Elrhino

Seriously, does it not bother people that really, really smart and data driven front offices seem to value it a lot?

Whelp, they can have him at that price. Tired of this refrain. You are upset the Cubs didn't beat 5yr/$80mil? Basically if it's just an extra year at the same rate we were discussing for a four year deal I'd be a little annoyed, but it really comes down to what else they do. If we have a clean sweep of missing FA over a bunch of extra one years or minimal cost/year figures I'll be definitely disappointed. We just can't expect to compete on the open market with the free spending teams like the Toronto Blue Jays who are willing to (potentially) eat a bad contract year in 2019 to upgrade a current roster weakness to compete in 2015-2016.

Whelp, they can have him at that price. Tired of this refrain. You are upset the Cubs didn't beat 5yr/$80mil? I would rather have Martin at that price than pay Shields like an ace. Cubs absolutely have to go all in for Lester now, regardless of the price. No excuses.

So the Cubs' should focus on just jacking up the price for this year's free agents for another team, so next year's free agents can use that as the benchmark when the Cubs should be looking to buy a free agent?

Sullivan was on B and B and he seems to think that it's the cubs by process of elimination, which is definitely good for the price. Except the "elimination" likely stems from other teams not wanting to meet the price.

Since has worked with Maddon for almost 10 years with both the Rays and the Angels, this seems like a good fit. Honestly, I would have no problem with Molina being the bench coach. He's been catching and handling pitchers under Mike Scioscia, Joe Torre and Maddon for 15 years. I think he's a future MLB manager, and sooner rather than later.

And it's probably going to be Andrew Friedman and his mountain of money in LA are going to be driving the price. The Rays were big time into pitch framing. Last offseason they traded for Ryan Hanigan after chasing him for years, and had 94 year old Jose Molina behind him specifically for pitch framing. This MLB network segment on pitch framing has audio quotes from Maddon. http://m.mlb.com/video/v25582579/clubhouse-confidential-looks-at-pitch-framing

I'm guessing Tim Bogar as bench coach, assuming Martinez gets the Rays gig.

Yeah, in game management and the effect of Ws and Ls is probably what interests me least about Maddon. Mainly I just like poaching one of the key members of Tampa's organization and adding him to the Cubs day to day braintrust. Reading the Extra 2%, their organization certainly wasn't structured like Billy Beane vs. Art Howe. The entire organization was structured so ownership, management, scouts and coaches were all involved and on the same page. I don't think Friedman has any proprietary "special sauce" that Maddon doesn't at least know the reasoning or philosophy behind. I was digging up some stuff on the Rays pitchers and TJS under Maddon. http://www.si.com/mlb/strike-zone/2014/04/10/matt-moore-tommy-john-surgery-tampa-bay-rays Of course Moore had to have TJS earlier this year, showing that no one has competeley solved the puzzle. No approach can undo years of abuse before the kid comes into your organization. I'm surprise Price never had any issues considering the snap he put on that hard curve early in his career.

"Late last week" and "Friday" seem kind of synonymous. Also, couldn't it have been industry knowledge that he had an opt-out clause? Maddon had two weeks to decide, his decision was made Friday. That means the industry might've known about it through their sources for the previous two weeks ever since Friedman left. Friday may be late last week but late last week does not mean Friday. Sure, all this could be on the up and up, but the point is there is an awful lot of smoke here. There's no way maddon opts out with only the twins in search of a manager. It's not exactly a huge leap of faith for a guy who is widely regarded as the top guy at his job to believe he's due for a gigantic raise if he opts out of his contract with his current revenue strapped employer.

Rosenthal's justification would be he pulled up the Cubs midseason Top 10 prospects and circled the only two names that sounded familiar.

In a very short period they lost Price, Friedman, and Maddon. Not to mention their park is a [expletive] hole. Gotta be a tough time to be a Rays fan after the last few years success. Yup that stadium is terrible, the only time I've been there was when the cubs played there a few years ago haven't been back. It's like a giant Highschool gymnasium, a terrible place to watch baseball. They could draw fans but not in that dump. not only that but isn't the location really inconvenient for people who live in Tampa (the larger part of the metro population)? Something like only 1 bridge from Tampa to St. Pete. At the same time, these are all excuses...a 90+ win team with likable players should be able to draw decently. It's not exactly easy to get to, but it's not exactly out in the middle of nowhere either. St. Pete has a lot of restaurant/bars, a huge art museum and a marina in the same neighborhood, with trolley rides to take you around the neighborhood. It's not like it's stuck out in some cow pasture. I don't think it's any more difficult to get to than a lot of other suburban ballparks. It's certainly no more of an ordeal than someone living Naperville getting to and from Wrigley. It's just sedentary/suburb culture, and many people are snowbirds and/or transplants who have no loyalty to the local teams . My in-laws live in Sarasota, which is about an hour drive to St. Pete. I would have killed to live next to a perennial pennant contender within an hour's drive. Whenever I ask Sarasota locals how often they go to a Rays game, they look at me like I'm asking them how often they backpack through Southeast Asia. Occasionally a transplant from the northeast will tell me they'll go to one game a year to see the Yankees or Sox when they're in town.

Okay, we can make it official now.

Yeah, I think it'll work well in that regard. No 'my people' to bring along, and then after this year they can evaluate if they want to keep working together(except for Bosio, he stays forever). Might as well. I don't see any guys out there that have obvious previous connections to Maddon available. The Rays have told all of their coaches that they're being retained, and Martinez is likely getting the promotion. Bosio has to be one of the most highly respected pitching coaches in the sport and Theo is always raving about him, and it sounds like Maddon and Mallee share similar philosophies on hitting approach. The only person that kinda stands out as a possible staff addition is Tim Bogar. He has ties to both Maddon and Theo.

Yeah, like shooting a running floater in the lane would mess up your jump shot.

Two part interview that Maddon did with Baseball Prospectus in 2006. I didn't know that he had also previously interviewed with Theo about the Red Sox job. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6629 Part 1 http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6629 Part 2 Mallee also specifically mentioned instilling a 2 strike approach to cut down on the strikeouts.

Maddon is maybe the only mlb manager that has occasionally used his "closer" in the 8th inning if the heart of the opposing lineup is due up. http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/baseball-joe/blog/joe-maddon-s-getting-semi-radical-082614 If his bullpen tactics prevent us from signing one overpaid bullpen arm, it's worth it.

Maybe poor Tom Ricketts clipped a "Buy 1 manager, add 1 half off." coupon from the Sunday Tribune.

All this. And he has enough respect around the league that he could be a selling point to free agents (albeit likely a small one). And a way to bring a central member of the Tampa braintrust, and a guy who's worked side by side with Andrew Friedman for 9 years, into the organizational process.

He'll be fine. Or he won't. I'm not going to worry about it until next season. I'm not going to worry about it until 2016. He's too young, too cheap and has too high of an upside to warrant anything other than an extremely long leash. Even if he struggles again next year, I just don't think that Javy is going to fall that far below the low bar of a modern MLB average 2B to get worked up over as a liability or albatross to the lineup next year.

You don't easily replace a north Brooklyn blogger who's constantly on social media demonstrating an over-inflated sense of cleverness and wit.

Remember when it was the meatballs that were going to give up on Javy after his first 6 weeks as a 21 year old in the majors? And the smart fans were going to point and laugh at them for being meatballs?

When Javy is sucking this badly at Olt's current age, I'll be ready to write him off too. He's got a mere 5 years to figure it out. It's not the years, it's the mileage. I won't for a moment suggest that Baez isn't a far better prospect than Olt. But I think people get too hung up on Olt's age. He was a college draftee, and he effectively lost an entire year to his eye issues. I'd like to see a little more of him before I toss him in the rubbish tip. The lost year is a strike against him, not a point in his favor. I think it's kind of moot if he can see now. Not that we really know if he can or not. He could see last week. Apparently Kane County has some sort of healing therapeutic electromagnetic fields that magically improves eyesight.

When Javy is sucking this badly at Olt's current age, I'll be ready to write him off too. He's got a mere 5 years to figure it out.

Schwarber's slashline in Daytona is going to look similar to Bryant's by the end of the year. Since Schwarber has Top 5 pick pedigree and starting next year in AA, where is he listed on offseason Top 100 prospect lists? Does he crack Top 10?