Backtobanks
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Everything posted by Backtobanks
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Let's hear it for the NL Central.
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Bell plus Rodon would be phenomenal, but I still have trouble believing Ricketts is going to spend that much.
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Get out the knife and fork because they will be eating his contract.
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I guess we can imagine that David Bote's 5/15 or Simmons' 1/4 contract totally bloated the payroll, but mostly they seem to lean on no one really expecting the Cubs to be competitive all the time and writing every excuse for them No one expects them to be good, so they end up filling the roster with castoffs from other teams and with a bunch of IOWA shuttle, 26th player on the roster, AAAA players, broken down projects, etc. because they know that the fans will still come out and support them.
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If the Cubs didn’t get this weird pass for next years these are Phil Coke deals nobody remembers or cares about. “Oh no they spent a whopping $3 million a year on a bench player who could have made much less (even as benches become more and more vital to success)” is like…why are we even talking about that? Do better sure, but passing on a half dozen+ superstars mostly in their 20s since 2018 has more to do with the downfall of Cubs One reason the Cubs use for passing on the superstars is the payroll is bloated with a bunch of IOWA shuttle, 26th player on the roster, AAAA players, broken down projects, etc.
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Signing them may or may not be an example of stupid spending, but dumping them is just evidence that they aren't falling for the sunk cost fallacy. Jason Heyward says HI.
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In the last 3 days, demoting Bote and dumping Simmons are good examples of stupid spending.
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If Ricketts would open up his purse strings, Josh Hall would look good at 1B, putting Wisdom back at 3B and Morel in CF.
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Do you think there's some huge demand for Wisdom/Ortega? Even if there were teams interested, what do you think you're getting for fringy/4A guys like that? And if they determined that they can get a guy at 70 in the draft next year that will be better than any package that they were offered for Willy, I'm going to defer to them knowing what they're doing over the paltry level of knowledge on this board in comparison. I also don't think you sign guys like Suzuki and Stroman to the deals they got if you're planning on a 5 year window before you're competitive again. As was laid out, you add one of the big SS FAs this offseason, someone like Rodon and a 1B who isn't a black hole, suddenly you're looking at a team that projects to win 85+ games and that's not a far fetched reality. Signing Rodon (or Manaea or Walker)) and Josh Bell solves a lot of the problems with this team for next year. That being said, I don't see Ricketts spending anywhere near that much money next year. So, it's back to wishing and hoping that some prospects show something or irrationally dreaming about some expensive FA.
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I think there were decent offers early on, but after everybody traded top prospects in other deals there wasn't as much to offer.
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I know the "baseball is just a business" rhetoric, but unless they extend Contreras, they aren't helping the morale of the other players. Big market team with a small market mentality.
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Trade deadline day was more fun when we were actually involved.
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It seems like there's a lot of catching competition for Contreras at the deadline. Murphy, Vasquez, Narvaez, have all been mentioned.
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The Cardinals will find a way in the future with trading away some of their top prospects simply because they're the Cardinals. Somehow these two low-to-middle size payroll teams (Cards & Brewers) seem to stay competitive while we have to go into 3-4 year rebuilds after becoming competitive.
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From MLBTR: The Tigers have informed rival teams they’re willing to consider trade offers on breakout starter Tarik Skubal, report Ken Rosenthal and Cody Stavenhagen of the Athletic. 25 yr. old lefty starter. I'm sure he would cost quite a bit, but it might be worth looking into.
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Somebody on MLBTV came up with this deal: Campusano, Hosmer, Kim, Wood, and Zavala for Contreras. (The trade values are almost equivalent).
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I would do awful things for either of James Wood or Luis Campusano. Those awful things being trades of Contreras or Happ respectively. The Padres have basically been begging people to take Hosmer. Hosmer helps with the 1B situation plus we get a top prospect (or two) in the deal.
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Sure there's 47 playoff spots available for the 13 teams during a 162 game season plus a draft lottery now, but winning baseball games is so far away from the Cubs that it seems odd to be even looking at Smith? I would assume that he would be a throw-in in another deal. I don't think he would be bad for a "change of scenery" flyer.
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I don't trust Ricketts to pay Soto, let alone the rest of the team.
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Using MLBTV, "equivalent" value for Soto would be Davis, Crow-Armstrong, Hernandez, Hoerner, Kilian, Morel, Steele, Suzuki, and Triantos. Talk about rebuilding your team and your system in one deal. :lol:
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From MLBTR: Could Lucas Giolito Be This Year’s José Berríos? He would cost quite a bit, but he would certainly solidify the rotation.
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I totally agree. It's time to spend a little money and build a decent team for 2023, Trade a few of those very young prospects for Castillo, sign Willson to an extension, keep Happ, and suddenly you have a decent team. Castillo, Stroman, Hendricks, Thompson, Steele, Kilian, and Alzolay make for a very good and deep rotation. If Davis and Madrigal can be healthy enough to play, the lineup will be solid. ??? That’s literally the same team as currently constructed, plus Castillo. It's the same except for a vastly improved rotation, a solid 2B and OF, which takes it from a 64-win team to an 85-win team. Also signing Musgrove would easily make us division favorites.
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I totally agree. It's time to spend a little money and build a decent team for 2023, Trade a few of those very young prospects for Castillo, sign Willson to an extension, keep Happ, and suddenly you have a decent team. Castillo, Stroman, Hendricks, Thompson, Steele, Kilian, and Alzolay make for a very good and deep rotation. If Davis and Madrigal can be healthy enough to play, the lineup will be solid.
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Trading Happ along with Contreras, et. al. just pushes back the chance of having a seriously competitive team. We're putting a lot of faith in young players and prospects without much of a ML track record to man the 2023 roster. If we're talking about 2023 being another "developmental" year with hopes of being competitive in 2024, then go ahead and trade Happ. I just don't think making more holes on the ML team is the way to go unless Ricketts is going to spend like crazy and that doesn't seem likely.
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A really cheap, change of scenery, LH power bat could be Dom Smith. He's basically mentioned as a throw in on any deal with the Mets involved.