5/5 White Sox (Quintana) @ Cubs (Samardzija) 7:05 CDT,CSN TV

[bukie]

no teams' systems are improving like the Cubs' had.

 

I don't think there's any ranking system that agrees with this.

It goes beyond just prospect rankings, though, considering the team was the only one in the league still charting by hand and not having any video of prospects at any level. No teams could come close to the Cubs' level of improvements system-wide because the Cubs were so ass-backwards they were the laughing stock of the league.

[Guest]

I'm still not happy with missing out on Darvish and Tanaka but I blame the financial situation more for that. If we had the capacity for a $150M+ payroll like we should, I think there's a much better chance we'd have them. Who knows what happened with Puig and if the rumor that someone offered more is true, but that is a disappointment too.

Basically, they hit on 1 of 5 primary international targets.

 

Of the 4 they missed:

- Darvish: Didn't get the high blind bid, the system was so stupid they changed it since.

- Cespedes: Prevailing rumor was the A's upped the Cubs' offer by granting him FA two years early, and he signed before the Cubs had a chance to counter. If true, nothing the Cubs could have done. If false, they missed out on one good year thus far, and he'll be available after next year if he's still worth signing.

- Puig: Apparently showed up well out of shape to the workouts, and nobody in their right mind would have signed him near to what the Dodgers offered. Rumor has it the Dodgers told him to sandbag the workouts so they could have him to themselves, but meh, given what happened at the workout there was no way to predict what he'd have done to this point. Practically the definition of lightning in a bottle.

- Tanaka: This one is the most disappointing, since he was the Cubs' primary target this offseason, and the blind bid system was removed to give every team a decent shot at him. The Yankees just reportedly went higher than anyone else, and whether the Cubs couldn't match or wouldn't match only causes a slight difference on who to be disappointed with. Sometimes the Yankees just go higher than everyone else. It is a thing that happens.

 

Let's not pretend the Cubs should have gone after Abreu either, and if we're looking for someone to blame for that, blame the NL not having a DH, since there's nowhere else for the guy to play for the team and add value.

 

Would the Cubs be better if they hit on half of the misses? Of course, the rotation would be 4-5 wins better if they had Darvish and Tanaka instead of, say, Jackson and Hammel. But the Cubs aren't the only team in the league, and especially aren't the only competent team in the league. 1 of 5 should be about what is expected, optimistically, from a team trying to take advantage of the international market. Still ahead of the league curve, there, I think.

 

If they wanted to and had the wherewithal to win the Darvish bid, they could've made a better effort. It's the type of thing Theo would've done in Boston.

 

As for Puig, why on earth would Puig go along with that? If he wanted to sign with the Dodgers over other teams, he could take their offer (and there was a rumor that their's wasn't the best offer). Why would sandbagging the workout benefit his interests?

 

Cespedes and Abreu I don't really care about.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

no teams' systems are improving like the Cubs' had.

 

I don't think there's any ranking system that agrees with this.

It goes beyond just prospect rankings, though, considering the team was the only one in the league still charting by hand and not having any video of prospects at any level. No teams could come close to the Cubs' level of improvements system-wide because the Cubs were so ass-backwards they were the laughing stock of the league.

 

OK, congratulations front office. You aren't as awful as MacPhail and Hendry.

 

Now stop being worse than most everybody else in 2014.

[Guest]

I could probably buy that we're a .467 true-talent team. That's a 76-win pace, minus the losses we've already incurred and before we gut it at the trade deadline.

 

Agreed. Now compare to the histrionics in the previous pages.

 

As an aside, there's a bit of a difference between the ebb and flow of guys getting hot/slumping and your 5th starter and closer putting up a 10 ERA for a month, but that's a semantical road I'm not really interested in.

[bukie]

As for Puig, why on earth would Puig go along with that? If he wanted to sign with the Dodgers over other teams, he could take their offer (and there was a rumor that their's wasn't the best offer). Why would sandbagging the workout benefit his interests?

Like I said, the reason for his poor workout is essentially meaningless, since it was a poor workout, and so bad that no team in their right mind would have offered what the Dodgers did. The rumor simply provides a bit of validity to the Dodgers' bid besides "shot in the dark".

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I could probably buy that we're a .467 true-talent team. That's a 76-win pace, minus the losses we've already incurred and before we gut it at the trade deadline.

 

Agreed. Now compare to the histrionics in the previous pages.

 

As an aside, there's a bit of a difference between the ebb and flow of guys getting hot/slumping and your 5th starter and closer putting up a 10 ERA for a month, but that's a semantical road I'm not really interested in.

 

A 76-win true talent team makes you one of the worst team in baseball and your front office should be ashamed of itself if they've had three offseasons to prevent that from happening.

 

OK, we'll zoom in on Villanueva. He gave up, what, 12 runs more than xFIP says he should have.

 

Well, Samardija's given up 8 less than xFIP says he should have. That's almost balanced out already. I bet Bonifacio more than makes up the difference with his hot streak.

[SouthSideRyan]

Next year when we're competing for a playoff spot, Kyle and his annoying band of [expletive] aren't allowed to enjoy it.

Why is this the new thing now? The fact that the Rays got good in 2008 didn't make the previous 10 years of garbage baseball any less garbage-y. If the Astros get good with their merry band of prospects, it won't change the fact that they played [expletive] teams for like 5 years in a row on purpose. You can be aware of what the 'plan' is and still not like that you have to watch terrible teams for years waiting for it to hopefully work.

[expletive], if we turn into a big market Rays, the 10 years of losing would be completely worth it.

 

No.

[Guest]

Isn't a "big market Rays" basically just the Yankees circa 1996? Because I'd rather just call it that, if so.

[Guest]

A 76-win true talent team makes you one of the worst team in baseball and your front office should be ashamed of itself if they've had three offseasons to prevent that from happening.

 

Okay, good talk.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Isn't a "big market Rays" basically just the Yankees circa 1996? Because I'd rather just call it that, if so.

 

I guess, but that's impossible to replicate because a) Chicago isn't New York a) (part 2) the Cubs will never be the Yankees in revenue c) The system is set up better to enforce parity than it was then.

[SouthSideRyan]

no teams' systems are improving like the Cubs' had.

 

I don't think there's any ranking system that agrees with this.

It goes beyond just prospect rankings, though, considering the team was the only one in the league still charting by hand and not having any video of prospects at any level. No teams could come close to the Cubs' level of improvements system-wide because the Cubs were so ass-backwards they were the laughing stock of the league.

 

And you don't think these improvements show up in prospect rankings?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

A 76-win true talent team makes you one of the worst team in baseball and your front office should be ashamed of itself if they've had three offseasons to prevent that from happening.

 

Okay, good talk.

 

Anytime. With the number of ways modern fans understand variance imparts itself on the game of baseball, it's *really* easy to slip into focusing on the areas where your team is experiencing negative variance and try to arbitrarily regress those while ignoring the bigger picture.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

no teams' systems are improving like the Cubs' had.

 

I don't think there's any ranking system that agrees with this.

It goes beyond just prospect rankings, though, considering the team was the only one in the league still charting by hand and not having any video of prospects at any level. No teams could come close to the Cubs' level of improvements system-wide because the Cubs were so ass-backwards they were the laughing stock of the league.

 

And you don't think these improvements show up in prospect rankings?

 

At some point, you'd think it would show up in the MLB standings. The fact that it doesn't is concerning.

 

If this front office was half as brilliant as they claim to be, you'd think they'd accidentally start stumbling onto some big-league success without needing $120m payrolls to do it.

[bukie]

no teams' systems are improving like the Cubs' had.

 

I don't think there's any ranking system that agrees with this.

It goes beyond just prospect rankings, though, considering the team was the only one in the league still charting by hand and not having any video of prospects at any level. No teams could come close to the Cubs' level of improvements system-wide because the Cubs were so ass-backwards they were the laughing stock of the league.

 

And you don't think these improvements show up in prospect rankings?

Indirectly, sure, the club develops and drafts players leagues better as a result of the improvements. But no, I don't think, say, Keith Law takes facilities and development assets into account when he ranks the Cubs' farm system.

[SouthSideRyan]

No result is "worth" the 10 years of losing because the 10 years of losing are always going to be completely incidental to whatever fantasy scenario we're talking about for 2022

[Andy]

Next year when we're competing for a playoff spot, Kyle and his annoying band of [expletive] aren't allowed to enjoy it.

Why is this the new thing now? The fact that the Rays got good in 2008 didn't make the previous 10 years of garbage baseball any less garbage-y. If the Astros get good with their merry band of prospects, it won't change the fact that they played [expletive] teams for like 5 years in a row on purpose. You can be aware of what the 'plan' is and still not like that you have to watch terrible teams for years waiting for it to hopefully work.

[expletive], if we turn into a big market Rays, the 10 years of losing would be completely worth it.

 

No.

For every Rays, there's a Royals, which is why betting almost entirely on unknowns scares me.

[SouthSideRyan]

no teams' systems are improving like the Cubs' had.

 

I don't think there's any ranking system that agrees with this.

It goes beyond just prospect rankings, though, considering the team was the only one in the league still charting by hand and not having any video of prospects at any level. No teams could come close to the Cubs' level of improvements system-wide because the Cubs were so ass-backwards they were the laughing stock of the league.

 

And you don't think these improvements show up in prospect rankings?

Indirectly, sure, the club develops and drafts players leagues better as a result of the improvements. But no, I don't think, say, Keith Law takes facilities and development assets into account when he ranks the Cubs' farm system.

 

But if the facilities and development assets aren't turning into better players then I don't care. Unless there's some reason why Cubs prospects are being undervalued because of the updates, then it should already be built into the prospect recipe

Edited May 6, 2014 by SouthSideRyan

[bukie]

For every Rays, there's a Royals, which is why betting almost entirely on unknowns scares me.

Which is why things like scouting advancements and organizational development is such a big deal.

[Guest]

I still had CSN on and they're showing Ventura interviewing where I'd assume is somewhere in the vicinity of the White Sox clubhouse and they're listening to Hold On by Wilson Phillips...

[Castros trade value]

Jim Hendry won 3 division titles in 6 years. Does that qualify as sustained success? And no, I'm not claiming Hendry was a brilliant GM.

[bukie]

Jim Hendry won 3 division titles in 6 years. Does that qualify as sustained success? And no, I'm not claiming Hendry was a brilliant GM.

The Cubs stockpiled arms in the minors. Good strategy, but then they let Dusty ruin them, and somehow blew the 2004 playoffs with likely the best team in the league.

 

2007 was a playoff run thanks to no good teams in the division. 2008 got the best offense in the league thanks to Soriano, Ramirez, Derrek Lee and about 5 bottles of lightning. That was the unsustainable part, and Hendry even managed to get wrong why the club fell apart in the playoffs (he thought they were too right-handed). Their inability to develop players from within doomed both mini-runs within a year.

[Guest]

Jim Hendry won 3 division titles in 6 years. Does that qualify as sustained success? And no, I'm not claiming Hendry was a brilliant GM.

The Cubs stockpiled arms in the minors. Good strategy, but then they let Dusty ruin them, and somehow blew the 2004 playoffs with likely the best team in the league.

 

2007 was a playoff run thanks to no good teams in the division. 2008 got the best offense in the league thanks to Soriano, Ramirez, Derrek Lee and about 5 bottles of lightning. That was the unsustainable part, and Hendry even managed to get wrong why the club fell apart in the playoffs (he thought they were too right-handed). Their inability to develop players from within doomed both mini-runs within a year.

 

I think that's not giving the 07 team enough credit. Weren't they the best team in baseball after June 1st?

 

I have no idea why they had such a shitty first two months but I think it really skewed the way they were perceived vs hwo good they really were.

[Andy]

I still had CSN on and they're showing Ventura interviewing where I'd assume is somewhere in the vicinity of the White Sox clubhouse and they're listening to Hold On by Wilson Phillips...

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmy70miWI21qa9fb5o1_500.gif

[bukie]

Jim Hendry won 3 division titles in 6 years. Does that qualify as sustained success? And no, I'm not claiming Hendry was a brilliant GM.

The Cubs stockpiled arms in the minors. Good strategy, but then they let Dusty ruin them, and somehow blew the 2004 playoffs with likely the best team in the league.

 

2007 was a playoff run thanks to no good teams in the division. 2008 got the best offense in the league thanks to Soriano, Ramirez, Derrek Lee and about 5 bottles of lightning. That was the unsustainable part, and Hendry even managed to get wrong why the club fell apart in the playoffs (he thought they were too right-handed). Their inability to develop players from within doomed both mini-runs within a year.

 

I think that's not giving the 07 team enough credit. Weren't they the best team in baseball after June 1st?

 

I have no idea why they had such a [expletive] first two months but I think it really skewed the way they were perceived vs hwo good they really were.

They were the 3rd best team in the NL after June 1st after Philly and Colorado (Arizona was 4th). They had a below-average offense and rode 4/5ths of a good rotation and a lights out bullpen to take a division with no good teams. The offense killed them in the playoffs.

[Guest]

Jim Hendry won 3 division titles in 6 years. Does that qualify as sustained success? And no, I'm not claiming Hendry was a brilliant GM.

The Cubs stockpiled arms in the minors. Good strategy, but then they let Dusty ruin them, and somehow blew the 2004 playoffs with likely the best team in the league.

 

2007 was a playoff run thanks to no good teams in the division. 2008 got the best offense in the league thanks to Soriano, Ramirez, Derrek Lee and about 5 bottles of lightning. That was the unsustainable part, and Hendry even managed to get wrong why the club fell apart in the playoffs (he thought they were too right-handed). Their inability to develop players from within doomed both mini-runs within a year.

 

I think that's not giving the 07 team enough credit. Weren't they the best team in baseball after June 1st?

 

I have no idea why they had such a [expletive] first two months but I think it really skewed the way they were perceived vs hwo good they really were.

They were the 3rd best team in the NL after June 1st after Philly and Colorado (Arizona was 4th). They had a below-average offense and rode 4/5ths of a good rotation and a lights out bullpen to take a division with no good teams. The offense killed them in the playoffs.

 

Did they lose that distinction in Sept or something? I could swear something like that was being said that year. Or maybe it was a different arbitrary starting point.