Yoshinobu Yamamoto to...the Dodgers? Really? Again?

[chibears55]

1 hour ago, Stratos said:

Swanson has been worth 2 wins more than Soto over the past 2 seasons.

Please dont tell me you'd take Swanson over Soto based on that

[ILMindState]

8 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

And the Astros developed those players they drafted and signed through international free agency into superstars. They haven't had the need to go big in free agency. 

Drafting, IFA, developing, and extending your talent is the best way to get superstars.  FA is a major crap shoot.  You never know who will be available and you're up against a bunch of teams.

[chopsx9]

48 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

To be clear, Swanson > Bellinger, both in 2023 and going forward

Was he?  If you extrapolate so the same number of games for both, Bellinger's bWar is higher; his fWar is marginally less.  Certainly close enough not to be meaningfully different.  The key factor - I believe - is that Cubs desperately need some thunder in the line-up and that's not going to be Dansby.  I have no real issues with Dansby - wouldn't mind a bit more offense but I don't think he's ever going to produce at Bellinger's 2023 level - nor do I think anybody expects him too - but the Cubs need someone to.  I'm happy to give Bellinger a shot again but I certainly don't thin Hoskins - as an example - can be the replacement on his own.

[imb]

2 hours ago, LBiittner said:

For all you old timers like me, this offseason is go smell a lot like a candy Maldonado, jeremy Burnitz, jeff Blauser, danny Jackson type of year.

has a single significant FA even signed anywhere? It's december 6th lol

[imb]

1 hour ago, chibears55 said:

Please dont tell me you'd take Swanson over Soto based on that

i just might brother

[Tryptamine]

7 minutes ago, imb said:

has a single significant FA even signed anywhere? It's december 6th lol

Sonny Gray and to a lesser extent Kimbrel, but Kimbrel is more significant by name than performance, though he was still pretty solid in 2023.

[Stratos]

2 hours ago, Tim said:

Yes - and the moral of that story is that Jed may be trying to emulate that approach, which has been extremely successful for a large market team. But it takes patience while getting the prospects to mature and you can't have a bunch of payroll tied up in aging players once they do.

I'm not saying I 100% agree with the approach, but I do think Hoyer has sold Ricketts on the idea of building slowly, picking the "right" guys to invest in, and spending most of your payroll on pre-prime and prime players and as little as possible on post-prime guys.

What a silly approach by Jed!  Only 3 out of the top 50 position players in WAR last year were over 32 years old.  So Jed should be signing guys throughout their entire 30's based on how they performed in the 20's so that 5 years from now the team sucks for the next half-decade.  This is how winning is done!

[17 Seconds]

 

[gocubs218]

 

[UMFan83]

Past tense like already went to Japan or is in Japan now?  Interested to know if he went before all the reports about the Cubs being out.  Seems like quite a wasted effort to go to Japan if you weren't willing to offer the rumored rate (not saying that's definitely why the Cubs are out or if they're even out at all)

[CubinNY]

from Macbeth:

Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[UMFan83]

Interesting as I believe it was already reported that they met in Japan recently.

 

 

[chibears55]

2 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Interesting as I believe it was already reported that they met in Japan recently.

 

 

Sad as the Cubs aren't going to be real players for any of the big named players likely. 

Maybe next offseason 

[UMFan83]

4 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

Sad as the Cubs aren't going to be real players for any of the big named players likely. 

Maybe next offseason 

The tweet does say all big market teams are in it.  But yeah I don't feel a ton of confidence in outbidding every big market team. 

[ToolDRT]

This is the guy I’d think they want to invest in. He’s young, hasn’t hit his prime yet and would look really solid in a rotation with Steele and Horton. 

Edited December 11, 2023 by ToolDRT

[Tryptamine]

13 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Interesting as I believe it was already reported that they met in Japan recently.

 

 

If the Dodgers get Yamamoto too and spend literally 1 billion dollars on 2 guys, I'm going to really have to reevaluate how much time i dedicate to following baseball. 

[WhyCantWeWin]

Jed needs to stop being a coward and pony up for a good player already. Dodgers are about to corner the entire Japanese market 

[chibears55]

21 minutes ago, ToolDRT said:

This is the guy I’d think they want to invest in. He’s young, hasn’t hit his prime yet and would look really solid in a rotation with Steele and Horton. 

Agree, he one I wouldn't mind if they offered a 10 yr deal to.

[chibears55]

One thing i wish Hoyer would be, and that is be more aggressive in going after the guys he wants over waiting and ending up with the leftovers in January. 

 

[CubinNY]

How does this process work? Must he take the best offer or does he get to choose where he wants to go? 
 

if it’s best offer I want Jed to be the dude in the white suit who sets at the back of the auction and just nods every time another bid comes out. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

6 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

How does this process work? Must he take the best offer or does he get to choose where he wants to go? 
 

if it’s best offer I want Jed to be the dude in the white suit who sets at the back of the auction and just nods every time another bid comes out. 

It's basically just like any other free agent, there's no contract limits and he can choose whatever team he wants.  I believe the main limitation is he needs to sign within 45 days of being posted, and then a percentage of the contract value gets paid as an additional posting fee to the Japanese team.

[UMFan83]

39 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

One thing i wish Hoyer would be, and that is be more aggressive in going after the guys he wants over waiting and ending up with the leftovers in January. 

 

I just don't think he's ever going to do that.  He's never going to win a FA battle for the most elite talent where other big market teams are involved.  He's probably not going to win a battle to trade for an elite talent due to the amount of prospect capital he'd have to give up (unless the player involved came with years of control).   He's going to have a plan going in and a backup plan in case his plan A guys get out of the range he's comfortable with.  I do think he'd be willing to overpay in the right situations, but not outlandishly.  

And while it's frustrating, it's not the end of the world if we are living in the Dansby/Bellinger type of range of FAs.  But his system has to produce a few stars otherwise we'll have a lot of 78-85 win seasons IMO.

[soccer10k]

6 hours ago, Tryptamine said:

If the Dodgers get Yamamoto too and spend literally 1 billion dollars on 2 guys, I'm going to really have to reevaluate how much time i dedicate to following baseball. 

It's fine. The Dodgers will just defer 95% of his money until 2156 so their luxury tax bill will only be $3M per season for him!

[17 Seconds]

either jed is in complete stealth mode, or we just aren't in on these top guys

 

 

[Tryptamine]

10 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

either jed is in complete stealth mode, or we just aren't in on these top guys

 

 

Chicago is a small market after all. We can't compete with those other big cities. Remember when we thought Ricketts was going to be a rockstar owner? Those were good times.