Nearly Final Best Guess Cubs Opening Day 2024 Roster

In News And Rumors by Rice Cube48 Comments

OK, so given the stuff from the last thread and taking into account what we’ve already considered for the just-prior-to-Cactus-League-finale roster guess, I think we might just have it this time! So while we wait for Shohei Ohtani (and possibly his new, vetted non-gambling interpreter) to read a statement or whatever, here we go:

Catchers (2)

Yan Gomes – primary catcher

Miguel Amaya – backup until he grabs most of the starts

Infielders (7)

Michael Busch – 1B/DH (though I guess he’s athletic enough to sort of play 3B too in a pinch)

Nico Hoerner – 2B (backup SS)

Dansby Swanson – SS

Christopher Morel – 3B/DH (can also play OF but I feel like they will try not to confuse him too much while he’s learning his new regular position)

Miles Mastrobuoni – backup IF/OF

Nick Madrigal – backup 2B/3B

Garrett Cooper – 1B/DH

Outfielders (4)

Ian Happ – LF

Cody Bellinger – CF/1B/DH

Seiya Suzuki – RF

Mike Tauchman – backup OF

Starting Pitchers (5)

Justin Steele – Opening Day starter

Shota Imanaga

Kyle Hendricks

Jordan Wicks

Javier Assad – probably here until Jameson Taillon returns from the injured list to start the season, then they can decide which of Assad and Wicks gets to stay

Relievers (8)

Adbert Alzolay

Hector Neris – seems to have some velocity issues and gave up a few bombs in spring, but veteran in spring training etc I guess?

Julian Merryweather

Drew Smyly

Jose Cuas

Luke Little – gotta have that second lefty, woo!

Yency Almonte

Mark Leiter Jr – who can also get lefties out as long as his splitter doesn’t suck


I’ll paste the official roster in here when it’s announced but this is probably what we will see come Opening Day.

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Comments

  1. Author
    Rice Cube

    From previous:

    andcounting:
    Rice Cube,

    I mean, I think the standard way anyone would do this would be . . . “Bro, you want $4 million for what now? Hell no.” Or release a statement last week instead of “I’m going to need to weekend to reflect on what has been going on for the last six months and how I want to talk about it.” It’s all just so weird. The only thing I’m curious about is whether he will read the statement in English or if it will be translated as he reads it.

    I think if anyone was smart, the first thing to do is as you said, for Shohei to have just said “no” and gotten legal or financial counsel before he wired the money. Barring that, they should have started damage control before Ippei did the interview that started all this crap. And since that didn’t happen, the next thing they should have done was put a gag order on anything being said until they could investigate, which is I guess what this is now, only about 7 steps too late.

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  8. andcounting

    They’re really going with the “Ohtani had no idea this was going on until he saw it on the news and Mizuhara was better at circumventing international money wiring multilayered security measures than he was at predicting the outcomes of sporting events” narrative?

    Ok, man. There’s no way that’s true, but good luck with that defense.

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  9. berselius

    andcounting,

    I’m still on the working timeline that:

    * ohtani found out about it and offered to bail out his friend/personal assistant
    * mizuhara misrepresented the amount of money that he owed, or made more payments than ohtani was aware of
    * ohtani didn’t realize it was an illegal sportsbook,
    * ohtani was surprised when the actual numbers came out and started asking questions
    * Lawyers finally got involved and paraphrased the Stringer Bell funeral home scene

    As far as the wire transfer stuff goes, I kind of feel like anything goes with how celebrities handle their money, and either Mizuhara had account access or someone else was in on it. What little we know about Ohtani is basically that he only cares about baseball, and hopefully I guess his secret wife too, so gambling on stuff like soccer and college football seems out of character. Though the only sources that we know of on what he bet on are Mizuhara and the bookie guy who aren’t exactly reliable.

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  12. berselius

    I should keep my powder dry for the podcast (dying laughing), but one more thing that bothers me in this conversation is the implication that Ohtani doesn’t speak any English, or is somehow fooling us by “hiding behind” a translator.

    It reminds me of people criticizing Sosa for using an interpreter when being summoned for a Congressional subpoena in a language that is not his first.

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  13. Author
    Rice Cube

    Calcaterra did say (and I guess he would know as a former lawyer) that if Ohtani was the one lying about all this, that he would be in all kinds of legal trouble, not that he isn’t now…

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  14. Author
    Rice Cube

    berselius,

    It does kind of bug me that a guy spends all that time around English speakers and didn’t bother to learn at least conversational phrases and the like. Even Bart learned French while being a wine slave.

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  16. andcounting

    Rice Cube,

    Is the water he’s in THAT much hotter if he lies (in a public statement, not a sworn affidavit) than if he tells the truth about unwittingly approving the payments? If we know the payment verification is going to be investigated either way, what difference does a denial make?

    It’s moot ultimately, I guess. They’re going to find out and I’m assuming we’ll find out too.

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  17. Author
    Rice Cube

    andcounting,

    Well at this point the story has changed from “Shohei knowingly paid the debts” to “Shohei had no knowledge” so we don’t even know what the truth is, the former is certainly more incriminating on Shohei’s part than “I had no idea what happened” which is different than “I didn’t know it was illegal” 🤷🏻‍♂️

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  18. berselius

    Right, someone obviously broke the law with the transfers, I’m just saying that at the moment I don’t think he or any other of the bookie’s clients are likely to be charged.

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  26. berselius

    Rice Cube,

    I just don’t know why they would prosecute. Maybe if whoever made the bets actually made money. Most prosecutors hate high-profile cases unless they have some combination of a slam dunk, an unsympathetic target, and lousy defense lawyers. It was late coming but when lawyers finally got involved they probably sufficiently mudded the waters. Much easier to just go after the bookie.

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  27. Author
    Rice Cube

    berselius,

    Yeah I was referring to the bookie squealing to save his hide at some point because what he did is most likely illegal, I know not what will happen to Shohei but I imagine between him, the Dodgers, and MLB, they’ll all do their best to paper it over

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  29. berselius

    Saw this over at Calcaterra’s writeup on his newsletter

    dlf • 4 days ago

    We might be getting a bit over our skis talking about potential criminal liability of either Ohtani or Mizuhara. For example, the Wire Act that Craig cites to applies to the bookmaker, not the gambler. The core language for us is “whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering …” A casual or even habitual bettor is not engaged in that as a business.

    Quoting from a law review article that is linked within the link CC offers us: https://web.archive.org/web/20130114073628/http://www.gambling-law-us.com/Federal-Laws/wire-act.htm 

    In order to prove a prima facie case, the government must establish that: 1. The person was “engaged in the business of betting or wagering” (compared with a casual bettor); …

    In analyzing the first element, the legislative history[60] of the Wire Act seems to support the position that casual bettors would fall outside of the prosecutorial reach of the statute. During the House of Representatives debate on the bill, Congressman Emanuel Celler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee stated “[t]his bill only gets after the bookmaker, the gambler who makes it his business to take bets or to lay off bets. . . It does not go after the causal gambler who bets $2 on a race. That type of transaction is not within the purvue of the statute.”[61] In Baborian, the federal district court concluded that Congress did not intend to include social bettors within the umbrella of the statute, even those bettors that bet large sums of money and show a certain degree of sophistication.

    The user involved in the comment

    SomeGuyInVA • 4 days ago

    Does a guy who bet and lost on the equivalent of 2.25 million horse races still qualify as “casual” though?
    The user involved in the comment

    dlf • 4 days ago

    Yes. The size of the bets doesn’t turn the bettor into the bookie.

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  33. andcounting

    Rice Cube,

    In California, the penalty to participants in illegal gambling appears to be limited to a misdemeanor with max penalties of 6 months prison time and a $1,000 fine. I would guess there’s obvious danger for Mizuhara over wire fraud, theft, embezzling and probably either him or Ohtani if they’re found guilty of lying to federal investigators.

    But none of that really mitigates the baseball side of things. That’s where Ohtani really has to prove he wasn’t involved in paying off illegal gamblers, though it’s not as ironclad as I thought:

    (3) Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee who places bets with illegal book makers, or agents for illegal book makers, shall be subject to such penalty as the Commissioner deems appropriate in light of the facts and circumstances of the conduct.

    If it involves baseball, it’s much worse, especially if it’s Angels games, but it allows a lot more to the commissioner’s discretion than I realized. It helps Ohtani that this particular commissioner lacks all discretion whatsoever.

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  44. Author
    Rice Cube

    MLBTR –> https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/03/diamondbacks-to-sign-jordan-montgomery.html

    The Diamondbacks and left-hander Jordan Montgomery are reportedly in agreement on a one-year deal that guarantees him $25MM. The deal includes a $20MM vesting player option for the 2025 season, with Montgomery earning the ability to opt out if he starts at least ten games in 2024. Montgomery’s option will vest at $20MM if he makes ten starts, with an additional $2.5MM added to the option upon reaching 18 starts and 23 starts during the 2024 season.

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