Offseason aquisition Write Up

Under the assumption we lose stanek, maton, neris, Brantley, maldy and that france, urquidy, kess, singleton, and Meyers are all players that could be traded this offseason it leaves us with a total of 9 roster spots to fill and according to fan graphs ~5m to do it if we are to stay under the luxury tax like crane would want.

SP: The team likely needs to work in a six man rotation with Verlanders age, mccullers injuries, browns health, Garcia’s recovery, and framer/javiers inconsistency this past season.

S1: Verlander

S2: valdez

S3: javier

S4:brown

S5: Turnbull/Urquidy

S6/bullpen 5: Whitley/arrighetti

It has been said that we shouldn’t expect LMJ and Garcia until after the all star break. This means we have At least one rotation spot open if we want to roll with a five man to start the season or two if we want to start the season with a six man rotation. When we have all of them back though it would make the most sense to have a six man rotation (especially if we can’t count on lances health). Thus we seem to be in need of a player that can be a decent 4/5 starter but also an solid bullpen piece/solid long reliever.

Option 1: Urquidy – frankly urquidy’s best quality is that he is already on the roster and wouldn’t take anything to acquire. Urquidy only had a fip under 4 once during his rookie season. This year saw him walk way more batters which had been one of his greatest attributes, though he did increase his chase rate. The bigger issue is that urquidy is not a great reliever. Granted 2023 was the first time he had spent significant time in the bullpen he did not preform. He had a OPS against of .808 and an ERA of 6.06 while coming out of the pen.

Option 2: Soroka – Soroka had an incredible 2019 before his career was quickly derailed by injuries. The few times he has made it to the mound for the braves since, he has been a bad pitcher. When he was on in 2019 though he had an incredible 3 pitch mix featuring a sinker/slider/changeup. He was elite at slowing down RHB holding them to a .537OPS against and the future only looked bright from there. He still held left handers to a respectable for a starter .750 OPS. This was also all done in 2019, the year of the juiced ball. He never was a huge strike out guy but he kept the ball on the ground being in the 89th percentile of GB% and he made sure to limit walks to prevent runners from getting on base. Since coming back from injury he has been a little more wild though and more prone to walks. He will be 26 next season and still has plenty of room to grow but his lack of contribution in 4 seasons has made him a possible non tender candidate or a player to target in a cheap trade. Add to this dana’s background with the braves and this seems like it could be a no brainer add. As I was writing this up soroka got traded disappointed Dana didn’t pull the trigger on this.

Option 3: Forrest Whitley- Most here know his story. Middle of the first round draft pick out of San Antonio who became a top 25 prospect in the game and then proceeded to not pitch for 2 seasons and battled injuries over his past two seasons. He is now 26 years old and essentially in his make or break season as I believe he is out of options unless we successfully petition for more due to medical reasons. Right off the bat the thing that made people fall in love with Whitley was his pitches. His fastball, curveball, and changeup graded out at a 60 and his slider and cutter graded out at a 55 meaning he was viewed as throwing all plus pitches. So here’s the reason to remain positive. His 2023 stats in sugar land. His ERA wasn’t pretty but he held his opponents to a .205 BAA and got about 1.52 GO/AO ratio. A ratio similar to hunter brown who was considered a good ground ball pitcher during his time in sugar land. More importantly Forrest held RHB to a .582 OPS in the pacific division which is nothing to overlook (notably his BAA and his OPS against for RHB is better than arrighetti). Forrests body may never allow him to be a starter but I firmly believe that he has the capabilities to be a high leverage reliever.

Option 4: JP France – Hard to say he belongs in our rotation as contenders. Maybe someone else wants to take a shot on him or maybe he becomes a spot starter for us. JP had an ERA over 5 in the final two months of the season as batters were teeing off with nearly a 130 ops+ too. His xERA was 5.00 and his xBA was in the bottom 17th percentile. It certainly seemed like he finally got figured out and at 29 (age at the beginning of next season) it is hard to see growth forward from what he showed. Certainly not the worst option to have he could well be a good option to start the season as a sixth man in the rotation. The issues that I pointed out are issues that other teams will see so while he may have some trade value it is hard to imagine it being a lot. It certainly feels like a harsh decision to not have him make the roster after what he contributed to the team in 2023 but it may well happen

Option 5: Spencer Arrighetti – Spencer is considered one of the few bright things in our farm system. He has a good fastball/slider mix, a decent curveball, and changeup that has improved as he has moved through the system. He could absolutely fit into the back of our rotation but I would probably try it soroka at first and let arrighetti start in sugar land. If soroka sucks in the spring or gets hurt during the year I would pivot to arrighetti.

Option 6: Edward Cabrera – Cabrera is out of options with the marlins which have lead to speculation that he will finally be dealt as he seems to be on the outside looking in of their pitching rotation. At 25 Cabrera is a player that has yet to put it all together. His OPS vs RHB is .822 while against LHB it is .586. Part of the problem is that he is incredibly wild and in the bottom 1% of walks% in the mlb. The hope comes from the rest of the numbers Cabrera puts up. A 55.7 GB%, .196 xBA, an average launch angle of 7.6, and he is in the 78th percentile for limiting avg exit veto. All of this is impressive plus his 27 K% that shows he is not just a ground ball pitcher. Batters hit .186 against Cabrera’s changeup (making him so good against lefties). While batters actually hit .240 against his curveball his xBA was .181. He also has put up good marks with his fourseamer that batters are hitting .214 agains and his slider that batters are hitting .222 against. The problem with Cabrera would likely be a high acquisition cost because the player has yet to even make it to arb (in part because he has spent time in the minors every year he has also been in the majors, this is why the out of options is such a big deal)

Option 7: Spencer Turnbull – is able to generate a lot of above average movement on all of his pitches. He has been in the middle of a disagreement with the tigers about his usage which will lead to him being DFA’d. In 2021 in 9 starts turnbull was great with a 3.01 xERA and a .206 xBAA while generating a 58 GB%. He hasn’t pitched over 100 innings in 4 seasons meaning he may not be a great candidate to stick it out in the rotation long term but he could well be a great candidate to play until July and hold down the fort. If he does well enough we could even flip him in a contender/contender trade if he throws a fit about losing his spot in the rotation.

Other considerations: woodruff( for one season if he is non tendered)

Closer: Pressly

Set Up: Abreu

Set Up: Graveman

Bullpen 1: Montero

Not much can really be done here. Graveman is going to have to step up to be the high leverage guy we traded for. Montero is going to need to be better since we are paying him 10 reliever money. The hope is at least partially there as he seemed to figure It out a little in July/august over about 20 innings where batters only had a low .600 OPS against before struggling again in September. We are going to need him to certainly be more consistent. Graveman is a little more concerning. He rocked a 2.42 ERA in Houston but a 5.00 FIP is certainly cause for a bit of concern.

Bullpen 2: Dillon Maples/ Morejon

Bullpen 3: Codi Heuer/ Nabil Crismatt

Bullpen 4: Chris Stratton

Option 1: Chris Stratton – Stratton has some good pitches but hasn’t ever quite put it together. He generates a strong amount of horizontal movement on his offspeed pitches and he generates great spin rates on his curveball and his fastball. He got a decent amount of chases on his pitches while with the pirates before joining the cardinals and then rangers. 2023 represented one of his better years by xERA in part due to the raised launched angle on his pitches. He lowered his BAA and his OBP at the cost of his SLG going back up. He has historically been better against RHB but in 2023 he actually did quite well against LHB with a .590 OPS against(with about half the ABs) but a still respectable .679 OPS against vs RHB. He was unimpressive in the the playoffs and he is a respectable reliever that will likely command a decent salary.

Option 2: Diego castillo- Castillo is a weird one. He was an elite reliever earlier in his career but his fastball veto has slowly declined and so has he. He was still a serviceable reliever in 2022 but 2023 saw him get DFA’d so the M’s could make room for their prospects. Despite his declining velocity he was on an upward trajectory as he continued to build better expected stats. 2022 was a bit of a down year and then the wheels completely fell off the bus in 2023. He still was limiting opposing batter to a low xBA and getting a lot of groundballs like he has been known for. Castillo was someone who thrived in what baseball reference would consider high leverage situations posting a .500 OPS against. In 2022 Castillo showed an above average ability to prevent inherited runners from scoring. Castillo had been a sinker/slider pitcher for most of his career but in 2023 he tried to add a change-up to his mix adding a third pitch, but it wasn’t really seen because he didn’t pitch enough this year.

Option 3: Nabil Crismatt – Crismatt isn’t someone I would guarantee a spot on the major league roster but he is certainly would be an interesting player to give a minor league contract with a major league spring training invite too. Crismatt pitched at his best for the padres before being dfa’d, picked up by the dbacks and then electing free agency at the end of the year. In over 60 innings in 2022 crismatt sported a .616 OPS vs LHB and a .673 OPS vs RHB. At just 28 years old crismatt offers to be one of the younger options on the market. Crismatt was at his worst in high leverage situations allowing a .728 OPS against and a poor ability to prevent the few inherited runs he was trusted with from scoring. As far as his pitch mix goes Crismatt has a strong change up with an ok curve. He recently added a slider to his mix too. His problem is that he has no average fastball. He averages about 89/90 mph on his fastball. This is slightly misleading because of his great extension releasing the ball ups his perceived velocity by about 1 mph. The reason that Crismatt’s low velocity might work in his favor is in order to replace maton. Having a reliever coming out of the pen that isn’t just throwing gas may be more valuable than adding another flame thrower. Secondly in Crismatt’s favor is his GB% which has been at about 50% for his career. He does a decent job limiting hard contact. The active spin rate on his curve ball is one of the highest in baseball. He had one of the 15 best changeups in baseball in 2022.

Option 4: Codi Heuer – Heuer is… interesting to say the least. He underwent Tommy John in 2022 and then while working his way back in 2023, he suffered a fractured elbow. The fact that heuer hasn’t pitched since 2021 makes him a likely trade candidate/non-tender candidate for a cubs team that can’t pencil in a player that hasn’t played in 3 years into their bullpen. But to be fair neither can we. So onto what heuer was able to do in 2021. Heuer started the season in the south side of Chicago with an unimpressive ERA north of 5 but a fip at 3.69. After being traded to the cubs heuer posted a 3.14 ERA but a 4.36 FIP. Heuer throws about 97mph on his fastball and his extension brings his perceived velocity to about 98/99 mph. He found himself in the 82nd percentile for the spin rate. His fastball also has 7 inches of horisontal movement above average (second best in baseball). Despite this his fastball got hit hard to the tune of a .336 BA. Instead his offspeed and breaking pitches are where he made his money. Hitters hit .151 against his slider and .170 against his changeup. He also showed a good ability to prevent inherited runners from scoring allowing a below league average 8/36 (for context maton let 30/38 score this past year). Having not pitched in two seasons and coming off an elbow fracture, heuer is certainly a wild card. Even more scarily he posted a 7.82 ERA in AAA before going back down with injury in only 12 innings. Heuer is certainly at his best in high leverage situations though posting an OPS about .120 lower than in medium leverage situations (in more ABs mind you so it isn’t small sample size). He is still young and only has two years in the majors of experience. Heuer could be a great option as an arm to throw gas out of the pen, but maybe it is best for him to start on a minor league deal (assuming he gets non tendered).

Option 5: Dillon Maples – Apparently I have an affinity for cubs pitchers that haven’t pitched in the majors since 2021. Look I know maples isn’t the sexy pick but I honestly believe in what he was in 2021. Maples signed a minor league deal with the Phils in 2022 and then had shoulder surgery that ultimately lead to him not having a team in 2023 and coaching a college team. Let’s start with maples splits in 2021 RHB had a .642 OPS against maples but LHB had an incredible .486 OPS against him. RHB hit .190 and had a .328 SLG against him while LHB hit .087 against maples with a .109 SLG against maples. This highlights the main problem with maples. He doesn’t know where the ball is going when it leaves his hand half the time which culminates in a lot of walks. Here is the other thing with maples: he worked almost exclusively in low leverage innings for the cubs. So on to maples upside. Maples did an incredible job of limiting the speed at which the ball left his opponents bats as well as generating a lot of GB(51.5%). Maples is about average when it comes to his extension which leads to his perceived velocity and his actual velocity both hovering around 96 MPH. Batters hit .167 against his fastball though xBA suggests he over-reformed in this respect. Maples in fact has the fourth highest spin rate on his fastball but only about 52% (2nd worst in the MLB) of it gets translated to active spin. His slider and especially his curve truly shines though. Batters only hit .093 against his slider (a number relatively backed up by xBA) he is again in the top 20 of players generating spin on his slider but again this only translated to about 53% active spin (above average for a slider granted). Finally there is maples curveball that batters hit .143 against a mark that xBA(.058) suggest was extremely lucky. Again here we find maples at 4th on the leaderboards for spin on his curveball. His active spin is again only at 80% a number that is still above average for a curve. In 2021 Maples had the single most Horizontal break (10.3 inches above average) on a slider in the entire MLB, his vertical break on his slider was a still respectable(3.2 inches above average). He sported a pressly-esque curveball with 6.4 inches of vertical break above average and 6.2 inches of horizontal break above average (pressly was at 4.2V/7H). Maples hasn’t been in any org in about a year and a half so just starting him out on a minor league contract with a spring training invite is probably the starting ground. Letting josh miller get his hands on these beautiful pitches and molding them (especially his fastball which is by far his least impressive pitch) could easily make maples an under the radar player for us. The Astros have taken plenty of chances on players that have had struggle with control before, maples I believe could be the next.

Option 6:

Other considerations: Josh Staumont (neck injury with an unknown return timeline), Shintaro Fujinami (he has all the physical attributes but wasn’t able to put them all together), Jorge Alcala (yes the one from the pressly trade. Has a good slider.), Tim Hill (strong lefty out of the pen), Adrián Morejón (former top prospect that has some decent movement on his pitches but has never put it together), incumbents: seth Martinez (great at preventing inherited runners from scoring), Ortega (a bit of a wild card coming off of injury)

C:Diaz

1B: Abreu – no other real choice here

2B: Altuve

SS – Pena

3B – Bregman

LF: I’d love morel or Kepler.

CF: McCormick

RF: Tucker

DH: Yordan

UTIL1: Dubon

UTIL: Tellez

UTIL: Kessinger

Back up C: Hedges

LF Option 1: Christopher Morel – High Prospect value, low $$ value. Rumor has it that the cubs may move on from morel due to his lack of a defensive home. If this does indeed happen we should absolutely jump on this opportunity. Morel is a high strike out player but he absolutely mashes the baseball when he gets a hold of it. He actually was in the 99th percentile for arm strength and the 81st percentile for sprint speed showing that his problem is not a lack of athleticism but more so a lack of knowledge of the position. Sticking Morel in left with petis help should help mitigate the defensive issues he has and make him an ideal LF bat. Morel had a 116 OPS+ on the season and his avg exit veto was in the 91st percentile. The ball absolutely jumps off his bat and he is a great threat on the base paths. He will likely be expensive because he has a lot of years of control yet (hasn’t even made it to arb) but we also could be buying low while his defense is holding him back.

LF Option 2: Max Kepler: Firstly the marketing would be great due to him sharing a last name with a famous astrologer. Kepler was a pick I made for us to target last season instead of bringing back Brantley and after having a really down start to the season he finally put it all together and broke out. If you look at Keplers stat cast page he is an above average hitter by every stat cast metric while also being an elite defender in right field. Kepler also offers another left handed bat to add to our line up. A year from FA, the twins may try and capitalize off a great year and get value back before he leaves for nothing. Kepler would certainly be a great add with a 121 OPS+ this year. Notable Kepler’s xBA was a .269, his xwOBA was a .363 and his xSLG was a .499 all values that relatively mirrored his actual production. Kepler would probably be the high $$ but lower prospect cost due to this being his last year under contract.

Other consideration: Soler (high $$), Tommy Pham (low $$, problematic in the clubhouse?), Gurriel frankly seems like a landmine.

Back-up Catcher 1: Austin Hedges – What people seemed to think maldy is. He is really bad at hitting but he is absolutely incredible at other aspects of the game. His framing is elite (something that yainer receives poor marks for) as well as his blocking. His ability to cut down runners is only average though. Hedges is known as well for doing extensive research before his game to call great games.

Back-up Catcher 2: Maldy – The club house loves him but we know what he is. His defensive game is fading, his offensive game was not impressive. The worry with maldy coming back would be that if pitchers were to request him then all of the sudden we are back to maldy starting way to many games a season with poor defensive value.

Other consideration: tucker Barnhart, Gary Sanchez

Bench Bat 1: Rowdy Tellez – with dubon and Kessinger both being right handed bats a LHB off the bench seems important. Tellez is likely to be non tendered due to his poor 2023 with the brewers. The near .100 decline in SLG is what truly killed him. The ball just wasn’t jumping off his bat like it was in 2022. The hope here would be that Tellez could provide LH pop off the bench even if it comes at the expense of Ks. Tellez would be strictly a DH/1B with kess covering the rest of the infield and dubon/new LF covering the rest of the outfield. Also with urquidy not a lock to make the roster in 2023 adding a player from the Mexican WBC team might be good PR for our game down there.

Bench Bat 2: Keston Hiura – look I know this one is crazy considering he got DFA’d by the brewers and recently elected FA but the crux of the Hiura argument rests on really one number. Hiura had a 143 wRC+ against RHP in 2022. This was a .866 OPS against RHB but the brewers still allowed him to get 109 PAs against LHP compared to his only 157 PAs against RHP. A) if hiura is put into an extremely aggressive platoon I back him to actually be an above league average hitter (see Brandon belt). B) hiura was seen as being a great contact hitter in the minors before the brewers started to tinker with his swing for more power. Creating a better contact approach at the plate may again help. A minor league deal with a spring training invite should at minimum be on the table. The bigger problem with hiura would be strongly skewing our bench towards RHBs. Something that could maybe be fixed by calling into question kessingers spot on the bench.

Other names in consideration: Jared Walsh (will he ever be the same after shoulder surgery), Nicky Lopez (if we wanted to replace kess with a LHB)

Others considered: nicky Lopez, Jared Walsh