Backtobanks

http://content.mlb.com/documents/2/7/2/303733272/Chicago_Cubs_2019_Printable_Schedule.pdf

We still need more depth for the 26th man on the roster and a driver for the Iowa shuttle.

Yeah, remember months and months ago when the rumors were that the Cubs didn't (wouldn't) have money to spend and we didn't believe them.

There goes the Arenado and Lindor dream. You forgot Mookie. Joseph covers all of our IF needs, but we can always squeeze in another OF.

He's well-traveled catcher Caleb's brother, as well. There goes the Arenado and Lindor dream.

Sounds good to me, but I'm not sure who we are trading for Betts, Lindor, and Arenado. Almora & Happ, duh. We might have to throw in Heyward and Chatwood for some help with the salaries.

Sounds good to me, but I'm not sure who we are trading for Betts, Lindor, and Arenado.

Ricketts won a scratch off ticket last week.

Lester probably thinks that with Rossy running the show, he can get to 200 innings next year and guarantee the option. He might get 200 innings with our Iowa shuttle bullpen anyhow.

The only skill set that Almora or most of our relief pitchers need is that they are inexpensive.

You were happy with the bullpen last year? There's nothing wrong with stockpiling LIAB guys with options in the hope that a couple of them will come through like Wick. It's when you're depending on them to be the staple guys in the pen that you're inviting disaster. And counting on a guy like Wick to be able to sustain his success - as much as I like him - is a big gamble in itself. As for Ryan and Wieck, the former wasn't actually all that great and the latter was far too small a sample size to draw any conclusions about. Sure it's a gamble and inviting disaster to a degree, but so is signing vets and depending on them like Brach, Carl, Duensing, etc of years past. Of course I wasn't happy with it but the point was they were able to take unknowns and find something with 3 guys, I have faith they can do it again. My biggest gripe with the pen last year was they weren't aggressive with getting guys up sooner because they were stuck with bad vets without options. Wick should've been up much sooner. Joe also seemed to make the wrong mistakes often (no entirely his fault given the talent wasn't great but he managed the pen poorly). How wasn't Ryan all that great? ERA/FIP in the 3s, good GB rate (13th best GB rate of all qualified RPs), limited HR's, good enough K numbers, BB were a bit high but he's been better in that area before, he was really good vs lefties and adequate enough vs RHB to be able to face 1-2 in an outing with the new 3 batter rule. He also changed up his pitch mix a bit from previous years (more cutters and curves and cut back FB usage and essentially stopped throwing his change). As a guy who projects to be the 3rd to 6th best RP (depending on how things shake out) I think he's plenty solid. Wieck obviously was a small sample but the eye test and numbers say he was really good, again also changed his pitch mix once he came over. The difference is that with vets you have some level of expectation when being brought in. You don't know what to expect when bringing in untested, young pitchers. As you said, it's great if you discover one, but the risk is high if you're a contending team. Of course, we didn't have any choice with PTR crying about the LT.

Somebody will really have to step up with the loss of Chisek (64 innings), Kintzler (57 innings), Strop (41 innings), and Brach (39 innings).

Well we certainly have the "quantity" part covered, but the "quality" part has yet to be proven. Signing a bunch of castoffs from other teams doesn't bode well for optimism, but we might get lucky with 1 or 2. Well, we signed a big money reliever last year that has a no doubt HOF resume in progress. How did that work out? There is (almost) no such thing as a sure thing in the bullpen. Anyone with a long enough record of success to give you warm and fuzzy feelings is probably about due for serious regression and/or a randomly horrible season. You're right about there being very few "sure things" when it comes to the bullpen, but taking castoffs from teams that need relief pitching too might not work out either. Like I said, hopefully we'll get lucky, but that Iowa shuttle will be busy this year.

Quantity instead of quality doesn't necessarily translate into a solid bullpen. How do you know that it is "instead of"? Well we certainly have the "quantity" part covered, but the "quality" part has yet to be proven. Signing a bunch of castoffs from other teams doesn't bode well for optimism, but we might get lucky with 1 or 2.

Quantity instead of quality doesn't necessarily translate into a solid bullpen.

There goes our depth for the 26th man on the roster.

Well let’s see, the harshest penalty ever given out was a lifetime ban So they will get a lifetime ban on stealing signs?

Because they’re using their top IF prospect to get more certainty in a 4-5+ win KB and still need to backfill depth on the infield. I think it’s some reasonable dot connecting. I think the only thing it signals is that other teams are trying to fill holes while the Cubs continue to wait on a KB decision.

Well PTR won't be happy until we get under the LT so there will be some moves made. Of course the moves will be looking for more Iowa Shuttle players or more candidates for our 26th man (although we seem to be pretty deep in the 26th man category).

Seems unlikely just because it would take a series of trades to line up to make it happen or the vaunted 3-way trade with KB going somewhere and Arenado coming in. This is really a stupid comment by Morosi. How can adding $35 million to the Cubs payroll (even after trading KB make any sense unless they have deals set for trading Heyward, Darvish, Chatwood, and Kimbrel too?

For a team with no money, they sure have wasted money on all of these ridiculous signings.

Eating 1/2 of his salary (or adding a prospect) might make him worth something. A back-of-the-rotation possibility for $7 million over one year might fit a lot of teams, while saving us $6 million. Same thing for Kimbrel (saving $7-$8 million) to someone who needs a closer.

If you are that desperate to save money, then you either kick in some cash or add a prospect to get rid of them. Also, it would have been much easier to move them before everyone else made trades and signed free agents, but everything is on shutdown until the KB ruling. There's absolutely no reason that Theo couldn't make other deals to reduce payroll while waiting for the KB decision. As has been mentioned, it’s probably that he doesn’t want to trade either right now until they know what’s going on with KB. They probably want to make sure they get a guy back who can start in a trade for KB before shedding 1 or 2 guys who have a rotation spot currently. You can likely move a Chatwood in ST regardless if you attach a prospect and decide to keep KB then go dumpster dive on a swing man or whatever. If the planned outcome is KB is likely gone in a month or so it really doesn’t matter to move Chatwood or Q right now anyways to free up money to sign a margin add like Shogo, Cesar, etc because they aren’t winning anyways. Waiting 2-3 more months to trade someone like Chatwood really will diminish any trade value he had. A couple of months ago, Chatwood and Bote to Texas might have given us a decent return, but after adding Kluber, Gibson, & Lyles they no longer need a SP. The fact that Theo is fixated on trading KB and needing to await his decision before doing anything to help the club is really frustrating.

Probably because of one of the following: 1) depending on the returns, the Cubs could either still be favored or at least have a realistic shot in the division 2) you're hoping for a solid first half from the closer to up his value from where it is right now 3) somebody still has to pitch and the "relief" pitcher would be one of the five best options remaining I think it’s pretty much as simple as you aren’t getting anything back for either and you’re going to have to include money and/or prospects you don’t want to move to move either of them. If you are that desperate to save money, then you either kick in some cash or add a prospect to get rid of them. Also, it would have been much easier to move them before everyone else made trades and signed free agents, but everything is on shutdown until the KB ruling. There's absolutely no reason that Theo couldn't make other deals to reduce payroll while waiting for the KB decision.

I think ultimately we see both KB and Q dealt, which would put the team ~$27M under the tax. That's enough room to extend Javy (adds $8-9M), add 2-3 bench bats ($3-5M each), and leave a small reserve (~$5) for the trade deadline. But with so many moving parts, they don't want to close off any possibilities early. And if extending Javy really is part of Plan A, that may be why they don't even want to do something modest like a Shogo signing before they know they've got a preferred KB deal done. If you're trading KB and Q, then why in the world are we keeping a $16 million closer and a $13 million relief pitcher?