2016 MLB Offseason Thread

[SKO]

Shocker: As usual, Mathyoo Trooblud thinks nay, knows he would be better at professional baseball decisionmakers' jobs than they are.  Theo won a World Series?  Isn't that cute.  Mathyoo would have won five.

More importantly, because the Cardinals have locked up Fowler for long enough to ensure that he'll slow down before they're done paying him, he isn't going to be without value when he does need to move out of center field. His improved power and tremendous approach have made sure of that. Looking at the body type and considering the way it moves, it's not hard to imagine Fowler being an excellent first baseman in his mid-30s, and unless the strikeout rate keeps climbing, he could bear the offensive burden of that position.

St. Louis' prospective lineup for 2017:

Dexter Fowler - CF
Matt Carpenter - 1B
Aledmys Diaz - SS
Stephen Piscotty - RF
Yadier Molina - C
Randal Grichuk - LF
Jhonny Peralta - 3B
Kolten Wong - 2B

That's a bit less sexy than the Cubs' projected lineup, and quite a bit older, and loaded with a fair amount of injury risk, and an inferior defensive group. That said, it's reasonably close to being as good as Chicago's, and is on par with the lineups of the Nationals, Pirates, and Dodgers, among other solid NL contenders. Fowler will cost the team about the same amount each season as the Cubs have paid to add Wade Davis, Koji Uehara, and Brian Duensing to their bullpen mix. The Cubs could have spent their money better by re-signing Fowler, and the Cardinals are right back in the thick of the NL Central race because they were wise enough to make a splash.

1. Fowler costs the same per season as Davis, Uehara, Duensing.
2. Davis, Uehara, Duensing are only signed for one year.
3. The Cubs should have signed Fowler for five years for that money, even though they already have a first baseman signed through the same five-year period who's better than Dexter Fowler for a lot less money and even though their outfield is already overcrowded and even though they have a young centerfield prospect to develop, because reasons.

Suck it, Theo.  QED.

That's a bit less sexy than the Cubs' projected lineup, and quite a bit older, and loaded with a fair amount of injury risk, and an inferior defensive group. That said, it's reasonably close to being as good as Chicago's

I mean yeah, other than being older and injury prone and worse in every way, it is comparable to Chicago's. But what can you expect from the guy writing "Maybe Steven Piscotty is better than Kris Bryant?" articles back in May.

Yeah that's the sentence that stood out for me (Fowler at 1B strikes me as being deliberately provocative so I'll let it go as such).

I don't know what the logical fallacy is called for saying "well this this and this is why one outcome is likely, but it's reasonable to conclude that this opposite outcome will happen" with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO BACK UP THE OTHER OUTCOME but this idiot had nailed it.

Deliberately provocative or not, saying it's "not hard" to imagine a guy with a career slugging % of .422 aging into an excellent first baseman in his mid-30s, when his already-not-substantial power is well into the decline phase is just fucking nonsensical garbage.

Not defending this Mouthbreather, mind you, but hasn't Fowler's HR #'s gone up?

DPD, but here's what ZiPS projects for Dexter offensively over the length of that contract in STL:

.259/.360/.406, 11 dingers, 2.8 WAR
.258/.358/.415, 11 dingers, 2.5 WAR
.259/.359/.408, 10 dingers, 2.3 WAR
.258/.356/.403, 9 dingers, 1.9 WAR
.255/.347/.391, 8 dingers, 1.4 WAR

For the first three years of that deal he should be pretty much the same solidly above average CF he has been, then he declines a bit to a below average but still useful outfielder. If you put that batting line at first base, though, that's a little worse than what Joe Mauer just did this year for the Twins and he was worth a whopping 1 win. If that's an excellent first baseman, then fuck me, Anthony Rizzo is a literal God.

[Brownie]

I look at the Cardinals' projected lineup, and they have nice supplementary players in the lineup. Sure, a few can have career years, and then you have a team that could capitalize on a bad Cubs 2017 and compete for the Division title. This team probably is in the wild card mix, especially if their pitching holds together.

The Cardinals lineup reminds me of a pre-2012 Cubs lineup. Good enough where you can think that if the right things break, hey, anything can happen. But really, it's an old lineup with a lot of flawed players. Fowler is a useful piece, but his value is a little higher when he has a World Series MVP, two bonafide MVP candidates, and emerging stars like Russell, Soler, Contreras down in the lineup. Also, Fowler's defensvie WAR increased, which is nice. He's not a defensive liability by any stretch, but did it help that he got to play alongside Hayward and NotSchwarber for the whole season?

[SKO]

I look at the Cardinals' projected lineup, and they have nice supplementary players in the lineup. Sure, a few can have career years, and then you have a team that could capitalize on a bad Cubs 2017 and compete for the Division title. This team probably is in the wild card mix, especially if their pitching holds together.

The Cardinals lineup reminds me of a pre-2012 Cubs lineup. Good enough where you can think that if the right things break, hey, anything can happen. But really, it's an old lineup with a lot of flawed players. Fowler is a useful piece, but his value is a little higher when he has a World Series MVP, two bonafide MVP candidates, and emerging stars like Russell, Soler, Contreras down in the lineup. Also, Fowler's defensvie WAR increased, which is nice. He's not a defensive liability by any stretch, but did it help that he got to play alongside Hayward and NotSchwarber for the whole season?

The thing about the Cardinals lineup this year and presumably next year is that is a deep lineup full of complementary players. With Carpenter on the wrong side of 30 and looking unlikely to top 5 wins again it is a lineup very short of stars, but it also lacks holes. They should have an average or above average (but not great) player at every spot. Just using the current fangraphs projections for next year:

Cubs projected position player fWAR

Contreras, C: 3.2
Rizzo, 1B: 5.7
Baez, 2B: 2.7
Russell, SS: 4.2
Bryant, 3B: 6.9 (very nice)
Schwarber, LF: 2.1
Heyward, CF: 3.1
Zobrist, RF: 3.1

Total of 31 wins from that group.

Cardinals:

Molina, C: 2.5
Carpenter, 1B: 2.8
Wong, 2B: 1.6
Peralta, 3B: 1.5
Diaz, SS: 2.8
Grichuk, LF: 1.8
Fowler, CF: 2.8
Piscotty, RF: 1.5

Total: 17.3

Now granted one is ZIPS vs Steamer, because the Cardinals ZIPs haven't come out yet but I doubt the difference between the two systems is gonna tack 14 wins or anything close to that onto the Cardinals projection. They have some solid bench pieces, too. They've got a lot of 1-2 win players they can plug and play all over the field, which is exactly what they had last year, and it got them to 86 wins. If they pitch better this year they could do better than that, but even with Fowler I think they score fewer runs than last year because they had abnormally high homer numbers across the board  (including that ridiculous record number of pinch hit HRs they got) and Moss/Holliday are gone and Gyorko seems unlikely to do that again.

They also don't look particularly great defensively at any position. Fuck them.

[Brownie]

Exactly, SKO. Also, Heyward's fWAR puts him tied for fifth on the Cubs, but he'd be a full 1/3d of a win better than the two best Cardinals position players, Carpenter and Fowler.

[Saul Goodman]

I look at the Cardinals' projected lineup, and they have nice supplementary players in the lineup. Sure, a few can have career years, and then you have a team that could capitalize on a bad Cubs 2017 and compete for the Division title. This team probably is in the wild card mix, especially if their pitching holds together.

The Cardinals lineup reminds me of a pre-2012 Cubs lineup. Good enough where you can think that if the right things break, hey, anything can happen. But really, it's an old lineup with a lot of flawed players. Fowler is a useful piece, but his value is a little higher when he has a World Series MVP, two bonafide MVP candidates, and emerging stars like Russell, Soler, Contreras down in the lineup. Also, Fowler's defensvie WAR increased, which is nice. He's not a defensive liability by any stretch, but did it help that he got to play alongside Hayward and NotSchwarber for the whole season?

The thing about the Cardinals lineup this year and presumably next year is that is a deep lineup full of complementary players. With Carpenter on the wrong side of 30 and looking unlikely to top 5 wins again it is a lineup very short of stars, but it also lacks holes. They should have an average or above average (but not great) player at every spot. Just using the current fangraphs projections for next year:

Cubs projected position player fWAR

Contreras, C: 3.2
Rizzo, 1B: 5.7
Baez, 2B: 2.7
Russell, SS: 4.2
Bryant, 3B: 6.9 (very nice)
Schwarber, LF: 2.1
Heyward, CF: 3.1
Zobrist, RF: 3.1

Total of 31 wins from that group.

Cardinals:

Molina, C: 2.5
Carpenter, 1B: 2.8
Wong, 2B: 1.6
Peralta, 3B: 1.5
Diaz, SS: 2.8
Grichuk, LF: 1.8
Fowler, CF: 2.8
Piscotty, RF: 1.5

Total: 17.3

Now granted one is ZIPS vs Steamer, because the Cardinals ZIPs haven't come out yet but I doubt the difference between the two systems is gonna tack 14 wins or anything close to that onto the Cardinals projection. They have some solid bench pieces, too. They've got a lot of 1-2 win players they can plug and play all over the field, which is exactly what they had last year, and it got them to 86 wins. If they pitch better this year they could do better than that, but even with Fowler I think they score fewer runs than last year because they had abnormally high homer numbers across the board  (including that ridiculous record number of pinch hit HRs they got) and Moss/Holliday are gone and Gyorko seems unlikely to do that again.

They also don't look particularly great defensively at any position. Fuck them.

All I'm hearing is it's definitely "reasonably close to," if not as sexy as, Chicago's. That's all I need.

[SKO]

http://www.masslive.com/redsox/index.ssf/2017/03/david_price_boston_red_sox_lef_6.html

Trying to balance feeling bad about David Price cuz he seems like a legitimately nice dude with Red Sox schadenfreude (which is actually somewhat rational these days since the odds of a Cubs/Red Sox world series are better than zero), and so far the schadenfreude is winning. Wish it had been Sale.

[Quality Start Machine]

http://www.masslive.com/redsox/index.ssf/2017/03/david_price_boston_red_sox_lef_6.html

Trying to balance feeling bad about David Price cuz he seems like a legitimately nice dude with Red Sox schadenfreude (which is actually somewhat rational these days since the odds of a Cubs/Red Sox world series are better than zero), and so far the schadenfreude is winning. Wish it had been Sale.

If schadenfreude is what you're after, it would be better if Sale had a Kershaw year.

[Saul Goodman]

http://www.masslive.com/redsox/index.ssf/2017/03/david_price_boston_red_sox_lef_6.html

Trying to balance feeling bad about David Price cuz he seems like a legitimately nice dude with Red Sox schadenfreude (which is actually somewhat rational these days since the odds of a Cubs/Red Sox world series are better than zero), and so far the schadenfreude is winning. Wish it had been Sale.

If schadenfreude is what you're after, it would be better if Sale had a Kershaw year.

...only to lose Games 1 and 4 (on short rest) to the back-to-back World Series champs.

[Brownie]

http://www.masslive.com/redsox/index.ssf/2017/03/david_price_boston_red_sox_lef_6.html

Trying to balance feeling bad about David Price cuz he seems like a legitimately nice dude with Red Sox schadenfreude (which is actually somewhat rational these days since the odds of a Cubs/Red Sox world series are better than zero), and so far the schadenfreude is winning. Wish it had been Sale.

If schadenfreude is what you're after, it would be better if Sale had a Kershaw year.

...only to lose Games 1 and 4 (on short rest) to the back-to-back World Series champs.

And to have Price slowly return in 2018 and frustrate Red Sox brass, knowing he won't opt out of his deal, so after a rocky start to 2019 they agree to eat most of his salary and deal him for a song to the Chicago Cubs just in time for Price to have a late career revival at 33.