2013 Mock Offseason Thread

[SouthSideRyan]

Are you worried about Castro or Rizzo flaming out? Shark? Look, it's likeky as hell that Baez, Almora, and Soler aren't all going to be All Stars. They don't need to be though. They can be dealt long before they ever see Wrigley(Soler, maybe not). I seriously doubt the grand plan is for all these guys to be future Cubs. Look at the Rays, Marlins, Royals, Pirates, some of these other small market teams. The guys that are just beginning to be paid or are about to be, are the guys that'll be Cubs within the next two or three years.

 

Those teams are locking up their star players now because every team has money.

 

this is a weird thing to say, considering your stance. based on that, doesn't it makes more sense to try and create your own star players instead of having to overbid for star free agents? you said it yourself, everyone has money. you're going to have to overpay more and more for talent in free agency.

 

Regardless of how much money everyone has it will always be cheaper to acquire talent via free agency than it is via trades. When a team is flush with money like the Cubs you can afford to spend money in years where you don't expect to contend, in order to have, ya know, actual talent on the team for years where you plan on actually trying to win games. Money is the greatest asset the Cubs organization has and you guys would rather not use it for 3 years and instead at that point use that money AND the farm system you've spent years of losing building up in order to acquire the same damn players you could've had for just the cash.

[sneakypower]

i want an oompa loompa now, daddy!

[WrigleyField 22]

Are you worried about Castro or Rizzo flaming out? Shark? Look, it's likeky as hell that Baez, Almora, and Soler aren't all going to be All Stars. They don't need to be though. They can be dealt long before they ever see Wrigley(Soler, maybe not). I seriously doubt the grand plan is for all these guys to be future Cubs. Look at the Rays, Marlins, Royals, Pirates, some of these other small market teams. The guys that are just beginning to be paid or are about to be, are the guys that'll be Cubs within the next two or three years.

 

Those teams are locking up their star players now because every team has money.

 

this is a weird thing to say, considering your stance. based on that, doesn't it makes more sense to try and create your own star players instead of having to overbid for star free agents? you said it yourself, everyone has money. you're going to have to overpay more and more for talent in free agency.

 

Regardless of how much money everyone has it will always be cheaper to acquire talent via free agency than it is via trades. When a team is flush with money like the Cubs you can afford to spend money in years where you don't expect to contend, in order to have, ya know, actual talent on the team for years where you plan on actually trying to win games. Money is the greatest asset the Cubs organization has and you guys would rather not use it for 3 years and instead at that point use that money AND the farm system you've spent years of losing building up in order to acquire the same damn players you could've had for just the cash.

+1

For some reason people have gotten the idea that Theo's master plan is just to tank. But really when you look at it closely the plan is to put the best product on the field without sacrificing our ability to build from within. With the new FA compensation rules, many more players will be available with no penalty. Right now is a great time to spend in FA. We should be flush with cash, we can't put it towards amatuers, theres no prospects of note that could be blocked (maybe one), and we have a serious talent gap until we develop players. People need to stop expecting some extreme turnaround. You have to add talent along the way, while also insuring you have a system that replenishes lost talent. We should have a pretty good shot at filling a lot of our major holes this offseason without depleting our farm of anything. The rest comes down to the development of guys like Castro, Rizzo, Shark, Wood, etc. No, its highly unlikely we get enough internal improvement from those guys to make a serious run, but they could turn into Mike Trout and it wouldn't matter if Rusin and Raley was the back of your rotation.

 

Dual fronts. Everyone say it. Its really gonna happen, and thats a really good thing.

 

 

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[davell]

Ooooooh, SSR can write in all caps. Impressive. He also can't seem to comprehend that there's no one out there good enough to warrant spending longterm money on. As for my "plan" never having us in contention? We're developing pllayers. Probably two or three stars in Castro, Rizzo, and Shark. Stay with me here, becauae this seems to be where you get lost and considering you have flat out admitted you don't even follow the draft previously, it's understandable. Other than you continuously trolling people who mention how important it is for us. The higher picks in the draft have more value now. Hence, better players coming in and more trade bait for us to use. You're now acting as if teams won't trade away guys? Yeah, that makes sense. There always has been and always will be trading and having the absolute most ammo possible increases your odds of getting major deals done. With a few developing stars already here, a few role players that can start already here too, it's not far away at all. I find it hard to believe you can't comprehend that either. But constantly trolling with little one liners is awesomely weak. I've written out plenty of scenarios as to how this team contends in 2014 or 2015 and if you disagree, what's your idea? How about actually contributing for a change?

[jumbo]

With the new FA compensation rules, many more players will be available with no penalty. Right now is a great time to spend in FA. We should be flush with cash, we can't put it towards amatuers, theres no prospects of note that could be blocked (maybe one), and we have a serious talent gap until we develop players. People need to stop expecting some extreme turnaround. You have to add talent along the way, while also insuring you have a system that replenishes lost talent.

 

Get outta here with that reasonably level headed chatter.

 

It's a good point on the compensation issue as far as Type A/B Free Agents that was still in place last year. It seems like only a handful of players will receive the qualifying offer, and non of these will be a target for the Cubs due to the draft pick compensation. This will be the first off-season of the new CBA, so maybe we'll see a slightly different FA approach. I don't think we'll be in on the top names, but they can't use arbitration as an excuse. Should be interesting.

 

 

Beyond that, the Theo plan requires a ton of patience. Sometimes time doesn't go fast enough and we want to see what's going to happen in the future right now.

[Backtobanks]

+1

For some reason people have gotten the idea that Theo's master plan is just to tank. But really when you look at it closely the plan is to put the best product on the field without sacrificing our ability to build from within. With the new FA compensation rules, many more players will be available with no penalty. Right now is a great time to spend in FA. We should be flush with cash, we can't put it towards amatuers, theres no prospects of note that could be blocked (maybe one), and we have a serious talent gap until we develop players. People need to stop expecting some extreme turnaround. You have to add talent along the way, while also insuring you have a system that replenishes lost talent. We should have a pretty good shot at filling a lot of our major holes this offseason without depleting our farm of anything. The rest comes down to the development of guys like Castro, Rizzo, Shark, Wood, etc. No, its highly unlikely we get enough internal improvement from those guys to make a serious run, but they could turn into Mike Trout and it wouldn't matter if Rusin and Raley was the back of your rotation.

 

Dual fronts. Everyone say it. Its really gonna happen, and thats a really good thing.

 

 

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"Putting the best product on the field." :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[WrigleyField 22]

+1

For some reason people have gotten the idea that Theo's master plan is just to tank. But really when you look at it closely the plan is to put the best product on the field without sacrificing our ability to build from within. With the new FA compensation rules, many more players will be available with no penalty. Right now is a great time to spend in FA. We should be flush with cash, we can't put it towards amatuers, theres no prospects of note that could be blocked (maybe one), and we have a serious talent gap until we develop players. People need to stop expecting some extreme turnaround. You have to add talent along the way, while also insuring you have a system that replenishes lost talent. We should have a pretty good shot at filling a lot of our major holes this offseason without depleting our farm of anything. The rest comes down to the development of guys like Castro, Rizzo, Shark, Wood, etc. No, its highly unlikely we get enough internal improvement from those guys to make a serious run, but they could turn into Mike Trout and it wouldn't matter if Rusin and Raley was the back of your rotation.

 

Dual fronts. Everyone say it. Its really gonna happen, and thats a really good thing.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

"Putting the best product on the field." :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Hey you can ignore the qualifier, but when you take out guys who would have negatively impacted our ability to build from within, that's what we've done. Even considering guys we ultimately didn't get but were in play for, like Cespedes and Darvish, we've targeted some good players.

 

Now obviously the midseason trades fly a bit into the face of that, but there's nothing wrong with cutting your losses midseason when you clearly aren't in the playoff race and A) that player doesn't look to contibute beyond this year-Dempster or B) the offer is a sell high steal, and the player still doesn't prohect to contribute long term -Maholm.

 

Someone else mentions developing guys like Castro and Rizzo into stars, but we can't wait for that to happen before we add to them or we've wasted at least a year, and baseball is way to fluid to start wasting years. Especially when it will never be easier to spend on FA.

 

 

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[SouthSideRyan]

GD IT B2B stop posting in my threads about davell's bad team-building plans.

[SouthSideRyan]

Ooooooh, SSR can write in all caps. Impressive. He also can't seem to comprehend that there's no one out there good enough to warrant spending longterm money on. As for my "plan" never having us in contention? We're developing pllayers. Probably two or three stars in Castro, Rizzo, and Shark.

 

What does Castro, Rizzo, and Shark playing have to do with trying to win games this offseason?

 

Stay with me here, becauae this seems to be where you get lost and considering you have flat out admitted you don't even follow the draft previously,

 

Well that's completely untrue

 

Other than you continuously trolling people who mention how important it is for us. The higher picks in the draft have more value now. Hence, better players coming in and more trade bait for us to use.

 

You know what else has value now? Good major league players.

 

You're now acting as if teams won't trade away guys? Yeah, that makes sense. There always has been and always will be trading and having the absolute most ammo possible increases your odds of getting major deals done.

 

What I'm saying is this isn't MLB of 10 years ago where you had 8 teams with nothing payrolls who were ready to dump their 5th year players every offseason. Just expecting studs to become available at this yet to be determined date when we're going to try to win games is a gamble you don't have to make when you can sustain a 150M payroll.

 

With a few developing stars already here, a few role players that can start already here too, it's not far away at all. I find it hard to believe you can't comprehend that either. But constantly trolling with little one liners is awesomely weak. I've written out plenty of scenarios as to how this team contends in 2014 or 2015 and if you disagree, what's your idea? How about actually contributing for a change?

 

I've seen no plan from you that has us as a legit contender in 2014. You don't want to commit to anybody worth a damn this offseason and anyone decent you want to trade off at the deadline so we can get more sweet draft pool money. It's my opinion that you have an unrealistic vision of what good players go for on the free agent market now, and instead insist on paying dollars/win to get the 1.5 WAR guy at a steal rather than pay a premium for a great player who you may have to actually pay money to in a season where we're not a better than 50% shot to contend.

[davell]

Incapable of giving an actual response, I guess. But seriously, to anyone, who are we missing out on? Wilson was never an option. Rizzo's a better fit than Pujols or Fielder. I've brought up Cespedes as a guy we missed on. Darvish? Lets wait til year 2 to decide whether we missed or not. This year? It's Greinke and Hamilton. Does anyone really feel comfortable giving them 150 mill? I'm asking because I truly don't. Everyone else are guys that are available every year. I'm all for trading for younger controlled guys, but it's ideal if Price were dealt the following year and Upton bounces back, because I doubt they'll take a discount on him.

[SouthSideRyan]

How was that not an actual response?

[SouthSideRyan]

It's not any individual miss that is the issue, it's your entire plan of sitting around and building up the farm system while adding nothing to the major league team long-term until 3 years in.

[sneakypower]

What I'm saying is this isn't MLB of 10 years ago where you had 8 teams with nothing payrolls who were ready to dump their 5th year players every offseason. Just expecting studs to become available at this yet to be determined date when we're going to try to win games is a gamble you don't have to make when you can sustain a 150M payroll.

Hanley, Cliff Lee, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett were all available to basically whoever wanted to pick up their contracts

[Sammy Sofa]

Incapable of giving an actual response

 

Well, that's kind of a crazy things to say.

[SouthSideRyan]

What I'm saying is this isn't MLB of 10 years ago where you had 8 teams with nothing payrolls who were ready to dump their 5th year players every offseason. Just expecting studs to become available at this yet to be determined date when we're going to try to win games is a gamble you don't have to make when you can sustain a 150M payroll.

Hanley, Cliff Lee, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett were all available to basically whoever wanted to pick up their contracts

 

Oh come on.

 

1.Those are all "bad contracts."

 

2A. Hanley was traded for a league average 22 year old starter.

2B. Cliff Lee wasn't traded, so we don't know that.

2C. Gonzalez and Beckett were tied together with one of the worst contracts in baseball, and still returned an okish prospect and a guy who I don't like personally, but dexter and somebody else had filling Josh Beckett's shoes. (har har, SSR doesn't like Rubby De La Rosa, what an idiot!!!)

[jersey cubs fan]

With a few developing stars already here, a few role players that can start already here too, it's not far away at all. I find it hard to believe you can't comprehend that either.

 

I find it hard to believe you can write that sentence while at the same timing insisting they stay away from any acquisitions this offseason. If it's not that far away, why not start the process now? Why keep waiting. They've already tanked a season. Tanking another isn't going to make the good times show up sooner.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

without sacrificing our ability to build from within.

 

That's such an absurd caveat. You can't run a major league baseball team with the idea that you will only use resources on MLB players if there is no conceivable way that the opportunity cost is something that you might have wanted in the future.

 

Well, you can, but you end up with a bullpen full of people nobody ever heard of at and the worst Cubs team in 45 years.

[sneakypower]

What I'm saying is this isn't MLB of 10 years ago where you had 8 teams with nothing payrolls who were ready to dump their 5th year players every offseason. Just expecting studs to become available at this yet to be determined date when we're going to try to win games is a gamble you don't have to make when you can sustain a 150M payroll.

Hanley, Cliff Lee, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett were all available to basically whoever wanted to pick up their contracts

 

Oh come on.

 

1.Those are all "bad contracts."

 

2A. Hanley was traded for a league average 22 year old starter.

2B. Cliff Lee wasn't traded, so we don't know that.

2C. Gonzalez and Beckett were tied together with one of the worst contracts in baseball, and still returned an okish prospect and a guy who I don't like personally, but dexter and somebody else had filling Josh Beckett's shoes. (har har, SSR doesn't like Rubby De La Rosa, what an idiot!!!)

are those guys all studs?

[SouthSideRyan]

Cliff Lee is. And he wasn't traded. Despite being claimed by LA.

 

Adrian Gonzalez might be, and there's no way he was traded if not for the anchors of Beckett and Crawford

[sneakypower]

so studs still do become available (Justin Upton also comes to mind)

[jersey cubs fan]

so studs still do become available (Justin Upton also comes to mind)

 

on occasion. Although we may no longer be seeing situations where guys like Cabrera come available when they are actually studs (as opposed to previously listed used to be studs). But you don't build your team with the expectations that you can get some other team's stud later.

[XZero771679666304]

so studs still do become available (Justin Upton also comes to mind)

 

on occasion. Although we may no longer be seeing situations where guys like Cabrera come available when they are actually studs (as opposed to previously listed used to be studs). But you don't build your team with the expectations that you can get some other team's stud later.

 

 

I think there's a far better chance that some kind of answers will be found on the trade market over the next 18 months than on this piss poor FA class. Throwing money at whatever players are the best of a given FA class with abandon just because it's there and some petulant fans want to see the FO "try" is just stupid. There are a couple of guys who make some sense (like Upton, Sanchez and maybe Greinke), but they're not making the 2013 Cubs much better than the 2012 team. The 2013-14 class is definitely more interesting.

 

And I think good young talent becomes available via trade more often than is being recognized, and I for one have no problem loading up the system so the FO has ammunition to strike when it does.

[davell]

Well damnit. He was typing his response while I saw his one liner. (edit: looked at time of his response and no clue how I missed it. Me equals dumbass)Honestly, thank you for the response and I'll respond here as soon as I get more than a minute to look at it. But seriously, thanks for the response, so now I at least know where you're coming from. Edited September 28, 2012 by davell

[illiniguy]

so studs still do become available (Justin Upton also comes to mind)

 

on occasion. Although we may no longer be seeing situations where guys like Cabrera come available when they are actually studs (as opposed to previously listed used to be studs). But you don't build your team with the expectations that you can get some other team's stud later.

Giancarlo Stanton will be available soon. The Marlins can't help themselves.

[Guest]

so studs still do become available (Justin Upton also comes to mind)

 

on occasion. Although we may no longer be seeing situations where guys like Cabrera come available when they are actually studs (as opposed to previously listed used to be studs). But you don't build your team with the expectations that you can get some other team's stud later.

Giancarlo Stanton will be available soon. The Marlins can't help themselves.

 

I hope so. That would be so awesome.