Re: What would you deal Garza for?

[Guest]

unless you viewed Maholm as a key cog in the rotation.

 

How was he not a key cog in the rotation?

 

Because he's easily replaced? Maholm had value, but it was as a guy you can count on for 200 IP of not-bad pitching. He was traded for great value that is set to be MLB ready next year, so I'm going to be skeptical if he's viewed as the tipping point for someone thinking that the front office is tanking future seasons.

[jersey cubs fan]

I still truly believe the 2013 Cubs will be a better team record wise after all of the conversions have been executed.

 

Better than what?

 

Than this season's team.

 

Oh, goody.

 

It shouldn't be hard to improve upon this god awful team. Doesn't mean they will be any good.

[Guest]

unless you viewed Maholm as a key cog in the rotation.

 

How was he not a key cog in the rotation?

 

Because he's easily replaced? Maholm had value, but it was as a guy you can count on for 200 IP of not-bad pitching. He was traded for great value that is set to be MLB ready next year, so I'm going to be skeptical if he's viewed as the tipping point for someone thinking that the front office is tanking future seasons.

 

This brings up a question I was planning on asking anyway... Do we expect Vizcaino to spend his "throwaway" post TJ year in AAA or with the big club next year? 50/50?

[jersey cubs fan]

unless you viewed Maholm as a key cog in the rotation.

 

How was he not a key cog in the rotation?

 

Because he's easily replaced? Maholm had value, but it was as a guy you can count on for 200 IP of not-bad pitching. He was traded for great value that is set to be MLB ready next year, so I'm going to be skeptical if he's viewed as the tipping point for someone thinking that the front office is tanking future seasons.

 

He's not a tipping point, he's one of many pieces that won't be around to help the team be respectable. I have no idea what sort of weird line of thinking you are trying to use here, but the fact is the 2013 Cubs are getting worse and worse. A year ago the 2013 Cubs had a chance of being respectable. That is becoming less and less possible with every move. I'm not against the trade, but the fact is a guy who can give you 200 IP of not bad pitching is something the 2013 team is going to be desperate for, as none of the people in the organization project to coming close to that.

[jersey cubs fan]

Why do you guys still harp on and on about this being an unnecessarily long and painful process? The first season under their tenure isn't even over yet. There is so much over reaction on this board sometimes.

 

What in the holy hell are you talking about? We have to wait for this season to be over to have an opinion on how good the team is? Where is the overreaction? The Cubs suck. The way things are going, on many fronts, it seems plainly obvious that the best we can hope for next season is to suck less.

[jersey cubs fan]

This brings up a question I was planning on asking anyway... Do we expect Vizcaino to spend his "throwaway" post TJ year in AAA or with the big club next year? 50/50?

 

Him pitching in the majors seems like a very stupid idea to me. If there is any hope of him starting, he'll need the work to stretch out in a controlled minor league environment. If he's going to the bullpen, he'll still need regular work that isn't as easy to come by in a major league bullpen.

[mookie]

Why do you guys still harp on and on about this being an unnecessarily long and painful process? The first season under their tenure isn't even over yet. There is so much over reaction on this board sometimes.

 

What in the holy hell are you talking about? We have to wait for this season to be over to have an opinion on how good the team is? Where is the overreaction? The Cubs suck. The way things are going, on many fronts, it seems plainly obvious that the best we can hope for next season is to suck less.

 

Yeah. Calmer than you are dude. Way to get all doom-town with months of reconstruction left before the first pitch is even thrown in 2013.

[Guest]

unless you viewed Maholm as a key cog in the rotation.

 

How was he not a key cog in the rotation?

 

Because he's easily replaced? Maholm had value, but it was as a guy you can count on for 200 IP of not-bad pitching. He was traded for great value that is set to be MLB ready next year, so I'm going to be skeptical if he's viewed as the tipping point for someone thinking that the front office is tanking future seasons.

 

He's not a tipping point, he's one of many pieces that won't be around to help the team be respectable. I have no idea what sort of weird line of thinking you are trying to use here, but the fact is the 2013 Cubs are getting worse and worse. A year ago the 2013 Cubs had a chance of being respectable. That is becoming less and less possible with every move. I'm not against the trade, but the fact is a guy who can give you 200 IP of not bad pitching is something the 2013 team is going to be desperate for, as none of the people in the organization project to coming close to that.

 

In all honesty, I don't really think the 2013 Cubs are any worse than they were last week, unless Vizcaino's rehab is months different than what I'm expecting as the normal TJS recovery. And even if Vizcaino didn't exist, they still have the same money they just gave to Maholm in free agency to replace him if need be.

[jersey cubs fan]

Why do you guys still harp on and on about this being an unnecessarily long and painful process? The first season under their tenure isn't even over yet. There is so much over reaction on this board sometimes.

 

What in the holy hell are you talking about? We have to wait for this season to be over to have an opinion on how good the team is? Where is the overreaction? The Cubs suck. The way things are going, on many fronts, it seems plainly obvious that the best we can hope for next season is to suck less.

 

Yeah. Calmer than you are dude. Way to get all doom-town with months of reconstruction left before the first pitch is even thrown in 2013.

 

Get all doom town?

 

I'm looking at the team rationally, and with the assumptions that the front office actually is going to be continuing the plan they've had all along. There's next to no chance of being good next season.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

In all honesty, I don't really think the 2013 Cubs are any worse than they were last week, unless Vizcaino's rehab is months different than what I'm expecting as the normal TJS recovery.

 

Which is why I said earlier that the really it's more about the intention to trade Soriano and Garza. If/when those two are traded, I think that'll signal the end of 2013's hope.

[jersey cubs fan]

In all honesty, I don't really think the 2013 Cubs are any worse than they were last week, unless Vizcaino's rehab is months different than what I'm expecting as the normal TJS recovery. And even if Vizcaino didn't exist, they still have the same money they just gave to Maholm in free agency to replace him if need be.

 

I don't get this. You think he's going to replace Maholm in 2013? That's madness.

[Backtobanks]

This year's team is on real and pythagorean pace to win 68 games. It'd be hard to put a team that on paper didn't project to be better. We've got replacement level or worse performance from three positions in aggregate. Ian Stewart aside, I doubt they'll fill many of those positions with players who you'd expect to be worse than that.

 

68 wins will be the upper limit on projections for next year.

[davell]

As far as Garza goes, it's the first actual mistake this FO has made, in my mind. I seriously doubt we'd really considered him a longterm guy from the time we decided what direction we were going. He was going to be traded, one way or the other. So, they took the gamble that he'd bring more at the deadline than he would have over last offseason. And him getting hurt and missing the last start or two before the deadline killed their chances at trading him. If they just wanted to trade him for the hell of it, they COULD have done that yesterday, I'm sure. They want to maximize his value and it's definitely possible he'll bring more in the offseason, than we got offered yesterday for him.

 

But, there's no way he's going to bring more than he would have over last offseason. It's 2 years versus 1, it's him coming off what was probably a career year versus whatever he winds up with this year. So, in that way, we've lost value definitely. If over the offseason, we were holding out for Castellanos, Turner, and Crosby, now we'll be holdng out for Turner and Crosby(example of value, not of actual deal obviously), as an example. And the leverage will be gone that we had.

 

Personally, before the season began, I thought he was coming into his own and was going to solidify himself as a true TOR starter. A guy worth giving 5/90 to or so. Now, trade aside, I'm not comfortable at all with that type of contract for him. Because it looks lie he's a very solid mid-rotation guy on a good team. We're in a spot where we ought to trade hiM at this point. The FA market is weak as hell in 2013. It'd take damn near our entire system to be dealt away to turn this team into a solid contender and even then, it's hard to say whether that team would have longevity or not.

 

If over the offseason, we get offered a solid young starter with upside, like a Delgado or a Hutchison, along with a solid prospect, maybe a Nicolino or a Gilmartin, since I used Toronto and Atlanta, then it makes all the sense to go ahead and take it. Sucks we could have had more, but if he's a midrotation guy, as it appears to me, then locking him up longterm doesn't seem to be very beneficial, unless we're trading away Baez and others just to make sure we put an 85ish win team out there.

 

 

The articles talking 2015 certainly have no source for that, because I seriously doUbt Theo even knows when it's time to be true buyers yet. I keep saying 2014 personally, as I expect we'll have a decent core of younger positioN guys already performing and Shark, Wood, and hopefully a piece from a Garza deal in the rotation, allowing us to spend big and trade big as well from a very amped up system by then. But, as far as Garza goes, I don't really see why giving him a longterm deal to be a 3ish type guy, when there's always going to be guys like him around to trade for at some point over a season, is a must, by any stretch.

[Guest]

In all honesty, I don't really think the 2013 Cubs are any worse than they were last week, unless Vizcaino's rehab is months different than what I'm expecting as the normal TJS recovery. And even if Vizcaino didn't exist, they still have the same money they just gave to Maholm in free agency to replace him if need be.

 

I don't get this. You think he's going to replace Maholm in 2013? That's madness.

 

From a value standpoint, I think we're absolutely no worse off in 2013 with Vizcaino + 6.5 million dollars than Maholm. Maholm is simply not a high bar.

[jersey cubs fan]

In all honesty, I don't really think the 2013 Cubs are any worse than they were last week, unless Vizcaino's rehab is months different than what I'm expecting as the normal TJS recovery. And even if Vizcaino didn't exist, they still have the same money they just gave to Maholm in free agency to replace him if need be.

 

I don't get this. You think he's going to replace Maholm in 2013? That's madness.

 

From a value standpoint, I think we're absolutely no worse off in 2013 with Vizcaino + 6.5 million dollars than Maholm. Maholm is simply not a high bar.

 

I still don't see how this says anything different about the fact that they are going to suck in 2013 and it's going to be a long time until they are good.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Maholm is kind of replaceable, but they needed more of him even before that trade. Now they need at least two Maholms for next year's rotation. Eventually, you run out of Maholms you can add in one offseason.

[dew1679666265]

Yeah, I don't really care that much about trading away Maholm - he's the definition of replaceable and we got a really good return for him. My concern is how dead-set they seem to be on moving Garza. With the pretty lousy offense we have and the lack of upper end pitchers in the system after Garza, I think any chance we have of being competitive rest squarely on Garza being on this team.

 

If the Theo regime is insistent upon trading him this offseason and do, I think we're easily looking at tanking 2013 and probably 2014 as well. Unless we're willing to spend this offseason and get some breaks (i.e. Greinke and/or Anibal are FAs).

[gocubs2118]

There is probably a reason why they are so insistent on trading Garza. They haven't had contract talks in months and he's probably asking for way too much money. If Garza is asking for 20 mil a year, they really have no choice but to trade him for future assets. And maybe the new FO doesn't think as highly of Garza as everyone on this board does.

[dew1679666265]

But, as far as Garza goes, I don't really see why giving him a longterm deal to be a 3ish type guy, when there's always going to be guys like him around to trade for at some point over a season, is a must, by any stretch.

 

Garza was a mid-rotation guy when we traded for him. His 2012 is better than anything he did prior to becoming a Cub - he's pretty clearly better than a mid-rotation arm at this point. He's probably not consistently the ace he looked like in 2011, but he's closer to 2011 Garza than he is to pre-Cub Garza. He's not elite, but he's definitely a TOR guy.

[Guest]

I've been fairly sure they intend to tank one more year for a while now. They probably want one more year of maximizing the influx of talent in the draft and IFA.

[davell]

Considereing that going into next year, the only positions we're likely to have filled with hat we even halfway know what to expect are 1B, 2B, SS, RF(assuming DeJesus is even still here), and 2 SP, I think it's fairly safe to say we're not gutting the system to add a whole bunch, unless some guys basically 26ish or younger come available that make sense. With what's available on the FA market, I expect us to go into next year with Castillo at C, Vitters at 3B(unless they find a way to trade him for a young guy that's already in the majors) Brett in CF, with us signing a LF(last month I still had LaHair hope, I was proven to be a dumbass) and 2-3 averagish SP, along with some bullpen moves. Only big monetary moves I could see are things we don't know of yet, like another younger, but older than 23(since new IFA rules) comes over, or another Pac Rim import that's young.

 

Begs the question how low on the Limbo stick the payroll will go, but I kind of expect it to be sitting around 80 mill or so next year, with probably a 70ish win team being talked about, going into April.

Edited August 1, 2012 by davell

[El Duderino]

Tank for Rodon!

[Sammy Sofa]

Of course DeJesus is going to be here.

[Guest]

Can we just fast forward to Baez's MLB debut at this point?

[dew1679666265]

There is probably a reason why they are so insistent on trading Garza. They haven't had contract talks in months and he's probably asking for way too much money. If Garza is asking for 20 mil a year, they really have no choice but to trade him for future assets. And maybe the new FO doesn't think as highly of Garza as everyone on this board does.

 

Contract demands change all the time. Hamels seemed almost a certainty to hit FA because his demands were ridiculously high, but through negotiations he actually signed a relatively reasonable deal. I'm sure Garza is asking for $20+ million per year for 5-6 years now, just like I'm sure the FO is offering $14-15 mil a year for 4 years now. That doesn't mean those will be his demands this time next year.

 

I'm fine with entertaining trade offers and taking one if you get blown away. But I think it's a really bad idea to insist upon trading him because he's demanding a contract higher than what he's worth, something that every athlete in history has probably done.