NEWSLETTER
Got into a theme park side conversation this morning on a text thread with friends, and man, I want to be on a roller coaster right now. I would suffer the cold to do it. I don’t care.
- The Cubs still haven’t announced their coaching staff, making this pretty easily the latest I can remember that getting finalized. We know the reason – with Craig Counsell surprisingly coming in, there was necessarily a period of internal evaluation, external reach-outs, and some waiting to see if any Brewers coaches would be allowed to leave – but it is certainly atypical. Most decisions have probably been made, and just not yet announced.
- At this point, we know there will be a new bench coach, since Andy Green departed for the Mets front office, but it’s possible most of the rest of the staff are simply retained. We have heard Tommy Hottovy and Dustin Kelly are staying, and we have not yet heard about any departures other than assistant hitting coach Johnny Washington (who got the top hitting coach job with the Angels; John Mallee is reportedly taking his spot, bumped up from Iowa). What will be interesting is, if most of the staff sticks around for this year, whether Counsell then takes a year to evaluate and more fully overhauls the staff after next season (when the Cubs can be early instead of late, and will actually have a chance to talk to preferred targets (and also when maybe some Brewers coaches become free agents)).
- In any case, I’d expect an announcement on the full coaching staff by sometime next week at the Winter Meetings.
- We’ve been talking about it for months (years?), but it STILL seems to be under-discussed:
- The teams that have lost – or will yet lose after 2024 – their deals with Diamond/Bally will almost certainly not be able to recoup same level from new deals/direct-to-consumer. Remember, MLB was offering to backstop the lost deals last year for 80 cents on the dollar, but they aren’t making that offer for 2024 and beyond. Moreover, the one team that tried to do the direct-to-consumer via MLB.tv last year, the Padres, got just 18,000 subscribers, per The Score. At $20 per month per subscriber for the six month season, that would be LESS THAN $2.2 MILLION TOTAL in revenue if that was your replacement. Their RSN deal was worth $60 MILLION ANNUALLY. Now, will they be able to sell some local rights to bridge some of that gap? Probably. Would they be able to get more subscribers with some time to really promote and build out? Probably. But is it going to come ANYWHERE CLOSE to making up that $58 MILLION DIFFERENCE? Not even close. This whole situation just creates massive uncertainty for half the league.
- The Bally teams are the Cardinals, Tigers, Marlins, Reds, Royals, Angels, Braves, Rays, Brewers, Guardians, Rangers, Twins, Diamondbacks, and Padres (with the deals for the latter three already having been dumped in the bankruptcy proceedings, and the Guardians and Rangers reportedly up next). Not every team would face the same level of uncertainty/pain from losing their full TV money, but I suspect all are being impacted at some level. Some are just not saying it publicly.
- Really seems like the Jackson Chourio pre-debut deal (first reported last night by Ken Rosenthal) is going to happen:
- My quick guess was pretty darn close, as that report has the initial deal as something around eight years and $80 million (previous pre-debut record was Luis Robert at six years and $50 million), and then there are likely to be team options and player incentives from there.
- The Hall of Fame is willing to discuss Andre Dawson’s plaque with him (The Athletic), as he’d hoped they would after writing a letter to ask for his cap to be changed from the Expos to the Cubs. That came out in a Tribune piece we discussed yesterday, and now we’ll just see what the Hall has to say when the sides actually get together and chat.
- Because he’d already won the Players Association iteration of the award, and because it was just pretty obvious on its face that he was going to win any iteration of the award, I did not have on my radar that this was happening (it was a separate MLB.com writers balloting):
- Extremely interesting way to try to extrapolate from one Stateside transition to another:
- Lots of reasons it’s imperfect – all comps are! – but this tells you a lot about quality of contact. Note that Lee strikes out about half as often as Kim did in later KBO years, so he’s clearly trading some power for contact – but could he make enough of a change against MLB pitching to improve the power? Without it, I would definitely have some serious concerns about how his style will translate. Moreover, what wound up making Ha-Seong Kim so valuable is his defensive skill and versatility, which was not necessarily the focus when he was coming over. Jung-Hoo Lee would have to be a REALLY elite defensive center fielder to have the same value if his bat doesn’t translate well, and I don’t know that people see him being THAT level of center fielder.
- As an aside, sometimes I think about Kim at third base for the Cubs. I know they have lots of other possible options there, and most of the chatter – if going outside the org – has been about adding a bat. But Kim is under control for one more year and the Padres might be looking to unload some salary (Kim is owed $8 million this year, and then a $2 million buyout on a mutual option), so he might be very available. He can play very well all over the infield, but in his time at third base, he’s flashed outstanding defense. And last year, he hit .260/.351/.398/112 wRC+ with 38 stolen bases, so it’s not like he’s a nothing at the plate. My guess is, if he’s dealt, Kim winds up going to a team that would use him up the middle (and would pay a little more in acquisition price for it).
- Absolutely love this guy, but also this just looks like a non-contact knee injury waiting to happen:
- This was also quite good:
- Michael reminded me yesterday that there have been ZERO Marcus Stroman rumors out there so far this offseason. Just completely zero. He must be the best free agent for whom there has been zero talk. Obviously he’s going to land somewhere, and almost certainly for more than the one-year, $21 million he walked away from with the Cubs. It’s just wild that there has been total silence on him, when I feel like I’ve heard at least something on virtually everyone else.
- Fly the Moon:
