06/09 CUBS (Samardzija) @ Minnesota (Diamond) 1:10 CDT, CSN

[d_money]

...but this bad?

[Little Slide Rooter]

We should have known that the decision to be punchless punchless would be a good one.

[Guest]

I was just coming here to say that they need to give Samardzija a turn off through the rotation.

[Little Slide Rooter]

By the way, with the Padres win today, guess whos .678 losing % gives them a 5 game lead in the Fecal Legue.

[CyHawk_Cub]

At least it looks like this year the Cubs will be good at losing. Hate all you want, but I'd rather see them w/ a top 3 pick next year than not, especially after this suck-filled season. I wanna feel like we get something out of it. Hoping we don't end the season on a winning tear to take us out of the top 3 picks.

[Sammy Sofa]

Again, this isn't football or basketball.

[El Duderino]

Just noticed Castro was pinch-hit for. Just to give him some innings off?

[CyHawk_Cub]

Again, this isn't football or basketball.

 

Yeah, I understand that. All I mean is that if the Cubs are gonna suck, then I hope they can at least get something out of it. As far as next year's draft goes, it's not even the top pick, by itself, that is so important to me. Given the slot budgets for each team, I'd just like to see our F.O. have as much flexibility as possible next year to do what Houston did this year in the draft. I know it's no guarantee that Hoystein could pull it off in the same manner, but I'd like them to have as much $$ as possible available to them. And no, I do not think it was necessary for the big club to suck this year to rebuild. I'm only saying that since we're already here, and are so bad, why not be really bad (record-wise). Winning 75 games instead of 70, for example, isn't gonna make me feel any better, or be any better for the organization.

[Guest]

It's not the number of wins that's important, it's the performances by the players that will matter to future teams that create those wins. So if the Cubs can lose 100 games while everyone plays well except Soriano, DeJesus, Dempster, Maholm, and Marmol, then super. Otherwise, the abysmal win total comes at the cost of players of importance underachieving. That's why winning as many games as possible matters.

[Little Slide Rooter]

It's not the number of wins that's important, it's the performances by the players that will matter to future teams that create those wins. So if the Cubs can lose 100 games while everyone plays well except Soriano, DeJesus, Dempster, Maholm, and Marmol, then super. Otherwise, the abysmal win total comes at the cost of players of importance underachieving. That's why winning as many games as possible matters.

 

The guys you mentioned do have a bearing on the future, each of them being potential trade chips. The only guys whose performance has no consequences on the future are Hill, Baker, Johnson, Mather, and the pen, aside from Russell and Marmol.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

It's not the number of wins that's important, it's the performances by the players that will matter to future teams that create those wins. So if the Cubs can lose 100 games while everyone plays well except Soriano, DeJesus, Dempster, Maholm, and Marmol, then super. Otherwise, the abysmal win total comes at the cost of players of importance underachieving. That's why winning as many games as possible matters.

 

This. A lot of people cheering wildly for the No. 1 draft pick don't seem to realize that the worst record in the league will probably have to come with disappointing performances from guys like Rizzo or Samardzija.

[jersey cubs fan]

those disappointing performances could then keep those players' prices down

[Guest]

I think the likelihood that their future performances are also disappointing is much more of a concern than a couple million arbitration dollars.

[Guest]

Again, this isn't football or basketball.

 

Again, the new rules probably change this line of thinking to a significant degree.

[jersey cubs fan]

Again, this isn't football or basketball.

 

Again, the new rules probably change this line of thinking to a significant degree.

 

A very small degree. One pick can make your team in the NFL and NBA in ways that just don't carry over to MLB. And those picks go right from college to starting for your big club. In baseball, you are still talking about guys who are almost always a couple years away from contributing, not to mention wild cards in terms of if they will produce.

 

Tanking for a pick doesn't work the same, regardless of the new rules.

[jersey cubs fan]

I think the likelihood that their future performances are also disappointing is much more of a concern than a couple million arbitration dollars.

 

But if their future performance is going to be disappointing then isn't it better to find out now, before you go out and commit? Unless you think the losing, in and of itself will cause them to underperform, then finding out these guys actually aren't worth locking up to contracts while going through this process is better than thinking you have some core players who are actually just outperforming reality.

[Guest]

I think the likelihood that their future performances are also disappointing is much more of a concern than a couple million arbitration dollars.

 

But if their future performance is going to be disappointing then isn't it better to find out now, before you go out and commit? Unless you think the losing, in and of itself will cause them to underperform, then finding out these guys actually aren't worth locking up to contracts while going through this process is better than thinking you have some core players who are actually just outperforming reality.

 

Well the future performance is uncertain, and obviously good performance will be a better harbinger that the future performance will also be good. I don't want the team to win 70 games on the backs of Darwin Barney having a .600 BABIP for 2 months and Garza putting up a 1.50 ERA with a K/9 of 3 or whatever unsustainable (yet positive) result we can conjure. The crux of the point is that in aggregate, the Cubs losing 120 games would be damaging to their future because of the performances that compose those 120 losses, just like the Cubs winning 75 games would be positive for their future because of the performances that compose those 75 wins.

[Sammy Sofa]

Again, this isn't football or basketball.

 

Again, the new rules probably change this line of thinking to a significant degree.

 

Not really. The spending constraints hinder pretty much all of the top spots, and the difference between them isn't very significant.

[Guest]

With the new rules, one must lump the higher international signing limit along with the the bigger bonus allotment/higher draft spot that comes with being one of the worst teams. Nevertheless, there's no Harper, Strasburg, Prior/Tex, Hamilton/Beckett, etc generational talent in 2013 so the top pick remains noticeably less valuable than basketball and football. 2014, on the other hand...

[jersey cubs fan]

With the new rules, one must lump the higher international signing limit along with the the bigger bonus allotment/higher draft spot that comes with being one of the worst teams. Nevertheless, there's no Harper, Strasburg, Prior/Tex, Hamilton/Beckett, etc generational talent in 2013 so the top pick remains noticeably less valuable than basketball and football. 2014, on the other hand...

 

It's still not as valuable as the top pick in basketball or football. One player can make an organization in the NBA in ways that no player in MLB can even come close to doing.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

By the way, with the Padres win today, guess whos .678 losing % gives them a 5 game lead in the Fecal Legue.

I don't think you know how that works.

[Guest]

With the new rules, one must lump the higher international signing limit along with the the bigger bonus allotment/higher draft spot that comes with being one of the worst teams. Nevertheless, there's no Harper, Strasburg, Prior/Tex, Hamilton/Beckett, etc generational talent in 2013 so the top pick remains noticeably less valuable than basketball and football. 2014, on the other hand...

 

It's still not as valuable as the top pick in basketball or football. One player can make an organization in the NBA in ways that no player in MLB can even come close to doing.

 

No, but it seems that with the new system it's far harder to draft and sign elite talents without very high picks and higher IFA limits.

 

 

Before, part of the reason that the draft order didn't really matter was that you could just sign tons of good talent that wouldn't otherwise be drafted by throwing money at them. It would seem to follow that now there is much more of an advantage (in a relative sense, from the bad teams to the good teams) in the acquisition of amateur talent to the bad teams than there used to be.

 

Obviously, the fact that these guys are so hit or miss (barring the Strasburgs, Harpers, Priors, etc) mitigates this, but it's still a lot different, IMO.