KingCubsFan

I wonder how Addison is spending his final hours as a Cub.

So we are not in favor of trading Bryant this offseason? Considering that the Cubs are extremely unlikely to re-sign him in 2 years, I would much rather get something for him now before he gets closer to Free Agency. He is set to make close to $20M in arbitration, so there's that too. Get some assets in return and spend the $20M elsewhere. there is no such thing as a big market team that is extremely unlikely to resign their own under 30 star.He appears dead set on testing free agency. How often do guys who go into free agency end up resigning with their old teams?

He’s become Joe’s Neifi

So you animals are happy food is being taken off his children's plates so a billionaire can save some money? Given who we are talking about, it’s a big assumption that his salary is actually being used to take care of all of his kids.

I'm guilty of overrating the Cubs prospects as much as anybody, but there's no need to worry about trading guys like Richan and Lange for players that can help down the stretch in a competitive window. They're, at best, fringe top 10 guys in a mediocre system. We just drafted a bunch of pitchers in the first 10 rounds, and we'll draft a bunch more next year. It hurts to trade guys like Eloy, Torres, Cease, etc, but it doesn't hurt to trade fringe pitching prospects. Outside of Brennen Davis and Hoerner, I don't really care who the Cubs trade from the farm system as long as they get something that can help the ML team. They're all replaceable.

So our next interesting pick will likely be the 11th round?

Anyone mention what Allen’s price tag was? Before the draft the rumor was $4 million I’m OK with that given that the draft is a total crapshoot after the first few picks. May as well spread the money among a few high ceiling guys rather than paying above-slot (or even slot money) at 27 when it’s unlikely he’ll ever make it past AA no matter how much Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo like him.

Has Marquez surpassed Amaya at this point? The walks are still a bit high, but at this point he has to be considered a legitimate Top 100 prospect.

This is all about Zobrist wanting to see Bote get a chance over Russell. I've heard Zobrist is not at all happy that Russell has been welcomed back. Where did you see that? Wouldn’t surprise me.

Moises Alou was a whining, complaining baby. The Bartman play was just an example of everything wrong with him. Before Milton Bradley (and obviously Russell now), it was Alex Gonzalez for me. The guy completely choked and got away with it because of the media's fascination with Bartman.

Yes, you subscribe to what I like to call The Church of my Last Sentence, which is totally cool. The Cubs are not a business, MLB is not a business. It's a billionaire club that is closed. It's exempt from antitrust and the rules that you think apply don't apply. You're too smart by half. What?

Until it comes out that he's retaining the services of a known vile spousal abuser and creating a partnership with one of the biggest threats to our democracy, he's a horsefeathering saint to me. https://apnews.com/33669ecef55d816961175641f2358613 https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/20/sports/belle-signs-the-richest-deal-5-years-55-million.html https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/07/white-sox-acquire-brett-myers.html https://www.theintelligencer.com/news/article/White-Sox-Reach-Deal-for-Carl-Everett-10550197.php He also has a partnership with Sinclair for Stadium.

If you think the Cubs are cheap, I suggest you look at the Yankees. They could easily sign both Harper and Machado and instead they’re choosing LeMahieu.

He was better than Foles. foles is a backupYou said the QB has to be good to win. Foles wasn’t and still won. Quit moving the goal posts (unless Parkey is kicking)

The offense didn't have huge plays? The offense had to move the ball and score. They did not. Special teams was fine, sans Parkey. Defense was fine. Offense was not here. They did nothing and the QB, Mitch Trubisky, takes the bulk of the blame. He was not good. The QB has to be good to win in the playoffs. Mitch was not. He was better than Foles.

It is indeed the purple Fanta shirt guy

i ask because harper is such a unique FA in terms of both talent and age, so i kind of read his tweet to be downplaying the amount he'll get. i know 5 wins is worth a ton, but i think calling him a 5 war player is kind of underselling him. I think he’s just trying to use WAR in a way to get the point across the offers he’s received reflect a highly valuable player but doesn’t exactly know what he’s saying. A win is worth $9-11 mil, right? So he’s probably not using it literally. I doubt he has 10 year ~$500 million offers. He's just parroting what Boras probably told him to say. No chance Levine knows what a 5 win player is.

A guy who has historically been well connected with Boras to boot. My current guess is that they have lined up the salary dump(s) they need to sign Bryce, but they're painful. Could be using Happ to dump Heyward, or using top prospects to dump Chatwood, but whatever it is it's something otherwise not worth doing without Bryce. If they can reel him in, we will see 3-4 moves in a row like when Lester signed. If they whiff on Bryce, we see the more modest Plan B offseason. But if this is the case (bolded part), couldn't it also be that Boras is playing him too to create a more robust market for Harper? Seems strange to use the team that everybody thinks is broke.

Got it. I agree that the luxury tax threshold is largely an artificial constraint. No reason to not blow by it if you can afford it and are in a competitive window. Looks like the $102m figure is an EBITDA figure. So in order to determine budget availability, you'd have to factor in roughly $25m in amusement taxes (roughly 12% of Forbes' gate receipts numbers), plus property taxes for Wrigley and the surrounding properties plus some additional taxes. Not sure what the interest expense is from the initial purchase plus additional interest paid in connection with the Wrigley renovations. If the Wrigley renovations were funded with equity investments, then that would slightly lower the figure. Revenue may have been lower this year due to no playoff run as well, plus the player cost was substantially higher this year compared to Forbes' $180m figure. I'm not trying to defend ownership at all costs, but I don't think it's as simple as saying "Of course they can afford Harper, the Cubs are rich." Until the new TV deal has been formalized, it seems likely that they really are at the upper bounds of what they can afford. With that said, if I were them, I'd take the one year hit and sign Harper.

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole You're stuck on this concept of a "financial hole". It is a fictional construct. There is no hole. It is an artificial barrier that league ownership has put in place in order to maximize their portion of the profits. The Cubs could easily run a $250M payroll, pay the associated luxury tax and still run a profit. They could probably run a payroll closer to $300M and be fine. Rough numbers: Ticket proceeds: $58 average face value ticket price * 3.18M in attendance = $184M in ticket revenue alone TV Contract Revenue: $65M in local tv contract revenue in 2016 So right there, that's ~$250M. That ignores the $50M all mlb teams got from the online business. And their share of the national tv contracts. And the radio revenue. And the concession sales. And the concert revenues. etc. Now, from that they have to cover much more than just the 25 man roster payroll. But the Cubs bring in a ton of profit. Is there an eventual limit to what they can spend and still make a profit? Of course. But they are not anywhere close to it. I'm not really sure what that guy is talking about, but I disagree that a "financial hole" is a fictional construct. If a team blows its finite resources (yes, each team actually has a limit as to how much it can spend contrary to popular belief) on a bunch of 32 year old free agents on the downside of their careers, it limits flexibility going forward and the ability to spend money in the future to address needs. They've put themselves in a financial hole that they can't get out of until those contracts roll off or they are able to trade them. And I see nothing in your post to indicate that the team makes a substantial profit. But I think the discussion on the difference between "profit" and "revenue" has been repeated ad naseum at this point.

because money is only mostly tight. The fiscal year has almost ended and if they don't spend it now it won't be made available next year Are they paying him out of their FSA or something?

It's funny that everyone just assumes the Cubs are some cash cow for the Ricketts family that throws off tons of cash on a yearly basis directly into their pockets. It would be very surprising if that was even remotely the reality. With that said, sign Harper.

If they're making $500 million in profit per year, they're a Fortune 500 company and one of the most profitable companies in the US. They would literally be THE most profitable Fortune 500 company. Not to mention the biggest bargain ever since the team was sold for ~$850m. Why stop at Bryce Harper? Now that ewiggs has uncovered the fact that the Cubs are an international corporate behemoth, perhaps they can diversify and buy some other Chicago Fortune 500 companies. Is Abbott Labs for sale? Maybe ConAgra?

If they're making $500 million in profit per year, they're a Fortune 500 company and one of the most profitable companies in the US.

For Chicago style pizza, Gino’s East is within walking distance of the W.