Do you think Harper will sign with the Cubs this offseason?

[Sammy Sofa]

Pretty simple question: do you think that at this point that the Cubs are likely to sign Harper for the 2019 season?

 

Me, I shifted into the acceptance stage of figuring it's not going to happen, and I would be pretty damn surprised at this point if it did.

[Banedon]

I said yes. Although my confidence level is definitely much lower than it was.

 

I'm choosing to believe that the reason the Cubs have to "clear money to afford even Adam Warren" is because they have Harper money earmarked.

 

Basically I'm doing whatever I can to convince myself.

[Derwood]

Back in September, I would have been shocked if he signed anywhere but Chicago. I did not see the front office taking this giant heel-turn

[Ding Dong Johnson]

no way jose gif

[Brian]

I can't convince myself that any of these teams are going to sign him

[NOLA]

Yes. I cannot believe that Theo would go all in Yu, Chatwood and Hamels if it meant he'd miss out on Harper.

[UMFan83]

Yes. I cannot believe that Theo would go all in Yu, Chatwood and Hamels if it meant he'd miss out on Harper.

 

The only real arguments I can think of against this are:

 

1) Something changed with how much payroll the Ricketts were willing to give Theo between the time he signed Yu and now

2) Something changed regarding the FO's view of signing Harper (not that I agree just throwing it out there).

[jersey cubs fan]

Yes. I cannot believe that Theo would go all in Yu, Chatwood and Hamels if it meant he'd miss out on Harper.

 

The only real arguments I can think of against this are:

 

1) Something changed with how much payroll the Ricketts were willing to give Theo between the time he signed Yu and now

2) Something changed regarding the FO's view of signing Harper (not that I agree just throwing it out there).

I blame the democrats sweeping win in november destroying the animal spirits of the ricketts family

[javy knows my name]

Yes. I cannot believe that Theo would go all in Yu, Chatwood and Hamels if it meant he'd miss out on Harper.

 

The only real arguments I can think of against this are:

 

1) Something changed with how much payroll the Ricketts were willing to give Theo between the time he signed Yu and now.

 

If we don't sign him, I believe it's because Theo is in the doghouse for his recent bad signings (Yu, Hey, Chatwood) and is being tasked to fix one or multiple before being allowed to hand Harper 400 mil. Does it make sense that this would be something that changed between re-signing Hamels and now? No, but it's the best thing I can come up with

[Sammy Sofa]

Yes. I cannot believe that Theo would go all in Yu, Chatwood and Hamels if it meant he'd miss out on Harper.

 

The only real arguments I can think of against this are:

 

1) Something changed with how much payroll the Ricketts were willing to give Theo between the time he signed Yu and now.

 

If we don't sign him, I believe it's because Theo is in the doghouse for his recent bad signings (Yu, Hey, Chatwood) and is being tasked to fix one or multiple before being allowed to hand Harper 400 mil. Does it make sense that this would be something that changed between re-signing Hamels and now? No, but it's the best thing I can come up with

 

That's along the lines of what I'm thinking, too. And it just makes me hate the Ricketts even more. If they can't see the difference before overpaying for those guys and paying big for someone like Harper (or Machado)...[expletive], do they suck.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Yes. I cannot believe that Theo would go all in Yu, Chatwood and Hamels if it meant he'd miss out on Harper.

 

The only real arguments I can think of against this are:

 

1) Something changed with how much payroll the Ricketts were willing to give Theo between the time he signed Yu and now

2) Something changed regarding the FO's view of signing Harper (not that I agree just throwing it out there).

 

3) Epstein has a long history of flailing on free-agent pitching and just screwed up

[Sammy Sofa]

And I seethe over the prospective idea of the FO being shy about trading away their guys to dump these big contracts. If you could, hypothetically, shed yourself of Heyward's money by shipping off Schwarber and Happ with him, then horsefeathering do it. If getting a team to eat Chatwood's bum deal means giving them your best pitching prospect, THEN horsefeathering DO IT. If the end result of having to overpay for a salary dump trade means you can sign Harper or Machado, THEN horsefeathering DO IT ALREADY.

[SouthSideRyan]

Yes. I cannot believe that Theo would go all in Yu, Chatwood and Hamels if it meant he'd miss out on Harper.

 

The only real arguments I can think of against this are:

 

1) Something changed with how much payroll the Ricketts were willing to give Theo between the time he signed Yu and now

 

Does this sound familiar to anybody else? I feel like some offseason there was thought of us having all this money to spend and then all a sudden we were broke because of X(renovations?)

[Brian]

Yes. I cannot believe that Theo would go all in Yu, Chatwood and Hamels if it meant he'd miss out on Harper.

 

The only real arguments I can think of against this are:

 

1) Something changed with how much payroll the Ricketts were willing to give Theo between the time he signed Yu and now

 

Does this sound familiar to anybody else? I feel like some offseason there was thought of us having all this money to spend and then all a sudden we were broke because of X(renovations?)

 

Are you thinking of the Tanaka money that was not spent that off-season but 'saved for later' after they didn't get him?

[Sammy Sofa]

Wasn't it basically variations of that during the tank years? Blaming the debt or the plans for renovation/construction or how the city won't kick in...

[Bull]

 

The only real arguments I can think of against this are:

 

1) Something changed with how much payroll the Ricketts were willing to give Theo between the time he signed Yu and now

 

Does this sound familiar to anybody else? I feel like some offseason there was thought of us having all this money to spend and then all a sudden we were broke because of X(renovations?)

 

Are you thinking of the Tanaka money that was not spent that off-season but 'saved for later' after they didn't get him?

 

I remember a quote about signing "two offeseason's worth" of free agents. I can't remember what year that was though.

[UMFan83]

 

Does this sound familiar to anybody else? I feel like some offseason there was thought of us having all this money to spend and then all a sudden we were broke because of X(renovations?)

 

Are you thinking of the Tanaka money that was not spent that off-season but 'saved for later' after they didn't get him?

 

I remember a quote about signing "two offeseason's worth" of free agents. I can't remember what year that was though.

 

believe that was the 2015-2016 offseason

[Bertz]

And I seethe over the prospective idea of the FO being shy about trading away their guys to dump these big contracts. If you could, hypothetically, shed yourself of Heyward's money by shipping off Schwarber and Happ with him, then horsefeathering do it. If getting a team to eat Chatwood's bum deal means giving them your best pitching prospect, THEN horsefeathering DO IT. If the end result of having to overpay for a salary dump trade means you can sign Harper or Machado, THEN horsefeathering DO IT ALREADY.

 

I think the idea here would be that those trades might either look different or not make sense at all depending on what Bryce chooses to do. For example, they might want to use prospects to dump Chatwood if they're getting Bryce, but prefer the fabled Chatwood/Russell Martin swap if they miss out on him.

 

As for the poll question, I don't think they will get him, but I do think they're in on him and we will find out after the fact that they were all along. Basically I see Bryce getting his $400m, and we will find out after the fact that the Cubs offered like $350m. I think this "we're poor" stuff is some combination of a dumbass leverage nonsense around their salary dumps and the team not wanting to commit to having $30m available to spend in the event they do miss on Bryce.

[imb]

hell no

[Gilby]

I'd lean no if I had to guess, but I think we're very much in it. For me, since the Yu signing last off-season, I kinda figured some money would need to be moved around to make Harper work. Now, I didn't expect the reports to be so dire, but I think a lot of people overestimate the difficulty in clearing some of this payroll. As Bertz has said, some of those moves wouldn't make sense without Bryce, so everything is on hold.

[Sammy Sofa]

but I think a lot of people overestimate the difficulty in clearing some of this payroll.

 

I disagree; I think you'd struggle to find anyone here who truly thinks the Cubs should be able to just pawn off contracts like Heyward's or Chatwood's to another team with little difficulty. I think it's mostly frustration with the idea that the FO maybe isn't willing to dish out the additional pieces needed to get a team to be willing to pick up those deals (or send back a smaller bad contract), and, mostly, the general idea that the Cubs are seemingly acting like the bad contracts have them essentially at a point where they have no choice but to start looking for change in the couch.

[biittner77]

I'd lean no if I had to guess, but I think we're very much in it. For me, since the Yu signing last off-season, I kinda figured some money would need to be moved around to make Harper work. Now, I didn't expect the reports to be so dire, but I think a lot of people overestimate the difficulty in clearing some of this payroll. As Bertz has said, some of those moves wouldn't make sense without Bryce, so everything is on hold.

 

I think the Darvish signing has weighed heavily on their minds and made them more hesitant to spend the money even though they could easily afford it. Perhaps they are still a little worried about letting Theo sign another high dollar player. So they want a mutual option about 4 years in but Harper wants that to be his option only and that's the sticking point. Harper will get paid and it will be by the Cubs and we'll all live happily ever after.

 

If saying it would only make it so.