Backtobanks

If he's replacing Descalso it's a great move, but there has to be a trade coming because Descalso is owed money.

The theory is they may have the availability to trade Chatwood's full contract if the right combination of circumstances strike during ST. The Bryant stuff has never made any coherent sense to begin with, everyone in the org should be ashamed at how this winter has transpired, regardless of what restrictions they have. I just don’t see a lot of teams with 13M lying around for a 5th starter. I know ST hasn’t started yet, but you still have Cashner, Vargas, Millone, and McHugh out there for a hell of a lot less money Even if you pick up a few million to make him more attractive, you might save 8-9 million.

You think Pete Rose should be banned from the HOF? Either you continue to ban him or you open it up to everybody including the steroid users and the sign stealers.

Verdugo and Maeda for Bryant and Heyward? Find a way to add Chris Taylor and it would really be a great deal.

I know the only trade the Cubs seem to be interested in is Bryant and we're broke, but any (or all) of those guys from the Dodgers (Pederson, Stripling, Maeda, and Verdugo) certainly would make nice additions to our roster.

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?