KingCubsFan

Time for Justin Stone to earn that paycheck Wouldn’t no stride theoretically help with pitch recognition since your eye level is less likely to be changing? Not sure I understand that part. Glad I wasn’t the only one who was confused by Law’s comment.

What kind of comps have been thrown out for Howard? Scouting reports seem like he has an Edgar Renteria-type ceiling.

Not sure if it will be policed, but perhaps one way to get around the cap for guys not drafted will be to give them a large minor salary. So you may end up with a permanent pay raise for minor leaguers.

I wouldn't call Floyd a miss. Granted, I know he was a top 10 pick, but he's a solid NFL player. He does everything well accept his primary job, rush the passer. But he got cut and is going to make 10Mil this season. That's not a paycheck for a player I'd call a miss. Probably a C to C- type pick, which is not ideal, but it happens. Those 2nd rounders are mostly hits. Anthony Miller is really good. He's had shoulder issues, but his biggest issue has been the QB. When Mitch was good last year (for 4-5 weeks late in the year), he was playing at a 100/1100 pace season. Good QB play and he's an 80 catch, 1000 yard guy in 2020. Daniels is decent too. This is probably a big year for him if he's a hit or miss, but he's shown enough to warrant a starting job this coming season. Can't discount his mid round work either. Jackson (all pro), Amos (who's loss became Foles), Howard, Nichols, were all great picks. Re: Floyd I think LA overpaid a bit (at least on a AAV basis). Not sure that should count as a plus in regards to grading the pick. Yes, he's an NFL capable player, even a starter (though not a Number 1 OLB), but at that pick, that's a D at best. He could even turn it up and maybe have a nice long career, but since his Bears career is in the books, we can call it a near failure at best. A D seems a bit harsh. For context, the players picked at #9 in other drafts have been Dee Milliner (bust), Anthony Barr (solid player), Ereck Flowers (bust), Floyd (solid player), John Ross (lol Bengals), Mike McGlinchey (solid player), Ed Oliver (looks to be good but too early to make a judgment). Not exactly a list of All-Pros.

Agree with most of this, although it’s not the tax itself that’s necessarily driving the decision. It’s the lost revenue as a result of being in the LT penalty box that is much more painful. Brett at Bleachernation has the best write up on it. The best writers can’t seem to figure it out.

The pre game and post game stuff and studio shows I don’t care about. Those are usually bad and they got some good names for that anyways that have ties to the org and have experience doing shows already (Pena, DeRosa, etc.). Throwing a third person in the booth with Len and JD is horsefeathering dumb and unnecessary though. They have great chemistry, they don’t need a wrench thrown in. If they want to throw a third person in the camera well or something like they’ve done with Glanville to chime in here and there, fine, but a third person in the booth for a whole broadcast is stupid. I think it depends on how it’s executed tbh. It doesn’t work on national broadcasts in large part because broadcasters on national telecasts... don’t really say much. The big value of color commentators outside of explaining more details of what’s happening on the field is providing anecdotes from playing and helping listeners understand what it’s like to be in a given situation. If this is done well it will be a lot of fun. Plus I think Len and JD have always done a pretty good job of integrating a third person into the booth (particularly given some of the people they have to deal with for the 7th inning stretch)

Why not? The WS title should be stripped. What does that do exactly? Force them to take the flag down? I always felt like the NCAA vacating wins was such a lame punishment. This would be the same effect.

I wouldn’t be shocked if Kaplan’s “anonymous executive/former GM” “source” is just Kaplan making horsefeathers up but putting an “anonymous” source on it to sound more authoritative. The lines and quotes from his “source” are similar to his takes on KB being overrated and what not that he always has, also randomly has a Gleyber comment and some White Sox ball washing which are things he brings up a lot and knows ruffles feathers/drives debate. Every time Kaplan writes an article citing a “former GM/executive”, there’s a 99% chance it’s Jim Hendry.

Anderson, Wright and Waters would be a good return. Not a fan of Riley.

The owners, in collusion. But I don’t think Ricketts has a lot of pull among them as fairly recent member of the club. The Ricketts family was one of the prime proponents of putting teeth into the luxury tax penalties. Being an MLB owner isn't the same thing as being in a fraternity. Link?

I think that’s a fair criticism

I think he (rightfully) tries to maximize the team’s chances every year. He had an opening in the budget, a glaring team need at the time, and a guy sitting out there for nothing but money. Deal with the rest later.

I think he significantly overestimated the market for some of his assets. He assumed teams would be showering him with high-profile prospects in offers for Bryant and has been resoundingly met with "meh." There's just no way that he built the team with Plan A being trade Bryant for prospects(and Bryant is the only salary big enough to fix payroll ills). He committed 8 figures in 2020-21 to a reliever in June, combined with the rapidly approaching FA of the positional player core there's no way trading your best player to get under the tax was his first choice, because you know you're taking a step back when you do it even if they're showering him with prospect riches. He’s been saying for years that, eventually, they were going to have to make decisions on the members of the offensive core. So trading Bryant isn’t completely out of left field (although I’m sure it’s never been Theo’s preferred option). This offseason appears to be the combination of a lot of circumstances: young players failing to develop, bad free agency signings and a horrible farm system. Also, the juiced ball that has made power a less valuable commodity hasn’t helped either.

It really comes down to whether you want to maximize the chances for a championship over the next 2 years and then do a rebuild or try to smooth that transition. Theo has chosen the latter, although he’s basically been forced to since ownership has shown no willingness to increase payroll enough to go all out.

Thinking that Yelich isn’t the best player in the division — as much as it pains me to say it — is irrational. If we're looking at the division: Past 3 Years Yelich 20 WAR Bryant 13.9 Goldschmidt 13.4 Suarez 12.3 Baez 12.1 Past 2 Years Yelich 15.4 WAR Baez 9.7 Suarez 8.4 Goldschmidt 8.1 DeJong 7.4 Cain 7.2 Bryant 7.1 Rizzo 6.9

Unfortunately, Adell and Robert are probably viewed as more valuable than Bryant on their own at this point.

I’d rather have Q. He gets shitted on because of how much we gave up and the fact that he hasn’t quite lived up to expectations, but he’s also 25th in WAR among pitchers since joining the Cubs. There’s 20 Josh Lindbloms every year in free agency.

It's not even worth discussing. It's a completely useless data point (as CR points out above), and it certainly adds nothing to determining whether he is underpaid. Then stop referencing it. He's underpaid. I was responding to your question. If you scrolled up the page, I wouldn’t have to. But I suppose that’s not how you get to 61k posts.

Responding to the original post that, for 2 of the past 3 years, Rizzo was "worth" nearly twice the $16.5m he is scheduled to be paid. For some reason the original post isn't included in your quote. Nobody said that's what he'd get. Nobody thinks that's what he'd get. That number is what he was "worth" statistically. But guys never get that number. The point is he's been underpaid by a wide margin and will remain underpaid under this contract. He'd make a crapton more if at any point he had reached free agency, including right now. It's not even worth discussing. It's a completely useless data point (as CR points out above), and it certainly adds nothing to determining whether he is underpaid.

Fair. I just find the whole $/WAR calculation to be incredibly useless given how the market actually operates.

If you think Anthony Rizzo would get more on the open market per year than Bryce Harper, I’m not sure what to tell you. Why are you talking about $33 million? Responding to the original post that, for 2 of the past 3 years, Rizzo was "worth" nearly twice the $16.5m he is scheduled to be paid. For some reason the original post isn't included in your quote.

Rizzo never has, and never will, be worth 33 million a year in the real world. 16.5m is good value for a 4 WAR 1B, but not a severe underpayment. Abreu just got $16.67m a year after two years putting up 3.1 WAR combined. If you think Anthony Rizzo would get more on the open market per year than Bryce Harper, I’m not sure what to tell you.

he's still probably significantly underpaid at 16.5 for the next two years. he was worth almost double that 2 of the last 3 years. Rizzo never has, and never will, be worth 33 million a year in the real world. 16.5m is good value for a 4 WAR 1B, but not a severe underpayment.

Twitter is blowing up over this. Rizzo is the best possible brand ambassador for the Cubs, and I hope he is a Cub for life, but I’m not surprised that Theo would tell his agent to hold up on something two years from now. I imagine Theo is pretty busy at the moment.

I'm not enamored with trading Bryant. However, if a trade actually does go down, you have to trust Theo that (a) there was little chance of Bryant resigning based on contract negotiations up to this point, and (b) there's something in Bryant's profile indicating a decline. We already know that a player's prime is younger than it used to be, and he'll be 28 on Opening Day. In addition, his xBA and hard-hit rate have declined for three straight seasons (his hard-hit rate is now in the bottom 25% of all major league hitters). There may be good reasons to trade him now (getting below the luxury tax is obviously not one of them).