Rob

Am I missing something? The Cubs pretty much have to trade at least one of Marshall/Marmol. Marshall is one of the best relievers in baseball and is a FA after this season. Somebody will make him their closer (and give him closer money). So we can either trade him now and get something, trade Marmol and extend Marshall (who would be our new closer), or let Marshall walk after the season (for which we would not get any compensation under the new CBA).

If Wood is the pitcher he was in 2010, that's a great move. If he's the Wood from 2011, I'd rather try to snag a nice upside prospect elsewhere.

Well, hell, sign me up twice then. Good thing we didn't waste money on a fatty Seriously guys? Yeah, this is getting a bit silly... and not just because it's in the Darvish thread.

But why spend 12 or 13 mil per year when you can get the same value from a guy for half that? We just got DeJesus, a better player, for about 1/3 of what Ethier will make per season.

I was asked who we COULD spend money on in 2013. BASED ON A SCENARIO I had mentioned. As one of the biggest bats avaialable that offseason, I mentioned him, proceeded to say he wouldn't hit the market, followed by saying he had tons of red flags, followed by saying if I'm signing a bat from that class, it'd probably be Upton or maybe Ethier, but we'd probably have to trade for a bat because the class is so weak. What a ringing endorsment for Josh Hamilton I gave! Ethier? Jesus Christ. What's wrong with Ethier, other than he's evidently a prick towards some of his current teammates? He played hurt most of this past season and his 3 previous ones he had OPS'S of .885, .869, and .857. He'd be 31 at that point and could probably be had on a 3 or 4 year deal. I don't see a problem with him. He's not great defensively? That's not enough to bother me about him. "Not that great defensively" is an understatement. He's abysmal in the field. Last year he had a huge dropoff in power and the only reason his overall numbers didn't look terribly out of the ordinary was a BABIP of .348. I'd suspect that's the start of his decline. For a player that was never much more than a 3.0 WAR guy anyways, I don't want him for anywhere near what he's gonna get paid. That fun old game again. Figure out the mystery early 30's outfielders based off their WAR every year since 2006 (when Ethier broke into the league). A: 2.4, 2.0, 3.5, 2.8, 2.2, 2.9 Total - 15.8 B: 4.4, 1.9, 2.5, 3.7, 2.6, 2.2 Total - 17.3 C: 1.0, 4.4, 1.6, 1.5, 3.3, 2.2 Total - 14.0 There are free agent outfielders every year with comparable or better value than Ethier who will only come at a fraction of the cost. You want to be able to afford to take risks on guys like Fielder and Darvish? We do that by not wasting money elsewhere.

I wont lie... this hurts. And now I'm worried we're going to sign Fielder to a poorly advised deal in a desperate bid to show we're doing something. Sleeping on it for a night will perhaps provide some more perspective, but for tonight at least I've reached the point where I'd be fine with a full-scale rebuilding process.

Buster Olney is reporting Pushfrog98 is getting banned.

BAN!

C'mon $48,151,623.42

And suddenly, I realized that Hollandsworth's mug wasn't a moron... he was just a frustrated guy with blue balls. CONSUMMATE SOMETHING ALREADY!!!

Were you asking me that and who the hell is that? its the person you share an IP address with... Very Thundergun.

I'm in. Is there any chance of getting Oddibe McDowell on the coaching staff?

I seem to recall seeing that the Marlins TV ratings were actually quite healthy... people just didn't want to go to the stadium. I imagine there were more than a few causes for that.

The Yankees supposedly only made a "modest" bid. And most people comparing notes seem to be relatively confident the Blue Jays outbid them. I'm not sure why you would be so certain the Yankees won the bid.

You have to keep in mind that he's still only 22 and did miss significant time because of the Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I'm well aware. I'm not saying he's not a nice prospect. He's a bit overrated on account of being a former Red Sox prospect and co-headlining a trade for Adrian Gonzalez, but he's a nice prospect. I'm just saying I'm not sold on his ability to step in and produce much in the next couple years. He's a bit raw to be expecting the kind of production we'd be looking for if we want to compete in the short term.

I feel like I'm missing something on Rizzo. It's not like he's Eric Hosmer, who has very few holes in his game and sparkling scouting reports. Rizzo needs a lot of work... He's young enough he could certainly figure it out, but the scouting reports I've seen were always kinda "meh" on his power until he started mashing in the PCL. He strikes out too much and runs too slowly to be much more than a .260 hitter (crazy .350+ BABIPs through the minors make his numbers look better than they should've). His walk rate is okay, but it's not particularly exciting either. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have guys like him in the system. But I'm just not sold on him as a guy we should be looking at as our potential opening day 1B.

Don't see the Padres doing that. And I hope the Cubs wouldn't.

There's something about Wells that people just do not trust. Even me. I wish I knew why.

I'm not huge on Rizzo, honestly. There'd have to be another piece of similar value and a couple others before I'd entertain the thought of trading Garza.

that's a pretty damn good haul, and I'm not high on Alonso at all My thoughts exactly. I love Grandal though. Of course, this deal does make the Reds better too. They've still got Votto and Mesoraco at 1B and C.

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.