that.
dmick89Quote Reply
So, at BN Brett (I think he was the author) mentioned the topic of teams tanking, and how some baseball people think this might be a problem going forward. One of the points Brett made was that sometimes teams decide not to make moves because it just makes little sense for a team to try and be competative and go from a 70 win team to a 73 win team.
To me, this raises an interesting question: How do you incentivise a team to want to win 73 games as opposed to 70? I was thinking that one way to accomplish this would be to order the draft by best non-divisional round record, instead of by having the worst teams pick first, and so on. This probably would never catch on, I’m just curious what people on this fair blog would think.
MillertimeQuote Reply
Millertime,
Just have it so that teams pick in alphabetical order in year 1. Then they take turns picking first over the next 29 years and do it again.
Add another round after the first based on a team’s record.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89,
Not that I favor this. I like how it is now even with teams tanking. The team that is tanking is presumably doing so in order to best strengthen their chances to win down the road. As long as having the best organization long-term is the goal, you are in a way going to incentivize losing so there’s no way out and that’s fine.
dmick89Quote Reply
You could add a salary floor too, but then you have to add a cap and I’m not in favor of that.
To be honest, I like how it is now and don’t care if teams are tanking in order to get better down the road. So be it.
dmick89Quote Reply
I’m not sure tanking is even that good of a strategy. I just thought it would be a good way to reward a team that wins 80 games, instead of making a situation where you’d probably rather win 70 than 80, for the higher pick.
MillertimeQuote Reply
Millertime,
You could incentivize owners who would pass the message down to the GMs. If you incentivize the owners to win (namely, money), you can bet the owners will try harder to win.
I have no clue how it’s currently split up, but let’s say the 7th best record in the NL gets 1.4% of MLB shared revenue and the 8th best record get 1.25%. The 9th best record gets 1.18%. 10th best 1.12% and so on.
JonKneeVQuote Reply
Millertime,
It’s obviously not going to be very effective without a strong front office (scouting, player development, analytics) to support it. The Rockies are probably going to be pretty bad for a few years, but are unlikely to have the same results as the Cubs or Astros (or even the Natinals).
Calcaterra posted something about this as well. The practical application of always trying to win more games in a given season without thought for the future seems to be the White Sox. They spend money and have a few good players in any given year, but are rarely good enough to be considered a real contender. And because they rarely seem to value the future over the present, their future never seems to get any brighter. As a fan, I don’t see how that’s any better than enduring a few lean years with a reasonable expectation of seeing some great ones in the future.
PerkinsQuote Reply
Millertime,
With the current system, it probably is for teams who see themselves as having to get lucky to win 80 games. Take the Cubs from a few years ago, without some extreme good luck, they were going to suck. There was no reason for them to do anything other than tank.
JKV’s comment is interesting, but I’d have no idea where that breakeven point is. Probably somewhere around as much as the difference between a Kris Bryant pick and a middle of the first round pick. Quite a lot of money for sure.
dmick89Quote Reply
So Spring Training starts pretty soon. Dexter Fowler is going to sign somewhere right?
JonKneeVQuote Reply
Do the Draft Wheel. I’ll write a post about it.
MylesQuote Reply
It’s New! It’s Shit!
It’s New Shit!
http://obstructedview.net/heres-how-you-fix-tanking-sort-of-the-futures-draft/
mylesQuote Reply