Former Cubs

[We Got The Whole 9]

3rd 4-homer game of the season, holy horsefeathers. 

[Hot Sauce]

1 hour ago, Derwood said:

I miss him every single day

Same, man. Same. 

[soccer10k]

1 hour ago, Derwood said:

.950 OPS, 49 HR, 119 RBI with a full month to go.

Letting him go was so pants-on-head stupid

Wait so the Cubs shouldn't have overreacted to a bad 60 games in the weird 2020 Covid season despite him being a significantly better hitter in each of the four previous seasons? WHO KNEW!

[soccer10k]

Double.

Edited August 29, 2025 by soccer10k

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

[Stratos]

14 hours ago, Derwood said:

.950 OPS, 49 HR, 119 RBI with a full month to go.

Letting him go was so pants-on-head stupid

What's crazy is they weren't able to trade him before the non-tender.

The DH wasn't around back then so whatever.   He was a 2 WAR player at the time.

[Stratos]

Cody Bellinger is going to very soon top the 4.4 WAR he put up with the Cubs in 2023.  In fact he's on pace for around 5 WAR.  Ruh-roh.

Edited August 29, 2025 by Stratos

[17 Seconds]

39 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Cody Bellinger is going to very soon top the 4.4 WAR he put up with the Cubs in 2023.  In fact he's on pace for around 5 WAR.  Ruh-roh.

why uh-oh?

[muntjack]

Schwarber was 27, had hit 38 HRs in his last full season,  and the DH was imminent. Letting him walk was not a good decision.  I was upset then and it still hurts. 

[Soul]

3 hours ago, muntjack said:

Schwarber was 27, had hit 38 HRs in his last full season,  and the DH was imminent. Letting him walk was not a good decision.  I was upset then and it still hurts. 

I’m happy for him though.  Someone interviewed him earlier this year and he said something to the effect of: yeah those Cubs years were fun but it’s really great here as well.  I took that to be a diplomatic way of saying it was really dumb to make me part of that whole mass jettison plan. 

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Any recent free agents that are in any way comparable to him? What's he gonna get on the open market?

[Rcal10]

2 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Any recent free agents that are in any way comparable to him? What's he gonna get on the open market?

He will be 33 before the start of the next season and most likely is strictly a DH. He will get a lot less than Tucker. Maybe not annual, but he isn’t getting that long a contract. Maybe 5/$175M. 

[Rob]

3 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Any recent free agents that are in any way comparable to him? What's he gonna get on the open market?

Too much, probably.

He's coming off a four year, $79 million contract. He's put up 10.8 fWAR during that timeframe. 4.5 of it in this age-32 season, where his ISO is about 50 points higher than it's ever been before. Probably because his HR/FB is about 5 points over his career average.

For reference, Seiya has been worth 10.6 fWAR despite missing a fair amount of time the last four years. In part because he's at least playable in the outfield.

If I'm picking between the two for a 3-5 year contract, I'm picking Seiya. But I'm guessing Schwarber makes more this offseason than Seiya does next offseason.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

I could see Schwarbs having a similar mid/late 30s as Jim Thome did. Could be well worth 5/175.

[Rob]

4 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

I could see Schwarbs having a similar mid/late 30s as Jim Thome did. Could be well worth 5/175.

It's possible, certainly. DHs don't have quite so many nagging injuries. Maybe he stays healthy and keeps mashing.

But if I'm a GM, I'd be incredibly hesitant to go past about 4 years / $100M.

[Stratos]

10 hours ago, muntjack said:

Schwarber was 27, had hit 38 HRs in his last full season,  and the DH was imminent. Letting him walk was not a good decision.  I was upset then and it still hurts. 

He was going to be a free agent at the end of 2021, before the DH came in.  The Cubs struck out far too much and that was a way they tried to solve it, so i kinda get the move.    Someone had to go.  Sucks they got nothing for him though. 

[Stratos]

6 hours ago, Rob said:

It's possible, certainly. DHs don't have quite so many nagging injuries. Maybe he stays healthy and keeps mashing.

But if I'm a GM, I'd be incredibly hesitant to go past about 4 years / $100M.

I wouldn't sign him.  He'll be 33 and getting older and has no positional value.

[Backtobanks]

On 8/29/2025 at 11:03 AM, Stratos said:

Cody Bellinger is going to very soon top the 4.4 WAR he put up with the Cubs in 2023.  In fact he's on pace for around 5 WAR.  Ruh-roh.

The Orioles announced this afternoon that right-hander Cody Poteet has been activated from the 60-day injured list and outrighted to Triple-A Norfolk. The club had not previously announced that Poteet was placed on waivers, but he evidently cleared and now will head to the minor leagues if he accepts the assignment.

[Tryptamine]

It's so fun knowing that a guy who will almost certainly finish his career with 400 HR and has an outside chance at 500 was given away for free. 

[Derwood]

[imb]

On 9/6/2025 at 8:48 AM, Derwood said:

its funny because truly mark prior was ultimately an irrelevant baseball player. But it still pains me to look at him lol

[chopsx9]

2 hours ago, imb said:

its funny because truly mark prior was ultimately an irrelevant baseball player. But it still pains me to look at him lol

He looks like he has lost 60lbs - hadn't noticed that previously.  On Schwarber - some analyst was on the Radio here in Toronto and said he strongly believed the Cubs would NOT be able to resign Tucker and would pivot and sign Schwarber .  FWIW

[chopsx9]

On 8/28/2025 at 10:22 PM, We Got The Whole 9 said:

3rd 4-homer game of the season, holy horsefeathers. 

How many times has a player come up with a chance to hit a 5th?  How do we find that out?

[We Got The Whole 9]

2 hours ago, chopsx9 said:

How many times has a player come up with a chance to hit a 5th?  How do we find that out?

I believe I read that was the first time with Schwarber. 

[soccer10k]

3 hours ago, chopsx9 said:

How many times has a player come up with a chance to hit a 5th?  How do we find that out?

It was the e fourth time a player had a shot at 5 home runs. Mike Cameron actually had 2 chances. He homered twice in the 1st, in the 3rd and 5th before getting hit by a pitch in the 7th and lining out in the 9th.