Backtobanks

One phenominal season as a 22 yr. old and 6 other seasons with a line of .269/24 HRs/70 RBI/ 2.9 WAR makes for a solid everyday OF, but not a generational talent in my book. As I said before, he's young enough to add to his legacy, but right now his season as a 22 yr. old looks like an outlier. A lot of potential, a ton of hype, and a whole lotta money. you forgetting about his 2017 where he went .319/.413/.595? he has a career .900 OPS, and that's with a bunch of plate appearances as a teenager weighing it down The numbers include 2017. Again a very good player with the potential to add to his legacy and possibly become a generational talent, but I wouldn't consider him one yet.

One phenominal season as a 22 yr. old and 6 other seasons with a line of .269/24 HRs/70 RBI/ 2.9 WAR makes for a solid everyday OF, but not a generational talent in my book. As I said before, he's young enough to add to his legacy, but right now his season as a 22 yr. old looks like an outlier. A lot of potential, a ton of hype, and a whole lotta money.

I never understood the "Bryce is a generational talent" talk. He's very good, but not exactly "generational talent". Manny is also a generational talent. There can be more than one at a time. If you look at players under 30 in MLB right now,he ranks 4th in WAR since his rookie year. He is only 1.3 WAR away from being second on that list (and a mere 33.3 behind Trout). Also, count the number of hitters that have put up a 9+ WAR in a single season in the past 10 years. I'll save you the work. There have been 8 seasons of hitters achieving 9+ war since 2009. Five of them are Trout (holy crap is he good). One is Mookie this year. Then there's Bryce in 2015 (the other is Jacoby Ellsbury's 2011). Also, Harper owns a bunch of hitting record for teenagers in MLB, including HR and WAR. I'm a bit lost on why you wouldn't consider him a generational talent unless it is a silly semantics thing and you think that ONLY Trout is a generational talent for that "generation" of players. It might be a semantics thing, but it's not necessarily silly. As I said Harper (and Machado) are very good players that fit in nicely into this generation of stars like Betts, Stanton, Donaldson, Rendon, Lindor, Ramirez, Altuve, Springer, Goldschmidt, Votto, Carpenter, Yelich, Bryant, etc., but when I speak of generational talent I'm thinking of the 4-5 players who will define this generation of baseball. I'm not sure Harper fits that description yet. He's young enough to add to his legacy, but so are many of the other players listed. There's no doubt names like Trout and Kershaw will be defining this generation.

I never understood the "Bryce is a generational talent" talk. He's very good, but not exactly "generational talent".

The real problem with the offseason is knowing what to expect from Bryant & Darvish. Do they both come back as all-star quality players or middle- of-the-road players? As you stated, we certainly should be competitive and reassess at the trade deadline.

Yeah that lineup is pretty Joe-proof. The most likely way he'll screw it up is if Zobrist goes back to 2017 (or just being 38 years old in general) and Maddon inevitably keeps throwing him up at the top. Or he tries batting the pitcher 4th.

Unfortunately Schwarber,Baez, Contreras, Happ, etc. were the guys who came up in those situations. So you're picking on Javy here? The guy who led the NL in RBI? The guy who had a .860 OPS with runners in scoring position? Odd choice. Baez had a great year, but I'm not sure he's the perfect person to make contact and hit a sacrifice fly to drive in a run.

I'm tired of this constant complaint at the end of every Cubs season. A certain segment of the audience always claims the thing the Cubs need is fewer all or nothing hitters and more contact guys. Does this player even exist anymore? Players are striking out at record levels. And the Cubs had Zobrist, Murphy, Rizzo, and Heyward who put the ball in play. Almora not too bad either. That's plenty of non-all or nothing hitters. Unfortunately Schwarber,Baez, Contreras, Happ, etc. were the guys who came up in those situations.

who plays cf? Gore You need Gore for RH power off the bench. :-"

Yeah, at this point in their lives and careers I thought a hitting coach ought to only correct something when you're in a slump and not changing your hitting philosophy when you're 26 years old and in the ML.

We need a guy who can put the bat on the ball in clutch situations (to move runners over, to hit a sacrifice fly, etc.). I'm tired of watching batter after batter swing for the fences and then strike out with men in scoring position. We have too many all-or-nothing hitters.

The hell? I'm not opposed at all to the idea of moving Rizzo in the right circumstances; the part that really jumps out at me is "Schwaber's bounce back season." The dude's...fine. As a platoon player. He didn't really do anything to show he should or needs to be in the lineup almost every day, which he'd have to do to effectively replace Rizzo. That's fair. I don't love Schwarber, although a part of me does wonder if he would improve offensively at a position where there would be less physical demands on him. Finding a guy to balance with Schwarber at first likely wouldn't cost much. Again, I don't really see them moving Rizzo. I just think there's a lot of limitations for the FO in ways to dramatically improve the team this offseason, and Rizzo might be the one way where they could make major changes. More than likely, they'll take their runs at Harper (maybe Machado ... I'm still not sold on that), and if they fail that, make some smaller moves here or there. I just don't love the constant lineup machinations. Schwarber is what he is- a DH disguised as a platoon LF. It was obvious when he came up and it's still obvious. Rizzo is the heart and soul of this team and replacing his offense, defense, and leadership would be hard to do.

Replacing Rizzo with Schwarber? Apparently you're not thinking straight because of the loss last night.

Good call on Lorenzen. We need someone who actually knows how to hit dongs. That was my thought - reliever, spot starter, and pinch hitter all in one.

Frank Thomas was the best. When I was a kid I cheered for the Sox when they were playoff caliber because of him and the fact that I also had a blind loyalty to all Chicago sports teams. I feel that for Cubs fans it's less about hating the Sox and more about hating Sox fans who take the rivalry way too seriously. The Mad Men "I don't think about you at all" exchange is the perfect representation of the White Sox/Cubs rivalry to me. My point exactly. The fans brag about their success (on both sides of town) which causes the rivalry. Most fans don't hate individual players or a team per say, but they hate when other fans rub their noses in it.

There were a ton of Cub Fans who were "like that" when the Cubs were losing and the WS were winning. Nah. Not buying it. I don't know many Cubs fans that give a single horsefeathers about the White Sox, whether the Cubs are winning or losing. With the exception of laughing at the little brother syndrome the fanbase clearly has. But actively rooting against them? Nah. Maybe you don't know many Cub fans who care about the WS, but most of the fans I know are die-hard fans of one of the teams and while actively rooting for their team to win, they're hoping the other team will lose. WS fans are tired of hearing us brag bout our success while they struggle and it was no different when the situation was reversed. It's a rivalry just like Cubs/Cards and you can't tell me that that Cubs' fans don't root for the Cards to lose and vice versa.

well it's more about last offseason than anything. assuming they don't go deep in the playoffs (which they still could), people are going to pin that entirely on theo for the darvish and chatwood moves. i'm not saying it's fair, but he's going to have to answer for that. also, the fact that multiple young hitters horsefeathers the bed is going to have people worrying. I mean, they've won 94 games. More than last year in a season our MVP played hurt since May and missed over 60 games. And in a year we had our nine figure new starter pitch 8 games. With lots of other stupid horsefeathers go on as well. Honestly, it anything, this season has shown how far we've come as an organization. This organization has come a long way, but we're in a crucial situation depending on how deep into the playoffs they go. Every team has injuries and Bryant's certainly hurt, but the emergence of Baez and the rebound of Zobrist certainly were unexpected. Not too long ago posters were bragging about our depth (position players) and that we had 10 starters for 8 positions and worried about our pitching. This year and last our pitching has kept us competitive while the offense has failed in the clutch.

There were a ton of Cub Fans who were "like that" when the Cubs were losing and the WS were winning.

Sign Eduardo Escobar, Trevor Cahill, Rene Rivera, and trade for Michael Lorenzen. Lots of money for other moves and lots of versatility for depth.

Let's not forget that we could certainly use some right-handed power to help Baez because Bryant and Contreras have lost the ability to hit homers and Russell no longer exists in this world.

http://66.media.tumblr.com/0b903165325adb4579316f62e604186a/tumblr_o3c39z5A5N1ufl1nbo1_500.gif As I've posted before, sometimes Maddon seems to want "to be different" to prove that he's a genius rather than doing what "traditional" managers would do and sometimes it's detremental to the team (i.e. batting Schwarber leadoff last year, Chapman's use in the WS, batting the pitcher 8th, etc.)

Instead of batting in the middle of the lineup, he can be our new lead off man.

During the game, they showed the offensive statistics comparing the pitcher batting eighth vs. batting ninth. The results were significantly better with the pitcher hitting ninth. So Maddon needs to prove those statistics wrong instead of doing what everybody else does.

Half is about $53,000,000. If they're going to take on that much, we probably won't get too much in return.

He's come out publicly with a strong opinion about Binnys.