Backtobanks
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Everything posted by Backtobanks
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Jason Kubel?
Backtobanks replied to Guancous's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
If you ignore Valbuena and Castro's existence, sure. Being the 4th best position player on a last place team over a two week span isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. Okay... After April 6th, he has a .915 OPS At this point he may have as much trade value as anyone outside of Shark and Valbuena. Team control until 2017, gets on base a ton, has some power, plays CF. If he has any trade value, they ought to trade him before he turns into Nate Schierholtz. Nate (at 29 years old) had better numbers for the whole season last year than Ruggiano (age 32) has this year. -
The question is when will these "other baseball players" be ready to pitch at the ML level.
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Jason Kubel?
Backtobanks replied to Guancous's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
If you ignore Valbuena and Castro's existence, sure. Being the 4th best position player on a last place team over a two week span isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. -
The pitching staff has been competitive. The pitching staff has been fine, but you're talking about the 2015 lineup and I'm assuming Hammel and Samardzija will be traded.
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Yeah, if Alcantara can come up after the deadline and establish himself at 2B/CF, then it would help out for next year a lot. The key is adding a FA outfielder. Get a solid guy, even for the short term like Cruz or Markakis, and the Cubs have very few black holes in the lineup for the near future. Start the year with: 2B- Alcantara 3B- Valbuena 1B- Rizzo SS- Castro RF- Cruz/Markakis LF- Lake CF- Sweeney/Ruggiano C- Castillo By June, you could have: CF- Alcantara 2B- Valbuena 1B- Rizzo LF- Bryant RF- Markakis/Cruz SS- Castro 3B- Baez (still think he ends up at 3B rather than 2B) C- Castillo The latter is a lineup you don't dread anyone coming up, except when they are in a cold streak which Castro, Alcantara, Baez, and Castillo have all been prone to. The lineup looks good, now to find some starters to help us compete.
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I wouldn't count Bonifacio or Ruggiano to be contributors next season. Bonifacio is a prime trade candidate and Ruggiano is his year's Schierholtz.
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The FO ought to be able to get the package they want with that much competition for him.
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Minor Transactions
Backtobanks replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
Finally we'll get some offense out of the catcher's position. :lol: (.240/.295/.285) -
I agree that keep Shark seems like a no-brainer. Spending the money on him sure seems like a better idea than trying to replace him. It doesn't sound like anyone is willing to meet our demands in trading him, most of the FA pitchers are as old or older than he is, and most or all of them have more "miles" on their arms than he does.
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I've posted that quite a few times, but then many posters jump on me about being negative about Theo.
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Yep, while Theo's "plan" has merit, he also could have very easily become the A's if he was smarter. Signing the worst of the 3 cubans (so far), not trading Barney, Gregg, and Russell while they had any value, still not finding a decent veteran reliever, missing on the 1 big contract they did give out (Jackson) have nothing to do with the "not spending money for a while" plan. This was my biggest fear when he took the job and so far it's being realized. Beane and Friedman would have been better choices IMO. Doesn't mean it won't work out or we can't make the playoffs 8 years in a row and win a title, but the early returns are discouraging when you see the Oakland freaking A's playing like the 27 Yankees on a comparable payroll. I've posted since Theo was hired that he's very smart and has a plan that hopefully will work out, but he didn't have the experience that Beane had in starting from scratch and building a winner with a modest payroll. Theo took over a very good team (89 win average) and made them better (93 win average) with a mix of prospects, good signings, and a gigantic payroll.
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We could be contenders if it wasn't for those damn 81 road games.
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The best 7th inning stretch singer/interview that I can remember. Lenny Merullo from the 1945 Cubs was fantanastic. 97 years old and sharp as a tack with great stories about the Cubs and Wrigley back then. JD and Len were in awe and loving every minute. At one point JD said "I want to hang out with you Lenny".
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If nothing else, it will be more entertaining watching them lose 10-9 instead of 2-0. Why will the pitchers suddenly give up 8 more runs a game? Because we won't have much after trading Samardzija and Hammel.
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If nothing else, it will be more entertaining watching them lose 10-9 instead of 2-0.
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Dodgers get Vogelbach with Cubs getting Kemp + $55 million sounds great to me.
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30 years old??? I guess we could use him for a year before flipping him for prospects.
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Another obvious difference is that Manny is connected to Boston (Epstein) and Sammy is connected to Chicago (Hendry and the old regime).
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The bottom line is that Lucchino knows what he's getting in Samardzija and I doubt he will feel ripped off assuming Shark's doesn't fall off. The Red Sox aren't desperate enough to make a trade that they aren't comfortable with. Somewhere in the future it might be determined that the Cubs got the better of the deal, but I doubt Lucchino will be too upset if Samardzija gives them 4-5 years of top notch pitching.
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if the premise is that lucchino wants to stick it to theo, you'd think he'd enjoy rubbing epstein's face in the fact that the red sox are a real team that acquires real players while the cubs just cross their fingers and trade for children I think the possibility, even if it were slight, that Theo trade rapes the Red Sox, would keep Lucchino from allowing it. I'm sure Lucchino is really worried about losing face to Theo in 2019 when the prospects that he trades for Samardzija finally make it to the ML. Meanwhile, Samardzija helps the Red Sox make the playoffs for 6 straight years after signing an extension.
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Third season of being "unlucky". I guess our luck will change eventually.
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It's a shame the FO didn't trade him when they had a chance.
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rofl if we got stanton and baez gets fixed, eventually we wouldn't even need to bother fielding a pitching staff. That's good because after trading Samardzija and Hammel at the deadline, we wouldn't have much of a pitching staff to field.
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Let's not forget the "crippling monstrosity" left in Boston. 69 win team with $175 million payroll.