Yooooooooooooennis Cespedes: To Oakland pg 44

[davearm2]

Nobody likes the rebuilding process. But it's necessary.

 

I wouldn't go that far. There were ways to make this team a fringe contender in 2012 without handing out bad contracts.

Go on. Which free agent contracts did you wish the Cubs had handed out this offseason?

 

Of the biggies, CJ Wilson's deal is the easiest to defend, but that price almost certainly wasn't available to the Cubs.

 

Reyes?

Fielder?

Pujols?

 

How did you get from what I said to "Rob wants to sign 'biggies'?" I was talking about spreading the money around on marginal upgrades and making a handful of smart, low-cost trades.

 

Targeting Edwin Jackson and one of Kuroda / Oswalt would likely be better in the short term than Wood/Volstad/Wells. Trading for Alberto Callaspo would be better than Ian Stewart, and only cost marginally more.

 

This wasn't a 71 win team last season. There was enough room in the payroll to add players to take us to a mid 80's win team. That doesn't always put you in the playoffs, but it gives you a shot.

 

I get why the front office decided to target a future window instead of opting to make slower yearly gains. And I don't necessarily disagree. But let's not pretend it was the only option.

 

Right. I made no secret about my desire to see the Cubs take advantage of the big name FA market this offseason, but I certainly didn't want to see them only spending money on big names. Hell, I didn't even see it as a necessity to spend on any of the big names (Pujols, Fielder and Darvish). What I was hoping for, however, was at least a middle ground like Rob is talking about, where they both look to take a shot at competing in a weakened division in 2012 AND build for the future. It's certainly not an unrealistic expectation given the resources available to the Cubs.

 

Again, middle ground was perfectly realistic, but the middle ground is a place dave can't process.

I can process it just fine, and what's more, I can realize it's a worse option than the one they have chosen.

 

Theo and co.'s primary perspective should be building toward a perennial 95-win team. The short term options like Kuroda and Oswalt do nothing to further that goal. In a few years being saddled with an overpaid, past-prime Fielder or Pujols actually hinders that goal.

 

Now if they can compete in the short term while also building toward that long-term goal, then great. I just don't see them being in that position right now, personally.

[Sammy Sofa]

The Cubs are doing just what they should do... synchronize their spending on big-ticket free agents with the maturation of their young core.

 

You realize that's nearly impossible to predict and align, right?

[Little Slide Rooter]

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/421367_345599772138817_275325552499573_1185506_44169744_n.jpg

[Sammy Sofa]

Theo and co.'s primary perspective should be building toward a perennial 95-win team. The short term options like Kuroda and Oswalt do nothing to further that goal. In a few years being saddled with an overpaid, past-prime Fielder or Pujols actually hinders that goal.

 

Now if they can compete in the short term while also building toward that long-term goal, then great. I just don't see them being in that position right now, personally.

 

Guys like Kuroda and Oswalt can be dealt. It's inevitable a team will be "saddled" with overpaid big ticket FA; it's unavoidable if you want to actually utilize them at any point. You have an unrealistic idea of big name FA being available lining up just right when a team has enough internal talent developing so as to avoid payroll bloat. That's not going to happen.

[davearm2]

The Cubs are doing just what they should do... synchronize their spending on big-ticket free agents with the maturation of their young core.

 

You realize that's nearly impossible to predict and align, right?

It's impossible to predict when you're one or two elite players away from being the sort of consistent 95-win team I described?

[davearm2]

Theo and co.'s primary perspective should be building toward a perennial 95-win team. The short term options like Kuroda and Oswalt do nothing to further that goal. In a few years being saddled with an overpaid, past-prime Fielder or Pujols actually hinders that goal.

 

Now if they can compete in the short term while also building toward that long-term goal, then great. I just don't see them being in that position right now, personally.

 

Guys like Kuroda and Oswalt can be dealt. It's inevitable a team will be "saddled" with overpaid big ticket FA; it's unavoidable if you want to actually utilize them at any point. You have an unrealistic idea of big name FA being available lining up just right when a team has enough internal talent developing so as to avoid payroll bloat. That's not going to happen.

That's nonsense. There are big name free agents available every offseason. And there are more impact guys available through trade.

[Little Slide Rooter]

While I really want Cespedes, at 6/60 or 8/80, he'd be far from a low risk/high reward player. While I don't know much about Cuban baseball, I keep hearing that it's the equivalent of A+ here. This being said, for that money, if we were dying for a potential corner outfield bat, could attempting to trade for someone like Michael Taylor or Michael Saunders, who's teams would likely be willing to trade them for less than an arm and a leg but are younger than Cespedes and have had success at higher levels despite not doing anything in their limited time in the bigs?

[Sammy Sofa]

The Cubs are doing just what they should do... synchronize their spending on big-ticket free agents with the maturation of their young core.

 

You realize that's nearly impossible to predict and align, right?

It's impossible to predict when you're one or two elite players away from being the sort of consistent 95-win team I described?

 

Yes, that's the part that's very, very difficult to align. It's not a matter of, "welp, we've got our young core established...now bring on the plethora of under 30 elite free agents!" If you keep waiting for "synchronicity" you're not going to to have it most of the time.

[Rob]

The problem with the middle ground is that it does impact the future somewhat negatively. Signing Edwin Jackson and Roy Oswalt might mean no money Jorge Soler. Holding onto Sean Marshall in hopes of competing would have meant no Wood/Torreyes/Sapelt. There's no Prince Fielder albatross contract weighing the team down, but it does still hurt somewhat.

 

The Cubs front office decided they'd rather try to use their resources and try to get all the pieces to align perfectly during a future window. I don't have a problem with it either. But other paths existed.

Signing Edwin Jackson or Roy Oswalt to a short-term (1 or 2 year) contract would be pointless given the Cubs' situation. It adds a few wins to a sub-.500 team. Who cares. The best you can hope for is to trade them later on. That may be one way to acquire prospects, but it surely must be the least efficient.

 

Yeah, you completely missed the point.

 

Had the Cubs front office wanted to, they would have been able to field an over - .500 ballclub while staying within the budget and without saddling the payroll with poor long term contracts.

 

Is it the optimal way to acquire prospects? Absolutely not. But there would have been some semblance of competing during the process. And we'd still be able to make moves to leave us better off in the long run.

[CubColtPacer]

The problem with the middle ground is that it does impact the future somewhat negatively. Signing Edwin Jackson and Roy Oswalt might mean no money Jorge Soler. Holding onto Sean Marshall in hopes of competing would have meant no Wood/Torreyes/Sapelt. There's no Prince Fielder albatross contract weighing the team down, but it does still hurt somewhat.

 

To me the middle ground does include moving Marshall. For all the much vaunted talk of rebuilding the Cubs really haven't made any moves that had to have been done without the intention of competing in 2012, and yes, I include the Marshall deal in that.

 

Trading for Rizzo really hurt that goal because he is good enough to not want to acquire somebody great for 1B, but not ready enough to really help the 2012 team.

 

I'm guessing the Cubs would argue that they are trying to compete. They would point to moves like Maholm and Dejesus. And depending on how you account some of the Cubs recent activity (Dempster and Pena's money that was deferred, front office salaries, Dominican complex, Concepcion) the Cubs might not actually have that much money left over in the budget. Of course the Cubs being interested in the Cubans and them not being available as FA's until after many other options signed didn't help either.

[KingCubsFan]

The problem with the middle ground is that it does impact the future somewhat negatively. Signing Edwin Jackson and Roy Oswalt might mean no money Jorge Soler. Holding onto Sean Marshall in hopes of competing would have meant no Wood/Torreyes/Sapelt. There's no Prince Fielder albatross contract weighing the team down, but it does still hurt somewhat.

 

The Cubs front office decided they'd rather try to use their resources and try to get all the pieces to align perfectly during a future window. I don't have a problem with it either. But other paths existed.

Signing Edwin Jackson or Roy Oswalt to a short-term (1 or 2 year) contract would be pointless given the Cubs' situation. It adds a few wins to a sub-.500 team. Who cares. The best you can hope for is to trade them later on. That may be one way to acquire prospects, but it surely must be the least efficient.

 

Yeah, you completely missed the point.

 

Had the Cubs front office wanted to, they would have been able to field an over - .500 ballclub while staying within the budget and without saddling the payroll with poor long term contracts.

 

Is it the optimal way to acquire prospects? Absolutely not. But there would have been some semblance of competing during the process. And we'd still be able to make moves to leave us better off in the long run.

I'm guessing the Cubs did make inquiries into guys like Oswalt and Jackson. It's pretty clear Oswalt doesn't want to play here (or anywhere in the Midwest), and Jackson turned down a 3 year deal with the Pirates (who are similar to us) to take a one year deal with someone else. Theo can't make these guys come here, and he shouldn't overpay for them so that they do want to come here. For once, we have a management team willing to show restraint, which is why I won't be upset if we lose out on Cespedes because the Marlins gave him $70 $80 million.

 

Last year, we headed into spring training with a bad team that, if everything went right, could be above .500. This year, we head into spring training with a bad team that, if everything goes right, could be above .500. The difference is that we'll be relying on young-ish players taking a step forward, whereas last year we were relying on old guys repeating career years. I never understood the desire to overpay and give up assets this offseason for a better shot at 83 wins. That's basically been the Cubs' strategy for the past 20 years.

[Sammy Sofa]

The problem with the middle ground is that it does impact the future somewhat negatively. Signing Edwin Jackson and Roy Oswalt might mean no money Jorge Soler. Holding onto Sean Marshall in hopes of competing would have meant no Wood/Torreyes/Sapelt. There's no Prince Fielder albatross contract weighing the team down, but it does still hurt somewhat.

 

To me the middle ground does include moving Marshall. For all the much vaunted talk of rebuilding the Cubs really haven't made any moves that had to have been done without the intention of competing in 2012, and yes, I include the Marshall deal in that.

 

Trading for Rizzo really hurt that goal because he is good enough to not want to acquire somebody great for 1B, but not ready enough to really help the 2012 team.

 

I'd still want them doing something like the trade for Rizzo even if they had sign Fielder. Blocked or not, he'd still be a valuable chip that could be spun off if necessary.

 

I'm guessing the Cubs would argue that they are trying to compete. They would point to moves like Maholm and Dejesus. And depending on how you account some of the Cubs recent activity (Dempster and Pena's money that was deferred, front office salaries, Dominican complex, Concepcion) the Cubs might not actually have that much money left over in the budget. Of course the Cubs being interested in the Cubans and them not being available as FA's until after many other options signed didn't help either.

 

Well, yeah, this is what I'm talking about when I sarcastically mention "the time to panic is past;" that's out of the realization that the Cubs simply don't have a ton (relatively speaking) of money freed up right now. Despite my hyperbole over guys like Fielder and Darvish and co., I have no problem with how the Cubs are spending their money right now. I just can't wait until they get to the point where they can be the Red Sox or even the Yankees of the Midwest.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

It seems to me like the decision to rebuild was a personal choice. Theo wanted to do the "fresh start" thing to renew his sense of enthusiasm and focus, and Ricketts was really in love with the idea of drafting/developing being the right way to build a team.

 

I think the way they've gone about it this offseason has been nothing short of brilliant, but I'm still not convinced it was the best direction to go.

[Sammy Sofa]

I think the way they've gone about it this offseason has been nothing short of brilliant, but I'm still not convinced it was the best direction to go.

 

Huh. That's actually a pretty good way of putting it.

[Little Slide Rooter]

What is a ton of money, because I simply don't understand how we wouldn't have a significant amount available. Aramis, Kosuke, Bradley, Pena, and Grabow are off the books and take off Dempster, Zambrano, and Byrd after this season. Even with arbitration, we really havnt spent much at all.

[davearm2]

The problem with the middle ground is that it does impact the future somewhat negatively. Signing Edwin Jackson and Roy Oswalt might mean no money Jorge Soler. Holding onto Sean Marshall in hopes of competing would have meant no Wood/Torreyes/Sapelt. There's no Prince Fielder albatross contract weighing the team down, but it does still hurt somewhat.

 

The Cubs front office decided they'd rather try to use their resources and try to get all the pieces to align perfectly during a future window. I don't have a problem with it either. But other paths existed.

Signing Edwin Jackson or Roy Oswalt to a short-term (1 or 2 year) contract would be pointless given the Cubs' situation. It adds a few wins to a sub-.500 team. Who cares. The best you can hope for is to trade them later on. That may be one way to acquire prospects, but it surely must be the least efficient.

 

Yeah, you completely missed the point.

 

Had the Cubs front office wanted to, they would have been able to field an over - .500 ballclub while staying within the budget and without saddling the payroll with poor long term contracts.

 

Is it the optimal way to acquire prospects? Absolutely not. But there would have been some semblance of competing during the process. And we'd still be able to make moves to leave us better off in the long run.

I didn't miss the point. I just fundamentally disagree with the premise that I bolded above.

 

I'm either a pessimist or a realist, but to me this Cub team had very poor odds of challenging for the postseason in 2012, short of doing some really stupid things to land more than one of the $100M+ guys.

[SouthSideRyan]

Alright, I can't take this anymore.

[davearm2]

The Cubs are doing just what they should do... synchronize their spending on big-ticket free agents with the maturation of their young core.

 

You realize that's nearly impossible to predict and align, right?

It's impossible to predict when you're one or two elite players away from being the sort of consistent 95-win team I described?

 

Yes, that's the part that's very, very difficult to align. It's not a matter of, "welp, we've got our young core established...now bring on the plethora of under 30 elite free agents!" If you keep waiting for "synchronicity" you're not going to to have it most of the time.

Disagree. There are several impact guys switching teams every offseason, either via trade or via free agency. There's not really a shortage of supply.

 

The notion that you have to get a certain player because the opportunity won't come along again is just wrong, IMO.

[Sammy Sofa]

Yes, we know that's your opinion. Let's just leave it in that box over there.

 

FA "impact players" aren't these catch-all constructs that you can just mash into whatever you spot you want them on the team. It's a matter of both who is available and the needs/openings you have on the team. I really cannot understand why you don't see how hard it is to plan for all of those factors to line up to just right to justify spending big ticket FA money by the rather narrowly defined standards you've repeated ad nauseum.

[davearm2]

Yes, we know that's your opinion. Let's just leave it in that box over there.

 

FA "impact players" aren't these catch-all constructs that you can just mash into whatever you spot you want them on the team. It's a matter of both who is available and the needs/openings you have on the team. I really cannot understand why you don't see how hard it is to plan for all of those factors to line up to just right to justify spending big ticket FA money by the rather narrowly defined standards you've repeated ad nauseum.

I'm not advocating that all of the factors must line up "just right". Your (incorrect) interpretation of my standards is what is narrowly defined.

 

For the record, I'm in favor of going after Cespedes, mainly since his performance window ought to remain open for many years.

[Sammy Sofa]

Yes, your expectations towards big ticket FA are unrealistic. I have zero interest in chasing this particular tail for the zillionth time, so I'll just end it here and pretend like you don't exist going forward.

[ctcf]

Oh wow it's this discussion for the millionth time.

[Guest]

I'm either a pessimist or a realist, but to me this Cub team had very poor odds of challenging for the postseason in 2012, short of doing some really stupid things to land more than one of the $100M+ guys.

 

Absolutely ridiculous argument. There are numerous things this team could have done to make the postseason. The Cubs are not in the AL East. They are in a division where two of last season's best teams in the division are now without their best players. One of those teams is also missing their other best player for nearly 1/3 of the season. The other three teams in that division have no recent history of success that makes one believe they are going to dominate.

 

There were trades that could have been made for established talent that could have easily put this team in a great position to win the division. I'm certainly not saying they should have gone this route, or that I'm disappointed they didn't go this route. But to argue that this team had not chance to challenge for the postseason is ridiculous.

 

That's ignoring all of the free agents that were available, also. Personally, I like what this front office has done this offseason. I'm not complaining one bit. And I hope that this direction will make them stronger down the road than they might have been if they made trades to be competitive immediately.

[Rob]

 

Yeah, you completely missed the point.

 

Had the Cubs front office wanted to, they would have been able to field an over - .500 ballclub while staying within the budget and without saddling the payroll with poor long term contracts.

 

Is it the optimal way to acquire prospects? Absolutely not. But there would have been some semblance of competing during the process. And we'd still be able to make moves to leave us better off in the long run.

I didn't miss the point. I just fundamentally disagree with the premise that I bolded above.

 

I'm either a pessimist or a realist, but to me this Cub team had very poor odds of challenging for the postseason in 2012, short of doing some really stupid things to land more than one of the $100M+ guys.

 

The Cubs won 71 games last year while getting 49 starts from Coleman/Lopez/Ortiz/Russell/Davis. Dempster had an ERA a full run over his peripherals. Randy Wells was never at full strength. And don't forget the Z debacle. Soriano and Soto underachieved. Colvin and Fukudome were sub-replacement level. Byrd's face got exploded.

 

Some of these things happen over the course of a season. You hope you get unexpected production from elsewhere to compensate. But we didn't exactly get a bunch of that. Who is a real candidate to regress? Garza?

 

There was enough talent that adding a few low cost pieces could have easily made the Cubs an over-.500 team. Hell, if we don't trade Garza/Dempster/Byrd/Others, I'd probably put us in the 78 win range right now.

 

Nobody is saying that would have made us a favorite, or even given good odds of "challenging for the postseason in 2012." But the real potential of being relevant after August 1st is nothing to scoff at.

 

(In an effort to avoid my point being misconstrued, I'm gonna state again that I don't necessarily disagree with the decision to blow it up. I'm just arguing against the contention that it was always a necessity.)

[Backtobanks]

The problem with the middle ground is that it does impact the future somewhat negatively. Signing Edwin Jackson and Roy Oswalt might mean no money Jorge Soler. Holding onto Sean Marshall in hopes of competing would have meant no Wood/Torreyes/Sapelt. There's no Prince Fielder albatross contract weighing the team down, but it does still hurt somewhat.

 

The Cubs front office decided they'd rather try to use their resources and try to get all the pieces to align perfectly during a future window. I don't have a problem with it either. But other paths existed.

Signing Edwin Jackson or Roy Oswalt to a short-term (1 or 2 year) contract would be pointless given the Cubs' situation. It adds a few wins to a sub-.500 team. Who cares. The best you can hope for is to trade them later on. That may be one way to acquire prospects, but it surely must be the least efficient.

 

Yeah, you completely missed the point.

 

Had the Cubs front office wanted to, they would have been able to field an over - .500 ballclub while staying within the budget and without saddling the payroll with poor long term contracts.

 

Is it the optimal way to acquire prospects? Absolutely not. But there would have been some semblance of competing during the process. And we'd still be able to make moves to leave us better off in the long run.

I'm guessing the Cubs did make inquiries into guys like Oswalt and Jackson. It's pretty clear Oswalt doesn't want to play here (or anywhere in the Midwest), and Jackson turned down a 3 year deal with the Pirates (who are similar to us) to take a one year deal with someone else. Theo can't make these guys come here, and he shouldn't overpay for them so that they do want to come here. For once, we have a management team willing to show restraint, which is why I won't be upset if we lose out on Cespedes because the Marlins gave him $70 $80 million.

 

Last year, we headed into spring training with a bad team that, if everything went right, could be above .500. This year, we head into spring training with a bad team that, if everything goes right, could be above .500. The difference is that we'll be relying on young-ish players taking a step forward, whereas last year we were relying on old guys repeating career years. I never understood the desire to overpay and give up assets this offseason for a better shot at 83 wins. That's basically been the Cubs' strategy for the past 20 years.

 

This team would really need everything to go right to have a shot at .500. Gigantic rebounds by Dejesus, Soto, Dempster, and Marmol in addition to breakout years by Lahair, Stewart, and T.Wood might give them a shot at .500.