Sammy Sofa

The Cubs are nowhere near being in a position to be dealing away starting pitching like that. That is so not a position of strength it's not even funny.

And as for the Harper discussion, I definitely would prefer Machado if he's willing to play 3B.

Defensively? Probably average to above average but not elite like Russell. Offensively I have no idea what to predict other than 30ish HRs. This isn't the first time that Tom has talked about someone playing SS like it has an impact on how they perform offensively, and I don't get it at all.

Yeah, regardless of how a season turns out, it's still such a refreshing change to hear someone in charge talk like this.

It was actually: "OMG it was so obvious Heyward was going to suck I can't believe that our supposedly smart FO signed him trying to out-smart themselves" "Our FO has made a lot of good moves and also weren't unique in wanting to sign Heyward, who was the most coveted FA of the 2015 offseason" "Signing a guy who ended up being bad is proof that the FO was dumb" Something can be a good idea at the time and not work out. This isn't something that was hotly debated at the time a la Chatwood. Nobody is saying anything is proof that they're dumb or a bad FO. And it looks like it should have been more debated, at least internally by the professionals who ideally know better; again, it wasn't some great secret what kind of health/injury issues he was going to be dealing with, nor that so much of his value was tied up in his defense. They likely thought that they, like a lot of the other teams that wanted him, figured he was still young enough to unlock the flashes of great offense he had shown to that point. It doesn't mean they were dumb; it just means they were willing and able to make the same mistakes as other FO's in that case. In hindsight, I wish they HAD been smarter than everyone else, us included, when it came to Heyward. Instead they weighed the risks and it didn't work out.

you think chili davis accidentally became the team’s hitting coach? OR...Theo thought there needed to be more contact in the lineup, but unfortunately hired a guy that screwed up their approach at the plate and killed their power numbers. Which would weird, since they were 10th in strikeouts as a team last year, and ended up....9th this year.

Yes, please. Get sixth, seventh and eighth opinions, thanks.

I’m just not overly concerned this last ~40 games of 2018 is what any of these guys are long term. You’d have to go a long way to prove that I should be more worried about those games meaning more and predicting future sucking over looking at the body of work these guys have put up outside of that sample that says they aren’t those hitters. Outside of Mar/Apr Rizzo was good to great (.980, .780, .870, 1.00+, .840, OPS by month after Mar/APR sure that’s a little streaky but it’s between being a streaky good to great hitter) . Almora was just used too much against RHP and needs to be a strict platoon guy, Baez probably isn’t this but he’s at least a ~30 HR SS moving forward even if he hits .250 that has value, Willy is going to be fine and was good most of the year until the innings killed him and I’m sure he was dealing with injuries they need to cut his games back by ~20 or so next year he was the same hitter as last year just the power was gone which maybe it doesn’t come all the way back but there’s more than this years in him. I think in terms of Contreras this exposed how much he NEEDS to hit to offset just how bad he is behind the plate. I'm not a huge fan of relying on a player whose value is that lopsided at such a critical position. Granted, catchers suck in general, so he's got more of a curve, but I am expecting more of a lowered expectations thing a la Schwarber with him as opposed to just assuming he's going to be this sure-thing; it's obvious he put in a lot of extra innings, but he hit the wall HARD by the end of July. Rizzo is....Rizzo. His offensive value has been ticking downward on Fangraphs each season since 2015, and hey, he's 29; that's what happens. He's going to have his awesome stretches over the season, but those are going to keep getting shorter while the slumps keep getting longer. Obviously that doesn't mean he's not valuable, but it's also not realistic to not think he's not going to keep trending downward. Same with Baez, IMO; look, if he proves a million people wrong and somehow does this again, then he's some kind of sorcerer. Plus we're pretty much going to have to expect him to have some real DL time with how he plays. This isn't saying the team is doomed; I just don't think 2018 was this weird outlier that isn't likely again. There's a lot of flawed/questionable players on the team. And that's not even saying the 2018 team was "truly bad" or whatever; I just think it's more likely than not that this division is going to be the Cubs battling with at least 2 other teams for much of the season for the division. But, hey, that means the Cubs are consistently competitive! That's great! We just probably won't get that "run away with it and hide all year" season.

This all fills me with the rage. Never wanna see him playing baseball again.

"The Cubs' FO is smarter than everyone else!" "OK, well, they dropped the ball signing Heyward." "Well, all of those FO's that they're smarter than wanted to sign him, too!"

Wishing that a smart FO had been a bit smarter to heed the pretty obvious risks in Heyward isn't some kind of unrealistic expectation. And justifying the signing along of the lines of everyone else being willing to jump off of a bridge looking cool isn't really an argument in the signing's favor, either.

I'm at four.

He can only mask so much if it's in the neighborhood of second half 2018 Cubs' offense, and that's my main concern (besides that he's going to be dealing with nagging shoulder issues) since just plugging him in and watching them go hinges on things like Contreras and Russell actually being really good again, and Almora BABIPing his way unsustainably, and Baez being a walking baseball fluke being a thing that happens again...plus Rizzo just getting streakier and streaking with each season. That's a lot of if's. Obviously, that's hopefully hugely mitigated if they get Harper or Machado, but I don't think it's a done deal that it's not going to be much more than what you saw the Brewers do this year in terms of usually a couple of guys hitting really well and then a bunch of dudes.

The whole signing looks worse and worse for the FO as time goes on. Like, it's not like any of this stuff was any kind of secret, yet they seemingly went all in on him more just to spite the Cardinals as opposed to actually signing someone who looked like they were going to be a reliably valuable baseball player. they were just doing the smartest guys in the room stuff again. Heyward was a high floor guy because of the defense and the lack of Ks. his body was borked and he still hit .290 so "hey, if we can get the swing straight he'll be a GG defender who walks doesnt K and hits for power again. the shoulder can't be too bad, he hit .290!" but he just literally can't swing anymore. Yeah; I'm just a moron who read a Wikipedia page, and as soon as I got to the part about "DEGENERATIVE BACK CONDITION," klaxons started blasting even though I am in no position to dish out huge baseball contracts to guys whose value is largely predicated on something that tends to decline suddenly even with guys who DON'T have DEGENERATIVE BACK CONDITIONS.

and also kill duensing can you imagine how horsefeathers up it would be to be dumpy old brian duensing and have the one thing you're remotely good at in life be "being a part of the small population of left handed people who is part of the even smaller group of lefthanded people who can throw curveballs to the even smaller portion of people who bat left handed" and then read online where some dumbass is like "he should be murdered" and other people are liking the post like "yes i agree, murder is a fitting outcome for him." All fans of everything are terrible. We should be marched off of a cliff.

You're acting like he didn't have a great season the year before or any time before his STL season. I'm obviously not bullish on Heyward moving forward (which sucks, because I was a huge fan of signing him) but it's not like the Cubs were the only team who thought he'd be good. He was a 4 win guy in 2014 because of defense - his slugging that year was lower than it was in 2018 or 2017. He's had 3 good offensive years, two were before the injuries and one was the weird cardinals season where he hit .293 randomly. If you think he's hitting .293 again, i think you're setting yourself up for disappointment. The whole signing looks worse and worse for the FO as time goes on. Like, it's not like any of this stuff was any kind of secret, yet they seemingly went all in on him more just to spite the Cardinals as opposed to actually signing someone who looked like they were going to be a reliably valuable baseball player.

Bryant not being healthy wasn't the only problem they had offensively, and it's not going to be the only problem going forward.

He also funked his shoulder up in Atlanta and his swing has never looked the same. The cardinals season was a flukish BA, a home run off arrieta and defensive efficiency he won’t approach anymore admit he ages. He’s a 2 WAR guy who might get to 3 with BABIP luck since he doesn’t strike out. Any details on the Heyward shoulder injury? He has degenerative back stuff, and strained his shoulder or something in, what, like his 2nd or 3rd season? And then Chipper was a dick (shocker) and called him out for not playing through the pain.

I also threw this out there a couple times and I don't think I ever got a reply; to my dimwit eyes, I thought he looked at least reasonably promising.

I'm also getting more and more onboard with the idea of bullpen-ing it as much as possible. I'd still like to add one more starter just to have some depth, but beyond that and Harper or Machado, just amp up the bullpen numbers and see what sticks. And start pushing what few pitching prospects they have into the bullpen sooner rather than later.

Stew in your hot goss here, you filthy reprobates.

Man, if that means Chili gets to stick around for another year, too...

Heyward hurt his wrist in between the 2015 and 2016 seasons? He also funked his shoulder up in Atlanta and his swing has never looked the same. The cardinals season was a flukish BA, a home run off arrieta and defensive efficiency he won’t approach anymore admit he ages. He’s a 2 WAR guy who might get to 3 with BABIP luck since he doesn’t strike out. So we'll have a matching set between him and Bryant. How adorable.

They can play "small ball" fine; they ranked right near the top with their team average and OBP. Lack of power was the glaring problem. It's not like they weren't getting a bunch of guys on base in a lot of those games where they only scored 0 or 1 run. Speed is something, IMO, that should have almost next to nothing to do with their offensive approach outside of, "don't have guys as slow as Daniel Murphy."