Sammy Sofa

If you're being sarcastic, my post was meant as a comment to sneaky. If you're being serious, then you'll see I wasn't really throwing a strawman out there. I was simply making a comment to sneaky about how he and I value Wood differently based on his projected ability to sustain a crazy HR/FB ratio. I am serious; I don't think Wood's current performance is sustainable and I think he's more valuable to the Cubs as a Cub than what they could get trading for him. okay - wasn't quite what I meant by if you're being serious, but I'll respond to this. Why is Wood more valuable to the Cubs based on future value than he is to another team where he would be worth the same future value (perhaps more if they are more likely to contend in 2014, also), but significantly more present value, as well? Do you disagree the Wood is more valuable to other teams than the Cubs? Or do you not believe the front office has a chance to receive fair compensation for the value Wood would provide to the trade partner? The simplistic answer is that I think Wood is a good enough pitcher (coupled with his age and control time) to be valuable to the Cubs, but not good enough to bring back enough of a haul to justify moving him. It's less about the FO's ability and more that he just doesn't cross the tipping point where you can get the worthwhile return for trading him. I don't think anyone is saying they should turn it down if someone offered a ridiculously good deal; the argument is that it's so unlikely to be offered anything even resembling that in the first place. Punting 2015 isn't acceptable in any way, and trading of Wood makes their already shaking pitching lineup that much worse, so you REALLY have to be getting something good to move him.

You have much more confidence than I do that he has some weird ability to have an sustainable, incredibly low HR/FB rate on non pop ups. Wood obviously has a broad spectrum of usefulness to the Cubs; he doesn't have to be this good to be very valuable. Even if he is a 3-4 guy, that is certainly quite valuable, especially when you look at some of the garbage that we've passed off as rotation depth up until this year. This being said, a 3-4 starter is not the type of guy that's off limits, not if someone in more of a win now situation is willing to part with a few of their top prospects. Then again, it depends on when they decide that they want to win. The odds are greatly against anyone willing to give up anything resembling a "top prospect" for Travis Wood. That's a pipe dream. Let it die.

If you're being sarcastic, my post was meant as a comment to sneaky. If you're being serious, then you'll see I wasn't really throwing a strawman out there. I was simply making a comment to sneaky about how he and I value Wood differently based on his projected ability to sustain a crazy HR/FB ratio. I am serious; I don't think Wood's current performance is sustainable and I think he's more valuable to the Cubs as a Cub than what they could get trading for him.

Well, duh, how could anybody ever forget that?

Gregg, plus a little talk about Schierholtz, but that's about it.

In the quote right above, where you drop the strawman of "you have much more confidence than I do that he has some weird ability to have an sustainable, incredibly low HR/FB rate on non pop ups" when nobody said anything of the sort. If you're going to be all defensive and respond with stuff like "where did I say that" it doesn't really help if you yourself is putting words in someone else's mouth on the same page. So let's follow the process...you bring up the idea of someone having confidence in Wood sustaining his numbers this season going forward. That's why I pointed out that Wood doesn't have to be pitching at this level to still be valuable to the Cubs. If that was so abundantly clear to begin with then why did you bring up the idea of someone thinking that Wood was going to keep pitching like this when they said nothing of the sort? (Hint: we already know why)

Bueno.

You have much more confidence than I do that he has some weird ability to have an sustainable, incredibly low HR/FB rate on non pop ups. Wood obviously has a broad spectrum of usefulness to the Cubs; he doesn't have to be this good to be very valuable. Where on earth did I say otherwise? If you're going to play that card then stop responding to people like anyone has said they think Wood is any kind of lock to keep pitching like a TOR-type of guy.

You have much more confidence than I do that he has some weird ability to have an sustainable, incredibly low HR/FB rate on non pop ups. Wood obviously has a broad spectrum of usefulness to the Cubs; he doesn't have to be this good to be very valuable.

None of the players he listed are or were actually "great" if you're going by some kind of lofty, baseball superstar standard. His point obviously was that the Cubs' future looked bright after 2003 because they had a collection of what looked like good or better players and he happened to use the word "great."

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Because he's been good this year, but hasn't been good enough long enough that it's likely they'd get a return that outweighs the Cubs' need for starting pitching given how barren their system is in that regard and how bad the starting pitcher FA market is looking.

This guy gets jokes.

And no, I'm not saying he's as valuable as those other three players. He's more valuable to the Cubs as a Cub than as a trading chip.

Horrible logic. By this way of thinking then anyone and everyone the Cubs have of any kind of value is a "sell high candidate." Wood's different. Here's a guy who's 26 years old and under team control through 2016. ... That doesn't make him "different;" that means that between his age, his team control and ideally his improving performance makes him an ideal candidate for the team he's on to hold on to him, especially since the have practically no pitching prospects and the starting pitcher FA market looks terrible for a while. Again, horrible logic: you could simply replace his name with Samardzija's or Castro's or Rizzo's with that thinking.

He has one tool, and that tool has been below average for well over 800 PA now. This is what happened to Theriot. Put up a great K/BB and a BABIP driven OPS that's decent for your position(Theriot actually had a much better BB rate, 11% in 2008). Then pitchers realize that that you can't punish mistakes, so you start getting nothing but strikes, the BABIP dips, and the offensive value plummets. In Torreyes' case it's more like "pitchers at higher levels are good enough to pump strikes" rather than just figuring out that you have great contact ability but no power, but the end result is the same. Nice post.

He was a hyped player with a really promising debut season; you're getting really hung up on semantics.

Horrible logic. By this way of thinking then anyone and everyone the Cubs have of any kind of value is a "sell high candidate."

That's a good comparison. Hahahahaha. No, I'm serious. In both cases, media members with really good contacts and track records have indicated these signings will eventually happen and we have logical reasons why they haven't happened yet. OK, that's what I figured, but I wasn't quite sure and it was driving me a little crazy.

That I agree with. Though it went to [expletive] pretty quick, so when talking in terms of looking back over a 20-30 year timespan that can only mean so much.

That's a good comparison.

It feels like this should be something like 6 or 7 wins in a row if it weren't for some bullpen chicanery.

He will inevitably respond to that with something like "thanks for contributing to the discussion" without a hint of irony.

well, everyone said when he signed that he had huge raw power but everything else was an enormous question mark because he was out of shape and hadn't played much in the past couple of years. that's not really the kind of signing they were adamant about. it's easier for a cashed-up team like the dodgers to chuck 40 or 50 million at a high ceiling guy but also a high bust potential than it is for the cubs to do something like that. especially when they'd just dumped $30m on soler. i mean, if you beat the dodgers offer and end up with soler and puig, you're looking at a decent chance that you've spent $75m and will end up with nothing out of it at the major league level. i can't really fault ownership or the front office for not being comfortable with that. They wanted both. They were potentially willing to pay $50 million for Puig. And again, "everyone" doesn't actually mean the teams that had a better understanding of what type of player he was and wanted to sign him. Nay-saying by certain people really doesn't mean jack [expletive] when they were out of the loop and were going off of what limited info they had in a short period of time while the teams actually pursuing the guy apparently had a much better idea of what he was/is.

That's certainly one way of putting it. Another would be is that these kind of IFA signings was exactly the kind of thing the FO themselves emphasized as being critical to improving the Cubs in both the short and long term. Another would be to yet again point out that this was a player the FO was very interested in and was apparently willing to spend a lot of years and money on (along the lines of what the Dodgers ultimately signed him for) and yet he ended up with another team. No, it's not some screw up, but it's definitely a very noticeable failure in that this is exactly the kind of signing they were adamant about wanting and needing and they didn't get him. If Puig comes back to earth (and he certainly will, to one degree or another) and Soler explodes over the next year or two, are we still having this conversation? Do the Cubs have to sign every player they have interest in not to be "failing"? A 100% hit rate is something that doesn't happen for any team. Again, I'm not trying to argue for Puig over Soler or vice-versa. That's a pointless strawman that I have little interest in debating. And along those lines; there's hopefully nobody here who thinks his performance so far is indicative of the level he'll stay at, so that shouldn't even have to be clarified. And I'm not asking for a 100% success rate; that's another strawman that's been tossed repeatedly as a rebuttal when people bemoan missing out on these signings. Things would be VERY different if the Cubs had only pulled off getting ONE more of Puig, Cespedes or Darvish (and yes, everyone knows the difference between the Cubans being signed and the bidding for Darvish). That they only came away with Soler when this is an area they were crystal clear about NEEDING to be aggressive in and NEEDING to succeed in. Getting 1 in 4 sin't going to cut it, especially given the plan they've laid out for themselves. They were clearly hoping to get more than Soler, too. It's not early at all; the FO wanted all three Cubans for big money and big years and only got one of them. You have to make these signings in the first place to know whether or not they work out, so settling back and saying "well, we have to wait for them to be good for years before we know this was a bad miss" is essentially just spinning the failure to sign them in the first place. It's a completely self-fulfilling prophecy that can be used to justify any and every missed signing.