davell

Why do people insist on inventing false choices? This isn't a game of Sophie's choice. They've intentionally decided not to try when they very well could have done both. You still clinging to your idea that finances aren't playing into anything? Oh my.

Oh yes, by all means. Brett wrote a long article that revealed very little, if any new information and therefore we must praise the decision to lose as much as possible for many years. Makes sense. No one(I don't think) is praising losing. But it is what it is, I don't see the point of whining about an extra 10 wins in our current situation.

Good God. Rehashing this, especially after the way Brett laid everything out is just [expletive] stupid. They had a decision to make extremely early in the Ricketts reign and chose long term over short term. As any fairly intelligent business owner would. Dual fronts? Give me a [expletive] break. Do you think when Theo said that he figured the renovations wouldn't be starting extremely soon? Much less, thinking they wouldnt be starting by now.

God, I hated it when we drafted him.

Torrez, Szczur, and Frazier. I have Torrez higher than Leal, based on his stuff being much better. Szczur isn't going to be a world beater, but I do think he has a lengthy ML career ahead of him as a bench guy, it counts for something. Frazier is a pure upside, projection guy. It wouldn't shock me if he's a top 10 guy in our system heading into 2015. Of course, it wouldn't shock me if he's not in the top 30 either. But a tweak in his delivery could turn him into a highly regarded prospect. I don't see anyone left with his upside.

Well, Javy's swing looked OK.

Good God.

It's 1 BB and 5 K's.

As strictly a LFer, he wouldn't really fit the prototype. But if he's healthy, I could see 10-15 HR and maybe 20-25 steals out of him in his prime, maybe with an .800ish OPS? It'd be great if we could use him as a 4th OFer with those numbers. Give him 400+ AB's over the course of the season. From an upside standpoint, at least one that seems realistic-I think he could wind up as our best OFer in 2014.

I'm all for Lake making the major league roster, but.....If they preferred him getting full time reps and decided Kalish deserves a starting spot in the OF, then I'd be fine sending Junior down. Anyone else getting optimistic about Kalish?

Nope, this is our guy. We have found the cocky, great player that every team other than us is going to hate for years. Wishing he was theirs. It's about to be glorious.

I originally thought so, but Bauer had a reputation almost from the start of his pro career of being hard to coach. I could see it being a big enough turn off to teams that he had only a few takers.(I'd still take a chance on him personally)

The biggest question I have, which Brett didn't really get into, but Wittenmyer has somewhat.....Is why, if they were the only group willing to buy under these conditions, did they accept them? Would we STILL be in total limbo currently, with Zell still running things? Or would they have softened their stance and landed a bit more rough. It seems they got exactly what they wanted here(Trib/Zell). In the grand scheme of things, so did Ricketts. He got the Cubs. But with a bit more patience, could he have had them under different circumstances that were more amenable to putting money back on to the field quicker? Would the price have gone up THAT dramatically, under normal sales conditions? If so, wouldn't it just cancel out quite a bit of the debt structure payments? I mean, if you're servicing 30-45 mill in debt per year for a decade, would it have been worth it to someone to offer 500-600 mill more in a normal fashion after it was known nobody would bite under the conditions that went down. Maybe we just didn't have the right groups involved. We needed a "straight cash homie" buyer to emerge that just didn't.

I do not understand what they have accomplished in spite of limitations. Kind of a loaded statement. The organization is unequivocally in a better position right now than it was in 2009. Even with the understanding that its easier to build one with high draft picks. None of what has happened did so in spite of limitations. The only thing they did was stop spending and/or concerning themselves with the present. It's the inherited patience of the customer base for the brand that has allowed them to suffer only miniscule short-term financial consequences, something no other pro sports team could absorb so easily. Had the timeframe been shortened, or had they won more games, of if they found an outsized number of hugely valuable pieces via a lower cost than others, that could be impressive. But they've only improved the system with very high picks they got from sucking so bad for multiple years. Again, reading thru Brett's article, it seems to me that with this type of debt structure, the decision was made immediately to scale back. What if they hadn't? It would have taken being right immediately on a few FA to stay remotely competitive, while also aging and not having enough money to keep spending. I honestly do think it would have been prolonging the inevitable. If you look at it from Ricketts viewpoint, long term is much more important than grasping at the immediate. Like I've said til I'm blue in the face-I am not sure he'll spend the way we want him to, but if it were a decision made prior to Theo even getting here, I agree with the overall premise.

Mooney has talked about it some. No one else though, other than a few one liners from Levine.

I do not understand what they have accomplished in spite of limitations. Kind of a loaded statement. The organization is unequivocally in a better position right now than it was in 2009. Even with the understanding that its easier to build one with high draft picks.

What's said is quite a bit of what Wittenmeyer has said, but with a positive voicing of it, instead of a negative one. The Cubs would have needed to be a really good team in order for it to make sense still spending at the higher levels of payroll. That said, since your EBITDA can certainly be fudged, more attendance would have helped and maybe we could be looking at a higher payroll currently and for the last few seasons as well. It's a great breakdown honestly, but I hate saying it-People are still going to look at what numbers they want to and construct things in the way they would have done it. Still, if anything, it absolutely makes it feel to me that a total direction would have needed to be decided on from the beginning, or else you just wind up in limbo for a long time. I think Ricketts made this decision PRIOR to Theo and Theo is here to carry things out. Which lends credence to Kyle bringing up Theo wanting to pursue doing a complete rebuild. But it also lays it out there that Theo wasn't even the one making THAT decision, he's just following through. As an owner(as much as I've voiced my dislike of Ricketts) I do agree with the long term thought process. But I'm still in total "show me" mode when it comes to spending at some point. Unfortunately, there's just no way for Brett to know that answer. Great work though, I'm glad someone put in the legit effort. Thanks Brett.

If the cap is going to move into the 160 range, as rumored over the next 3 years, I really wish we would have went into Jay's deal to grab an impact S and one more significant addition to the D-Line.

Remember last year when he hit a ball so hard Dee Gordon dove out of the way of it?

Gatewood? Not for me. I'm still scared his swing is a bit too long. He'd be my next position player, but it's very doubtful he's going to stick at SS, which would have helped his cause with me. Still, nothing really against him, I just really, really like the pitching. I'd take Aiken over him, if it came down to it.

[expletive] Vitters LOL.

Good question. I really, really wanted Delgado(still do) but I think we received more value out of Hendricks and Villanueva. One, I honestly think Hendricks is going to be a long term innings eater for us. Two, my honest guess is we could receive close to Delgado, if we just dealt Villanueva one for one. I don't think he gets nearly the attention he deserves.

I'd be pretty happy with that, especially considering he'll take a decent amount of walks and play solid D at 3B. All in all, my guess is he'd border on being a top 10 3B, if he did accomplish that.

Right now, I think I'd take Rodon, Beede, Kolek, or Hoffman over any hitter. Jackson is the only hitter I'd even consider at this point and only over Hoffman.

I would not mind checking in on the price. Also it looks like the Phillies are trying to trade Jimmy Rollins before the season starts. The Tigers make sense as a trade partner there. I could also see the Yankees, because of course. Would Alcantara be a good place to start with PIT? No, no, no. Tabata's value isn't close to that. And if by some extremely slim chance someone comes close to that type of price, I really hope and doubt it'd be us.