Good job theo

[Tracer Bullet]

[completely unfair tangent that ignores the context]

Yeah, we wouldn't want to waste our 3b on a guy coming off terrible seasons and with known injury problems.

[/tangent]

 

Trolling with a smart ass comment doesn't really work when you soften the blow like that.

 

Or when the comparison is trash considering the enormous difference in age and money.

 

He acknowledges that in his post. That's the softening of the blow I'm referring to. Trolling is supposed to piss people off, not make sense.

 

Kyle doesn't need instructions.

[Guest]

[completely unfair tangent that ignores the context]

Yeah, we wouldn't want to waste our 3b on a guy coming off terrible seasons and with known injury problems.

[/tangent]

 

Trolling with a smart ass comment doesn't really work when you soften the blow like that.

 

Or when the comparison is trash considering the enormous difference in age and money.

 

He acknowledges that in his post. That's the softening of the blow I'm referring to. Trolling is supposed to piss people off, not make sense.

 

Kyle doesn't need instructions.

 

You'd think so, but then he went and did that.

[Warpticon]

[completely unfair tangent that ignores the context]

Yeah, we wouldn't want to waste our 3b on a guy coming off terrible seasons and with known injury problems.

[/tangent]

 

Trolling with a smart ass comment doesn't really work when you soften the blow like that.

 

Or when the comparison is trash considering the enormous difference in age and money.

 

He acknowledges that in his post. That's the softening of the blow I'm referring to. Trolling is supposed to piss people off, not make sense.

 

My bad, I actually only saw the post through your quote, so I thought he said that in isolation. Not sure how I missed the original post, actually.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

If taking random shots at Ian Stewart is wrong, I don't want to be right. I want to renew my wedding vows just so I can write something in there about how much I hate him.

[Warpticon]

If taking random shots at Ian Stewart is wrong, I don't want to be right. I want to renew my wedding vows just so I can write something in there about how much I hate him.

 

Tell us more about the opportunity cost of playing Stewart instead of some surer thing, Like Nobody McDoesntexist.

[Sammy Sofa]

If taking random shots at Ian Stewart is wrong, I don't want to be right. I want to renew my wedding vows just so I can write something in there about how much I hate him.

 

Here's your new sig:

 

http://thewvsr.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/waffle.jpg

 

But wait! Tell us more about how you figured out that they signed Paul Maholm with the intention of trading him if he had a decent year! Then explain why a good team wouldn't have done the same thing!

[dew1679666265]

A better option than Aramis for third, even considering the year Aramis had, was Chase Headley.

 

This isn't really a criticism of the Theo regime since we don't know what the Padres were demanding (I'm sure a ton), but seeing how bad our third base situation is now and going forward, finding a way to get Headley would have been incredible.

 

That said, I agree that Theo's biggest mistake to this point (besides not trying for 2-3 years) is not getting Cespedes. That one really hurts.

[XZero771679666304]

A better option than Aramis for third, even considering the year Aramis had, was Chase Headley.

 

This isn't really a criticism of the Theo regime since we don't know what the Padres were demanding (I'm sure a ton), but seeing how bad our third base situation is now and going forward, finding a way to get Headley would have been incredible.

 

That said, I agree that Theo's biggest mistake to this point (besides not trying for 2-3 years) is not getting Cespedes. That one really hurts.

 

 

I though there was some noise that Theo/Jed had contacted the Padres about Headley before the season, but that the demands were unreasonable. Word was that demands for him around the deadline this year were astronomical. I'd love to have had Headley, but it appears San Diego is loathe to let him go, and there wasn't a whole lot in the upper levels to tempt them with.

 

The only two things that were missed out on that bother me at all are Cespedes and Darvish, and in light of the fact that the Cubs were the best of the non-Texas bidders (which indicates to me that Texas just went completely rogue with their bid), I don't blame them for Darvish. Cespedes smarts, though.

[dew1679666265]

I though there was some noise that Theo/Jed had contacted the Padres about Headley before the season, but that the demands were unreasonable. Word was that demands for him around the deadline this year were astronomical. I'd love to have had Headley, but it appears San Diego is loathe to let him go, and there wasn't a whole lot in the upper levels to tempt them with.

 

Yeah, I remember the Theo regime showing interest in him as well. Like I said, not really a criticism, just thinking again how nice it would've been if we'd have been able to work something out for him.

 

The only two things that were missed out on that bother me at all are Cespedes and Darvish, and in light of the fact that the Cubs were the best of the non-Texas bidders (which indicates to me that Texas just went completely rogue with their bid), I don't blame them for Darvish. Cespedes smarts, though.

 

The Darvish thing still annoys me, simply because everything pointed to $20 million not being enough (lots of rumors that 1-2 teams were willing to go as high as Daisuke money or higher) and everything also pointed to Darvish being a considerably better bet than Daisuke (or maybe any other Japanese pitcher that had previously come over here) to be really good. Still though, it was a blind bid, making it really hard to criticize not winning.

 

I hated that we passed on Cespedes at the time and I hate it more now. That and, to a much lesser degree, passing on Wei-Yin Chen are the most frustrating non-moves so far.

[davell]

Oooh, I forgot about Chen. He'd have been an excellent find.

[dew1679666265]

Oooh, I forgot about Chen. He'd have been an excellent find.

 

I was a big Chen fan when he came over to the states. He wasn't as good this year as his numbers would indicate (got kinda lucky), but he's just now in his prime and should get better as he goes along. Would've looked really nice grouped in with Garza and Shark going forward.

[XZero771679666304]

I though there was some noise that Theo/Jed had contacted the Padres about Headley before the season, but that the demands were unreasonable. Word was that demands for him around the deadline this year were astronomical. I'd love to have had Headley, but it appears San Diego is loathe to let him go, and there wasn't a whole lot in the upper levels to tempt them with.

 

Yeah, I remember the Theo regime showing interest in him as well. Like I said, not really a criticism, just thinking again how nice it would've been if we'd have been able to work something out for him.

 

The only two things that were missed out on that bother me at all are Cespedes and Darvish, and in light of the fact that the Cubs were the best of the non-Texas bidders (which indicates to me that Texas just went completely rogue with their bid), I don't blame them for Darvish. Cespedes smarts, though.

 

The Darvish thing still annoys me, simply because everything pointed to $20 million not being enough (lots of rumors that 1-2 teams were willing to go as high as Daisuke money or higher) and everything also pointed to Darvish being a considerably better bet than Daisuke (or maybe any other Japanese pitcher that had previously come over here) to be really good. Still though, it was a blind bid, making it really hard to criticize not winning.

 

I hated that we passed on Cespedes at the time and I hate it more now. That and, to a much lesser degree, passing on Wei-Yin Chen are the most frustrating non-moves so far.

 

There was a lot of conjecture about what the Darvish bid would be, but in the end it turned out that you had Texas where they were and the Cubs leading everyone else bunched at a lower range (including the Jays, who were very interested and considered to be the favorites by many). This at least tells us that it almost certainly wasn't a "token" bid, and that Theo/Jed made what they believed to be a very competitive bid. That is unless you believe Texas was the only team that wanted him, which I sure don't. If the consensus was the the bidding was going to be in the 15-20MM range (which it seems the consensus among non-Texas execs was) it seems a stretch to have expected the Cubs to go to 50MM+.

 

The Cespedes miss was much less forgivable. If you're the Chicago Cubs, you don't get outbid by the Oakland A's in an open process. Part of me wonders if they were given a chance to counter (given how aggressive they were in paying for the other Cubans.), but it seems unlikely Cespedes and his agent would neglect to ask the Cubs if they wanted to match or beat the A's offer. It was a bad miss.

[treebird]

The Cespedes miss was much less forgivable. If you're the Chicago Cubs, you don't get outbid by the Oakland A's in an open process. Part of me wonders if they were given a chance to counter (given how aggressive they were in paying for the other Cubans.), but it seems unlikely Cespedes and his agent would neglect to ask the Cubs if they wanted to match or beat the A's offer. It was a bad miss.

 

yeah, it's been reported that the cubs weren't given a chance to counter the last a's offer, but if that's what really happened, that's just poor negotiating leading up to that point. the a's shouldn't have ever been in a position where they could scare cespedes and his agent into believing this was going to be the last best offer and the cubs wouldn't match it.

[XZero771679666304]

The Cespedes miss was much less forgivable. If you're the Chicago Cubs, you don't get outbid by the Oakland A's in an open process. Part of me wonders if they were given a chance to counter (given how aggressive they were in paying for the other Cubans.), but it seems unlikely Cespedes and his agent would neglect to ask the Cubs if they wanted to match or beat the A's offer. It was a bad miss.

 

yeah, it's been reported that the cubs weren't given a chance to counter the last a's offer, but if that's what really happened, that's just poor negotiating leading up to that point. the a's shouldn't have ever been in a position where they could scare cespedes and his agent into believing this was going to be the last best offer and the cubs wouldn't match it.

 

If that was the way it actually went down, Cespedes should have canned his agent immediately.

[Backtobanks]

I though there was some noise that Theo/Jed had contacted the Padres about Headley before the season, but that the demands were unreasonable. Word was that demands for him around the deadline this year were astronomical. I'd love to have had Headley, but it appears San Diego is loathe to let him go, and there wasn't a whole lot in the upper levels to tempt them with.

 

Yeah, I remember the Theo regime showing interest in him as well. Like I said, not really a criticism, just thinking again how nice it would've been if we'd have been able to work something out for him.

 

The only two things that were missed out on that bother me at all are Cespedes and Darvish, and in light of the fact that the Cubs were the best of the non-Texas bidders (which indicates to me that Texas just went completely rogue with their bid), I don't blame them for Darvish. Cespedes smarts, though.

 

The Darvish thing still annoys me, simply because everything pointed to $20 million not being enough (lots of rumors that 1-2 teams were willing to go as high as Daisuke money or higher) and everything also pointed to Darvish being a considerably better bet than Daisuke (or maybe any other Japanese pitcher that had previously come over here) to be really good. Still though, it was a blind bid, making it really hard to criticize not winning.

 

I hated that we passed on Cespedes at the time and I hate it more now. That and, to a much lesser degree, passing on Wei-Yin Chen are the most frustrating non-moves so far.

 

There was a lot of conjecture about what the Darvish bid would be, but in the end it turned out that you had Texas where they were and the Cubs leading everyone else bunched at a lower range (including the Jays, who were very interested and considered to be the favorites by many). This at least tells us that it almost certainly wasn't a "token" bid, and that Theo/Jed made what they believed to be a very competitive bid. That is unless you believe Texas was the only team that wanted him, which I sure don't. If the consensus was the the bidding was going to be in the 15-20MM range (which it seems the consensus among non-Texas execs was) it seems a stretch to have expected the Cubs to go to 50MM+.

 

The Cespedes miss was much less forgivable. If you're the Chicago Cubs, you don't get outbid by the Oakland A's in an open process. Part of me wonders if they were given a chance to counter (given how aggressive they were in paying for the other Cubans.), but it seems unlikely Cespedes and his agent would neglect to ask the Cubs if they wanted to match or beat the A's offer. It was a bad miss.

 

Everything I read before the Darvish winning bid was announced expected it to be around $48 million.

[XZero771679666304]

 

Everything I read before the Darvish winning bid was announced expected it to be around $48 million.

 

Everything I read indicated no one in the media had any idea. There was a whole of of speculating, though. The fact that only one team bid near that and other teams like the Yankees (those cheapskates), the Blue Jays (one of, if not the supposed favorites), the Cubs (who outbid all but Texas) and others bid in the same range says a lot more about what the bid was expected to be than what you might have read from media pundits.

 

What likely happened was that there was an expectation of the range among executives, and Texas just decided to blow it out of the water. It seems fairly certain that's what happened, given what we know now. The notion that Texas was the only team seriously interested is ridiculous, and that's what you'd have to believe if you think the Cubs' bid wasn't serious. Unless you just want to interpret things in the way that makes Theo and Jed look as bad as possible.

[Backtobanks]

 

Everything I read before the Darvish winning bid was announced expected it to be around $48 million.

 

Everything I read indicated no one in the media had any idea. There was a whole of of speculating, though. The fact that only one team bid near that and other teams like the Yankees (those cheapskates), the Blue Jays (one of, if not the supposed favorites), the Cubs (who outbid all but Texas) and others bid in the same range says a lot more about what the bid was expected to be than what you might have read from media pundits.

 

What likely happened was that there was an expectation of the range among executives, and Texas just decided to blow it out of the water. It seems fairly certain that's what happened, given what we know now. The notion that Texas was the only team seriously interested is ridiculous, and that's what you'd have to believe if you think the Cubs' bid wasn't serious. Unless you just want to interpret things in the way that makes Theo and Jed look as bad as possible.

 

Maybe the media didn't have any idea, but your 2nd paragraph includes "what likely happened", "fairly certain", and "unless you (I) want to interpret things in the way that makes Theo and Jed look as bad as possible". My assumption is that our FO bid what they thought was a reasonable amount and weren't even close to the winning bid. BTW, I've read articles that stated we weren't the 2nd highest bid - not that it matters.

[dew1679666265]

Everything I read indicated no one in the media had any idea. There was a whole of of speculating, though. The fact that only one team bid near that and other teams like the Yankees (those cheapskates), the Blue Jays (one of, if not the supposed favorites), the Cubs (who outbid all but Texas) and others bid in the same range says a lot more about what the bid was expected to be than what you might have read from media pundits.

 

What likely happened was that there was an expectation of the range among executives, and Texas just decided to blow it out of the water. It seems fairly certain that's what happened, given what we know now. The notion that Texas was the only team seriously interested is ridiculous, and that's what you'd have to believe if you think the Cubs' bid wasn't serious. Unless you just want to interpret things in the way that makes Theo and Jed look as bad as possible.

 

I'm thinking there were a couple things reported in the media that ended up being true - that a lot of teams were scared to bid highly for Darvish because of the Daisuke mess and that there were still 1-2 teams that were planning to blow everybody else's bid out.

 

I would assume that the Theo regime had better info than me, but I wouldn't have expected $20 million to even come close to winning the bidding. However, it would have been very difficult for the Theo regime to know exactly how high the Rangers would go and then match that amount. My view on it is, they wanted Darvish if they could get him at their price, but they weren't going to take a chance of overpaying for him in a blind bid.

 

I would have liked to see them bid more, but it's a perfectly defensible stance to say they made a competitive bid with everyone else and that's acceptable. Overall, even though I really wish we had gotten Darvish, I don't criticize the Theo regime for that miss at all.

[dew1679666265]

If that was the way it actually went down, Cespedes should have canned his agent immediately.

 

Yeah, people have argued that the Theo regime shouldn't be blamed because Cespedes' agent didn't give them a chance to counter the offer. If that's the case, then Cespedes' agent is incompetent.

 

The Darvish thing is completely defensible, the Cespedes thing isn't at all.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

It's tricky because I do like commenting on front office decisions and that requires pretending we know a lot more than we do, but I don't think there's a ton of correlation between the sorts of leaks that come out after an incident like the Darvish bidding, and what actually happened. Just because someone's willing to tell a reporter something anonymously doesn't mean it's true, whether it be before or after an event.

[dew1679666265]

It's tricky because I do like commenting on front office decisions and that requires pretending we know a lot more than we do, but I don't think there's a ton of correlation between the sorts of leaks that come out after an incident like the Darvish bidding, and what actually happened. Just because someone's willing to tell a reporter something anonymously doesn't mean it's true, whether it be before or after an event.

 

I think that's why you can't really blame the Theo regime for missing on Darvish. The Theo regime may have been hearing differing reports than the ones leaked to the public. It's really hard to say on a blind bid.

[Little Slide Rooter]

If that was the way it actually went down, Cespedes should have canned his agent immediately.

 

Yeah, people have argued that the Theo regime shouldn't be blamed because Cespedes' agent didn't give them a chance to counter the offer. If that's the case, then Cespedes' agent is incompetent.

 

The Darvish thing is completely defensible, the Cespedes thing isn't at all.

 

If we got Cespdes, would the GMs of each of the finalists for his services be to blame? He had 4-5 suitors in the end, and only one could get him. Yeah, he had a hell of a season, but nobody could have expected the type of impact he'd have in his first big league season. Many didnt think that he'd even start the season in the big leagues, so unless you think that we should have gone all out with the type of contract that an established big league star would get, there's really nobody to blame.

[Sammy Sofa]

Yeah, he had a hell of a season, but nobody could have expected the type of impact he'd have in his first big league season.

 

Of course they could have, and it was thought by many he could easily have a first season like this. What a ridiculous thing to say.

[dew1679666265]

If we got Cespdes, would the GMs of each of the finalists for his services be to blame? He had 4-5 suitors in the end, and only one could get him. Yeah, he had a hell of a season, but nobody could have expected the type of impact he'd have in his first big league season. Many didnt think that he'd even start the season in the big leagues, so unless you think that we should have gone all out with the type of contract that an established big league star would get, there's really nobody to blame.

 

If all the other suitors had the financial resources, the need at the position, and the history/tradition/stadium the Cubs have, then yes, all the other GMs are to blame. Unless Cespedes' agent is very bad at his job and didn't give the Cubs the opportunity to counter Oakland's offer, then there's really no reason the Cubs should have been outbid by Oakland.

 

And I was pretty upset before the season even started that we missed on Cespedes, so I'm not just upset because he had a really good year. And a 3.1 WAR wasn't that unexpected at the beginning of the year - I'd have guessed it'd be more heavily weighted by defense, but this was probably on the upper end of what people thought Cespedes could do in year one.