KingCubsFan

The year will probably be capped by Jaylon Smith transferring and Tommy Rees being magically granted another year of eligibility just as Everett Golson is denied re-entry.

Just let the rooftops sue. Unless the Cubs think the rooftops can get an injunction (seems unlikely), they should be able to tie up the litigation in courts until the contracts run out.

I hold out hope he can be useful but I would be blown away shocked if Lake was a 5 WAR player. Ian Desmond was a 5 WAR player last year. Starling Marte and Gerardo Parra were almost 5 WAR players. If he inflates his defensive value by playing CF and has a good baserunning season, I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibilities.

How would you describe it, then? I didn't realize it was my responsibility to be pleased with the organization's path. What would you change? Have the Cubs go big on a 10 year contract for Cano? Go big on Choo? Sign Matt Garza? Flip Baez and Almora for Price? Then supplement all of that on the free agent market with guys like Infante and Arencibia in a desperate attempt to go in win-now mode? Because that's what you're asking for and it sounds an awfully lot like the Cubs under Jim Hendry. The issue with the Cubs under Jim Hendry was not that they handed out large contracts to good players. The problem with Jim Hendry and his "regime" was that the player development/minor league system was woefully neglected and that Jim Hendry wasn't always the best at knowing what good players were because of his refusal (and damn near pride in) to understand and use advanced analysis/statistics. That, and that once in a while he'd waste a few million on a crappy bench player or reliever or whatever, when those roles should have been able to have been filled with cheap minor leaguers or whatever. Also, the fact that the organization never really had a clear direction. Every offseason resulted in a new path, dictated by previous World Series winner or what the manager believed was necessary for the team to win.

Yep. Our offense is bad enough. Net runs are net runs. WAR is great and all, but offensive value is much easier to calculate. Cain is basically Darwin Barney of CF, which I'm not particularly interested in.

Yep. Our offense is bad enough.

Crow, Hochevar, Zimmer and Almonte for Samardzija and Barney.

Jeff Samardzija and Jorge Soler for Lee, Hamels and Dom Brown. Cubs take on all of the salary. Who says no first?

Getting Lee for nothing more than salary relief should be a no-brainer for just about any team.

From a K/BB perspective that's accurate, but Zambrano had a very good GB% while Santiago's is below average, and Santiago allows more HR too(correlation!). I like Santiago too, I don't know if the Cubs match up all that well though. Maybe if they liked Lake and really liked one of our fallen prospects in AAA(Olt, Vitters, Jackson)? I just have no idea how they value him. Given the K-rate, age and upside, I could see them trying to market him as a cheaper alternative to Samardzija, in which case his price is above Lake+AAA washout.

I think he has to cut down on the walks at least a little bit to be effective long-term. But, yeah, that seems to be his upside. Plus he's a lefty.

Santiago is really intriguing, but I have no idea what the White Sox would want in return for him.

I don't think anyone really expects his contract to be a good value, anymore. The allure has more to do with the fact that you'll be able to get a pitcher theoretically in his prime years for nothing but money. Typically, you don't get free agents until their best years are behind them.

I don't disagree with what you say about the NPB and understand that $20 million is a far cry from what they were expecting, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that it isn't a lot of money. If he can leave for nothing in two years, he's getting posted. The question is will it be this year or next. Is $20 million a lot of money? Sure. But Rakuten had income of something like $5 billion last year. And the real figure isn't $20 million - it's $20 million less whatever not having Tanaka on their roster costs them in other ways. $5 billion? Even assuming you we're referring to revenues, that would make them ten times larger than the Yankees.

Given their weak outfield, I wonder if something built around shark+schierholtz is as appealing to them as price? Both of them is too much for Franklin, but Schierholz wouldn't be enough. Don't they need a SS? Maybe build around Nate + Barney?

I believe it. And also, it's not as if guys like Jay-Z or Scott Boras are brought in to haggle over contractual terms. He's there to close the main framework of a deal. For a baseball contract, that's dollars and years.

Why are you assuming Jay Z fixed it? Maybe one of the people involved who is actually a qualified agent smoothed things over. You're right, I'm sure the old guys threw Jay-Z a couple of gold chains and some drugs and told him to go in another room and film another music video while the big boys hash out this very important sports contract. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Would you be this confident in Jay Z's acumen based on his entrepreneurial success if he were hired to run the Cubs? Running a business is entirely different from negotiating contracts.

Why are you assuming Jay Z fixed it? Maybe one of the people involved who is actually a qualified agent smoothed things over. You're right, I'm sure the old guys threw Jay-Z a couple of gold chains and some drugs and told him to go in another room and film another music video while the big boys hash out this very important sports contract.

I enjoy schadenfreude at a free agent/player overplaying his hand, but you'd think we'd have all learned by now not to engage in it until it's *absolutely* overwith. I know. I thought about that as soon as I posted.

And it's 10 years/$240. Jay-Z was really over his head on this one.

Is that a thing? The Cubs always spent on their drafts under Hendry/Wilken, they just didn't do it well, and they didn't go way super crazy like we thought Theo/Jed might have before the CBA nixed it. There was also the report that Wilken wanted Wieters but had to take Vitters because of money.

He was actually not the first artist to do that with Island; U2 did it in 1991 or 1992. That's the same deal, by the way, that the Rolling Stones have had for years, which is why they get massive advances when they change labels every few years, because those labels then get to issue the entire catalog and not just the future releases. So that isn't some sort of amazing thing he did. Based on the account of events refernced, the $25m for 9 years was already bumped up from their original offer. He came in and overplayed his hand. It has nothing to do with him being a rapper and everything to do with being unqualified to handle this kind of negotiation. I said he was one of the first, not the first. And the fact that he, as a no-name rapper out of Brooklyn, could do something similar to what U2 and the Rolling Stones did is impressive in itself. Regardless, he may have overplayed his hand on this one, but I don't think it was simply due to the fact that he was in over his head, unqualified, or something similar. He's a licensed agent with a lot of negotiating experience and experienced baseball agents on his team. The media and sports fans will try to paint this as an egomaniac hip hop diva in over his head who cost his client tens of millions of dollars because he's an idiot. I just think that has more to do with the preconceived notion held by most that all rappers are gangbanging thug idiots rather than anything Roc Nation actually did.

I completely thought he'd be a figurehead. No idea why someone would trust him to actually negotiate their 9 figure contract...especially in a field he probably knows nothing about. Only knowing his public persona, I'm not at all surprised he thought he could step in and negotiate with a professional baseball team. He's built a brand worth half a billion dollars. There's no reason he can't negotiate with a baseball team, it's not rocket science. Sounds like his celebrity status may have hurt him this time. They're two completely different things; it's not even remotely similar. Do you really think he knows jack [expletive] about the Mariner's financial constraints, situations, or whatever? There are plenty of other rich people who've "built their brand" who would have no business negotiating a sports contract. By all accounts, he's negotiated his own business deals for years. He was one of the first artists to ever work out a deal with Island Def Jam where they distributed his albums and he kept the rights to his songs. He was the CEO of a major record company. It's not like he's some idiot who does nothing but waive chains in a music video. A business deal is a business deal. There's nothing wrong with asking for an extra year and $25 million when the counterparty was already prepared to pay 25 million for 9 years. If what is being reported actually happened, this seems like nothing more than an old man throwing a tantrum because he got angry that some rapper tried to squeeze extra money out of him.

I completely thought he'd be a figurehead. No idea why someone would trust him to actually negotiate their 9 figure contract...especially in a field he probably knows nothing about. Only knowing his public persona, I'm not at all surprised he thought he could step in and negotiate with a professional baseball team. He's built a brand worth half a billion dollars. There's no reason he can't negotiate with a baseball team, it's not rocket science. Sounds like his celebrity status may have hurt him this time.