Backtobanks

It's about time. I still don't understand why Hoyer wasn't able to dump Davies at the deadline. He could have paid most of what as left on his contract to get some 18 year old non-prospect.

this is pretty good overall but i still kinda hate how uninspiring 1B/DH remains; have to think you can aim a little higher on potential there..with likely DH, Josh Bell becomes a good target or maybe Luke Voit Anthony Rizzo idk I kind of like the idea of Mancini if you trade for him and extend him at like 3/45. I don't think he'd take much to acquire and while he's bad in the outfield, he's ok defensively at 1B and you can expect him to give you a 115-120 wRC+. I totally agree about Mancini, but maybe a "bad contract" trade involving Heyward and Hosmer might work with the necessary tweaking (prospects/cash). Hosmer could give a few years of "adequate" production at 1B, while Heyward could replace Pham or be 4th OF/defensive replacement.

The Cubs will sign him and put him in the rotation.

Great guy to have on the bench/PH/DH.

I never went away. search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&author_id=314&start=825 then why are these your oldest posts (after the winter 2015-16 board crash) Now that you mention it, I remember trying to get on the site and not being able to for quite awhile. Maybe that's what you were talking about.

I don't understand your point. The 2016 team had a ton of ML ready prospects and this team doesn't. The 2016 team let their young highly regarded players play and half of the posts here want to trade Hoerner and/or Madrigal who are two of our highly regarded young players. The insinuation is that as a Hendry apologist you were embarrassed by the success of the Theo era you predicted would go so horribly wrong so you stayed away until things started to get worse again and you could come in and complain about the team some more. I never went away. I've always felt that when a club is going good, no one person should get all the credit and when they're going bad, no one person should get all the blame. All World Series champions have to smart, willing to spend, healthy, and lucky. Epstein deserves credit for bringing together a group of guys who blended together and pulled off something that many of us old-timers didn't think we would ever see. The fact Hendry wasn't able to deliver a WS championship doesn't mean he is as horrible as some people portrayed him.

That's pretty close to the time line the Cubs have for their next good team. pretty shocked you had zero posts in here from the reboot in early 2016 until the 2017 offseason. I don't understand your point. The 2016 team had a ton of ML ready prospects and this team doesn't. The 2016 team let their young highly regarded players play and half of the posts here want to trade Hoerner and/or Madrigal who are two of our highly regarded young players.

FWIW Hoerner turns into the best second baseman in baseball if you sim your MLB The Show franchise to 2026. That's pretty close to the time line the Cubs have for their next good team.

An analysis of the Cubs is @ MLBTR. Pretty much everything we've been saying, but it's less biased than most of us.

I think Hoerner will be a solid ML starter for a long time. Trading Hoerner just opens up one more hole to plug on a team with tons of holes already. Sign a few mid-level FAs (Gray, Rodon, Pham, etc.), trade Bote + prospects for Mancini, and re-evalute and do what's necessary next trade deadline or next off season.

That’s what I’m seeing. But this time a one year (and two months) punt. We don't know what "allowance" PTR is going to give Jed to spend this offseason (or next for that matter), so we don't have any idea as to how long it might take.

It's interesting, but speculating about prospects future value while comparing it to guys who have actually played well in the ML is questionable.

I think Nico is going to be a very solid player for a long time. Maybe with Madrigal and Nico we won't see so many frustrating situations where nobody can put the ball in play with runners in scoring position. I got tired of watching guys strike out on pitches a foot off the plate when all they had to do is make contact.

I'd like to see Jed trade Bote + prospect(s) for Mancini to play 1B. Sign Pham and Rodon during the offseason. None of these should break the bank while we wait for a few prospects to mature. Madrigal and Hoerner at the top of the lineup with solid OBP followed by Mancini, Contreras, Pham, and Wisdom in the middle. Maybe take a flyer on Thor if his arm rebounds.

the guy is going to kill himself in the outfield... That's why MLB has the DH.

Nellie Fox made the HOF with that bat profile and contact skills.

It's better than the Washington Football Team.

Yeah but again, the argument is not that Yu Darvish is not valuable. It's not exact but way less nebulous than that: Yu Darvish is worse than last year, true pretty much across the board, with some not easy to ignore recent arm injury history, has alot of innings on an arm that will turn 37 in his final year under contract, that's probably not the greatest sign moving forward, and the Cubs probably got a really good prospect out of that deal in Preciado they wouldn't moving Darvish at a later date If we're still doing the thing where the Cubs totally lost the division in June/July then a diminished from 2020 Yu Darvish, and probably 2020 Darvish, was never going to move the needle enough to change that. So far the prospects traded for MLers have been role players or worse, so keeping Darvish just means losing the division maybe in the 2nd week of July instead of the 1st to this same dominant Brewers squad and getting a worse trade out of the situation. For sure no one in baseball would be hand waving away going from 96 MPH to 94 MPH with more walks, fewer Ks, more HRs, turning 35 next month, 7 yeas removed from TJ, so on so forth if he were available this July rather than last winter The Cubs did get what looks like a really good prospect in the deal, but he's facing pitchers barely out of high school. Who knows what we could get for Darvish right now at the deadline, but I'm sure we could have gotten something pretty good. Darvish would be owed about $8.8 m for the rest of this year. If we threw in the $5+ million that we have paid Davies, Darvish would look mighty attractive to pitching desperate contenders.

Yeah, there aren't many jobs out there that would pay the same bucks. He's back. From MLBTR: White Sox Announce Yermin Mercedes Active For Tonight’s Triple-A Game

Yeah, there aren't many jobs out there that would pay the same bucks.

It's certainly more interesting than the current plight of the Cubs.

Isn’t it fun how the sample sizes have to shrink dramatically for the Brewers to have a clearly better team? I’m just one of those carazies out there who needs more than minute info and partial results, sorry to the offended. I’m still not fully indoctrinated on the post-covid sports analysis, don’t see the same fire you do over something as leisurely as a 54 out sport played 162 times during the spring/summer/early fall Boy do I have some good news for you if you don’t want to worry about sample sizes! Because you could just look at the standings and tell the Brewers are better. 9.5 games better in the standings. 10.5 games better in pythag. They’ve scored more runs than the Cubs They’ve allowed fewer runs than the Cubs Projected to win 92 games to the Cubs 79 per Fangraphs Projected to win 92 games to the Cubs 81 per 538 Projected to win 93 games to the Cubs 82 per BP. You're just cherry picking.

So dumb question...why is it so public? I am sure MLB players get divorced all the time, why is this one so much more public than others They were both celebrities, they both went overboard about how "Christian" their lives were, the other guy is a minister, etc.

Ball might be an option down the road for DH.

He seems like he’ll settle into yet another .240 hitter with 25 HR and a crap ton of K’s He makes Bote trade bait.