davell

Toonster, I think you're hitting it a bit light. My over/under is a top 50, a top 100, and an org top 10 guy. That said, Kaplan just mentioned they've approached him on an extension. I'm fine either keeping or trading him myself, guess I do fall in Kyle's camp though. Make a definitive decision this offseason. Either give him 5 years or trade him before the season starts.

I wouldn't. I think his season last year was pretty remarkable after as long a layoff as he had prior, especially coupled with the new country, atmosphere, etc. The plate discipline really stuck out big time to me. On my own list, I think I've got him 3rd, over Almora(not a slight). Just think Soler has .350-.375 OBP upside with 30+HR. If Soler is considered a top 35ish prospect and I'm moving him for pitching, I guess it'd take a top 20-25 pitching prospect for me to do it. Guess I'd eat the contract, if I had to.

I really want to see a prospect for prospect trade, like Heyman mentioned. Just not one of our big 4. Wouldn't expect Heaney back obviously, but with hitting being worth inherently more than pitching, due to risk....Maybe something like Christian Villanueva straight up for Justin Nicolino? Top 300 overall hitter versus top 200 pitcher? Maybe not of interest to a lot on here, but we need LHP and Villanueva isn't all that likely to get a real shot at 3B for us.

Hey, I'm fine with that too. Personally. I got it all out of my system though. :D

My point is he's been a gigantic disappointment as an owner thus far. Care to argue that? The rest was my personal belief as to why. Even prefaced with a "just my thinking" attached. I have no kids as of yet, but you're right, it is my responsibility to take care of them, if we do. I'll manage just fine, thank you. Not an issue.

I wouldn't trade him if I'm them. Not for Shark anyway. I kind of like Glasnow/Kingham/De Jhang/Victor Black as a package for Shark.

The #sfbatkid story is awesome.

Look, I have no doubt that Tom has intelligence. But he's also been given many, many more opportunities than most anyone. And I'm sorry, but you can certainly see things in how things have gone so far in his ownership that he wasn't even closely prepared for. Using the type of loan configuration he did, that no one else was going to do. Yes, it got him the Cubs. But at what price? Is anyone going to say they're happy right now with where things are at? He underestimated the attendance dropping off as much as it has. It's one thing to spend a few years re-tooling. But the drop in attendance has a direct correlation with how much money the damn loans will allow us to spend on the on-field product. It's dropped to the point we're being ran as if we're the Brewers. Theo hasn't had much of a choice but to take it in this direction, unless they wanted to field older, consistent 70-75 win teams. It's now honestly starting to look like 2016 or so is when the Cubs may be competing. That would be 7 years after his takeover, before maybe putting a contender on the field. Now, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here actually, in assuming he actually WANTS to put a winner on the field. If not and he's just praying on stupid fans and a tourist attraction to line his pockets, while hoping an intelligent FO can work some magic-I'll take it back, he's the smartest guy in sports. But thats not what I think is going on. I think he convinced his dad the Cubs were a great money-making investment(which they are) got himself into these loans with his family trust, that can't be touched evidently, and Joe is making very solid money. While Tom is sitting on his hands, waiting for the renovations to get going and for the time to come they can maximize revenue from a TV deal that may or may not be around when its finally available. Which would be one of the most Cub things ever. He misjudged Chicago politics, thinking that because Reinsdorf got money, he would too. That alone has set things back a few years. They switched up from that, but never left themselves any real wiggle room with leverage of leaving, so now the rooftops have them in a slight mess, to say the least. Why were the renovations just talked about when they bought the team? Why weren't they more of an immediate "lets get this done" thing? Partly because Ricketts tippytoed into it. The wrong way too, by buying up buildings and showing his hand before even beginning negotiations. In my mind, it was a gesture of good will, that just wasn't well thought out. Did he go into with an idea of what the worst case scenario was? I doubt it, to be honest, because we're there right now. Misjudging how this was going to go down is a giant red flag, one that shows how green he is. One that I truly believe someone working with their actual money and not the families could have saw coming. No way to prove that obviously and if it seems harsh, so be it. Not sure how many of you guys own your own businesses, we don't talk about that stuff here really. But it hits home with me on many levels. I do myself and I deal with people everyday that do and I certainly see a distinct difference between guys who came up on their own and guys who had an easier time with things. There can be a sense of arrogance and entitlement there that quite frankly, can be exposed, if handled correctly. Not saying they're assholes either, usually far from it, just that in quite a few cases, its easier to find holes in them that can be used against them while negotiating. Guys that have done it completely on their own seem to be much more protective and harder to deal with, as a general rule. Of course, there ARE exceptions that go both ways, I just haven't seen many. Am I wrong to lump a guy I don't know into the mass group of these types I do know? Absolutely. I'll admit that. But does it mean I'm wrong that he's too green to have been put into this position? No, it doesn't mean that. Nor does it mean I'm wrong to think it's highly possible that he came into this thing overconfident and is scraping some egg off right now. Can he learn and bounce back in a few years and become a great owner? Of course he can. But the jury is still very much out as to whether his heart is truly in the right place or not, if its just words, or if its not even known by him as of yet. Sorry for the rant, don't want to turn an offseason thread into my own possibly misbegotten feelings of what I "think" I'm seeing out of our owner, get in the way of normal baseball discussion. Especially when everything I just said is my own spin and truly hope I'm wrong about. We can look back a few years from now and hopefully see I'm completely wrong on him.

He also served as a VP of two other companies and co-founded a 3rd in between those two roles. That was certainly easier to do based on who daddy was.....He had connections far in advance of what the normal guy would have had.

The brains behind the fortune? Young Tom spent a whole summer answering phones for daddy before being named a Director, around the time he was 30 or so. Silver spooned his way into the Cubs.

If the old regime was here, my guess is Javy would have begun last year in AA and after a 2-3 week hot streak, he'd have been in the majors.

Javy was there, just had had a few games under his belt though. McNutt was still a top 10 guy in the system, but the luster was well on its way to being gone. Brett was still a top 50 guy at that point and we were still thinking Vitters was or close to it.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to see it before I give them credit for it. well, he took over a roster and a minor league system largely bereft of talent, and the owner yanked payroll down by $30-40m per year when most clubs in the game have been rolling in dough. i'm not too sure what you expected was going to happen. You're the one giving the FO credit for something they haven't accomplished yet. I won't have any problem giving them credit when they actually accomplish that winning part. And if they can do it without the constraint of a mid-market payroll, I'll give them credit anyway. I agree, I'm pretty sure that at one point Hendry had a lower payroll than the current front office and had a top 1-3 ranked farm system and a team that competed in the division. I do like what Epstein and Hoyer have done with the farm system, but it gets old hearing the excuses on why the front office can't spend, when the Cubs are one of the most profitable teams in the league. There is no excuse for them not being able to compete year in and year out. Signing the type of loans that Ricketts did, in order to buy the Cubs isn't an excuse. It's what happened. It benefitted him, but not the team in the short term. Anything Theo and Co accomplish in the short term is going to be done out of being innovative. They inherited a crap roster, a bottom 10 system, and no money to spend. We weren't aware HOW BAD things were, but this was going to take time.

He was talking and learning from the Red Sox prior to buying the team. So you're saying Theo gets/deserves the credit for that? [expletive] it, I can't stand Ricketts. I'm surely going too far with it right now.

I agree with you for the most part, but you're missing the point here. It's still Ricketts money. And none of it gets spent without him agreeing to spend it. If Cubs fans are allowed to criticize Ricketts for not spending more, then they can't say that the credit for the money that has been spent belongs to Theo. Sure, it's Ricketts money, but as an owner, you spend money, unless you bought the team to fold it. Remember, Ricketts used the Red Sox model, so if Ricketts wanted money spent in that area, it was because Theo taught it to him to begin with. I've got a hard time giving Ricketts credit when he sets an entire budget, then leaves it to Theo to delegate how it's spent. I'm pretty sure Ricketts was talking about IFA and amateur spending long before Theo got here. And the plans for the Dominican facility were already well underway. He was talking and learning from the Red Sox prior to buying the team.

I agree with you for the most part, but you're missing the point here. It's still Ricketts money. And none of it gets spent without him agreeing to spend it. If Cubs fans are allowed to criticize Ricketts for not spending more, then they can't say that the credit for the money that has been spent belongs to Theo. Sure, it's Ricketts money, but as an owner, you spend money, unless you bought the team to fold it. Remember, Ricketts used the Red Sox model, so if Ricketts wanted money spent in that area, it was because Theo taught it to him to begin with. I've got a hard time giving Ricketts credit when he sets an entire budget, then leaves it to Theo to delegate how it's spent.

Yeah, I'd like an elite piece for him too. That said, out of the 5 best fits, there just aren't many "elite" guys. Arizona-Bradley, is Skaggs still elite? Pittsburgh-Taillon Nats-Giolito(like I mentioned, I guess Cole could headline for me) Toronto-None(Sanchez, Stroman both would need to be involved) KC- Yordany(I love the guy) is Zimmer? Dodgers-None Baltimore-Gausman, Bundy San Fran-is Crick elite or too volatile? Any trade of Shark better have a guy I just mentioned included, preferably one without a ? attached.

It's all coming out of one budget though.(baseball ops) It's still Theo's call as to allocate it in whatever way he wants. I'm not giving Ricketts credit for that. And yes, they spent big on Hendry's last amateur draft, but it was done partially because Hendry said it was the last time you could do it. Swear that was mentioned by him, not making it up. Back to this past IFA class: It's possible I'm placing blame on Ricketts without him deserving SOME of it. Maybe the Cubs had other trades worked out to where they weren't planning on going over the top tier penalty and something fell through. But there were still a relatively solid amount(10+) top 30 type prospects out there after they knew they were over. Yes, plenty of these kids have agreements early on, but I think that a team doing as much work as the Cubs are doing down there could have come in and upped offers a couple hundred thousand on some of those guys and stolen them late. Blinded by Ricketts hate admittedly, but I'll use lack of money as the reason to not just annihilate the budget, instead of just going over by a bit. I thought(hell, still hope with pop up guys) that we should have signed another 3-4 guys that were 500k types anyway. Nitpicking, but I think given our situation, Theo would have preferred to go much further than what we did on this.

I've not heard the Cubs connected, seems like the Twins are in on him big. That said, Nolasco on a 4/52 deal wouldn't be the worst thing we could do.

Ricketts has yet to to do ANYTHING of note, outside of hiring a very capable FO, that MAY eventually be able to operate a winning team with extremely little help from him. For that, he was smart. Outside of that, he's been ridiculously awful..... I count the spending on amateur talent and the spending on infrastructure (past and planned) to be things of note. The spending on amateur talent is DEFINITELY Theo, not Ricketts. If anything, I BLAME Ricketts for not opening it up for an epic IFA binge this year, when we went over spending by a couple mill. If we truly had any money left over, it would have been used there. It was basically the point where any doubt I had about Theo maybe not wanting to spend turned to Theo definitely can't spend.

Ricketts has yet to to do ANYTHING of note, outside of hiring a very capable FO, that MAY eventually be able to operate a winning team with extremely little help from him. For that, he was smart. Outside of that, he's been ridiculously awful.....

Eh, Villanueva or Hendricks could be useful, but I understand the point. That said, expecting perfection isn't truly fair either, even with what any logical person on this site knows, is a damn good FO.

I think this idea is getting harder and harder to justify every passing year where we have to go through "But we lost 97 games last year, no point in adding anyone good" and another 300k fewer tickets are bought at Wrigley Field. Not to mention what it's going to do to TV ratings and the media deals. Javy and Bryant are going to be counted on to bring in some fans during the second half of the year. Unfortunately, and this SUCKS, but it truly looks like the coming together of the baseball and business plans is meant for 2019 and not 2015. Before going [expletive] at that, the WGN renegotiation isn't going to add THAT much money for us. Hard to assume, but with youngsters making next to nothing, team starts to get better.....Attendance starts going up because of it, payroll incrementally moves up because of it. Starting to think we'll be carrying a very mid level payroll(but with cost controlled talent, not a big deal) until the FULL TV deal renegotiation. And unfortunately, it kind of makes sense from that perspective, as our youngsters should be producing in the 2017-2019 seasons. Helping with ratings and all the crap that strengthens those negotiations. Again, don't kill the messenger, it just really seems to me this is where we're headed. The renovations (assuming they're not just pushed back every [expletive] year) are going to be bringing in additional revenue far sooner than 2019. (Kyle is going to respond that that is just going to be used to pay for the renovations) You don't agree? I think "losing " the 200 mill from the city hurt much, much worse than what anyone's been willing to admit. I DO think they expected to get it.

I think they've tried to put a "catch lightning in a bottle" team on the field both years honestly. The catch being you take the cheap"fill in the hole" types the FA class gives you. They said(and have succeeded) in placing the emphasis on the minors. They're not trading prospects to obtain borderline stopgap/solidish guys. They've filled it internally or on short term deals. In neither year, were we AS bad as our final record said. Once it's apparent that the ML team isn't going anywhere, I give Theo TONS of credit for selling off big time. Hell, for shutting Shark down. They do know how to tank, which is a great thing if it means instead of drafting 12th, we're drafting 4th because of trades dropping the record in August and September that much. Some will disagree, but we've basically taken a better path than Houston has, by being able to trade away guys while they've banked on the top pick instead, when we've only picked a bit behind them in the end. They said "no short cuts" which tells me they're not trading prospects for talent unless its longterm. We obviously have no money from Ricketts. Whether we agree on whether this was the ONLY option or not, for what Ricketts has given them to work with, it is the BEST option. What if we HAD put together a 75 win team in 2012? Attendance would have dropped some anyway. Which would have lowered payroll and the system would have not had Bryant or the IFA guys. We may have added an Upton. We wouldn't be happy with that. Kept Garza. And without the needed wins, we wouldn't have made the playoffs anyway. What's done is done. The odds of us making the playoffs in either 12 or 13 was extremely slim. Maybe you get lucky and somehow beat out the Reds or Pirates once in 14 or 15. Maybe, at best. Your system wouldn't be anywhere near as stacked, you 'd have a slightly higher payroll because attendance wouldn't have dropped AS MUCH, but it'd still be maxed or close to it and we'd be selling off our youngsters to make another run at it. With the Cards, Pirates, and Reds all as good as they are currently, there probably wasn't a better time than now to do a complete re-set. I do think we're in better shape overall right now than if we had added a few better FA but had missed the playoffs and basically were up against Ricketts' penny pinching. It would have basically been the Trib again-post Soriano signing year. I definitely misjudged the length, as I said earlier. Mainly because I figured we'd have had a bit more money to work with. Maybe I was unrealistic in thinking we'd have traded for a few guys closer to MLB ready. I thought we'd be adding the David Price and/or the Mike Stanton's of the world this offseason. If not for Castro, Shark, and Rizzo not progressing, maybe we would have, I don't know. Maybe we'd have made the playoffs once between 2012-2016 by taking the other route? Maybe we sneak in during 15 or 16 this way? At this point, there's no use arguing anymore, this is the path. It's not like we're used to winning. If it does lead to a bunch of playoff berths in the late teens, we'll all say it was the right thing to have done in the end.

I think this idea is getting harder and harder to justify every passing year where we have to go through "But we lost 97 games last year, no point in adding anyone good" and another 300k fewer tickets are bought at Wrigley Field. Not to mention what it's going to do to TV ratings and the media deals. Javy and Bryant are going to be counted on to bring in some fans during the second half of the year. Unfortunately, and this SUCKS, but it truly looks like the coming together of the baseball and business plans is meant for 2019 and not 2015. Before going apeshit at that, the WGN renegotiation isn't going to add THAT much money for us. Hard to assume, but with youngsters making next to nothing, team starts to get better.....Attendance starts going up because of it, payroll incrementally moves up because of it. Starting to think we'll be carrying a very mid level payroll(but with cost controlled talent, not a big deal) until the FULL TV deal renegotiation. And unfortunately, it kind of makes sense from that perspective, as our youngsters should be producing in the 2017-2019 seasons. Helping with ratings and all the crap that strengthens those negotiations. Again, don't kill the messenger, it just really seems to me this is where we're headed.