Rob

If this happens, then the Cubs need to get really serious about prying Justin Smoak away from Seattle. Easier said than done. We don't exactly have much in the form of moveable assets and The Mariners aren't going to just say since we have Fielder please take Smoak off our hands for Blake DeWitt and Casey Coleman. As far as attainable targets go, Barton might actually be the best bet in terms of affordability. Three days ago you called Barton "a very poor man's Carlos Pena" and questioned whether he would really be a better option than LaHair. But hey that was three days ago, right?

Signing Crisp isn't a negative on its own. But when you consider that this team already has little to no power in the outfield, has only 1/3 of the starting OF get on base at a good clip (DeJesus), and already has Tony Campana to very cheaply fill the great defense/baserunner role and also has DeJesus to provide both decently, going after Crisp seems like a terrible allocation of funds - even if he signs cheaply. Also, that post was in reference to you apparently referring to Crisp as well-rounded, in the same arena as Lowell, Beltre, Gonzalez, etc. When your offensive output can be optimistically described as "Is it good? No. But it's not like it's bad either," then you're not a well-rounded player. Runs are runs. Whether they come from power or stolen bases or defense is immaterial. I'll agree that Crisp isn't really ideal for a bench role, as the pinch runner/defender role can be filled quite adequately by Campana (although Campana makes Crisp look like Babe Ruth at the plate) as well as the fact that Crisp hasn't always been a great clubhouse guy when demoted to the bench. But if one of Soriano/Byrd is shipped off and we've spent the bulk of our money elsewhere (1B/SP), there simply aren't many better OF options in Crisp's price range. You could spend all day debating the relative merits of the Crisp/Damon/Drew/Fukudome/Kubel group. Again, I'm not supporting going hard after Crisp or anything of the sort. I'm just saying he makes some small degree of sense should the Cubs find themselves in a very specific situation that might, but probably wont, occur later this offseason (after trading Soriano/Byrd and with the team near broke after filling some other holes). He's not a player worth getting mad about or excited about. I'm not going to get into a semantic debate about the definition of well-rounded.

Are you responding to me? Because I don't know how a team being good on offense is somehow a rebuttal for "Theo likes players with well rounded skillsets." Let me ask you this, how many one dimensional sluggers can you name that Theo Epstein acquired during his tenure in Boston? David Ortiz might've counted if he ever played the field, but he doesn't... so Victor Martinez, maybe? That year Wily Mo Pena was their 4th OF? The one year deal for Todd Walker in Theo's first offseason? You don't see Theo sign many guys who don't contribute in multiple ways. and yet you are supporting the notion of acquiring coco. your whole post was supporting the notion that theo goes after defensive guys My whole post? What about the part where I blatantly state "Theo likes players with well rounded skillsets." And the next post I made, where I quoted myself saying that. Respond to the point of the whole post... don't just pick out what you think will make for a fun argument. You aren't davearm. I'm only giving the most bare support for a Coco Crisp acquisition possible "if there's room for him on the team and the price is right, there's no reason for him to elicit the negative reaction he's garnered so far." He's just a guy. He walks that fine line between "he's a fantastic 4th OF" and "he's a pretty good stopgap option if we're spending our money elsewhere." I was only pointing out that he fits the description of the type of guy our front office favors.

Are you responding to me? Because I don't know how a team being good on offense is somehow a rebuttal for "Theo likes players with well rounded skillsets." Let me ask you this, how many one dimensional sluggers can you name that Theo Epstein acquired during his tenure in Boston? David Ortiz might've counted if he ever played the field, but he doesn't... so Victor Martinez, maybe? That year Wily Mo Pena was their 4th OF? The one year deal for Todd Walker in Theo's first offseason? You don't see Theo sign many guys who don't contribute in multiple ways.

If he were pursuing guys with well-rounded skillsets like the guys you listed, that'd be fine. My concern is that he's targeting guys like Coco Crisp who don't have well-rounded skillsets. He can run the bases well and plays good defense, but isn't very good at getting on base and barely tops a .400 career slugging. His career walk rate is 7.6% and the two highest of his career have come in seasons where he played fewer than 100 games. Add onto that he's 32 years old and has played more than 130 games in a season 4 times and I'm not seeing anything close to well-rounded for Crisp. You can make that argument with DeJesus and you'd be right. But not Crisp. As an aside, the moves Theo has been making to this point do seem similar to what Zduriencik did when he got to Seattle. Jack Z focused almost entirely on defense and baserunning, while completely ignoring offense (brought in guys like Betancourt, Jack Wilson, and others) and it led to Seattle being absolutely horrid his entire tenure so far. If that's the new market inefficiency that has been identified by SABR-savvy GMs and is the plan that Theo is bringing to Chicago, I really hope Theo does a better job of it than Jack Z has done in Seattle. Crisp has a career .275/.330/.406 triple slash line with a wOBA of .327 and a wRC+ of 98. I'd venture to guess that's about average for a CF over his career. Is it good? No. But it's not like he's bad either. He's a slightly less effective David DeJesus with more injury issues. He's not a perfect signing on even a very good one... but if there's room for him on the team and the price is right, there's no reason for him to elicit the negative reaction he's garnered so far.

What did you guys expect? Theo had been trending hard towards defense since he took over the Red Sox. Hell, he traded Nomar to us in order to get Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz. He spent half his tenure trying to get rid of Manny. He went hard after guys like Adrian Beltre, JD Drew, Mike Lowell, Adrian Gonzalez, and Mike Cameron. He drafted guys like Ellsbury. Theo likes players who have well rounded skillsets. Is that somehow a bad thing?

Defense and baserunning is the new walks (although walks are certainly still welcome). Get with the program already.

Coco Crisp is somewhere from average to above average when healthy. I don't necessarily have a problem with acquiring him, but I have a hard time seeing exactly how he would fit into our plans. Of course, if we're moving Soriano/Byrd elsewhere for salary relief or prospects, he might make sense to replace them. It is becoming abundantly clear, however, that the brass does not care for Brett Jackson's strikeout issues.

That's crazytalk. If that's the case, we're lucky to be in a league with so many dumb GMs. It's only crazy if they think we've bottomed out the price. If they think waiting a bit longer could get him to come even cheaper then they're doing the right thing.

Who was it that everybody was saying had won the Matsuzaka bid at first again?

:beg:

I thought we were officially paid off on Bradley/Silva. I think Silva has a buyout that goes to this year... $2 mil or so.

Didn't rumor have it that Seibu was threatening to send Matsuzaka back down to the minors if he didn't sign? Apparently they can keep guys down there pretty much indefinitely without them reaching FA status. Of course, Boras would file infinity bajillion lawsuits... but Darvish would still end up getting hurt in the long run most likely.

I doubt it. Tomorrow isn't unrealistic though.

I haven't seen anybody suggesting that we can't or even shouldn't spend significantly in free agency right now (though I wont presume to speak for davearm). The vocal "anti-Fielder" crowd is mostly just saying "I don't want to overpay by more than x" I wouldn't be happy with 6/150, but I think our front office is good enough to overcome the 30 mil or so they'd be overpaying by. The problem occurs when we hear people suggesting 7 or 8 years isn't likely to be a problem when -- quite frankly -- Fielder has no real chance of ever even approaching the value he'd need to. Let me pose two scenarios. Scenario 1: We sign Darvish + Fielder. Fielder get a 7 year contract. Scenario 2: We sign Darvish + Edwin Jackson. We work a trade revolving around Z + Cashner to the Marlins for Logan Morrison. We use the extra money left in the budget to sign Jorge Soler. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see much difference in value between those scenarios for 2012... but scenario 2 looks so much better for us in the mid to long terms. Overall, I don't have a problem at all with scenario 2, but you're going to have to kick in a ton of Z's money and add something else (or two) really good to get Morrison. I'm not even sure Z and Cashner are a good start. But, depending on who we lose in addition to those two, I'd have zero problem with Darvish/Jackson/Morrison for this offseason. The Z + Cashner for Morrison thing isn't meant to be exact. That whole situation is strange. The only reason Morrison is available is because the Marlins brass hates him on a personal level. Meanwhile, we know Ozzie Guillen loves Z. Beyond that, it's really hard to predict what it would take.

I haven't seen anybody suggesting that we can't or even shouldn't spend significantly in free agency right now (though I wont presume to speak for davearm). The vocal "anti-Fielder" crowd is mostly just saying "I don't want to overpay by more than x" I wouldn't be happy with 6/150, but I think our front office is good enough to overcome the 30 mil or so they'd be overpaying by. The problem occurs when we hear people suggesting 7 or 8 years isn't likely to be a problem when -- quite frankly -- Fielder has no real chance of ever even approaching the value he'd need to. Let me pose two scenarios. Scenario 1: We sign Darvish + Fielder. Fielder get a 7 year contract. Scenario 2: We sign Darvish + Edwin Jackson. We work a trade revolving around Z + Cashner to the Marlins for Logan Morrison. We use the extra money left in the budget to sign Jorge Soler. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see much difference in value between those scenarios for 2012... but scenario 2 looks so much better for us in the mid to long terms.

So in a hypothetical world where any mistakes our front office makes are forgiven and we just keep throwing money at problems, you'd be okay with giving him whatever? Great, that's useful. Theo has a budget. And at 25 million per season, Fielder would represent anywhere from 15%-20% of Theo's total budget (as well as have the 3rd highest yearly salary in baseball). This isn't chump change. This is without a doubt the sort of contract that can become an albatross that will prevent the Cubs from making worthwhile moves later on. Given the significant amount of risk that Fielder poses as well as his questionable overall production (both now and especially in the later years of his contract), there has to be a point at which it ceases to be a good idea to commit to him. Anybody who is willing to blindly throw money and years at a player in order to dig the Cubs out of a hole might do well to look at how we got into our current hole.

Mojo, do you still believe the Cubs should have spent whatever it took to get Adam Dunn last offseason?

Side note -- has anybody looked at what's happened to Ryan Howard the last couple years? And that crazy extension of his starts next year. That's gonna be a rough five years.

There's a decent chance Clevenger gets it so Castillo can get ABs in Iowa. I'm fine with it either way though.

There are some young options if you're looking a bit more long term. They've all got their own unique upsides and downsides, but I wouldn't be terribly upset if we went with any of them. (Sanchez and Smoak are likely only available if their team ends up with Fielder) Logan Morrison Gaby Sanchez Justin Smoak Ike Davis Kyle Blanks Mark Trumbo* Daric Barton Travis Snider There's also a slightly older tier that has some pretty major power, but has major questions too (health/defense/approach). They're not under control all that long and so are likely to come cheaper. Kendrys Morales Mark Reynolds Adam Lind Then there's the obvious "placeholder" group that can provide decent production for a year or two until we figure out something better to do at 1B. Carlos Pena Michael Cuddyer Carlos Lee After that point, it gets a little messy. But there's a host of other teams guys who haven't really had a good chance yet or blew it in a short chance (Brett Wallace, Brandon Allen, Chris Carter, Lars Anderson, David Cooper, etc...) There's also the "shitty retreads" group with guys like Brad Hawpe and James Loney... but it's obvious there's enough options there's no reason to go into these groups unless a scout was visited by an angel who told him David Ortiz was reborn into Chris Davis's body. *I would be upset with Trumbo. He sucks.

My excitement to see Ryan Theriot taken down a peg is somewhat offset by the fact the Cardinals can now spend that elsewhere. Oh, what's that you say? They gave Skip Schumaker 2 years? Huzzah!

For clarification, Barton has been tendered a contract. He is not a FA. Yes, I know. I mistakenly wrote non tendered instead of tendered. Otherwise I wouldn't have suggested the possibility of trading for him. The shame I feel is far greater than anything you can say or do. And when I read it I assumed you had a brain fart and thought non-tendering was the same thing as DFA. If you don't want people to clarify your mistakes, edit them yourself.

I could kiss you right on the [expletive].

OMG, RICH PEOPLE AREN'T ALLOWED TO BE STRESSED OUT ABOUT PUBLIC PRESSURES. HANG HER!