Random Cubs Musings

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Kris Bryant says hello.

 

Then gets struck out by Jason Berken.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

This offseason kicked off so amazingly awesome. And then...

 

Jesus you're almost as bad as Kyle

 

I'm pretty sure we're going to get some kind of outfielder in the next month, and at that point I'm happy to call the offseason a solid B.

[Guest]

And I am meatball as hell; conservative estimates can go [expletive] themselves. They're projected at 83-85 wins? So [expletive] what; blow that [expletive] out of the water. Act like swaggering wolf-beasts savaging the land and devouring all they see.

 

Well, fwiw, the top was the nationals in the high 80s, so they're not far from that top tier. soler being the beast we all know he will be instead of the average player they project will take care of that.

 

http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/NLProjectedWins.png

 

This was before the Dodgers made their moves, btw. I think they leapfrogged the field after that.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

This team as presently constructed projects to win 83-84 games with pretty conservative projections on the young players. ...

Again, that's with conservative projections for prospects/young players. There's also a lot of upside as a result of those conservative projections.

 

Thinking Javy Baez is going to strike out less in the majors than he did in AAA last year isn't what I would call "conservative."

[Guest]

Kris Bryant says hello.

 

Then gets struck out by Jason Berken.

 

sad thing is i'm as with you as any body short of sneaky on the concern.

 

i keep trying to ask myself how likely it is that i know better than every single prospect evaluator just by looking at the K% column.

[Guest]

This team as presently constructed projects to win 83-84 games with pretty conservative projections on the young players. ...

Again, that's with conservative projections for prospects/young players. There's also a lot of upside as a result of those conservative projections.

 

Thinking Javy Baez is going to strike out less in the majors than he did in AAA last year isn't what I would call "conservative."

 

It is nevertheless a 1 win projection.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Kris Bryant says hello.

 

Then gets struck out by Jason Berken.

 

sad thing is i'm as with you as any body short of sneaky on the concern.

 

i keep trying to ask myself how likely it is that i know better than every single prospect evaluator just by looking at the K% column.

 

Prospect evaluators are turds. You know more than them about Cubs prospects.

[DiamondMind]

quick question, what was the cubs 2nd half record last year, and where did it place in the league? I looked everywhere trying to find post ASG records and couldn't find anything

[Hairyducked Idiot]

This team as presently constructed projects to win 83-84 games with pretty conservative projections on the young players. ...

Again, that's with conservative projections for prospects/young players. There's also a lot of upside as a result of those conservative projections.

 

Thinking Javy Baez is going to strike out less in the majors than he did in AAA last year isn't what I would call "conservative."

 

It is nevertheless a 1 win projection.

 

Which sadly may be high by two.

[Guest]

quick question, what was the cubs 2nd half record last year, and where did it place in the league? I looked everywhere trying to find post ASG records and couldn't find anything

 

 

they were something like within 2 games of .500 after may 1st or something along those lines.

[Guest]

This team as presently constructed projects to win 83-84 games with pretty conservative projections on the young players. ...

Again, that's with conservative projections for prospects/young players. There's also a lot of upside as a result of those conservative projections.

 

Thinking Javy Baez is going to strike out less in the majors than he did in AAA last year isn't what I would call "conservative."

 

It is nevertheless a 1 win projection.

 

Which sadly may be high by two.

 

If it is and it matters (meaning we're as good as we think we'll be) I'm not sure he'll get enough PA to show it.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

quick question, what was the cubs 2nd half record last year, and where did it place in the league? I looked everywhere trying to find post ASG records and couldn't find anything

 

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/games/standings.cgi?date=2014-07-13

 

33-35, 9th in NL, with a ton of Pyth luck.

[Andy]

This offseason kicked off so amazingly awesome. And then...

 

Jesus you're almost as bad as Kyle

 

Whatever. I want them to go balls out for 2015, and it sure seemed like they were going that way and I just don't have faith in the nearly all prospect team that they seem to more and more be betting on.

 

I don't think anyone is asking for anything too outrageous; we were getting word/rumors they wanted another big starter and they wanted a significant OF player. Instead we're probably just getting 3 catchers and Chris Denorfia. That's boring as [expletive].

 

This team as presently constructed projects to win 83-84 games with pretty conservative projections on the young players. Projections tend to cluster around the middle and that's good for like top 5 in the NL (which would be a playoff spot). I want them to add some more wins at the margins if they can, sure, but I don't really have a problem with it if they go into the season with mostly the current roster (though I assume and hope Castillo will end up being dealt off, Theo's obvious comment aside).

 

Again, that's with conservative projections for prospects/young players. There's also a lot of upside as a result of those conservative projections.

It is more than a little disappointing that after all the talk that Lester was accelerating our timeline, we basically stopped making moves while we're sitting at the point where every single win is worth quite a bit. Kyle got shredded a while ago for pointing it out, but we basically sucked the last 3 years because getting from 65-75 wins meant bupkis. We're now at the point where every extra win is precious and yet we're not really doing anything about it (with the caveat that there's still time).

[bukie]

quick question, what was the cubs 2nd half record last year, and where did it place in the league? I looked everywhere trying to find post ASG records and couldn't find anything

 

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/games/standings.cgi?date=2014-07-13

 

33-35, 9th in NL, with a ton of Pyth luck.

From the date of the Samardzija-Hammel trade (they were 38-46 with a .500 Pythagorean %), the Cubs went 35-43 with a Pythagorean % of .372, worst in baseball.

[Guest]

It is more than a little disappointing that after all the talk that Lester was accelerating our timeline, we basically stopped making moves while we're sitting at the point where every single win is worth quite a bit. Kyle got shredded a while ago for pointing it out, but we basically sucked the last 3 years because getting from 65-75 wins meant bupkis. We're now at the point where every extra win is precious and yet we're not really doing anything about it (with the caveat that there's still time).

 

Next time don't put that much stock in a singular report from winter meetings hoopla (especially one that seemed to go against everything we've been hearing for 3 years).

 

And I don't recall Kyle getting shredded for that. I said I'd like to see them add a couple wins if possible, but I wouldn't sacrifice much actual future value for it. And a lot of those marginal wins can come from upside. With that many extremely talented young guys, there's a solid chance one or two of them are great right away (obviously the opposite can happen too, but, again, I feel the projections are already leaning conservative so there is less of that downside to worry about in those numbers).

Edited January 16, 2015 by David

[davell]

The recent Mooney articles act as if we're up against our max payroll and we may even need to get rid of Castillo and Wood to add a CF.

 

PTR is still a thing.

[Guest]

quick question, what was the cubs 2nd half record last year, and where did it place in the league? I looked everywhere trying to find post ASG records and couldn't find anything

 

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/games/standings.cgi?date=2014-07-13

 

33-35, 9th in NL, with a ton of Pyth luck.

From the date of the Samardzija-Hammel trade (they were 38-46 with a .500 Pythagorean %), the Cubs went 35-43 with a Pythagorean % of .372, worst in baseball.

 

Were absolutely horrendous for like 10 days after the trade, then picked things up, then lost Rizzo for weeks, then lost Castro for weeks, etc. (Not being argumentative just adding more context off the top of my head)

[Sammy Sofa]

The recent Mooney articles act as if we're up against our max payroll and we may even need to get rid of Castillo and Wood to add a CF.

 

PTR is still a thing.

 

http://media.giphy.com/media/W50xKz9RM5FPa/giphy.gif

[davell]

I didn't pay attention to attendance numbers and if they were up or down again from the prior year. But the whole debt structure [expletive] was in line with our revenue basically. So if revenue was up, our payroll would then be able to move up too. Not sure about any of these small TV deals, radio deals, ad revenues either. But I was hopeful that we'd be able to spend 115ish or so and we're barely busting 100 after arb guys right now.

[Guest]

Payroll right now is right at 105 million if you consider the initial half of Lester's signing bonus to be 100% rollover money.

[imb]

This offseason kicked off so amazingly awesome. And then...

 

Jesus you're almost as bad as Kyle

 

lol it's almost like he hasn't paid attention in so long he's forgotten that this is what the offseason is like for 99 percent of teams every year.

[Sammy Sofa]

This offseason kicked off so amazingly awesome. And then...

 

Jesus you're almost as bad as Kyle

 

lol it's almost like he hasn't paid attention in so long he's forgotten that this is what the offseason is like for 99 percent of teams every year.

 

If God didn't call their best prospect back to Heaven I'd argue the Cardinals had a comparable or better offseason. This offseason started off awesome and then turned into an amazing case of blue balls, and it's probably because of a combination of no more money and they don't want to trade the kids.

[Guest]

Also because they added 45 million in AAV and don't really have any more holes to fill because they're lousy with elite hitting prospects.

[Sammy Sofa]

Never settle.

[Guest]

This offseason kicked off so amazingly awesome. And then...

 

Jesus you're almost as bad as Kyle

 

lol it's almost like he hasn't paid attention in so long he's forgotten that this is what the offseason is like for 99 percent of teams every year.

 

If God didn't call their best prospect back to Heaven I'd argue the Cardinals had a comparable or better offseason. This offseason started off awesome and then turned into an amazing case of blue balls, and it's probably because of a combination of no more money and they don't want to trade the kids.

I thought Lucifer called him to hell?

 

Anyways I'd agree I was hoping for one other move. An OF addition would make me feel better- like we were a serious playoff threat and not hoping for all the cards to fall into place type team.