I like your Cubs trade, give up assets of surplus (CF, fringe AAA/ML starters) and obtain positions of need (SP, RP). That's the ideal way. I agree we need to add to our current rotation depth, not swap current starting pitchers for other starting pitchers.
For a rental that isn't Ohtani, no f**king way. It would be an absolute non starter. Snell and Stroman aren't even dominant pitchers, their peripherals are basically the same level as Hunter Brown. Don't get me wrong, I would love to add them, but if I'm making a YOLO trade like that, I want a beast.
Bregman is showing more and more inconsistency every year. I do not see a huge nor a particularly long contract in his future without a career year next season.
Guarantee? You are absolutely right, in fact there are NO guarantees in baseball. We could trade for Cease and Robert and miss the playoffs But if we get our offense healthy we are as good as anyone in baseball. we have played a majority of the year without our best and 3rd best hitters, and we are within range of the division lead.
Then in the biggest sellers market I can remember, I would prepare to go to battle the rest of the year with our current rotation, maybe add a guy like Lorenzen or something would be about it. This years market is likely to be much more like the ones of several years ago in terms of prices. Someone will definitely be willing to give up a back end top 100 guy like Gilbert for a guy like Snell. Snell may not be "dominant" but dude has a .2.67 era and 143 K's, only three pitchers in all of baseball have more K's and his era is more than a full run better than any of them.
Almost every proposed package that included Gilbert was for players that weren't rentals. Robert has 4 years of control after this season at a very attractive 20 million the last 2 seasons. Cease has 2 years of control. I would give up anyone (not everyone) in the org not named, Alvarez, Altuve, Brown, Javier or Framber, for those 2. Pick any position player from the outfield or infield position that Dubon can backfill, pick any pitcher not named, and pick any prospect, and get the deal done. If they want Pena or Tucker, Gilbert, and Garcia, I would be all for it. I would add another prospect fron Graveman.
I would be fine with Lorenzen (or some other middleish of the rotation type) and a bullpen arm if the cost to rent one of those 2 is Gilbert. If we're moving him, I want a few team controlled years. I don't think the net impact of a player with 3.5 ERA peripherals versus a player with low 4 peripherals is very much over such a small sample, even if the ERA difference makes it look like there is.
I would probably give up Gilbert as the headliner for Stroman, Bellinger, and Leiter, but I wouldn’t give up a lot more with him. I really don’t think Gilbert is a “back end Top 100” guy at this point. He is a smack dab middle Top 100 guy; not in anybody’s Top 25 but a pretty consensus 30-80 ranked prospect. I think Chicago would be doing well to get a prospect that good for a couple of rentals and a RP who just broke out. Astros get: CF Cody Bellinger SP Marcus Stroman RP Mark Leiter Cubs get: OF Drew Gilbert OF Justin Dirden RHP Forrest Whitley RHP Enoli Paredes
Incoming Drew Gilbert 2024 NL ROY He kind of already feels like a Cubs legend. NL All-Star Drew Gilbert
Why can't we look at Bobby Witt Jr ,Scott Barlow and the C/OF Melendez? That should be a decent but not hurt full trade that would still make us able to make a bigger trade.
Happ/Gilbert/Suzuki is a pretty solid OF projection with Morel as the 4th guy. Their IF is pretty solid as well (Mervis, Hoerner, Swanson, Wisdom, Madrigal). After this trade, they could flip Gomes, Smyly, Hendricks, and Fulmer for bullpen and depth arms, making their only offseason need a ToR P to pair with Steele and Taillon (they have a good stable of arms in AAA: Brown, Wicks, Wesneski, Killian, who can fill out the back of their rotation) and maybe a veteran C.
If you read the beginning of my post on this, I said realistic trade ideas. As stated, yes getting those two would be great. There is just way less than a 1% chance that CWS trades them both, and if they did we could and very likely would be way outbid. It's just not gonna happen, but if you want to keep your hopes up over it for the next 10 days feel free
It's not just the era looking good though, dude's strikeout rate is phenomenal. And we have a history of making pitchers better
Impossible to know what other organizations rank other teams prospects, but it's fair to say it would be a lot different, one way or another, from the national publications But most of the publications had him 70-100 on their last updates, and he obviously has done nothing at AA to make them move him up. Yes, maybe he isn't fully healthy and may there are reasons he is performing so poorly at AA, but just being realistic, regardless of the reasons, he isn't moving up prospect boards right now with his performance at AA. Hopefully it turns quickly I would probably do that deal also, but I also wonder if the Cubs are really looking for a top CF prospect as the main piece in return for their moves. Crow-Armstrong is their top prospect and a stud defender, and Alcantara is also knocking on the door there and a stud defender. They have Happ and Suzuki controlled until 2027. I know my posted proposal was led by Meyers who's value is led by his defense also, but in reality the Cubs are likely to take the best pitching package they can get if they move those guys
I'm not disputing or even referencing that. I'm simply saying that owners and GMs have never passed orcreduced spending on a healthy FA because of contract history. So it's extremely unlikely that Rendon's, Bryant's, or anyone else's past contract keeping Bregman from getting a huge FA contract. I agree about Bregman wanting to he here and willing to sign a SLIGHTLY discounted extension. He appears to be driven by respect more than money. He was pissed when he was "renewed" in spring of 2019 and sn extension was quickly worked out. I do think that the Rendon and Bryant contracts matter because they set the market and tell Alex what a disrespectful offer would be. Less than Bryant's would be low balling him although he will be a year older so a year shorter or slightly smaller guarantee over same years could be explained and maybe worked out.
We can look at them all we want, we can also look at Cole, Strider, Gallen Explain why you think KC would be interested in trading Witt and Melendez especially
Contracts have risen since either of them signed With the tax threshhold going up, contracts will continue to rise also Bregman is going to get paid, I hope it is by us cause he is WAY better than most CF posters give him credit for
