Rob

Madrigal has a penchant for being injured, granted. But when he's healthy, he's probably penciled in as our primary 3B. And even in those games where he doesn't start, he's going to get plenty of pinch hitting opportunities whenever it's a situation where contact is needed more than power. So he's probably appearing in 80+% of the games he's healthy for.

Apparently nobody does. It looks like I misread the post I was responding to.

I understand on an intellectual level that Mastrobuoni ostensibly has some value to this team. (He's a high-percentage basestealer with positional versatility. In the minors he showed an ability to avoid strikeouts, to take a walk, and even to hit for a modicum of power. Yada yada yada...) But for whatever reason, I just can't believe that he will provide any real value. For reasons that elude me, I have no faith in him whatsoever.

Yup. The weather thread gives me climate change anxiety, and I'd be significantly happier if I could make it disappear from my feed forever.

Madrigal is 5'8" You don't have to be tall to be a good 1B, but it does help an awful lot. Of recent 1B who are below 6' tall, only Carlos Santana has a particularly positive defensive reputation. And he's 5'11. I just think Madrigal is going to have a hard time reigning in the occasional errant throw.

I'm not upset to lose out on Turner at that price. His value at this point is basically whatever is left in his bat, and it's showing some signs of age-related decline. He could bounce back, certainly. J.D. Martinez did last year. But Turner is 39. Each year that goes by makes it increasingly likely that he just falls off a cliff.

Darn, I was hoping that we'd be involved in their rumored trade.

A day or two ago there were some rumors about the Mariners having interest in Cease. I didn't see the point in that unless he was unloading some of his pitching surplus. I wondered if we might be involved. God bless Jerry Dipoto and his tradelust. He always keeps it interesting.

I could definitely see Bellinger and/or Boras prioritizing something with an opt-out after 1-2 years. A lot of teams are hesitant to pony up for Bellinger because there's just so much to dislike in his batted ball data. If he can show that it's not a fluke, teams will be much more inclined to pay up.

If it helps, you can think of our last trade as Busch for Ferris and Almonte for Hope. That's probably pretty close to how they were valued.

"I'm happily empowering a wannabe tinpot dictator. Can't we just ignore that when I want to enjoy something?" I'm ambivalent about the pen, but feel good about one or more prospects stepping up. Smart money is on Brown.

If you were actually a conservative, you'd hate Trump and the Republican party. There is nothing classically conservative about either. Party of fiscal responsibility? They spend every bit as much as the democrats, but refuse to pay the bill. Instead they cut taxes and watch the national debt balloon. Party of personal responsibility? No, we better ban books because we don't trust parents to handle that themselves. Party of family values? Only if supporting a demagogue who was banging porn stars instead of his pregnant wife is now what we call family values. Party of common sense? Let's watch the planet burn around us and pretend we don't see what's happening. I was a conservative and a registered Republican for a very long time. What's happened to the party and it's base is a damn abomination. And I'm not going to pretend otherwise so that you can feel welcomed here.

This is your requested, but very late, smack upside the head.

As a man with no defensive home and a good but not great bat, Morel is just an incredibly frustrating guy to plan around. If he walked more / struck out less, he'd be easy to pencil in as a great DH. But most teams without great DH options simply use the DH to rest regulars and rehab minor injuries. So using him there full time feels subpar. If his physical tools translated to some defensive skills, he'd be easier to plan around. But for whatever reason, they just don't. For a lot of people, I think myself included, it's easier to just assume other teams see his prodigious physical tools and somebody out there thinks they can fix him, and would value him accordingly. So we're content to rest on the easy idea that he should be on the trade block. It's harder to imagine the Cubs player development fixing those issues for him at the major league level, but I'd be thrilled if that's the case.

You can continue to live in your own little world. The rest of us will continue to live in reality.

I'm reminded of the old George Carlin bit. “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” So yeah, at least half of America's population is stupid. But since you seem to be under the illusion that "over half of America's population" voted for and/or likes Trump, that's unequivocally untrue. He lost the popular vote both times. And even if you want to pretend nonvoters like him, his approval rate has never eclipsed 50%. (Biden's did, though). So no, you aren't in some sort of silent majority either. The only reason your guy won is because 200+ years ago the founding fathers made some concessions to slave states to get them in the union. That concession is called the electoral college, and it continues to give racists a disproportionately large say in our democracy. As to the deplorable comment, I tried very hard not to judge those who voted for Trump in 2016. He was a bit of a wildcard -- I could see how somebody could anticipate all sorts of different policy outcomes. He was clearly unqualified, but perhaps he was going to let qualified people make decisions for him and merely act as a figurehead/manager. But we know who he is now. He's a racist, misogynistic, narcissist who is willing to burn the legacy of American democracy to the ground if it means he can escape the consequences of his actions. Anybody who continues to support Donald Trump is, in fact, either completely divorced from reality or any sense of ethics. Or both.

Decades ago, NSBB was founded as a bastion for intelligent discussion of the Cubs. Cubs.com was full of idiots spouting off about pitcher wins and RBIs, but here we'd see a bunch of very smart posters adopting basic sabermetrics and graciously instructing others on how baseball truly worked. It was the dawning of a new age. People came here to learn and grow alongside the game. Then the site sort of petered out, alongside just about every other internet message board. But those who remained typically had a deep interest in what had attracted us to the site in the first place - the presence of clever and intelligent posters. So no, nobody was baiting you. It's just that the longstanding posters on this board expect people to be smart. And demographically speaking, that means we aren't used to seeing Trump supporters on this board. Squally couldn't have been baiting you - I'd be surprised if he knew you even exist.

Weren't there rumors that Neris was looking for like $50M and a possible starting gig a la Hicks? I'm glad this isn't that.

It's a minor league deal with a spring training invite. There is literally no downside. How can you possibly be down on this?

It's pretty clear the Cubs need a bat. It's less clear that Bellinger has one.

A good chunk of this board had deluded themselves into the belief that Bellinger is a no-doubt superstar. To be sure, he could be a superstar. He could also be worse than PCA straight up. There's just a huge range of outcomes there -- and with the exception of Glasnow, I don't recall seeing the Dodgers signing many guys like that. And at least Glasnow is basically a sure bet to be elite when he's on the field.

I'm not seeing it as super likely that the Cubs want to trade Madrigal. A man with his skillset is a prime candidate to find some synergy in a Counsell-managed team. With proper deployment, he could be somewhat valuable to us over the three remaining years of club control. More than he'd likely be worth for other teams, I imagine...

Drawn out contract negotiations defy our societal expectations of instant gratification. But instead of focusing on our issues, we try to extend these problems into the grander arguments about overpaid athletes, agents, and the struggle of labor against the bourgeoisie (despite it being a question of millionaires v. billionaires).

It's largely meaningless, I imagine. All parties involved know he's getting moved at the deadline to a team in need of bullpen help. Whether he's closer now or then or whenever is irrelevant to the issue of his trade value.

How do you figure it punishes the team? I can't imagine any of the players caring who the owner is.