davell

1) Where is Tree? 2) Tell that story, I've definitely never heard it.

Are we looking at 45/55 chances against Scherzer or something like that anyway?

https://www.fanragsports.com/murray-majority-of-mlb-teams-attend-alain-tamayo-showcase/amp/ Obviously not a trade, but evidently an interesting option for the off-season.

Who was the dude that remembered everything that had ever happened here and was going to write a book on it?

Bombadil so we're saying meph and gato are the same guy? Total guess on my end. Possible?

I AM MEPH. VORP YOU! He still posts here under a different user name. Now, let the speculation begin. Bombadil

Some of these have play left in them.

It's #neehurding And you called imb and me trolls. We were trying to help. I refuse to acknowledge that. (Tips cap)

Anything Derrick Rose related. I still giggle at "my nee hurt"

Ryne Ween. Just as a totality.

Speaking of disappearances: I kinda always thought that frostwyrm and Lenny were the same person. Both pretty much only lived in the politics thread and both up and suddenly vanished as soon as a presidential election happened. Or maybe he/they became Boris? I was thinking B2B could be this Garapp guy. And though I don't remember much about him and never interacted with him..... I'm shocked someone hasn't brought up Meph yet.

As bad as the B2B trades were, his hatred of Theo(BOY GENIUS!!!!) and defending of Hendry is what set him apart even more, culminating in his disappearance as soon as we got good.

7 or 8 maybe? Most of them are in the East too. I'm concerned about teams in the West that are clearly better than the Bulls, still losing more games just due to how good the West is.

I'm interested to see who develops out of this group honestly. I'd set the over/under at 25 myself. I'm curious who wins camp battles and I'm certainly hoping to see a trade at some point that acquires us an extra pick or two. I figure Lopez gets moved once a team loses a big to injury. It'd be nice to see Mirotic develop into something worth trading for, although I'd say that's a long shot, on some levels. PG Dunn, Grant SG LaVine, Holiday SF Valentine, Zipser PF Mirotic, Markkonen C Lopez, Felicio With Portis being left out, knowing that he's extremely likely to be seeing 20+ MPG. At any rate, I think my true hope is just seeing LaVine develop into a 3, on a good team, and a couple of guys out of Dunn, Valentine, Markkonen, and Portis, show enough to be considered starter caliber players.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ytteb/status/912426369669312512[/tweet]

[tweet] [/tweet] LOLOL

Well, this is about as delicious as it gets.

Yeah, so just said he'll wear whatever the horsefeathers he wants.

I think we've got Lester/Hendricks/Quintana set in stone, with Strop/Edwards/Wilson guaranteed for the pen. Montgomery obviously fills a spot somewhere. I think it'll be in the rotation personally, based on his performance, plus some comments from the FO/Joe. Rondon and Grimm are both possible non tenders. No one else has a guaranteed spot, although I'd say its fairly safe to figure at least one of Pena, Maples, Zastryzny, Tseng, Butler, or Carasiti is on the opening day roster. Very possible that group brings 2, maybe 3, if you think Rondon(6 mill or so)or Grimm(2 mill or so) is brought back. I'm going off the assumption we'll keep 13 pitchers again, by the way. My rotation guess is.... Lester, Hendricks, Quintana, Montgomery With a guy added thru trade that's a big addition(in a deal that subtracts from our ML positional depth OR a nice FA signing. Ohtani would make either of these things unnecessary. On top of that, I'd expect another Butler/Mills type of acquisition or 2, that can be up and down guys, or compete with Monty for the 5th spot. For the pen- guaranteed Wilson, Edwards, Strop Possibilities Rondon, Grimm(will they be tendered?) Tseng, Butler, Zastryzny, Maples, Pena, Carasiti I'll say 2 spots get filled from that entire group. Leaving 3 pen spots to fill. With Montgomery in the rotation. One should be a guy that can close, or at least fits into a competition to fill that role.....Wilson(if he figures horsefeathers out), and CJ, with a Shaw type of FA signing, could potentially work. If not, you've got the deadline to add you a closer still. You could bring back Davis. Not sure why, but I kind of doubt they do. If him and Jake leave, it leaves you a ton of flexibility at least, plus some 2nd round picks, to help with the overall draft budget. Duensing? Go down that path again at a higher price? We need a lefty. My guess is we'd pass if it'd take more than a one year deal for him. Uehara is gone. So anyway, my entire guess is 3 new pen guys, one on a multi year deal. Two on one year contracts. One major starting pitching expenditure. Plus, lots of depth to both areas. Thoughts too scattered here, I'll look into options in both categories later tonight or tomorrow.

The Cubs need a frontline guy. And Theo even mentioned after the Quintana trade that this was now an option, with Quintana's cost certainty, having been added.

[tweet] [/tweet] Remember when Brett Anderson talked horsefeathers about the Cubs, after a pair of extremely average starts? Well, he's chewing and ripping up baseball caps tonight, after giving up 8 in 1.1 innings. But, I'm sure he'll have a superbly worded tweet to make fun of him sucking.