Star players and how they are acquired

[pccubfan]

[

They're addressing significant organizational needs. And they'll address more before the offseason is over.

 

BUT THEY DIDN'T SIGN PUJOLS OR GIVE ARAM 3 YEARS! THEY'RE TRYING TO MAKE THE TEAM WORSE, CAN'T YOU SEE IT?!?

 

For someone who likes to use the term hyperbole and mocks those using it, this is a strange post.

[CubColtPacer]

Another thing that would make me feel better about this year (assuming we don't go out and spend the money we think we have on guys like Soler, Cespedes, and/or Prince - on a reasonable deal) is if they are operating on some sort of multi-year budget and money saved this year is money that can and will be spent in the future. If it just goes back into their pockets and stays there, that would be [expletive].

 

How are they going to pull that off? After this year you can no longer spend huge on prospects. The baseball budget is set year by year. You can't go out and spend an extra $50m above that budget one season after not spending it, because the next year you are going to be screwed trying to get back down to your real budget. Unless there's another Darvish on the horizon, there is nothing to use the carryover money on from a baseball standpoint.

 

 

$50M in, say, a 5 year budget amounts to one pretty decently sized contract on a per year basis after that, though.

 

If I thought they were going to pocket the money, I would be a lot more upset with the current path. But I trust Ricketts when he says he plans to spend all the money. So money not spent on the major league payroll will go somewhere-probably in hiring a much larger front office, training staff, minor league development people. Or it could be transferred over to the business side for renovations or maybe used for future years. As long as its used somewhere productive to try to either increase the talent level (players or staff) or in an effort to increase future revenues I'm ok with it. But unless it's spent on the major league payroll, I don't think we'll ever know for sure where it went.

[SouthSideRyan]

One of the biggest organizational issues the Cubs had was a complete and utter lack of young starting pitching. We spent large chunks of last season with Casey Coleman, Rodrigo Lopez, and Ramon Ortiz in our damn rotation. And that was only going to get worse with Z and Dempster's contracts running out after 2012. There weren't any remotely ready guys to step into the rotation to fill those holes. In the last month we've acquired two young starting pitchers who can stay in the rotation for a very long time.

 

Isn't Rodrigo Lopez just Chris Volstad's non-union Mexican equivalent?

[davearm2]

I fully admit that I selfishly wanted win now moves to be made, even at the expense of the long term to some degree.

 

 

At the same time, I fully understand and can accept that a lot of those moves would've hurt long term and that it's probably smarter to concede that, unless you can sign some of these other pieces that will both fit the long and short term plans, this will be a bad team and that I'd rather not waste a single resource on making a 75 win team an 81 win team (pulled these out of my ass, but you get the point) if it means ANY long term cost.

 

 

Another thing that would make me feel better about this year (assuming we don't go out and spend the money we think we have on guys like Soler, Cespedes, and/or Prince - on a reasonable deal) is if they are operating on some sort of multi-year budget and money saved this year is money that can and will be spent in the future. If it just goes back into their pockets and stays there, that would be [expletive].

 

Edit - I realize I'm speaking almost entirely in generalities so please don't try to pick this apart. This is my reasoning for having made peace with sucking next year. Hopefully we'll at least have some young fun players to watch, be it at the major league level or keeping an eye on them on the farm.

 

To a point I agree with you. I didn't want them over-extending to sign three or four guys this year. But I do want them to take some steps forward in building this team this offseason. I understand that most free agents are going to perform at a level below their salary in the latter years of their contract. However, I also understand that Theo and Hoyer are supposed to be brilliant baseball men who can find the team cheap production to soften the blow of the free agent that isn't earning his way anymore. I just want to see strides made this offseason to improve the team. If Volstad and Stewart prove to be very useful, I'll happily admit to being wrong. Just not seeing a lot to get excited about on this roster.

Or, Theo and Hoyer are brilliant enough not to get themselves into this situation in the first place, given the current FA options available and the state of the roster.

[SouthSideRyan]

I want an absolute insane amount of cash thrown towards IFA's.

 

How insane can you really get in one year? There are the high-end talents, and then what?

[XZero771679666304]

[

They're addressing significant organizational needs. And they'll address more before the offseason is over.

 

BUT THEY DIDN'T SIGN PUJOLS OR GIVE ARAM 3 YEARS! THEY'RE TRYING TO MAKE THE TEAM WORSE, CAN'T YOU SEE IT?!?

 

For someone who likes to use the term hyperbole and mocks those using it, this is a strange post.

 

 

If I was being serious, it would have been a strange post.

[davearm2]

I'd choose a much different word than "zombies" to describe folks that think it would be foolish to hand out the contract Pujols got, or the one Fielder is asking for.

 

There is always going to be an excuse as to why you shouldn't sign a free agent. Again, don't sign one and see what happens. There aren't any guaranties that the farm is going to pan out either.

There will always be reasons as to why you shouldn't sign a particular free agent, and reasons why you should.

 

When the reasons you shouldn't outweigh the reasons you should, what is the right call?

[bukie]

One of the biggest organizational issues the Cubs had was a complete and utter lack of young starting pitching. We spent large chunks of last season with Casey Coleman, Rodrigo Lopez, and Ramon Ortiz in our damn rotation. And that was only going to get worse with Z and Dempster's contracts running out after 2012. There weren't any remotely ready guys to step into the rotation to fill those holes. In the last month we've acquired two young starting pitchers who can stay in the rotation for a very long time.

 

Isn't Rodrigo Lopez just Chris Volstad's non-union Mexican equivalent?

I suppose if you look only at ERA, then...sure?

[Guest]

If I thought they were going to pocket the money, I would be a lot more upset with the current path. But I trust Ricketts when he says he plans to spend all the money. So money not spent on the major league payroll will go somewhere-probably in hiring a much larger front office, training staff, minor league development people. Or it could be transferred over to the business side for renovations or maybe used for future years. As long as its used somewhere productive to try to either increase the talent level (players or staff) or in an effort to increase future revenues I'm ok with it. But unless it's spent on the major league payroll, I don't think we'll ever know for sure where it went.

 

I agree.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

And for the 206th time, Fielder, the Cubans and others are still in play.

Come on, Fielder is not in play for the Cubs.

[davearm2]

I honestly think everyone here sees both sides of this. If we had gone out, won the posting for Darvish, let's say 55 mill, gave him the 5/75 he wants, it's basically 26 mill per year. Say we signed Prince for 6/150 with 15 mill in the 1st year. Did everything else we've done to date and that's it for the entire offseason. Other than spending 4 or 5 mill on IFA's. Our payroll would be 140ish, which appears to fit in the baseball budget, by everything we've read. Is this a contender? I say yes. Is it a flat out juggernaut? No. But, you'd still have 40 mill more coming off again next year, to turn it into one. Would it be sustainable, if you did it that way? With the guys we have running things, I truly think it would be...........this isn't the road we've taken though. We decided to evidently let ALL the bad money go away before respending. I see both sides, I really do. All I want now, is to go all the way, with the rebuild. Wasn't my first choice, but I don't want to halfass anything. If we're tearing it down, tear away. It sucks we'll be also-rans for 2012, probably 2013, and possibly even 2014. If this is the way we're going, I want an absolute insane amount of cash thrown towards IFA's. And I want Garza, Byrd, Soriano, Soto, and Marmol all dealt by midseason. But, it's not my first choice, as I really thought adding 2 bigtime guys, doing little else, would be enough to contend, not hurt things longterm, and allow us to build for the future as well.

I'd say you're jumping to conclusions. So far they declined to go 10/$265M for Pujols, or $52M posting for Darvish. The latter was explicitly a blind bid process, and the former essentially was too.

 

I'd be careful about extrapolating those two situations to some master plan to pinch every penny. One or both of those guys may have been grabbed if the prices were more reasonable.

[pccubfan]

I fully admit that I selfishly wanted win now moves to be made, even at the expense of the long term to some degree.

 

 

At the same time, I fully understand and can accept that a lot of those moves would've hurt long term and that it's probably smarter to concede that, unless you can sign some of these other pieces that will both fit the long and short term plans, this will be a bad team and that I'd rather not waste a single resource on making a 75 win team an 81 win team (pulled these out of my ass, but you get the point) if it means ANY long term cost.

 

 

Another thing that would make me feel better about this year (assuming we don't go out and spend the money we think we have on guys like Soler, Cespedes, and/or Prince - on a reasonable deal) is if they are operating on some sort of multi-year budget and money saved this year is money that can and will be spent in the future. If it just goes back into their pockets and stays there, that would be [expletive].

 

Edit - I realize I'm speaking almost entirely in generalities so please don't try to pick this apart. This is my reasoning for having made peace with sucking next year. Hopefully we'll at least have some young fun players to watch, be it at the major league level or keeping an eye on them on the farm.

 

To a point I agree with you. I didn't want them over-extending to sign three or four guys this year. But I do want them to take some steps forward in building this team this offseason. I understand that most free agents are going to perform at a level below their salary in the latter years of their contract. However, I also understand that Theo and Hoyer are supposed to be brilliant baseball men who can find the team cheap production to soften the blow of the free agent that isn't earning his way anymore. I just want to see strides made this offseason to improve the team. If Volstad and Stewart prove to be very useful, I'll happily admit to being wrong. Just not seeing a lot to get excited about on this roster.

Or, Theo and Hoyer are brilliant enough not to get themselves into this situation in the first place, given the current FA options available and the state of the roster.

 

Again, there are no perfect free agents. In your scenarios the Cubs will never sign a free agent. That means you must be willing to wait for three or four years for the Cubs to be competitive.

 

I don't know what promises Ricketts made to Theo in terms of timeline but I don't think this fanbase is really ready to watch three more years of non-meaningful games in July.

[pccubfan]

[

They're addressing significant organizational needs. And they'll address more before the offseason is over.

 

BUT THEY DIDN'T SIGN PUJOLS OR GIVE ARAM 3 YEARS! THEY'RE TRYING TO MAKE THE TEAM WORSE, CAN'T YOU SEE IT?!?

 

For someone who likes to use the term hyperbole and mocks those using it, this is a strange post.

 

 

If I was being serious, it would have been a strange post.

 

I understand you were not being serious, but using a writing technique you seem to have such disdain for seems strange.

[Rob]

 

One by one the zombies have been convincing themselves that spending money on baseball players is foolish.

 

Where is anyone make such a general claim?

 

People have been adament in their stance on the matter, and the movement is growing.

 

Okay.

 

Find me ONE person who doesn't think we should have bid heavily on any of Pujols/Fielder/Darvish/Cespedes.

 

Just one person. Surely if this board is so scared of spending any money, that shouldn't be a feat at all.

[pccubfan]

 

One by one the zombies have been convincing themselves that spending money on baseball players is foolish.

 

Where is anyone make such a general claim?

 

People have been adament in their stance on the matter, and the movement is growing.

 

Okay.

 

Find me ONE person who doesn't think we should have bid heavily on any of Pujols/Fielder/Darvish/Cespedes.

 

Just one person. Surely if this board is so scared of spending any money, that shouldn't be a feat at all.

 

I'm guessing that the phrase bid heavily is the key here? Because bid heavily and acquiring are two different animals. When it comes down to it, if the Cubs are going to want to compete in the next three years they are not only going to have to bid heavily they are going to have to win a couple of those bids.

[davell]

I want an absolute insane amount of cash thrown towards IFA's.

 

How insane can you really get in one year? There are the high-end talents, and then what?

I think there's plenty of guys to go get. First off, soler is the most important and it appears as if the bulk of his money may come in a signing bonus. If he gets 20 mill, which is likely, it could literally all be in the form of a signing bonus, so you don't have to place him immediately on the 40 man. Personally, I'd rather give him a 4/5 year deal and give him the 40 man spot, but if his camp wants it up front, then he becomes a huge ticket item for this year. Besides him though, there's 2 Cuban 19 year old lefties with strong pedigrees. Both of them will get solid money. Likely a couple mill anyway(this is a guess though) there's the 22 year old lefty that was mentioned with us possibly drafting him last year. He'll be signing and was wanting 10 mill on a major league deal back then. There's a 23 year old reliever that throws 98. That's it for top end talent out of Cuba, but all these guys will be signing before July obviously and probably before March, since they'll want to be in camp. Then, there's the Korean pitcher, who's 18, throws mid 90's and is represented by Boras. He'll get paid big bucks. Plus, there's still 5 Latin American 16 year olds, expected to get bonuses over a mill as well. And a group of over 10 more expecting mid 6 figures. Not counting Soler, it'd be very easy to go out and spend 12-15 mill, if you waanted to and really amp the system up a ton in the process.

[Rob]

 

One by one the zombies have been convincing themselves that spending money on baseball players is foolish.

 

Where is anyone make such a general claim?

 

People have been adament in their stance on the matter, and the movement is growing.

 

Okay.

 

Find me ONE person who doesn't think we should have bid heavily on any of Pujols/Fielder/Darvish/Cespedes.

 

Just one person. Surely if this board is so scared of spending any money, that shouldn't be a feat at all.

 

I'm guessing that the phrase bid heavily is the key here? Because bid heavily and acquiring are two different animals. When it comes down to it, if the Cubs are going to want to compete in the next three years they are not only going to have to bid heavily they are going to have to win a couple of those bids.

 

No tricks. I used the phrase bid heavily in large part because the Darvish posting process is a blind bid, not a negotiation. Also, since we don't know what Fielder or Cespedes will sign for (or Darvish, for that matter) it seemed like the better choice of words.

 

Put another way:

 

At the conclusion of this offseason, I sincerely doubt Jersey would be able to find one person on this board willing to say he/she would not have been willing to acquire any of Pujols/Fielder/Darvish/Cespedes at the price it took to acquire them. If, by some miracle he did manage to find any, I'd wager that they would be a clear minority.

[XZero771679666304]

 

At the conclusion of this offseason, I sincerely doubt Jersey would be able to find one person on this board willing to say he/she would not have been willing to acquire any of Pujols/Fielder/Darvish/Cespedes at the price it took to acquire them. If, by some miracle he did manage to find any, I'd wager that they would be a clear minority.

 

davearm, maybe.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

It's amazing how much certain players improve based on how badly we need them to be certain things. Soler is suddenly an offseason prize instead of a Cespedes afterthought, and I really wanted Darvish to be a legit ace.

[Rob]

 

At the conclusion of this offseason, I sincerely doubt Jersey would be able to find one person on this board willing to say he/she would not have been willing to acquire any of Pujols/Fielder/Darvish/Cespedes at the price it took to acquire them. If, by some miracle he did manage to find any, I'd wager that they would be a clear minority.

 

davearm, maybe.

 

davearm is the exception that proves the rule.

[bukie]

It's amazing how much certain players improve based on how badly we need them to be certain things. Soler is suddenly an offseason prize instead of a Cespedes afterthought, and I really wanted Darvish to be a legit ace.

Soler was always an offseason prize, he just wasn't as familiar as Cespedes from the start because of a Youtube video.

[pccubfan]

No tricks. I used the phrase bid heavily in large part because the Darvish posting process is a blind bid, not a negotiation. Also, since we don't know what Fielder or Cespedes will sign for (or Darvish, for that matter) it seemed like the better choice of words.

 

Put another way:

 

At the conclusion of this offseason, I sincerely doubt Jersey would be able to find one person on this board willing to say he/she would not have been willing to acquire any of Pujols/Fielder/Darvish/Cespedes at the price it took to acquire them. If, by some miracle he did manage to find any, I'd wager that they would be a clear minority.

 

Interesting. With all the back and forth I would not have thought that.

[davell]

I honestly think everyone here sees both sides of this. If we had gone out, won the posting for Darvish, let's say 55 mill, gave him the 5/75 he wants, it's basically 26 mill per year. Say we signed Prince for 6/150 with 15 mill in the 1st year. Did everything else we've done to date and that's it for the entire offseason. Other than spending 4 or 5 mill on IFA's. Our payroll would be 140ish, which appears to fit in the baseball budget, by everything we've read. Is this a contender? I say yes. Is it a flat out juggernaut? No. But, you'd still have 40 mill more coming off again next year, to turn it into one. Would it be sustainable, if you did it that way? With the guys we have running things, I truly think it would be...........this isn't the road we've taken though. We decided to evidently let ALL the bad money go away before respending. I see both sides, I really do. All I want now, is to go all the way, with the rebuild. Wasn't my first choice, but I don't want to halfass anything. If we're tearing it down, tear away. It sucks we'll be also-rans for 2012, probably 2013, and possibly even 2014. If this is the way we're going, I want an absolute insane amount of cash thrown towards IFA's. And I want Garza, Byrd, Soriano, Soto, and Marmol all dealt by midseason. But, it's not my first choice, as I really thought adding 2 bigtime guys, doing little else, would be enough to contend, not hurt things longterm, and allow us to build for the future as well.

I'd say you're jumping to conclusions. So far they declined to go 10/$265M for Pujols, or $52M posting for Darvish. The latter was explicitly a blind bid process, and the former essentially was too.

 

I'd be careful about extrapolating those two situations to some master plan to pinch every penny. One or both of those guys may have been grabbed if the prices were more reasonable.

I could have phrased that better, as I definitely see them spending before Soriano's completely off the books. But, by hook or by crook, it's how it's worked out. Because after this season, Soriano will be all that's left. I was using Theo's statement the other day about not spending until you've got a team around what you're spending on.

[Rob]

No tricks. I used the phrase bid heavily in large part because the Darvish posting process is a blind bid, not a negotiation. Also, since we don't know what Fielder or Cespedes will sign for (or Darvish, for that matter) it seemed like the better choice of words.

 

Put another way:

 

At the conclusion of this offseason, I sincerely doubt Jersey would be able to find one person on this board willing to say he/she would not have been willing to acquire any of Pujols/Fielder/Darvish/Cespedes at the price it took to acquire them. If, by some miracle he did manage to find any, I'd wager that they would be a clear minority.

 

Interesting. With all the back and forth I would not have thought that.

 

I truly believe it.

 

There's money in the payroll and everybody wants to see it spent. They just all want it spent on the right players... and everybody has a different idea about what that means.

 

But some people (Jersey) want everybody. And when they go in each thread and see a few different people saying "no, we can spend it better elsewhere" suddenly there's this vast NSBB plague of quivering masses too scared to act.

[XZero771679666304]

 

But some people (Jersey) want everybody.

 

 

 

http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd358/Cloudstrife219/everyone2.jpg