Cubs offseason chit chat...

[Tryptamine]

28 minutes ago, Derwood said:

I would bet large sums of money that we don't get Soto

I'd say the same of Yamamoto.  Of the real big fish, it's looking like Ohtani or nothing. 

[ToolDRT]

Anyone else ever get tempted to drop everything and go to the winter meeting just to see if you can stumble on a piece of gossip? Me either…

[ToolDRT]

2 hours ago, Tryptamine said:

I'd say the same of Yamamoto.  Of the real big fish, it's looking like Ohtani or nothing. 

This makes me sad to agree with. Because I could definitely get behind a Yamamoto led offseason if we miss on Ohtani. 

[JD94]

6 minutes ago, ToolDRT said:

Anyone else ever get tempted to drop everything and go to the winter meeting just to see if you can stumble on a piece of gossip? Me either…

If I hadn’t taken multiple vacations this year, I would absolutely go. I’ve thought about it. I’m only a few hours from Nashville. I just think it would be a cool experience as a baseball fan regardless if I get to see or meet anybody notable. I’ve already spent my vacation budget for the year though lol 

[ToolDRT]

2 minutes ago, JD94 said:

If I hadn’t taken multiple vacations this year, I would absolutely go. I’ve thought about it. I’m only a few hours from Nashville. I just think it would be a cool experience as a baseball fan regardless if I get to see or meet anybody notable. I’ve already spent my vacation budget for the year though lol 

Right? I’ve thought about it since Theo took over. We should get a large group of posters on here to go. We can wear matching NSBB shirts! 

[gocubs218]

17 minutes ago, ToolDRT said:

Anyone else ever get tempted to drop everything and go to the winter meeting just to see if you can stumble on a piece of gossip? Me either…

I actually went about 10 years ago when it was also in Nashville. I went for the job fair. It was pretty fun but I didn’t leave the complex for the 3 days I was there. 

[ToolDRT]

4 minutes ago, gocubs218 said:

I actually went about 10 years ago when it was also in Nashville. I went for the job fair. It was pretty fun but I didn’t leave the complex for the 3 days I was there. 

Oh that’s very cool! Was it a crazy vibe? Did you see any managers or players? I’m jealous over here! 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

23 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Yeah I think we'll probably do something that replaces Cubs offseason chit chat for that period since there may be a lot of non-Cubs movement plus more speculative Cubs stuff that doesn't necessarily warrant a new/existing thread.

Locking for the winter meetings since daily chatter will be focused in a thread there.  Will reopen afterwards.

[CubinNY]

On 12/3/2023 at 1:07 PM, ToolDRT said:

Oh that’s very cool! Was it a crazy vibe? Did you see any managers or players? I’m jealous over here! 

I've been to the hotel where they had the winter meetings and it is massive with lots of different areas all connected by hallways. You kind of feel like you're outside in a forest. I imagine unless you know where to go, you'd have a hard time finding people you know. I suppose you could look for the cameras and see the MLB Network people, but the baseball people would be hard to find. 

[Bertz]

The Candelario move is weird because I had no interest in him at 3+ years or especially 4 years, but I also know there's a decent chance in two months I end up like "well horsefeathers I would have preferred that to ____".

I still like Jorge Polanco as a guy from a similar archetype but with a little more oomph in the power/speed departments.  He'son successive club options  at a similar salary too which is super nice.

[CubinNY]

This morning in the shower I was thinking about what the Cubs strategy seems to be at this point. Especially in light of what Hawkins said a few days ago, the best I can figure is that they are banking they are on the cusp of a young and talented team. I suppose I get their thinking, even if I don't have as much faith in the farm as they seem to have. I'd rather them go and get guys and then have to worry about playing time when the young guys are ready. As we've seen, it's not that hard to unload good players if you need to do that. 

I tend to be on the impulsive side, so in the immortal words of Veruca Salt, "I want it now". I don't think they operate that way. I'm not sure if they are trying to emulate the Dodgers/Rays or if it is a happy coincidence related to the philosophy of the owner(s) that they are not willing or able to go the distance with top free agents. If they get Ohtani, I don't think it is indicative of a change in philosophy, but at least it will show that they are serious about winning and not winning "the right way". 

[jersey cubs fan]

We didn’t need to know about the shower 

[CubinNY]

2 minutes ago, jersey cubs fan said:

We didn’t need to know about the shower 

sorry, I do my best thinking in the shower and even that is subpar. 

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Would you like to know what I think about in the shower? You know you do...

Food. It's food.  I am always thinking about food.

[LBiittner]

My anticipation has deflated to just blah now.

I need some upbeat cub news 

[jersey cubs fan]

3 minutes ago, Ding Dong Johnson said:

Would you like to know what I think about in the shower? You know you do...

Food. It's food.  I am always thinking about food.

That’s because you are afraid of the cage 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

28 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

This morning in the shower I was thinking about what the Cubs strategy seems to be at this point. Especially in light of what Hawkins said a few days ago, the best I can figure is that they are banking they are on the cusp of a young and talented team. I suppose I get their thinking, even if I don't have as much faith in the farm as they seem to have. I'd rather them go and get guys and then have to worry about playing time when the young guys are ready. As we've seen, it's not that hard to unload good players if you need to do that. 

I tend to be on the impulsive side, so in the immortal words of Veruca Salt, "I want it now". I don't think they operate that way. I'm not sure if they are trying to emulate the Dodgers/Rays or if it is a happy coincidence related to the philosophy of the owner(s) that they are not willing or able to go the distance with top free agents. If they get Ohtani, I don't think it is indicative of a change in philosophy, but at least it will show that they are serious about winning and not winning "the right way". 

This might be just my coping mechanism at not getting our version of a nut-shelling squirrel, but I'm getting the impression that they have a higher view of the current roster and baseline they're working from than a lot of us do. There's some logic for that since the team's underlying performance was very good, and some of the ways they failed to meet it have been addressed or there's still plenty of opportunity to(rotation depth, bullpen firepower, Ross if you believe he was the problem).  Plus they'll pursue backfilling the production lost from Bellinger/Stroman.  I don't think they're calibrated quite perfectly, it puts a lot of pressure on a couple of the prospects in particular to be good fast instead of investing in higher quality to give them greater breathing room.  But there's always tradeoffs so if they feel they have a wave and some redundancy on that front, then I can understand it at least.

[s2obed]

3 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

My anticipation has deflated to just blah now.

I need some upbeat cub news 

If it helps you feel better the offseason isn’t even halfway done. 

[LBiittner]

Just now, s2obed said:

If it helps you feel better the offseason isn’t even halfway done. 

Great. Jed has done zero to improve the roster half way through this offseason, while losing 3  members of the team.

I guess the cubs don't need to get better, the other teams need to get a little worser.

[squally1313]

5 minutes ago, s2obed said:

If it helps you feel better the offseason isn’t even halfway done. 

Per CBS, 6 of the top 50 free agents have signed so far. 'Half' is being unnecessarily pessimistic. 

[Jason Ross]

8 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

This might be just my coping mechanism at not getting our version of a nut-shelling squirrel, but I'm getting the impression that they have a higher view of the current roster and baseline they're working from than a lot of us do. There's some logic for that since the team's underlying performance was very good, and some of the ways they failed to meet it have been addressed or there's still plenty of opportunity to(rotation depth, bullpen firepower, Ross if you believe he was the problem).  Plus they'll pursue backfilling the production lost from Bellinger/Stroman.  I don't think they're calibrated quite perfectly, it puts a lot of pressure on a couple of the prospects in particular to be good fast instead of investing in higher quality to give them greater breathing room.  But there's always tradeoffs so if they feel they have a wave and some redundancy on that front, then I can understand it at least.

I think this is a level-headed view. My one counter to this is that there should never be a reason to not fully attack some of these generational type talents like Soto, like Ohtani, regardless of how you feel about your current roster. It doesn't seem as though the Cubs fully attacked on Soto and Ohtani seems like they tried, but I'm not sure how fully they played that one (and we may never really know).  And that's not a counter to you so much as the Cubs. If this is the view the Cubs have, it feels like they're waiting for that perfect player, at the perfect time, to go all in on, and I just don't know if that perfect confluence of players, time, availability, need will arise. I do have a bit of that fear. 

I do certainly hope this is the case though, that the Cubs see the roster as a bit better than I do. They have a full metrics and analytics team and all I have is fangraphs, so they should be infinitely better positioned to make that determination. Fingers crossed. 

Edited December 7, 2023 by 1908_Cubs

[Brian707]

2 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

Great. Jed has done zero to improve the roster half way through this offseason, while losing 3  members of the team.

I guess the cubs don't need to get better, the other teams need to get a little worser.

Blame PTR, the Cubs budget is that of a small market team. Counsell was hired, not because they planned on spending, but because he is a master of getting the best out of the least.

 

[squally1313]

6 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

I think this is a level-headed view. My one counter to this is that there should never be a reason to not fully attack some of these generational type talents like Soto, like Ohtani, regardless of how you feel about your current roster. It doesn't seem as though the Cubs fully attacked on Soto and Ohtani seems like they tried, but I'm not sure how fully they played that one (and we may never really know).  And that's not a counter to you so much as the Cubs. If this is the view the Cubs have, it feels like they're waiting for that perfect player, at the perfect time, to go all in on, and I just don't know if that perfect confluence of players, time, availability, need will arise. I do have a bit of that fear. 

I do certainly hope this is the case though, that the Cubs see the roster as a bit better than I do. They have a full metrics and analytics team and all I have is fangraphs, so they should be infinitely better positioned to make that determination. Fingers crossed. 

I'm aware that my thought process here falls into 'waiting for the perfect player at the perfect time, for the perfect price, and so you're left with nothing.' But....the Yankees package there seemingly far exceeded anything that we had discussed as being comfortable with in a hypothetical Soto to the Cubs trade. Did anyone want them to throw in Horton? Or Wicks and a few other solid prospects? I don't know your definition of 'fully attacked' but it also seems very likely that they put in an offer, the Yankees put out a better offer, and the Cubs saw it as an overpay and bowed out. Should we be upset about that? 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

14 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

I think this is a level-headed view. My one counter to this is that there should never be a reason to not fully attack some of these generational type talents like Soto, like Ohtani, regardless of how you feel about your current roster. It doesn't seem as though the Cubs fully attacked on Soto and Ohtani seems like they tried, but I'm not sure how fully they played that one (and we may never really know).  And that's not a counter to you so much as the Cubs. If this is the view the Cubs have, it feels like they're waiting for that perfect player, at the perfect time, to go all in on, and I just don't know if that perfect confluence of players, time, availability, need will arise. I do have a bit of that fear. 

I do certainly hope this is the case though, that the Cubs see the roster as a bit better than I do. They have a full metrics and analytics team and all I have is fangraphs, so they should be infinitely better positioned to make that determination. Fingers crossed. 

I'm with you, and I do think they did aggressively pursue Ohtani at least, and at a minimum pursued the contours of a Soto trade.  I know some folks are taking the waning belief Ohtani will sign as an indicator they offered him like 7/400 as a last offer or worse didn't try at all, but that is not the impression I've gotten from combing the Cubs internet.  And this also might be just a coping mechanism, but I also try to remember that everyone wants these guys and the other parties involved have agency, so there is some element that is beyond their control.  If Ohtani thinks Wrigley is a dump or Chicago is too cold or too long a flight or w/e, and Preller says 'We need pitching but I'm not a big fan of Wicks or Assad/Wesneski', then no amount of aggression or even foolhardy levels of pursuit is going to do it.

 

[17 Seconds]

3 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I'm with you, and I do think they did aggressively pursue Ohtani at least, and at a minimum pursued the contours of a Soto trade.  I know some folks are taking the waning belief Ohtani will sign as an indicator they offered him like 7/400 as a last offer or worse didn't try at all, but that is not the impression I've gotten from combing the Cubs internet.  And this also might be just a coping mechanism, but I also try to remember that everyone wants these guys and the other parties involved have agency, so there is some element that is beyond their control.  If Ohtani thinks Wrigley is a dump or Chicago is too cold or too long a flight or w/e, and Preller says 'We need pitching but I'm not a big fan of Wicks or Assad/Wesneski', then no amount of aggression or even foolhardy levels of pursuit is going to do it.

 

what do you think the rest of the offseason looks like? in terms of scale, i mean

Edited December 7, 2023 by 17 Seconds