General Cubs Chit-Chat

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I knew back in 2012 that we'd be doing this all over again, that we'd be right back a decade later doing "OK they've never figured out player development before but now they've totally got it figured out so we just have to wait a few more years before our sustained success comes in."  I just didn't think it'd be the same general manager getting a second bite at it. (I know TT isn't saying they've figured it out, just that they believe they have).

But if they've figured it out, they've fooled everyone else, because the farm system rankings are aggressively mediocre.  There's literally dozens of lists now, so you can always cherrypick the ones that make you look the best, but I've seen more with us outside the top 10 organizationally than inside it, and our best prospect seems to fall in the 25-50 range.

There's some promising stuff with the pitching development, but it feels an awful lot like being late to the last market inefficiency instead of being first to the next one.

 

[Andy]

3 hours ago, jersey cubs fan said:

Jed explicitly said the primary motivation behind their moves this year was to dissuade people from believing they were hoarding cash. They obviously aren’t trying to win the division or contend, but they are trying to stop the bleeding of fan interest. If you can win more games then you lose this season you can start convincing the fans you might actually be good one day again. 

I think it was Ricketts that said this (which might actually be worse).

[UMFan83]

22 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

I knew back in 2012 that we'd be doing this all over again, that we'd be right back a decade later doing "OK they've never figured out player development before but now they've totally got it figured out so we just have to wait a few more years before our sustained success comes in."  I just didn't think it'd be the same general manager getting a second bite at it. (I know TT isn't saying they've figured it out, just that they believe they have).

But if they've figured it out, they've fooled everyone else, because the farm system rankings are aggressively mediocre.  There's literally dozens of lists now, so you can always cherrypick the ones that make you look the best, but I've seen more with us outside the top 10 organizationally than inside it, and our best prospect seems to fall in the 25-50 range.

There's some promising stuff with the pitching development, but it feels an awful lot like being late to the last market inefficiency instead of being first to the next one.

 

How did you know this back in 2012?  Theo had come from a 9 year run of sustained success in Boston with strong player development, so its not like it was history repeating itself.  I don't think people realized there was a major development problem outside of 1st round picks until like 2017.  I'm just not sure how you could be certain that there was going to be a second rebuild all the way back in 2012 when we just hired an elite GM and still had hopes that the ownership group would spend aggressively.  

[Transmogrified Tiger]

33 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

I knew back in 2012 that we'd be doing this all over again, that we'd be right back a decade later doing "OK they've never figured out player development before but now they've totally got it figured out so we just have to wait a few more years before our sustained success comes in."  I just didn't think it'd be the same general manager getting a second bite at it. (I know TT isn't saying they've figured it out, just that they believe they have).

But if they've figured it out, they've fooled everyone else, because the farm system rankings are aggressively mediocre.  There's literally dozens of lists now, so you can always cherrypick the ones that make you look the best, but I've seen more with us outside the top 10 organizationally than inside it, and our best prospect seems to fall in the 25-50 range.

There's some promising stuff with the pitching development, but it feels an awful lot like being late to the last market inefficiency instead of being first to the next one.

 

I think there's two ways to think about that pipeline.  One is about being able to develop stars, this gets a lot of attention because everyone needs and wants this caliber of player, it highlighted the rebuild that led to the 2016 world series, and it's a safer class of prospect.  I don't think the Cubs have figured out anything special where there's a bunch of Baezs and Bryants that will reveal themselves despite getting 40 grades from the prospecting community.  That's not ideal given the current composition of the roster, because that's the biggest limitation keeping them from having a higher ceiling this year and likely into the future.  This is also not a uniquely Cubs problem. For example we hold up the Cardinals as a player development champion and they get extra pity picks every year, but in the last decade their track record here is basically one year of Jack Flaherty before his arm exploded and Matt Carpenter figuring things out at age 27.

The other way to think of it is about the number of average to slightly above average players you can churn out.  This is something that wasn't a huge feature of the 2016 build up, which instead had more shrewd moves for MLB players like Zobrist, Fowler, Montero, Lackey, Hammel, T Wood, etc.  *This* is the thing the Cardinals are excellent at, the non-stop parade of quality MLBers from their farm. In the current environment this is almost as important, for a couple reasons:

• You get more chances of getting lucky and unearthing a star, the Guardians have been a good example of this(Ramirez, Bieber, etc)
• You raise the team's floor via depth, and the back half of the roster is cheaper. It's easier to do 'uncomfortable' contract decisions on stars when you have lots of depth that doesn't require much payroll
• These players are increasingly the currency used in trades for existing stars.  Again the Cardinals have done this for decades, but the Dodgers have also been super opportunistic in how they got Betts and Turner without giving up some 70 grade superstar-in-waiting

 

And this is the thing that I think it's fair to have belief that the Cubs have coming, partially because we're already seeing small doses of this(Wesneski and Morel last year), and also because these types of players frequently come from prospecting community misses since the line between AAAA fodder and MLB regular is thin.  Plus the prospecting community does have pretty strong agreement that the depth of the system is quite good.

 

EDIT:  One last thing on that second part, is that it can become self-fulfilling or a self-perpetuating problem.  For example, one of the reasons the Cubs didn't have any talent to turn to in 2019-2020 is they used it for temporary solutions to previous problems.  If you do better with your prospecting middle class then you can more easily hang on to the Dylan Cease's of the world.

[jersey cubs fan]

4 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

How did you know this back in 2012?  Theo had come from a 9 year run of sustained success in Boston with strong player development, so its not like it was history repeating itself.  I don't think people realized there was a major development problem outside of 1st round picks until like 2017.  I'm just not sure how you could be certain that there was going to be a second rebuild all the way back in 2012 when we just hired an elite GM and still had hopes that the ownership group would spend aggressively.  

I think once it became clear how willing they were to tank it was always inevitable they would do it again. I never thought it would happen so quickly. But they are craven people happy to exploit fan goodwill 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

We were supposed to be getting the depth from the Epstein farm too. That was his big selling point when we hired him, that his Red Sox organizations had a remarkable track record for churning out MLB talent without needing top picks.   The whole "tank for superstars" thing wasn't part of what we assumed the original plan was when he was hired, it just became our ad hoc justification later when it turned out that was all they were good at.

 

 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

12 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

How did you know this back in 2012?  Theo had come from a 9 year run of sustained success in Boston with strong player development, so its not like it was history repeating itself.  I don't think people realized there was a major development problem outside of 1st round picks until like 2017.  I'm just not sure how you could be certain that there was going to be a second rebuild all the way back in 2012 when we just hired an elite GM and still had hopes that the ownership group would spend aggressively.  

Because I'd seen that exact show before.  Theo was Andy MacPhail 2.0 except the 2016 cubs finished the job where the 2003 cubs didn't.   I had to listen to a whole generation of cubs fans argue we had never tried this before when I could remember refusing to include pat cline in a mike piazza trade.

Once you start deciding that you like tank and spank as a plan, which Theo showed be did when he tanked 2012, then you're always going to end up stuck in that cycle.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Hairyducked Idiot

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Tt is right that skepticism by default isn't going to have a perfect track record.  Sometimes things you have every reason to be skeptical of will turn out to be correct.

*Maybe* they really have figured out player development and will start having a sustained run of success that doesn't involve tanking half the time.

 

But seeing as how I was promised that by MacPhail and then Epstein/Hoyer (and if I was a little older, I'd have been promised it by Himes) I'm gonna stick with skeptical.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Hairyducked Idiot

[UMFan83]

17 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

Because I'd seen that exact show before.  Theo was Andy MacPhail 2.0 except the 2016 cubs finished the job where the 2003 cubs didn't.   I had to listen to a whole generation of cubs fans argue we had never tried this before when I could remember refusing to include pat cline in a mike piazza trade.

Once you start deciding that you like tank and spank as a plan, which Theo showed be did when he tanked 2012, then you're always going to end up stuck in that cycle.

Sorry, I see what your saying but I don't see how that guarantees another rebuild in a decade.  If the player development system worked as he promised, there would be no need for another rebuild.  That was his major focus and he failed in that regard but I don't think it was for lack of effort.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

6 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

Tt is right that skepticism by default isn't going to have a perfect track record.  Sometimes things you have every reason to be skeptical of will turn out to be correct.

*Maybe* they really have figured out player development and will start having a sustained run of success that doesn't involve tanking half the time.

 

But seeing as how I was promised that by MacPhail and then Epstein/Hoyer (and if I was a little older, I'd have been promised it by Himes) I'm gonna stick with skeptical.

To be clear, that was mostly talking about investment rather than how successful they are.  For 3 years running there's been a lot of folks *convinced* that payroll wasn't going to go up(then they signed Stroman) or that Jed wouldn't go beyond 3 years(Suzuki) or multiple years for a player over 30(Taillon) or sign a very long term deal(Swanson) or that they wouldn't come close to the luxury tax(2023).  Even today these things are getting framed as being something begrudgingly done to keep fan interest from cratering.  My main point is that given the circumstances(macro environment in the previous and current CBA, the state of the roster/org talent around 2020), that the path they've taken is understandable and in some ways absolutely necessary.  It hasn't been perfect and may not work out at all because Jed isn't better at his job than enough of his counterparts. I can't tell how much I would love for the macro complaints around the Cubs to be focused Jed potentially being incompetent instead of being the result of ownership-fueled malevolence.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

10 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Sorry, I see what your saying but I don't see how that guarantees another rebuild in a decade.  If the player development system worked as he promised, there would be no need for another rebuild.  That was his major focus and he failed in that regard but I don't think it was for lack of effort.

If the player development system worked as promised, we wouldn't have needed the 2012-2014 tank to get started.

[Proven Veteran]

The new limits on draft and international spending had major impacts on Theo's plan. 

[Sammy Sofa]

The horsefeathers is Epstein even doing these days.

[UMFan83]

5 minutes ago, Sammy Sofa said:

The horsefeathers is Epstein even doing these days.

 

[Sammy Sofa]

Hey, good for him.

[imb]

3 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

How did you know this back in 2012?  Theo had come from a 9 year run of sustained success in Boston with strong player development, so its not like it was history repeating itself.  I don't think people realized there was a major development problem outside of 1st round picks until like 2017.  I'm just not sure how you could be certain that there was going to be a second rebuild all the way back in 2012 when we just hired an elite GM and still had hopes that the ownership group would spend aggressively.  

he obviously didn't. If anything it was just latent negativity he's retrofitted to our post 2016 reality

[Hairyducked Idiot]

2 hours ago, imb said:

he obviously didn't. If anything it was just latent negativity he's retrofitted to our post 2016 reality

Damn. It's a shame that when I have an opinion, I'm notorious for posting it a single time or even keeping it to myself if it's unpopular.  

Here's one exactly predicting our post-2016 reality before it happened:

 

https://northsidebaseball.com/forums/topic/45617-front-office-thread/?do=findComment&comment=3198107

 

Quote

We were talking about this in another thread the other day: I think that there's more evidence that we're a souped-up version of the Brewers (stocking up for years for a golden generation and riding it to a few years in the sun) than we are becoming the Cardinals.

 

If you want to be the Cardinals, you have to hit on your small-time IFA investments, your non-top-10-overall picks, your prospects that you didn't trade premium MLB talent to get. Have we really been doing that? I don't see it.

 

The Cardinals already have 6.2 bWAR from their 2012 draft class and ours is looking awfully iffy.

To be fair, that draft class did eventually cross 6.2 bWAR, thanks entirely to the late emergence of David Bote 

[UMFan83]

8 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

Damn. It's a shame that when I have an opinion, I'm notorious for posting it a single time or even keeping it to myself if it's unpopular.  

Here's one exactly predicting our post-2016 reality before it happened:

 

https://northsidebaseball.com/forums/topic/45617-front-office-thread/?do=findComment&comment=3198107

 

To be fair, that draft class did eventually cross 6.2 bWAR, thanks entirely to the late emergence of David Bote 

This doesn’t really prove that you were predicting another gut rebuild in 2012. You (admittedly astutely) recognized our lack of player development success in 2015, but that’s with 3 years of data. Predicting that one gut rebuild portends another future gut rebuild a decade later on the day Theo took over after a history of leading a team that was sustainably successful is quite a bit different. 
 

theo outlined his plan from day 1. Focus on player development, try to win every year but dont sacrifice the future for the present, etc

Of course he failed on all 3 of those goals but there was no reason to believe he was being disingenuous back in 2012, except maybe the 3rd point. 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

And I criticized the plan from day 1.

 

In fact, most of this board criticized the plan up until day 1.  A gut rebuild was a wildly unpopular idea here all the way up to the 2011 offseason.

Just for the record, this is me predicting we will have another gut rebuild by 2033.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Hairyducked Idiot

[Hairyducked Idiot]

2012 wasn't "the day Theo took over.". That was in 2011.

 

By the end of 2012, he had 15 months and a hard tanked season under his belt.  You don't hard tank unless you don't *really* think you can build sustained success 

 

Although I do recall arguing specifically that I didn't want Epstein in 2011, or at least that he wasn't my first choice, because I don't trust experienced guys to 1) find new market inefficiencies and 2) be hungry enough to treat their new teams as seriously as their old teams.  I said I wanted to try to find the next Epstein, not the last one 

Edited April 4, 2023 by Hairyducked Idiot

[imb]

wow when you're negative and horsefeathers on everything that happens, sometimes you're kinda sorta right if you squint, imagine that

[Hairyducked Idiot]

1 minute ago, imb said:

wow when you're negative and horsefeathers on everything that happens, sometimes you're kinda sorta right if you squint, imagine that

That one I won't dispute 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Here's a post from 2012 in which I directly make the Epstein=new MacPhail comparison:

 

 

Also in that thread, I am told that I am a complete worthless idiot for suggesting that the 2012 bullpen was a possible indication that the new front office wasn't good at identifying pitching.

[Bearded_Beef]

8 hours ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

Here's a post from 2012 in which I directly make the Epstein=new MacPhail comparison:

 

 

Also in that thread, I am told that I am a complete worthless idiot for suggesting that the 2012 bullpen was a possible indication that the new front office wasn't good at identifying pitching.

Didn't you also strongly imply that the Cubs wouldn't win the WS with "the Plan" and that all/most of our prospects would be busts because they had really high K rates?  I have honestly appreciated your doom bonerey takes on a lot of things, but you've been more wrong than right since the Theo era so its weird to see you taking victory laps.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

1 hour ago, Bearded_Beef said:

Didn't you also strongly imply that the Cubs wouldn't win the WS with "the Plan" and that all/most of our prospects would be busts because they had really high K rates?  I have honestly appreciated your doom bonerey takes on a lot of things, but you've been more wrong than right since the Theo era so its weird to see you taking victory laps.

Half right.  I never said they wouldn't win the world series.  Winning the world series or not is mostly a function of luck, so long as you make the playoffs consistently.

I was extremely skeptical of Javy Baez due to his k-rate, but he did overcome that and turn out way better than I thought.

Im sure I was wrong about plenty of other stuff though.  I'm wrong just as often as anyone else.  But there's no correlation between the times when I'm wrong and the times people act as if my takes are terrible and I'm just doing them to be contrary.

One more victory lap.  Although there were more people here who agreed with this one:. Primes come way earlier than traditionally thought, which is part of why these grand rebuilds don't really set you up for sustained success.

Kris Bryant had his best season by fWAR at age 24.  Anthony Rizzo had his at 24 too.  Russell 22. Baez 25.   The only late bloomers were the guys who never really reached star status like Schwarber and Soler.