Is patience a virtue?

[SouthSideRyan]

to pull off the dual fronts approach in today's MLB while still getting the kind of long term product the cubs are going to end up with, i think you really need to have dodgers money. you really need to be able to absorb bad money. it's kind of the free agency version of the prospect redundancy we shot for. if you tried it with much less than that i think you run into a lot more risk of things not working out.

 

if we had that type of budget, i know for sure it could have been pulled off. otherwise, there's some real risk in strongly chasing winning from 2012-14.

 

that's pretty much all i got.

 

Then I hope we get one hell of a TV deal in 2020.

[Guest]

to pull off the dual fronts approach in today's MLB while still getting the kind of long term product the cubs are going to end up with, i think you really need to have dodgers money. you really need to be able to absorb bad money. it's kind of the free agency version of the prospect redundancy we shot for. if you tried it with much less than that i think you run into a lot more risk of things not working out.

 

if we had that type of budget, i know for sure it could have been pulled off. otherwise, there's some real risk in strongly chasing winning from 2012-14.

 

that's pretty much all i got.

 

Then I hope we get one hell of a TV deal in 2020.

 

honestly,if this gets as good as fast as it looks like it might be, and the ratings are already shooting the hell up, i could see it happening sooner than that...

 

they built some outs into these new contracts so they can chase a big longer term deal didn't they?

[Gmoney08]

I thought I read the Cubs may have offered a little more than the Dodgers on Puig?

 

Can we get back to discussing 05 Mark Prior though?

[Guest]

If they had Hendry era payrolls all 3 years, the last 3 years could've been a lot better. You think of guys they were supposedly very close on and you're talking about Darvish, Sanchez, Tanaka, Ryu, Cespedes. They wouldn't have all of them, and depending on the exact details I can't really say how much better (if at all) they'd be positioned for 2015 and beyond, but the last 3 years unquestionably would have been better.

 

In the absence of Hendry era payrolls, I personally wouldn't do the last 3 years over again. 2012 was destined to be bad, 2013 was destined to be not good, and 2014 was destined to be not great. The Front Office hasn't been perfect, they could'e won ~25-30 more games the last 3 years with some better/bolder decisions, but I don't think anything but the 99th percentile of decisions would have changed the "0 for 3" of the current Front Office.

[Guest]

If you take the FOs word at face value 2014 is the one year they basically mailed it and that was because they put all their eggs in the Tanaka basket. They basically did dual front with the constraints given in 2012 and 2013. 2012 ended up being better moves overall than 2013 but each had a couple hits and misses. If they had made better moves in 2013 maybe they would have been closer and thus more aggressive in 2014.

 

So 2014 is my only real beef as far as the plan. Execution of the plan in 2013 also sucked, mainly because of Jaxon I guess.

[SouthSideRyan]

In the absence of Hendry era payrolls, I personally wouldn't do the last 3 years over again. 2012 was destined to be bad, 2013 was destined to be not good, and 2014 was destined to be not great. The Front Office hasn't been perfect, they could'e won ~25-30 more games the last 3 years with some better/bolder decisions, but I don't think anything but the 99th percentile of decisions would have changed the "0 for 3" of the current Front Office.

 

I don't think it takes 99th percentile decisions over a 3 year period to turn "not great" into 88 wins.

[champaignchris]

If you take the FOs word at face value 2014 is the one year they basically mailed it and that was because they put all their eggs in the Tanaka basket. They basically did dual front with the constraints given in 2012 and 2013. 2012 ended up being better moves overall than 2013 but each had a couple hits and misses. If they had made better moves in 2013 maybe they would have been closer and thus more aggressive in 2014.

 

So 2014 is my only real beef as far as the plan. Execution of the plan in 2013 also sucked, mainly because of Jaxon I guess.

 

If you consider that their other 2013 FA pitcher signing (Feldman) played quite well and was then flipped for Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop, I'm not sure you can say that.

 

In the four seasons before signing with the Cubs - ages 25-28 - Jackson was a very solid pitcher, 812 IP, 3.98 ERA, 3.89 FIP, 11.1 WAR. Saying they should have signed someone else is 20/20 hindsight. If Jackson had worked out the way he was supposed to, the Cubs may have spent that Tanaka money on a position player and been quite a bit more competitive last year.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

This is why I hate discussing individual moves from that era.

 

If the player turned out good, it was good.

 

If the player turned out bad, it was good because that helped the rebuild.

 

If all else fails, call it hindsight.

[Guest]

In the absence of Hendry era payrolls, I personally wouldn't do the last 3 years over again. 2012 was destined to be bad, 2013 was destined to be not good, and 2014 was destined to be not great. The Front Office hasn't been perfect, they could'e won ~25-30 more games the last 3 years with some better/bolder decisions, but I don't think anything but the 99th percentile of decisions would have changed the "0 for 3" of the current Front Office.

 

I don't think it takes 99th percentile decisions over a 3 year period to turn "not great" into 88 wins.

 

88 wins is on the high side of what I was getting at, but we're not really saying different things here.

[Guest]

This is why I hate discussing individual moves from that era.

 

If the player turned out good, it was good.

 

If the player turned out bad, it was good because that helped the rebuild.

 

If all else fails, call it hindsight.

My biggest issue with Jaxon wasn't Jaxon himself but that he was the second choice when they lost the bidding war on their first choice. You can take it as a lesson not to overpay in FA or not to let your first choice slip away over a relatively small amount. Based on 2014 offseason they took the former lesson.

[sneakypower]

don't forget that 101-loss 2012 team allowed us to draft Bryant #sorrynotsorry

[jersey cubs fan]

don't forget that 101-loss 2012 team allowed us to draft Bryant #sorrynotsorry

it wasn't the single take job that was the issue, it was the three consecutive ones

[sneakypower]

if you wanted the FO to go full out last year then you're not allowed to enjoy anything that Russell does

 

you're not allowed to like him

 

don't even say his name

[Guest]

don't forget that 101-loss 2012 team allowed us to draft Bryant #sorrynotsorry

it wasn't the single take job that was the issue, it was the three consecutive ones

They didn't even really tank that season either. Other than letting Ramirez they generally put their best foot forward they just didn't have much payroll to work with and their two major offseason trades made no impact.

 

So thx Hendry.

[abuck1220]

if you wanted the FO to go full out last year then you're not allowed to enjoy anything that Russell does

 

you're not allowed to like him

 

don't even say his name

 

they could have still traded for him if "going for it" in 2014 didn't work out by july.

[sneakypower]

so we're really just incessantly crabbing that we weren't competitive enough sad-sack losers last year?

[abuck1220]

no. deciding not to tank doesn't necessarily mean you're going to win 95 games. they could have "tried" and still been out of contention by july and thus still traded samardzija.

[abuck1220]

and, honestly, if you woulda told me russell was gonna fall into the cubs' lap in july of 2014 i might have been like, eh let's not try this year after all.

[Felix Leiter]

Lest we forget, the starting lineup on 4-21-2012 was: Clevenger, LaHair, Barney, Castro, Stewart, Dewitt, Mather, DeJesus.

[Brian]

I dream of a day when there is much more interesting things to talk about than the 2012, 2013 or 2014 Cubs.

 

They sucked, not a lot was done to make them not suck. It's over, time to move on.

 

#wearegood

Edited April 21, 2015 by Brian

[Felix Leiter]

I dream of of day when there is much more interesting things to talk about than the 2012, 2013 or 2014 Cubs.

 

They sucked, not a lot was done to make them not suck. It's over, time to move on.

 

#wearegood

 

And I dream of a day when people won't stutter when they write.

 

#sp-sp-spellcheck

[sneakypower]

no. deciding not to tank doesn't necessarily mean you're going to win 95 games. they could have "tried" and still been out of contention by july and thus still traded samardzija.

it's very much worth considering if we somehow overperformed and weren't sellers either of the three years

 

2012: no Kyle Hendricks*

2013: no Neil Ramirez, Justin Grimm, CJ Edwards, Arrieta, Strop

2014: no Addison Russell, Billy McKinney

 

*this one would probably bother just me though

 

yeah, retroactively wiping out either of those last two deadline hauls is way too deleterious for me to accept

[SouthSideRyan]

if you wanted the FO to go full out last year then you're not allowed to enjoy anything that Russell does

 

you're not allowed to like him

 

don't even say his name

 

If you were a fan of losing on purpose you're not allowed to enjoy any wins from now on.

[SouthSideRyan]

no. deciding not to tank doesn't necessarily mean you're going to win 95 games. they could have "tried" and still been out of contention by july and thus still traded samardzija.

it's very much worth considering if we somehow overperformed and weren't sellers either of the three years

 

2012: no Kyle Hendricks*

2013: no Neil Ramirez, Justin Grimm, CJ Edwards, Arrieta, Strop

2014: no Addison Russell, Billy McKinney

 

*this one would probably bother just me though

 

yeah, retroactively wiping out either of those last two deadline hauls is way too deleterious for me to accept

 

What a horrible thing that would've been to be in contention. Thank God we didn't make a run at the playoffs.

[sneakypower]

What a horrible thing that would've been to be in contention. Thank God we didn't make a run at the playoffs.

false hope is worse than death