Newsletter Excerpt, January 8, 2025 -- "Edward Cabrera and the Cubs"

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The ability to make trades like that, though, can’t be the only club in your bag. The Cubs’ 2025 end-of-season payroll was, per Cot’s, $20 million less than it had been in 2024. The team’s projected 2026 Opening Day payroll, and it is still just January 8, is $15 million less than that. They’re $50 million shy of the first tax threshold, after being $10 million under it last year. I like the investments in the bullpen, but they amount to 10% of the payroll. The Cubs have a 90-win team for $194 million, and there’s just no reason for them to be satisfied with that.

It’s not enough to use talent instead of money to improve. The best front offices, the best baseball organizations, use talent in addition to money. The Cubs should make one more move -- Framber Valdez in front of this infield would look amazing -- to lock up favorite status in the NL Central.

 

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, January 6, 2025 -- "Foster Griffin (Really) and the Nationals"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card. (Zelle users, please email me for details.)

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I’ve given the Nationals a lot of leeway this decade because the pandemic stole from them what should have been a profitable season. A defending champion having attendance of 0 the next year is unprecedented. It was a brutal blow both immediately to their coffers and in the long term to developing fan affinity. No team lost more to the pandemic than the Nationals did. It crushed their 2020 and 2021 and, coupled with the disastrous Stephen Strasburg contract, led to a rebuild that may never have happened otherwise.

It’s 2026 now, and that can’t be the excuse any longer. The Nationals, frankly, quit trying to be competitive after that 2021 season. Since then, they signed one free agent, Trevor Williams, to a multi-year contract. They have not made a free-agent commitment of more than $15 million to anyone. They have acquired one player in trade making $10 million (Nathaniel Lowe, $10.3M). Even as their roster came to be filled with the players acquired in trades of Scherzer, Turner, and Juan Soto, acquisitions who generated wins while making no money, the Nationals didn’t take advantage of that to put good players making real salaries around them.

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, January 3, 2025 -- "Tatsuya Imai and the Astros"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card. (Zelle users, please email me for details.)

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I would not be surprised to see Imai have a similar arc as Imanaga did, posting his best season as a rookie, perhaps at a bit lower volume, maybe 25 starts and 140 innings. Imai averaged 24 starts and 165 innings a year in his last three with the Seibu Lions. If he gives the Astros that and then is good enough to opt out, I think it’s a win for the team, though counting the nearly $10 million they’ll pay Seibu as a posting fee changes that math a little. To repeat myself, any time a starting pitcher wants to turn a multi-year deal into a one-year deal, he has my blessing. (More on this idea later this month.)