Good job theo

[Sammy Sofa]

The internet doesn't work like that.

 

Now explain how "the market" has somehow negated the FO's ability to recognize useful cheap players.

[jersey cubs fan]

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

 

A season of major league baseball isn't noise. Plus, there's no such thing as "a year to sign FA's or make room for future FA's". Room for future FA's is just a made up excuse to justify taking a dive.

[Guest]

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.

 

I think I'll go ahead and be proactive and foe you until the regular season then, because I'm not sure I can handle reading that [expletive].

 

I've already had enough of it.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Now explain how "the market" has somehow negated the FO's ability to recognize useful cheap players.

 

I can't. I can only see that it perhaps has. It's a plausible explanation for why we fielded so many awful players, especially the bullpen.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I've already had enough of it.

 

*shrug* up to you.

 

It's also the most important reason for optimism for 2013. We should be able to make gains very, very quickly just by fielding competent players.

[Sammy Sofa]

Now explain how "the market" has somehow negated the FO's ability to recognize useful cheap players.

 

I can't. I can only see that it perhaps has. It's a plausible explanation for why we fielded so many awful players, especially the bullpen.

 

So, in other words, you were just saying things.

[bukie]

Now explain how "the market" has somehow negated the FO's ability to recognize useful cheap players.

 

I can't. I can only see that it perhaps has. It's a plausible explanation for why we fielded so many awful players, especially the bullpen.

 

Here's another explanation on the bullpen: the bullpen is a crap shoot.

 

It's made up of the most volatile of players in MLB, pitchers who aren't solid and/or durable enough to be starters. The options are to either invest heavily in "more stable" relievers and hope you hit on more of the "sure things", or scrounge relievers from your (and other) system pitchers that aren't considered much of real prospects. Since the FO wasn't looking to go all in to win this year, they (wisely, IMO) chose option B, and it didn't work out this year.

[Guest]

I've already had enough of it.

 

*shrug* up to you.

 

It's also the most important reason for optimism for 2013. We should be able to make gains very, very quickly just by fielding competent players.

 

I already realize that and not much more needs to be said about it.

[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

 

A season of major league baseball isn't noise. Plus, there's no such thing as "a year to sign FA's or make room for future FA's". Room for future FA's is just a made up excuse to justify taking a dive.

 

I disagree with you on both your responses. I do believe the cubbies intend to sign FA's, expensive one's, when it makes sense, winning sense. And yes, it was noise. It is over, it sucked, I suspect Theo hates losing even more than you do. Your comments really don't contradict my original points, so I guess that makes your comments noise, eh?

[jersey cubs fan]

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

 

A season of major league baseball isn't noise. Plus, there's no such thing as "a year to sign FA's or make room for future FA's". Room for future FA's is just a made up excuse to justify taking a dive.

 

I disagree with you on both your responses. I do believe the cubbies intend to sign FA's, expensive one's, when it makes sense, winning sense. And yes, it was noise. It is over, it sucked, I suspect Theo hates losing even more than you do. Your comments really don't contradict my original points, so I guess that makes your comments noise, eh?

 

No, your comments are just meaningless gibberish meant to pretend that taking a dive wasn't a bad thing. There's no such thing as a year to sign guys or a year to make room. There's no more room for future FA today than there was a year ago.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Now explain how "the market" has somehow negated the FO's ability to recognize useful cheap players.

 

I can't. I can only see that it perhaps has. It's a plausible explanation for why we fielded so many awful players, especially the bullpen.

 

Here's another explanation on the bullpen: the bullpen is a crap shoot.

 

It's made up of the most volatile of players in MLB, pitchers who aren't solid and/or durable enough to be starters. The options are to either invest heavily in "more stable" relievers and hope you hit on more of the "sure things", or scrounge relievers from your (and other) system pitchers that aren't considered much of real prospects. Since the FO wasn't looking to go all in to win this year, they (wisely, IMO) chose option B, and it didn't work out this year.

 

Didn't work out to the degree that it was the worst bullpen in baseball, 1.4 fWAR worse than No. 29 and 3.1 WAR worse than No. 27.

 

That's an awful lot of volatility, all going in the same direction, to be attributed solely to variance. I can't say that's impossible for the franchise that has lost eight straight playoff games by multiple runs, but it seems a rather uncritical option to settle on so easily.

[mookie]

Taking a dive wasn't a bad thing.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Now explain how "the market" has somehow negated the FO's ability to recognize useful cheap players.

 

I can't. I can only see that it perhaps has. It's a plausible explanation for why we fielded so many awful players, especially the bullpen.

 

So, in other words, you were just saying things.

 

I was going to make a comment on the Chicago Cubs baseball team, and that comment was a thing that I said.

[Tracer Bullet]

Now explain how "the market" has somehow negated the FO's ability to recognize useful cheap players.

 

I can't. I can only see that it perhaps has. It's a plausible explanation for why we fielded so many awful players, especially the bullpen.

 

Here's another explanation on the bullpen: the bullpen is a crap shoot.

 

It's made up of the most volatile of players in MLB, pitchers who aren't solid and/or durable enough to be starters. The options are to either invest heavily in "more stable" relievers and hope you hit on more of the "sure things", or scrounge relievers from your (and other) system pitchers that aren't considered much of real prospects. Since the FO wasn't looking to go all in to win this year, they (wisely, IMO) chose option B, and it didn't work out this year.

 

Didn't work out to the degree that it was the worst bullpen in baseball, 1.4 fWAR worse than No. 29 and 3.1 WAR worse than No. 27.

 

That's an awful lot of volatility, all going in the same direction, to be attributed solely to variance. I can't say that's impossible for the franchise that has lost eight straight playoff games by multiple runs, but it seems a rather uncritical option to settle on so easily.

 

Or they correctly identified the worst players to make the dive that much worse so the pick would be that much higher. They're the best at identifying talent and the lack thereof.

[Sammy Sofa]

Now explain how "the market" has somehow negated the FO's ability to recognize useful cheap players.

 

I can't. I can only see that it perhaps has. It's a plausible explanation for why we fielded so many awful players, especially the bullpen.

 

So, in other words, you were just saying things.

 

I was going to make a comment on the Chicago Cubs baseball team, and that comment was a thing that I said.

 

You mean the team that hasn't been to a World Series since 1945, since that is as much a relevant point to this discussion about the new FO as is inexplicably bringing up the team's recent playoff history.

 

You're the hated looper, Kyle, not them.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Taking a dive wasn't a bad thing.

It wasn't a good thing.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Or they correctly identified the worst players to make the dive that much worse so the pick would be that much higher. They're the best at identifying talent and the lack thereof.

 

That's a possible explanation, too. Though one with equally disturbing implications.

[davell]

I figure we have Marmol, Russell, and probably Camp as far as the pen goes. My guess is we'll see two guys out of a large group also make it, out of Dolis, Cabrera, Beliveau, Chapman, Bowden, and a few others. Then we'll sign a pair of vets to one year deals. And with the volatility of pens, my guess is ours is relatively solid next ywar, by doing that.

[bukie]

Consider the bullpen when the new front office took over. There were six quality holdovers. Listed in order of quality, from best to worst:

 

- Sean Marshall: Traded for Travis Wood, Dave Sappelt and Ronald Torreyes. Then and now considered good value for one year of a reliever, but the only case where they gave up short-term WAR for long-term projections..

- Carlos Marmol: Terrible for three weeks, found injured, more valuable than 2011 after being healthy. Using him in the pen this year was a net plus.

- Jeff Samardzija: Converted to quality starter, which made him about 5 times as valuable to the team. Good move.

- Kerry Wood: Retired a month into the season after signing an extension in the offseason.

- James Russell: More valuable in the pen this year than last year. Good move keeping him.

- Andrew Cashner: Traded for Anthony Rizzo, who was worth five times as much as Cashner this year despite only playing since June. Good move.

 

Which of the above six decisions the front office made for this year would you criticize? Just about the only one I would take issue with was keeping on Marmol all year, but he was basically untradeable while injured, so what can you do?

Edited October 4, 2012 by bukie

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I figure we have Marmol, Russell, and probably Camp as far as the pen goes. My guess is we'll see two guys out of a large group also make it, out of Dolis, Cabrera, Beliveau, Chapman, Bowden, and a few others. Then we'll sign a pair of vets to one year deals. And with the volatility of pens, my guess is ours is relatively solid next ywar, by doing that.

 

That bullpen you just described is a puking pile of puke that pukes puke, unless those two vets are really, really good.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Consider the bullpen when the new front office took over. There were six quality holdovers. Listed in order of quality, from best to worst:

 

- Sean Marshall: Traded for Travis Wood, Dave Sappelt and Ronald Torreyes. Then and now considered good value for one year of a reliever, but the only case where they gave up short-term WAR for long-term projections..

- Carlos Marmol: Terrible for three weeks, found injured, more valuable than 2011 after being healthy. Using him in the pen this year was a net plus.

- Jeff Samardzija: Converted to quality starter, which made him about 5 times as valuable to the team. Good move.

- Kerry Wood: Retired a month into the season after signing an extension in the offseason.

- James Russell: More valuable in the pen this year than last year. Good move keeping him.

- Andrew Cashner: Traded for Anthony Rizzo, who was worth five times as much as Cashner this year despite only playing since June. Good move.

 

Which of the above six decisions the front office made for this year would you criticize? Just about the only one I would take issue with was keeping on Marmol all year, but he was basically untradeable while injured, so what can you do?

 

I might add bringing Wood back and counting on him to the questionable list, but you are mostly correct, those were all good moves.

 

Unfortunately, Marmol, Wood and Russell accounted for about 1/4th of our bullpen innings. They chose to fill the remaining 3/4ths with scrap filler, and they didn't even manage to pick any good scrap filler.

[Tracer Bullet]

Consider the bullpen when the new front office took over. There were six quality holdovers. Listed in order of quality, from best to worst:

 

- Sean Marshall: Traded for Travis Wood, Dave Sappelt and Ronald Torreyes. Then and now considered good value for one year of a reliever, but the only case where they gave up short-term WAR for long-term projections..

- Carlos Marmol: Terrible for three weeks, found injured, more valuable than 2011 after being healthy. Using him in the pen this year was a net plus.

- Jeff Samardzija: Converted to quality starter, which made him about 5 times as valuable to the team. Good move.

- Kerry Wood: Retired a month into the season after signing an extension in the offseason.

- James Russell: More valuable in the pen this year than last year. Good move keeping him.

- Andrew Cashner: Traded for Anthony Rizzo, who was worth five times as much as Cashner this year despite only playing since June. Good move.

 

Which of the above six decisions the front office made for this year would you criticize? Just about the only one I would take issue with was keeping on Marmol all year, but he was basically untradeable while injured, so what can you do?

 

Bukie-keeping the pen together maybe means we win a few more games. Maybe even 10 more games. Can't you see how incredibly important that is now and in the future?

[Guest]

Consider the bullpen when the new front office took over. There were six quality holdovers. Listed in order of quality, from best to worst:

 

- Sean Marshall: Traded for Travis Wood, Dave Sappelt and Ronald Torreyes. Then and now considered good value for one year of a reliever, but the only case where they gave up short-term WAR for long-term projections..

- Carlos Marmol: Terrible for three weeks, found injured, more valuable than 2011 after being healthy. Using him in the pen this year was a net plus.

- Jeff Samardzija: Converted to quality starter, which made him about 5 times as valuable to the team. Good move.

- Kerry Wood: Retired a month into the season after signing an extension in the offseason.

- James Russell: More valuable in the pen this year than last year. Good move keeping him.

- Andrew Cashner: Traded for Anthony Rizzo, who was worth five times as much as Cashner this year despite only playing since June. Good move.

 

Which of the above six decisions the front office made for this year would you criticize? Just about the only one I would take issue with was keeping on Marmol all year, but he was basically untradeable while injured, so what can you do?

 

To add on to this, the bullpen had a -2.8 bWAR. In 36 IP, Wood, Castillo, Lopez, Hinshaw, and Parker combined for -2.1 WAR (Hinshaw alone is -0.6 in 0.1 IP!). Dolis was another -1.2 in 38 IP himself. Most every one of those were either smart moves to have in the pen at the time, or warm bodies after the team was no longer in the race. In concert with Bukie's post, I'm not terribly worried about bullpen construction. And all that speaks nothing of the fact that evaluating relievers by WAR is a....troublesome exercise.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

To add on to this, the bullpen had a -2.8 bWAR. In 36 IP, Wood, Castillo, Lopez, Hinshaw, and Parker combined for -2.1 WAR (Hinshaw alone is -0.6 in 0.1 IP!). Dolis was another -1.2 in 38 IP himself. Most every one of those were either smart moves to have in the pen at the time, or warm bodies after the team was no longer in the race. In concert with Bukie's post, I'm not terribly worried about bullpen construction. And all that speaks nothing of the fact that evaluating relievers by WAR is a....troublesome exercise.

 

Sorry, but if we're cycling through that many relief pitchers, you should be able to find a few more replacement-level ones even to fill in the garbage innings.

 

Using WAR is a matter of convenience. I'd be glad to entertain alternative methods.

[Tracer Bullet]

To add on to this, the bullpen had a -2.8 bWAR. In 36 IP, Wood, Castillo, Lopez, Hinshaw, and Parker combined for -2.1 WAR (Hinshaw alone is -0.6 in 0.1 IP!). Dolis was another -1.2 in 38 IP himself. Most every one of those were either smart moves to have in the pen at the time, or warm bodies after the team was no longer in the race. In concert with Bukie's post, I'm not terribly worried about bullpen construction. And all that speaks nothing of the fact that evaluating relievers by WAR is a....troublesome exercise.

 

Sorry, but if we're cycling through that many relief pitchers, you should be able to find a few more replacement-level ones even to fill in the garbage innings.

 

Using WAR is a matter of convenience. I'd be glad to entertain alternative methods.

 

I think this discussion is what they had in mind when they coined the phrase "rearranging the deck chairs."