First of all, don’t worry about that Cardinals report today, Cubs fans (if you missed it, Willson Contreras reportedly reached out to a friend with the Cardinals and confirmed that they might be interested in him this offseason). It doesn’t change anything. The Cardinals need a catcher, Willson Contreras needs an employer, we already knew they might be a match. If anything, the Cardinals being involved increases the Cubs’ chances of re-signing the guy, because letting him walk makes a more direct opponent better in addition to making the Cubs worse.
Now. What we were going to say.
The trade deadline made us pretty confident that Willson Contreras was going to stay a Chicago Cub, a view that was met with outright anger from many beseeching the Cubs to keep Willson Contreras. The haters’ logic? The Cubs haven’t reportedly worked too hard on extending the guy already. Our logic? The Cubs didn’t trade him, and the value of qualifying offer draft compensation isn’t anywhere near as high as what they could have gotten for even just a designated hitter of his quality. The only explanation that makes sense for the Cubs holding onto him besides “the offers on the market weren’t good enough to outweigh the probability they re-sign him” is that the Mets strung the Cubs along too long but their final offer was insulting and the Cubs couldn’t pivot to find another trade partner fast enough at the end. That’s…a very narrow explanation. The better one? The one in quotes. The Cubs thought there was a pretty good chance they’d end up bringing back Willson Contreras. Not a 100% chance, but high enough to make it worth not acquiring better prospect capital than what they’ll get with qualifying offer compensation.
Has anything changed since then?
A little bit. For one thing, Contreras has turned in another 108 plate appearances, and while they haven’t been great (.200 batting average, .278 on-base percentage), they haven’t been bad (107 wRC+, .474 slugging percentage, all with a sillily unlucky .169 BABIP). He’s caught enough that his final fWAR is going to be either right at or right next to 3.0 wins above a replacement-level player, which is a career year for the guy at age 30. His bWAR? 3.7, which is not quite a career high (bWAR has liked Contreras these last two years). Overall, our guy was somewhere in the realm of a 3-4 WAR player for his age-30 season. We now know this with certainty.
For another thing, the Cubs’ own 2023 catching situation looks even worse than it previously did. P.J. Higgins has turned in a 54 wRC+ since the trade deadline, bringing his career number to 79 over 249 plate appearances, something which would be fine were Higgins stellar defensively, but is not fine, because Higgins is below-average defensively. Yan Gomes has been relatively hot, nearly league-average at the plate these last two months, but he remains a veteran presence and platoon option, not someone you want as your primary everyday catcher. Miguel Amaya got hurt yet again, and while he’s only 23 and retains immense upside, he has only 266 minor league plate appearances since 2019. He’s just not someone you can hope on to be both ready and productive next year, let alone expect to do that. There are plenty of guys out there on the free agent market you could platoon with Yan Gomes, but if you can get Willson Contreras below the market rate (because of the qualifying offer), you have to strongly consider it. Even if you think you’ll transition him to playing more first base (where the Cubs also have a hole, by the way).
The question has arisen of whether Contreras will accept the Cubs’ qualifying offer. It would be surprising, but let’s look at the numbers to show why:
If you adjust 2020 to be a normal-length season and then average fWAR and bWAR over the last four years (Contreras’s 27-to-30 year-old seasons, conventionally thought of as a player’s prime), you get a 3.2-WAR baseline from which to age. Reduce that by half a win, kicking off the aging process, and you’re looking at a 2.7-WAR projection next year. This is very imprecise—we are applying standard rules of thumb and absolutely nothing else—but at $8M/WAR, Contreras would be expected to be worth $22M next year, $18M in 2024, $62M over a four-year deal, and $70M over a six-year deal.
These are the rough numbers we’d expect for someone like Contreras, and while it’s possible doubts about his pitch-calling and defensive abilities could lessen his value (his bat is more valuable above a replacement-level catcher than above a replacement-level first baseman), it’s hard to see those changing in a year. Accepting the qualifying offer is betting on yourself to have a big enough year to change the market. Willson Contreras is, as far as MLB players go, a well-known quantity. One more year isn’t going to change perceptions that much. There aren’t big injury concerns, there isn’t some late-bloomer phenomenon…Willson Contreras is who he is, and even a monster year next year would only move the needle so much. Someone out there is going to be willing to give Contreras enough security or a big-enough one-year deal to be better than $19M and one year, because qualifying offer penalties aren’t worth $3M. It might just be a two-year, $40M deal. It might even just be a two-year, $36M deal. But both of those would likely be better for Willson Contreras than accepting the qualifying offer, and the risk that acceptance would entail.
That all said, the fact it’s close illustrates how clear a call this is for the Cubs. Signing Willson Contreras does not appear prohibitive cost-wise, especially with a seemingly limited market. Signing Willson Contreras does not appear prohibitive roster-wise, with huge holes at first base and designated hitter which Contreras is well-suited to help fill. Because the qualifying offer penalizes teams for signing qualifying-offered players and rewards the teams those players left, the Cubs get a discount. Their evaluation of Contreras’s value may be lower than the market’s, but it has to be lower by enough to outweigh the small discount, and it also has to be lower by enough to outweigh the value Contreras offers the Cubs specifically, where they have holes at every position he can help fill, something not true of many teams.
So, yeah, we still expect the Cubs to re-sign Contreras. If they don’t, and it isn’t part of some Tom Ricketts budget shenanigans (like when they let Kyle Schwarber walk), it’ll be because someone’s prepared to offer the guy a ton of money elsewhere—more money than the Cubs, who know Contreras best, think he’s worth.
With everything else with the Cubs…we don’t have much to toss in at the moment. We’ll have plenty to say as the offseason begins, including a 40-man will-they-or-won’t-they and all of that, but at the moment we’re enjoying the last few nights of Pat & Ron (and Boog & JD), and we’re hoping the Cubs can finish on a good note here in Cincinnati, even if the win streak died last night.
The Bracket’s Almost There
With the Phillies clinching a playoff spot last night (I’d imagine it’ll always be fun to see Kyle Schwarber celebrate), the twelve playoff teams are set. We’re just waiting on the 5/6-seeds in each league, plus the NL East.
In the NL East, I missed that the Atlanta sweep meant they now hold the tiebreaker over the Mets. They would have to lose out and the Mets would have to win out for this to end up in the Mets’ hands, and that’s only five games breaking the right way for the Mets, but it’s also five whole games.
In both Wild Card races, the current 6-seed holds the tiebreaker and the better path belongs to whoever the final 6-seed is. In the NL, the 6-seed gets to play the Cardinals and Atlanta rather than the Mets and Los Angeles. In the AL, it’s the Guardians and Yankees instead of the Blue Jays and Astros. With home-field irrelevant unless the 6-seed gets to the LCS and the 5-seed gets there too, all four of the Padres, Phillies, Mariners, and Rays therefore want to lose right now. I don’t think any are going to do anything obvious, but watch for things like “resting” starters and “preserving” bullpens.
Finally, Aaron Judge continues to not hit home runs after hitting so many of them for so long. He trailed Luis Arraez by four points of batting average entering today, so the Triple Crown is looking dicey as well. With each well past 500 at-bats, single at-bats have a maximum swing of only one or two points, likely necessitating big days for Judge, not just a hit or two.
We’ve Got a Schedule
Since we last talked Iowa State men’s hoops, the Big 12 has released its schedule, making Iowa State’s full schedule complete.
Because the Big 12 still plays a full double round robin this year, we already knew who the opponents would be and where the games would be played, and we talked a few weeks ago about how an 8-11 mark across conference play and the conference tournament will hopefully be all Iowa State needs to make the NCAA Tournament. What do we know now, though?
The toughest turnaround comes when the team goes to Lubbock two days after playing Mizzou in Columbia. The only other Saturday/Monday pair of games comes at home against Oklahoma and West Virginia, and while the West Virginia home game is a key one to win (because it’s one of the most winnable on the conference schedule), you’re going to have tough scheduling draws, and if that’s the toughest one, you’re in good shape. As for the trip to Lubbock? That isn’t one Iowa State will hopefully need. It would be nice, and goals can change if the team outperforms expectations, but our current perception is that this group is a bubble squad.
Breaking down the schedule as a whole, bumping the two short-rest games up a notch in difficulty (though that does ignore that the opponents are playing short-rest games themselves):
- Probable Losses: Kansas (A), Texas (A), Baylor (A), Texas Tech (A)
- Should-Loses: TCU (A), Oklahoma State (A), West Virginia (A), Oklahoma (A), Baylor (H)
- High-Leverage Opponent Leaners: Kansas State (A), Kansas (H), Texas (H)
- High-Leverage ISU Leaners: West Virginia (H), Texas Tech (H)
- Should-Wins: TCU (H), Oklahoma State (H), Oklahoma (H)
- Probable Wins: Kansas State (H)
To get those eight wins, then—and we’re banking on those being in the regular season, since an 8-10 mark would likely leave ISU as a first-round underdog in Kansas City—the most straightforward path is taking care of the six beatable opponents at home and then stealing two either at home against good teams or on the road against anyone. It won’t happen that way—optimistically, they’re probably going to need to steal three or four—but we’re dealing in baselines.
It’s worth noting, with this, that the schedule is set up where Iowa State doesn’t get even a “should-win” until late in January. Their first seven conference games are all either on the road or against Baylor, Texas, or Texas Tech. Stealing a win or two early, then, would be nice, though there may be some benefit to “coming on strong” down the stretch, even if you’re really just meeting reasonable expectations.
The Bull in the Room
To mix a metaphor…
Naw, just an acknowledgment that we’re going to be blogging about the Bulls in something of the same way we blog about the Packers and Cubs, though our connection to them is less than ours to the others (and our Packers connection is less than ours to the Cubs). They’re the favorite NBA team. We just don’t have as strong an attachment at the moment as we do to those other two. They’ve got a preseason game tonight, we probably won’t have anything to say about it but sooner or later we’ll be talking Bulls, and we thought we’d slip this in for regular readers as an explanation.
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Viewing schedule, second screen rotation in italics:
MLB (of playoff race and home run chase significance, plus the Cubs):
- 2:05 PM EDT: New York (AL) @ Texas – Game 1, Taillon vs. Gray (MLB TV)
- 4:10 PM EDT: Washington @ New York (NL) – Game 1, Abbott vs. Carrasco (MLB TV)
- 6:10 PM EDT: Detroit @ Seattle – Game 1, Rodriguez vs. Flexen (MLB TV)
- 6:40 PM EDT: Atlanta @ Miami, Odorizzi vs. Garrett (MLB TV)
- 6:40 PM EDT: Chicago (NL) @ Cincinnati, Assad vs. Cessa (MLB TV)
- 7:10 PM EDT: Tampa Bay @ Boston, Springs vs. Eovaldi (MLB TV)
- 7:40 PM EDT: Washington @ New York (NL) – Game 2, Espino vs. Walker (MLB TV)
- 8:05 PM EDT: New York (AL) @ Texas – Game 2, Cole vs. TBA (MLB TV)
- 8:10 PM EDT: Philadelphia @ Houston, Suárez vs. Verlander (TBS)
- 9:40 PM EDT: Detroit @ Seattle – Game 2, TBA vs. TBA (MLB TV)
- 9:40 PM EDT: San Francisco @ San Diego, Rodón vs. Manaea (MLB TV)
NBA Preseason (just the Bulls):
- 9:30 PM EDT: Pelicans @ Bulls (TNT)
Soccer (of interest to our futures portfolios):
- 2:45 PM EDT: Blackpool @ Sunderland
- 2:45 PM EDT: Queens Park Rangers @ Sheffield United
- 2:45 PM EDT: Bristol City @ Coventry
- 3:00 PM EDT: Norwich City @ Reading
