C.C.

Just admit you have no clue what you're talking about. What about bad contracts is wrong? Soriano is not a bad contract? Rebuilding Wrigs. etc.... This is some ridiculous trolling. They are clearly not burdened by "bad contracts" at this point. So what's our salary? 120M for a second to last team and you say their are no bad contracts?

Just admit you have no clue what you're talking about. What about bad contracts is wrong? Soriano is not a bad contract? Rebuilding Wrigs. etc....

You're right. The Cubs won't sign any free agents, make trades of sign IFAs. It'll all come down to draft luck. For the near future yes. I'm not saying we won't sign FA, but not high end FA's. And I never said anything about IFAs.

Who is saying that? I firmly in the "add if it helps but doesn't hinder the long term product" camp. In that mindset, adding Darvish/Cespedes would have made sense, but Pujols/Fielder would not have. At all. And I think the evidence indicates that Theo and Jed made legitimate plays for the former pair. I'd like to see more wins as much as anyone, but I'm not going to delude myself into the belief that with a few sensible additions the Cubs could have been good this year or next. You can say that comparing WAR and the like to gauge how many wins the team might or might not have had is silly, but it is at least grounded in some logic. WAR does provide some idea. Adding a couple superstar players isn't going to have a magical transformative effect. This isn't the NBA. In order to have fielded a team that was at all competitive, we'd have had to keep guys like Marshall, Cashner (given the state of the bullpen going into the season) and Ramirez, on top of adding 2-3 top tier FAs. You can go on all day about how the team could have been decent and the same system gains could have been made at the same time, but it doesn't make it true. Everything that I have read makes it sound like Cespedes wanted to play for the Cubs and the FO refused to shorten the deal. The bidding process on Darvish was expected to be in the $48-$51 million range and speculation is that the FO bid under $20 million. So how are those "legitimate plays"? Because it all reality it wasn't in play. We just didn't have the money. We are cash strapped between rebuilding Wrigley and bad contracts. Until then we just have to ride it out and hope our FO gets lucky on a draft or two. I guess the plan is to gut us and re-build. I hate the sound of it, but it's reality. Get used to it.

God it sounds like the Hill, Patterson, Choi, Harris etc....days. I'll see it when I believe it.

I just don't see it. Contend next year? Not a chance.

developing a farm system over a long period of time is not a crapshoot. sure there is a lot of luck involved, but it's a skill. More luck then skill. And over a long period of time you a bound to produce some studs, but how long is that period of time?

drose Sure but that took a decade.

Because developing them is a crap shoot and trading your farm for them is stupid when you can keep the farm and just pay them. at some point you are going to have to overpay for talent if you want the prize. Stop thinking we are some crappy small market team.

This reminds of the bulls suck decade. Fool the fans into thinking that we'll suck for a couple years draft well and be awesome again. How'd that work out.

If we take the same approach as last year, this team is Astros-level bad in 2013. No. Explain.

Hey, easy on the attacks. Keep it civil.

The vision includes sucking for a few years on purpose. It's not a great vision. Well it included sucking for one year. Beyond this year, I think you'll see gradual improvements in both the short and long term until we're awesome at both. If we don't sign any free agents I can't see us being any better next year. We might even be worse.

What if Theo and co. just didn't like any of the big FA this offseason? All of them had risks attached given where we stood and the money required to get them. Pujols: $200m+ over 10 years, it would be tough to build a WS team while he was still at an elite level, there were signs pointing to him declining and coming back towards the pack of 1B Fielder: Poor defender, long term questions about if he could stay in the field for a team that doesn't have DH. Wilson: Short term track record of success as a starter, saw major jumps in IP over the last two years compared to his career Darvish: Would have taken $100m plus to acquire him the FO might have had a bad taste in their mouth after Dice-K. He hasn't been all that great this year. Previously had a lot of innings on his arm already. Cespedes: By all accounts we wanted him and offered him the same AAV as the A's but he wanted a shorter term deal (4 with the A's v. 7 with us) so he could potentially cash in big one more time. If he didn't like any of them why did he put in a bid for Pujols, Fielder, Darvish, and Cespedes? PR move?

What Vision? We suck for 2-3 years and hope and pray we draft well? That's a shitty vision for a big market team.

Bingo! Trying to build through the draft is not easy. Look how many years the Bulls sucked until they drafted Rose. What a decade?

(when i said he left them nothing, i assumed it was easily understood that meant nothing of value...he obviously left him some players with which to actually physically field a team, and not that he made off with all his players like some dastardly bandit) So what you are saying is that Cashner and Marshall had no value whatsoever, but Epstein used his magic Jedi mind tricks to turn them into valuable assets? LOL! Right!

(when i said he left them nothing, i assumed it was easily understood that meant nothing of value...he obviously left him some players with which to actually physically field a team, and not that he made off with all his players like some dastardly bandit) But then why do discredit what Kyle wrote? Marshall. Barney. Dempster. Cashner. Samardzija. had\have value.

Marshall. Barney. Dempster. Cashner. Samardzija. hindsight BS a FA-to-be middle reliever a guy with a career 79 OPS+ a 35yo FA-to-be coming off a 4.80 ERA season a pitcher coming off a shoulder injury who'd still never topped 100 IP a wild reliever who'd never even produced a 4.25 xFIP none of these were assets with significant value at the beginning of the year What does that matter? They weren't of significant value at the beginning of the year so they don't count as Hendry's guys?

So I guess we have to hope and pray that they draft some studs in the next two years. If not shits gonna turn on the FO.

So what? They are 10 games over and 1.5 games out and have a great shot at the playoffs.

I think it's more that the playing field is probably level, with many of the top riders using something or another. It's not that he never did anything. It's just a really hard argument to make publicly, because by making the argument you have to first admit that you were doping. After that, nobody's going to listen much to the "but everyone else is doing it too" part. So he was doping and they probably had enough proof. Then it makes sense.

They are only 1.5 games out of first.

That would be nice.

I don't get why he won't stop fighting it? If I knew I wasn't guilty I wouldn't throw in the towel. It just creates doubts and discredits his accomplishments.