Backtobanks

I think just the opposite. If he continues to pitch the way he has been pitching, it's more likely some other team will sweeten their offer for him. The sad part of this scenario is that the Cubs will probably end up paying a ton of money for a FA TOR pitcher in a few years.

From MLBTR: The Blue Jays could make up their 2.5-game deficit in the AL East by making four changes, Paul Swydan writes in an Insider-only piece for ESPN.com. One of those moves would be an upgrade at second base, and Swydan suggests that Rickie Weeks, Luis Valbuena, Emilio Bonifacio and Danny Espinosa could all be logical trade targets Maybe we could expand a deal for Shark by adding Valbuena.

Yeah, I heard they offered him $3 million over 6 years. :lol: Why pay him big money when we could get Baker on the cheap.

They knew that they didn't have any other options besides George Kottaras and John Baker. Would the half glass full guy say they knew they didn't need any other options because they had Castillo? The "plan" says go with youth and don't spend money, so that pretty much meant sticking with Castillo. He has had good numbers at ages 25 and 26, so why wouldn't you go with him. 2012 25 CHC NL 52 190 170 16 45 11 0 5 22 0 0 17 51 .265 .337 .418 .754 103 2013 26 CHC NL 113 428 380 41 104 23 0 8 32 2 0 34 97 .274 .349 .397 .746 103

They knew that they didn't have any other options besides George Kottaras and John Baker.

Lack of desire with some lack of money sprinkled on top. So why aren't those going to continue? Because that's part of what rebuilding is. Anyway, I wanna change the bet to just two of one and one of the other. So either two big FAs and a big trade or two big trades and a big FA prior to opening day 2016. $300. Takers? Before anyone would take that bet there would have to be an agreement as to what qualifies as "big" (i.e. not Bonifacio, Kalish, Ruggiano, Baker, etc.)

We're busy discussing whether the best team, hottest team, or whatever wins in the playoffs, while the Cubs look to be miles away from having a chance at even an expanded playoff situation.

I don't think we can talk playoffs until we find some pitching. Some of our pitching prospects are interesting, but by no means a sure thing. At some point we are going to have to find some very solid pitchers through FA or trade.

Well okay then. By the way, that was sarcastic because your post was delusional. Thinking that it will somehow be difficult to sign a free agent is pretty [expletive] delusional, and all of our top 5 prospects plus our number one pick in june could suddenly die and we'd still have pieces to make a trade. You guys are worrying about nothing.[/quote You must be trolling because your posts have gone beyond rationality.

You just wait, we'll expand to 8 playoff teams per league and the Cubs will sneak in with an 83-79 record at some point Let's just hope "at some point" is soon enough for us old-timers.

I'm hoping for a WS appearance, but I don't think I'll make it. Most of the posters here are young enough to see the Cubs make the playoffs, but that's not too hard with 2 wild card teams.

And also we're terrible at it, and they're good at it, and we're hoping and praying on a generation of elite top-round picks to save us. We're also like a decade behind them in the process, and I don't think we're hoping and praying for a generation of top round picks to save us. I think we're planning on trading some of them away (aka "savvy trades") to supplement our needs at the MLB level, and then use mid-tier and maybe a high profile free agent or two to fill in some other holes. Then all of the lower round picks that actually turn into something decent fill any remaining holes. That's exactly the same thing. We need the top round prospects to show enough to be attractive to other teams in order to make "savvy trades". Also, more teams are locking up their younger players which takes them off the market. Finally signing a high-profile FA (or 2) is difficult when you have a reputation as a losing team and the big market teams (with winning reputations) willing to pay anything to acquire the player they want. It will not be difficult to sign free agents. The prospects will perform, long enough to trade them anyway. Tanaka, the Uptons, darvish, ellsbury, puig, jose abreu, anthony rizzo, andrew cashner, wil meyers, travis wood I am missing a lot because i dont pay attention enough anymore, but theres some of the young impact talent that has been available either as a free agent or trade in the last two seasons. Teams locking their players up young isnt much of an issue. Half of the board wants to trade Castro and we just got through locking him up while he was young. In less words, youre being silly. See the discussion in the other forum (Cubs Discussions) about there's no plan B.

Sell the [expletive] team Ricketts, you piece of [expletive]. :banghead: As for "there's no plan B", we've known that all along. Our prospects have to make it to the ML level or show enough at the ml level to become trade bait. As for Ricketts selling the team, lets put a call out to V. Siviano and see what she could do.

And also we're terrible at it, and they're good at it, and we're hoping and praying on a generation of elite top-round picks to save us. We're also like a decade behind them in the process, and I don't think we're hoping and praying for a generation of top round picks to save us. I think we're planning on trading some of them away (aka "savvy trades") to supplement our needs at the MLB level, and then use mid-tier and maybe a high profile free agent or two to fill in some other holes. Then all of the lower round picks that actually turn into something decent fill any remaining holes. That's exactly the same thing. We need the top round prospects to show enough to be attractive to other teams in order to make "savvy trades". Also, more teams are locking up their younger players which takes them off the market. Finally signing a high-profile FA (or 2) is difficult when you have a reputation as a losing team and the big market teams (with winning reputations) willing to pay anything to acquire the player they want.

Maybe that team looked like a contender in Hendry's mind. Anyone else could see they were going to be bad. It wasn't just "a contender in Hendry's mind" and apparently not "anyone else could see they were going to be bad" because they were picked to be a solid team by most experts. After the trade deadline, it could be many years before we have "solid bullpen, and 3 good starters" in addition to a potentially solid offense.

Looks like Veras was cool with the fake injury after all. I'm honestly curious if he ever makes it back on the 25 man roster at this point. Bigger waste, Veras or Scott Baker? Oh god, Baker by a mile. I really do think Veras is injured - he's never been anywhere close to this ineffective during his career. Also unlike Baker, he still has some value when he returns. We should all hope he does in fact come back and have some success, so we can possibly trade him. I think we should change the Cubs' motto from "Wait until next year" to "We should all hope he does in fact come back and have some success, so we can possibly trade him." It certainly seems to fit the 2012-2014 Cubs.

Does it really matter if they're "throwing out" huge offers to FAs if they know they're ultimately gonna get outbid. They can offer a FA eleventy-billion dollars if they know the Yankees, Red Sox or Dodgers will offer eleventy-billion and one dollars. Unfortunately that's probably what's going to happen when Theo decides it's time to sign some FAs. All those teams will still have a ton of money plus the reputation of being a winning team.

I continue to be amazed that so many of you refuse to put any blame of Theo. While we can all agree that Ricketts sucks, it's Theo and Hoyer that have put together this mess of a "ML" team. While everything financially hasn't gone the way he's planned, he was still throwing out offers (Tanaka, Cespedes, Sanchez, Jackson, etc.) which proves there's some money available to spend. The bottom line is that Theo has stated that he has complete autonomy over baseball operations and certainly some of the blame for this team has to fall on him.

By zooming in, it looks like about 98% of the city and adjacent suburbs are White Sox fans, while the Cubs have most of the midwest. I have trouble believing the Sox have that many fans in the city and nearby suburbs.

The sentiment is right, but the description is exaggerated.

We would have to get one top pitching prospect ready to step right into the rotation by next year plus other prospects for Shark. It's looking more and more like we're going to have to trade some offensive prospects to get another top pitcher (Price?), assuming our prospects continue to impress offensively.

It will be interesting to see if they keep Renteria once they get to a point of serious contending.

You wonder why people give you a hard time when you post stuff like this? Come on, Jackson is a good player, the entire pen outside of Wright and Russell have pretty high upsides, and Lake and Olt have solid potential. It's just moronic to make posts like this that have zero basis in reality. Jackson is a guy that nobody wanted for more than one year at a time. He is what he is - an inning-eating BOR starter. Lake and Olt are still big question marks. I think Lake has a future as a solid reserve player. As for the bullpen, there are a few guys (Rondon, Grimm, Strop) that are decent and will be part of the team going forward. How many of these guys would be filling important, starting roles on a good team? If we are a good team (2016?), how many players currently on our roster will playing important roles (outside of Rizzo, Castro, Wood, Castillo, and Shark/players obtained for Shark)?

Once you get past Rizzo, Castro, Shark, Wood, and possibly Castillo and Hammel, the whole roster is basically filler until we can afford better players or the kids come up.

I can't understand how he was a finalist for the Ford Frick Award last year. He has to be one of the worst announcers around and I mute the sound if I happen to accidently flip on a Sox game.