Spending

[Hairyducked Idiot]

You said they actively sought out losing. They put together a team that could've been competitive if some things went right (i.e. if the bullpen wasn't completely awful, if Ian Stewart had a bounceback...).

 

Soto and Byrd ended up worse than anybody could have imagined. So did the bullpen. Stewart was a miss. It took selling off in July for this team to be as bad as it ended up.

 

Man, the team would have had a chance to be good if not for all those terrible players they had...

 

Why is it OK to be a troll on this forum as long as you root for the Cubs?

 

Why is someone disagreeing with you automatically trolling?

[Guest]

If they felt like they could have won in 2012 and achieved their other goals, they would have attempted to.

 

Disagree. This wasn't about what they thought was or wasn't best for the franchise as it was when they took over. This was about trying something they'd always wanted to try and finding an owner willing to let them do it.

 

It's hilarious IF you really think this.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

It's hilarious IF you really think this.

 

I'm not particularly amused by it, but I guess everyone has their own standard of humor.

[XZero771679666304]

The team that broke camp was not a 100-loss team,

 

That's such a stupid pointless comment. People clung to the notion of how ridiculous it was to think this team could lose 100 games this year until they lost 100 games. They put together a crap team that was designed to lose, and it lost. The fact that they kept Garza doesn't change that fact at all. They planned on trading him when they thought they could get peak return and missed an opportunity due to injury. They kept Rizzo at AAA longer than he needed because they were not interested in getting the most they could out of the 2012 team.

 

 

The notion that some people still pretend that they didn't take a dive this year is mind boggling. I don't know if you need to pretend that isn't the case to convince yourself of something else, but they took a dive. Everybody knows it.

 

Your line of thinking that accepting a lost season = willfully constructing the worst team possible is utterly moronic. The team could have been so much worse, right out of the gate.

 

And trading Garza in the offseason would have been trading him at peak value. In fact they should have done so, and that's not hindsight talking. 2011 was his best season and there was no guarantee of him being as good in the first half of 2012. I feel that they really weren't undecided about trading or extending him And they kept Rizzo in AAA for as long as they did to make sure he was past his 2011 struggles and for team control reasons. They likely would have done this regardless, and rightfully so.

 

Yes, they had no intent to win in 2012 and had nor problem scrapping the season completely once the deadline was passed. But if they had wanted the #1 pick, they could have guaranteed it before the team broke camp. But they didn't.

[XZero771679666304]

If they felt like they could have won in 2012 and achieved their other goals, they would have attempted to.

 

Disagree. This wasn't about what they thought was or wasn't best for the franchise as it was when they took over. This was about trying something they'd always wanted to try and finding an owner willing to let them do it.

 

That astoundingly presumptuous. Almost comically so.

[Guest]

The only positive about the turn of events with Garza is that maybe we can actually re-sign him at a reasonable cost now. If not, we can still trade him.

 

The time off for his arm can't be a bad thing, either... it doesn't seem like a stress fracture issue in his bone is a thing that should hurt him structurally going forward once the bone heals, either (if anything, whatever caused it is the cause for concern). It's not a ligament issue or anything like that.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

If they felt like they could have won in 2012 and achieved their other goals, they would have attempted to.

 

Disagree. This wasn't about what they thought was or wasn't best for the franchise as it was when they took over. This was about trying something they'd always wanted to try and finding an owner willing to let them do it.

 

That astoundingly presumptuous. Almost comically so.

 

Let's see.

 

We know Epstein was feeling burnt out by Boston.

We know he's said that the pressure to win in Boston got to him and caused him to make mistakes.

We know he had meetings with Ricketts during the summer to discuss the direction Ricketts wanted to take the team.

We know he's talked about how he always wanted to see what might happen if the "business" didn't force him to try to win right away and just let him see what happened with homegrown talent.

 

It's not hard to connect the dots. The case seems a lot stronger than "Epstein got here, looked around, and decided there was no chance he could build a competitive team."

[XZero771679666304]

If they felt like they could have won in 2012 and achieved their other goals, they would have attempted to.

 

Disagree. This wasn't about what they thought was or wasn't best for the franchise as it was when they took over. This was about trying something they'd always wanted to try and finding an owner willing to let them do it.

 

That astoundingly presumptuous. Almost comically so.

 

Let's see.

 

We know Epstein was feeling burnt out by Boston.

We know he's said that the pressure to win in Boston got to him and caused him to make mistakes.

We know he had meetings with Ricketts during the summer to discuss the direction Ricketts wanted to take the team.

We know he's talked about how he always wanted to see what might happen if the "business" didn't force him to try to win right away and just let him see what happened with homegrown talent.

 

It's not hard to connect the dots. The case seems a lot stronger than "Epstein got here, looked around, and decided there was no chance he could build a competitive team."

 

 

I was waiting for you to bring that up. It was obviously one of those "what if" daydream statements, but you've taken it at face value because it fits your agenda here.

 

And yes, I think the new CBA altered their plans significantly (iirc, he made several statements to this effect), dictating that they would have to move what little they had in the way of major league assets to bring in talent instead of throwing money at the draft and IFA (which he saw the Cubs do in 2011, made a point of mentioning, and likely planned on doing when he took the job). And since building the foundation is their priority number one, they sacrificed the season (and the next) because there wasn't enough talent in the upper levels to do both. And yes, I think if there had been a bunch of talent waiting for him when he got here, he wouldn't have scrapped it to fulfill some fantasy of his by starting from scratch (which would have destroyed his reputation, because it would be a ridiculous scenario).

 

I think is a much safer assumption than your connecting of dots.

[Guest]

If they felt like they could have won in 2012 and achieved their other goals, they would have attempted to.

 

Disagree. This wasn't about what they thought was or wasn't best for the franchise as it was when they took over. This was about trying something they'd always wanted to try and finding an owner willing to let them do it.

 

That astoundingly presumptuous. Almost comically so.

 

Let's see.

 

We know Epstein was feeling burnt out by Boston.

We know he's said that the pressure to win in Boston got to him and caused him to make mistakes.

We know he had meetings with Ricketts during the summer to discuss the direction Ricketts wanted to take the team.

We know he's talked about how he always wanted to see what might happen if the "business" didn't force him to try to win right away and just let him see what happened with homegrown talent.

 

It's not hard to connect the dots. The case seems a lot stronger than "Epstein got here, looked around, and decided there was no chance he could build a competitive team."

 

 

I was waiting for you to bring that up. It was obviously one of those "what if" daydream statements, but you've taken it at face value because it fits your agenda here.

 

And yes, I think the new CBA altered their plans significantly (iirc, he made several statements to this effect), dictating that they would have to move what little they had in the way of major league assets to bring in talent instead of throwing money at the draft and IFA (which he saw the Cubs do in 2011, made a point of mentioning, and likely planned on doing when he took the job). And since building the foundation is their priority number one, they sacrificed the season (and the next) because there wasn't enough talent in the upper levels to do both. And yes, I think if there had been a bunch of talent waiting for him when he got here, he wouldn't have scrapped it to fulfill some fantasy of his by starting from scratch (which would have destroyed his reputation, because it would be a ridiculous scenario).

 

I think is a much safer assumption than your connecting of dots.

 

No, Theo just wants to pretend he's playing Baseball Mogul except without being able to simulate entire seasons in 5 minutes.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I was waiting for you to bring that up. It was obviously one of those "what if" daydream statements, but you've taken it at face value because it fits your agenda here.

 

My agenda is to understand what is happening with the Cubs. When Epstein says he's always been curious about doing something, and then he does it, it's kind of hard not to take his curiosity at face value.

 

And yes, I think the new CBA altered their plans significantly (iirc, he made several statements to this effect), dictating that they would have to move what little they had in the way of major league assets to bring in talent instead of throwing money at the draft and IFA (which he saw the Cubs do in 2011, made a point of mentioning, and likely planned on doing when he took the job).

 

The CBA made the difference in that we spazzed out on IFA and pulled back in the draft, sure.

 

And since building the foundation is their priority number one, they sacrificed the season (and the next) because there wasn't enough talent in the upper levels to do both. And yes, I think if there had been a bunch of talent waiting for him when he got here, he wouldn't have scrapped it to fulfill some fantasy of his by starting from scratch (which would have destroyed his reputation, because it would be a ridiculous scenario).

 

I think is a much safer assumption than your connecting of dots.

 

This wasn't about what he would have done if there'd been a "bunch of talent," whatever that means. This is about why he did what he chose to do.

[XZero771679666304]

 

And since building the foundation is their priority number one, they sacrificed the season (and the next) because there wasn't enough talent in the upper levels to do both. And yes, I think if there had been a bunch of talent waiting for him when he got here, he wouldn't have scrapped it to fulfill some fantasy of his by starting from scratch (which would have destroyed his reputation, because it would be a ridiculous scenario).

 

I think is a much safer assumption than your connecting of dots.

 

This wasn't about what he would have done if there'd been a "bunch of talent," whatever that means. This is about why he did what he chose to do.

 

No, this was about what he would have done if he felt like he could serve the present and the future at the same time; I said this:

 

If they felt like they could have won in 2012 and achieved their other goals, they would have attempted to.

 

To which you replied:

 

Disagree. This wasn't about what they thought was or wasn't best for the franchise as it was when they took over. This was about trying something they'd always wanted to try and finding an owner willing to let them do it.

 

Which is [expletive] preposterous in and of itself (and it gets more ludicrous every time I read it, especially the bold part), but this back and forth clearly began around the hypothetical "what would Theo have done if he had felt he had the talent to win immediately while serving his primary agenda". Presumably, such a scenario would have involved more talent being here than there was.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

No, this was about what he would have done if he felt like he could serve the present and the future at the same time;

 

If there had been the expectation that he needed to try to serve both at the same time, I don't think he would have taken the job.

 

Which is [expletive] preposterous in and of itself (and it gets more ludicrous every time I read it, especially the bold part),

 

That's confirmation bias talking.

[XZero771679666304]

No, this was about what he would have done if he felt like he could serve the present and the future at the same time;

 

If there had been the expectation that he needed to try to serve both at the same time, I don't think he would have taken the job.

 

That may or may not be true. Taking on an obviously compromised franchise might have been just the challenge he was looking for.

 

Which is [expletive] preposterous in and of itself (and it gets more ludicrous every time I read it, especially the bold part),

 

That's confirmation bias talking.

 

Really? Thinking that an executive wouldn't take a job and immediately disregard the team's best interests to serve his whims is somehow a function of confirmation bias? No, I don't think so. If he took the job because he wanted to build it from the ground up, his way, he would have done so because it was already in such a sad state that scrapping the ML club wouldn't be clearly contrary to the club's best interests.

 

No one is going to come in and play around with a franchise with no regard for the club's best interests. That's just crazy talk.

[SouthSideRyan]

I don't want to junk up the trade thread with this discussion, but Toronto had no issue picking up 150M in contracts today. Either every team in MLB will be bankrupt in 5 years or this is the new financial environment for teams that plan on competing. This will be another offseason of "HE GOT WHAT??" in response to every free agent signed, and we're going to have to get used to paying what seems like extreme overpays for freely available talent.

 

I guess we could wait until the next Red Sox or Marlins situation comes along and pick up their junk in order to get some really good players, but I'd rather not willingly take on garbage to get good again.

[davell]

Honestly, the majority of this deal isn't junk though. Man, deals like this ARE one way to get good, really quick. I hope it's Tampa, with Longoria and Price, when its our time.

[Beer Kaese]

My honest guess is Theo was pleasantly surprised at the amount of lower level inventory he inherited. I also believe he was surprised at exactly how poorly things were truly run prior to the takeover.

 

If my sig wasn't the best ever I would replace it with this . . .

 

I am all in on davell's take.