Cubs sign Jason Adam

[UMFan83]

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Could it be? A major league contract?

[Cubswin11]

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[Cubswin11]

He’s 28 and was non rendered in December, I’d assume this is a minor league deal.

[WrigleyField 22]

The Ricketts are a bunch of cheap dingusses. I’d assume this is a minor league deal.

FTFY

[Post Count Padder]

He posted very good numbers in AAA the last two seasons and throws hard.

 

At the same time, the Blue Jays let him go when their pen consists of any cheap arm that can reach the mound. And you can't trust someone with two first names.

 

Also, he was apparently once traded for bitter-end-of-his-career Josh Willingham.

[Cubswin11]

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[Derwood]

lol, still no major league deals

[Cubswin11]

Minor league/major league contract jokes aside, we are going to have a solid bullpen this year with the way we’ve gone about building it. It may take until Memorial Day or so to sort it out, but there’s a solid bullpen in all these options to be figured out. Edited January 15, 2020 by Cubswin11

[d_money]

Above average spin rate

[Backtobanks]

Minor league/major league contract jokes aside, we are going to have a solid bullpen this year with the way we’ve gone about building it. It may take until Memorial Day or so to sort it out, but there’s a solid bullpen in all these options to be figured out.

 

Quantity instead of quality doesn't necessarily translate into a solid bullpen.

[minnesotacubsfan]

Quantity is a quality

[Tim]

Minor league/major league contract jokes aside, we are going to have a solid bullpen this year with the way we’ve gone about building it. It may take until Memorial Day or so to sort it out, but there’s a solid bullpen in all these options to be figured out.

 

Quantity instead of quality doesn't necessarily translate into a solid bullpen.

How do you know that it is "instead of"?

[squally1313]

There is definitely enough depth and talent to put together a pretty effective 600-700 innings, it's just going to come down to how good Ross/Theo/etc is at putting the right guys in the right spots. Not really something I would trust Maddon with...we'll see how it goes for this year.

[The_Achiever]

I feel pretty decent about the pen next year. I would be pretty fired up about this team in general had they signed a good leadoff/CF option and/or someone good to take Hamels spot on the rotation.

[Backtobanks]

Minor league/major league contract jokes aside, we are going to have a solid bullpen this year with the way we’ve gone about building it. It may take until Memorial Day or so to sort it out, but there’s a solid bullpen in all these options to be figured out.

 

Quantity instead of quality doesn't necessarily translate into a solid bullpen.

How do you know that it is "instead of"?

 

Well we certainly have the "quantity" part covered, but the "quality" part has yet to be proven. Signing a bunch of castoffs from other teams doesn't bode well for optimism, but we might get lucky with 1 or 2.

[Tim]

 

Quantity instead of quality doesn't necessarily translate into a solid bullpen.

How do you know that it is "instead of"?

 

Well we certainly have the "quantity" part covered, but the "quality" part has yet to be proven. Signing a bunch of castoffs from other teams doesn't bode well for optimism, but we might get lucky with 1 or 2.

Well, we signed a big money reliever last year that has a no doubt HOF resume in progress. How did that work out?

 

There is (almost) no such thing as a sure thing in the bullpen. Anyone with a long enough record of success to give you warm and fuzzy feelings is probably about due for serious regression and/or a randomly horrible season.

[Backtobanks]

How do you know that it is "instead of"?

 

Well we certainly have the "quantity" part covered, but the "quality" part has yet to be proven. Signing a bunch of castoffs from other teams doesn't bode well for optimism, but we might get lucky with 1 or 2.

Well, we signed a big money reliever last year that has a no doubt HOF resume in progress. How did that work out?

 

There is (almost) no such thing as a sure thing in the bullpen. Anyone with a long enough record of success to give you warm and fuzzy feelings is probably about due for serious regression and/or a randomly horrible season.

 

You're right about there being very few "sure things" when it comes to the bullpen, but taking castoffs from teams that need relief pitching too might not work out either. Like I said, hopefully we'll get lucky, but that Iowa shuttle will be busy this year.

[Cubswin11]

 

Well we certainly have the "quantity" part covered, but the "quality" part has yet to be proven. Signing a bunch of castoffs from other teams doesn't bode well for optimism, but we might get lucky with 1 or 2.

Well, we signed a big money reliever last year that has a no doubt HOF resume in progress. How did that work out?

 

There is (almost) no such thing as a sure thing in the bullpen. Anyone with a long enough record of success to give you warm and fuzzy feelings is probably about due for serious regression and/or a randomly horrible season.

 

You're right about there being very few "sure things" when it comes to the bullpen, but taking castoffs from teams that need relief pitching too might not work out either. Like I said, hopefully we'll get lucky, but that Iowa shuttle will be busy this year.

They did it last year with Ryan, Wick and Wieck. I have faith they can figure it out with another 1-3 guys this year given the quantity and more flexibility the bullpen options have vs last year (almost all have minor league options left so they can get aggressive with shuffling through).

[Backtobanks]

There is definitely enough depth and talent to put together a pretty effective 600-700 innings, it's just going to come down to how good Ross/Theo/etc is at putting the right guys in the right spots. Not really something I would trust Maddon with...we'll see how it goes for this year.

 

Somebody will really have to step up with the loss of Chisek (64 innings), Kintzler (57 innings), Strop (41 innings), and Brach (39 innings).

[sneakypower]

did you include Brad Brach there to be funny

[Cubswin11]

There is definitely enough depth and talent to put together a pretty effective 600-700 innings, it's just going to come down to how good Ross/Theo/etc is at putting the right guys in the right spots. Not really something I would trust Maddon with...we'll see how it goes for this year.

 

Somebody will really have to step up with the loss of Chisek (64 innings), Kintzler (57 innings), Strop (41 innings), and Brach (39 innings).

Everyone of those pitchers had xFIPs over 4, only Kintzler had a FIP under 4 (and we know he’s BABIP dependent/volatile), Brach and Strop has ERAs closer to 5 than 4. Other than yeah that’s a lot of innings to cover with new guys there isn’t a lot of talent to make up for. Especially if Kimbrel is 80-90% of his normal self and at least 1-2 of Ryan, Wick and Wieck prove to be decent to good again. You’re just looking for your secondary bullpen pieces at that point if that happens.

[Deeg]

Well, we signed a big money reliever last year that has a no doubt HOF resume in progress. How did that work out?

 

There is (almost) no such thing as a sure thing in the bullpen. Anyone with a long enough record of success to give you warm and fuzzy feelings is probably about due for serious regression and/or a randomly horrible season.

 

You're right about there being very few "sure things" when it comes to the bullpen, but taking castoffs from teams that need relief pitching too might not work out either. Like I said, hopefully we'll get lucky, but that Iowa shuttle will be busy this year.

They did it last year with Ryan, Wick and Wieck. I have faith they can figure it out with another 1-3 guys this year given the quantity and more flexibility the bullpen options have vs last year (almost all have minor league options left so they can get aggressive with shuffling through).

 

You were happy with the bullpen last year?

 

There's nothing wrong with stockpiling LIAB guys with options in the hope that a couple of them will come through like Wick. It's when you're depending on them to be the staple guys in the pen that you're inviting disaster. And counting on a guy like Wick to be able to sustain his success - as much as I like him - is a big gamble in itself.

 

As for Ryan and Wieck, the former wasn't actually all that great and the latter was far too small a sample size to draw any conclusions about.

[Cubswin11]

 

You're right about there being very few "sure things" when it comes to the bullpen, but taking castoffs from teams that need relief pitching too might not work out either. Like I said, hopefully we'll get lucky, but that Iowa shuttle will be busy this year.

They did it last year with Ryan, Wick and Wieck. I have faith they can figure it out with another 1-3 guys this year given the quantity and more flexibility the bullpen options have vs last year (almost all have minor league options left so they can get aggressive with shuffling through).

 

You were happy with the bullpen last year?

 

There's nothing wrong with stockpiling LIAB guys with options in the hope that a couple of them will come through like Wick. It's when you're depending on them to be the staple guys in the pen that you're inviting disaster. And counting on a guy like Wick to be able to sustain his success - as much as I like him - is a big gamble in itself.

 

As for Ryan and Wieck, the former wasn't actually all that great and the latter was far too small a sample size to draw any conclusions about.

Sure it's a gamble and inviting disaster to a degree, but so is signing vets and depending on them like Brach, Carl, Duensing, etc of years past. Of course I wasn't happy with it but the point was they were able to take unknowns and find something with 3 guys, I have faith they can do it again. My biggest gripe with the pen last year was they weren't aggressive with getting guys up sooner because they were stuck with bad vets without options. Wick should've been up much sooner. Joe also seemed to make the wrong mistakes often (no entirely his fault given the talent wasn't great but he managed the pen poorly).

 

How wasn't Ryan all that great? ERA/FIP in the 3s, good GB rate (13th best GB rate of all qualified RPs), limited HR's, good enough K numbers, BB were a bit high but he's been better in that area before, he was really good vs lefties and adequate enough vs RHB to be able to face 1-2 in an outing with the new 3 batter rule. He also changed up his pitch mix a bit from previous years (more cutters and curves and cut back FB usage and essentially stopped throwing his change). As a guy who projects to be the 3rd to 6th best RP (depending on how things shake out) I think he's plenty solid. Wieck obviously was a small sample but the eye test and numbers say he was really good, again also changed his pitch mix once he came over.

[Backtobanks]

They did it last year with Ryan, Wick and Wieck. I have faith they can figure it out with another 1-3 guys this year given the quantity and more flexibility the bullpen options have vs last year (almost all have minor league options left so they can get aggressive with shuffling through).

 

You were happy with the bullpen last year?

 

There's nothing wrong with stockpiling LIAB guys with options in the hope that a couple of them will come through like Wick. It's when you're depending on them to be the staple guys in the pen that you're inviting disaster. And counting on a guy like Wick to be able to sustain his success - as much as I like him - is a big gamble in itself.

 

As for Ryan and Wieck, the former wasn't actually all that great and the latter was far too small a sample size to draw any conclusions about.

Sure it's a gamble and inviting disaster to a degree, but so is signing vets and depending on them like Brach, Carl, Duensing, etc of years past. Of course I wasn't happy with it but the point was they were able to take unknowns and find something with 3 guys, I have faith they can do it again. My biggest gripe with the pen last year was they weren't aggressive with getting guys up sooner because they were stuck with bad vets without options. Wick should've been up much sooner. Joe also seemed to make the wrong mistakes often (no entirely his fault given the talent wasn't great but he managed the pen poorly).

 

How wasn't Ryan all that great? ERA/FIP in the 3s, good GB rate (13th best GB rate of all qualified RPs), limited HR's, good enough K numbers, BB were a bit high but he's been better in that area before, he was really good vs lefties and adequate enough vs RHB to be able to face 1-2 in an outing with the new 3 batter rule. He also changed up his pitch mix a bit from previous years (more cutters and curves and cut back FB usage and essentially stopped throwing his change). As a guy who projects to be the 3rd to 6th best RP (depending on how things shake out) I think he's plenty solid. Wieck obviously was a small sample but the eye test and numbers say he was really good, again also changed his pitch mix once he came over.

 

The difference is that with vets you have some level of expectation when being brought in. You don't know what to expect when bringing in untested, young pitchers. As you said, it's great if you discover one, but the risk is high if you're a contending team. Of course, we didn't have any choice with PTR crying about the LT.

[sneakypower]

i can't get worked up about the pen; last winter i wanted us to pursue Andrew Miller/Joe Kelly/Kimbrel and they all sucked

 

so i let Theo sort it out and if it sucks judge Theo harshly for it