Playoff droughts and the slow ascent

[Guest]

He was segmenting by year.

 

I realize that. I'm pretty sure you just made the same point as me in the previous post, so I'm pretty sure you get where I was going with this.

 

I suppose I didn't do a great job of articulating this the first time around, but I just don't understand grouping all of those guys together.

 

Baker, Feldman, Maholm, and Villanueva go in one pile as undervalued SP who went for around $4-5M (iirc) and the rest of those guys go in another pile... maybe Fujikawa goes into his own pile as a fairly high priced reliever (at least compared to guys like Camp, Rondon, Castillo, etc.)

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Didn't we effectively pay $2.7m for Volstad?

 

It's all on a continuum of "holy balls, we have no pitching and need a ton of it."

[Guest]

Didn't we effectively pay $2.7m for Volstad?

 

It's all on a continuum of "holy balls, we have no pitching and need a ton of it."

 

Yes but Volstad is a totally different type of acquisition and an unusual one at that.

 

He's just a guy they took from a team who was willing to take a guy they were hell bent on trading primarily because he was a head case

[jersey cubs fan]

Didn't we effectively pay $2.7m for Volstad?

 

It's all on a continuum of "holy balls, we have no pitching and need a ton of it."

 

Yes but Volstad is a totally different type of acquisition and an unusual one at that.

 

He's just a guy they took from a team who was willing to take a guy they were hell bent on trading primarily because he was a head case

 

Maybe in retrospect, but people had some hope for Volstad to be something more than he ended up being at the time.

 

They could have just released Zambrano if they wanted him gone no matter the return.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Didn't we effectively pay $2.7m for Volstad?

 

It's all on a continuum of "holy balls, we have no pitching and need a ton of it."

 

Yes but Volstad is a totally different type of acquisition and an unusual one at that.

 

He's just a guy they took from a team who was willing to take a guy they were hell bent on trading primarily because he was a head case

 

We paid Volstad money, we gave up some non-zero trade value for him, we gave him a rotation spot (over Travis Wood, incidentally). That was a real investment.

 

If we need to break these up to singularly comparable, discrete groups:

 

In order to get Maholm, we had to put up with Volstad.

In order to get Feldman, we had to put up with Baker.

In order to get Villanueva, we had to put up with Fujikawa.

In order to get Gregg, we had to put up with Putnam, Takahashi and Loe.

In order to get 2012 Camp, we had to put up with Corpas.

I just throw in Rondon and Castillo because it's never a bad time to remember how overrated the Rule 5 draft is.

 

The successes are better than nothing, but it's not as if they can just wave their "we need a pitcher" wands and get whatever they need. We have to put up with a lot of garbage pitching and wasted money in order to get those diamonds in the rough, and if we need that approach in 2014 to fill out our rotation and bullpen, there will be a lot of garbage pitching and wasted money.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Maybe for 2014, we should just say "screw it" and let the fifth starter job go to a competition between Hendricks and Cabrera. I'm not expecting a lot from either, but they are old enough that I'm not worried about screwing up their development curve.

 

You can save a decent chunk on letting Garza walk and replacing him with one of those guys, and use that money on the bullpen and the offense.

 

We aren't going to compete in 2014 without some surprise breakouts, mineaswell gamble on some.

[KaiserCesar]

Do you have enough confidence in the rest of the upper minors starting pitching to not sign any additional arms? I'd feel decent about Cabrera/Hendricks being somewhere between 6 and 8 in rotation depth chart, but who is behind them if they are 5/6? There's Rusin, Raley, a recovering Vizcaino, Jokisch, etc. One or more of those guys is likely to get more than a handful of starts, so Id still want to add talent via FA assuming there's nothing acquired this deadline.

[Guest]

Do you have enough confidence in the rest of the upper minors starting pitching to not sign any additional arms? I'd feel decent about Cabrera/Hendricks being somewhere between 6 and 8 in rotation depth chart, but who is behind them if they are 5/6? There's Rusin, Raley, a recovering Vizcaino, Jokisch, etc. One or more of those guys is likely to get more than a handful of starts, so Id still want to add talent via FA assuming there's nothing acquired this deadline.

Villanueva will be swing man again. Or is he being counted in the top 4?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Do you have enough confidence in the rest of the upper minors starting pitching to not sign any additional arms? I'd feel decent about Cabrera/Hendricks being somewhere between 6 and 8 in rotation depth chart, but who is behind them if they are 5/6? There's Rusin, Raley, a recovering Vizcaino, Jokisch, etc. One or more of those guys is likely to get more than a handful of starts, so Id still want to add talent via FA assuming there's nothing acquired this deadline.

Villanueva will be swing man again. Or is he being counted in the top 4?

 

Either way. If he's in the top four, then you sign another swingman.

 

It's a super risky strategy. I'm not crazy high on either of those guys. But they've got more upside than any of our position prospects that are close to ready, and we've got to take some risks somewhere.

[KaiserCesar]

I had Villanueva at the 4 in my mind in this scenario, but ideally Hendricks/Cabrera/Villanueva make up the 5/6/7. That would mean either a solid or elite SP comes into the rotation or one of Garza or Feldman are retained. Proceeding without an additional starting pitcher isn't only a gamble in terms of talent, but also in terms of injury avoidance. Combined, those risks are too great to bear for a hopeful contender that hypothetically revamped the bullpen and added an elite bat. It's one thing to rely on surprise seasons, but you have to leave yourself an out in the starting rotation, and this FO has shown they can affordably add SP talent.

[Guest]

For some reason, I can't remember if Cabrera will have more options after this year.

[SouthSideRyan]

For some reason, I can't remember if Cabrera will have more options after this year.

 

He's used 3 option years

[The-Kris-Bryant]

Isn't this a gigantic selection bias?

Yes, the question I want to know is the frequency of the big leaps and what not for teams with the last four to five years being poor.

[Little Slide Rooter]

Isn't this a gigantic selection bias?

Yes, the question I want to know is the frequency of the big leaps and what not for teams with the last four to five years being poor.

 

Why haven't you signed yet?