Spring Training Chit Chats

[WhyCantWeWin]

5 minutes ago, Rob said:

JFC, TT locked this thread down so things would calm down here, and that's how you choose to start things back up? Nutslitting? Who the hell jumps straight to slitting their own nuts?

It worked tho right? Instead of politics you are thinking about nuts now

Edited February 20, 2024 by WhyCantWeWin

[Ding Dong Johnson]

1 minute ago, Tryptamine said:

So let's examine those poor unfortunate owners. Let's pretend for a moment that owners only manage to break even every year, they don't, but let's pretend. Ricketts bought the Cubs for 900M in 2009. In 2023, Forbes valued the Cubs at 4.1 billion dollars. That is 455.55% growth in 24 years, or an annual return of 18.9%. Basically they double their investment every 5 years even if they don't receive $1 in profit from the operations of the franchise. So forgive me if I'm not overly sympathetic to poor Tom Ricketts. 

Your math is a bit off. They purchased a little over 14 years ago. Not 24.

[Tryptamine]

8 minutes ago, Ding Dong Johnson said:

Your math is a bit off. They purchased a little over 14 years ago. Not 24.

Good god, Everyone catching me in the 2 minutes I took to edit my post

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Just now, Tryptamine said:

Good god, Everyone catching me in the 2 minutes I took to edit my post

[Rcal10]

21 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

I'm gonna slit my nuts if Peralta or Dom Smith see a single major league AB with the Cubs. Has Hoyer learned nothing from his crap signings from last year? Either sign the big stars or letting the horsefeathers kids play. Stop giving at bats to scrubs. 

Be sure to have someone there to save you because you will be splitting your nuts sometime in the next 4 months. I would be shocked if neither got a major league AB this season. 

[ILMindState]

Troll has been pulling the same bait and cry victim act for years on PSD.  The sooner he gets banned or people stop responding the better.  It's just delaying the inevitable at this point.  Nobody likes him and he provides 0 value to any discussion.

[We Got The Whole 9]

I'm guilty of this but we are too sympathetic to Jed. He is given a budget approx 20-25% higher than any other team in the division and hasn't won a proper division title in 5 years. He's mostly done well in the last few drafts and trades but he's chosen to barely fish in the deep waters and it's certainly cost them a lot of elite talent.

[Rob]

2 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

It worked tho right? Instead if politics you are thinking about nuts now

Politics has been defined as "who gets what, when, where, and how."

Who: You

What: Your nuts slit

When: Presumably shortly after Peralta or Smith takes an AB

Where: That'll probably depend on where you are when they take that AB.

How: By auto-nutslitting

It's still politics. It's just a very different type of politics. Probably akin to the one that encourages people to vote against their self-interest, albeit a bit different in scale.

[Rcal10]

Just now, We Got The Whole 9 said:

I'm guilty of this but we are too sympathetic to Jed. He is given a budget approx 20-25% higher than any other team in the division and hasn't won a proper division title in 5 years. He's mostly done well in the last few drafts and trades but he's chosen to barely fish in the deep waters and it's certainly cost them a lot of elite talent.

He also gets one less high draft pick a year than all the other teams in the division. He get penalized more for signing a free agent, doesn’t get as much international money and doesn’t get as much when the Cubs lose a free agent. Simple truth is in order for the Cubs to utilize the advantage they have as a high revenue team, they need to spend money(which is their advantage, in the fact they should be able to. 

[thawv]

10 minutes ago, Ding Dong Johnson said:

Your math is a bit off. They purchased a little over 14 years ago. Not 24.

It just turned 15 years ago since the purchase. 

[Bertz]

This is a GD steal.  I would have happily thrown him on the 3B pile for this money, though I suspect having a path to everyday SS at bats was his priority #1.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

5 minutes ago, thawv said:

It just turned 15 years ago since the purchase. 

Though the sale wasn't approved until October of 09. The larger point being the 2023 valuation that was cited.

[Irrelevant Dude]

8 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

I'm guilty of this but we are too sympathetic to Jed. He is given a budget approx 20-25% higher than any other team in the division and hasn't won a proper division title in 5 years. He's mostly done well in the last few drafts and trades but he's chosen to barely fish in the deep waters and it's certainly cost them a lot of elite talent.

Jed gets a fair amount of criticism around here, so I don't think he gets off easy.  It is true that the Cubs budget should be enough to compete on a regular basis.  It also may be true that Jed is afraid to commit to elite level talent/contracts because he knows the repurcussions when those types of deals go bad.  This ownership group hasn't shown a willingness to spend out of trouble, so one or two bad long-term contracts could put the team right back into semi-rebuild mode, waiting for dead money to come off the books before they can spend again.  Jed may be risk-averse by nature, but that behavior is likely reinforced by ownership.  The two go hand in hand.

[CubinNY]

2 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Jed gets a fair amount of criticism around here, so I don't think he gets off easy.  It is true that the Cubs budget should be enough to compete on a regular basis.  It also may be true that Jed is afraid to commit to elite level talent/contracts because he knows the repurcussions when those types of deals go bad.  This ownership group hasn't shown a willingness to spend out of trouble, so one or two bad long-term contracts could put the team right back into semi-rebuild mode, waiting for dead money to come off the books before they can spend again.  Jed may be risk-averse by nature, but that behavior is likely reinforced by ownership.  The two go hand in hand.

Yes. Theo left money on the table to get away from the issue. He helped create it, granted. 

[WhyCantWeWin]

41 minutes ago, Rob said:

Politics has been defined as "who gets what, when, where, and how."

Who: You

What: Your nuts slit

When: Presumably shortly after Peralta or Smith takes an AB

Where: That'll probably depend on where you are when they take that AB.

How: By auto-nutslitting

It's still politics. It's just a very different type of politics. Probably akin to the one that encourages people to vote against their self-interest, albeit a bit different in scale.

Well that's a way I would have never thought about my post. I don't want to get political about my nuts now. I will reconsider my earlier comment. 

[Post Count Padder]

Hell yeah, I miss like 2 days on the site and it devolves into the usual madness. My takes! 

1) Taking the side of the owner over the players and fanbase is lunacy. It's like saying your favorite part of the meal is paying the check. Owners buy teams as a vanity project, most don't care as long as they make money. They don't have the best interests in the game or the fans. I have been a Cubs fan my whole life but I rarely buy stuff from the Cubs. You can support the team and no the owner.

2) Peralta and Dom Smith (lol, took long enough) are fine depth signings. Ideally we don't see them on the field but injuries happen. 

3) I'm gonna assume Mervis is still around for lefty power but I'd be shocked if he's still in the organization come August. I'd wager he's gone by April. I still think there's a way we flip him for an interesting, controllable reliever and that's probably more valuable to us than his bat-only approach.

4) Yay Spring Training!

[imb]

59 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

It worked tho right? Instead of politics you are thinking about nuts now

ok but those are always on his mind

[Stratos]

53 minutes ago, ILMindState said:

Troll has been pulling the same bait and cry victim act for years on PSD.  The sooner he gets banned or people stop responding the better.  It's just delaying the inevitable at this point.  Nobody likes him and he provides 0 value to any discussion.

He does bait political arguments but I think the solution here isn't banning anyone or locking threads it's banning pure political discussion that isn't baseball related and issuing warnings and then suspensions if the rules aren't followed. 

[imb]

2 minutes ago, Stratos said:

He does bait political arguments but I think the solution here isn't banning anyone or locking threads it's banning pure political discussion that isn't baseball related and issuing warnings and then suspensions if the rules aren't followed. 

dont overthink it. this problem only occurs when one guy gets mad at the liberal slant of this board and starts trying to turn it into twitter

[Brian707]

7 minutes ago, imb said:

dont overthink it. this problem only occurs when one guy gets mad at the liberal slant of this board and starts trying to turn it into twitter

That or the the person in question is actually Tom Ricketts or another member of the family with a silver spoon stuck up their ass

[ILMindState]

1 hour ago, Brian707 said:

That or the the person in question is actually Tom Ricketts or another member of the family with a silver spoon stuck up their ass

One time he demanded all of PSD to send PTR a hand written apology because people said mean things about him. 

[CubinNY]

Let us please argue about important stuff like Nick Madrigal's noodle arm and wiffle ball bat. Or the wisdom of handing Michael Busch the starting 1B job out of ST, if that is going to happen. 

Let us not argue about unimportant stuff. But I must say, I forgot to mention that the Ricketts own a sports betting bar across the street from Wrigley in addition to all the other stuff. Owning any one of those properties around Wrigley would make someone wealthy beyond what almost any person (except, SSR) on this site could imagine. 

----

But seriously, I think Nick Madrigal gets a lot of flack and would be the perfect table-setter for a team like the Yankees. He might score 100 runs in that lineup every day. He doesn't fit the Cubs needs. 

Edited February 20, 2024 by CubinNY

[Bobson Dugnutt]

surely this will be the revenue stream that allows the cubs to spend with the big boys!
 

https://uni-watch.com/2024/02/20/chicago-cubs-appear-poised-to-add-sleeve-advertisement/

[Jason Ross]

1 minute ago, Bobson Dugnutt said:

surely this will be the revenue stream that allows the cubs to spend with the big boys!
 

https://uni-watch.com/2024/02/20/chicago-cubs-appear-poised-to-add-sleeve-advertisement/

horsefeathers gross. I hate these stupid patches.

[Crusader]

3 more days until the first ST Cubs game.