davell

Cubs reclaimed that Rollins guy again, per Rosenthal.

Good for them. Hope they make it back next year.(to get swept)

RIP Crying Jordan

The Cubs? They're playing Almora and Jay there. Are we not considering Heyward as the de facto full-time CF, with Zobrist in RF and Baez at 2B? Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, but neither Jay nor Almora is likely to deserve more ABs than Javy over the course of the season. My guess is they'll still look at Javy "technically" as the utility guy. But he'll probably get 80+ starts at 2B, unless injuries force him elsewhere. I'm sure Heyward gets some CF starts, but unless Javy is an All Star and we're needing to find most of Zobrists AB's in RF, it won't be more than 20 games or so, short of a Jay or Almora injury AND ineffectiveness by the other. In the end, attrition will take care of all this anyway.

Not only a ring, but very likely got a full playoff share(over 350k) as well. 'Murica

[tweet] [/tweet] horsefeathers. What's worse? The damn question or the people who said no?

[tweet] [/tweet] If that's true, that's not a bad deal at all.

I think we'd need to get very creative, in order to get the extra year(or more) with Ross. Example being a one year deal with 6-7 guaranteed, plus inning based incentives that could push that up towards 15, at 200 innings. Then, a team option of 2/30 or even 3/45, that we'd have to make a decision on, if he pitches well. As for KC, I like Candelario for Skoglund and Junis. Both should be in AAA. We may be able to find a singular guy with a bit higher upside, but I like the progress both appear to be showing.

Sign Ross, get a 2 year option and he recovers to his prior form. Trade Candelario for a post hype guy that turns into a legit 2/3, as soon as we get him. Sorry Theo, but this is the bar you created for yourself.

This is going to be awesome. I laughed so horsefeathering hard, reading the article where Theo was going apeshit and took a walk midgame, during the Matusz debacle. His idea was to go into the locker room and apologize for getting too cute, by calling Matusz up. I just love the mental image of Theo holding a team meeting....."Guys, I fucked up. Never should have called that, um, ear muffs Brian, sack of horsefeathers up to pitch."

Time to bottom the horsefeathers out. Sucks, because I like having Wade. That said, they'll contend for a playoff spot and lather, rinse, repeat next year and so on. All we can hope for is a total housecleaning.

Bonds Clemens Vlad Manny Mussina Schilling Edgar Raines Pudge Walker Would also have voted for Sammy, Bags, and Sheff. Kent is very close for me and I just can't reconcile putting Hoffman in.

I think this might even put Blevins or Logan back on the radar? Unless we were trying to get Ziegler on a one year deal? Either way, I definitely think it means we're trying to build a super pen. With the 10 Day DL I think its possible to carry 10 quality guys and just rotate them.

I really want us to get Ross on a 1+ deal. The FO can get as creative as need be for it. He's a perfect upside play right now for us. Won't hurt if we miss on him, makes us that much more better if he's good. For FA, I think its him or nothing, for SP's. And that's fine, he's got more upside than any of them...... With or without him though, we'll fill in with some depth, at Iowa. I suspect at least one will be very intriguing, via trade. I think Rob Z goes into the season 8th or 9th on the depth chart, when he's 6th currently. I feel very confident we'll add another pen arm or two, because there's going to be guys looking for jobs, that haven't found them. We'll capitalize on that for sure.

Most Skip Bayless thing ever.

Will Uehara's velo hold up and will he continue to dominate in reverse splits?

The only thing I even saw being out of character was him saying Javy K's 80% of the time, with the bases loaded, when it was 40%. Seemed a bit out of character for him to just throw numbers out there haphazardly, to make his point. Maybe I missed him doing that previously, but that's the only time I've noticed it. The positive approach of "Hey, we won, that's what matters" seems EXACTLY how Joe would handle things. And I'm absolutely fine with it. If anything, I think we've been spoiled by how good he's been, in comparison to the village idiots we've ran out there most of our lives. Does he need a mulligan? Jay Cutler "Don't CAAAAAAARE" meme.......Love Maddon.

By Kyle, I actually meant Hendricks. Could be off, but the high finish in the Cy race will help, as would another really good season.

With inflation, and an MVP to his credit, I DO think 12 is plausible. I'm not doing anything but guessing though, and looking at Howards 10 mill 1st time thru arb. I THINK you're conceivably supposed to get 40, 60, and 80 percent of your value in your 3 years of arb. No idea how that breaks down over 4 years.

Theo and Vedder were playing drunk catch and taking BP at 5 in the morning after Game 6 of the NLCS.

Kind of cool, in a way. Looks like we have a decent shot at going over in 2017 too, based on where we are currently and what it looks like counts against it. The key is to be well under and able to reset for the post-2018 FA class. The Yankees look like they'll be able to and I think the Dodgers will find a way too, as well. Its a necessity, based on the much stricter penalties that appear to be in the new CBA..... What does this mean for us currently? Well, our payroll looks to be sitting at 132.952 at this moment, per Cots....This does NOT include Arrieta(16.8 arb projection from MLBTR), Strop(5.5), Rondon(5.7), and Grimm(1.8). That's an additional 29.8 mill, which won't be exact, but good enough to use for this. That takes us to 162.752. Then, we've got to add all the pre-arb guys, based on their salaries, minus any days they're NOT in the majors. So, my guess is that puts us around 170. The luxury tax moves to 195 next year, which seems to give us some room, right? Not really. First, any minor leaguer on the 40 man that happens to miss the season counts against this. Last year, Villanueva, Rosscup, Aaron Brooks, and Dallas Beeler all counted against it, at over 500,000 apiece. Granted, we don't have any of them yet, but odds are, we will. Any in-season acquisitions obviously count. Chapman, Coghlan, and Joe Smith added over 9 mill last year and that doesn't account for the Joe Nathans or Joel Peraltas of the world, that we'll inevitably add. The kicker though, is it appears to me that ALL top 10 round draft pick signing bonuses AND other 100,000+ signing bonuses count towards this figure too. Which shocked me. I don't have a true sense of what our draft pool will be this year, but I suspect it will be 8-9 million. So, add that to our current 170ish number and let's just call it 180, to be safe. That leaves us 15 million for in-season moves AND to finish off this offseason. So yeah, I suspect we'll likely go over in 2017. A Tyson Ross signing alone, with normal trade deadline activity.....We're over. Doesn't even account for any other reliever signings, which could happen. Or a different FA starter signing.....10 mill as an over/under for the rest of the offseason? I think I'd bet on slightly over that personally. And I'm sure we'll be over 5 on in-season moves. But, this DOES tell me, that unless its for a very cheap guy, or a pre-arb guy.....We won't be adding any more multi-year FA contracts this winter. Blevins? Unfortunately, I don't see it. At least not if we sign Ross to a one year, plus option type of deal..... Why is that? Because we're going to try and get lean for NEXT year AND for post 2018 too. The good news, is we're in excellent shape to be under for next year..... Our commitments total 79.453 for next year. But that only includes Lester, Heyward, Zobrist, and Rizzo lol. Still, its not bad, with these arb commitments......Rondon and Grimm in arb-3, with Seal Boy, Szczur, KB, Addy, and Hendricks hitting arb for the 1st time.... Arrieta, Montero, Lackey, Strop, Uehara, Jay, Duensing, and Wade Davis will be FA next year. That's 78.3 mill of projected salary coming off the books, which is awesome. If I throw a number out of my ass on arb guesstimates on the above group, I'll say 12 on KB, 6 on Addy, and 6 on Kyle. Who knows if any of the rest are even around? I'm hoping to be a bit high on those 3 too, but if they perform at, near, or above their current work rate, I think those are fair guesses..... Still, you're looking at this squad for a tad over a 100 mill..... Contreras, Rizzo, Javy, Addy, KB, Schwarber, Almora, Heyward, with Lester, Hendricks, and Monty in the rotation. No pen guys accounted for, but Carl. I'd bet we've got more than that already accounted for, but whether its Rob Z, Pena, or Grimm and Rondon, I've got no idea..... At any rate, it SHOULD leave plenty of room to replace Jake and Lackey, and still add to the pen. With nominal position player additions too. Definitely see why trading for a really good, cheap SP is a HUGE deal though. Just leaves us THAT MUCH MORE to spend on a Harper, CK, Otani, Darvish, or whoever else we want to throw money at..... Which kind of tells me that we could take advantage on NEXT years FA class and stay under the LT, with the Yankees and Dodgers both basically sitting out, while resetting their tax situation. Red Sox too, for that matter. We look to be in great shape to have the ability to participate in BOTH classes(and reset next year too), with the other big market guys sitting on their hands next offseason in FA. A bit of a ramble here, but I got to looking thru things and thought it was worth going thru. In the end, I doubt I'm saying anything we didn't already know about the rest of this offseason. One year contracts or trades for cost controlled guys. But, I doubt we spend more than 10-15 mill in total payroll, even doing that. Because I doubt we'll want to needlessly go way over the threshold when we don't have to. But reset after next year, still be able to be real players in FA in the post 2017 class, and ALSO be able to for 2018 too, which not many of the big spenders will be able to say. If I'm looking at the LT wrong, its definitely possible. Just figured I'd throw this out there and if anyone has additional info, I'd love to hear it.

Damn, I was debating if it was Rosscup or Efron.

[tweet] [/tweet] [tweet] [/tweet] Agree a million percent

Why in the hell would Pat Hughes put his name with this? And seriously, how does Yellon even have a writing job?