Alex Cobb (Part 3)

[coolhandluke121]

If a player has a living preference that is usually something that leaks out pretty easily. Players are a lot of times open about that kind of thing. Usually location is vastly overrated. They are almost never home to actually do stuff during the season. Games are almost daily so free time really isn’t too common. Off days are usually spent on the road, not in Milwaukee. We have a roof so weather is irrelevant.

 

Weather is pretty irrelevant in baseball anyway. I think a lot of people would rather be in Milwaukee than Florida in summer to be honest. But the one thing that comes up over and over is being closer to family. Even if you're busy, your family can visit you, watch you play, and have dinner after the game. Stuff like that. It's why Aramis Ramirez signed a bargain deal with the Brewers over much more lucrative options, for example. I could easily see Cobb choosing Baltimore for that reason. He's from Florida and played his whole career in TB. Even his minor league career was mostly in the southeast.

[splitterpfj]

At this point, I’m taking Mr Stearns’ word for it - I think the Brewers will open the season with the pitchers they have.

[Warning Track Power]

I concur.

 

Taking a realistic view of the NL as well with improvements from the Giants, Phillies, Mets specifically, I think the Brewers will be competitive this season but may have been passed by a # of teams given the lack of Nelson and the replacements that will be in the rotation.

[DR28]

At this point, I’m taking Mr Stearns’ word for it - I think the Brewers will open the season with the pitchers they have.

 

Yep sadly I think that's gonna happen... Such a severe disappointment.

 

This was the offseason to get a top SP because going forward we will not be competing with the big money offers SPs will be getting.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

At this point, I’m taking Mr Stearns’ word for it - I think the Brewers will open the season with the pitchers they have.

 

Yep sadly I think that's gonna happen... Such a severe disappointment.

 

This was the offseason to get a SP because going forward we will not be competing with the big money offers SPs will be getting.

 

There are going to be Alex Cobb-types available every offseason that fall into the team's price range. The big difference this year was that the Brewers were theoretically players for guys like Darvish and Arrieta. But who knows how big of players they actually were?

 

I agree, though, that it is disappointing that the team hasn't acquired another good starting pitcher that could be plugged into the rotation. Right now on paper the team doesn't compare rotation-wise to the Cubs, Dodgers and Nationals. But a lot can happen between now and September.

[DR28]

At this point, I’m taking Mr Stearns’ word for it - I think the Brewers will open the season with the pitchers they have.

 

Yep sadly I think that's gonna happen... Such a severe disappointment.

 

This was the offseason to get a SP because going forward we will not be competing with the big money offers SPs will be getting.

 

There are going to be Alex Cobb-types available every offseason that fall into the team's price range. The big difference this year was that the Brewers were theoretically players for guys like Darvish and Arrieta. But who knows how big of players they actually were?

 

I agree, though, that it is disappointing that the team hasn't acquired another good starting pitcher that could be plugged into the rotation. Right now on paper the team doesn't compare rotation-wise to the Cubs, Dodgers and Nationals. But a lot can happen between now and September.

 

Yes, sorry... I was talking about the top SPs.

 

If Jimmy wasnt injured I would absolutely be fine with just adding Chacin to our rotation... But Jimmy's out til probably July.

 

I would have definitely gone to battle with...

 

Nelson

Anderson

Davies

Chacin

Suter

 

That's a nice rotation!

[Fear The Chorizo]

At this point, I’m taking Mr Stearns’ word for it - I think the Brewers will open the season with the pitchers they have.

 

Yep sadly I think that's gonna happen... Such a severe disappointment.

 

This was the offseason to get a SP because going forward we will not be competing with the big money offers SPs will be getting.

 

No way would I have wanted the Brewers to shell out what either Darvish or Arrieta wound up getting on an $/yr basis. Even with all the collusion talk and slow process of signing contracts, those premier guys went to big market clubs at annual contract rates most MLB organizations can't afford - along with getting player-friendly opt-outs to become a free agent again after a couple seasons if they wish. Lynn is a 1yr deal that would be appropriate for a Milwaukee if this was a "go for it" year that would be followed by a likely rebuild - this team is not built like that at all. Maybe they still land Cobb at a contract that makes sense for both sides, but they did already sign Chacin to a multi year deal to bolster their rotation along with bringing in a pile of scrap heap vets who look like at least some will break camp with the major league club.

 

I think there will be plenty of veteran starters available at the trade deadline who the Brewers can target that could significantly upgrade their rotation down the stretch...MadBum, Hamels, Stroman, Duffy, Archer, etc. Plus, I think the Brewers have to sort through the budget-friendly depth (Suter, Miley, Yo, Guerra, Wilkerson, Woodruff, etc) they already have before just assuming they need upgrades at 40% of their rotation - particularly with a guy like Nelson coming back and arms like Burnes progressing.

[DR28]

Alex Cobb

Cobb is the highest-profile starter remaining after both Arrieta and Lance Lynn signed this past weekend. The right-hander set career highs in wins (12) and innings pitched (179 1/3) for the Rays in 2017, his first full season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Cobb owns a career 3.50 ERA over 115 starts, and he represents a fine middle-of-the-rotation option for contending clubs. He rejected Tampa Bay's one-year qualifying offer of $17.4 million, meaning teams are likely weighing the benefit cost of having to surrender a Draft pick or possibly international bonus pool money.

Possible fits: Twins, Brewers, Rangers

 

I know this doesnt mean much but I like not seeing Baltimore listed... I doubt the Twins or Rangers add any more SPs.

[Jopal78]

What I don't understand is players such as Cain and Yelich are acquired because they have significant track records of being good players and it is expected that will continue into the future.

 

However, with the pitching rotation Miley, Gallardo and to a lesser extent Chacin have lengthy track records of ineffectiveness and injury, yet the team apparently expects that WILL NOT continue into the future and the players will pitch much better than their track record suggests they will.

 

I doesn't make sense logically. I don't think Cobb is a world beater by any measure, but it's at least makes sense to bring in pitchers who have been successful recently if you're counting on them to be successful into the future.

[NOMAAM]

Alex Cobb

Cobb is the highest-profile starter remaining after both Arrieta and Lance Lynn signed this past weekend. The right-hander set career highs in wins (12) and innings pitched (179 1/3) for the Rays in 2017, his first full season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Cobb owns a career 3.50 ERA over 115 starts, and he represents a fine middle-of-the-rotation option for contending clubs. He rejected Tampa Bay's one-year qualifying offer of $17.4 million, meaning teams are likely weighing the benefit cost of having to surrender a Draft pick or possibly international bonus pool money.

Possible fits: Twins, Brewers, Rangers

 

I know this doesnt mean much but I like not seeing Baltimore listed... I doubt the Twins or Rangers add any more SPs.

Some have indicated the O's don't want to give up a draft pick.

[tmwiese55]

Just seems like a 3 year deal to Cobb is better than the previous deals we gave out to Suppan, Wolf, and Garza. We'll see, still hope they find a way. I'm fine passing on Darvish/Arrieta at what they got, but Cobb seems like it could be a middle ground and for a team trying to win this year he makes sense.

[pacopete4]

Did we doubt the Twins would sign another pitcher before and then Lynn happened?

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

What I don't understand is players such as Cain and Yelich are acquired because they have significant track records of being good players and it is expected that will continue into the future.

 

However, with the pitching rotation Miley, Gallardo and to a lesser extent Chacin have lengthy track records of ineffectiveness and injury, yet the team apparently expects that WILL NOT continue into the future and the players will pitch much better than their track record suggests they will.

 

I doesn't make sense logically. I don't think Cobb is a world beater by any measure, but it's at least makes sense to bring in pitchers who have been successful recently if you're counting on them to be successful into the future.

 

Not a lot about this offseason has been logical. If they go into the season with what they have in the rotation, I'll talk myself into it. But it's tough to apply logic to that decision, though.

[DR28]

Alex Cobb

Cobb is the highest-profile starter remaining after both Arrieta and Lance Lynn signed this past weekend. The right-hander set career highs in wins (12) and innings pitched (179 1/3) for the Rays in 2017, his first full season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Cobb owns a career 3.50 ERA over 115 starts, and he represents a fine middle-of-the-rotation option for contending clubs. He rejected Tampa Bay's one-year qualifying offer of $17.4 million, meaning teams are likely weighing the benefit cost of having to surrender a Draft pick or possibly international bonus pool money.

Possible fits: Twins, Brewers, Rangers

 

I know this doesnt mean much but I like not seeing Baltimore listed... I doubt the Twins or Rangers add any more SPs.

Some have indicated the O's don't want to give up a draft pick.

 

That's good to know, I wasnt aware of that!

[Brew Crew Buster]

Actually what the Brewers did makes lots of logical sense. The Brewers greater weakness was at the plate last year. Specifically they struck out way to much. Adding Cain and Yelich provide better results at Center and right or left with way fewer strike outs. It provides the depth necessary because Braun only plays 120 games a season.

It also secures these assets for the next four years as Burnes, Peralta and Woodford round into form.

Now I am not saying that they didn't anticipate being able to trade an outfielder. I think they did expect Phillips or Santana and Broxton to be traded by now. It just didn't happen and they aren't willing to give someone away.

[And That]

However, with the pitching rotation Miley, Gallardo and to a lesser extent Chacin have lengthy track records of ineffectiveness and injury

I guess it depends on how you define lengthy, but Gallardo and Miley both had really good 2015s. Chacin was really good last year, and pretty good the year before that as well.

 

I know it's not the be-all-end-all, but comparing the combined WARs of those three guys from the previous three seasons:

 

[pre]Pitcher 2015 2016 2017

Jhoulys Chacin 0.00 1.10 2.53

Yovani Gallardo 2.57 -0.17 -0.13

Wade Miley 2.73 0.87 0.37[/pre]

 

As for injury, which is naturally built into WAR, over the past three years Miley has averaged 172 IP, Gallardo 144.3, Chacin 117. Chacin's 2015 is really the only season in that group that was mostly lost due to injury.

[bill hAll Star]

The Twins were reportedly still looking at Cobb. It makes total sense. If they have the ability to go closer to $140 million for one season as they would with Cobb, they can do that. Mauer's giant contract is finally gone next year and the Twins literally have $0 non-arbitration contracts for 2020. They could live with a longer-term Cobb deal if they had to.

 

Now, they'll have to decide on Gibson/Hughes being gone (likely a "seeya later" thing), Santana in 2019, and Dozier (after this year) but they have a very, very malleable long term outlook and I'm not sure Cobb would affect that even if a bit overpaid. They'll have to revisit their rotation after 2019 or 2020 and will have to decide on Dozier, but otherwise they have a very good situation.

[coolhandluke121]

I concur.

 

Taking a realistic view of the NL as well with improvements from the Giants, Phillies, Mets specifically, I think the Brewers will be competitive this season but may have been passed by a # of teams given the lack of Nelson and the replacements that will be in the rotation.

 

But those were 3 of the worst teams in baseball last year. Anything is possible but they have so far to go, and they still have a lot of the same problems they had last year. I think they made terrible short-sighted decisions (though I can't really blame the Giants because they might turn back the clock one more time) just to give themselves a chance at being .500, but they won't be much better than that. And even the Giants play in such a tough division that I can't see them winning more than 80. The West is incredibly deep this year, with the Giants getting Cutch and Longoria and the Padres doing their usual desperate attempt to remain relevant and screw up their future, all so they can play spoiler once in a while.

 

I basically see just a whole bunch of teams in the NL moving closer to mediocre. For a lot of them, that means moving up a little, since there were so many bad teams last year. But those extra wins will come at the expense of mediocre teams that were kind of flukes last year (Cards, Rockies) and the new bottom-feeders (Pirates, Marlins). I would have put the Brewers in with the Cards and Rockies as flukes last year, but they made enough improvements to remain a wild card favorite along with the Diamondbacks IMO.

 

By default, someone in the weak east will have a surprisingly good record compared to last year just because the competition is arguably even worse.

[bill hAll Star]

Padres doing their usual desperate attempt to remain relevant and screw up their future

 

This is an unrelated point here, and I agree that Hosmer's gonna end up being a bit of a burden in a few years and probably nothing special short-term, but just ignore the marketing Hosmer move and what have they done to screw up their future?

 

The Padres have been one of the more future-oriented teams out there since they got past that stupid Upton/Norris/Kemp/Middlebrooks/etc. offseason.

[Jopal78]

I know it's not the be-all-end-all, but comparing the combined WARs of those three guys from the previous three seasons:

 

Pitcher 2015 2016 2017

Jhoulys Chacin 0.00 1.10 2.53

Yovani Gallardo 2.57 -0.17 -0.13

Wade Miley 2.73 0.87 0.37

 

 

As for injury, which is naturally built into WAR, over the past three years Miley has averaged 172 IP, Gallardo 144.3, Chacin 117. Chacin's 2015 is really the only season in that group that was mostly lost due to injury.

 

I am surprised that Gallardo had a 2.57 in '15 which I would assume is attributable to keeping the ball in the ball park more, as all his other numbers have deteriorated every year since leaving Milwaukee.

 

The average innings pitched is also interesting because Jimmy Nelson averaged over 6 IP per start in 2017. Miley averaged around 5 IP/start in '16 and was less than 5 IP in '17. Gallardo has been right around 5 IP/start since leaving Milwaukee the first time and Chacin is at nearly 6 IP/start last year.

 

I'll give the front office the benefit of the doubt for now, but it certainly appears more probably true than not that the rotation takes a significant step backwards which will tax the bullpen which could result in a decline in productivity by having to cover more innings in 2018.

[DR28]

Padres doing their usual desperate attempt to remain relevant and screw up their future

 

This is an unrelated point here, and I agree that Hosmer's gonna end up being a bit of a burden in a few years and probably nothing special short-term, but just ignore the marketing Hosmer move and what have they done to screw up their future?

 

The Padres have been one of the more future-oriented teams out there since they got past that stupid Upton/Norris/Kemp/Middlebrooks/etc. offseason.

 

Agreed... I like what the Padres are building... I'm probably the only one who likes the Hosmer move.

[coolhandluke121]

What I don't understand is players such as Cain and Yelich are acquired because they have significant track records of being good players and it is expected that will continue into the future.

 

However, with the pitching rotation Miley, Gallardo and to a lesser extent Chacin have lengthy track records of ineffectiveness and injury, yet the team apparently expects that WILL NOT continue into the future and the players will pitch much better than their track record suggests they will.

 

I doesn't make sense logically. I don't think Cobb is a world beater by any measure, but it's at least makes sense to bring in pitchers who have been successful recently if you're counting on them to be successful into the future.

 

It makes perfect sense. Yelich and Cain are borderline superstars, unless all you care about is slugging and RBI's of course. Cain just had arguably his best year, posting his best OBP ever and playing 15 more games than he'd every played before. He showed no signs of declining athleticism, remaining one of the faster outfielders in baseball and stealing 26 bases while being caught 2 (2!) times. They had ample reason to believe both guys will be ~5 WAR players for a couple years, with Yelich up there for as much as five years or more.

 

On the other hand, Lynn and Cobb had lucky seasons with questionable peripherals after Tommy John surgery, and Arrieta was basically terrible with declining velocity in a year in which most pitchers gained velocity because they measured it differently. Darvish's deal was too lucrative/long. Their moves are evidence of smart, reasonable projections in all cases of high-profile players who were available. It was a great offseason. Not every move is guaranteed to work out, but at least they made the smartest moves based on available evidence.

 

I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that they expect Miley and Gallardo to be effective. They invested basically nothing in them. That's not a sign of being committed to them or thinking they'll be effective. Neither is staying out of the free agent pitching market. It's just a sign that they correctly saw that it was a bad market and were willing to take their chances on someone emerging from among the in-house options.

[coolhandluke121]

Padres doing their usual desperate attempt to remain relevant and screw up their future

 

This is an unrelated point here, and I agree that Hosmer's gonna end up being a bit of a burden in a few years and probably nothing special short-term, but just ignore the marketing Hosmer move and what have they done to screw up their future?

 

The Padres have been one of the more future-oriented teams out there since they got past that stupid Upton/Norris/Kemp/Middlebrooks/etc. offseason.

 

I was referring back to those moves, which set them up to have no other choice but to think about the future. You don't get credit for thinking about the future if you gave yourself no choice. If the first thing you do when you've started to turn around your long-term outlook is sign Eric Hosmer for $120m, you haven't figured it out yet. All I'm saying is I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

 

More importantly, they might have made themselves just competent enough to steal games against their far superior West rivals once in a while, which is my salient point about how difficult the West is this year. It's going to be very hard for SF or Colorado to win more than 80, and hard for Arizona to end up with a better record than the Brewers even though they're the better team IMO.

[homer]

I know it's not the be-all-end-all, but comparing the combined WARs of those three guys from the previous three seasons:

 

Pitcher 2015 2016 2017

Jhoulys Chacin 0.00 1.10 2.53

Yovani Gallardo 2.57 -0.17 -0.13

Wade Miley 2.73 0.87 0.37

 

 

As for injury, which is naturally built into WAR, over the past three years Miley has averaged 172 IP, Gallardo 144.3, Chacin 117. Chacin's 2015 is really the only season in that group that was mostly lost due to injury.

 

I am surprised that Gallardo had a 2.57 in '15 which I would assume is attributable to keeping the ball in the ball park more, as all his other numbers have deteriorated every year since leaving Milwaukee.

 

The average innings pitched is also interesting because Jimmy Nelson averaged over 6 IP per start in 2017. Miley averaged around 5 IP/start in '16 and was less than 5 IP in '17. Gallardo has been right around 5 IP/start since leaving Milwaukee the first time and Chacin is at nearly 6 IP/start last year.

 

I'll give the front office the benefit of the doubt for now, but it certainly appears more probably true than not that the rotation takes a significant step backwards which will tax the bullpen which could result in a decline in productivity by having to cover more innings in 2018.

 

I think regression is likely but I don't think it will be too bad. Garza/Guerra/Peralta were spectacularly awful. I could see their replacement(s) being significantly better this season. That might offset what they lose from nelson being out.

[bill hAll Star]

Padres doing their usual desperate attempt to remain relevant and screw up their future

 

This is an unrelated point here, and I agree that Hosmer's gonna end up being a bit of a burden in a few years and probably nothing special short-term, but just ignore the marketing Hosmer move and what have they done to screw up their future?

 

The Padres have been one of the more future-oriented teams out there since they got past that stupid Upton/Norris/Kemp/Middlebrooks/etc. offseason.

 

I was referring back to those moves, which set them up to have no other choice but to think about the future. You don't get credit for thinking about the future if you gave yourself no choice. If the first thing you do when you've started to turn around your long-term outlook is sign Eric Hosmer for $120m, you haven't figured it out yet. All I'm saying is I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

 

More importantly, they might have made themselves just competent enough to steal games against their far superior West rivals once in a while, which is my salient point about how difficult the West is this year. It's going to be very hard for SF or Colorado to win more than 80, and hard for Arizona to end up with a better record than the Brewers even though they're the better team IMO.

 

The Hosmer thing is a stupid ownership marketing move. Just ignore it. Yes, it's owner meddling, but I'd bet that ownership probably was willing to pay the extra $8 million/year over what he's actually worth to have their marketing figurehead.

 

As for the other part of the argument - they made a shrewd move in one of the final years of the old international signing rules and spent like $40 million on international prospects. They have been very shrewd the past few offseasons.

 

At this point, I don't think what they've done is going to move the needle much on tanking/draft picks. Maybe Hosmer and some of their other, random vet pickups drops them from #4 to #7, but I can't see it doing much more than that...and I'm not sure it moves the needle at all.