So...Now What?

[17 Seconds]

For Hosmer, he’s got 4 years left at $18M AAV $72M remaining for ages 32-35

 

For Rizzo, he starts 2022 at 32.

 

Rizzo has more power and looks to have overall better historical numbers. Why not just re-sign Rizzo to a similar deal?

 

the idea is to take on hosmer's awful contract with one of their good prospects included. nobody actually wants hosmer.

[Tim]

For Hosmer, he’s got 4 years left at $18M AAV $72M remaining for ages 32-35

 

For Rizzo, he starts 2022 at 32.

 

Rizzo has more power and looks to have overall better historical numbers. Why not just re-sign Rizzo to a similar deal?

Presumably Hosmer comes with Hassell in his deal.

[d_money]

For Hosmer, he’s got 4 years left at $18M AAV $72M remaining for ages 32-35

 

For Rizzo, he starts 2022 at 32.

 

Rizzo has more power and looks to have overall better historical numbers. Why not just re-sign Rizzo to a similar deal?

Presumably Hosmer comes with Hassell in his deal.

Gotcha

[Cubswin11]

For Hosmer, he’s got 4 years left at $18M AAV $72M remaining for ages 32-35

 

For Rizzo, he starts 2022 at 32.

 

Rizzo has more power and looks to have overall better historical numbers. Why not just re-sign Rizzo to a similar deal?

You’re getting a significant prospect(s) with taking Hosmer back and also maybe getting the Padres to pay it down a bit. He also only has $59 million left over the next 4 years starting in 2022. $20 mil next year and $13 a year the 3 years after. I horsefeathering hate Hosmer and think his game sucks but I’m still doing a Hosmer + prospect(s) deal with $59 mil contact at most over bringing Rizzo back at more money.

[d_money]

For Hosmer, he’s got 4 years left at $18M AAV $72M remaining for ages 32-35

 

For Rizzo, he starts 2022 at 32.

 

Rizzo has more power and looks to have overall better historical numbers. Why not just re-sign Rizzo to a similar deal?

You’re getting a significant prospect(s) with taking Hosmer back and also maybe getting the Padres to pay it down a bit. He also only has $59 million left over the next 4 years starting in 2022. $20 mil next year and $13 a year the 3 years after. I horsefeathering hate Hosmer and think his game sucks but I’m still doing a Hosmer + prospect(s) deal with $59 mil contact at most over bringing Rizzo back at more money.

In this scenario, sign me up. With the financial flexibility the Cubs will have, the Padres won’t have to pay anything as long as the level of prospects increases

[CubinNY]

The last time the Cubs tanked I at least believed brighter days were ahead for the organization. I don't really think that way now.

[jersey cubs fan]

The last time the Cubs tanked I at least believed brighter days were ahead for the organization. I don't really think that way now.

There's little doubt that better days are ahead. What I do doubt is they will ever try for sustained success. They'll be happy to take 4-5 year swings and restart.

[Bearded_Beef]

The last time the Cubs tanked I at least believed brighter days were ahead for the organization. I don't really think that way now.

There's little doubt that better days are ahead. What I do doubt is they will ever try for sustained success. They'll be happy to take 4-5 year swings and restart.

 

Is that not true for every team? With the possible exception of the Dodgers, I don't think many teams are consistently sustaining success. Dodgers are a bit of an outlier with their ownership and TV deal

[UMFan83]

The last time the Cubs tanked I at least believed brighter days were ahead for the organization. I don't really think that way now.

There's little doubt that better days are ahead. What I do doubt is they will ever try for sustained success. They'll be happy to take 4-5 year swings and restart.

 

Is that not true for every team? With the possible exception of the Dodgers, I don't think many teams are consistently sustaining success. Dodgers are a bit of an outlier with their ownership and TV deal

 

Not many big market teams trade all of their biggest stars and reboot. The Yankees and Red Sox have had their share of struggles but neither has undertaken a full gut and rebuild of their teams. The Astros blossomed a year before us and are still among the best teams in baseball. In my mind it all comes down to strong farm and development for sustained success. If you can't figure that out your stars eventually get old or overpaid and there's no one to replace them. It's not even about trading chips anymore either as teams horde their top guys more and more. The Cubs failed to practice the dual fronts approach that they preached, and were not drafting/developing well enough to avoid what happened 2 weeks ago.

[stitchface]

There's little doubt that better days are ahead. What I do doubt is they will ever try for sustained success. They'll be happy to take 4-5 year swings and restart.

 

Is that not true for every team? With the possible exception of the Dodgers, I don't think many teams are consistently sustaining success. Dodgers are a bit of an outlier with their ownership and TV deal

 

Not many big market teams trade all of their biggest stars and reboot. The Yankees and Red Sox have had their share of struggles but neither has undertaken a full gut and rebuild of their teams. The Astros blossomed a year before us and are still among the best teams in baseball. In my mind it all comes down to strong farm and development for sustained success. If you can't figure that out your stars eventually get old or overpaid and there's no one to replace them. It's not even about trading chips anymore either as teams horde their top guys more and more. The Cubs failed to practice the dual fronts approach that they preached, and were not drafting/developing well enough to avoid what happened 2 weeks ago.

 

Theo succeeded in winning the WS but failed in building a consistently good team. Some bad luck with the regression but ultimately a failure. Teams like Oakland and Tampa Bay are consistently good without full rebuilds and basically no resources. The cubs are very poorly managed.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Not many big market teams trade all of their biggest stars and reboot. The Yankees and Red Sox have had their share of struggles but neither has undertaken a full gut and rebuild of their teams. The Astros blossomed a year before us and are still among the best teams in baseball. In my mind it all comes down to strong farm and development for sustained success. If you can't figure that out your stars eventually get old or overpaid and there's no one to replace them. It's not even about trading chips anymore either as teams horde their top guys more and more. The Cubs failed to practice the dual fronts approach that they preached, and were not drafting/developing well enough to avoid what happened 2 weeks ago.

 

Not many teams have all their biggest stars FA line up either, which is partially a function of the org's starting point when Theo took over, partially a tribute to the core's sustained success(how many championship teams have 3 stars who you still want to keep 5 years later?), partially an indictment of the FO not extending any of them, and partially happenstance.

[Cubswin11]

 

Is that not true for every team? With the possible exception of the Dodgers, I don't think many teams are consistently sustaining success. Dodgers are a bit of an outlier with their ownership and TV deal

 

Not many big market teams trade all of their biggest stars and reboot. The Yankees and Red Sox have had their share of struggles but neither has undertaken a full gut and rebuild of their teams. The Astros blossomed a year before us and are still among the best teams in baseball. In my mind it all comes down to strong farm and development for sustained success. If you can't figure that out your stars eventually get old or overpaid and there's no one to replace them. It's not even about trading chips anymore either as teams horde their top guys more and more. The Cubs failed to practice the dual fronts approach that they preached, and were not drafting/developing well enough to avoid what happened 2 weeks ago.

 

Theo succeeded in winning the WS but failed in building a consistently good team. Some bad luck with the regression but ultimately a failure. Teams like Oakland and Tampa Bay are consistently good without full rebuilds and basically no resources. The cubs are very poorly managed.

The As have as many sub 80 win seasons (3,including two sub 70 win seasons) since 2015 as they have seasons over 80 wins. The Rays have 4, 80 win or less seasons since 2014. The Red Sox had a few seasons of wins in the 60s and 70s in the 2010s as well including trading Mookie horsefeathering Betts.

[Bearded_Beef]

 

Not many big market teams trade all of their biggest stars and reboot. The Yankees and Red Sox have had their share of struggles but neither has undertaken a full gut and rebuild of their teams. The Astros blossomed a year before us and are still among the best teams in baseball. In my mind it all comes down to strong farm and development for sustained success. If you can't figure that out your stars eventually get old or overpaid and there's no one to replace them. It's not even about trading chips anymore either as teams horde their top guys more and more. The Cubs failed to practice the dual fronts approach that they preached, and were not drafting/developing well enough to avoid what happened 2 weeks ago.

 

I'd argue that all 3 of those teams did some kind of rebuild to get where they are. The Astros are cheaters who've lucked out in a lot of ways and honestly, I think a retool is likely to come up for them soon too. The only real way to sustained success is through good drafting, farm system developing, signing stars long term, spending a boat load of money and pure unadulterated luck. I'd also argue that spending boat loads of cash is by far the most certain path to sustained success.

 

The Ricketts are simply not the Guggenheim group and hoping they get everything else right is a utopian pipe dream. The dream of sustained success died when no one signed long term and we failed to develop pitchers, or any other players who would out produce their cost.

 

As a side note, I greatly prefer the 4-6 year window plan over the Tribune days of false hope and half assed team building. Of course, I'd also prefer sustained success, but I also want world peace, a bunch of money and honest politicians.

[WrigleyField 22]

My assumption is we're in for another true tank. If reality is somehow immediately going hard to compete again in 2022, I could actually live with the occassional mid-year tank sell off every 4-5 years. Kimbrell and Chaffin were the only non-rentals they sold off right?

 

If it's a one year tank... Lame. If it's a multi year tank, im done with em.

[muntjack]

I'd really prefer to see them concentrate on the rotation. If it were me, I'd go the trade route to target younger SPs but I imagine that isn't in the cards for this winter.

 

Here's what we have in house that I would start the season with next year. If Jed didn't touch the offense and instead went hard after Rodon and say, Stroman, this team would compete in the Central.

 

Let Amaya take over the backup C role by May, bring up Brennan and look to add at the deadline if they're in it.

 

For the starting lineup I put their age and wOBA (Rivas and Hermosillo AAA (why tf is Hermosillo not in the lineup yesterday) )

 

1B- Rivas 24/.376

2B-Madrigal 24/.336

SS-Hoerner 24/.341

3B- Wisdom 29/.378

C-Contreras 29/.329

LF-Ortega 30/.385

RF-Hermosillo 26/.456

CF-Happ 27/.273

 

Alcantara

Heyward

Deichmann

Bote

 

Rodon

Stroman

Hendricks

Alzolay

Mills

 

Steele/Thompson

 

 

 

Rucker

Heuer

Winkler

Roberts

Wick

Brothers

[Bertz]

Yeah, the Dodgers are the platonic ideal, the Yankees dipped around 2015/2016 but not particularly hard, and then I'm not sure there's anyone else we should be looking at longingly in this regard.

[jersey cubs fan]

The Red Sox had a few seasons of wins in the 60s and 70s in the 2010s as well including trading Mookie horsefeathering Betts.

 

Are we really questioning the bonafides of Boston's qualification of sustained success?

[Bearded_Beef]

Is that not true for every team?

 

Yankees, Red Sox, Braves, Brewers, Giants, Royals, Cleveland, St. Louis

 

Literally all of those teams except for the crappy ones. Yes. All of them.

[UMFan83]

 

Not many big market teams trade all of their biggest stars and reboot. The Yankees and Red Sox have had their share of struggles but neither has undertaken a full gut and rebuild of their teams. The Astros blossomed a year before us and are still among the best teams in baseball. In my mind it all comes down to strong farm and development for sustained success. If you can't figure that out your stars eventually get old or overpaid and there's no one to replace them. It's not even about trading chips anymore either as teams horde their top guys more and more. The Cubs failed to practice the dual fronts approach that they preached, and were not drafting/developing well enough to avoid what happened 2 weeks ago.

 

I'd argue that all 3 of those teams did some kind of rebuild to get where they are.

 

Which period during the Yankees 28 year streak of finishing over .500 were they rebuilding? Yes there were some years where they clearly werent as dominant, and there was at least 1 year where they were sellers at the deadline but that will happen to everyone but the Dodgers. They retooled yet but never rebuilt.

 

The Red Sox have had some down years so I partially retract because with the Cubs we're hoping for a 2 year playoff drought (21 and 22) and then back to relevancy (could definitely be longer but that's what everyone seems to be hoping). They have made big selling trades but always seem to spring back up after 1-2 years. So maybe the Cubs are more of their model. But they've only had 2 years since the early 90s where they've been truly a bad team like the Cubs are right now and will possibly be next year. Not saying that winning 78 games is any sort of big success but its not the depths the Cubs dealt with between 2010-2014 or what we have now. The avoidance of having a truly terrible pointless baseball team is the lowest bar to clear when you are gauging sustained success.

Edited August 12, 2021 by UMFan83

[Sammy Sofa]

Is that not true for every team?

 

Nope. When's the last time you heard of the Yankees, Red Sox, Braves, Brewers, Giants, Royals, Cleveland, St. Louis, etc successfully pitch (twice in a decade!) to their fanbase that actually losing is the path to winning? Even the Rays moved past that stuff in the 2000s. The Giants are still trying to win a WS this year with multiple players from their early 2010s championship teams!

 

The Cubs are maybe the most uniquely placed franchise in the sport. They're a big market team with one of the larger international fanbases in the sport but were able to spend a century running to the bank promising next year. Now twice beyond that century have been able to at least set the mental clock of the fanbase to 5 years plus everybody kinda hates the players from the 2016 team now. It's obviously insane but also wildly successful seeing as the franchise is probably worth closer to 10x what it was bought for than not by now

 

Well, horsefeathers. Look at this great post.

[Cubswin11]

The Red Sox had a few seasons of wins in the 60s and 70s in the 2010s as well including trading Mookie horsefeathering Betts.

 

Are we really questioning the bonafides of Boston's qualification of sustained success?

All these teams that are alleged pillars for sustained success literally have 60-70 win seasons within the last few years was my point. They’ve all had down/selling years. I know we’re all pissed at the Cubs and where they are now but the spot they’re in isn’t unique. They very well could be back to a 80-90 win team next year with the flexibility they have and have a pretty damn good prospect foundation, much like the teams referenced who have had down years in the past few years matched with success.

 

By all accounts the returns on the trades we made were very good and the system was already trending up. I’ll wait until the offseason to see what kind of spending/trades they make to pass judgment on if they really are going full tank again or maintaining some kind of success/competitiveness. They have close to $100 mil to spend on the cheap side if they’re trying at all and still able to run a lower payroll than they have in a long time.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Cubswin11

[UMFan83]

Yeah, the Dodgers are the platonic ideal, the Yankees dipped around 2015/2016 but not particularly hard, and then I'm not sure there's anyone else we should be looking at longingly in this regard.

 

And there's a reason we're talking about the dominant LA and NY teams and Boston. They are big market clubs with every resource and advantage at their disposal that 85% of baseball does not have. The Cubs are the dominant big market team in Chicago and we've had to make player acquisition decisions based on things like how long Zobrist is going to be dealing with that thing with his wife? and when fans can attend games again?

 

Does being a dominant big market team guarantee near consistent success? No. But it should be the aim of a team like the Cubs, and fans should have that expectation.

 

Maybe it's a little unfair to put group Chicago in with New York whose metro population is more than double Chicago's or even LA who has about 50% more people. Chicago is much closer to Dallas/Houston than NY. But it is bigger and historically we have not used that to our advantage.

Edited August 12, 2021 by UMFan83

[Bearded_Beef]

 

Which period during the Yankees 28 year streak of finishing over .500 were they rebuilding? Yes there were some years where they clearly werent as dominant, and there was at least 1 year where they were sellers at the deadline but that will happen to everyone but the Dodgers. They retooled yet but never rebuilt.

 

The Red Sox have had some down years so I partially retract because with the Cubs we're hoping for a 2 year playoff drought (21 and 22) and then back to relevancy (could definitely be longer but that's what everyone seems to be hoping). They have made big selling trades but always seem to spring back up after 1-2 years. So maybe the Cubs are more of their model. But they've only had 2 years since the early 90s where they've been truly a bad team like the Cubs are right now and will possibly be next year. Not saying that winning 78 games is any sort of big success but its not the depths the Cubs dealt with between 2010-2014 or what we have now. The avoidance of having a truly terrible pointless baseball team is the lowest bar to clear when you are gauging sustained success.

 

Eh, I guess I don't acknowledge the nuance in the way you guys use "retool" and "rebuild". To me thats corporate speak to sell us on revamping the team. In 2014 we weren't "rebuilding" either, we were acquiring long term assets! It becomes a rebuild if you have bad luck or do a bad job and everything takes long than it's supposed to. I think the Cubs should be able to be Yankees like competitive very soon, so I am not seeing the difference.

[jersey cubs fan]

The Red Sox had a few seasons of wins in the 60s and 70s in the 2010s as well including trading Mookie horsefeathering Betts.

 

Are we really questioning the bonafides of Boston's qualification of sustained success?

All these teams that are alleged pillars for sustained success literally have 60-70 win seasons within the last few years was my point. They’ve all had down/selling years. I know we’re all pissed at the Cubs and where they are now but the spot they’re in isn’t unique. They very well could be back to a 80-90 win team next year with the flexibility they have and have a pretty damn good prospect foundation, much like the teams referenced who have had down years in the past few years matched with success.

 

By all accounts the returns on the trades we made were very good and the system was already trending up. I’ll wait until the offseason to see what kind of spending/trades they make to pass judgment on if they really are going full tank again or maintaining some kind of success/competitiveness. They have close to $100 mil to spend on the cheap side if they’re trying at all and still able to run a lower payroll than they have in a long time.

The Cubs are on pace for as many 90 loss seasons as 90 win seasons over the past decade. We're talking different stratospheres of rebuilding and sustained success here.

[squally1313]

The Giants are still trying to win a WS this year with multiple players from their early 2010s championship teams!

 

Giants record by year:

2020 29-31

2019 77-85

2018 73-89

2017 64-98

 

This is largely a board that wanted to blow up this team after winning the division last year, being in contention until the last week in 2019, and making the 'playoffs'/NLCS the two years before that.