Backtobanks

I wouldn't worry too much. I think Theo and co. are setting themselves up to acquire their superstars via trade, a la Adrian Gonzalez. They're accumulating quite a bit of prospect inventory. They are accumulating a lot of prospect inventory, but you have to allow some time for the prospects to prove their worth before you can trade them for something of value. My other concern that this is going to take 5-6 years instead of 2-3. I'm excited about having "the smartest kid in class" running things, but some of the euphoria around here seems to think that all the other GMs are going to stay out of sight while Theo drafts the best players, signs the best FAs, and makes all one-sided trades for available superstars.

I understand the upbeat mood by letting the kids play, but I really don't understand any optimism about the 2012 team being "not that bad". The offense is absolutely horrible unless Lahair and Stewart show something. The depth of the rotation is much better, but without Garza or Dempster (trade or injury) it would be really shaky. The defense is probably a wash with an upgrade at 3B, but a downgrade at 1B. As I've posted before, my concern is that many of the future FAs that we're counting on either won't make it to free agency or will be signed by this year's big market non-participants (Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, etc.).

The Dodgers are going to be really big spenders next year, especially after having a few down years. That's the one thing I worry about with Theo's plan about rebuilding this year because next year there might be some really big market teams going after whichever FAs make it to free agency. In a "normal" free agent year with all the big spenders you wouldn't be seeing Fielder and Boras trying to save face with one of the games best hitters. Phil Rogers in today's Tribune wrote that the Dodgers sale could be completed by early February. Could the Dodgers still be in play for Fielder this year?

The Dodgers are going to be really big spenders next year, especially after having a few down years. That's the one thing I worry about with Theo's plan about rebuilding this year because next year there might be some really big market teams going after whichever FAs make it to free agency. In a "normal" free agent year with all the big spenders you wouldn't be seeing Fielder and Boras trying to save face with one of the games best hitters.

And that's when we still had a few power hitters.

Nobody "wants" him, at least not in a fan sense. The general consensus is that he's a vastly overpaid, flawed player on the downside of his career. On the flip-side, the talk seems to be that he's a popular and likeable player amongst his teammates, so it's not like he's "not wanted" here outside of the front office looking to move him if possible. It's not like he's going to be showing up every day and everyone is shunning him and treating him like [expletive] because Theo and Hoyer would like to move him. If the Cubs have a trade lined up for Soriano, then obviously some other team wants him. That's the whole premise of this discussion. Right now Soriano is an employee his bosses desperately wish they could get rid of. He's not wanted. They'd much rather give the job (and especially the salary) to somebody else. If you don't imagine it might be difficult to go to work every day under those circumstances, then we may as well just be done talking about this. I think we should keep pretending like a baseball team operates the same way as a normal employer. We're not talking about how a baseball team team operates. We're talking about how a baseball player thinks. Obviously not all players think the same way, but I'd venture to guess that the laws of human nature apply to most of them. I'm not sure that's been the case with a lot of Cub players over the years. They seem to welcome the comfortable atmosphere rather than moving on to another team.

My point is that on a good team, all of them would be fighting for the #4 & #5 spots. Assuming Wood improves with age, he could be a #3 on a decent team. Needless to say, the 2012 Cubs are not going to be a "good" team.

Maybe to you. But the general consensus from management from the sessions I attended indicated Volstad would be the 5th starter. I'd pick Volstad too. That doesn't mean that he's a clear standard deviation better than Wells, or that the team potentially wouldn't be better served by letting Wells start the year in the rotation. They are close enough that ST performance(not statistics) could make a difference. Why? What am I missing from Volstad? Are we sticking with the assumption that Volstad's defense was that horrendous? Age, service time, pedigree, hope that playing for a different organization for the first time can help unlock some of that potential from his pedigree, etc. Like I said, they're pretty close on performance, it's not a black and white situation. I have high hopes for Wood, but looking at stats only, there isn't too big a difference in Volstad, Wells, Wood, and Maholm. In Maholm's case, if you eliminate the games against the Cubs he probably comes out behind all of them. Interesting note, the pitcher most similar to Maholm at age 24 is Travis Wood according to baseballreference.com. Wells: 105 ERA+, 1.34 WHIP, 2.08 K/BB (4 seasons - app. 500 innings) Volstad: 90 ERA+, 1.48 WHIP, 1.85 K/BB (4 seasons - app. 500 innings) Wood: 95 ERA+, 1.289 WHIP, 2.45 K/BB (2 seasons - app. 200 innings) Maholm: 96 ERA+, 1.429 WHIP, 1.85 K/BB (7 seasons - app. 1150 innings) Again, it's in the Cubs' best interest to go with youth (Wood & Volstad) and money (Maholm), leaving Wells the odd man out.

I agree with you, especially since Volstad might be better than Wells out of the bullpen. The big advantage Volstad has is that he's younger and we traded for him.

I just watched a video of Sveum answering some questions and one of the first things he said really made me cringe. Someone asked who the leadoff hitter was...he responded that he couldn't really say yet, although DeJesus was probably the leading candidate...sweet....then he dropped Barney's name. UGH. In what conceivable way is it a good idea to give our worst everyday hitter the most PAs on the team? For [expletive]'s sake. The other thing that bothered me about that answer was that he said he'd also take spring training performance into consideration. This came after both Epstein and Hoyer pretty firmly stated that spring training means nothing to them. I'm sure it's something they talked about during the interview, but it was one of the few disconnects I saw between management and Sveum. That and Sveum saying Campana's speed could be worth 5 wins this year. We're in good shape if our 5th OF/pinch runner has a 5 WAR year. :lol:

Every single player on every major league roster is a "question mark." What does that even mean? Are you saying Felix, Sabathia, Castro, Cabrera, Pujols, etc. are all question marks? To answer your question, a "question mark" is a player that doesn't have a track record to predict whether he will be productive. The question becomes what you do with those question marks. It's not right to assume that all of them are going to bust, because a lot of players don't bust. But some do, so it's not right to assume they're all going to play well either. You just have to project them the best you can. And the reasonable projections for the Cubs four players (Wood, Volstad, Stewart, LaHair) would say that the team will probably not be much worse if not better than last year. The 2012 Cubs will have better pitching, better defense, and worse offense than they did in 2011. The depth will be important this year. The 2011 Cubs had several players who were beyond horrific last year (Colvin, Hill, Coleman, and Davis) Giving those innings and at-bats to even bad players will help the team a pretty good amount. And most of the players returning (Soto, Byrd, Dempster for example) had poor years last year and should bounceback a little bit. I agree that the pitching will be better and deeper than last year. Unfortunately, the pitching isn't good enough to keep up with the huge drop in offense. With LaHair at 1B instead of Pena and Stewart instead of ARam, the IF defense might be a wash. If we have bounceback years from some vets and a few surprises from the kids, we could be decent.

You are just wrong about this. Bill James proved pretty conclusively in the 1980s that properly adjusted minor league statistics are just as predictive as major-league statistics. Yes, sometimes prospects flame out. Most of the time, this isn't because their MiLB statistics weren't predictive enough, it's because their MiLB statistics were projecting them to be not good enough but the team was counting on them to improve with age. You don't really believe what you just posted, do you? ML teams call up players who have lousy numbers in the minors because they think those lousy minor league numbers will improve with age. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Re-read what he wrote. Nowhere did he say anything about the majors. He just said that prospects flame out. I'm assuming Bill James' conclusion involved minor league stats were predictive of major league production. We're talking about the Cubs and major league baseball and not predicting what a player will do in his 3rd year of rookie ball.

To end all of the speculation: From MLBTR: •Signing Fielder is "just not going to happen" for the Cubs, manager Dale Svuem told reporters, including Chris De Luca and Godron Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times (Twitter link).

You are just wrong about this. Bill James proved pretty conclusively in the 1980s that properly adjusted minor league statistics are just as predictive as major-league statistics. Yes, sometimes prospects flame out. Most of the time, this isn't because their MiLB statistics weren't predictive enough, it's because their MiLB statistics were projecting them to be not good enough but the team was counting on them to improve with age. You don't really believe what you just posted, do you? ML teams call up players who have lousy numbers in the minors because they think those lousy minor league numbers will improve with age. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Every single player on every major league roster is a "question mark." What does that even mean? Are you saying Felix, Sabathia, Castro, Cabrera, Pujols, etc. are all question marks? To answer your question, a "question mark" is a player that doesn't have a track record to predict whether he will be productive. Every player on a major-league roster has a significant track record from which we can make reasonable projections about their productivity. Every player on a major-league roster has a non-zero chance of performing significantly differently than what we expect, including the so-called "sure thing" stars. That's not true of prospects and foreign players. The track record in the minors or foreign leagues often doesn't translate to reasonable projections about their productivity. Every failed player that's called up to the ML obviously had a decent minor league track record or they wouldn't have been called up. The players that I named may have a "non-zero" chance of performing significantly different than what we expect, but it's darn close to zero. The question mark players have a high chance of performing differently because there is no base line to set expectations.

I don't think that's certain at all. That's right about where I have them. A whole lot will have to go right for them to win 75 games. LaHair is a downgrade at 1B, Stewart is a downgrade at 3B, and whoever replaces Marshall is a downgrade from a 71 win team. That's with the roster as it stands now (with Garza, Byrd, Soriano, etc.), but trading any of those players would also be an immediate downgrade for 2012. You're kinda forgetting something important. The #4 and #5 pitchers the entire year. Assuming they will be healthy and reasonably productive, the BOR will be an upgrade. The offensive downgrades will be the problem in 2012 unless we get a big surprise from LaHair/Stewart/Jackson.

Every single player on every major league roster is a "question mark." What does that even mean? Are you saying Felix, Sabathia, Castro, Cabrera, Pujols, etc. are all question marks? To answer your question, a "question mark" is a player that doesn't have a track record to predict whether he will be productive.

I don't think that's certain at all. That's right about where I have them. A whole lot will have to go right for them to win 75 games. LaHair is a downgrade at 1B, Stewart is a downgrade at 3B, and whoever replaces Marshall is a downgrade from a 71 win team. That's with the roster as it stands now (with Garza, Byrd, Soriano, etc.), but trading any of those players would also be an immediate downgrade for 2012. It's best to just ignore the upgrades when doing these calculations. Many of the upgrades (i.e. back of the rotation) are still question marks.

I don't think that's certain at all. That's right about where I have them. A whole lot will have to go right for them to win 75 games. LaHair is a downgrade at 1B, Stewart is a downgrade at 3B, and whoever replaces Marshall is a downgrade from a 71 win team. That's with the roster as it stands now (with Garza, Byrd, Soriano, etc.), but trading any of those players would also be an immediate downgrade for 2012.

Nah. It couldn't. I guess it's too early to predict 2013, but the 2012 team certainly isn't a 75-win team.

I don't think there's any question whether they can afford to resign him, I think they might just not want to resign him. My guess is management might not view him as the elite pitcher he will no doubt be paid to be. There is also the issue of spending $20 million over the next two years for the ace of a 75 win team. Without spending the $20 million over the next two years we might be a 60-win team. You've got Garza worth 30 wins over the next two years? It could be that it was an exaggeration that the 2012-2013 teams are 75-win teams with Garza.

He should have learned the lesson from the original incident - not much good happens after midnight.

I don't think there's any question whether they can afford to resign him, I think they might just not want to resign him. My guess is management might not view him as the elite pitcher he will no doubt be paid to be. There is also the issue of spending $20 million over the next two years for the ace of a 75 win team. Without spending the $20 million over the next two years we might be a 60-win team.

Garza will be young enough and good enough in 2-3 years to be a TOR starter for the Cubs, so it doesn't make sense to trade him for anything less than an elite prospect (or two). We've got enough middle-of-the-rotation/back-of-the-rotation/question marks.

I do think that a big part of the hometown discount was because of the old regime. I'm sure there was a very comfortable feeling with all of the talk about becoming the "new Ron Santo" and stepping into the broadcasting booth after finishing his career. As part of the "old Cubs", he's probably not sure of how he fits in going forward.