Ryan Madson?

[jersey cubs fan]

Ryan Madson isn't an ideal use of resources for the Cubs. What an odd discussion.

 

Nobody is an ideal use of resources. Or maybe better said, the Cubs have a lot of resources and very little in the way of ideal targets to spend those resources on.

Edited December 29, 2011 by jersey cubs fan

[mookie]

Ryan Madson isn't an ideal use of resources for the Cubs. What an odd discussion.

 

Nobody is an ideal use of resources.

 

False.

[davell]

Way to concentrate on one sentence. Read the rest of what I said.

 

I'm concentrating on it because it was a nonsensical statement by you. "Blowing up in your face" is an overly dramatic way of describing the limited downside to such a move. It's not going to blow up in their face.

 

 

There's only so many prospects worth spending big on. And there's a crapload of unspent payroll available for 2012. It's not "my way". I'm just pointing out how ridiculous it is to talk about the risk of blowing up in your face. The season is a waste going in, might as well look at every option to acquire more talent in the future. Signing guys you can trade later is one way, and the fact that he's a "closer" and you already have a "closer" shouldn't affect your decision making on the matter.

If I'm going to spend money like this and hope for the best, would you at least agree that Kuroda would be a better use of resources?

[davearm2]

Ryan Madson isn't an ideal use of resources for the Cubs. What an odd discussion.

 

Nobody is an ideal use of resources. Or maybe better said, the Cubs have a lot of resources and very little in the way of ideal targets to spend those resources on.

Right. What I was going to say is, the Cubs' ideal use of (monetary) resources just got torpedoed by the new CBA. This would be finding another, albeit less efficient, way to turn cash into prospects.

[KaiserCesar]

Ryan Madson isn't an ideal use of resources for the Cubs. What an odd discussion.

 

Nobody is an ideal use of resources. Or maybe better said, the Cubs have a lot of resources and very little in the way of ideal targets to spend those resources on.

Right. What I was going to say is, the Cubs' ideal use of (monetary) resources just got torpedoed by the new CBA. This would be finding another, albeit less efficient, way to turn cash into prospects.

 

Well, with the cubs free payroll space, they can almost turn into a venture capital firm and diversify amongst a bunch of low cost players. The only real limiting factor is the roster space and starting spots which makes now the ideal time to do it given the lack of Major league and upper minor league talent.

[Little Slide Rooter]

Now there's a guy who's probably spent a lot of time banging his head on the wall the past few months.

[dew1679666265]

Way to concentrate on one sentence. Read the rest of what I said. You think it's a better idea to spend money on a closer, where the objective is to trade him for prospects anyway, than to spend the same money on prospects to begin with. Smart. My way at least ensures you know what you're spending your money on. Your way is a total flyer, that's hoping for both solid pitching on our end and a market to develop among contenders that is much better than it has been for closers. It's far from "nonsensical" as you put it. And there's plenty of IFA out there currently to where you can spend a ton of cash on, even if Cespedes is NOT involved.

 

In all likelihood if we don't sign Prince, we're going to have somewhere in the area of $20-40 million under payroll that is looking to be unspent this offseason - even if we sign both Cespedes and Soler. That's already accounting for having a draft and IFA budget under the $200 million baseball budget. I have a hard time believing we would spend $20+ million on IFA.

 

So, I think what gooney is saying is take some of that extra cash under the payroll, sign a guy like Madson and turn him into prospects over and above spending as freely as possible on the draft/IFA. If we have as much payroll space as it appears we might, Kuroda could be an option to do that with as well. I'm not 100% sold on the idea of Madson and Marmol together and I'd be completely opposed to it if we were trying to contend, but since W/L really doesn't matter next year it makes for having two "proven" closers as tradeable assets pretty tempting.

[davell]

My honest guess is we'll trade Garza and Byrd. That'll lower our payroll down towards 90 mill. In the end, I think we'll sign Wood back. Let's say he's 3 mill. Let's say we sign Crisp for 2/8. I'll even go as far as to say we frontload it and give him 6 mill this year, to where he's slightly more valuable as a trade chip next year. Signing Soler for 5/25 and frontloading it some as well, give him 10 mill in year 1. We're at 110. As far as IFA goes, there's Garcia Speck, Concepcion, Rivero, Urrutia from Cuba. No idea what any of them will cost, but Garcia Speck supposedly wanted over 10 mill last year at draft time. Helsin Martinez. Yairo Munoz. Manny Gonzalez, Mauricio Silva, and Gialdy Arias are all Latin American guys who will be getting big bonuses before July 2nd. It's very possible we find a way to spend 10 mill there hopefully and get a decent amount of those guys. Also, there's the Pac Rim, where we haven't made a signing yet this offseason. There's a Korean pitcher represented by Boras who's likely to receive a solid bonus. Do all this and we're approaching 120, at least. it leaves enough money to go get Wei Yen Chen, if you like him. Or Paul Maholm, if you want another short term deal. You could also go out and sign a shortterm 1B, like Lee, staying around. By no means am I saying this is what I'd do, just trying to figure out how we could get up to 130, trading off Garza and Byrd. Personally, I hope we'd keep the payroll down, in this case, and average it out over a 5 year period, to where it ups our payroll a solid amount in the future.