Let's say it's July 25th

[AlwaysaCub]

...and the Cubs are still 6-8 games under .500, but have managed to push their run differential to +16 or +22, maintaining their losing record through a series of Cub-like occurrences. Does this front office buy, sell, or hold? Would you buy, sell, or hold?

[treebird]

if we have a +22 run differential and are eight games under .500 on july 25, i'm going to SELL all of my belongings so i can BUY a really big thing of heroin and HOLD the needle to my forehead and then jam it in and push the plunger down

[Backtobanks]

...and the Cubs are still 6-8 games under .500, but have managed to push their run differential to +16 or +22, maintaining their losing record through a series of Cub-like occurrences. Does this front office buy, sell, or hold? Would you buy, sell, or hold?

 

It doesn't really matter what any of us would do because this FO is going to sell in order to coninue on with "the plan".

[Guest]

I think it partially depends on how we get to that +22. Who is it that's driving the performance?

[Little Slide Rooter]

I sell, but not fire sale;

 

Definitely move Feldman, especially if he can somewhat maintain his success. We have Villanueva to take his spot, and Baker is hopefully ready, or else it was $5MM down the toilet.

 

I entertain offers for Gregg, DeJesus, Schierholtz, and Soriano, but without urgency to rush them out of town.

 

The tricky situation is Garza; on one hand, he's our #1 starter; no offense to Smardz. If you're contending, you don't trade your ace. On the other hand, if we have no hope of re-signing him, he's a chip that you almost have to cash in; unless we'd end up with a top draft pick for him. Even then, teams could be offering far more valuable packages for a few months of his services.

 

And if win now and later guys like Price and Stanton are on the block, I definitely get in on the bidding.

[Pushfrog98]

I think it partially depends on how we get to that +22. Who is it that's driving the performance?

Yeah, I have problems with run differential without context. If we blow someone out like 20-0, but lose the next 9 games by 1 run, we'd still have a +11 run differential, but we'd be 1-9, right?

[Guest]

"6 to 8 games under .500 on July 25" is 46-53 this year. At a bare minimum that's going to make you 7 games behind the 2nd wild card, with something like 5 teams ahead of you for that spot. As promising as that would be from a run differential perspective, your season is over in terms of making the playoffs. You don't make any short term moves.

 

That doesn't mean that you trade away everything that's not nailed to the ground though, the front office's approach shouldn't be forced into this binary buy/sell dynamic.

 

It means you're exploring your options for making 2014 and beyond better. That probably means shopping the impending Free Agents with value(Garza, Feldman, Gregg) and making a deal or two involving them. Depending on what the market will bear and your projection of those players going forward, it might include dealing others who are under team control beyond this year(DeJesus, Soriano, Villanueva, Schierholtz, Valbuena, Barney, etc). If it's not making 2014 better though, I don't think there should really be any interest in dealing from that second group.

 

 

In a perfect world, Theo and Jed are able to use their assets to make the team just as good right away and make the immediate future brighter. Their work at last year's deadline shows they were rightly focused on guys who were not far from the big leagues(Delgado and Vizcaino), and I wonder if they could do something similar this year.

[UK1679666180]

Sell, even with the RD being as solid as it is compared to W-L as well as the WC expansion you still have three teams to climb ahead in the division. I'm still all for selling with Feldman, Garza, and Dejesus being the 3 primary pieces.

[PackLandVA]

I'll be surprised if the Cubs are 10-12 games close to .500 on that date. I'll also be surprised if Feldman can keep pitching as well as he has.