CubinNY

Cubs DFA Anthony Kay (who?) after making it official with Mancini.

Amorality is the new baseball inefficiency. It's not that new.

Last year's draft is going to be among the worst in Cubs history. It's really inexplicable. lol We shall see. I said it then and I stand by it now.

Last year's draft is going to be among the worst in Cubs history. It's really inexplicable.

.260/.360/.420 slash, High 20s HRs/year, lots of Ks, good to great defense. He's not a difference maker, but he raises the win total floor.

I mean if there was a consensus prospect on the level of Lawrence we probably would be having a real trade Fields conversation. But if we presume something a little less generational, but still consensus, like a Stafford? I think I'd rather have a clear consensus #1. Without benefit of hindsight is this the 2018-lite draft class? That one didn't have a clear consensus #1. Had a couple of college studs (two former Heisman winners), but valuations were all over the place on guys. 5 ended up in the first round with 4 in the first 10, and 4 of the 5 involved trades. Of course the first pick wasn't traded being it was the QB needy Browns. Or even 2017 with three non-consensus QBs, and all 3 were traded up for. Soo you don't need consensus to get lots of trade activity, but do you need it to drive trade activity all the way up to 1? Edit maybe it's like 2016-heavy which also lacked a clear consensus, but was shallower with only 2 FR QBs but both were traded up 1-2. Did lack of supply help there? Is 3 (maybe 4?) too much supply? The biggest factor is the Texans being at #2, and the Bears being obvious sellers. I think the Bears clearly selling in general lowers the value of the #1 pick. It should still be a decent haul though, because it's still the #1 pick. Maybe more if there is a consensus, but I think that would actually mean fewer candidates because the cost would be more prohibitive. My hope is that the Bears don't trade down too far regardless of the draft pick enticements.

Boy, I really wanted the Cubs to draft Collier.

Where was Brooks Lee? Cam Collier?

Why was he available on waivers? What are the warts?

It's more subjective than not, so there is little reason to argue about it. One could say that there were three quarterbacks drafted ahead of him and he dropped to 11 is a pretty good indication that he's not as good a prospect as Young, but as Bertz pointed out the context of each draft is different.

Yes, if Trever Lawerence is in this draft he's #1. A lot also depends on who is at the top of the draft and what they need as evidenced by all this talk. I think the Bears should keep Fields but I also don't necessarily think they should trade the #1 pick. It depends on who they think their top target is and who is drafting at what spots who may also be targeting the same player. If they trade down just to get more picks and lose out on their target, well that doesn't seem to make sense to me. But like I said before they have many and varied needs so there may not be a top target, but a few of them. If so, it makes more sense to trade down. You kind of have to put trust in the management team here.

Faulty assumption. There is no indication that Young is going to be the #1, 2 or 10 pick. It's too early to tell. However, he's a better prospect than Fields ever was. He's a better passer, has more situational awareness, and makes better decisions than Fields did in college. I'm not an expert (obviously), but if Fields and Young were both in the draft, Young would likely get drafted before him. But then again, he probably would have been a 2nd string QB for OSU. Edit: That also does not necessarily mean that Young is going to be a better pro QB than Fields. According to whom? This is indicative of what people thought about Fields at the time of the draft where he was expected to go anywhere from 3 to 10 Sounds familiar? He's basically the same guy he was in college. Young, projected to go anywhere from 1 to 5

This is a lot of the reason why I don't get some in the media insistence that Young is a better prospect than Fields. Really? Because physically Fields >>> Young and it's not even that close, so, I guess the base of their argument is Young is better at the mental portion of the game. Which is questionable given Young has never played a down in the NFL. It's hard to generate a lot of hype for the upcoming draft if the no. 1 overall pick isn't better than a guy who fell outside the top 10 a couple years ago. Faulty assumption. There is no indication that Young is going to be the #1, 2 or 10 pick. It's too early to tell. However, he's a better prospect than Fields ever was. He's a better passer, has more situational awareness, and makes better decisions than Fields did in college. I'm not an expert (obviously), but if Fields and Young were both in the draft, Young would likely get drafted before him. But then again, he probably would have been a 2nd string QB for OSU. Edit: That also does not necessarily mean that Young is going to be a better pro QB than Fields.

It's more like a Venn diagram where they have overlapping skill sets, but not necessarily with all of them at the same spot. Same with each player's weak spots. But, I agree it just depends on what the team's front offices key on. Young has the highest "football IQ"/game awareness, but he's not the most gifted physically. If he were five inches taller there wouldn't be any question that he is the clear #1.

Yeah, that sucks. I was looking forward to seeing what Mervis could do in Chicago. I'm also not high on either Hosmer or Mancini.My bet is that Hosmer is gone bey the ASB. Maybe even by the end of spring training.

I’ll say one thing for ole Tommy Boy, he knows how to draw in the rubes. It’s much more cost effective to buy statues of former players that it is to get currently good ones. If Sammy ever decides to bend the knee he’ll get one too. In 10 year they’ll be a Rizzo, 5 years later a Javy.

Aside from the occasional hot take artist, I’m not seeing this at all. The general sentiment is that they have their quarterback and need to find a way to surround him with better weapons and a line all while restocking a pathetic defense. I have seen articles about how the Bears should draft Young and trade Fields. I think most of it is just sports writer bs and being overwhelmed with the idea of having the top pick; like the exuberance makes people stupid. I don't think anyone seriously thinks the Bears are going to move on from Fields. However, Young is a pretty special college QB. I am not 100% convinced that he's a pro QB. He'll have to have Drew Breese-like talent to make it. I don't think the risk of trading Fields is worth the reward. There are too many questions about all of the top QBs in the draft to take a chance that they'd be better.

Media in general, and particularly in sports media, nuanced reporting is difficult to do well. It's a bottom line type of reasoning that doesn't take into account context. Having said that, he really needs to improve his short and midrange passing accuracy if he has any chance at success. Maybe that is a function of all the stuff you mentioned and he will show he can do it. But he has to get better.

Need to change the title for the 2nd time. He's been offered almost a billion dollars in contracts, lol. This is a good deal for the Twins if he can stay healthy.

He plays really good defense too, correct?

They will want to jump the Texans and the Texans won't want teams to jump them. The teams will absolutely have to want a specific one. Between Young, Levis, Richardson, and Stroud I don't see a lot of separation. This isn't a Peyton Manning draft. I wish it was.

A lot of the jockeying will get done after the combine and when the teams have identified internal needs and external FA options in addition to the draft guys. I don't see any QB-needy teams near the top wanting to trade with the Bears for the #1 knowing that they are not going to draft a QB. The further down they go the less likely they get their #1 target. It should be interesting to see what happens, but I'd guess that if they do trade down it will be in the 6-10 range. The good thing for the Bears is that due to need they can draft any top position player at virtually any position on both offense and defense and still come out ahead drafting in that range.

In many respects, this offseason will be a final exam for Poles and his team of assistants and coaches. An opportunity like this does not happen very often. They have to bullseye every target and every decision. The first of which is deciding if Justin Fields is their QB. They've hedged to this point.

Yes, this team is built to be solidly mediocre at baseline. If they get some breakouts they can be a step above. If they get some flops, they have the ability to replace them. They’d have to have a lot of bad things to happen to be bad (low 70s win total). If you factor in the competition, it’s really hard to see a bad win total outcome. This is Ricketts dream team.

I wish I could be that optimistic. In that they weren’t supposed to win in 2015. The wild card was a surprise. I would say a wild card berth would be equally surprising this year. It will only be similar if Davis and PCA and Mervis all come up and are raking. And one of the young pitchers step up ala Jake.