CubColtPacer

Are you not in an area where ND/WF is the ABC game?

Marshall's deal is actually for 3.1 this year. He signed a 2 year deal before last season.

If you sign a player before Nov. 23, you have to give his team whatever compensation is due, whether they intended to offer him arbitration or not. You can sign players earlier than that. Examples would be stupid teams who don't care, players who are definitely going to be offered, or players who don't require compensation to be given up by the signing team. Free agency formally begins Nov. 3, six days after the World Series ends. It used to start much later than that, but they moved it up this year. And players don't have to formally file anymore, they just become free agents. So what used to happen if a player was up for free agency but decided not to file? I looked at a couple sites, and the assumption is that it would work the same as a player with 3-6 years experience. The player could try to work out either a contract or go to arbitration with his current team, and the current team could non-tender him if they wished. Since all those options are still present after becoming a free agent (the team can decline to offer arbitration, they can work out a contract, or the player can accept arbitration if it's offered) they took away the paperwork of having to formally file.

Got a team or teams in mind? Pitchers suffering from bad "luck" may be the result of a slight systematic bias. The xBABIP formula is designed to project players with large amounts of plate appearances (you can observe actual lines approaching adjusted lines as plate appearances go up just by looking at the Cubs). Guys who hit as poorly as most pitchers do tend not to get many plate appearances, so they may not be adequately represented. Also worth noting, most pitchers are told not to try to beat out grounders. With this few plate appearances, beating out a couple could make a HUGE difference in an overall line. Also outfield positioning can hurt weak hitters like pitchers (and this could be true for players like Campana and Barney too). When a player has so little power that the team can play in, some line drives and bloops that would have been hits for a different player are going to be caught for outs.

Why is Jackson being thrown into every trade? I understand good young pitching is hard to come by, but the Cubs don't have a lot of up and coming bats in the system as it is. Plus, he's a high OBP player like Theo seems to like. Seems like one of the last guys we should trade. BJax is a high OBP guy? I thought he projected to something like .350? Good but he's not JD Drew. And doesn't he strike out in 1/4 of his ABs? I don't think we need to shop him but I don't know that he's really the type of player Jebodore values highly. Yeah, most people only project him to be a .350 OBP player because he strikes out 25-30 percent of the time. He'll walk at an excellent percentage, but it will be hard to keep the batting average above .265 with that kind of strikeout rate which limits his OBP value.

I was about to say. His FIP and xFIP have been 4.00 or higher the past two years, more or less... 2010 FIP: 4.19 xFIP: 4.29 ERA: 4.64 WAR: 1.2 2011 FIP: 3.99 xFIP: 4.23 ERA: 2.98 WAR: 1.5 I'm all for exploring to acquire him because I do think he's a fine pitcher, but I think he's being a little overvalued here A 2.98 ERA in 23 starts is only good for 1.5 WAR? That seems really low. That's because his WAR was killed by 2 different things. One is that he only pitched 150 innings. And the second if that his peripherals weren't that great. He doesn't strike many people out, and was only average at giving up home runs. The reason he had a 2.98 ERA is because he had a .269 BABIP against (even though he gave up 21.4% line drives) and 81% of the runners who reached base against him were left on base which is really high. So he got some good luck behind him, and then he was unbelievable at pitching out of jams this year.

I'm not following you. How does Jeromy Burnitz compare to Headley or Sizemore and how does Soriano compare to Matt Kemp? Sizemore has been broken for like 2 years now and just got non-tendered by Cleveland. You're hoping you catch lightning in a bottle with him. I have no idea what a Headley is, but it sounds like a league average player. Its settling for like the 5th best options out there. And you're on drugs if you're going to put all your eggs in the "Matt Kemp will definitely hit the market, and when he does we'll sign him so it's ok to pass/miss out on every good offensive player going into 2012 because we'll get Matt Kemp" basket. That's not exactly the kind of sound planning that wins championships. If we sign Pujols or Fielder, fine. Whatever. If we don't, no amount of mental gymnastics and projecting 2013 signings or whatever will make us not suck on offense. There's no really likely scenario where we aren't really below average in 2012 offensively. I don't know how likely this is, but if Soto has a 2008/2010 type of year and the Cubs upgrade their backup catcher spot, the Cubs will have basically switched 3rd base for catcher offense next year. That's one decently likely way that the Cubs could have an average offense even with the loss of Ramirez. Upgrading one outfield spot or Castro improvement would help also. It would be very unlikely for the Cubs to be any better than average, but they could make it to average with Pena and no Ramirez (they'll more likely be a little below average though).

Right. It's clearly not ideal, but having a fantastic pitching staff and a really good defense can work if you get some breaks. A team with a $130m payroll in the NL Central shouldn't have to rely on pitching health and "breaks" No, they shouldn't. But that's the scenario the Cubs have been left with. It's not like if they sign Pujols and Ramirez and call it an offseason (they'd only have a few million left at that point) that they won't be relying on breaks to not be more than average. In that case, they would have a good offense and a terrible pitching staff. Is that better? There really isn't a good way to build a great team for 2012 with the available payroll which is actually an argument against signing Ramirez (since most of his value would come in 2012 while other free agents the Cubs might pursue will be more likely to contribute in future years).

True, but large market teams shouldn't sign long-term deals to aging, declining players just because they don't know how they're going to fill their spot either. Ramirez has been an amazing player for the Cubs (unselfish too with taking less money last time) and still has some gas left in the tank. But the chances are not good that he's going to be worth anywhere close to the type of deal he's going to get on the market. Ramirez knows this is likely his best chance to get one last decent deal which is why he declined his side of the option, and the Cubs are just not willing to be the ones to make the mistake of signing him to that deal.

It's less than 400,000 and if they try him as a starter and he succeeds, then they may be regretting tearing up the 3.5 million option for 2013 (I don't know how successful as I'm not sure how his current salary being so high factors into a first year arbitration hearing). One of those moves that's pretty close either way though, and if they leave him as a reliever it's definitely the right move.

Right now, I'm getting the sense that this might actually be Boise's chance. I don't have confidence in Oklahoma State, Stanford, or Clemson to win out (right now, my gut tells me one of Stanford or Clemson loses tonight, although I'm open to that prediction being hilariously wrong). If none of them do, that leaves Boise fighting it out with the LSU/Alabama loser, Oregon, and Oklahoma. Could they hold off those teams? Maybe. Their non-conference SOS isn't bad at all this year. Playing UNLV and New Mexico will really hurt in the computers, but I think their computer ranking will still be strong enough that if they even have a small edge in the polls they could sneak in.

I don't think they'll be able to define it using a rulebook. The rule will have to end up being that the umpire will use his best judgement to determine where the runners would have ended up if the play was different. That's what they already have to do on fan interference calls. That then will usually cause an argument by whichever manager doesn't get the benefit of the call. Suddenly you have a several minute break in the action and while you now know the original call was right, you have no idea if the call on where to send the runners was right. If it was something that happened rarely like it was in football, then the benefit of replay would outweigh that. But this would be an issue on many, many replay calls. I'll give another scenario to something I wouldn't want to see: Runners on 1st and 2nd, 2 out. 3 and 2 count. Runners run and there is a ground ball up the middle. 2nd baseman stops it and throws to 1st while runners are rounding the bases. Batter is called out and he is safe on replay. Do the umpires let the run score? The 1st baseman could quite possibly have thrown the runner out, but he could quite easily have scored as well. There's no real fair way to decide that.

Explain your terrible position. I'm questionable about expanded replay because of the logistical issues. For example, Runner coming around 3rd for home. Batter gets tagged out at 2nd base for 3rd out. Replay shows he's safe. Does the runner score? Does he go back to 3rd? Same scenario but the guy is thrown out at home with runners advancing behind him. Do the runners get the extra base or not? Ball was ruled foul off batters bat but replay shows it was fair. Does the batter get a single? A double? Where do the runners on base go? Ball was ruled a catch but replay shows it was a trap. Does the runner get a single? A double? Where do the runners go? Football really only has this type of play once (fumble recovery/interception that was initially ruled no good). Baseball would have these thorny issues all the time. It would seem a lot would have to be left to umpire's discretion, and I might rather have a few calls be wrong than let the umpires be deciding who goes where all the time.

It's hard to say with Dempster. On one hand, he got hit harder last season which is a worrying sign. LD percentage jumped up, BABIP jumped up with it, swinging strike percentage was the lowest of his career. Could that be a sign of declining stuff? Maybe. At the same time, all the traditional peripherals didn't decline. K/BB rate, HR rate, HR/FB were very close to what they had been in previous years. That's why his FIP was actually better than 2010 and his xFIP has been remarkably consistent for 4 years straight (3.69, 3.76, 3.74, 3.70). So his run last year could be the first sign of trouble and his peripherals could collapse next year, or his peripherals that would suggest he was unlucky could level out and his ERA would return to the high 3's. Hard to say which.

It still chaps my hide that they went after Latroy Hawkins as a Type A free agent for middle relief without caring about the repurcussions. It just speaks volumes toward Hendry's absurd values. The saddest thing is that in six drafts of five rounds, any team that simply holds onto their existing picks would have made 30 picks over that time. That's the bare minimum assuming you don't go after any kind of compensatory picks. The Cubs (and Orioles?) couldn't even manage that. Yup, although at least the Cubs stopped losing picks a few years ago (I think Soriano was the last pick they lost, and that was the only one they lost with that 2006 shopping spree). They've only gained 2 picks during that time though and both of those were luck (Pierre and Kendall both signed before the deadline). That's the area the Cubs really need to improve in as they've had a couple of really good chances to get picks that they've squandered.

I think our front office might value the draft pick more than the likely return, assuming he's Type A. I'd be shocked if Z was a type A after next year. His 2011 and especially his suspension will end up killing him in most categories. If he has another year like this year he might not even make type B (although I'm guessing he'll pitch more innings next year which will get him into that type B). And the Cubs won't want to offer him arbitration because he'd get a lot more in arbitration than he would on the free agent market.

Where are you getting this 18 million dollar option with 9 million dollar buyout from? Z has a vesting option in 2013 that almost certainly isn't going to vest. Otherwise his contract ends after next year with no buyout.

Only if two teams played identical SOS. If not, the team that played the weakest schedule would get the first pick. Odds are that'll be St. Louis, since they get to play the other two worst teams in the NFC twice each. That would be really close with the Colts. The rest of the AFC South has actually been slightly worse than the rest of the NFC West so far. They play the same AFC division so that cancels out. St. Louis plays the NFC East, which has been slightly easier than the Colts playing the NFC South so far. As far as the 2 other games, St. Louis has the harder road. They have GB and NO, while the Colts have NE and KC. I think the Colts having KC in that spot might end up giving them the easier schedule at the end of the year. I don't expect any of the 3 teams to go 0-16, although after seeing Miami's remaining schedule I'm really disappointed they blew that lead yesterday.

If the Cubs declined his option, that might be the end of Samardzija's no trade clause. But his contract is confusing enough that I wouldn't say anything for sure.

As long as we keep our payroll around $150+ (which has been rumored the past few days), Pujols would never be close to 25% of our budget. If he were to make $30 million next year and we had a $150 million payroll, he would account for 20% of our payroll. If payroll holds at $130 million next year and Pujols makes $30 million, he would be 23% of our budget. Ricketts has given no indication he'll do anything but raise our payroll, so the percentage that Pujols takes of our budget will either hold consistent at 20% or less or it will drop consistently. And ARod is also heavily front loaded, by the way. He's actually a really good deal right now, I think making less than $20 million/yr. ARod is frontloaded but not that frontloaded. He makes 29, 28, 25, 21, 20, 20 in the last 6 years of his deal.

The system is lackluster and aggressive promotions is a part of the system. And? That's like the sportswriters saying that the Cubs were lackluster, and Garza was a part of the Cubs so therefore he must not have helped. That's very poor logic. There are many things contributing to the system being lackluster, but without specific evidence its hard to say that aggressive promotions is one of them. The players who have been promoted aggressively as a whole haven't done that badly. Now, there could be something to the theory that the Cubs being a large market team need prospects to have less development time in the majors and so should spend more time in the minors. That's especially true of pitchers so that they don't burn up their option years too quickly. I could see that being a pretty good reason to switch to a more patient approach. But that's more about the Cubs specific needs and is not a reason why the Cubs system is mediocre.

It's not just specific people who were hurt by aggressive promotions (although Josh Vitters trade value probably was), but there weren't people helped by it either. Aggressively moving guys along when they didn't need to be and had little to gain from it has contributed to a lackluster minor league system. I'd be fine with the Cubs switching to a more patient approach, but I fail to see where it's contributed to the lackluster system. It's had its high points and low points. It does hurt the trade value of somebody like Vitters, but it also gets Castro to the majors 2-3 years ahead of where he would have been in another system. It's a tradeoff that IMO hasn't really hurt the system overall. If there were guys left and right failing because they were rushed then the trade becomes not worth it, but I don't see that happening in the Cubs system right now.

I'd have a hard time thinking of many examples of people who were really hurt by the aggressive promotions, but maybe they are out there. Fleita is definitely in charge of that though as well as somewhat dictating a minor league philosophy. He probably shouldn't be running the whole player development program although they can probably find a better role for him.

Maybe the end of Tim Wilken's free reign here. CCP would say that epstein has a lot of respect for wilken's work. i would say that mcleod is going to be doing that job, for all intents and purposes. I'm ok with it if he does. But the early reports don't have McLeod becoming the scouting director for the Cubs. I'm sure he will have significant input into the draft either way, but it's left to be seen if he's replacing Wilken or not. i said for all intents and purposes. I sincerely doubt that Wilken is going to stay if he's not the one with the final say. And if he has the final say then McLeod isn't doing his job even for all intents and purposes. So IMO they're either going to have to let Wilken go or continue to let him be the main guy controlling the draft philosophy.

Maybe the end of Tim Wilken's free reign here. CCP would say that epstein has a lot of respect for wilken's work. i would say that mcleod is going to be doing that job, for all intents and purposes. I'm ok with it if he does. But the early reports don't have McLeod becoming the scouting director for the Cubs. I'm sure he will have significant input into the draft either way, but it's left to be seen if he's replacing Wilken or not.