davell

Just make sure you properly give credit to Hendry for them!

Good God, what an absolutely stupid move on their end.

That's one full ass cupboard.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you call it another revenue stream. Are you assuming that the Ricketts family will use the cash from the sale to fund team operations, or are you actually indicating that this will somehow generate annual income for them? Eh, who knows where it'd go honestly? The debt structure has meant in the past that other revenue streams(ads, TV deal, etc) have helped formulate their baseball ops budget, the renovations, and other costs, while showing no losses. It'd probably come down to simple math as to where it'd go. Between the upped attendance and playoff revenue(mentioned to help payroll by the FO).....If the added TV revenue and any extra shares being sold pay for this year's renovations-I'd figure the rest would head back to Theo. That's how they paid for them last year evidently anyway. In a perfect world, the shares sold flat out pay for the renovations, while the TV revenue is funneled to baseball ops now that we're in contention. No idea how much of a percentage they'd want to sell off, how much they can get for shares that aren't whole(no voting rights or say in how team is ran). All that would obviously factor into things. But it's a definite that Ricketts has to love their current financial situation with the Cubs. Not coming out of pocket for the renovations the city wouldn't help them with, the very good team that isn't very expensive(yet).....I'm just hopeful that the FO gets more than the attendance bump and playoff revenue to work with this offseason.

Dan Jennings fired by Marlins in the never saw THAT coming move of the offseason.

He's faded fast since taking himself out of our managerial hunt.

At this point, I'm thinking Coghlan is quite valuable to us, since I think Soler is the likeliest of our kids to be dealt.

@TNT_Mariners: #Mariners add Joe Bohringer as a special assistant to the GM. He spent last four years as the Cubs' director of pro scouting. I know we hired the Red Sox guy to take that job, but I thought we were keeping Bohringer.

Anthopolous is leaving Toronto. Wow. No jobs open either. Guess he's not a Shapiro fan. Mattingly to Marlins is done according to Molly Knight.

Don't they have a team option? Nope. 12.5 mill player option.

I guess we'll be mentioned with damn near everyone this offseason, but I'm at least a bit surprised Alex Gordon hasn't come up yet on the rumor mill. Heyman mentioned him at 3/38. That can't be remotely close on him, right?(unless he's dead set on staying put and giving them a huge discount) At any rate, Maddon doesn't seem to differentiate between the corners much, so Soler or Schwarber in RF, to pair with Gordon in LF seems doable to me.

I'm kind of torn on Noah right now. I love the guy, but I've got serious questions as to how effective he'll be in Hoiball. It wouldn't be that tough though if I didn't truly think Portis is going to be damn good.

You only get one pick, not two. Bringing up Strasburg's innings isn't a positive. Papelbon doesn't need to be anywhere near this team. Just no. All the way around.

Oh geez.

Horrible. No idea how he's going to be able to pitch. I couldn't do it anyway.

I really like the idea of netting a nice bullpen piece in the same deal as the young SP.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/10/jacob-turner-claimed-waivers-white-sox.html Oh well, nice idea that didn't pan out.

I figured Cusack and Vedder. But how would this impact the spending restrictions? Depending on how it's set up, I'd just figure it to be another revenue stream. If the debt service is 35 mill(example) then the 35 mill Ricketts had earmarked for that, can go elsewhere.(Payroll or renovations)

The estimated debt structure payment has been in the 35 mill per year area. This is obviously money that's coming right off the top and affects our payroll in a big way. It's set up in a way that makes us show profit EVERY day of the year. From a cash flow standpoint, this would be very tedious. It's just a tax break for Zell. That's the easy explanation.(and a brilliant move on his part) If a group of celebrities(or anyone) bought a stake and their basic reason for doing it was to pay the debt structure each year-it'd open up more payroll funds for Ricketts to use conceivably. Or(and its a big one) it could be used to help pay the renovation costs moving forward. As much of the extra revenue streams from this year could conceivably do. They aren't going into their own pockets to pay the renovations OR for payroll. The Cubs are basically paying for themselves and its been a win-win for both Zell and Ricketts. The simple take on this is its another revenue stream for Ricketts. That's a good thing at this stage. It'd help them in their quest for not coming out of pocket whatsoever and it'd free up other allocated monies to head towards Theo, who is in need now.

Because of Bosio, Moore could be interesting. But he wouldn't be remotely high on my list. In no way would I deal Soler for him. I think we'll look hard into trading for the elite guys(Gray, Archer) before heading to Salazar/Ross/Teheran land. If we trade for an elite guy, I'd say its more likely we add depth thru FA and spend money on hitting. If we trade for a mid rotation type, I'd say its much more likely we pay up in FA for an SP. Less money on hitting this way. But we've dealt less of ours away as well.

If Soler is gone and it's not Heyward, I could see Zobrist getting a lot of time there. That platoon isn't bad though if we're cheaping out there for some reason.

Arguello Speak has no need for elite players, just rookies and some seriously shitty Scotch.

Now just read it in THIS thread. It's what David just put in here.

Your lack of minor league knowledge is really a main reason why you should stop trying to trumpet ANYTHING he did. I posted the differences between how player development has been run from the last regime to now, from AZPhil. It's apalling, hysterical, sheds all the light needed as to why we couldn't get many players contributing at the ML level. At any rate, saying Javy would have developed the same just because......Thats dumb. I'd think extremely hard on Shark. I'd say there was a relatively decent chance he wouldn't have had nearly the value under Hendry. It's obvious you pay no(or very little) attention to anything minor league related. Go to the 27th post(maybe 28th) in the AZLeague roster thread and read it. If you still think Hendry had a clue of how to run a franchise or if you think guys develop just as easily under his "system", then everyone should finally just flat out ignore you. Oh and your complete silence on the Edwin contract isn't going away until you just admit you pulled something out of your ass with nothing to back it up at all. It's better to just come clean than ignore.

I think I even saw Wittenmyer comment that the attendance bump looks to be worth 22 mill or so. No idea how much of this winds up going directly into ML payroll. 150 seems reasonable after seeing the TV deals making us more. If I were betting on it though, I'd put the over/under at 140. I think we've got plenty of roster flexibility to make that number work for us too.(the more, the better though) Sharma doesn't seem to think we'll go that high. Neither does Rian Watt, who just started covering some games(and the only non Sharma guy worth reading at BPArigleyville IMO) They've talked to Theo and evidently he didn't make it sound we'd get a BIG bump. That said, I'm pretty sure Sharma thought we had no shot on Lester last year. And while Theo is extremely transparent, he never just comes out and says what our max CAN be. He just says if we've used it all up once he's done. As I said in the mega thread, Theo in full on #wearegood mode is going to switch gears and want to do some serious stuff. Having his own contract as leverage should help in getting Ricketts to give him what he needs for payroll too. So I'll say 140 and a 10-15 mill budget(plus penalties) going towards the Cuban IFA's as well.