davell

Passan sounds like a bunch of us. Who wants to help craft a @PoorTomRicketts tweet to him? This could be its big break! This NEEDS to be done. I'm beyond sick of NotTomRicketts at this point, as it is. It's should have something to do with Papa Joe not giving them an increase in allowance money or something.

Passan sounds like a bunch of us.

Everything I've read makes it seem as if Ward is getting franchised.

Well [expletive], we agree then. Unfortunately on not getting Tanaka as well.

This is a ridiculous post. One, you'd do everything humanly possible to lock Javy and whoever else up early, ala Castro and Rizzo. Secondly, in case you hadn't noticed, we appear to be in a legit money crunch, due to ownership. Whether it's because they can't or won't spend.... That is up for debate, I suppose, but it's beyond obvious they aren't, either way. I seriously doubt anyone here wouldn't love to have a 150 mill+ payroll right now. But it's not happening anytime soon(new TV deal/renovation money) and it's quite allright to be cautious currently, when we MAY have the money to go after one relatively large contract. Tanaka makes total sense, based on age and upside. A guy like Ubaldo? He's got neither of those things going for him. This is exactly how I thought some would respond. Is there any guarantee at all that our stupid broke owner will somehow be more willing to spend in 2 years? 3? Do you have any confidence that any of the renovations will be close to done? None of those things-the TV deal, the renovations-are guaranteed to be resolved in the near to medium future, so basically the entire organization gets put in a holding pattern? Why would Tanaka want to come to a team that is completely handicapped and unlikely to contend due to fiscal constraints for the first 2-3 years of his deal? It's a cycle of suck that feeds on itself. We can't or won't spend, so we end up with a mediocre or worse product that doesn't generate as much in-season revenue as it would if it were good, which means we can't spend money, which means we can't bring in talent. Getting Ellsbury would have helped a ton, but he cost a lot, so that was out. Tanaka is no sure thing, but he'll probably be good, and signing him would help a ton. But again, why would he come here? Supposedly, the first part of the renovations help pay for the rest of them. A TV deal is on the horizon, within 2 years, even its a marginal upgrade until the full deal can be explored in 2019. If we can't spend, what exactly do YOU want? Shoot our wad on one marginal large name right now and then watch us win 65-70 games anyway until our youngsters develop enough to change things? We've likely got room to add ONE big contract, why are you so antsy to do it, just because we can? With or without that guy, 2014 is a lost cause in all likelihood. I wouldn't have minded Ellsbury honestly, but that ship sailed. There's no one else out of this class I'm pissed about losing out on, thats for sure(not counting the inevitable loss of Tanaka) The bottom line is we are where we are and we're in wait mode until these prospects are up and developing. It's certainly not ideal, but we may as well be smart about it. Spending 20 mill on a guy is great and I really, really want to spend it on Tanaka, but if we miss on him, I'm not just going to spend it because I've got it. I'll hold off until next year and hopefully get whichever FA or traded guy then. Because we aren't going anywhere this year, unless a miracle happens.

This is a ridiculous post. One, you'd do everything humanly possible to lock Javy and whoever else up early, ala Castro and Rizzo. Secondly, in case you hadn't noticed, we appear to be in a legit money crunch, due to ownership. Whether it's because they can't or won't spend.... That is up for debate, I suppose, but it's beyond obvious they aren't, either way. I seriously doubt anyone here wouldn't love to have a 150 mill+ payroll right now. But it's not happening anytime soon(new TV deal/renovation money) and it's quite allright to be cautious currently, when we MAY have the money to go after one relatively large contract. Tanaka makes total sense, based on age and upside. A guy like Ubaldo? He's got neither of those things going for him.

David Waldstein, a Yankees beat writer, says Tanaka was scheduled to come to Chicago first, but went to LA because of weather.

He'll be traded mid season anyway, but the reason is we don't have a 5th starter currently. In the "piece things together over time" way, I guess Hendricks takes over for the stopgap when he's dealt.

Hmm, change Pryor to Craig Loston then, although that may be a reach.

Keep Wootton, Ratliff, Williams Cut Peppers FA- Byrd, Tarrell Brown, Everson Griffen Draft- Jernigan after a trade down to pick up extra 2nd, take Jeffcoat and Pryor in 2nd, with Khari Fortt in the 3rd. Use rest of picks on a CB, O-Line, WR, and TE

I would have had no issue if we had given Ellsbury the contract he got. Hell, if it took a mill more per year, in order to get him, I'd have done it. And followed it up with Ubaldo, assuming we missed on Tanaka. That said, we didn't get Ellsbury and we likely won't get Tanaka. By missing on Ellsbury, I'm NOT in favor of giving up the 2nd rounder for Ubaldo. If we'd have gotten Ellsbury, I'd give up the 2nd and the 3rd, due to it giving you a fairly realistic shot at making noise in 2014. Ubaldo by himself? To me, that doesn't do it, nor do I think Ubaldo is a guy we can't acquire any offseason. I'd rather take a chance on Garza or a stopgap at this point. The draft is strong, so since we didn't go all in, I don't want to do it for just Ubaldo. We're not likely to compete this year(with or without him) and if we don't get bounce back years from a few guys and solid debuts from others(we can bitch all we want) but 2015 doesn't look all that great, barring a legit spending spree that I honestly don't see coming. So why spend on Ubaldo now, when it's very possible we're looking at season 3 of him before we're contenders? Hold off, keep the pick, and sign your Ubaldo guy later. Unless you trust Garza moving forward if you don't trust him, just sign a stopgap. In all honesty, my guess is we can find a 2 WAR SP available on a 1 year deal. And in my opinion, we're not close enough to give a guy 4/60 or so, to gain what I figure is one win during the first two years of that deal and maybe not anything extra in the 2 years we're likely to contend. If we had done more earlier, my opinion would be different, but Ubaldo doesn't make sense for us in our current state.

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-78826175/ Damn, good article. Lu, you're a class act.

everyone is so happy with the team that attendance is the lowest in fifteen years, we can't find anyone who wants to bother putting the games on the radio, and wgn is going to broadcast games on tv in 2015 despite paying the cubs in corner gas dvds. MASTER TACTICIAN He's making money.

we all aren't The vast, vast majority. We've certainly been on different sides of the rebuild debate, but when it began....I was under the impression it was the choice of the FO and that money would be there when needed. If money is THIS tight, it wasn't a choice, it was a necessity. And the lack of spending a dime on the Arizona complex and the lack of movement with the renovations(which could even be a planned stall, for all we know) truly makes me question Ricketts long term. Not just now.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/greg-maddux-a-hall-of-fame-approach-that-carried-an-average-arm-to-cooperstown/2014/01/07/fdd7ae82-77d3-11e3-af7f-13bf0e9965f6_story.html http://deadspin.com/heres-an-awesome-story-about-greg-maddux-1497441759?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow Two excellent Maddux pieces.

Ricketts , may in fact, be [expletive] brilliant. He's effectively lowered expectations to the point that we're [expletive] happy with ANYTHING. I know SSR was being facetious about the "spending spree" but it's legitimately mentioned as such by the media and it seems quite a few actually look at it as such. Seriously, I hope someone tears them a new [expletive] at their session.

Jackson isn't top 40 in a normal assessment of our system.

http://www.minorleagueball.com/2014/1/8/5288446/chicago-cubs-top-20-prospects-for-2014

Any they are all probably jumping at the opportunity to pat themselves on the back. Secretly, as we'll likely never find out who any of them(other than Gurnick) are. Other thoughts- I was a big fan of Frank too growing up. Very happy he got in. Sad for Biggio, he'll get in soon, but this sucked. The new guys getting put on the ballot will continue to make things murky and with the amount of deserving guys, it's going to be tedious. But they'll eventually find themselves in. (even Bonds and Clemens) Mussina getting 20% is a [expletive] joke. And anyone voting for the Joneses and Snows, etc of the world need to get punched right in the [expletive] repeatedly forever.

Maddux had wanted to sign early, but Himes didn't show much interest, if I remember correctly. Once it became apparent we were dragging our feet, the Yankees put on a full court press for him. The Braves jumped in late and Maddux took less to go there, for a better chance at winning. Not positive, but this is what I think happened.

Forgot this: Total example, lets say instead of cutting Peppers, we re-sign him to a 2 year deal for 14 mill. What happens to his cap number in this type of situation, as his current hit is a tad over 18 mill, with a bit over 8 of it as dead money.

No, this is great. So, if we went crazy in FA this year and converted Jay's entire 22.5 into a signing bonus, it gives him a 4 mill or so cap number for 2014. What would it do to years 2-7 in that scenario and if you did turn the entire salary in year 1 to the bonus, does it take away the option to do it again, without basically re-doing the entire deal? And if you did do that, what kind of penalties would occur?

Marshall only has one year left, fwiw. Question for anyone here, as I'm trying to find an answer on Twitter, to no avail yet. If we(example) decided to turn Jay's entire 2014 salary into a signing bonus and give him a minimum salary(715k), we would pro-rate the rest over the entire 7 years of his deal. This would add over 3 mill towards his cap number for the length of the deal, correct? Which therefore, would give him 3+ mill of dead money in each of the final 4 years, where now there is none, correct? Does it do anything else to those years cap numbers or is that it? It seems as if that IS it, but it also seems a bit too good to be true, in a way. As in , why aren't all teams operating like this? Now, I get that year 2 the cap number jumps a ton, but again, with this clause, it's able to be done again. So, why wouldn't we just continue to turn his cap number into a signing bonus each year? Yes, by doing this, we'd see his 4-7 years cap number start to jump up, but the salary cap as a whole, should be increasing as well. I'm much more interested in doing all we can over the 1st portion of his deal anyway, as its at least likely once he's gone, we'll take a step backwards for a year or two anyway. In a way, I guess this is taking the "Hendry approach", but longterm NFL deals are easier to get out from under of and you can turn your fortunes around by good drafting much quicker than in baseball obviously. So doesn't it make sense to take this approach and do everything humanly possible to give him the absolute best chance to win over the first 3 years or so of the deal, even if conceivably you take this approach for 3 straight years and after that he has a 10 mill cap hit or so, if you decide to cut him? And may have a year or two of cap problems from him and others you've signed during the first 3 years?

Well, it's an asset of some sort anyway. People on realgm are talking about some dude on Twitter(D'Amico maybe?) saying Bulls aren't done making moves. Other than Dunleavy, not sure who else is possibly moved? Boozer? No one's taking him, right ? That said, he may have value as an expiring next year, I guess. Of course, he can always be amnestied. Taj or Noah wouldn't be on the block, would they ? I can't see it anyway.

Surely Sacramento can finish outside the bottom 10 by 2017, right? If not, I wonder if they'd even still have a franchise?