Rob

"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.

If the owners need to be incentivized, why does it need to be a reward? The franchise with the worst record in baseball should be forced to sell to new ownership. Every year. Or if you'd rather, attach the ownership getting shitcanned to the draft lottery. That'd keep more owners "honest."

I imagine that if Kim were available for the same offer as Busch, Hoyer would have likely gone with Kim. I'm guessing he costs Busch plus another somewhat significant piece.

Which is just a trade bonus with more steps involved.

No, it happened to me too. But you can get rid of it by adjusting your filter. Mine doesn't include news articles anymore.

Meh. He's a shutdown reliever. He's going to be easy to move during the teardown as long as his arm is attached to his body. It'll just be a function of how much contract needs eaten.

They've both got some pretty big warts, but gun to my head -- I'd probably say Chapman is the better bet for the short term. But it'd be darn near even odds on that bet. Chapman's approach has always led to some streaky results. But right when he was mashing the ball in late July / early August is when he jammed his finger. So it's possible some of the massive 2nd half downturn is simply due to trying to play through that injury. If so, there's a pretty easy path to see how his bat recovers. There's just a lot more going on with Bellinger's batted ball data and approach, and that lends itself to more uncertainty. If I had faith last year's production could be replicated, he'd be the easy choice. That's particularly true over the length of a long-term contract. But I just don't have that faith.

Not 1908, but it's pretty clearly from baseballsavant. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/cody-bellinger-641355?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb#statcast_rankings

I don't think there's anybody on this board that doesn't want Bellinger. It's all about the contract. If it's 200M, the contract outweighs the player.

I've been trying to avoid it because it feels really lazy, but I like an Anthony Rizzo comp. A lot of that depends on the AAA strikeout rate development sticking, but if it does...

Oh yeah, he's absolutely terrible out there. But my head canon is basically that he spent his whole career as an infielder and just hasn't learned how to judge a flyball off the bat yet. Let him DH this year, but have him work every day in the outfield before games. Eventually, some small part of me believes he can get to the point he might be playable out there. The tools are just too good for me to wrap my head around him being that bad. I feel like something eventually has to click. And if it does, wow.