Elrhino

So you're saying a player who was good in the minors, called up to the majors and struggles and when he's sent back down to the minors and is successful again "just sucks and is a 4A player"? Tell Anthony Rizzo that. Rizzo did that at 22. Olt turns 26 in a couple of weeks (and almost a full year older than Rizzo). When you're 26 and you still can't make contact with major league pitches, you're a 4A player. Who do you want Olt stealing at bats from in 2015? Rizzo at 1B? Bryant at 3B? Addison at 3B? Soler or Bryant at corner OF?

I love football but can't deny this one. Media guys don't make it better, either. Football media are the worst, especially when they're waxing poetic about quarterbacks and their mystical clutch "he's just got 'it'" factor. Somehow the magical clutch fairy sprinkled "it" pixie-dust on Eli Manning in the middle of the night, and then immediately stripped it away from him the following year about 3 seperate times in his career. And in no way should you ever dare suggest luck or variance has anything to do with the outcome of a football game. Football is one place in the universe where all outcomes are determined by pure meritocracy (likely based on "who wanted it more"). Of course, this has absolutely no correlation to the fact that 90% of media commentators on football are ex-meathead players who have previously won Superbowls. It also doesn't help that football strategy is actually really complicated and most positions on the field are actually hard to measure, so you have stuff like judging the quality of a cornerback who plays 900 snaps a season on whether he gets 3 or 5 interceptions with little regard for the other 895-897 plays, like they didn't matter. Basically, football is too advanced for the people who like it. All sports have their share of wtf popularity contest nominations when it comes to their All Star games, but the OL nominations for the Pro Bowl are often epic hilarity. I remember a washed up Larry Allen getting nominated to the Pro Bowl in a season where he was repeatedly benched.

I love football but can't deny this one. Media guys don't make it better, either. Football media are the worst, especially when they're waxing poetic about quarterbacks and their mystical clutch "he's just got 'it'" factor. Somehow the magical clutch fairy sprinkled "it" pixie-dust on Eli Manning in the middle of the night, and then immediately stripped it away from him the following year about 3 seperate times in his career. And in no way should you ever dare suggest luck or variance has anything to do with the outcome of a football game. Football is one place in the universe where all outcomes are determined by pure meritocracy (likely based on "who wanted it more"). Of course, this has absolutely no correlation to the fact that 90% of media commentators on football are ex-meathead players who have previously won Superbowls.

Typical, too lazy to run out balls hit inside the park.

Wonder how the superior Lindor is doing. Has his OPS passed .730 for the year yet?

I'm admittedly drinking the Kool-Aid, but I'll be stunned if a high career ground ball% + a naturally sinking fastball hitting 92-96 + analytics driven defensive positioning + Bosio + 1 legit Gold Glove 1B & 3 former high level shortstop prospects in the infield doesn't at least translate to a nice mid-rotation pitcher.

And Doubront.

Insane how quickly the Tigers moved him through their system before he had developed breaking pitches. His first major league call up he had been 20 years old for all of 2 months.

??? He broke his leg badly in a game tonight. It was disgusting. I haven't seen it. I never want to. I fully support the auto ban, tim. i still can't believe they let real players play in this meaningless nonsense I have a feeling as of tonight, that's about to end.

Wow... that was a shot. Are we sure he is just a 15-or-so HR guy? I guess I take the scouts word on it, but it seems like a 20 year old with that kind of ridiculous bat speed who's jacking up HRs in the Southern League at this rate would project a higher power ceiling.

Archiving this image.

If Almora just provides a cheap, cost controlled plus glove in CF, I'm cool with that. We'll need our Cesar Geronimo.

Has he been competent enough in CF in Iowa that it won't be a disaster if he replaces a traded Ruggiano?

The extended spring training staff is going to be sick once these guys get their TJS out of the way.

Puig will get paid closer to what Trout will make than he otherwise should becuase of the other factors. I know people want to think that Major League Baseball is just a glorified version of their college dorm roto-league, but there's really more to it.

This isn't serious is it? Doesn't seem too far off to me if Trout continues his pace (which would make him one of the greatest players of all-time at the age of 26). As good of a pure baseball player as Trout is, I don't see him being the iconic marketing superstar and revenue magnet that someone is going to pay half a billion dollars for. Nice kid, but not exactly dripping with charisma and personality. If you sign him through his age 41/42 season and he continues on his relative path you presumably have him while he's chasing 500-600+ career HR's, 3,000+ hits, and becoming one of the all time WAR leaders (which should be a bigger/more known and widely accepted metric by then). There's plenty of marketing potential in there. Not to mention you have one of the best players of all time during most or all of his prime, I'd hope/think there are a few winning seasons/deep playoff runs in there that obviously increases revenue. If you have one of the best players in your sport you are going to get endorsements even if they aren't overly charismatic, look at Rose. Of course you're going to get at least some endorsements if you're good enough, the question is if you get enough to recoup a half a billion dollar contract. No player alone is going to provide a half a billion dollars worth of baseball production. Mike Trout's teams have stunk the last two years. If you're paying a half a billion dollars for a player, you're going to expect to get an iconic personality that people personally pay to come to the ballpark to watch and who TV broadcasters are going to want to pay a lot to money for the rights to broadcast. Right now, Puig is more of that guy in the LA area than Trout is, even if Trout is the vastly superior player.

He got that contract because he played on the Yankees during their championship run. Not because of charisma. MLB teams don't make money off charisma, they make money off television ratings and attendance, and that is correlated to winning. A superstar helps you win, which pays for itself. A charismatic personality does very little for the bottom line. Lots of guys played on the Yankees during that Championship Run, they didn't all get grossly overpaid. Jeter got a 10 year, $190 million dollar contrat because he was "The Captain" and every 8 year old kid in the city was wearing his jersey and had his poster up on the wall.

This isn't serious is it? Doesn't seem too far off to me if Trout continues his pace (which would make him one of the greatest players of all-time at the age of 26). As good of a pure baseball player as Trout is, I don't see him being the iconic marketing superstar and revenue magnet that someone is going to pay half a billion dollars for. Nice kid, but not exactly dripping with charisma and personality. Since when do transcendentally great players get huge contracts for their charisma and personality. dafuq? Since sports became a business where people expect to make money and generate revenue. Which is why a transcendent marketing personality like Derek Jeter has made way more money in his career than his pure production would warrant. One of the biggest reasons the relationship between ARod and Tom Hicks soured is because ARod wasn't doing the marketing that Hicks had expected.

This isn't serious is it? Doesn't seem too far off to me if Trout continues his pace (which would make him one of the greatest players of all-time at the age of 26). As good of a pure baseball player as Trout is, I don't see him being the iconic marketing superstar and revenue magnet that someone is going to pay half a billion dollars for. Nice kid, but not exactly dripping with charisma and personality.

Especially since it was a meaningless gesture of Boras grandstanding so he could attempt to justify his commission check on a contract negotiation that really involved very little negotiation

Arismendy also played his career high in games this season, and participated in the Future's Game over the ASB. He might still play in the Dominican Winter League.

Nah, just a guy that has filled out finally and they probably want to test him to see if he can handle AA. Always considered raw, guess its possible he could find a utility role in the majors at some point. He was also the last minute replacement for Baez at SS. I guess they could have sent Hernandez instead, but he looked overmatched at Kane County.

So... It's our fault were losers but we can't play with a manager who is a loser, so he's collateral damage for our failings and/or strategy to suck. Ok. So he was probably always a placeholder. I wouldn't call him a placeholder. More of an audition. If he'd turned out to be the kind of manager the FO wanted I'm sure he'd have stuck around. He didn't. I agree. How hard was it for him to manage the last week knowing he was getting fired? He probably knew he was take the fall at the trading deadline. Offseason season ticket campaigns don't market themselves, particularly when you mostly return the same roster that's finished with the 3rd and 4th worst winning% in baseball in back to back years.

Vanilla and boring is not exactly a negative attribute. So no Bobby Valentine or Ozzie Guillen bandwagon?

Signing a big name manager would be a perfect way to market to Cub fans to buy season tickets in lieu of spending the money needed to substantially improve the talent base. I'm sure Theo would love another big marquee name in the franchise to help carry the scrutiny bullseye on their back.