General Cubs Chit-Chat

[David]

I sort of agree with you, but the offers were considered to be below fair market value at the time. But in a free market, the value is what you can get. I think Rizzo is upset because he signed a below-market value extension while they were blowing smoke up his ass about being the face of the franchise and other ego-boosting nonsense and when it came time to pay him all the sudden it was a cold numbers game. I'm a labor guy, so in my mind, they kind of treated him pretty horsefeathers, if you can call multi-millions of dollars that.

 

I get it, but when he signed that $73M extension (about $30M was club options, to be clear), he was far from a certainty to be worth anything close to that. He was pretty bad in 2013.

 

I also don't think the offers were below fair market value. I wouldn't have wanted the Cubs to sign him to the deal they offered him.

 

Anyway, he's a selfish anti-vax idiot so whatever

Yeah, that's revisionist nonsense

 

Not at all. The timing of that contract was such that I never wanted him extended. It expired at a point when it's a bad idea to sign any first baseman to a big contact. I'm sure there are receipts here if you're bored enough to search for them.

 

The only positive I ever saw to extending him was the nostalgia/emotion factor, and, well, I'm a robot.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Rizzo's extension was announced around Mother's Day 2013, at the time his MLB track record was a disastrous 50 games for San Diego, a solid half season with the Cubs(368 PA, .349 wOBA, 1.6 fWAR), and a good start to that 2013 campaign(a slug-heavy .366 wOBA in April). As David alluded to, he finished 2013 with a full season just below average(690 PA, .325 wOBA, 1.8 fWAR), and it wasn't until the next year that he took off, with 4 straight seasons of at least 4 wins. While plenty of people had optimism for Rizzo and very few people thought his extension was a terrible deal, it's tough for me to see it as the club taking advantage of him. You don't have to look much further than say, Josh Bell to see how this type of thing doesn't always turn good based on a single campaign. Plus, Rizzo was not too far removed from a cancer scare, which obviously played into his thinking and would have been another obstacle to clear if it had recurred.

[jersey cubs fan]

 

I get it, but when he signed that $73M extension (about $30M was club options, to be clear), he was far from a certainty to be worth anything close to that. He was pretty bad in 2013.

 

I also don't think the offers were below fair market value. I wouldn't have wanted the Cubs to sign him to the deal they offered him.

 

Anyway, he's a selfish anti-vax idiot so whatever

Yeah, that's revisionist nonsense

 

Not at all. The timing of that contract was such that I never wanted him extended. It expired at a point when it's a bad idea to sign any first baseman to a big contact. I'm sure there are receipts here if you're bored enough to search for them.

 

The only positive I ever saw to extending him was the nostalgia/emotion factor, and, well, I'm a robot.

The first extension was clearly team friendly from the beginning, while at the same time making it very unlikely he would sign again with the Cubs. He was the one guy I didn't want back.

[CubinNY]

Enough about the past.

 

Will Jed force Ross to stop playing Heyward at some point in the season, discuss.

[mul21]

Rizzo's extension was announced around Mother's Day 2013, at the time his MLB track record was a disastrous 50 games for San Diego, a solid half season with the Cubs(368 PA, .349 wOBA, 1.6 fWAR), and a good start to that 2013 campaign(a slug-heavy .366 wOBA in April). As David alluded to, he finished 2013 with a full season just below average(690 PA, .325 wOBA, 1.8 fWAR), and it wasn't until the next year that he took off, with 4 straight seasons of at least 4 wins. While plenty of people had optimism for Rizzo and very few people thought his extension was a terrible deal, it's tough for me to see it as the club taking advantage of him. You don't have to look much further than say, Josh Bell to see how this type of thing doesn't always turn good based on a single campaign. Plus, Rizzo was not too far removed from a cancer scare, which obviously played into his thinking and would have been another obstacle to clear if it had recurred.

 

I think the cancer piece and him wanting to secure his financial security are things that really, really have to be considered here on top of the timing/track record. Add in the fact that this front office drafted him and traded for him twice, it was a significant leap of faith and trusting in their own judgement to sign that deal when they did. I don't feel a bit sorry for him when he could have gotten a longer, better deal from the Cubs and now comes out with this nonsense. GTFO.

[Tim]

Enough about the past.

 

Will Jed force Ross to stop playing Heyward at some point in the season, discuss.

Yes. When Brennen Davis is ready.

[Cubswin11]

Yeah Rizzo isn't wrong writ large, but he literally was offered more money by the Cubs than any of the 29 other franchises even came close to offering, so it's weird that he specifically is being such a jilted lover about this. Like if it was Schwarber, who actually did get better offers when he was cut loose, it might make sense.

He's also only considering loyalty going one way. The Cubs seem to have made very fair offers to all their stars. They chose to pursue a bigger paycheck. Nothing against them - this is their one chance to get that fat paycheck.

 

Just don't complain about loyalty afterwards.

I sort of agree with you, but the offers were considered to be below fair market value at the time. But in a free market, the value is what you can get. I think Rizzo is upset because he signed a below-market value extension while they were blowing smoke up his ass about being the face of the franchise and other ego-boosting nonsense and when it came time to pay him all the sudden it was a cold numbers game. I'm a labor guy, so in my mind, they kind of treated him pretty horsefeathers, if you can call multi-millions of dollars that.

The Cubs were right in the end with what they allegedly offered guys for extensions seeing what they ultimately got. Bryant, Javy and Rizzo all over estimated their value/worth during extension talked seeing the contracts they got this offseason.

[champaignchris]

Enough about the past.

 

Will Jed force Ross to stop playing Heyward at some point in the season, discuss.

 

My hope is that someone - Davis, Hermosillo… someone - plays so well that it becomes too obvious for Ross to ignore.

[Old Style]

$100 says the Cubs don't lose today.

[NewUserName]

Enough about the past.

 

Will Jed force Ross to stop playing Heyward at some point in the season, discuss.

 

My hope is that someone - Davis, Hermosillo… someone - plays so well that it becomes too obvious for Ross to ignore.

 

I hate to bring up the past, but the Heyward thing reeks of Dusty type thinking

[chopsx9]

Enough about the past.

 

Will Jed force Ross to stop playing Heyward at some point in the season, discuss.

Yes. When Brennen Davis is ready.

So...Tuesday?

[Regular Show]

 

Scratch out the "forgets about" and replace it with "sells" and we would all be horsefeathering elated by that news.

[Bertz]

Some SSS stats from this weekend that may be vaguely meaningful:

 

- Kyle Hendricks had a swinging strike rate of 20.5% in his first start. That's his first time being north of 20% since 2016. Last year he was at 8.9% for the year, and topped out at 13.5% in a single game. One game cannot tell us he's fixed, but this one did as much as possible

 

- Seiya Suzuki swung at one pitch out of the zone all weekend, good for a 4.2% rate. For reference Juan Soto chases 10-15% of the time, and Mike Trout chases 15-20% of the time. Suzuki's average exit velo was 91.8 MPH this weekend, tied with Teoscar Hernandez and Willson Contreras last year, above Matt Olson and Joey Gallo. Only one of his balls in play was on the ground, a 20% rate. Austin Meadows had the lowest GB% in the league last year at 28.7%. Seiya is obviously going to give back ground in all of these areas, but man even after regression the comps are super fun

 

- Collectively the team saw 4.32 pitches per plate appearance, and is in the early going leading the league in walk rate. They have the lowest swing rate in the league by a couple of percent, and the 3rd lowest swinging strike rate. They have taken the fourth highest rate of called strikes though, so I do imagine they'll at some point need to try to jump on some pitchers early to keep them honest

 

- Patrick Wisdom's plate discipline and contact numbers were up across the board. Not great still mind you, but with his power and defense being bottom 10% in the league in contact rate rather than bottom 10 overall likely has him pushing 3 WAR

 

- Velocity was higher than you'd expect nearly across the board. Usually, guys are ~1 MPH lower in April than you expect them to be for the year as a whole. It's some combination of still ramping up and cold April weather.

Well given the weather this weekend, you'd not really be alarmed by guys being down as much as 2 MPH. But that wasn't the case, at all. The starters were each down a couple tenths of a MPH from last year's numbers. Martin, Effross, Robertson, and Roberts were all up. Norris and Wick were down about a mile. Keegan Thompson was the only guy down multiple MPH, and it's very easy to think that's because he was pacing himself to take that game to the house. Small sample and everything, but all else equal the team being collectively a MPH north of expectations would lead to 3-4 more projected WAR

[CubinNY]

league last year at 28.7%. Seiya is obviously going to give back ground in all of these areas, but man even after regression the comps are super fun

 

- Collectively the team saw 4.32 pitches per plate appearance, and is in the early going leading the league in walk rate. They have the lowest swing rate in the league by a couple of percent, and the 3rd lowest swinging strike rate. They have taken the fourth highest rate of called strikes though, so I do imagine they'll at some point need to try to jump on some pitchers early to keep them honest

And that is with the hacking mass of Nick Madrigal in the. lineup.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Some SSS stats from this weekend that may be vaguely meaningful:

 

- Kyle Hendricks had a swinging strike rate of 20.5% in his first start. That's his first time being north of 20% since 2016. Last year he was at 8.9% for the year, and topped out at 13.5% in a single game. One game cannot tell us he's fixed, but this one did as much as possible

 

- Seiya Suzuki swung at one pitch out of the zone all weekend, good for a 4.2% rate. For reference Juan Soto chases 10-15% of the time, and Mike Trout chases 15-20% of the time. Suzuki's average exit velo was 91.8 MPH this weekend, tied with Teoscar Hernandez and Willson Contreras last year, above Matt Olson and Joey Gallo. Only one of his balls in play was on the ground, a 20% rate. Austin Meadows had the lowest GB% in the league last year at 28.7%. Seiya is obviously going to give back ground in all of these areas, but man even after regression the comps are super fun

 

- Collectively the team saw 4.32 pitches per plate appearance, and is in the early going leading the league in walk rate. They have the lowest swing rate in the league by a couple of percent, and the 3rd lowest swinging strike rate. They have taken the fourth highest rate of called strikes though, so I do imagine they'll at some point need to try to jump on some pitchers early to keep them honest

 

- Patrick Wisdom's plate discipline and contact numbers were up across the board. Not great still mind you, but with his power and defense being bottom 10% in the league in contact rate rather than bottom 10 overall likely has him pushing 3 WAR

 

- Velocity was higher than you'd expect nearly across the board. Usually, guys are ~1 MPH lower in April than you expect them to be for the year as a whole. It's some combination of still ramping up and cold April weather.

Well given the weather this weekend, you'd not really be alarmed by guys being down as much as 2 MPH. But that wasn't the case, at all. The starters were each down a couple tenths of a MPH from last year's numbers. Martin, Effross, Robertson, and Roberts were all up. Norris and Wick were down about a mile. Keegan Thompson was the only guy down multiple MPH, and it's very easy to think that's because he was pacing himself to take that game to the house. Small sample and everything, but all else equal the team being collectively a MPH north of expectations would lead to 3-4 more projected WAR

The only team that chased less than us? The Brewers. But keeping "stuff" in mind, it's much more impressive that we laid off theirs more than they did ours.

 

But seiya alone probably pushed us into the top 5.

[Derwood]

I guess the upside of losing all the big home run hitters is that the launch angle, K or Homer mentality has been replaced by patience and contact

[PriorFighter]

 

Scratch out the "forgets about" and replace it with "sells" and we would all be horsefeathering elated by that news.

 

Who would they sell it to? MLB is not going to let some free-spending, paradigm shifting group come in and change the way things are done. Mark Cuban wasn't allowed to buy the team for a reason and there are now specific rules in place to combat Steve Cohen's spending. After all the lockout back and forth I find it very hard to believe MLB would let an owner in who "wanted to win" over "wanting to make money".

[minnesotacubsfan]

 

Scratch out the "forgets about" and replace it with "sells" and we would all be horsefeathering elated by that news.

 

Who would they sell it to? MLB is not going to let some free-spending, paradigm shifting group come in and change the way things are done. Mark Cuban wasn't allowed to buy the team for a reason and there are now specific rules in place to combat Steve Cohen's spending. After all the lockout back and forth I find it very hard to believe MLB would let an owner in who "wanted to win" over "wanting to make money".

NYY

Boston

Doyers

 

 

In that order

[Regular Show]

 

Scratch out the "forgets about" and replace it with "sells" and we would all be horsefeathering elated by that news.

 

Who would they sell it to? MLB is not going to let some free-spending, paradigm shifting group come in and change the way things are done. Mark Cuban wasn't allowed to buy the team for a reason and there are now specific rules in place to combat Steve Cohen's spending. After all the lockout back and forth I find it very hard to believe MLB would let an owner in who "wanted to win" over "wanting to make money".

 

You sound a lot like Reds president Phil Castellini (not a compliment btw):

 

"Well, where are you going to go? Let's start there. I mean, sell the team to who?" Castellini said. "That's the other thing -- you want to have this debate? If you want to look at what would you do with this team to have it be more profitable, make more money, compete more in the current economic system that this game exists? It would be to pick it up and move it somewhere else.

 

"And so be careful what you ask for..."

 

He apologized for making those remarks.

 

There are plenty of ownership groups out there that are SO much better than the Ricketts... I'm mostly just referring to the political stuff and how they supported the first former US president to commit a coup and fail in spectacular fashion. The family is all kinds of awful ranging from the douchebag brother that is governor of Nebraska, the other terrible brother that is the finance chairman for the RNC, the racist patriarch of the family that said a bunch of heinous horsefeathers in leaked emails... Tom is the Chairman of the Cubs so he tries to steer clear of politics, but I bet he donates large sums to plenty of awful Republicans and their Super PACs. This also includes getting Sinclair Broadcasting involved when creating their own RSN, and many fans were outraged over this.

 

This isn't really about spending or the lack thereof. Yeah, we all wish they spent more money on the team these past few offseasons to better support the team, but it's an open question how much of an impact it might have had looking back. The Ricketts signed-off on signing Heyward after the 2015 season and we all know how that turned out...

 

Anyway, spending and supporting a large payroll when the team is contending is just one facet of a good ownership group. I care about the other stuff as well (as do many here).

[minnesotacubsfan]

Does Suzuki get his own thread or is it too soon? He's started on a tear and it's fantastic to see

[Regular Show]

Does Suzuki get his own thread or is it too soon? He's started on a tear and it's fantastic to see

 

Ah, it's clearly not too soon now... You can go ahead and start that thread (or someone else). He definitely deserves it.

[PriorFighter]

 

There are plenty of ownership groups out there that are SO much better than the Ricketts... I'm mostly just referring to the political stuff and how they supported the first former US president to commit a coup and fail in spectacular fashion. The family is all kinds of awful ranging from the douchebag brother that is governor of Nebraska, the other terrible brother that is the finance chairman for the RNC, the racist patriarch of the family that said a bunch of heinous horsefeathers in leaked emails... Tom is the Chairman of the Cubs so he tries to steer clear of politics, but I bet he donates large sums to plenty of awful Republicans and their Super PACs. This also includes getting Sinclair Broadcasting involved when creating their own RSN, and many fans were outraged over this.

 

This isn't really about spending or the lack thereof. Yeah, we all wish they spent more money on the team these past few offseasons to better support the team, but it's an open question how much of an impact it might have had looking back. The Ricketts signed-off on signing Heyward after the 2015 season and we all know how that turned out...

 

Anyway, spending and supporting a large payroll when the team is contending is just one facet of a good ownership group. I care about the other stuff as well (as do many here).

 

Yeahhhhhhhhh, I guess. I would counter that by saying no one was complaining about the ownership's politics during the 2016-19 run (I get it, now it looks worse in light of 2020 election/Jan 6 and I'm definitely not a supporter) and apparently Laura is a huge donor to Democrats running for office so there's at least some balance there. I'm pretty sure I could really examine ownership of a number of teams and find stuff I like and stuff I really don't. Not even to mention family members. I'm more concerned about the product on the field than what these guys do with their other money.

 

My actual point is not Pro-Ricketts per se. It's just that MLB ownership is a good ol' boys club and they aren't going to vote in someone with a fan-centric, better experience, let's make games available easily mindset. I think that was the case pre-lockout and I think the owners would tighten it up even more after "being beat" in the negotiations. The next owner would be another profit-first version of Ricketts with some other baggage we all hate.

[Rob]

Yeahhhhhhhhh, I guess. I would counter that by saying no one was complaining about the ownership's politics during the 2016-19 run (I get it, now it looks worse in light of 2020 election/Jan 6 and I'm definitely not a supporter) and apparently Laura is a huge donor to Democrats running for office so there's at least some balance there. I'm pretty sure I could really examine ownership of a number of teams and find stuff I like and stuff I really don't. Not even to mention family members. I'm more concerned about the product on the field than what these guys do with their other money.

 

My actual point is not Pro-Ricketts per se. It's just that MLB ownership is a good ol' boys club and they aren't going to vote in someone with a fan-centric, better experience, let's make games available easily mindset. I think that was the case pre-lockout and I think the owners would tighten it up even more after "being beat" in the negotiations. The next owner would be another profit-first version of Ricketts with some other baggage we all hate.

 

I think it's fair to say people were largely brushing aside the Ricketts political views in the early going. But I would argue against that lasting through the whole 2016-2019 run.

 

I was able to put it aside in 2016 because, like most people, I thought Trump had zero chance of winning. When he did, I started paying a lot more attention to who had been supportive of him. For me, the Ricketts honeymoon lasted about a month after the championship before I quickly soured on them. I root for the team in spite of ownership. But I have totally stopped sending my money their way.

[jersey cubs fan]

Yeahhhhhhhhh, I guess. I would counter that by saying no one was complaining about the ownership's politics during the 2016-19 run (I get it, now it looks worse in light of 2020 election/Jan 6 and I'm definitely not a supporter)

Ummm, no, you are just completely wrong. That's not anywhere close to the truth. The Ricketts were anti-Trump republicans until he got the nomination then went full throttle in support of him and fans that were aware and not awful conservatives themselves, hated it, and were vocal about it. This dated all the way back to 2016, and included the shitty decision to make a 2nd white house visit just to see trump even though they did the official visit with Obama.

[UMFan83]

Yeahhhhhhhhh, I guess. I would counter that by saying no one was complaining about the ownership's politics during the 2016-19 run (I get it, now it looks worse in light of 2020 election/Jan 6 and I'm definitely not a supporter)

Ummm, no, you are just completely wrong. That's not anywhere close to the truth. The Ricketts were anti-Trump republicans until he got the nomination then went full throttle in support of him and fans that were aware and not awful conservatives themselves, hated it, and were vocal about it. This dated all the way back to 2016, and included the horsefeathers decision to make a 2nd white house visit just to see trump even though they did the official visit with Obama.

 

Yeah I don't know what PriorFighter is talking about, people were pretty vocal about this for a while. There is at least one formerly prominent poster here that left well before 2020 due to issues with the Ricketts. There's a thread titled "The Ricketts family sucks in all kinds of ways" that was started in 2018.