Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez Signs with the Phillies

[XZero771679666304]

Puig was an afterthought almost, certainly not a "priority" sign. But hindsight is 20/20.

 

Baseball executives are supposed to have a greater ability to judge such things than the media experts that write about them and especially the fans who form opinions based on those media reports.

 

It's not hindsight for them.

 

Well the Cubs were one of the few teams that paid him any attention at all, there was less competition for him among teams/execs than there was for Soler or Cespedes, if we want to use what execs think as a measuring stick. I wasn't talking about the media.

[Bryants Disco Ball]

Well looks the Dodgers have the best scouts in baseball because Puig looks like Bo Jackson on the field and is the same age as Soler. One is in the majors one is in Single A coming off a league suspension and one from the team. If you want to exclude Puig from the discussion the Cubs still came in second on Darvish and Cesepedes too young all stars currently in the majors. |ts good to hear some scouts view him the better players long term but those same scouts also thought Corey Patterson was the next Barry Bonds and Chris Davis wouldn't hit enough to warrant hs strikeouts.

 

Cespedes is the one you can point at and say the FO messed up.

 

I see this a lot, and, I don't know. Is he really that great? I don't lose much sleep over not having Cespedes.

[XZero771679666304]

Well looks the Dodgers have the best scouts in baseball because Puig looks like Bo Jackson on the field and is the same age as Soler. One is in the majors one is in Single A coming off a league suspension and one from the team. If you want to exclude Puig from the discussion the Cubs still came in second on Darvish and Cesepedes too young all stars currently in the majors. |ts good to hear some scouts view him the better players long term but those same scouts also thought Corey Patterson was the next Barry Bonds and Chris Davis wouldn't hit enough to warrant hs strikeouts.

 

Cespedes is the one you can point at and say the FO messed up.

 

I see this a lot, and, I don't know. Is he really that great? I don't lose much sleep over not having Cespedes.

 

Is he great? No. But he's good, played a position of need and was relatively inexpensive. It was an opportunity to acquire cost effective production.

 

And FTR (not directed at you), I would be shocked if long term Puig is anywhere near as good as what we've seen in his one month.

[Clem Fandango]

Well looks the Dodgers have the best scouts in baseball because Puig looks like Bo Jackson on the field and is the same age as Soler. One is in the majors one is in Single A coming off a league suspension and one from the team. If you want to exclude Puig from the discussion the Cubs still came in second on Darvish and Cesepedes too young all stars currently in the majors. |ts good to hear some scouts view him the better players long term but those same scouts also thought Corey Patterson was the next Barry Bonds and Chris Davis wouldn't hit enough to warrant hs strikeouts.

 

Cespedes is the one you can point at and say the FO messed up.

 

I see this a lot, and, I don't know. Is he really that great? I don't lose much sleep over not having Cespedes.

 

Is he great? No. But he's good, played a position of need and was relatively inexpensive. It was an opportunity to acquire cost effective production.

 

And FTR (not directed at you), I would be shocked if long term Puig is anywhere near as good as what we've seen in his one month.

 

I think in the end Puig ends up being pretty ordinary. He sort of came out of nowhere, signed quick, and no one knew anything about him. I'm chalking up his success to lack of scouting, IMO. He's got a .513 BABIP and has a 3.6 BB%. He's going to fall back down to Earth once teams start to figure him out and when he does he'll fall quickly.

[Guest]

Well looks the Dodgers have the best scouts in baseball because Puig looks like Bo Jackson on the field and is the same age as Soler. One is in the majors one is in Single A coming off a league suspension and one from the team. If you want to exclude Puig from the discussion the Cubs still came in second on Darvish and Cesepedes too young all stars currently in the majors. |ts good to hear some scouts view him the better players long term but those same scouts also thought Corey Patterson was the next Barry Bonds and Chris Davis wouldn't hit enough to warrant hs strikeouts.

 

FYI, only one of Yasiel Puig and Jorge Soler has been to jail this year. And it wasn't Soler.

 

Also, I'm sure Puig will keep up his > .500 BABIP all season.

[Neuby]

Well looks the Dodgers have the best scouts in baseball because Puig looks like Bo Jackson on the field and is the same age as Soler. One is in the majors one is in Single A coming off a league suspension and one from the team. If you want to exclude Puig from the discussion the Cubs still came in second on Darvish and Cesepedes too young all stars currently in the majors. |ts good to hear some scouts view him the better players long term but those same scouts also thought Corey Patterson was the next Barry Bonds and Chris Davis wouldn't hit enough to warrant hs strikeouts.

 

This portion right here is completely stupid to include.

 

If I was scouting a guy and he got suspended and received a talking to from the front office and then fresh off that gets benched by his manager for not playing the "Cubs way" it raises a red flag stupid or not I'll include it. Sure we aren't talking about Milton Bradley but you'd be stupid not to include that in the discussion.

[jersey cubs fan]

Well looks the Dodgers have the best scouts in baseball because Puig looks like Bo Jackson on the field and is the same age as Soler. One is in the majors one is in Single A coming off a league suspension and one from the team. If you want to exclude Puig from the discussion the Cubs still came in second on Darvish and Cesepedes too young all stars currently in the majors. |ts good to hear some scouts view him the better players long term but those same scouts also thought Corey Patterson was the next Barry Bonds and Chris Davis wouldn't hit enough to warrant hs strikeouts.

 

This portion right here is completely stupid to include.

 

If I was scouting a guy and he got suspended and received a talking to from the front office and then fresh off that gets benched by his manager for not playing the "Cubs way" it raises a red flag stupid or not I'll include it. Sure we aren't talking about Milton Bradley but you'd be stupid not to include that in the discussion.

 

It has nothing to do with what you are talking about. You can go ahead and include it but all it does it weaken the rest of your argument, which I am predisposed to sympathize with, in the eyes of others.

[Neuby]

Well looks the Dodgers have the best scouts in baseball because Puig looks like Bo Jackson on the field and is the same age as Soler. One is in the majors one is in Single A coming off a league suspension and one from the team. If you want to exclude Puig from the discussion the Cubs still came in second on Darvish and Cesepedes too young all stars currently in the majors. |ts good to hear some scouts view him the better players long term but those same scouts also thought Corey Patterson was the next Barry Bonds and Chris Davis wouldn't hit enough to warrant hs strikeouts.

 

Actually Puig is about a year older. And has had character issues. And, you know, small sample size. Darvish was a blind bid. Cespedes is the one you can point at and say the FO messed up.

 

When people were talking about the Cubans before they signed, the discussion was about Cespedes and Soler. Puig was an afterthought almost, certainly not a "priority" sign. But hindsight is 20/20.

 

Can you though? I think the jury is still out.

 

This year he's on pace for an OK WAR total (that is largely tied up in fielding after having it be a huge negative last year - but he is playing more LF than CF) but his triple slash is pretty gross.

 

And (to Neuby's post) what the hell does "hit enough to warrant his strikeouts" mean? Nothing has to warrant strikeouts. They aren't inherently bad and don't need to be made up for or "warranted." People may have thought that Davis's strikeout numbers were an indication that he wouldn't be able to be a productive hitter, but that's a completely different thing.

 

And yes, we understand that highly thought of prospects bust (re: Patterson).

 

David my choice of words might have been off but your just agreeing with me. The message board Scouts were wrong on Davis who didn't want him as return on a trade. The question was always would he hit enough to out weigh the strikeouts and he has the last two years.

[Sammy Sofa]

that was the general perception of the signing at the time though. he kind of came out of nowhere, but was universally rated below soler. then the dodgers signed him out of nowhere and pretty much everyone was shocked he got that much.

 

But the Dodgers didn't sign him "out of nowhere;" other teams were interested and were willing to spend big money. The only "out of nowhere" part were people on the outside looking in with relatively minimal information who were just wrong. The teams involved apparently had a much better idea of who he was/is.

That is an argument framed around hindsight, though. It worked out, so the Dodgers knew what they were doing, obviously.

 

And the Cubs wanted to offer him up to 6 years/$50 million, so apparently they did to. Every deal is either good or bad in hindsight; the issue with the Cubs so far in the big IFA signings they've managed to grab one. Yeah, you're going to have busts (Concepcion isn't looking too hot), but they need to be getting more of these bigger names.

[Sammy Sofa]

If I was scouting a guy and he got suspended and received a talking to from the front office and then fresh off that gets benched by his manager for not playing the "Cubs way" it raises a red flag stupid or not I'll include it. Sure we aren't talking about Milton Bradley but you'd be stupid not to include that in the discussion.

 

But why are you presented Soler as if he's worse off than Puig when it comes to these types of issues? Both guys have them; it's a largely irrelevant point.

 

And any debate as to which is better is basically redundant with the Cubs; they wanted both and should have/needed to get both. That they wanted all three of Soler, Puig and Cespedes and only came away with one is hugely disappointing.

[TruffleShuffle]

i'm not really going to get bent out of shape about puig. just about everybody in the industry was laughing at the dodgers for that contract. looks like they just did a great job of scouting, or got lucky. cespedes is another matter.

[Sammy Sofa]

i'm not really going to get bent out of shape about puig. just about everybody in the industry was laughing at the dodgers for that contract.

 

Again, it was mostly analysts/reporters/bloggers/message boards/etc. that were laughing at them. When actually look IN "the industry" you had other teams very interested and willing to spend a lot of money, including the Cubs. Who gives a [expletive] if the people on the outside were laughing? They were laughing because they were out of the loop and wrong.

[XZero771679666304]

i'm not really going to get bent out of shape about puig. just about everybody in the industry was laughing at the dodgers for that contract.

 

Again, it was mostly analysts/reporters/bloggers/message boards/etc. that were laughing at them. When actually look IN "the industry" you had other teams very interested and willing to spend a lot of money, including the Cubs. Who gives a [expletive] if the people on the outside were laughing? They were laughing because they were out of the loop and wrong.

 

There were a few teams interested, but there wasn't the level of interest that was shown to Cespedes and Soler. The only media input needed to discern that were the reports of how many teams were bidding. And let's be honest, the media is privy to much of what these FOs are thinking as well. Taking everything into account, it's pretty safe to say that Puig wasn't as well regarded as Cespedes or Soler. And you know, some guys no one sees coming. It happens.

 

Anyone trying to paint missing on Puig as some sort of gaffe by the FO is really reaching for reasons to criticize.

[Sammy Sofa]

I've never tried to say he had the same level of interest as Soler and Cespedes.

 

Anyone trying to paint missing on Puig as some sort of gaffe by the FO is really reaching for reasons to criticize.

 

That's certainly one way of putting it. Another would be is that these kind of IFA signings was exactly the kind of thing the FO themselves emphasized as being critical to improving the Cubs in both the short and long term. Another would be to yet again point out that this was a player the FO was very interested in and was apparently willing to spend a lot of years and money on (along the lines of what the Dodgers ultimately signed him for) and yet he ended up with another team.

 

No, it's not some screw up, but it's definitely a very noticeable failure in that this is exactly the kind of signing they were adamant about wanting and needing and they didn't get him.

[Sammy Sofa]

Out of random and meaningless curiosity: is there anyone that prefers ending up with Soler as opposed to, say, Cespedes on his A's deal and Puig for something like 6 years/$50 million and no Soler?

[davell]

We supposedly outbid the Dodgers on him, Magic just closed it down for them. Puig didn't get the pub Soler or Cespedes did, partly because of how rushed his entire process went. Cespedes had an entire offseason to be talked about and get seen. Soler had that, plus longer. No one knew Puig was going to be available until about two weeks before the IFA deadline. He had one or two workouts, that was it. Some teams had sent scouts to Mexico to see him multiple times long before he was eligible. At the exact time he became eligible, he was slightly out of shape. Some teams, late to the game anyway, decided he wasn't worth the hype, without even doing any real scouting. The publications only got reports from those last workouts with multiple teams in attendance. The ones that were on him all along had tried keeping it quiet, to keep a bidding war from starting. Which was inevitable, coming on the market with two weeks to go until no more IFA's could be signed under the old rules.

[XZero771679666304]

I've never tried to say he had the same level of interest as Soler and Cespedes.

 

Anyone trying to paint missing on Puig as some sort of gaffe by the FO is really reaching for reasons to criticize.

 

That's certainly one way of putting it. Another would be is that these kind of IFA signings was exactly the kind of thing the FO themselves emphasized as being critical to improving the Cubs in both the short and long term. Another would be to yet again point out that this was a player the FO was very interested in and was apparently willing to spend a lot of years and money on (along the lines of what the Dodgers ultimately signed him for) and yet he ended up with another team.

 

No, it's not some screw up, but it's definitely a very noticeable failure in that this is exactly the kind of signing they were adamant about wanting and needing and they didn't get him.

 

If Puig comes back to earth (and he certainly will, to one degree or another) and Soler explodes over the next year or two, are we still having this conversation? Do the Cubs have to sign every player they have interest in not to be "failing"? A 100% hit rate is something that doesn't happen for any team.

 

With Puig we're talking about a tiny sample size. It's a little early to be doing a post mortem on the Cuban signings. That's really my issue with the tangent this thread has taken.

Edited July 4, 2013 by XZero77

[Sammy Sofa]

We supposedly outbid the Dodgers on him, Magic just closed it down for them. Puig didn't get the pub Soler or Cespedes did, partly because of how rushed his entire process went. Cespedes had an entire offseason to be talked about and get seen. Soler had that, plus longer. No one knew Puig was going to be available until about two weeks before the IFA deadline. He had one or two workouts, that was it. Some teams had sent scouts to Mexico to see him multiple times long before he was eligible. At the exact time he became eligible, he was slightly out of shape. Some teams, late to the game anyway, decided he wasn't worth the hype, without even doing any real scouting. The publications only got reports from those last workouts with multiple teams in attendance. The ones that were on him all along had tried keeping it quiet, to keep a bidding war from starting. Which was inevitable, coming on the market with two weeks to go until no more IFA's could be signed under the old rules.

 

Excellent breakdown. It's definitely a positive that our FO was in the group that saw something valuable in this guy and were willing, to a point, to offer something close to what was needed to sign him when so many other teams weren't. It's worrisome, however, that they were yet again unable or unwilling to seal the deal.

[XZero771679666304]

Out of random and meaningless curiosity: is there anyone that prefers ending up with Soler as opposed to, say, Cespedes on his A's deal and Puig for something like 6 years/$50 million and no Soler?

 

The jury is still out on all three players, of which Soler is the youngest, so I can't honestly say. Right now, I might actually be inclined to prefer Soler to Cespedes, since it's become clear Yeonis isn't really a center fielder and his results have been mixed. And that he's six years older than Jorge. I really have no idea what to make of Puig yet, and probably won't until he gets more time in. All I feel confident about with him is that he's not going to maintain what he's doing now.

[Sammy Sofa]

I've never tried to say he had the same level of interest as Soler and Cespedes.

 

Anyone trying to paint missing on Puig as some sort of gaffe by the FO is really reaching for reasons to criticize.

 

That's certainly one way of putting it. Another would be is that these kind of IFA signings was exactly the kind of thing the FO themselves emphasized as being critical to improving the Cubs in both the short and long term. Another would be to yet again point out that this was a player the FO was very interested in and was apparently willing to spend a lot of years and money on (along the lines of what the Dodgers ultimately signed him for) and yet he ended up with another team.

 

No, it's not some screw up, but it's definitely a very noticeable failure in that this is exactly the kind of signing they were adamant about wanting and needing and they didn't get him.

 

If Puig comes back to earth (and he certainly will, to one degree or another) and Soler explodes over the next year or two, are we still having this conversation? Do the Cubs have to sign every player they have interest in not to be "failing"? A 100% hit rate is something that doesn't happen for any team.

 

Again, I'm not trying to argue for Puig over Soler or vice-versa. That's a pointless strawman that I have little interest in debating. And along those lines; there's hopefully nobody here who thinks his performance so far is indicative of the level he'll stay at, so that shouldn't even have to be clarified.

 

And I'm not asking for a 100% success rate; that's another strawman that's been tossed repeatedly as a rebuttal when people bemoan missing out on these signings. Things would be VERY different if the Cubs had only pulled off getting ONE more of Puig, Cespedes or Darvish (and yes, everyone knows the difference between the Cubans being signed and the bidding for Darvish). That they only came away with Soler when this is an area they were crystal clear about NEEDING to be aggressive in and NEEDING to succeed in. Getting 1 in 4 sin't going to cut it, especially given the plan they've laid out for themselves. They were clearly hoping to get more than Soler, too.

 

With Puig we're talking about a tiny sample size. It's a little early to be doing a post mortem on the Cuban signings. That's really my issue with the tangent this thread has taken.

 

It's not early at all; the FO wanted all three Cubans for big money and big years and only got one of them. You have to make these signings in the first place to know whether or not they work out, so settling back and saying "well, we have to wait for them to be good for years before we know this was a bad miss" is essentially just spinning the failure to sign them in the first place. It's a completely self-fulfilling prophecy that can be used to justify any and every missed signing.

[TruffleShuffle]

No, it's not some screw up, but it's definitely a very noticeable failure in that this is exactly the kind of signing they were adamant about wanting and needing and they didn't get him.

 

well, everyone said when he signed that he had huge raw power but everything else was an enormous question mark because he was out of shape and hadn't played much in the past couple of years. that's not really the kind of signing they were adamant about. it's easier for a cashed-up team like the dodgers to chuck 40 or 50 million at a high ceiling guy but also a high bust potential than it is for the cubs to do something like that. especially when they'd just dumped $30m on soler. i mean, if you beat the dodgers offer and end up with soler and puig, you're looking at a decent chance that you've spent $75m and will end up with nothing out of it at the major league level. i can't really fault ownership or the front office for not being comfortable with that.

[XZero771679666304]

 

It's not early at all; the FO wanted all three Cubans for big money and big years and only got one of them. You have to make these signings in the first place to know whether or not they work out, so settling back and saying "well, we have to wait for them to be good for years before we know this was a bad miss" is essentially just spinning the failure to sign them in the first place. It's a completely self-fulfilling prophecy that can be used to justify any and every missed signing.

 

 

So what you're saying here is that you do actually think that the hit rate has to be 100%, or close to. Because FOs are going to be seriously interested in many players at a given time, probably more than we're ever aware of, and the're going to land a low percentage of them. There are 30 teams in MLB, and many of them have serious money. You're not to going to go toe to toe against the field and win every (or even half of the) time. Do we know if the offer Puig accepted was the Dodgers' best offer, or was it clear they were going to keep going? We know (or we think we know) the answer to that question with the A's/Cespedes, which is why I find it troubling. Have you ever considered that the Cubs simply didn't value Puig as much as the Dodgers, and weren't willing to go as high as they were? That there may have been a cap on what they were willing to spend on Puig? Or do you think that because they were interested that they should have gone has high as it took? Because that's just not a remotely realistic expectation to have for the overall approach to player acquisition. You can't do that with every player you like (especially if you are under any kind of budgetary constraint). In fact, it would reckless at best.

 

To that point, did the other teams that were bidding on more than one of these guys and only came away with one or two of them "fail" as well?

 

You call this spinning, but I think it's just reality that is magnified when you need a bunch of players. And you can play the "what if/we should've" game ad infinitum with guys the Cubs (or any other club) were linked to/interested in at one time or another, and it's a useless, empty exercise. The question of whether or not we got the right guy(s) is one that can be answered, but not yet. I understand the ideal would be to remove as much uncertainty as possible by signing as many of these type of guys as possible, but this is a speculative area we're talking about and you have to pick your horses, you can't ride them all.

 

Yes the Cubs were obviously willing to spend money on these guys, but maybe just not "as much as it takes" on every one of them. There are degrees to interest, you know. We're probably not having this debate if the Cubs weren't in such dire shape to begin with, but the competition isn't going to back off of a bidding war because the Cubs need players more.

[Sammy Sofa]

No, it's not some screw up, but it's definitely a very noticeable failure in that this is exactly the kind of signing they were adamant about wanting and needing and they didn't get him.

 

well, everyone said when he signed that he had huge raw power but everything else was an enormous question mark because he was out of shape and hadn't played much in the past couple of years. that's not really the kind of signing they were adamant about. it's easier for a cashed-up team like the dodgers to chuck 40 or 50 million at a high ceiling guy but also a high bust potential than it is for the cubs to do something like that. especially when they'd just dumped $30m on soler. i mean, if you beat the dodgers offer and end up with soler and puig, you're looking at a decent chance that you've spent $75m and will end up with nothing out of it at the major league level. i can't really fault ownership or the front office for not being comfortable with that.

 

They wanted both. They were potentially willing to pay $50 million for Puig. And again, "everyone" doesn't actually mean the teams that had a better understanding of what type of player he was and wanted to sign him. Nay-saying by certain people really doesn't mean jack [expletive] when they were out of the loop and were going off of what limited info they had in a short period of time while the teams actually pursuing the guy apparently had a much better idea of what he was/is.

[davell]

Gonzalez cleared by OFAC. Could sign somewhere this week or next.

[Bryants Disco Ball]

This really doesn't have much to do with what you guys are talking about, but I'd like to point out again that Yoenis Céspedes is not really that good and I really don't care that we missed out on him.