Padres Give Up Prospects for Yu Darvish While Cubs Give Up
After trading for Blake Snell on Sunday, it was fair to wonder just how far away the Padres are from the World Series-winning Dodgers in the NL West. That gap has narrowed even more if not closed entirely after their latest blockbuster, with Yu Darvish going from Chicago to San Diego on Monday night in a seven-player deal. As for the Cubs, the self-inflicted wounds continue as they cut salary and get worse heading into the final years of team control for the core members of the 2016 championship team.
As reported by The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma:
Padres Receive:
- Yu Darvish
- Victor Caratini
Cubs Receive:
Darvish is the clear headliner, though Caratini should be a decent backup. Davies has posted average peripherals and an above-average ERA the last few seasons. The four prospects are all 20 years old or younger, far away from the majors; Eric Longenhagen will have a separate piece coming out on the quartet heading to the lower levels of the Cubs’ organization, but you can find his preseason write-ups on them (aside from Caissie, a second-round pick in June) in his 2020 Padres list.
Now 34 years old, Darvish has three years left on his deal at a total of $59 million. His tenure with the Cubs got off to a rough start, as he threw just 40 innings in 2018 after dealing with arm issues and struggled in the first half of ’19, too. But since the All-Star break that year, he has been one of the best pitchers in baseball, and while Trevor Bauer won NL Cy Young honors last season, Darvish had an arguably better season facing more difficult opponents.
| Name | IP | ERA | FIP | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob deGrom | 162 | 1.83 | 2.18 | 6.5 |
| Shane Bieber | 179.1 | 2.46 | 2.75 | 5.9 |
| Gerrit Cole | 168.2 | 2.24 | 2.92 | 5.5 |
| Yu Darvish | 157.2 | 2.4 | 2.54 | 5.4 |
| Jack Flaherty | 139.2 | 2.06 | 2.76 | 4.7 |
| Zack Greinke | 153.2 | 3.57 | 3.08 | 4.4 |
| Lance Lynn | 177.1 | 3.35 | 3.72 | 4.4 |
| Mike Clevinger | 143.1 | 2.51 | 3.02 | 4.3 |
| Luis Castillo | 154.2 | 4.07 | 3.24 | 4.2 |
| Zack Wheeler | 147.1 | 2.87 | 3.21 | 4.0 |
Despite Darvish’s age, his projections look fantastic for next season, with his 4.2 WAR ranking fifth among all pitchers in Steamer; ZiPS sees a similar performance on a rate basis. Adding Caratini, meanwhile, solidifies San Diego’s catching at the major league level with a quality big-league backup after Preller dealt away Francisco Mejía as part of the Snell trade.
The Padres stood right around 40 wins on our depth charts after picking up Snell, about four behind Los Angeles, and while Darvish might not put them ahead of the defending world champions, it’s close enough to be a wash at this point. The Dodgers certainly aren’t done with their offseason, but it’s hard to say they are clearly better than the Padres on paper, and we’re talking about probably the best team in baseball.
The Darvish trade also takes San Diego, which has historically spent at a lower level than the rest of the league, to a new tier financially. With Snell and the $11.1 million owed to him in 2021 added to the roster, the Padres were looking at a payroll of roughly $141 million. Tacking on Darvish and his $22 million salary for next season would spike that to around $163 million. That figure will come down some with Davies’ salary — MLB Trade Rumors projects him to make somewhere between $6–11 million in ’21, his third arbitration year — heading to Chicago (and the Cubs eating a portion of what’s left on Darvish’s deal), though that subtraction will probably be canceled out by San Diego’s other big move of the day, signing KBO infielder Ha-seong Kim to as-of-yet-undisclosed financial terms.
Either way, anything north of $160 million would give the Padres the third-highest payroll in baseball. That might seem like a lot, but that figure is right around where they projected to be on Opening Day last year. Also, in letting Garrett Richards, Kirby Yates, and Jurickson Profar hit free agency (as well as finally reaching the end of Hector Olivera’s contract), the Padres are shedding about $30 million in payroll from last season — a figure more or less offset by Snell and Darvish.
Long-term, it looks like San Diego will need to run a payroll at or near similar levels in 2022: Tommy Pham is the only meaningful contract coming off the books at the end of this season, while Fernando Tatis Jr. and Chris Paddack will reach their first year of arbitration. But things will get less expensive after that. Another $30 million will fall off the payroll after 2022, when Wil Myers’s contract runs out and Eric Hosmer’s salary dips by $7 million, and after 2023, Snell, Darvish, and Drew Pomeranz will all hit free agency, representing a savings of $45 million. Despite the cost both in terms of money and prospects of these win-now moves, the Padres have set themselves up with a clear multi-year window to contend, bought their farm system time to recover from these trades (and kept No. 1 prospect MacKenzie Gore), and still left themselves with considerable financial flexibility as their young stars get more expensive. Neither Snell nor Darvish should prevent a potential mega-extension for Tatis Jr., if the Padres are so inclined.
The Cubs are heading in the opposite direction. Darvish was their best player last year and likely would have been again in 2021. With Jon Lester and Jose Quintana both free agents, the current rotation consists of Kyle Hendricks, Davies, Alec Mills, Adbert Alzolay, and Colin Rea, with only Hendricks and Davies projecting as above average. None of the rest of the players acquired figure to be of significant help to the Cubs in the next three years.
It is tough to understand the direction the Cubs are going. Coming off their 2016 title, they went all in for another, trading for Quintana and Cole Hamels, signing Darvish (and Tyler Chatwood), and holding on to their pending free agents as well as Kyle Schwarber, a popular name in trade rumors. That plan mostly worked in 2017 and ’18, when they won 92 and 95 games, respectively, though they failed to get back to the World Series. But while the Cubs had three years of team control remaining for Kris Bryant, Javier Báez, and Anthony Rizzo after that ’18 campaign, as well as two more of Hendricks, Lester and Quintana (with Darvish in tow for the long haul), they also had a payroll of over $200 million and a farm system low on impact and depth. Inaction at that point meant fewer wins in both the present and the future.
Instead, Chicago did nothing that offseason to supplement a win-now team (aside from extending Hendricks) or work toward building a sustainable winner in the future. A predictably disappointing 2019 followed, and despite a winter full of talk of change on the North Side, the Cubs’ only notable move was replacing Joe Maddon with David Ross at manager. They still won the division, thanks in part to a great performance by Darvish, who produced a whopping 44% of the team’s total pitching WAR, only to get knocked out of the playoffs by the Marlins in the first round. And while even a Darvish-less Chicago should still contend in a weak NL Central, there are only two players on the roster under team control beyond next season who project to be worth more than two wins: Hendricks, who turned 31 last week, and Ian Happ. The Cubs’ payroll for next season has now dropped below $140 million with no signs that ownership plans on increasing it; if there is another championship window on the horizon, it’s unclear when it will open.
The Cubs are a win-now team not trying to win now, potentially sacrificing a last title run for another potential one many years into the future. And after this year, they won’t be one future star or free agent away from winning: Consider that it took multiple top draft picks, two phenomenal trades, and several big hits in free agency just to make the 2016 championship happen. Sustainability means little when the level you are hoping to sustain is not all that close to reality. It’s possible the Cubs just received a future star in this deal — the Padres spent nearly $5 million in total signing bonuses on them — but that won’t be clear for another few years. That’s of no help to Rizzo, Bryant, Báez, Hendricks, or even Happ, who will be a free agent after the 2023 season.
With minimal investment, the Cubs could have made themselves clear NL Central favorites and stayed well below the competitive balance tax if they wanted to. They chose instead to cut costs under the guise of building a sustainable winner. San Diego’s payroll projects to exceed Chicago’s by quite a bit right now, and that says a lot more about what the Cubs are trying to do than the Padres.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Will be interesting to see Longenhagen’s take on the prospects, seems underwhelming in return for Darvish, franchise won’t do diddly for a half decade, sport is hurt further by a big market team waving the white flag. Hope the Brewers or someone steps up in the Central to try and compete.
The Pirates, Reds, and Cubs are all actively trying to field worse teams in 2021 and the Brewers likely have no money. There has never been a better time for the Cardinals to spend and be a little aggressive in trades. They won’t catch LA or SD, but StL could dramatically increase their odds of winning the division if they push some chips in. Plus, none of other 4 teams in the NL Central have a great outlook for the 2022 season either.
This is absolutely the Cardinals’ year if they want it. A couple of strong relievers, an outfielder or two, maybe even bringing Wong back if the price is right, and the NL Central is theirs. If they’re worried about money, they should call up the Giants and see if they’d like to buy a low-level prospect for taking Dexter Fowler.
Maybe, but I honestly don’t think they will (I’m a fan). The Cardinals have decent odds to win the division, as-is, especially if the Cubs and Reds are offloading assets and the Brewers don’t have a ton of money to spend on their own offense. I’m sorry, but the Pirates aren’t a consideration, especially if the rumors of trading Musgrove are real.
The Cardinals modus operandi is perpetual contention, as mandated by ownership. They likely won’t spend a lot, as evidenced by the decline of Wong’s option. The only player I would have wanted this year was Ha-Seung Kim, and the Padres already took care of that. The Cards have $60m or so coming off the books after the 2021 season, with Fowler, Carpenter, Miller, Kwang-Hyun Kim, probably Carlos Martinez, and a couple of others leaving in free agency. If Wainwright comes back on a one-year deal, it’ll probably be his last; if Yadi comes back on a two-year deal, it’ll be for less money than he’s earning now.
Not spending this year does a few other things, too. First, it gives development time for some of our younger, upper-tier talent, like Liberatore, Thompson, Gorman, Montero, and Herrera. Added development time for more recent draftees (Wynn, Fletcher, etc.). We also get to see what we have in some players that either haven’t had as much opportunity to perform or have underperformed relative to expectations (Tyler O’Neill, Justin Williams, and, to a lesser extent, Lane Thomas). With $60m off the books, we’re in a better spot to bid on Seager or Story next off-season, who will either push DeJong to 3rd base or play 3rd themselves.
And by that point, we’ll know more about what’s going to happen with the CBA. Financial terms with players might change (QAs, etc.), DH might be mandated (ugh), playoffs might expand (ugh), and even other wilder things (salary floor?) might be discussed, all of which affect FA acquisitions and trades.
Simply put, if they have decent odds to compete for the division this year while standing pat, they’ll do so, because they’ll have more information, more financial advantage, and more development time to prepare for future contention.
So yeah…I’d love for them to push a little in for this year. But I really doubt they will.
The four prospects are all FV45. Seems like a good haul and if you can flip Davies and a few others at the deadline, you look better sooner rather than later.
IMO this is actually a pretty good return. The key issue to remember here is that Darvish is 34, he was awful in 2018, hasn’t posted a 4-win season since 2013, and he’s owed $60M or something. He’s had a few times where he’s been dominant in half-season bursts since then but you have to see the glass half-full on him to see this as contributing to a “multi-year window” of contention. I think the Cubs made out fine here.
All that said I do really like this deal for the Padres too. I see it as a win-win. There are just so few guys who can pitch in the #1 or #2 slot in the playoff rotation, so the price is justifiably high.
True, but since he made a change in June 2019, he’s been phenomenal.
Are you buying that this will hold for a guy who will be 34.5, 35.5, and 36.5 on opening day? That he’s going to stay healthy, that whatever he is doing is going to stick, and that he’s going to keep the same results when he doesn’t get to pitch to the Reds and Brewers and Pirates lineups repeatedly?
I’m deliberately emphasizing the glass-is-half-empty approach because people seem to think that Yu Darvish’s history began in June 2019 and ended in Fall 2020 and that no new history will ever be made, but we are not at the end of history. He’s a good pickup for the Padres and he’s more valuable than the contract (as the prospects going back suggest, and who are actually pretty good) so this narrative that the Cubs got ripped off or something is just not true. The Cubs got a fair return for him.
Zack Greinke, like Darvish, throws roughly a gazillion different pitches and has aged incredibly well despite people constantly predicting his imminent decline due to reduced velocity, etc. Meanwhile Darvish, was throwing the hardest of his career last season.
Zack Greinke also never had TJ surgery, an amazing feat for this era of ball
I’m buying that pitchers are a risk, but his age doesn’t make him more of a risk than a 27 y.o. I’m also buying that he doesn’t necessarily have to perform at the same level as 2020 in order to be a solid pickup for the Padres. Also buying that 3/$60M is a pretty good contract to have for him, even if it does represent some risk. That said, with this offseason’s craziness, who knows if he would get 3/60. The Padres are clearly reading the tea leaves as “things will be more normal next year”.
Both his age and his history of a TJ surgery make him a bigger risk for a second. There is certainly more risk with Darvish than a healthy 27 year old pitcher.
While I agree with your point, you say he was “awful in 2018”, but he was hurt and threw 40 innings which would of prorated to 1.5 WAR…and he was hurt! So to me this looks like a guy whose worst season of his career was 2.6 WAR and has consistently been a good to great MLB pitcher. I feel like he is low risk at being a bum. If this was fantasy I’d say it is a bad move for his value, since throwing against the Dodgers and in Coors is a pretty significant downgrade from the central where every team is below average, but in terms of real life value I think he is fine. I don’t worry too much about pitchers age, as good pitchers tend to continue good until they fall off a cliff.
carter:
Yeah, the thing is, Yu Darvish is still a really good pitcher. He is probably a Top 10 pitcher in major league baseball. But the more you cut into this, the less clear it seems.
I’ll take both sides of this. If you come up with a list of guys who you’d definitely trust more than Darvish right now, I’d say that list is Gerrit Cole, Shane Bieber, and deGrom. And that’s it. Scherzer if you think his back holds out. Darvish is probably on the same level as Bauer, Castillo, Buehler, Giolito, and Nola–the guys who are “just shy” of league ace, and just ahead of guys like Lamet and Snell. Darvish is a really good pitcher!
But then comes the other weird part: Darvish has literally only been a top 10 pitcher in MLB twice–in 2012, when he first broke into the league, and in 2020 (which has all kinds of asterisks on it). How often are we comfortable saying a guy is probably a Top 10 pitcher when he’s 34 and has only done it twice, and one has a big asterisk on it? Nola has done it twice (3 if you’re generous to him in 2020) and he’s 27. You have to be very excited about Darvish’s last 150 innings to put him up there with Nola and Bauer. I am ready to do it. But it’s not quite as big a slam dunk as it seems at first glance.
The other parts of it this is (1) Darvish is getting paid pretty well for this and (2) the prospects coming back are pretty good. Add it all up and I think this is a fair deal; Darvish gives the Padres playoff-worthy upside in the rotation at a bit of a discount money-wise and the Cubs get some high-upside prospects to go with Davis, Amaya, and Howard. It’s a win-win.
disingenuous to say darvish hasn’t had a 4-win season in 8 years when he just put up 3 in a 60 game campaign
On the other hand, the sport is helped when a non-big market team decides to go for it!
San Diego is the 8th biggest city in the country, bigger than every city with a baseball team except New York who has 2, LA who has 2, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix.
2 teams in Chi-town too
It’s about the media market, and the Dodgers encroach too close to get the full impact, and that is without taking into account the Angels.
The Los Angeles angels of Anaheim in California, buddy
I believe the technical name is the “Los Angeles, California 92806 Angels of Anaheim.”
Philly’s bigger than SD too.
That’s not really true. When people talk about biggest cities, they mean biggest metropolitan area. San Diego is only the 17th biggest metro area in the us, behind many baseball cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, D.C., Miami, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Phoenix, Boston, San Francisco, Detroit, Seattle, and Minneapolis. The Padres are behind 18 other MLB teams in home metro area. They are 19th out of 30 teams in home city size.
Technical city sizes is meaningless. If we went by technical city populations, San Antonio is bigger than Dallas and San Diego and as big as Philadelphia. Based on technical city population, San Antonio is over three times the size of Atlanta when in reality Atlanta’s metro area is almost three times more populous than San Antonio’s.
It is interesting to see these mammoth, salary-laden giants slow to make the right decision that small-market franchises have figured out. Sometimes you need to tear it down when there is nowhere to go. Had Cubs management been aware, they wouldn’t have been so reluctant to move on. Now, they could be potentially entering a rebuild that could take half a decade.
If they wanted a sustainable winner they wouldn’t have hired theo.
So Theo is Dombrowski, Jr?
It’s not so much that they were slow to make the right decision. It’s that before 2020, the right decision was to go for it. They had a very good team. Even with Bryant and Baez having terrible years, they won the division. Even now, this is more of a cost-cutting move than a rebuilding one. Ideally, the first thing they would have done would have been trade someone like Hendricks for a haul of prospects. Then, with the rebuild firmly underway, shed salary with this move.
Why is there such little open-mindedness to the idea that a rebuild strategy is already “firmly underway” ? Edwards also makes the comment that Cubs should be a “win now team”. No, they should be open to trading everyone who can’t possibly be around in 2024. That’s how far away they are, at minimum.
Curious how folks think they could possibly overcome LAD, SD, and ATL with Darvish, Hendricks + three replacement level starters…and an offense that has been very average for the last three seasons. We know what these position players are by now. Not as good as they played in 2016…not as bad as they were last season…certainly not enough to expect them to help a team win in 2021.
Obviously San Diego has been working these two trades for weeks. Darvish went at this moment because San Diego was motivated to get starting pitching. I imagine that Rizzo, Baez, Heyward, and Bryant are all being shopped too. But you also need to find a contender who wants them. Trading one-year contracts to most teams in in the suddenly top-heavy NL may not be easy.
Agreed, and those guys are buy lows currently. Remember when people argued about non-tendering Bryant? Heyward had a good year, but nobody is going to pay much for any of those guys currently. In order to trade someone you have to have someone who wants to give up something for them.
I do kind of want to hear from the person who claimed that they were 100% certain the Cubs were not going to be rebuilding. Like, Bryant is basically making what he’d get if he could only sign a one-year deal on the open market.
Oh, I’m sure that they have a rebuild strategy they’re committed to. But to quote Seinfeld, “It’s not done . . . until it’s DONE.” The rebuild isn’t underway until they make one of those moves to get core pieces for the next iteration of a good Cubs team. And if there is going to be trouble actually making one of those moves, because no one is that interested in those players you listed . . . they probably would have been better off holding on to Darvish, seeing if those players bounce back, and making another run based on that. That’s why I say it would have been ideal to get some kind of haul FIRST.
Writing this article without noting that Caratini is Darvish’s personal catcher is a bit of an embarrassment.
Why?
He is a quality catcher and a top backup. He could be top dog on quite a few teams.
SD just traded two so getting him is more than just catering to Darvish.
Picking on a writer because he didn’t include something minor is embarrassing.
Is it really that Caratini is his personal catcher because they get a long great, or is it that Contreras is the worst framer in baseball and Darvish was tired of losing strikes?
It’s an embarrassment that your post didn’t include that.
Contreras is not the worst framer in the game. He’s actually improved. Darvish, however, does have some mind games going on
Writing this without noticing that Caratini is Darwish’s personal recipient is a bit shy.
At least two of those prospects ( Preciado and Mena) are going to do really well in models, especially Preciado, and Caissie’s going to do alright himself. They’re all huge and tooled up, well regarded, very young, and entering an org with a good track record for developing bats. As someone who doesn’t believe prospecting is so hard, basically called Isaac Paredes a future MLer as his age 17 AZL went on, there’s at least one first division starter in between those 3 shiny new prospects probably Preciado
Darvish deserves to be appreciated. These are probably the kindest words the US media has had for him since the IPO launch in 2012. The same people who didn’t want to give him the CY this year over some guy whose team lost the division to Darvish’s team, the same people who called this guy weak, etc are the same people who will now hail him as a sign that the Cubs are doomed for the next half decade plus. I say booo those people, wish Darvish the best but also yeah…The Cubs aren’t folded by a pitcher leaving. This is one of those the night is darkest before the day moments for this franchise
BTW while I’m optimistic about the Cubs overall despite the optics, it’s because everything is going to poop along with them and on purpose and to applause anyway. Even the Padres are going to use this launch to explain why they won’t spend in The Future if it even kinda sorta fails. We’ll get tons of stuff about the % of payroll Manny Machado eats up under the cap in a few years especially with Tatis (also committing the aging crime by then) over there, if there aren’t various tastes of it out there already.
This sport is giving the people what they’ve wanted and talked about for years and years: extremely young and cheap. Now everyone’s pretending they don’t want it! To me it reads in the same vein as the late and faint cry for MiL wages at the end after ignoring it for a decade, mostly as odd
This all reads crazy and yes I might have a problem but also notsodeepdown we all know I’m kiiiiinda right
Sir this is a Wendy’s
Yeah, yeah, but that’s half the fun! Everyone just wants to eat their bad food, go home to their programs, wait for the Official Word from above, and generally play within the company lines to the benefit of like a couple dozen reptilians and their legions of familiars. Who do they take their rage out on? Some promising teenagers/youths usually, especially those mysterious foreign ones, instead of the couple dozen reptilians and their legions of familiars
I don’t know what to make of this specific…thing…I do think that Preciado and Santana have a ton of upside and the Cubs did a good job of getting them.
Santana arguably has the least upside in that bunch, but yeah he and Mena are sure defenders at premium positions so it’s a solid floor for them to build from
You misspelled the name of the writer for The Athletic
Fixed, thank you!
While we’re on editorial errors, Craig misspelled the name of the former Cubs’s manager. At least, Craig is listed as the author of this article. Who is Jon Tayler?
On the subject of Darvish, is his horrendous Game 7 WS start now ascribed to ash can beating, or did he really tip his pitches?
While we were making an editorial mistake, Craig misspelled the name of the former Cubs manager. At least Craig is listed as the author of this article. Who is John Tailer?
As for the interesting topic, his easy 7 VS match is happening now because Ash can win or he was really rolling on the field?
What the hell are the Cubs doing? If money and the future all of a sudden matter the most then go all the way and trade a few more of Contreras, Baez, Bryant, Rizzo. That’s the only way this trade makes sense. Trading only Darvish puts them in an awkward middle ground. Sure, they can still win the (by far) weakest division in baseball with their current roster, but they are not going anywhere in the post season with this roster. They are very clearly worse than LAD, SD, ATL, and NYM. And just getting to the post season assumes they win the toss up between themselves, Mil, and StL for the division. Glad I’m not a Cubs fan because I think they bring this .500 team roster to opening day.
It’s December.
More trades are definitely coming.
The Padres deserve a ring. The city of SD hasn’t won a pro championship since the Chargers in 1963–the year before Cleveland’s much-complained about winless streak began. And that was in the old AFL, which many would say means it doesn’t really count.
The weather is beautiful year round. San Diego deserves nothing. But, I wish they were my team. I love to see a team (that’s not NY) go all in like this. That they did it without completely crippling their future is just icing on the cake. The NL is down. Now is the time to strike and they are striking.
Make them your team! I won’t tell.
But what does that really include? Yes the Chargers and the Padres since 1969 but other than those 2 it’s the Clippers for a half dozen years (most of which came when they were owned by one of the worst owners in sports history) and no NHL team (they did have a WHA team for 5 years).
Not really the same thing as Cleveland
Good for the Padres for going all in when many teams are crying poverty and or simply not trying to win— its a very bad thing for baseball when an entire division is doing nothing to get better.
Jesus Christ. What next? They sign Bauer? Trade for Trout?
They look ready for spring.
Although they could, theoretically, find some room for Trout.
(They might go for Springer, though.)
Probably trying to lock up Tatis Jr to an Acuna-like deal, although knowing the Padres it’ll probably be for more.
And Tatis is 4 years from free agency while Acuña was 6 years away. That’s a big deal.
Tatis and Wil Myers for Trout, who says no?
Both.
Some guys are too good to trade at any price.
The Angels.
Some tidbits that my rooting interests (Cubs fan) and hobbies (I waste my life on things most people don’t care about) have led me to discover in examining this trade.
1) Combined 2019-2020 ERA among pitchers with at least 200 IP:
Hendricks (12): 3.27
Buehler (13): 3.29
Davies (14): 3.30
Darvish (18): 3.39
2) It appears the Cubs are cornering the market on soft-tossing righties. Maybe they think this is the new market efficiency with everyone chasing velo? I don’t know. But Mills, Davies and Hendricks are basically versions of the same guy with varying degrees of success. Mills is Davies with a 50 percent increase in HR rate. Hendricks is Davies except with a legit out pitch — his changeup (although Davies has made significant strides with his Bugs Bunny offering in the past two seasons). I’m not sure this can work long term, but it certainly appears the Cubs are going to try.
2a) This means Hendricks isn’t going anywhere. There are many things about 2020 I haven’t understood, but the Cubs adding two Hendricks clones to their rotation and then trading Hendricks would move right to the top of the list.
2b) This probably means they’re going to wait and see on some of their other roster question marks. The Cubs are in an extraordinarily weak division with a few teams intentionally trying to get worse, so maybe their rotation dreams come true and they eke out an 87-win (or Covid prorated equivalent) division title or something? It’s not the plan I would choose, but it’s almost a plan, which feels about right for how this championship window will officially close.
3) This is not a big enough return for the Cubs. Even if Jed ends up being correct five years from now about the lottery tickets he picked up, he still didn’t get fair value for his assets. Caratini alone, a solid backup switch-hitting catcher with some defensive versatility and OBP skills, should net you 1-1.5 lottery tickets. To get 2.5 lottery tickets and one year of Davies for Darvish after a Cy Young-level performance since the 2019 ASB is … well … disappointing. Ever since Theo resigned I thought Yu would get moved; I just didn’t expect the return to be so meager. This feels like a mandate from the Ricketts to slash payroll because of Covid concerns … not exactly the best way to extract maximum (or even fair) trade value from an inquiring club.
4) Can you remember a trade from one side fraught with more risk than this one? To have a new leading man make his first big personnel move the acquisition of a handful of teens who have all missed a development year (so far) for a legit ace on top of his game with a contract that, pre-pandemic, would have been considered team-friendly … I mean, I can’t think of another trade remotely similar to this. It’s fascinating. And terrifying. I feel like Jed bought himself 5 years of job security no matter what happens just because we won’t know how the Cubs fared in this trade until then anyway.
Can you remember a trade from one side fraught with more risk than this one?
To be fair, Darvish isn’t exactly a safe play at this point.
Why isn’t Darvish safe? Curious. He has been absolutely dominate for 1.5 seasons now, and wasn’t bad ever in his entire career. 2.6 WAR was the lowest he has ever put up for a season in his entire career, except 2018 when he was hurt. He seems like a pretty safe bet to me, or at least as safe as any. At 34 he isn’t exactly a spring chicken, but pitchers break, not age.
Calling it 1.5 seasons, instead of 150 innings, is misleading. He’s been this dominant for about 3/4 of a season of a full time SP.
Rounding down to 150 is misleading. It is 157.2 IP, which is basically a season these days. But tomato tomahto. I’m be more worried about the quality of competition he has faced recently than him not being a changed pitcher. Furthermore, what will this season be? 120 games followed by a work stoppage? Is the next season 2023?
Yu Darvish is 34, hasn’t had a 4-win season since 2013, and is owed $60M over the next three years. You can definitely dream on Yu Darvish, and he’s got a better chance of being the kind of guy who pitches at the front of the playoff rotation than a lot of other guys (which is why the Padres traded for him) but Darvish had negative trade value last offseason.
So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that this looks like a fair return to me. Preciado and Santana have huge upside.
Saying he hasn’t had a 4-win season since 2013 really downplays the consistent excellence of seasons worth 2.8, 3.7, 3.6, 2.6, and 3.0 wins in a six-year stretch. Pre-pandemic, I think most teams would’ve willingly paid Darvish his current contract for five seasons of that caliber and one dud season in 2018, which looks like an outlier. And there was enough to like about his resurgence in 2019 that I don’t think it’s fair to say he had negative trade value last offseason.
Looked for some comps… identified players who were +/-1.0 fWAR/200IP ages 27-33 with 600-1000 IP and then narrowed further, ages 31-33 >=200 IP and again +/- 1.0 fWAR/200IP
I only went back to 1986, so we end up with a really short list.
PLAYER — age 34-36 fWAR
Chris Carpenter — 12.5
Ryan Dempster — 5.8
Kelvim Escobar — 0.0
Carlos Carrasco — 0.0
Carpenter and Dempster don’t need a write-up, they are what they are. Escobar is perhaps a bad comp as the age 31-33 bucket is misleading. He was great as a 31yo, but a shoulder injury in spring training cost him the other two seasons (made one start).
Carrasco isn’t very helpful as 2021 will be his age 34 season as well.
NOTE: used SP outings only
Okay, first off, you’re not paying for past performance, you’re paying for future performance. That performance in a guy’s late 20s and early 30s does not usually mean they’re going to keep doing that in their mid to late 30s, usually because of injury, although there’s always a chance of losing the “stuff” too.
Second, people here are definitely leaning into some revisionist history with Darvish here, weighted by a lot of recency bias. Ever since the arm surgery, Darvish has had these half-season stretches where he was great, followed by periods where he was completely unplayable. The end of last season looked like it was just part of that trend.
Furthermore, Darvish had an opt-out and he didn’t use it, and while the question of whether players accurately perceive their market value is an open question, it’s pretty clear that he thought he wasn’t getting a better deal.
Yu Darvish has dramatically raised his stock with his performance in 2020, to the point where he was pretty valuable (and the return, plus the Padres assuming pretty much all of the contract, reflects that) but let’s not go rewriting history.
Obviously you’re paying for future performance. It just sounded as if you were pointing to 2018 as proof that Darvish’s contract is underwater, when his track record up until that point — and afterwards — suggests he’s being paid roughly what he’s worth.
Depth Charts projects him for 4 wins this season. ZiPs has him at 3.1 for 2021 and 2.7 for 2022. $60 million for 7-9 wins over three years seems pretty reasonable to me, and it’s right in line with what was probably expected when he signed the contract a couple years ago.
I don’t disagree that Darvish would have a hard time getting a similar deal today, but I think it’s only because of the sudden shift in free agency spending and pandemic-related financial uncertainty that it looks like a slight overpay. Heck, Charlie Morton just got $15 million. He’s as old as Darvish will be at the end of his current deal, and his 2020 wasn’t half as good as Darvish’s.
You’re certainly allowed to think the Cubs did OK here, sadtrombone, but I disagree with your arguments for a few reasons:
1) You’re completely discounting Caratini’s value as a part of the trade, and the money the Cubs are picking up (we haven’t heard final details on this yet but my best guess is that will cover a portion of the signing bonuses for the IFA young’uns). Both of those have trade value. Tossing in the hypothetical money, I’d say Caratini + money sweetener is roughly worth Mena + Caissie as a throw-in (or the roughly 1.5 lottery tickets I mentioned in my original comment). A 40+ with a 35+ throw-in, to me, seems about right for 3 cheap years of a backup catcher with Vic’s skillset.
2) You’re scouting the stat line with Yu’s performance and not fleshing out his 2020 performance into a projected full season. We all have to scout the stat lines to some extent, but my Cubs fandom has allowed me to see the Yu transformation firsthand. He’s dominant. He’s throwing harder and he basically eliminated walks from his game. He started relying on his cutter instead of his 4-seamer and subsequently stopped giving up HRs (23 percent in 2019 and 9 percent in 2020), which was the only thing holding him back from being a true ace.
3) Extrapolating his 2020 performance out to an entire season would have made him a 7-8 WAR pitcher. Now, you can’t do that and he’s got major injury history on his resume + aging considerations (which is why I was sure the Cubs would want to move him before the season started), but there’s upside to go along with his 4+ WAR projection in 2021, considerable upside if this change in approach proves lasting. Two teen-ish prospects with loud tools you can dream on + 1 year of Davies is not enough for that player on a 3/$60M contract. It’s just not. Even if it works out for the Cubs down the road, they didn’t get fair value for fair value at the time of the swap.
I’ll upvote j27roenick because it’s a good argument. A few things to clarify (these numbers do not correspond to yours):
1) There’s certainly a chance that Yu Darvish comes back and turns in his best ever (full) season at age 34.
2) Stop for a second. We’re projecting a guy to have his best ever (full) season at age 34. How comfortable are we with that?
3) With #1 and #2, there is a lot more volatility in this deal than you would expect for a player of Darvish’s caliber. You can imagine a wide, wide range of outcomes.
4) After 2019, he was definitely in negative territory in terms of contract value. 2020 changed a lot, though. I don’t think those are contradictions.
5) I’d say Caratini for Davies is the story here. Preciado is an FV50, Santana an FV45, Mena an FV40+, and Caissie is…I don’t even know. Mena and Caissie for whatever the Cubs are covering is fair, but that’s about $30-35M in future value. That seems definitely enough to cover a guy who is already getting paid $20M per year.
While it sucks for the Cubs that the rebuild is going to take a while, I think it’s fair.
Again, you’re scouting the overall stat line on Darvish for 2019, but you need to dig a bit deeper. He was rough in the 1H as he recovered from his injury and struggled to shake off the rust. But if you think that $20M/year pre-pandemic for a guy who put up these 2H numbers in 2019 was underwater on his contract, you are delusional:
82 IP
2.76 ERA/2.83 FIP/2.37 xFIP
0.81 WHIP
.199/.228/.384 slash line against
118/7 K/BB (37.8%/2.2%)
And he did all this while *still* running a HR/FB rate of ~ 20 percent. Then he basically replicated his 2019 2H numbers in the truncated 2020 season as he brought his HR/FB ratios under control. The “secret” behind this success has been a simple one: Stop throwing so many 4-seamers.
2018: 38 percent
2019: 26 percent
2020: 15.5 percent
You are presuming he’s going to decline because all pitchers decline. But you’re not taking into account that he has probably top 3 stuff in all of baseball among SPs and is likelier than most to extend his prime because of it (or as I like to call it, pulling a Verlander).
The man has 6 pitches and can command all of them. Incredibly, he had positive pitch values on *all six* in 2020 (4-seam, cutter, curve, slider, change, split). Here’s the thing on all that: He also throws a pretty good sinker; apparently FG ran out of space. Elite command and stuff plus exceeding career velo levels for all of his pitches does not hint at imminent decline.
It certainly *could* happen, but there’s nothing in his past 200 IP that would make you suspect it’s coming soon. Rather, the opposite: It looks like he’s finally figured out how to harness his immense talent/stuff to be the most effective pitcher possible. It would certainly be unusual to have a guy figure it out this late in his career, but after factoring in his late arrival from Japan plus his injuries, it would make sense.
I look at this and think “this is literally the best case scenario you’re outlining here.” You’re putting a lot of weight on 150 recent innings, and claiming that nothing will change going forward.
And before 2020, we’re talking about 90 innings, and suggesting that we should have known that nothing would change going forward.
It’s not just scouting the statline, it’s the distribution. What you’re proposing is essentially is that this is Justin Verlander part two, but Verlander (and Schilling, and Halladay, and Maddux) was this good earlier in his career too, and Scherzer and Randy Johnson were close. The closest parallels we’ve had to this in this century was Charlie Morton (who isn’t a great comp because he was never as good as Darvish) and Cliff Lee (who isn’t a great comp because he found his extra gear at 30 instead of 33). You’re essentially proposing that this is Cliff Lee and not Charlie Morton, whereas it’s much more likely that is the range of plausible outcomes.
And he’s getting paid $20M for it. If he were a free agent right now, what would he be getting? Probably $90M instead of $60M, in the Kershaw range of things. That’s a little less than Preciado + Santana in prospect value, who come out to something like $35M. I don’t think a single team would give him more than $100M, and I’m only willing to estimate that high because the Blue Jays gave $80M to Ryu (over 4 years) so they could be willing to go that high.
1) You can’t do the “if he was a FA right now” game because of the pandemic. Once the Indians refused to pick up Brad Hand’s no-brainer option, that wasn’t a thing anymore. Covid-19 has changed everything.
2) Lee and Morton don’t have the stuff that Yu has. Not even close. Morton is a decent comp from the standpoint of approach. His breakout consisted of, “Hey, your curveball is amazing, why don’t you throw more of them?” and Darvish’s issue was, “Hey, you’re giving up a ton of HRs on your 4-seamer, why don’t you throw fewer of them?”
3) The reason I think this is sustainable is because I watch the games. When Yu first arrived with the Cubs, he looked broken. He couldn’t locate, his velo was down and he was giving up bombs left and right. When he came back, he looked much better, but rusty, still issuing a ton of BBs. When he figured out his new approach in the 2H of 2019, you felt confident every time out that the only thing that could beat him was solo HRs on the occasional mistake.
You’re scouting a stat line and parsing likely outcome scenarios; I watched the progression happen and I’m telling you the trend is real, and I’m also providing you the context for that trend with supporting statistical evidence. Any stretch of 211/21 K/BB ratio cannot and should not be dismissed as “SSS” because it was only ~150 IP. That is as dominant a stretch as MLB pitching gets.
4) I’m confident in my assessment the same way I was confident that the Cubs should let Jake walk. His stuff was/is *so nasty* that hitters made the only real adjustment they could make: They stopped swinging at so many of his pitches. If he dotted them up on the outside corner with a slider, you tip your cap. But if you just sit fastball and wait for a mistake or to get ahead in the count, you could put yourself in advantageous situations to get a pitch you could drive or simply reach base via the walk. The results were that Jake’s run of dominance ended because of a change in approach by hitters rather than age-related decline. His HR/FB rate and BB/9 rate basically doubled from his Cy Young peak, and this is who he was now. Sure, he’s lost 1-2 mph on his pitches and baseball variance, yada yada yada, but I watched the entire thing happen before my eyes over the course of several seasons.
You can’t project that from what you’re doing scouting the stat line and projecting rough-estimate aging scenarios. I have the insight to be able to make these observations because I watched it happen.
Whatever the approach hitters will make to try to combat Yu’s recent run of dominance now hasn’t been figured out yet, and that’s good news for the Padres.
Wait, you’re saying he’s got a good shot of being better than Cliff Lee? That’s it, I’m out. I don’t care how good he looked, if you’re predicting something that hasn’t occurred in at least 20 years, that’s a bad bet. You could still win it, but it’s still a bad bet. And this is why the high bidder was one team, with their army of scouts, that was willing to trade about $35M in prospect value for him.
There is an unusually large band of outcomes here, and I’ll be rooting for him but if he manages to put up 7 or 8 wins next year (depending on what version of Cliff Lee you are thinking of) it’ll be on a totally different level of anything we’ve seen.
I said he’s got better stuff than Cliff Lee. Lee was more of a Sabathia/Lester type that got by on smarts and guts (and a 92 mph fastball). Lee also figured things out late, and his 34-35-36 years saw him accrue 12.6 fWAR before the elbow injury ended his career. If I had to bet Yu’s rest-of-career WAR O/U of 12.6, I’m taking the over, no question. Is there somewhere I can bet that right now?
Upside does not equal MLB performance. Like others have said these are lottery tickets. And the overwhelming majority of lottery tickets end up worthless. Now had the Cubs gotten one or two of the Padres top 5 minor leaguers then this wouldn’t appear as a salary dump trade. All of the minor leaguers the Cubs got are 3 or more years away from making the majors. And that is a big IF.
I expect the Cubs to shed even more salary in the coming months. Bryant likely the next to go, then Baez.
Pretty convenient that 2020 was a 60 game schedule since Darvish was on pace for a 7+ win season.
I was going to thumbs up until I got to 1 to 1.5 lottery tickets…2.5 lottery tickets… I can’t be the only person turned off to this kind of rhetoric? This isn’t the way! Not saying I know what is, but I know *for sure* that isn’t it
Looks to me as though the Cubs are trying to reduce their long term costs, they only have Bote, Hayward and Hendricks left; Bote and Hendricks are on reasonable contracts. Perhaps the latter will be traded too.
Shedding the Darvish contract may enable them to take on shorter, bad vets tied to prospects.
Alternatively, perhaps their finances are as bad as Rickets has been suggesting.
I just love how I continue to hear stories in the media about how great Theo Epstein is/was. Please, keep them coming.
As a Cubs fan, I will most certainly endure what’s coming (partially as a result of ownership reevaluating spending due to an unprecedented global pandemic) so long as I keep memories of 2016.
Theo is great.
I have to wonder how much of the Cubs’ inability to build a consistent contender is from the awful Heyward contract. They’ve paid almost $100m for 8 wins over the last 5 years, and he’s due another $70m over the next 3.
He’s never even been an above average player any of those years, except for the weird 2020 season.
In retrospect, that one mistake probably closed their window a couple years early.
Has to be very little of the contract, right? That’s just not all that much money to the Cubs, despite what their ownership claims. We’re not in a world where $20M is such a disadvantage that cannot be recovered from (plus, he wasn’t a total black hole – just not a good value for the money).
Love what the Padres are doing. Waiting for the Dodgers to take a step back might never happen, so the only option is to take 3 steps forward
It’s interesting that the comments are focusing on the supposedly underwhelming trade return (which is fine) and not the actual problem: That the Cubs, because of ownership dictates and maybe sentimentality from the front office, decided that they couldn’t rebuild or go for it for several years. I guess it’s better that they pick a direction now, and if they had decided to liquidate back when Bryant / Rizzo / Baez/ Schwarber had trade value they wouldn’t have gotten anything back for Darvish but I dislike it when ownership essentially puts a team into stasis.
This is going to make the NL West certainly a challenge for the Dodgers now. It’ll be a race forth following this summer. Wonder if the Dodgers react in a big way or not.
San Diego ending up third in payroll is wild. Does anyone recall the last time a small market team ended up so high up that list?
That would be interesting to know. But, also, about time a “small market” team spends some money to be more competitive in their division. It should also be noted that the “large market” Cubs are the sellers here. How high should a payroll for teams really be, (forgetting the small/large aspect)?
I do find this aspect interesting. Craig does yeoman’s work demonstrating that the Padres current payroll is sustainable for the next 5 years, but I think it’s worth asking if this level has been approved annually come hell or high water?
Here is San Diego’s payroll history per Cot’s…
2020: 169M (though only a fraction was paid)
2019: 142M
2018: 130M
2017: 98M
2016: 107M
2015: 128M
2014: 103M
2013: 86M
2012: 78M
Nothing over 100M before then.
I’m sure we are all excited for the Dodgers to finally face some real intradivision competition, but on the surface it appears the Padres are a bit over their skis. If the team underperforms one year, will there be instructions to grossly pare back payroll, as happened after Preller’s failed 2015 spending spree? It seems like a big assumption on Craig’s part that ~$165M is the “new normal” in San Diego.
I guess my underlying question is where did the franchise get all this newfound flexibility? Is new chairman Peter Seidler simply far less debt-averse than previous regimes? Or was Fowler — who remains a minority owner — pocketing ungodly profits while the team foundered?
I would be interested in learning how my favorite small market team can add $70M in payroll with a snap of its fingers and not worry about the ice cracking under its feet.
One other note here is that new owners took over at the end of the 2012 season, so the steady increase in payroll could be driven by a different philosophy – one that includes actually winning games, which is sadly rare.
Taking’s the Cot’s numbers you used (though I rounded to the nearest million rather than truncating) and added the percentage of the #1 NL “CB Tax 40-man” value:
2020: 170M 79%
2019: 143M 60%
2018: 130M 63%
2017: 99M 39%
2016: 107M 42%
2015: 129M 43%
2014: 104M 37%
2013: 86M 35%
2012: 79M 45%
Is this really no different than any other team where you have your level (35-45%) and when the time is right you ~double it and when the window closes all you can do is settle back down at your level, rebuild and wait for your next window?
[edit] I would have rather compared to median or average, but couldn’t find that quickly on cot’s…
Fowler and Seidler have deep pockets, it was the previous owners who did not. They took a shot in 2015 because they were newish as owners and because they hoped to have a competitive team for the year they had the all-star game. The team poured a lot of money into the stadium in the first years of the group’s ownership. Once those infrastructure issues were addressed they were free to spend that money on salaries. They also completed a refinancing of their debt which also freed up cash. My understanding is that the team has not incurred any new debt recently(although who really knows how forthcoming they would be about that if they actually did), and that Fowler and Seidler have written checks as necessary to make up any shortfalls. The Padres also now own a share of the regional sports network that carries their games, something that coincided with Fowler and Seidler buying the team. There has also been a ton of real estate development surrounding the stadium, I’m not sure if the Padres have profited from that, but several of the parking lots right across from the stadium are now condo towers and I know the Padres were trying to get approval to develop something on their tailgating parking lot. The biggest thing is that the owners just seem to want to win. Seidler is an O’Malley so he’s from a baseball family, and Fowler has in the past called into sports radio shows to express his displeasure with the team’s progress. As a season ticker holder, I don’t doubt for a second that those guys want to win a World Series more than anything else, that’s why I’m willing to be a season ticket holder, and there are many, many more of us than there used to be thanks to ownership’s commitment to winning. Sorry to go all fan boy, but it does just feel like the Padres are run the way a sports team should be run.
Thanks tbwhite, that local background info is helpful. When Attanasio bought the Brewers, he similarly spent a few years making infrastructure improvements (despite having a recently built stadium) while the baseball folks rebuilt a dead roster. He then ramped up player spending, though it appears he self-capped the max (recurring) payroll at around $120M. Post-covid, I suspect that max will not be exceeded any time soon. But, Milwaukee’s TV deal is less than the Padres. Plus, he doesn’t own the network, nor is there much in terms of real estate around Miller Park.
In MLB terms, 170M just feels a world apart to $120M for two somewhat similar market sizes. It’s not the same as comparing $120M to $80M, you guys are actually outspending the big spenders. I congratulate San Diego fans for their good fortune.
San Diego isn’t quite a small market.
As a media market they’re significantly bigger than Las Vegas, Milwaukee, KC, Cincinnatti, Pittsburg…
And their economy is stronger than several larger markets like Cleveland and Detroit…
There’s money there, plus they can draw from a pretty broad region.
They’re not LA or NY but they can afford a payroll in the $150M range. Puts them closer to St. Louis than Tampa Bay.
Not sure how small market they are, but, Detroit had several top 5 payrolls in 2012-2016 era. I think they may even have been #1 at least one year.
Detroit is certainly bigger than San Diego, but, not when compared to the true big markets like NY, LA, Chicago, Dallas, Boston, etc.
Detroit had Illitch willing to spend without limit, looking for a ring before… moving on.
That ended.
Team market is defined by more than just the city’s population size, in both directions.
And beyond that the team budget is defined by the owner’s ability to stomach losses.
The A’s were in the top half in payroll in the late 80’s iirc
During the A’s glory run in the late 80s/early 90s I recall them being the highest payroll in baseball for a brief moment, and near the top for a while. That was before the big/small market payroll divide really began though.
The Davies part of the trade never made much sense to me. He’s a free agent next year and is just a meh starter so he doesn’t have much trade value. Either the cubs are trying to half contend next year or the Padres asked to take some salary back.
I think the Cubs are going to give it one more go this year or at least give this team one more half. I think they’ll sign some cheap back end starters (Archer or Shoemaker types) and take a risk on some bounce back relievers. If they are out of it at half, they will blow it all up.
Also, I wonder what Darvish would have gotten on the open market if he was a free agent this year. While it seems like teams are being even cheaper due to covid, Kevin Guasman is about to make $19M next year and Smiley is about to make $11M. I think Darvish would be looking at 3 years, $75M if he was a free agent.
Somebody has to take the mound every fifth day.
Try looking at it as Caratini for Davies, 4 Prospects for Darvish. Good catchers are rare these days and good catchers with adequate bats more so and 1.2 WAR isn’t bad from a fifth starter.
The Cubs wanted him. He doesn’t impact the long-term balance sheets and makes them look a bit more respectable for the last year the gang is all together. And if he’s pitching well at the deadline and they’re clearly out of it they can move him. Remember that Cubs rotation, as it stands now, is Hendricks, Davies, and a bunch of quad-A types.
You can like the prospects and still realize the return is laughably short. Some people in here seem to be understating how good Yu is, he’s one of the top 10 starters in the game now (and again). Davies has some value, he’s a 2-2.5 win guy in likelihood during the regular season, he helps you make the playoffs as a backend guy (can be a 3 if your staff has 2 absolute studs at top). The issue with Davies is his stuff plays down in the playoffs imo, and I’m not basing this on the tiny sample. When you have 2 pitches, 1 of which is a high 80s fastball, a awesome change but only work at one vertical location in the zone good hitters are going to do well against you. Because of this the return at deadline if cubs aren’t competing or if they deal him in offseason will be underwhelming.
All 4 prospects are good prospects do not get me wrong, Eric definitely has better knowledge than me here, but Reginald is a potential stud but with risk as all players that haven’t seen full season ball is. The other 3 to me have moderate upside and could in different ways become starters at the MLB level but it is far more likely they wash out as most teen prospects do. I am surprised that the Cubs didn’t get 1 guy with more data at lower level such as a Hudson Head
Daviess is close to a Hendricks clone. I remain underwhelmed by the trade.
Not really Hendricks is a top of the rotation guy while Zdavis is a 4th starter— not all non flame throwers are created equally.
Agree, but as a staff you can’t be throwing back to back soft tossers. As things stand Zaviess slots in as their #2. Neither Mills nor Alzolay have the experience for the spot although Alzolay is intriguing and could develop into at least a #3 if not a #2.
Why can’t you? Are there any studies that show throwing similar starters back-to-back gives a team a disadvantage? I’m genuinely curious. If there are, what’s so hard about moving Davies down a spot or two?
Seriously? You would have thought the Cubs just traded Gerrit Cole or something reading this.
Yu man was great last season and I will miss watching him. But come on. He’s 34 and never exactly been a model of consistency. Sounds like they got some coveted young talent for him that would have been first round draft picks if they were US players.
And the Cubs will certainly compete next season. They won the division last year with many of their best players having their worst hitting season of their careers. Get in the playoffs and anything can happen.
Cubs needed to get at least one promising young arm in return. Pitching wins championships. Starting pitching has become more and more coveted, especially top end starters who can go 6+ innings. Darvish will do just that for SD. Teams that are in win now mode typically give up one or more top end minor league talent. Cubs got alot of dice rolls in hopes one of them turns into something special. They don’t need another Schwarber type.
I know what you mean, Ron. The backlash by Cubs fans has been embarrassing. Just to add some statistical context to your argument, let’s take a look at what Yu and Cole have done since the 2019 ASB.
Cole:
169 IP
2.24/2.92/2.70 ERA/FIP/xFIP
250/35 K/BB (7.14 ratio)
0.84 WHIP
51/65/60 ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-
2.62 SIERA
5.5 fWAR
The guy has been an absolute monster. Well worth the 8/$288M left on his deal. Now, let’s take a look at how Yu has struggled during that exact same time period.
Yu:
158 IP
2.40/2.54/2.59 ERA/FIP/xFIP
211/21 K/BB (10.05 ratio)
0.88 WHIP
54/57/58 ERA-/FIP/xFIP
2.77 SIERA
5.4 fWAR
With a mammoth 3/$60M remaining on his contract, the Cubs were lucky to get a couple of A-ball lottery tickets for him right now. Thank goodness they were able to unload that albatross (although they had to eat some money, of course) before they were stuck with him for good. I mean, who would want a SP with those kind of numbers since the 2019 ASB? They were fortunate to even find a willing trade partner. Even if the Cubs had to throw in a solid backup catcher with three cheap years of team control remaining, I’m just happy I don’t have to sit through his unbearable control issues that saw him walk about one guy every 8 IP or so. Good riddance.
There is a lot of harping on the Cubs for moves (or lack thereof) that are unrelated to this deal. Not sure that’s fair. To be clear, I’m not supporting the Cubs, but I’m not sure how past indecisions are relevant for this specific trade.
Your feedback is: Cubs needed to go all-in or rebuild several years ago! Looks like they
are now choosing to rebuild. What’s wrong with that decision?
Choosing to rebuild, when you have a shot to go for it before you lose all your stars, is a disappointment. Yu and Hendricks made a good TOR. Had they added just an OF and a stud reliever, they would have been favorites in the division. Now we have to wait 4 or 5 years. And the return was poor.
That is an 80 headline
I wonder if the Dodgers could get Bryant for something like McKinstry, Wood (or a lottery ticket), and lifetime free parking at Dodger Stadium
Hoyer would probably do it for a handful of lint and a bucket of used balls.