questionmarkgrace

Actually it's time to celebrate that the folks in charge are smart enough not to build the team the way you would. Collecting prospects does not equate to winning a world series. you have to develop them, hope they come of age at the same time, keep the right ones, and add complimentary free agents at the right positions if they are available. There is no evidence though that this method is a better or more consistent way to the world series than being free agent heavy, and adding complimentary young talent. Both ways have won world series as of late. One is certainly more fiscally responsible but what do I care about that, we pay some of the highest ticket prices in the league and last I checked I'm not the cubs accountant. The one for sure thing though is that the bottom up method takes a heck of a lot longer and the latter method is probably not sustainable. The best method is probably to add key amateur talent and good free agents. I wouldnt classify this years free agent acquisitions as 'good' because its been more like dumpster diving. There is no reason why we cant add amatuer talent like we have this year and sign one or two big free agents. (again I will feel alot better about this if we sign cespedes) Financially it makes great sense because the savings from playing younger positions players with big time talent offsets each other. I think nuts and gum has it right. This is certainly going to suck. Cespedes would make me more hopeful of competing. If Rizzo or Jackson come up, meh those guys will need some seasoning before becoming fulltime players. It may be easier on the eyes to see rookies getting playing time but it still doesnt change the fact that there will be significant growing pains and little to no run production.

I like this move alot. I had mentioned in another thread when cardenas was dfa ed by the As that he may be a solid pick up for us. His defense is the question mark but im guessing that theo and company feel good enough about it to put him on the 40 man roster.

Theres an interesting article in the trib that talks about Ricketts holding his quarterly meeting in the Dominican Republic. Maybe we meet with cespedes before he leaves the island? That would be nice to get the jump on the marlins.

Not really. If there's nothing to report, then there's nothing to report. Especially considering that he's not in the states at this time, the offers are still likely coming in and we probably won't hear much of anything until he's close to a decision. I dont think being in the states or not has anything to do with it. There is really no reason for him to come here prior to signing a deal and him being in the DR for the last 6 months hasnt stopped the rumors from flying around. I think we will hear plenty of rumors over the next two weeks

per rotoworld: we just signed lefty reliever Trever Miller to a minor league deal with a spring training invite. Seems to have declined quite a bit over his last two years but its better than signing relievers to 3 year 15 million dollar deals. http://www.rotoworld.com/sports/mlb/baseball

Adrian Cardenas was just dfa-ed by the A's. Seems to fit the theo mold, still young at 24, once highly regarded, change of scenery would do him good etc. Also added outfield to his reportoir last year. I say sign him and let him and barney battle it out for second base with the loser operating as a super sub. Not sure about his defensive play though.

I took 4 years of Spanish in high school and I have no clue what you are talking about with regard to the pronunciation of Jose. http://www.forvo.com/word/jos%C3%A9/ The Spanish you learn in a midwestern Spanish class is going to sound markedly different from the Spanish you'll hear in most Spanish communities. I don't doubt that, but listening to native Spanish speakers at the link I provided, I would still say that "Ho-say" is the closest English phonetic representation. If the argument is simply that Spanish pronunciation can't be represented 100% accurately using English phonetics, then I guess I see where you are coming from. not to prolong this nonsense further but isnt that why jose is typically written with an accent over the e' in order to delineate between the 'ay' or 'eh' sounds? find the accent in yoennis and you will have your proper pronunciation.

we may have just gained more leverage. Rotoworld is reporting that Roy Oswalt has spurned the tigers who were after him in favor of the red sox. Maybe now the tigers are willing to part with Turner? There realistic options for improving their rotation are dwindling. http://www.rotoworld.com/headlines/mlb/348224/oswalt-turns-down-tigers-now-boston-bound

His swing actually doesnt look like a prototypical long swing to me. It may appear to be a long swing because he is way out in front of this ball but in actuality his front shoulder stays in and his head doesnt move til after his follow through. All good signs mechanically. Also his hips are lightning quick he actually had to slow down to avoid pulling it fair. Plus good plate coverage on a ball that was on the outside corner. For those hating on his soriano pose after the homerun; you are misunderstanding. Players in DR winter league are encouraged to be cocky flip the bat be flashy, etc. Its part of the show. These are like neighborhood teams playing each other often with local baseball fame on the teams. There is pride at stake and one uping the other team is common. The down fall is that every year there are also tons of fights.

I think he can have at least two bad seasons before they would even try to convert him But chances are he would strongly resist and it might not be worth it. He would have to completely flame out because its not like he has a major hole in his swing a la ryan harvey or Kyler Burke. He's still a raw talent. and what he did in the AFL was plenty to open scout's eyes to his potential. in 28 games or 112 ab's in the AFL he hit .296/.352/.548/.900 with 17 xtra base hits, 18 stolen bases and 19 runs scores. All while playing as one of the youngest guys in the league. Yes he doesnt walk enough and strikes out a bit too much but he is still quite young. He's 21 now and will be 22 for the entire season. You dont give up on guys like this because they might be a closer. Heck if he can hit 25 homeruns and steal 40 bases with an obp of .300 there are plenty of major league teams that would take him. Not everyone can take walks and be an on base machine but that doesnt mean they dont have any value. Still though there is plenty of time for him to improve.

I think your wrong here. Im pretty sure his numbers last year put him in the top ten AL dh's. (Im on my phone so i cant tell right now, but take a look) There were 16 DHs in the AL who had 300+ PAs laseason. Soriano's .325 wOBA would put him tied for 12th wiBobby Abreu. Ok but he did have 25hrs and 80rbi thats got to be good for at least league avg amongst the dh's.

I think your wrong here. Im pretty sure his numbers last year put him in the top ten AL dh's. (Im on my phone so i cant tell right now, but take a look)

rizzo is far from a sure thing. i like him, but i can easily see him being a bust. i definitely don't view him as a sure thing where you don't consider fielder if his price comes down. I just have all the same concerns as everyone with his weight and below-average defense. If he'd take a 2-3 year deal I wouldn't be against it, but I can't see him going for that. One of my friends guessed Fielder goes to the Yankees now since they traded away their DH, but I don't see it happening since they want to be under the luxury tax for a change. I think the weight thing is way overblown. Especially with regards to comparisons with his father when Prince has proven to be a much better hitter than his sr who only OPSed over .900 once in his career as a 25 year old. Prince has done that 3 times already. Even if he does get fatter he shouldnt just fall off the ledge like his dad who was pretty much an all or nothing hitter. Yeah we dont see many 275lb hitters in the league, but even rarer do you see one hit a triple. dude can book it.

just a thought. but it would be nice if the yanks spun pineda and banuellos(sp) ... our way for Garza. Maybe this is a precursory trade? Pineda is what we would hope to get in return for Garza. Pretty much a proven Jacob Turner. Pineda is 22 and looks to be a top of the rotation guy. I don't think the Yanks were offering Montero for Garza. Serious doubts they would offer Pineda for Garza. I think they probably offered and we didnt bite. Montero is tough to pencil in at catcher everyday in the NL. At least in the AL he can bounce between dh and catcher. So maybe pineda is too much to ask for but perhaps this loosens the yankees up on including one of Betances/Banuellos in a deal.

just a thought. but it would be nice if the yanks spun pineda and banuellos(sp) ... our way for Garza. Maybe this is a precursory trade?

rizzo is far from a sure thing. i like him, but i can easily see him being a bust. i definitely don't view him as a sure thing where you don't consider fielder if his price comes down. You hit the nail on the head here. Fielder is a known quantity Rizzo is an unknown. Outside of his huge year in AAA Rizzo's top ops was .859 good but nowhere near the 1.056 he put up last year. The good thing is that he did that as a 22 year old meaning there should be room to grow. The bad thing is that he struggled mightly in the majors away from the notoriously hitter friendly PCL. The thing is we just dont know if last year was an outlier or the beginning of an up slope trend. Personally I'll take the guy who hits 40 homeruns in the majors and has a career .929 ops everytime over a prospect who might approach those numbers. Obviously though money and years will be the issue.

As far as the cuban numbers go, i dont think there is as much inflation in terms of individual numbers as the cumulative stats suggest. Cespedes remained fairly consistent hitting home runs. It seems like its just more of a hitters league now with less dominating pitchers. And yes that Abreu guy is ediculous but so is despaigne. He tied cespedes for the home run recordand played 20 less games.

Look at the up coming free agent classes. First base is a black hole for years to come. Our options are fielder this year at 27, Votto maybe in 14' at 30 or lyle overbay types. Third base is similarly bad David wright next year (2 out of his last 3 years have been clunkers) or a 34 year old Kevin Youkilis who has back problems. Outfield Cespedes looks nice this year, upton in '14 and a very questionable Josh Hamilton at age 32. We are a lot better off with Cespedes and Fielder because free agency will suck for the next couple years and those guys have a chance to be good together for 5-8 years. All of our prospects are super far away they need time to develop and we are much less likely to trade them with theo and jed at the helm. so we need to get better via free agency. It baffles me that some of you guys are suggesting that avoiding free agency equates to building a better foundation. And thats just not true. Signing a free agent in no way inhibits developing prospects especially now more than ever with the new rules in place for signing amateur talent. There's no reason that we cant draft better, acquire buy low guys like theo has done thus far, and sign top free agents.

i don't even care about the $200m or whatever. with the cubs dumping zambrano's money and having ARam's contract expire, they were never going to be able to spend that (especially with the new draft rules) unless they went out and signed a few high-priced free agents. there shouldn't be a requirement to spend a certain amount of money each year; that's a nice way to end up with dumbass contracts. if they love next year's free agent class or something, pocket the profits from this season and then go crazy next year. i'm not excited that the team is probably going to be lousy in 2012, but there are smart people running the organization and i'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. This is the whole problem though. Next year's free agent class is not good. At least for our positions of need. 1st base is a black hole for a few years to come. 3rd base options next year: Wright is the best but has still had 2 clunker years out of the last 3, Youklis at age 34 but he has constant back issues, or Mark Reynolds Adam Dunn redux. There are options in the outfield but most of them are on the wrong side of 30. There is pitching but that is the one area of player development that we have actually had success. At least if we get fielder this year we can be tolerable to watch and some what competitive in our division 3rd place?. Then in 13 we can add pitching and hopefully one of theo's lightning in the bottle moves will have panned out. By 14' maybe we're on the cusp of something. And prince fielder would only be 30. Without adding a legit hitter though this team is screwed. Outside of Starlin Castro we have a bunch of marginal underperforming players some of which may get better some not. We dont have any power hitting prospects and trading for one only results in a net loss because we would have to give up some of our better prospects, the ones we need in the future. So basically if we dont sign prince we will either be watching the lyle overbay's of the world playing first base for the next couple years or be paying a significant cost the way of prospects to acquire a power hitting 1st baseman. If we dont have legit power threats at our traditional positions of power how the hell can we improve? Ok so most assume we will go the development route, the team will be crap for 5 plus years then because thats how far away our top prospects are from competing. The problem is its no sure fire thing going the development route. In 02 we had one of the best farm systems in the league. injuries and flame outs left us with one of the worst 4 years later. We should be using the Rangers and the Giants as a model for how to turn our organization around not the 03 marlins. Which leads to my next point. New drafting and international signing rules are in place which means that the playing field has been leveled and we can no longer out spend teams in the acquisition of amateur talent without being penalized. So please stop saying that not spending on free agents some how allows the cubs to build a solid foundation on the farm. Because it doesnt. We cant do what we did last year in the draft and it wont ever happen again. We will be back to drafting for talent like everyone else. So theres no need to 'pour' money into the farm. If Theo and Jed do what they are good at the farm will be on its way with each succeeding draft. 40 plus million came off the books this year. So far we have acquired a Mc Donalds, Theo, and a handful of change of scenery guys. So in the mean time why the heck arent the cubs spending money?

Every time we trade someone, we should throw a massive party, where Tom, Theo, Jed, and the gang get to do the Limbo. Bar gets lowered each time payroll drops. I know we were a high payroll team with low payroll results. I was, though, hoping we would move to a high payroll team with high payroll results, rather than match the low payroll results with a low payroll. While I understand the need to go through a transition, it doesn't take a high priced front office to get poor results while saving the owner money. Salty Saltwell did that for Wrigley at a much lower salary than Epstein and Hoyer. At the end of the day, I want top results. If we pay a little for that great, especially if it lowers ticket prices. If not, I don't care how much or little they spend if it doesn't affect me. What are the poor results you are alluding to here? If you are going to call out the front office, please enlighten us with your perceived mishandling of the team thus far under Epstein and Hoyer. Salty Saltwell? Really? A google search and 1 minute read told me that he was the one that traded Bill Madlock for Bobby Murcer. Is that the type of front office you see here? My comment was pointed towards enthusiasm to drop payroll as the quotes I copied suggested. I understand the hyperbole/sarcasm in what they said, but I only meant to point out as others have that a big market team such as the Cubs have the resources to build at both the MLB roster and farm system. I have utmost confidence in this front office and support their moves. If they deem they need to trade for the future since the present is a no win situation then I support that. Personally, I was hoping for signing international guys like the Cubans and free agents such as Pujols or Fielder. And in fact, the window is not closed on that front. I will admit, I threw Saltwell out there as a lackey without thought to any specific moves. I don't post often, but I did weigh in on Madlock's trade in another thread. He was traded because he demanded more money and then they signed Murcer to more money than Madlock asked for (precursor to the Maddux situation later under Himes). But it also happened in times of poor attendance and getting Murcer was as much a way to potentially increase draw. Year Attendance Record 1970 1,642,705 84-78 1971 1,653,007 83-79 1972 1,299,163 85-70 1973 1,351,705 77-84 1974 1,015,378 66-96 Madlock 1975 1,034,819 75-87 Madlock 1976 1,026,217 75-87 Madlock 1977 1,439,834 81-81 Murcer 1978 1,525,311 79-83 Murcer 1979 1,648,587 80-82 So, no there is no correlation to this move and the current front office's moves. But, perhaps it does point out that attendance is not a given. And being a big market team is dependent on revenue. Cutting payroll for the sake of future flexibility alone may not yield the results if revenues drop. A couple thoughts: 1) the revenue loss for this year will dwarf the couple of million dollars they can save if they run this current team out there. The team wont be that much worse than last year but the perception of ownership sure will be. This is what they are underestimating. There will be a large contingent of fans that will not by tickets if this is the team that is on the field. I will be one of them. The media pressure will also be immense. Its great to say that we are more efficient but when you're in the cellar of the worst division in baseball then who cares about efficiency of output. Input will soon be the problem. 2) Fixing the farm system doesnt require us save boat loads of money. The cubs problem hasnt been spending the money its been on how they spend the money. Under theo and jed they will most definitely put the funds to better use. But there is no reason to slash the payroll and go into full rebuilding mode in the name of fixing the farm. The farm fixes itself once we put the right people in place. Between last years draft, past international drafts, and the next few years to come the farm is on its way. Plus with the new rules in place for international spending and hard slotting the days of out spending other organizations is gone. So again lowering payroll in the name of the fixing the farm just does not equate. 3) Building solely via free agency or only through development just doesnt work. We need to develop and sign players. So turning a blind eye to one of the best classes of young high impact free agents in years seems just plain misguided. With all of the money coming off the books and players available at our positions it doesnt make sense not to invest in free agents. We will be able to get by with cheap years from several good young players at a number of positions. So it shouldnt be much of a hindrance to future moves to make a big splash. Signing a bigger name also keeps fans interested, revenue flowing, and best of all allows us to be competitive within the division here on out. Then when some of our farm guys develop we feather them in or trade them all the while getting better. In short if we develop guys there is no reason not to sign key free agents. If we go the development only route we run the risk of perpetual rebuilding a la the royals who have some great talent on their team but never seem to get over the hump. As is, this plan will prove to be nothing more than a flawed business model. Punting away multiple seasons for some abstract rebuilding plan will put the cubs even farther away from the prize then they already are.

IF this is the case, then enjoy the tv being off, the stands being half empty, the merchandise sales being way down. Essentially this amounts to alienating the majority of your fan base and cutting a substantial portion of your revenue while only marginally reducing your payroll. While officially putting your chances of being a playoff contender many years out. So, why on earth would you do this, when you have to completely overhaul the stadium in the next couple years and the city or state making any financial concessions is at best questionable given the current economic climate. Outside of the 03/04 draft epstein and hoyer looked remarkably average with their ability to pick and develop prospects into above average major leaguers. So there is no guarantee that in 4 or 5 years we are going to look more like the 03 marlins than the 'pick a year' royals. This is a recipe for how not to succeed as an owner. I remain skeptical, however, mainly because there is far too much revenue at stake.

I'm still holding out hope that Epstein will somehow field a decent team this year. but its funny, if Hendry had made the moves Epstein has made so far everyone would be calling for his head. Thus far his moves have been head scratching material. Signing an aging right fielder as opposed to going with the guy who looks major league ready (Brett Jackson) so we can get more left handed (and yes he said that in the tribune), resigning Reed Johnson for 1.5 million when he is very unlikely to repeat the numbers he put up last year, is old, and easily replaceble with a minimum salary guy. Trading Marshall to a division rival only to get some filler prospects and sean marshall lite back? Claiming Jeff Bianchi from the royals and putting him on the 40 man roster is but another wtf move. The ian stewart move was more what I was expecting from Epstein/Hoyer. I dont understand the idea of total rebuild. A few savy moves that are cost effective could easily make this team compete for the central. Kendry morales, plus a starter, and cespedes gives us a shot. beyond that the playoffs are a crap shoot and many wild card teams go very far. If they do choose to go the total rebuild route and avoid free agency there will be fireworks at the cubs convention. I just dont think they are that foolish to underestimate the fan base, ticket sales, etc. I hope I'm right

Lets hope this report of dealing him to the reds was Theo using the media to pressure the the padres into dealing rizzo or the angels into dealing Morales. Hopefully the latter.

I dont think anyone had any illusions that Darvish would go for a higher bid than Matsuzaka. To bid 20 million dollars to me seems like a cheap pr move. So they can say 'well we bid on darvish.' My feelings exactly. As is, this is a team where I will probably just look at the box scores and watch on tv very occasionally. I certainly will not attend any games. Not that I thought this would be the year we would win anyways but aside from castro there wont be much to watch. And if we have to watch something like this for a couple of years I will be really disappointed. While my optimism is diminishing with this free agent class I'm still holding out hope that we can make some shrewd moves such as pry away kendry morales from the angels lure his fellow cuban national Cespedes and sign a pitcher maybe edwin jackson. That is a team I would certainly go watch and when all is said and done we wouldnt have given out any 100 million dollar contracts and could still compete for the playoffs.

Really? You want the cubs to be bad for two years so we can only develop players? Are you going to watch minor league games in the mean time? Going into full rebuild mode does not guarantee that our team will be a consistent playoff contender. How many prospects are making the redsox team this year? How many legit prospects even exist in the redsox system? One that I can think of. Since the 03/04 drafts epstein and hoyer have been relatively average at drafting and developing. because it is an inexact science you have to do well in both player development and player acquisition (free agency/trades) to be a consistently successful team. There is no reason the cubs cannot fix their player development problems while sprinkling in worth while acquisitions and simultaneously fielding a competitive team. To punt this year away in the name of development is imo inexcusable. The current team is at least a 90 loss team and that doesnt sit well with me. Im not saying we neccessarily need fielder or darvish persay. Cespedes would be a nice get along with say edwin jackson and a trade or two. You dont neccessarily have to break the bank to get better. but there better be some turnover on this godforsaken roster.