Ohtani to Dodgers for an ungodly amount of money

[Rex Buckingham]

Daniel didn't even sign with the Cubs... went to college and was later drafted and signed by the Angels

[UMFan83]

1 hour ago, squally1313 said:

The main gap between us and the Astros and Dodgers is that we went years without producing any supplemental talent in our minor league system, had to find expensive bandaids to keep the championship core together, and then it all kinda blew up. If you want to be pissed at the front office and the organizational approach, that's where the main issue lies. It's getting better, but it was bad for a long time. Cubs drafts by top BWAR producer:

• 2015: Ian Happ, 14.1, Scott Effross the only other positive contributor 
• 2016: Davis Daniel, 0.5 
• 2017: Keegan Thompson, 2.1 
• 2018: Nico Hoerner, 11.6, no other major league players 
• 2019: No major leaguers, no one particularly promising

Five years with 2 players, one of which, according to you, is 'marginal'. Not great!

The biggest free agent signing in Astros history is Carlos Lee in 2006. Altuve was their largest deal ever at $151m. Alvarez and Bregman also got large deals. All three came through the system. 

Freeman's deal was smaller than Dansby Swanson's (who had the best year of all the shortstops out there last year), and is their biggest actual free agency contract in history (Betts and Kershaw signed extensions for more) (admittedly, for about 3 more days).

The player advancement infrastructure just hasn't been at all enough to match up with those teams (who are, by a decent gap, easily the best two organizations in the last 5-10 years). I think we're comfortably in the next tier, and whether or not we sign Ohtani isn't going to change my opinion on that. 

 

At some point around 2021 I looked at the player with the most WAR for the Cubs drafted outside the first round under Theo and the answer was David Bote. Obviously can’t be true now but I thought that was pretty damning. The first round picks they made almost all contributed to a World Series but they were developing horsefeathers outside of guys with first round pedigree. 
 

Yes you are correct that we don’t need to sign a fancy free agent to be good. But I don’t want to compare us to the Astros I want to compare us to the Dodgers. It hurts my civic pride to see every team in this city act like a cheapass when it comes to acting like a big market club. But I should just accept that this is not how Chicago teams operate and be thankful that the Cubs are able to spend big when they feel like it. (Aka we’re not the Rays and can sustain a high level payroll)

Edited December 7, 2023 by UMFan83

[CubbyBlue2008]

Meow.

[UMFan83]

Just now, CubbyBlue2008 said:

Meow.

As we all know he always attends the winter meetings. 

[UMFan83]

Unfortunately PlaymakerDavid doesn’t share CharlestheCat’s optimism

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by UMFan83

[UMFan83]

Let’s go PlaymakerDavid!!

Could absolutely be making all this horsefeathers up and in fact almost certainly is but whatever. He was super down on the Cubs chances last night for the first time and now all the sudden is going back to being very positive. 

[ILMindState]

43 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Let’s go PlaymakerDavid!!

Could absolutely be making all this horsefeathers up and in fact almost certainly is but whatever. He was super down on the Cubs chances last night for the first time and now all the sudden is going back to being very positive. 

Based on the flow chart, I believe all of this.

[CubinNY]

Of course he’s making it all up. These people come out of the woodwork this time of year. Like mice in the fall. 

[LBiittner]

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

I'm choosing to believe this just because it's funner to be winner

[Brian707]

Playmaker Dave is a 4 time WSOP champion he may know.  Does Jed play poker?

[JHBulls]

20 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Of course he’s making it all up. These people come out of the woodwork this time of year. Like mice in the fall. 

Yep, but unfortunately when one of these Twitter trolls does hit on something, that person will be used as a source for years to come. Like the person that got Quintana to Cubs correct (as well as all the other people without a Twitter account who predicted that one lol). You can put most of this stuff in the BS basket.

[CubbyBlue2008]

It pretty much comes down to believing in the secrecy or believing in the smoke. The smoke recently says Blue Jays or Dodgers. The secrecy probably says the Cubs. So who knows. I don’t think it’s the Cubs, but I hope we get an answer soon.

[LBiittner]

Just think if cubs did get ohtani, this site would crash from over usage

[UMFan83]

I'm not going to dox this PlaymakerDavid dude, but its pretty easy to find information on him online.  Based on his LinkedIn profile, he definitely has connections within the professional sports world, but its also a stretch to assume (based solely on his LI experience) he has the kind of connections that would be in the know about one of the most secretive FA recruitments of all time.  He also definitely also has connections to Vegas and famous poker players (Phil Helmuth looks like an investor in one of the companies he was involved with that was recently acquired for $54m) so maybe that's where its coming from. 

But either way, this is not some random dude hiding behind a twitter handle.  He might be getting info that isn't correct but I don't know if hes just completely making horsefeathers up.

Edited December 7, 2023 by UMFan83

[Hunter]

6 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

Just think if cubs did get ohtani, this site would crash from over usage

Not sure which is the bigger meltdown. The site crashing over a Cubs signing, or the posters melting down over another team signing him.

[CubbyBlue2008]

If we do somehow get Ohtani I’m definitely pacing around my living room for the next 24 hours.

[LBiittner]

If Dave ends up being right, his profile pic will become mine.

[CubinNY]

30 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

I'm not going to dox this PlaymakerDavid dude, but its pretty easy to find information on him online.  Based on his LinkedIn profile, he definitely has connections within the professional sports world, but its also a stretch to assume (based solely on his LI experience) he has the kind of connections that would be in the know about one of the most secretive FA recruitments of all time.  He also definitely also has connections to Vegas and famous poker players (Phil Helmuth looks like an investor in one of the companies he was involved with that was recently acquired for $54m) so maybe that's where its coming from. 

But either way, this is not some random dude hiding behind a twitter handle.  He might be getting info that isn't correct but I don't know if hes just completely making horsefeathers up.

It’s being a confidence man.

[Dfan25]

I been thinking about a Jon Heyman comment earlier this week. He said that it didn’t look like Ohtani was going to decide during the meetings . The reason he gave was that he was told by a gm of an interested team , that they were expecting a meeting after the winter meetings .

I wonder if there is 1 more meeting taking place tomorrow or Saturday before Ohtani makes his decision before the end of the weekend like Morosi reported 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by Dfan25

[Dfan25]

If the cat says it , it has to be true 

[Banedon]

40 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

Just think if cubs did get ohtani, this site would crash from over usage

Heh, wouldn't be the first time.

[CubinNY]

1 minute ago, Banedon said:

Heh, wouldn't be the first time.

Yeah, I was looking for the “first time?” Meme.

[JHBulls]

1 hour ago, LBiittner said:

Just think if cubs did get ohtani, this site would crash from over usage

Surely it would crash from the excitement that Jason Heyward isn’t the most expensive contract in Cubs history anymore. 😛

[Brian707]

Is today the day this saga is over one way or another?

[s2obed]

I will be glad when this is done whether it's the Cubs or not!

Edited December 8, 2023 by s2obed