Good job theo

[Sammy Sofa]

By winning 90 games his last year there? Sign me up to have that is a down year please.

 

At some point, Epstein has to take the blame for either the 2012 Red Sox or Cubs. He can't dodge both.

 

Hey, you want to hang three bad teams on the FO, champ. Reach for the stars!

[Hairyducked Idiot]

By winning 90 games his last year there? Sign me up to have that is a down year please.

 

At some point, Epstein has to take the blame for either the 2012 Red Sox or Cubs. He can't dodge both.

 

Hey, you want to hang three bad teams on the FO, champ. Reach for the stars!

 

He's like the hero in an action movie. You have to empty the chamber, and they'll still all ping off the walls around him.

[Guest]

Seems odd to criticize only the decision to keep Castillo in AAA and not Rizzo. Even more so when the MLB role was a backup job.

 

Mather's inclusion on the 25 man was due to several factors, with ST performance being one of them. With the only real alternative being Sappelt, there's Mather's similar history compared to Sappelt, the ability to limit Sappelt's service time since they were similar candidates, increased depth since Mather may not have hung around in AAA after a great spring(see the 2011 rotation for that downside), and Mather's ability to play 3B on a team without a standout 3B. It may not have been a great idea especially with the hindsight of Mather's crummy 2012, but I think it's of minimal consequence considering the above and the fact that we're talking about less than 250 PA of playing time.

[Sammy Sofa]

"Crummy 2012" is putting it gently. I still can't believe he managed a -2.0 WAR season. Even Neifi only managed that once in his career.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Seems odd to criticize only the decision to keep Castillo in AAA and not Rizzo. Even more so when the MLB role was a backup job.

 

Given a catcher's usual lifespan and the lower projection, I don't think holding Castillo down for service time was worth much of anything.

 

 

Mather's inclusion on the 25 man was due to several factors, with ST performance being one of them.

 

What were the other ones? Because that's the only one I can see.

 

With the only real possibility being Sappelt, there's Mather's similar history compared to Sappelt, the ability to limit Sappelt's service time since they were similar candidates, increased depth since Mather may not have hung around in AAA after a great spring(see the 2011 rotation for that downside), and Mather's ability to play 3B on a team without a standout 3B. It may not have been a great idea especially with the hindsight of Mather's crummy 2012, but I think it's of minimal consequence considering the above and the fact that we're talking about less than 250 PA of playing time.

 

Our front office used a questionable reason to put a guy on the roster, and that guy proceeded to have a -2 WAR season. I think it's worth criticizing something like that.

[Guest]

I listed 4 other reasons right there. You quoted them.

 

It's not something that should be immune from criticisms, but highlighting it as a key failure of 2012 seems to be overstepping. Especially if we're going to use the hindsight of Mather's "-2 WAR season" (-1.6 fWAR, with -1.0 being defense/baserunning) and not mention that Sappelt(the only alternative I've seen mentioned) put up a sub-.700 OPS in 550 AAA PAs.

[Sammy Sofa]

There's really no excuse for Mather being on the roster: he'd been garbage for the two years prior to 2012. I wouldn't say it's a huge deal, because who the [expletive] is going to predict a -2.0 WAR? Offensively he was in line with his expected turdiness, but his defense apparently fell off of a cliff.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I listed 4 other reasons right there. You quoted them.

 

It's not something that should be immune from criticisms, but highlighting it as a key failure of 2012 seems to be overstepping. Especially if we're going to use the hindsight of Mather's "-2 WAR season" (-1.6 fWAR, with -1.0 being defense/baserunning) and not mention that Sappelt(the only alternative I've seen mentioned) put up a sub-.700 OPS in 550 AAA PAs.

 

I'm not particularly impressed with those reasons. I love Dave Sappelt more than it should be allowed, but I don't think he's worth holding down for service time. It seems like begging the question to say that you can't let Joe Mather go because Joe Mather might go somewhere else, and that's a defense for keeping him around when he's terrible.

 

You're right that Mather is a bit of a weird inclusion on the list, but I included it for two reasons:

 

1) He's emblematic of one of the biggest, most concerning facets of the 2012 Cubs: The inability to find replacement-level players. We fielded 22 sub-replacement players this season for a combined -16.9 WAR (using the more descriptive, less predictive B-R WAR). That's concerning for this front office's ability to judge marginal talent, unless they were intentionally trying to make the team as bad as possible.

 

2) It really looks to me like he was given the job based entirely on spring training performance, which irks me to no end.

[Sammy Sofa]

Didn't most of those sub-replacement players come from within the organization?

[Guest]

There's really no excuse for Mather being on the roster: he'd been garbage for the two years prior to 2012. I wouldn't say it's a huge deal, because who the [expletive] is going to predict a -2.0 WAR? Offensively he was in line with his expected turdiness, but his defense apparently fell off of a cliff.

 

I guess that's the key difference then. Mather was crummy in < 150 MLB PA's over 2010-11, but in extended time in AAA he was very similar to what we've seen and expected from Sappelt. Without any other context other than performance would I have preferred Sappelt? Sure. But with them being similar options, the service time/depth benefits and Mather's ability to play 3B, I don't think it's a particularly egregious decision. Especially with hindsight being that both were awful in 2012.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Didn't most of those sub-replacement players come from within the organization?

 

I count 11 of them as coming from outside the organization, including Hill and Lopez as re-signs.

[Sammy Sofa]

Didn't most of those sub-replacement players come from within the organization?

 

I count 11 of them as coming from outside the organization, including Hill and Lopez as re-signs.

 

How many actually contributed a -1.0 WAR (or worse) on their own?

[jersey cubs fan]

There's really no excuse for Mather being on the roster: he'd been garbage for the two years prior to 2012. I wouldn't say it's a huge deal, because who the [expletive] is going to predict a -2.0 WAR? Offensively he was in line with his expected turdiness, but his defense apparently fell off of a cliff.

 

I guess that's the key difference then. Mather was crummy in < 150 MLB PA's over 2010-11, but in extended time in AAA he was very similar to what we've seen and expected from Sappelt.

 

Spring training numbers aren't worthless because of sample size issues.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I think they only had a similar recent history on a superficial level.

 

Mather had a .790 OPS in Memphis in 2010 and an .820 OPS in 2011 spending most of his time in very hitter-friendly Colorado Springs (117 batters park in 2011).

 

Sappelt had a .902 OPS across three levels in 2011, ending with .847 in a brief appearance in AAA. Then he had an .834 OPS in Louisville (95 pitchers park).

 

But even if you thought the two were roughly even, and even if you wanted Sappelt in AAA, you should have been able to find a better utility guy than Mather. "None of the above" is the best option in that case.

[Guest]

There's really no excuse for Mather being on the roster: he'd been garbage for the two years prior to 2012. I wouldn't say it's a huge deal, because who the [expletive] is going to predict a -2.0 WAR? Offensively he was in line with his expected turdiness, but his defense apparently fell off of a cliff.

 

I guess that's the key difference then. Mather was crummy in < 150 MLB PA's over 2010-11, but in extended time in AAA he was very similar to what we've seen and expected from Sappelt.

 

Spring training numbers aren't worthless because of sample size issues.

 

Not sure what you're getting at, I wasn't making any reference to ST.

[Guest]

Didn't most of those sub-replacement players come from within the organization?

 

I count 11 of them as coming from outside the organization, including Hill and Lopez as re-signs.

 

How many actually contributed a -1.0 WAR (or worse) on their own?

 

Dolis, Germano, Volstad

 

Clevenger, Vitters, Mather

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Didn't most of those sub-replacement players come from within the organization?

 

I count 11 of them as coming from outside the organization, including Hill and Lopez as re-signs.

 

How many actually contributed a -1.0 WAR (or worse) on their own?

 

Joe Mather (-2.0), Josh Vitters (-1.3), Steve Clevenger (-1.0), Chris Volstad (-1.9), Justin German (-1.5), Rafael Dolis (-1.2).

[waffle]

mather is hardly worth arguing over, don't you think?

 

To me it comes down to only 2 things really

- Was this a year to sign FA's or make room for future FA's? Obviously it was B

- Do our minor leagues look better? At the lowest levels, yes. And I THINK our new management may prove to be decent drafters (f*ing finally)

 

Hopefully in the future our minor league teams will produce some ML talent and then signing significant big $$$ FA's will make sense

 

to me, everything else is pretty much noise

 

I guess I would also add developing a top to bottom "cubbie way" which they are doing and hiring and beginning to develop Sveum, whom I like quite a bit

 

I don't like losing but I like what they have done as it applies to the future.

[Sammy Sofa]

Didn't most of those sub-replacement players come from within the organization?

 

I count 11 of them as coming from outside the organization, including Hill and Lopez as re-signs.

 

How many actually contributed a -1.0 WAR (or worse) on their own?

 

Dolis, Germano, Volstad

 

Clevenger, Vitters, Mather

 

That's about what I expected.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

mather is hardly worth arguing over, don't you think?

 

It's about the process. The Cubs will need cheap players on the back half of their roster in the future, and this season they showed remarkably poor judgment in their ability to find such players.

[Sammy Sofa]

Yet the FO has had a good track record of finding value in the past, so are you really worried that they've somehow forgotten how to do that? Of course not. Edited October 4, 2012 by Sammy Sofa

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Yet the FO has had a good track record of finding value in the past, so are you really worried that they've somehow forgotten how to do that?

 

Yes. Markets change.

[Sammy Sofa]

Oh, alright then. So you're doing this now.

[toonsterwu]

Look, this season sucked, no doubt (that said, I thought it was fairly obvious in the spring that a 90-100 loss season was easily possible) ... and next season might suck as well. But ... the fact that the Cubs fans are giving the GM some leeway, IMO, has less to do with Theo and more to do with the aging core plus the fact that they committed to a full rebuild.

 

Come 2014, I doubt Cubs fans will give Theo and this regime as much leeway. I think there's an expectancy of a struggling team in 2013, so I think they'll be some leeway next year.

 

There were a lot of positives this year. Whether or not Anthony Rizzo will become a star, only time will tell, but he will probably be a solid starter for many years. They moved on from the Soto era with a cheaper option, and potentially better, in Castillo. The MI defense was stellar, and Castro is continuing to develop. Samardzija was given a shot to start, something not every regime would've done considering his history, and he took the ball and ran with it. Most importantly, the lower levels of the farm seem to be trending in the right direction. For a full rebuild job, that was the most important thing.

 

Of course, what we need are more arms, and whether or not they succeed may depend on that fact, as much as any.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Oh, alright then. So you're doing this now.

 

Yes. The negative WAR players are my new doom boner. Expect to hear a lot about them in the upcoming offseason.

 

Every 10 posts about them will waste about as much space as each instance of your sig.