Backtobanks

And the first thing everybody wants to do is sign a $30 million per year superstar SS instead of spending it to fill the obvious holes on this team. Next year (and probably the year after) this is a 3rd place team (at best) waiting for our next "core" of possible star players in 2024. I can't see PTR spending a ton of money until the team is ready to really be competitive. Spend big money on at least 1 SP (Stroman, Rodon, etc.), sign a RH LF (Pham), make a couple of trades (Mancini would be my 1st choice, but Voit would be cheaper at 1B and Merrill Kelly), keep Ortega and Schwindel for DH/bench, and keep Chirinos around for another year. By the 2022 offseason, reassess the ML team and the progress of the prospects in the minors to determine the plan of 2023 and 2024. This is mostly bad. "Superstar" and "SS" are pretty obvious holes, right? How long do you want to wait to see if our prospect list turns out a superstar? Davis next year, and then....Ed Howard, all of 21 years old in 2023, currently getting owned in single A? The even younger Preciado/Hernandez/Caissie/Made group? And if those don't hit just press the reset button again? We have $38m in guaranteed salary next year, another $15m in arbitration for Willy, Ian, Ortega, Wieck, and then the league minimum for Mills, Wick, Heuer, Madrigal, Adbert, Hoerner, Steele, Wisdom, and whoever else. Call it, what, $60m? How does signing 34 year old Tommy Pham do anything in your plan as your top offensive move? Go get someone you know is good, gives you a shot of being good soon, and will still be good when those cheap prospects finally make it up. Then figure out how much money you have left and go from there. SS is not an obvious hole until you see what Hoerner can do. Signing a superstar SS for $30 million per year still leaves this team a 3rd place finisher waiting for 2024. Meanwhile, we have almost no pitching (besides Hendricks) and probably very little to count on for the next few years. As for Pham, I'm more than open to finding another RH LF that PTR can fit into his austerity budget. Also, I mentioned trading for Mancini/Voit to help the offense. I'm looking at many/most of these players as placeholders until 2024. As for your comment about the Preciadp/Hernandez/Caissie group not making it, Hoyer will be fired if they don't because this is where he has put all of his faith into.

It’s good to remember the 3 best position players on the team are on the IL, so there’s a significant influx on the current roster relative to what we’re seeing right now, plus any optimism you want to have about others who could be productive role players(Happ, Bote, Deichmann) or better than their current role(most of the non-Hendricks SP). There is a lot of depth to add though. This just made me sad thinking that Nico Hoerner is now a top 3 position player on this team. It was always nice that Willson was like the 5th best player, now he's the best? And for some reason, the Cubs website does not list Madrigal (assuming he's in this sad little group) on the IL. He's shown as in the minors. And the first thing everybody wants to do is sign a $30 million per year superstar SS instead of spending it to fill the obvious holes on this team. Next year (and probably the year after) this is a 3rd place team (at best) waiting for our next "core" of possible star players in 2024. I can't see PTR spending a ton of money until the team is ready to really be competitive. Spend big money on at least 1 SP (Stroman, Rodon, etc.), sign a RH LF (Pham), make a couple of trades (Mancini would be my 1st choice, but Voit would be cheaper at 1B and Merrill Kelly), keep Ortega and Schwindel for DH/bench, and keep Chirinos around for another year. By the 2022 offseason, reassess the ML team and the progress of the prospects in the minors to determine the plan of 2023 and 2024.

Does Arrieta check any of those boxes?

It's a shame the trade deadline isn't 8/31 because we would be more than happy to trade Davies back to them.

Rossy taking care of his buddies With the offense struggling, you gotta go with the better hitter (.198 vs .174) :lol:

He'll fit right in when the Cubs play the Field of Dreams game next year.

Good or better than this embarrassment of a team that's on the field now? I agree that certainly doesn't take much effort or money. Marquez, Davis, and Steele look like the only prospects that will be in the ML sooner than 3 years from now and while all of them look like "good" prospects, the real "possible star" prospects are at least 3 years away. I don't think Hoyer and/or PTR is going to spend a ton of money this offseason because there's just too many holes to fill. After acquiring a couple of mid-tier FAs and seeing how Steele, Davis, etc. along with the rest of the 2022 roster perform, they might have a better idea of when the "possible star" prospects will make the team. Anyone currently in a full season league can easily reach MLB within three years. There are a bunch of potentially useful players across A, A+ and AA for us right now that could be average or better big leaguers. In fact, there are way too many for me to bother listing here - we have one of the very deepest farms in the league right now. And there are a few guys in there that could be really good if things break right. Hell, even guys like Preciado, Caissie or Alcantara could be in MLB by the end of three years if they develop quickly. --- edited to add I think I misread your post. I thought it was saying that it would be more than three years, but you were saying it would be that third year when high impact guys could arrive. Let me list a few guys that could be contributors or stars that will reach by then: 1) Davis has the capability to be a star level player. A .900 OPS from a capable CF is a star. 2) Diechmann can definitely be a contributor. If he can figure out how to unlock his power while also making contact (instead of one at a time), he could be more. 3) Amaya could be a really good starting catcher by 2023. He's not likely a star unless he hits for more power, but a solid defensive catcher who gets on base is pretty valuable. 4) Morel could be contributing as soon as next year in a utility role. 5) Rivas can hit righties in MLB right now. If he can play the OF well enough and learn to hit lefties, he can be a good MLB starter. 6) Strumpf could be a contributor by end of next year, let alone in 2023 That's just the hitters at AA and AAA. There are a bunch of interesting relievers at those levels, too. There are also a number of SP who could be up by the end of 2023, including Kilian in AA who could be up by the end of next season. Even a guy like Jensen could be up by the end of next year even though he's down in A+ right now. Davis could be a star, but I don't believe he will be a ,900 OPS ML CF. Those numbers make him a first ballot HOFer.

Good or better than this embarrassment of a team that's on the field now? I agree that certainly doesn't take much effort or money. Marquez, Davis, and Steele look like the only prospects that will be in the ML sooner than 3 years from now and while all of them look like "good" prospects, the real "possible star" prospects are at least 3 years away. I don't think Hoyer and/or PTR is going to spend a ton of money this offseason because there's just too many holes to fill. After acquiring a couple of mid-tier FAs and seeing how Steele, Davis, etc. along with the rest of the 2022 roster perform, they might have a better idea of when the "possible star" prospects will make the team. You don’t think Davis is a “star” prospect? I think Davis could be a solid ML player, but not necessarily a "star" (which is fine).

Good or better than this embarrassment of a team that's on the field now? I agree that certainly doesn't take much effort or money. Marquez, Davis, and Steele look like the only prospects that will be in the ML sooner than 3 years from now and while all of them look like "good" prospects, the real "possible star" prospects are at least 3 years away. I don't think Hoyer and/or PTR is going to spend a ton of money this offseason because there's just too many holes to fill. After acquiring a couple of mid-tier FAs and seeing how Steele, Davis, etc. along with the rest of the 2022 roster perform, they might have a better idea of when the "possible star" prospects will make the team. Anyone currently in a full season league can easily reach MLB within three years. There are a bunch of potentially useful players across A, A+ and AA for us right now that could be average or better big leaguers. In fact, there are way too many for me to bother listing here - we have one of the very deepest farms in the league right now. And there are a few guys in there that could be really good if things break right. Hell, even guys like Preciado, Caissie or Alcantara could be in MLB by the end of three years if they develop quickly. Those are the "possible star" prospects that I said are 3 years away.

This team is 3 years from being good unless PTR decides to spend big and I betting that's not going to happen. There are at least two reasonable paths in this thread alone to being good or better next year. TT's doesn't even involve the team spending big. Good or better than this embarrassment of a team that's on the field now? I agree that certainly doesn't take much effort or money. Marquez, Davis, and Steele look like the only prospects that will be in the ML sooner than 3 years from now and while all of them look like "good" prospects, the real "possible star" prospects are at least 3 years away. I don't think Hoyer and/or PTR is going to spend a ton of money this offseason because there's just too many holes to fill. After acquiring a couple of mid-tier FAs and seeing how Steele, Davis, etc. along with the rest of the 2022 roster perform, they might have a better idea of when the "possible star" prospects will make the team.

I suggested Heyward for Hosmer with the necessary tweaking (prospects/cash). We're desperate to get rid of Heyward and the Padres are just as desperate to get rid of Hosmer. What do you think the Padres' motivation is to get rid of Hosmer I'm just going by the multiple stories of the Padres trying to find a way to dump Hosmer.

He's at full 10/5, I highly doubt the places that would trade for him and that he'd go to intersect at all... especially considering I have a feeling the places he'd accept a trade to is pretty close to 0 if not 0. Forgot about the 10/5. Was going to say he might move in a situation where we take an even worse contract (more years or more AAV). Do buyouts happen a lot in baseball? He's a great clubhouse presence and his defense is still solid (I think) so its not the worst thing in the world to have him as an extra OF on the roster as long as its clear he is not an everyday or even platoon starter for the next team that attempts to contend. I suggested Heyward for Hosmer with the necessary tweaking (prospects/cash). We're desperate to get rid of Heyward and the Padres are just as desperate to get rid of Hosmer.

This team is 3 years from being good unless PTR decides to spend big and I betting that's not going to happen.

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.