davell

Because Javy and Alcantara have both showed major improvement, haven't they? Almora's K rate is very low, decent bit lower than Jeter at the same age actually. Worry about his health? Yeah, I get that. But from all indications, Almora swings at good pitches and makes contact.

Law and McDaniel are right there with Parks, maybe more so in Kiley's case, with Almora love.

Javy and Bryant will hit 40 major league homers next year, after being brought up at the ASB.

Yeah, I almost threw Lake out as a 1 for 1 swap, but thought better of it. That said, I kind of suspect Junior gets dealt this offseason. Are we thinking Sweeney enters the year as a starter or at least the strong half of a platoon? I think I am. But we've got 3 lefty hitting OFers, none of whom are everyday players. I can see Schierholtz getting dealt, but don't know what we'll do with Bogusevic? Platoon him with Lake, if he's still here maybe? Or does Junior get a full time gig? I'd kind of like to sign either Corey Hart or Chris Young to use as a platoon partner along with Lake, if he's here. Then get one full time player to pair with the two platoons.

Almora just doesn't excite me like the others do. But having a GG caliber CF with the ability to win a batting championship is still great. But he's 3rd for me. Personally, as great as Bryant has been so far, Javy is still 1 for me. No knock on Bryant either- I think we've got two superstars honestly.

Maybe something like Szczur and Cabrera. Not a lot.

Irrational or not, I had convinced myself we could use the renovation money that is going unspent this offseason to help our bid quite a bit. Now I have less hope than I did a week ago, which was basically nil.

We won't be one of the top 3, but there will be lots of rumors that we were probably the fourth team. Actually, I expect we will be top 3, just won't be the team he picks.

Both Hoffman and Beede have the talent to pull a "Jonathan Gray" and put themselves in legit contention to go 1-1. As do other players, with this being a very deep draft. Too early to really speculate, because the only thing we actually know is that the draft board next June will look a ton different than it does currently. Personally, if I had to guess, I'll say that Kolek excites the hell out of scouts in the spring to where he's considered a Dylan Bundy type talent and that Alex Jackson shows he can stick behind the plate, amping his stock up even more. I'll say Hoffman pulls the Sean Manaea of the draft and doesn't prove himself enough. Leaving us a choice of Beede(shows better command), Luke Weaver(extremely solid all around), Grant Holmes(best available but HS pitcher) and Braxton Davidson(because he flat out mashes) as the group we're choosing from at 4, if the top 3 go according to talent.

That seems like MLB slowly forcing its way out of the posting system. If the rumors around Darvish are true, that could've cost his Japanese team ~40M if he wanted to negotiate with a team other than the Rangers, and you'd almost have to assume the player would choose the non-winning bid in all these situations seeing how Darvish and Matsuzaka got less than market value due to the posting fee being (somewhat) figured into the contract value while none of that money was going to the player. Definitely hard to see Tanaka picking the Cubs, if he has a chance to sign with LA, New York or Boston. I'd add Seattle to that, Texas possibly too.

Joel Sherman says in his column today that there will be changes to the system, but it's likely only one team will get to negotiate with Tanaka. Sherman speculates Tanaka will get to choose between the top two or three bidders and pick the one he wants to negotiate with. If this IS the case, I don't see that as an advantage for us whatsoever.

The fielder has plenty of room to get out of the way of the runner. Or one could blame the terrible throw to 3rd by Saltalamacchia. Disappointed that a Cubs board isn't meatballing out about a call that benefitted the Cards?

So, in that exact situation, is Middlebrooks just fucked? What the hell is he supposed to do?

Yeah, that was the basic idea, Shark for Bradley and Soler, Edwards or Pierce and Castillo for Moore.....

Nothing has came out, as of yet anyway, that the posting system has changed. If it DOES change and allows for multiple teams to negotiate with the player, I personally don't see that as a likely help for us. Seattle has twice the Jspanese population Chicago does and has Japanese ownership. The LA market has about 10 times the Japanese population and New York has a giant advantage as well over Chicago as far as that goes. Texas already has Yu, which is appealing as well.....Basically, I think we're probably better off if it stays the same.

TT: The posting fee would not count against the payroll, so it won't be part of the luxury tax calculation. But internally speaking, it would have to count against the Baseball Operations budget. Let's assume the Cubs Baseball Ops total budget for 2014 is $150M - that includes payroll for the 40 man roster, funding minor league ops like scouting and player development, coaches and executive salaries, training centers, etc... Let's assume Mr. Epstein has calculated that he has already spent $90M on the guaranteed contracts plus all the other stuff, and can spend up to $60M more on the 40 man roster. So, he adds up the $60M posting fee plus Tanaka's $12M salary (e.g. 6 years $72M) plus $30M in additional moves he wants to make for the 2014 team. So, he needs $102M, but only has $60M to spend. What does he do? He goes to Mr. Ricketts and says, "boss, I need to borrow $42M." Ricketts might say, "Sure, but I will have to lower your future budget by $7-8M per year over the next 6 years to pay for it." Or, he might say, "I'll give you $24M, but you need to trade $18M in salaries to fund the rest." Theo will have to consider his options carefully. From my vantage point, I think the Cubs should got for it! With the team set to have fairly cheap offensive productivity over the next few years, investing in difference-making pitching seems like a no-brainer. That all makes sense, but I think the reason we're wondering where the money would come from is the restrictive purchase agreement they have to abide by and the fact that they apparently can't operate at a loss at any given moment of the entire year. Each team should see an additional $20M in revenue sharing this offseason from MLB. That will help to a certain extent. But if the restrictive purchase agreement as you say has no leeway at all, then the Cubs will have to explore a 1:1 scenario with the business operations side, i.e., for every $1 spent on baseball operations above the given budget, $1 must be saved on the BusOps side (Crane Kenney's head will explode!). TT's idea of selling some players off now for prospects combined with some reconciliation between BaseOps and BusOps seems plausible. Hoops, that 20 mill figure is canceled out by almost the exact same amount in lost revenue for us.

2015 Ellsbury 300/360/430/10-40 Almora 285/330/420/10-10 Baez 275/325/525/30-20 Bryant 270/350/550/35-5 Rizzo 270/360/480/25-3 Castro 290/330/450/15-15 Saltalamacchia 235/315/450/20-0 Alcantara 250/330/420/10/30 Rotation of Matt Moore/Archie Bradley/ Wood/ E-Jax/CJ or Pierce

Yeah, the cash flow issue is the problem I see. I'm hoping for some semblance of a slush fund that's already figured into things. Just in case something like this pops up. God only knows how the actual accounting works, but a one time lump sum that could be 60-80 million dollars is a whopper to overcome, especially when the exact timing of the posting could truly affect things on our end, if something like that doesn't exist. I have very little to zero doubt Theo has seen things like this coming, especially if it impacted their Darvish bid. It's just going to come down to how much flexibility Ricketts has within the multiple loans he has and whether its at least possible that with the renovations starting later, it could be a blessing in disguise for something like this.

Almora is 0-2, Soler 1-1 with a 2B.

Per Rosenthal, Hinch and Renteria to get 2nd interviews, Wedge to be interviewed Tuesday.

Damn. I thought I read like 19% or so. Never did the math myself though. Actually, 19.45% is the more important Kris Bryant number..... That's his extra base hit per at bat percentage. To which I say the following: KING KONG AIN'T GOT [expletive] ON HIM!!!!!

Castillo has the best defensive numbers in MLB, doesn't he? He should have been nominated, at the very least.

Almora gets the gas face with an 0-4, with a BB. Bryant is 3-5 with 2 doubles and a triple. Soler is 2-4 with a HR and a BB.

Bryant with a 3B.