Hypothetical on Rebuild Going Back 3-4 years...Worth it in hindsight?

[Guest]

Somebody can (and probably will) make a good deal of money writing a book on what has happened with the Cubs since Theo came to town. It could be great if that person was able to get access to Theo, Jed, Crane and Ricketts. I mean just off the top of my head there is

- the scenario that led to Theo being available and his courtship,

- the near complete overhaul of the minor league and big league team,

- everything surrounding the upgrades to Wrigley,

- the complete overhaul/creation of the front office,

- getting new spring training and Dominican facilities,

- basically creating the international free agent loophole (as fallout for the new system),

- the scenario that led to Maddon being available and his courtship,

 

It just needs an ending: crash and burn, World Series victory(s), or the moneyball ending of getting close but not being able to get it done

 

I think some have already tried and Theo has shot it down. But I'd definitely read that book.

 

I remember an article from his Red Sox days where he talked about how Beane fucked it up for the rest of them by allowing Moneyball to be written.

[Guest]

Theo and Jed are paid handsomely to create their own luck, to be so good at their jobs that outsiders see an inexplicable string of positive outcomes. You know, pixie dust.

 

To that end, they've done well to have the team currently in the spot they're in. Being bad afforded them some advantages too, but hitting on the guys they have thus far with fewer relative busts is not an accident, and they deserve credit for that. In this vein they also deserve criticism for being non-competitive last year. If they can continue to prove that this year was no accident with player development and lack of SP injuries, I imagine the forseeable future will look a lot like this year.

[biittner77]

Don't look back, you can never look back

 

I can see you

[Guest]

It's absolutely worth it. Even doing a patch job with the supposed restrictions they had I at most see them maybe getting into the playoffs one time in the last 3 seasons.

 

No Bryant. No Schwarber. Most likely no Russell. Maybe stuck with a crappy Samardzija extension.

 

I think to answer this in any meaningful way, you have to pretend those supposed restrictions aren't a thing (like some still believe). If they were and it was as bad as was reported, it was a no brainer. But yeah.

[Brian]

It's absolutely worth it. Even doing a patch job with the supposed restrictions they had I at most see them maybe getting into the playoffs one time in the last 3 seasons.

 

No Bryant. No Schwarber. Most likely no Russell. Maybe stuck with a crappy Samardzija extension.

 

And Pujols or Fielder on a monster contract

[Sammys Boombox]

It's absolutely worth it. Even doing a patch job with the supposed restrictions they had I at most see them maybe getting into the playoffs one time in the last 3 seasons.

 

No Bryant. No Schwarber. Most likely no Russell. Maybe stuck with a crappy Samardzija extension.

 

And Pujols or Fielder on a monster contract

 

And probably no Arrieta or Strop. And probably very few of all those IFAs that are killing it.

[Sammy Sofa]

It's absolutely worth it. Even doing a patch job with the supposed restrictions they had I at most see them maybe getting into the playoffs one time in the last 3 seasons.

 

No Bryant. No Schwarber. Most likely no Russell. Maybe stuck with a crappy Samardzija extension.

 

And Pujols or Fielder on a monster contract

 

And probably no Arrieta or Strop. And probably very few of all those IFAs that are killing it.

 

So, wait, we're swerving so far into thinking right now is THE way that we're basically re-writing any alternate history of the FO as being something that would make Hendry shake his head? Come on.

[Guest]

yeah. invoking eloy is going a bit too far.

[Sammy Sofa]

And Pujols or Fielder would never have happened even if they had the money. Plenty of us here talked about it and wanted it, but it's clear that the FO had their sights on Rizzo as their 1B plan no matter what.

 

And hey, maybe with extra money they go truly Cuban-crazy.

Edited September 9, 2015 by Sammy Sofa

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Has anyone fired up the Kyle Signal yet?

[Guest]

And Pujols or Fielder would never have happened even if they had the money. Plenty of us here talked about it and wanted it, but it's clear that the FO had their sights on Rizzo as their 1B plan no matter what.

 

And hey, maybe with extra money they go truly Cuban-crazy.

 

ive never been under that impression

[Bryants Disco Ball]

I just read David's question but none of the responses, but the answer is yes. Yes I am happy they did what they did and always was.

 

And imagine being many of the other 12 teams that will have made the playoffs one or zero times since 2011 and how much further along and cooler we are than them despite many of them "trying."

[Sammy Sofa]

And Pujols or Fielder would never have happened even if they had the money. Plenty of us here talked about it and wanted it, but it's clear that the FO had their sights on Rizzo as their 1B plan no matter what.

 

And hey, maybe with extra money they go truly Cuban-crazy.

 

ive never been under that impression

 

A guy who came up in the Red Sox organization and then ended up with the Padres under our future GM and they just picked him up in the hopes he wasn't a bust? I think Theo would have gone after him no matter where he ended up (because Hoyer likely ends up there, too).

[snoodmonger]

I think it's too early to say.

 

Assuming this season is just a taste of things to come, then yes. I'd say it was worth it. I'll be honest, I barely watched in 2012 and 2013, so the crappy seasons didn't cause me too much anguish.

 

However, if Bryant and Russell, god forbid, become the position player equivalents of Mark Prior and all their promise/excellence is fleeting, it might be a different story.

[Guest]

And Pujols or Fielder would never have happened even if they had the money. Plenty of us here talked about it and wanted it, but it's clear that the FO had their sights on Rizzo as their 1B plan no matter what.

 

And hey, maybe with extra money they go truly Cuban-crazy.

 

ive never been under that impression

 

A guy who came up in the Red Sox organization and then ended up with the Padres under our future GM and they just picked him up in the hopes he wasn't a bust? I think Theo would have gone after him no matter where he ended up (because Hoyer likely ends up there, too).

 

i think they seriously pursued (as seriously as they could given whatever they could spend) fielder and with an "unlimited" budget i'm not positive they wouldn't have

[Bryants Disco Ball]

I think it's too early to say.

 

Assuming this season is just a taste of things to come, then yes. I'd say it was worth it. I'll be honest, I barely watched in 2012 and 2013, so the crappy seasons didn't cause me too much anguish.

 

However, if Bryant and Russell, god forbid, become the position player equivalents of Mark Prior and all their promise/excellence is fleeting, it might be a different story.

 

That's no fun, though. Pick a side!

[Sammy Sofa]

i think they seriously pursued (as seriously as they could given whatever they could spend) fielder and with an "unlimited" budget i'm not positive they wouldn't have

 

We've heard too much about how "serious" they've been for FA's that they ended up not being close on at all. I think a ton of that is pretty obviously smoke.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

First, I should note that I haven't done much more than check the score the last 2.5 weeks or so, so I may be a bit out of date on how some guys are doing.

 

OK, first, I still don't think they meant for the rebuild to go like this. They thought they could have a season like this by 2013 or 2014. It wasn't some brilliant plan to be sucky for three years. They thought they'd be borderline competitive in 2013, dropped a ton of money on free agents the offseason, and whiffed.

 

In the meantime, well-run teams *can* go from bad to good pretty quickly with good MLB-level moves. A guy like Arrieta wasn't a product of the rebuild, he was just a great decision. You make enough good decisions, you win a lot more baseball games than they have the last 3 years before this year. They made a lot of bad MLB-level decisions before this year, and this year they've made a lot of good ones.

 

So they're having a very good year, and it's been buoyed by a lot of luck. Luck that I certainly don't begrudge them, we're due for a +6 pythagorean season.

 

Does one good year erase three awful years? Of course not. So if you're asking me to grade them on what they've done to date, it's still going to be a bad grade.

 

So we're probably going to want to project out into the future to get a total grade. And if you're one of those people that believe that a handful of great, young, cost-controlled hitters means you can ink in our playoff spots for the next five years, then they deserve a good evaluation. I tend to think those people are overestimating the Cubs' future for a lot of reasons: underestimating the challenges to putting together a healthy, productive pitching staff every year; overestimating how much those young hitters project to improve; forgetting that this team *is* overachieving on paper and we're not going into next year with a 95-win baseline; and most importantly just forgetting that this is a high-variance sport and sometimes a season in the heart of your golden era turns into what the Rangers or Nats are right now.

 

Do *I* think they're going to have enough success in their overall tenure to justify the three bad years? It's going to be close, imo. Putting together a playoff season this year helps a ton. 1-for-4 is a huge improvement over 0-for-4 if you want the percentages to add up in the long run. But I wouldn't spike the football for them just yet.

[SouthSideRyan]

It's absolutely worth it. Even doing a patch job with the supposed restrictions they had I at most see them maybe getting into the playoffs one time in the last 3 seasons.

 

No Bryant. No Schwarber. Most likely no Russell. Maybe stuck with a crappy Samardzija extension.

 

And Pujols or Fielder on a monster contract

 

And probably no Arrieta or Strop. And probably very few of all those IFAs that are killing it.

 

Why does the alternative timeline require that our smart FO make stupid moves?

[Sammy Sofa]

First, I should note that I haven't done much more than check the score the last 2.5 weeks or so, so I may be a bit out of date on how some guys are doing.

 

OK, first, I still don't think they meant for the rebuild to go like this. They thought they could have a season like this by 2013 or 2014. It wasn't some brilliant plan to be sucky for three years. They thought they'd be borderline competitive in 2013, dropped a ton of money on free agents the offseason, and whiffed.

 

In the meantime, well-run teams *can* go from bad to good pretty quickly with good MLB-level moves. A guy like Arrieta wasn't a product of the rebuild, he was just a great decision. You make enough good decisions, you win a lot more baseball games than they have the last 3 years before this year. They made a lot of bad MLB-level decisions before this year, and this year they've made a lot of good ones.

 

So they're having a very good year, and it's been buoyed by a lot of luck. Luck that I certainly don't begrudge them, we're due for a +6 pythagorean season.

 

Does one good year erase three awful years? Of course not. So if you're asking me to grade them on what they've done to date, it's still going to be a bad grade.

 

So we're probably going to want to project out into the future to get a total grade. And if you're one of those people that believe that a handful of great, young, cost-controlled hitters means you can ink in our playoff spots for the next five years, then they deserve a good evaluation. I tend to think those people are overestimating the Cubs' future for a lot of reasons: underestimating the challenges to putting together a healthy, productive pitching staff every year; overestimating how much those young hitters project to improve; forgetting that this team *is* overachieving on paper and we're not going into next year with a 95-win baseline; and most importantly just forgetting that this is a high-variance sport and sometimes a season in the heart of your golden era turns into what the Rangers or Nats are right now.

 

Do *I* think they're going to have enough success in their overall tenure to justify the three bad years? It's going to be close, imo. Putting together a playoff season this year helps a ton. 1-for-4 is a huge improvement over 0-for-4 if you want the percentages to add up in the long run. But I wouldn't spike the football for them just yet.

 

OK Kyle is...OK, actually.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

OK Kyle is...OK, actually.

 

I'm in Long Beach now. It turns out that living in metro areas is about a million times better than living in shithole rural towns.

[Sammy Sofa]

I'm so confused; did you ever live in OK? I thought your move was going there from North Dakota.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I'm so confused; did you ever live in OK? I thought your move was going there from North Dakota.

 

I posted from a hotel in Tulsa a few weeks ago on my way out here. I went from Illinois to North Dakota to Missouri to Illinois to California.

 

I promised myself I'm going to an NLCS game if the Cubs play the Dodgers, so I'll probably die, but worth it.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Last year, I would have argued in this thread. But, there are too many good vibes with this team for me to even give a [expletive] about this right now.

[Guest]

I'm so confused; did you ever live in OK? I thought your move was going there from North Dakota.

 

no he just stopped in a motel in OK