Sammy Sofa

What's the problem?

Pretty much everything I've been saying, but well said.

Well that's completely and totally wrong.

Then you want the impossible. It's all but inevitable that you're going to be overpaying at some point if you're trying to lock up a superstar. If you refuse to that then you have a team full of Darwin Barneys and Marlon Byrds with a few blips above or below them for the forseable future, and that's a recipe for mediocrity or worse for the next decade. I have no idea why you would prefer this route, but that's what you're getting and the Cubs go chicken-[expletive] and refuse to pay for superstar FA because they inexplicably decide they live in a world where nobody overpays for those kind of players (even though everyone does and has to). I mean, you DO realize that not every player that gets a huge contract isn't Soriano, right? You do realize the Cubs are owned by very, very rich people and make a lot of money, yes? I'm not saying they spend just to spend, but it would be flat out stupid to not take advantage of the huge resources at your disposal, especially when players like Pujols or Fielder roll around right at the moment you have money to spend, you need an offensive superstar (well, at least a couple, actually), and you need someone to play 1B.

How? Superstar players cost are always going to cost money. Again, the Cubs have absolutely zero prospects right now that project to that level and thereabouts for the foreseeable future. They do have, however, a number of intriguing prospects who should produce a few everyday players. They're a big market team with money to spend. Wouldn't you rather see a happy medium where the Cubs develop useful players internally, continue to work towards developing similar and better players down the line, but also take advantage of the resources at their disposal and make smart FA signings to make the team better? It's not an either/or proposition. I don't understand why you would want the team to be bad when they don't have to be. The Cubs can easily spend big for outside players and develop and re-sign their own players. The key is a good FO that can balance the team's options, not going miserly or going nuts with the spending.

Holy crap, please stop. WE'RE NOT GOING DOWN ANY ROAD "AGAIN." Pujols and Fielder are not Soriano, no many times you attempt to compare signing them to signing him. And you never know what any FA will be 6 years after you sign them. You're going to be signing big name FA who are pushing 30 (or past it) unless you develop them internally. Well, the Cubs have absolutely nobody even close to that on the horizon, thus they need to go out and spend. When you sign big names you've got to pay. The key, again, is overpaying for the right guys, and yes, you WILL be overpaying for players like that. Always. And the Cubs are a big market with lots of money to spend, so I don't know why you want them to just automatically not spend money on big contracts unless it's on a player they developed themselves. They have the money to make these kind of signings and SHOULD make them. Yes, I wish the Cubs would develop players like Fielder and Pujols...but they haven't and they won't any time soon. In the meantime they need to sign good FA to go along with more and more players they hopefully develop from within who can be useful everyday players.

Depends on who is getting the contract. Soriano? No, of course not. Pujols? [expletive] yeah. Prince? Damn right (I'd prefer to land him for 6 years, but I don't think that's going to happen). No dollar amount/years (within reason) should be verboten, and both of those factors are well within reason for the right players, especially for a big market team like the Cubs. The key is having a FO smart enough to overpay for the right guys (and build a team around them) instead of the Sorianos of the world.

STEP OFF, BRA.

Very true. No need to be more specific than that, because then you're implying correlation between that and something more specific than an unfortunate reality of human nature. Saying that Wrigley or sports in general cause any sort of increased correlation to such behavior is just as thick-headed as the behavior itself. IBL/split. I never said Wrigley was some kind of unique factor. I do indeed think sports fandom elevates too many people's innate prejudices to the surface in the heat of the moment. How someone could be adamant that an environment involving such irrational, spur of the moment emotional peaks and valleys WOULDN'T have an effect on personal prejudices is beyond me.

Not me. Seriously, I think most of the people that go to Wrigley (and most sports fans) are shallow scum. They just go with the flow and are easily swayed. Most of them may not be actively "racist," but they're pretty damn prejudiced and love to believe all kinds of absurd stereotypes as to why players don't perform as they want/expect them to, and there's a very clear difference across baseball, football and basketball as to what those expectations are for non-white players vs. white ones. No, it's not a hard and fast rule, but anyone who thinks the racial divide in America isn't explicitly on display in those sports on a near daily basis is just fooling themselves. Our racial prejudices are so deeply ingrained that of course it should be no surprise to see how naturally they flow forth when people get all worked up over sports.

Too late. Dave Matthews already dropped the bro-bomb there and it cannot be undone.

I'm glad you've come around on this. It's really disheartening to watch. do you not remember people booing the [expletive] out of jeff blauser and steve buechele? Todd Hundley too. And no, no one booed them. They were booing the brown guys standing next to them. Yes, thank you! I really cannot thank you enough for backing me up in all of this! It's a noble cause we're fighting for, and by God, we'll fix things one of these days!

I'm glad you've come around on this. It's really disheartening to watch. do you not remember people booing the [expletive] out of jeff blauser and steve buechele? No. Stop lying. Steve Buechele was a saint.

Exactly. Soul seems to be saying that since the Ricketts didn't do the exact same thing the first offseason they owned the team and had overspent on whoever the best FA was after last season (I assume it was Dunn, right?), then that's evidence of them planning on not dishing out any big contracts anytime soon. FTH?

Smart people here wanted to trade Marmol well before this.

What's going on is that he refuses to throw anything else. An offspeed pitch (even a great one like Marmol's) needs a decent fastball to be completely effective. The frustrating part is that Marmol HAS a very good fastball. Had, apparently. YES. NICE JOB, MARSHALL.

I'm glad you've come around on this. It's really disheartening to watch.

Finish this, Marshall.

It's because it's all he's throwing.

His fastball might as well be gone if he's not blowing this guy away.

Alright, that was pretty smooth, Quade.

Gah, come on.

HOLY [expletive], NICE DEFENSE.

I'm much more concerned about the physical breakdown.

Why couldn't this be the case? Why do we have to become the Pirates for the next ten years just because we won't take on another huge, lengthy deal while our lower levels are brought up to speed? I don't understand why my theory -- wrong as it may be -- would necessarily mean that this team is heading for a disaster. There's no guarantee signing a guy like Fielder would do anything other than fill a few more seats while the team still languishes around the .500 mark anyway. And once you are realizing production from your lower levels on a more regular basis, that puts you in a better position to make saner forays into the free agent market, rather than feeling like you need to throw insane amounts of cash at a guy like Soriano because you have nothing else to go with. And yet again you conflate signing Fielder with signing Soriano. Please stop that. And yes, avoiding big name FA's will mean the team languishes in mediocrity or worse for at least the better part of a decade. The Cubs don't have any prospects on the horizon that project to be much more than decent everyday starters at best. Guys like that can obviously be very useful, but they're not enough to put a team over the top. The Cubs are going to have to wisely mix developing talent with smart signings, and yes, some of those signings are going to have to be big contracts. The Cubs not spending simply doesn't equal good business sense.