10/2/18 NL WILD CARD Rockies (Freeland) @ CLERBS (Lester) 7:00 CST ESPN

Sammy Sofa · October 3, 2018

"The Cubs' FO is smarter than everyone else!"

"OK, well, they dropped the ball signing Heyward."

"Well, all of those FO's that they're smarter than wanted to sign him, too!"

imb · October 3, 2018

This is the process vs. results debate again. They weren't pulling a "smartest guys in the room" move -- they were aggressively pursuing a good free agent that other front offices (successful ones, by the way) also thought was a good free agent. This wasn't some market inefficiency/spin rate/4D chess thing: it just didn't work out and it sucks.

the idea is that the cubs guys we expect to be smarter than people like me who were like hell yeah jason heyward! But they weren't, they were in fact dumber because they were the ones who actually gave money to the guy who can't slug more than 375 without a flukey high average.
We have loads of data points that indicate that the Cubs FO is one of the smartest in baseball, yet your argument equates to

you should ask yourself why you're taking my extremely obvious point so personally

bcl412 · October 3, 2018

You pretty much judge front offices over the results of their signings don’t you? You can accept we failed in the Heyward signing while also accepting we built a pretty good team. I kind of think we we’re hoping The just has baseball solved when it doesn’t work that way

ConstableRabbit · October 3, 2018

"The Cubs' FO is smarter than everyone else!"

"OK, well, they dropped the ball signing Heyward."

"Well, all of those FO's that they're smarter than wanted to sign him, too!"

It was actually:

"OMG it was so obvious Heyward was going to suck I can't believe that our supposedly smart FO signed him trying to out-smart themselves"

"Our FO has made a lot of good moves and also weren't unique in wanting to sign Heyward, who was the most coveted FA of the 2015 offseason"

"Signing a guy who ended up being bad is proof that the FO was dumb"

Something can be a good idea at the time and not work out. This isn't something that was hotly debated at the time a la Chatwood.

Hairyducked Idiot · October 3, 2018

"The Cubs' FO is smarter than everyone else!"

"OK, well, they dropped the ball signing Heyward."

"Well, all of those FO's that they're smarter than wanted to sign him, too!"
It was actually:
"OMG it was so obvious Heyward was going to suck I can't believe that our supposedly smart FO signed him trying to out-smart themselves"

"Our FO has made a lot of good moves and also weren't unique in wanting to sign Heyward, who was the most coveted FA of the 2015 offseason"

"Signing a guy who ended up being bad is proof that the FO was dumb"

Something can be a good idea at the time and not work out. This isn't something that was hotly debated at the time a la Chatwood.

It's circular. Our front office is great because they never make bad moves, and they never make bad moves because how bad can it be if a great front office thought it was a good idea?

ConstableRabbit · October 3, 2018

"The Cubs' FO is smarter than everyone else!"

"OK, well, they dropped the ball signing Heyward."

"Well, all of those FO's that they're smarter than wanted to sign him, too!"
It was actually:
"OMG it was so obvious Heyward was going to suck I can't believe that our supposedly smart FO signed him trying to out-smart themselves"

"Our FO has made a lot of good moves and also weren't unique in wanting to sign Heyward, who was the most coveted FA of the 2015 offseason"

"Signing a guy who ended up being bad is proof that the FO was dumb"

Something can be a good idea at the time and not work out. This isn't something that was hotly debated at the time a la Chatwood.

It's circular. Our front office is great because they never make bad moves, and they never make bad moves because how bad can it be if a great front office thought it was a good idea?

It's not just our FO that thought Heyward was good. Everyone thought he was good. If I thought our FO only made good moves I'd be defending the Chatwood or Duensing signings.

It's a different worldview.

Because so much is out of the FO's control, evaluating success based on outcomes (a totality of things inside and outside of FO's control) is less precise than evaluating based on things in the FO's control. Someone who the entire world thought was an awesome FA and was fighting amongst themselves to sign falling flat on his face isn't a great example of "damn the FO is so stupid for signing him."

Bryants Disco Ball · October 3, 2018

there is no way anyone on the cubs roster would interpret anything jon lester did after that performance as being uninterested in the outcome or whatever passan is alluding to. It's either someone else or passan is just making horsefeathers up.

I'm confident Passan isn't making it up, and confident it's not Lester.
I'm confident that I don't give a flying poo if the guy was checking out Billy Williams and his grandkids as Baez was tying the game. It does not matter.

It matters only if it matters to his teammates. If they don't care, then I don't care. If they do care, well, then it matters.

imb · October 3, 2018

"The Cubs' FO is smarter than everyone else!"

"OK, well, they dropped the ball signing Heyward."

"Well, all of those FO's that they're smarter than wanted to sign him, too!"
It was actually:
"OMG it was so obvious Heyward was going to suck I can't believe that our supposedly smart FO signed him trying to out-smart themselves"

"Our FO has made a lot of good moves and also weren't unique in wanting to sign Heyward, who was the most coveted FA of the 2015 offseason"

"Signing a guy who ended up being bad is proof that the FO was dumb"

None of this happened. I mean go read the posts here my dude

Sammy Sofa · October 3, 2018

"The Cubs' FO is smarter than everyone else!"

"OK, well, they dropped the ball signing Heyward."

"Well, all of those FO's that they're smarter than wanted to sign him, too!"
It was actually:
"OMG it was so obvious Heyward was going to suck I can't believe that our supposedly smart FO signed him trying to out-smart themselves"

"Our FO has made a lot of good moves and also weren't unique in wanting to sign Heyward, who was the most coveted FA of the 2015 offseason"

"Signing a guy who ended up being bad is proof that the FO was dumb"

Something can be a good idea at the time and not work out. This isn't something that was hotly debated at the time a la Chatwood.

Nobody is saying anything is proof that they're dumb or a bad FO.

And it looks like it should have been more debated, at least internally by the professionals who ideally know better; again, it wasn't some great secret what kind of health/injury issues he was going to be dealing with, nor that so much of his value was tied up in his defense. They likely thought that they, like a lot of the other teams that wanted him, figured he was still young enough to unlock the flashes of great offense he had shown to that point. It doesn't mean they were dumb; it just means they were willing and able to make the same mistakes as other FO's in that case. In hindsight, I wish they HAD been smarter than everyone else, us included, when it came to Heyward. Instead they weighed the risks and it didn't work out.

ConstableRabbit · October 3, 2018

"The Cubs' FO is smarter than everyone else!"

"OK, well, they dropped the ball signing Heyward."

"Well, all of those FO's that they're smarter than wanted to sign him, too!"
It was actually:
"OMG it was so obvious Heyward was going to suck I can't believe that our supposedly smart FO signed him trying to out-smart themselves"

"Our FO has made a lot of good moves and also weren't unique in wanting to sign Heyward, who was the most coveted FA of the 2015 offseason"

"Signing a guy who ended up being bad is proof that the FO was dumb"

Something can be a good idea at the time and not work out. This isn't something that was hotly debated at the time a la Chatwood.

Nobody is saying anything is proof that they're dumb or a bad FO.

And it looks like it should have been more debated, at least internally by the professionals who ideally know better; again, it wasn't some great secret what kind of health/injury issues he was going to be dealing with, nor that so much of his value was tied up in his defense. They likely thought that they, like a lot of the other teams that wanted him, figured he was still young enough to unlock the flashes of great offense he had shown to that point. It doesn't mean they were dumb; it just means they were willing and able to make the same mistakes as other FO's in that case. In hindsight, I wish they HAD been smarter than everyone else, us included, when it came to Heyward. Instead they weighed the risks and it didn't work out.

I agree with all of this.

IMB! didn't say that they were dumb, but that they tried to be the smartest guys in the room with the signing, which I fundamentally disagree with. They weren't trying to outsmart anyone; they were trying to sign one of the best and mostly highly coveted FAs of the offseason, who ended up being horrible.

imb · October 3, 2018

It was actually:
"OMG it was so obvious Heyward was going to suck I can't believe that our supposedly smart FO signed him trying to out-smart themselves"

"Our FO has made a lot of good moves and also weren't unique in wanting to sign Heyward, who was the most coveted FA of the 2015 offseason"

"Signing a guy who ended up being bad is proof that the FO was dumb"

Something can be a good idea at the time and not work out. This isn't something that was hotly debated at the time a la Chatwood.

Nobody is saying anything is proof that they're dumb or a bad FO.

And it looks like it should have been more debated, at least internally by the professionals who ideally know better; again, it wasn't some great secret what kind of health/injury issues he was going to be dealing with, nor that so much of his value was tied up in his defense. They likely thought that they, like a lot of the other teams that wanted him, figured he was still young enough to unlock the flashes of great offense he had shown to that point. It doesn't mean they were dumb; it just means they were willing and able to make the same mistakes as other FO's in that case. In hindsight, I wish they HAD been smarter than everyone else, us included, when it came to Heyward. Instead they weighed the risks and it didn't work out.
I agree with all of this.

IMB! didn't say that they were dumb, but that they tried to be the smartest guys in the room with the signing, which I fundamentally disagree with. They weren't trying to outsmart anyone; they were trying to sign one of the best and mostly highly coveted FAs of the offseason, who ended up being horrible.

The entire point of having a smart front office is to avoid signing highly coveted FAs who turn out to be horrible.

ConstableRabbit · October 3, 2018

Nobody is saying anything is proof that they're dumb or a bad FO.

And it looks like it should have been more debated, at least internally by the professionals who ideally know better; again, it wasn't some great secret what kind of health/injury issues he was going to be dealing with, nor that so much of his value was tied up in his defense. They likely thought that they, like a lot of the other teams that wanted him, figured he was still young enough to unlock the flashes of great offense he had shown to that point. It doesn't mean they were dumb; it just means they were willing and able to make the same mistakes as other FO's in that case. In hindsight, I wish they HAD been smarter than everyone else, us included, when it came to Heyward. Instead they weighed the risks and it didn't work out.
I agree with all of this.

IMB! didn't say that they were dumb, but that they tried to be the smartest guys in the room with the signing, which I fundamentally disagree with. They weren't trying to outsmart anyone; they were trying to sign one of the best and mostly highly coveted FAs of the offseason, who ended up being horrible.

The entire point of having a smart front office is to avoid signing highly coveted FAs who turn out to be horrible.

Yes, that’s a huge part of it. But the hindsight is 20-20/ends justify the means mentality is a very challenging and misleading standard.

imb · October 3, 2018

I agree with all of this.

IMB! didn't say that they were dumb, but that they tried to be the smartest guys in the room with the signing, which I fundamentally disagree with. They weren't trying to outsmart anyone; they were trying to sign one of the best and mostly highly coveted FAs of the offseason, who ended up being horrible.

The entire point of having a smart front office is to avoid signing highly coveted FAs who turn out to be horrible.
Yes, that’s a huge part of it. But the hindsight is 20-20/ends justify the means mentality is a very challenging and misleading standard.

this is a tough pill for you to swallow for some reason. there were obvious warning signs about heyward that they either ignored or thought they could fix. they were wrong, it got worse, Heyward is now outside the timeframe where you can hope for improvement, and it was a $150 million mistake. that's not "hindsight is 20/20," which happens to be a strong take for a person arguing that you can't criticize a bad signing because if you ignore the bad ones, all their signings happen to be good ones.

TMan92 · October 4, 2018

The FO was very fortunate that pretty much everything they did during the rebuild especially deadline trades and the signing of Lester worked out.

Like all things, it evened out a bit with the Quintana deal, Heyward, and the pitching signings this offseason. That being said, the Darvish deal may still work out but they lost a front year with the knowledge that the back end of that deal may be rough. Chatwood and Duensing were terrible signings and Heyward is a money pit so far.

Morrow was a risk but the money was better than, say, Wade Davis and other closers.

JudasIscariotTheBird · October 4, 2018

the idea is that the cubs guys we expect to be smarter than people like me who were like hell yeah jason heyward! But they weren't, they were in fact dumber because they were the ones who actually gave money to the guy who can't slug more than 375 without a flukey high average.
I would set the over under of baseball GMs that would have expected Heyward's offensive production to decline this much...or even at all, at 3, and they probably also suck as being baseball executives. The question was if Heyward's defense in the OF was worth the pricetag, not that his present hitting numbers were unsustainable.

His offense hasn’t declined.

Are you drunk today or something?

RC+

2010: 134

2011: 96

2012: 121

2013: 120

2014: 109

2015: 121

Signs with the Cubs

2016: 72

2017: 88

2018: 99

imb · October 4, 2018

I would set the over under of baseball GMs that would have expected Heyward's offensive production to decline this much...or even at all, at 3, and they probably also suck as being baseball executives. The question was if Heyward's defense in the OF was worth the pricetag, not that his present hitting numbers were unsustainable.

His offense hasn’t declined.
Are you drunk today or something?
RC+
2010: 134
2011: 96
2012: 121
2013: 120
2014: 109
2015: 121
Signs with the Cubs
2016: 72
2017: 88
2018: 99

yes, the rest of the league adjusted, offense went up, and heyward stayed the same.

ConstableRabbit · October 4, 2018

The entire point of having a smart front office is to avoid signing highly coveted FAs who turn out to be horrible.
Yes, that’s a huge part of it. But the hindsight is 20-20/ends justify the means mentality is a very challenging and misleading standard.

this is a tough pill for you to swallow for some reason. there were obvious warning signs about heyward that they either ignored or thought they could fix. they were wrong, it got worse, Heyward is now outside the timeframe where you can hope for improvement, and it was a $150 million mistake. that's not "hindsight is 20/20," which happens to be a strong take for a person arguing that you can't criticize a bad signing because if you ignore the bad ones, all their signings happen to be good ones.

Ah yes, all of the clear red flags and warning signs that the Cubs and all other teams willfully ignored that you and no one else noticed until he ended up being terrible, after the fact. I’d think it was a failure too if I believed that this FO and others saw serious, fatal flaws in a top FA and lined up to give him $180m+ with opt outs.

I never said you can ignore all of the bad signings. Chatwood was a bad signing. Duensing was a bad signing. There are a lot of factors that go into evaluating a FO’s moves. Saying “wow that sucked and seems obvious now I can’t believe no one on Earth predicted that” or “lolz the Cubs signed him because he hit a big homer against us” is silly.

JudasIscariotTheBird · October 4, 2018

His offense hasn’t declined.
Are you drunk today or something?
RC+
2010: 134
2011: 96
2012: 121
2013: 120
2014: 109
2015: 121
Signs with the Cubs
2016: 72
2017: 88
2018: 99

yes, the rest of the league adjusted, offense went up, and heyward stayed the same.

OPS

2010: 849

2011: 708

2012: 814

2013: 776

2014: 735

2015: 797

2016: 631

2017: 715

2018: 731

imb · October 4, 2018

Yes, that’s a huge part of it. But the hindsight is 20-20/ends justify the means mentality is a very challenging and misleading standard.

this is a tough pill for you to swallow for some reason. there were obvious warning signs about heyward that they either ignored or thought they could fix. they were wrong, it got worse, Heyward is now outside the timeframe where you can hope for improvement, and it was a $150 million mistake. that's not "hindsight is 20/20," which happens to be a strong take for a person arguing that you can't criticize a bad signing because if you ignore the bad ones, all their signings happen to be good ones.
Ah yes, all of the clear red flags and warning signs that the Cubs and all other teams willfully ignored that you and no one else noticed until he ended up being terrible, after the fact. I’d think it was a failure too if I believed that this FO and others saw serious, fatal flaws in a top FA and lined up to give him $180m+ with opt outs.

I never said you can ignore all of the bad signings. Chatwood was a bad signing. Duensing was a bad signing. There are a lot of factors that go into evaluating a FO’s moves. Saying “wow that sucked and seems obvious now I can’t believe no one on Earth predicted that” or “lolz the Cubs signed him because he hit a big homer against us” is silly.

dunno what to tell you man. the shoulder injury was well known and even in his cardinals season he didnt hit for any power. they obviously signed him because he was still young, had a pretty high floor given his defensive capabilities as long as he could be a slightly better than league average signing and they just went out and broke him.

JudasIscariotTheBird · October 4, 2018

The idea that suddenly, all at once, the entire league discovered how to hit at the same time that Heyward signed with the Cubs, and that Heyward is hitting like he always has, is beyond lunacy. Stop it, please.

imb · October 4, 2018

Are you drunk today or something?
RC+
2010: 134
2011: 96
2012: 121
2013: 120
2014: 109
2015: 121
Signs with the Cubs
2016: 72
2017: 88
2018: 99

yes, the rest of the league adjusted, offense went up, and heyward stayed the same.
OPS
2010: 849
2011: 708
2012: 814
2013: 776
2014: 735
2015: 797
2016: 631
2017: 715
2018: 731

that doesnt say what you think it says

JudasIscariotTheBird · October 4, 2018

this is a tough pill for you to swallow for some reason. there were obvious warning signs about heyward that they either ignored or thought they could fix. they were wrong, it got worse, Heyward is now outside the timeframe where you can hope for improvement, and it was a $150 million mistake. that's not "hindsight is 20/20," which happens to be a strong take for a person arguing that you can't criticize a bad signing because if you ignore the bad ones, all their signings happen to be good ones.
Ah yes, all of the clear red flags and warning signs that the Cubs and all other teams willfully ignored that you and no one else noticed until he ended up being terrible, after the fact. I’d think it was a failure too if I believed that this FO and others saw serious, fatal flaws in a top FA and lined up to give him $180m+ with opt outs.

I never said you can ignore all of the bad signings. Chatwood was a bad signing. Duensing was a bad signing. There are a lot of factors that go into evaluating a FO’s moves. Saying “wow that sucked and seems obvious now I can’t believe no one on Earth predicted that” or “lolz the Cubs signed him because he hit a big homer against us” is silly.

dunno what to tell you man. the shoulder injury was well known and even in his cardinals season he didnt hit for any power. they obviously signed him because he was still young, had a pretty high floor given his defensive capabilities as long as he could be a slightly better than league average signing and they just went out and broke him.

...why are you simultaneously arguing the the Cubs broke him, but that he is the same hitter he always was?

JudasIscariotTheBird · October 4, 2018

yes, the rest of the league adjusted, offense went up, and heyward stayed the same.
OPS
2010: 849
2011: 708
2012: 814
2013: 776
2014: 735
2015: 797
2016: 631
2017: 715
2018: 731

that doesnt say what you think it says

It says EXACTLY what it says.

ConstableRabbit · October 4, 2018

this is a tough pill for you to swallow for some reason. there were obvious warning signs about heyward that they either ignored or thought they could fix. they were wrong, it got worse, Heyward is now outside the timeframe where you can hope for improvement, and it was a $150 million mistake. that's not "hindsight is 20/20," which happens to be a strong take for a person arguing that you can't criticize a bad signing because if you ignore the bad ones, all their signings happen to be good ones.
Ah yes, all of the clear red flags and warning signs that the Cubs and all other teams willfully ignored that you and no one else noticed until he ended up being terrible, after the fact. I’d think it was a failure too if I believed that this FO and others saw serious, fatal flaws in a top FA and lined up to give him $180m+ with opt outs.

I never said you can ignore all of the bad signings. Chatwood was a bad signing. Duensing was a bad signing. There are a lot of factors that go into evaluating a FO’s moves. Saying “wow that sucked and seems obvious now I can’t believe no one on Earth predicted that” or “lolz the Cubs signed him because he hit a big homer against us” is silly.

dunno what to tell you man. the shoulder injury was well known and even in his cardinals season he didnt hit for any power. they obviously signed him because he was still young, had a pretty high floor given his defensive capabilities as long as he could be a slightly better than league average signing and they just went out and broke him.

I don’t know what you should tell me either, but “I couldn’t predict it and neither could anyone else but this FO should have” isn’t it.

imb · October 4, 2018

2013 NL team OPS - .703

2014 NL team OPS - .694

2015 NL team OPS - .713

2016 NL team OPS - .734

2017 NL team OPS - .748

2017 NL team OPS - .721

Offense went up (the ball/launch angle revolution) but Heyward stayed the same, keeping his OPS in the same range it was post shoulder injury (outside of the 2016 season when he was completely mentally broken) but dragging down stats like OPS+ or wrc+

10/2/18 NL WILD CARD Rockies (Freeland) @ CLERBS (Lester) 7:00 CST ESPN

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