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Backtobanks

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Everything posted by Backtobanks

  1. Backtobanks
    Yeah, his confidence was so high before this...you really hate to mess with success! His confidence level might not be high before this, but this certainly isn't going to help his confidence. Let's not forget that he's still very young and most of his problems seem to be mental and not physical. I'm not sure why we'd assume his problems are mental. Well he's had 4 years of well-documented mental lapses, has struggled with being moved around in the lineup, and has been labeled as a franchise player in his early 20's. Maybe he has physical problems too, but not anything that has been documented.
  2. Backtobanks
    Yeah, his confidence was so high before this...you really hate to mess with success! His confidence level might not be high before this, but this certainly isn't going to help his confidence. Let's not forget that he's still very young and most of his problems seem to be mental and not physical.
  3. Backtobanks
    After all of these Castro rumors, we had better trade him because I'm sure the rumors are really going to affect his confidence. Going from signing a long-term committment and hiring a Spanish speaking manager to seeing your name in trade rumors has to mess with the confidence level of a young player oming off a bad season.
  4. Backtobanks
    I want Tanaka as much as the next guy, but not for a $75+ million posting fee Why? Not that we can afford it, but I wouldn't care if we won the bid at 100 mill+, it's a one time fee. Granted, a 100 mill fee would also mean a 100 mill contract for him, but finding TOR types at his age are very rare opportunities. If we pay him 100 million we would have to pass on Santana. :lol:
  5. Backtobanks
    That's a pretty accurate statement since 4 years ago the WS was played in NY and Philadephia while this year some of the games were in St. Louis. :lol:
  6. Backtobanks
    4 guys = everybody? The point is that they could/should have been in a better position to improve in the short run if those guys had played closer/more consistently to what was expected/hoped from them. I'm not pointing that out as an excuse; I'm bemoaning the [expletive] situation the Cubs are in. Well 4 guys is a big part of your everyday lineup. While I agree that they didn't produce what was hoped/expected, we also had guys (Wood, Nate, Navarro, Valbuena, etc.) produce more than expected. I agree that the situation is a mess and everything we can hope for is locked up in a bunch of very young prospects becoming all-star level players.
  7. Backtobanks
    Most of the posters on NSBB thought 75-80 wins was doable in 2012 and 2013 too. 75 wins might have been possible last year without trades Or Castro, Rizzo, Castillo and Shark actually being good most of the season. Especially Castro. But especially Castro. So we could have been mediocre if we didn't trade any players away and everybody would have had a good year? That says a lot about the strength of our roster.
  8. Backtobanks
    Most of the posters on NSBB thought 75-80 wins was doable in 2012 and 2013 too.
  9. Backtobanks
    It looks like the FO is going to interview anyone who speaks Spanish and will work cheap.
  10. Backtobanks
    Who should they throw a bunch of money at? How about some ML players instead of a manager. You put enough good players out on the field that it doesn't matter who manages the team. Ok? You said that they "might as well go cheap" since they couldn't get Girardi. Who would they get that wouldn't be cheap? Any "name" manager with ML experience, but my point is the manager isn't going to make much of a difference with the mediocre team they're going to have in 2014. If we finally get to the 95+ win juggernaut stage, it still won't make much of a difference. Look at Casey Stengel - a great manager with the Yankees and a horrible one with the Mets.
  11. Backtobanks
    That sounds like another awful team. That's the most likely result in just about any scenario. But the bright side is that we get another high draft choice.
  12. Backtobanks
    Who should they throw a bunch of money at? How about some ML players instead of a manager. You put enough good players out on the field that it doesn't matter who manages the team.
  13. Backtobanks
    So much for ML managerial experience, but at least he'll be cheap. Of course no matter who gets hired, we'll hear that he was the first choice all along. yea they're clearly trying to save money with the hire. that's why they wanted to give girardi whatever he wanted. They tried to get Girardi and they knew they would have to overbid to get him. Now that they didn't get their first choice, they might as well go cheap.
  14. Backtobanks
    So much for ML managerial experience, but at least he'll be cheap. Of course no matter who gets hired, we'll hear that he was the first choice all along.
  15. Backtobanks
    It sure as hell worked really nicely for a while there. 9 straight winning seasons. They went from an organization with a fan base that did not give a crap about them, to an attendance juggernaut. They made it to the LCS three straight years and the WS two years in a row. It absolutely worked. Even in a bad season they had 3 million attendance and you can't walk 5 feet in that market without somebody wearing Phillies gear. Granted, it's a little heavy on the middle aged chubby women in love with Chase Utley side, but that was never the case before. It failed because they didn't get any 1st draft picks during those 9 years. The only way I see the Phils contending for WS in the next 2 years is clearly orchestrating many 3 team trades. Why don't you start working on that for them. I never said that the Phils will be contending for the WS in the next 2 years, but the Cubs won't be either.
  16. Backtobanks
    It sure as hell worked really nicely for a while there. 9 straight winning seasons. They went from an organization with a fan base that did not give a crap about them, to an attendance juggernaut. They made it to the LCS three straight years and the WS two years in a row. It absolutely worked. Even in a bad season they had 3 million attendance and you can't walk 5 feet in that market without somebody wearing Phillies gear. Granted, it's a little heavy on the middle aged chubby women in love with Chase Utley side, but that was never the case before. It failed because they didn't get any 1st draft picks during those 9 years.
  17. Backtobanks
    What's worse than Ozzie Guillen as manager? Guillen as manager and Harrelson as play-by-play announcer. :lol:
  18. Backtobanks
    Maybe he didn't "nap" for most of the season like Castro, but his August line (.190/.286/.381/.607) and his Sept./Oct. line (.240/.313/.370/.683) certainly looked like he dozed off for the last 1/3 of the season. I'm sure that most of us hoped for better numbers than what he showed in 2013.
  19. Backtobanks
    How do you explain situations like the Cleveland Indians where they went from a 90+ loss team one season to a 90+ win without making any major changes other than the manager? They have to be at least part of the reason for that, right? For the record I'm not saying I believe any specific manager will make us 30 wins better but there do seem to be examples where a managerial change makes a big difference. Is it a matter of a bad manager making the team worse as opposed to a good manager making the team better? There will come a time (hopefully) in the next few years where the Cubs will make a huge jump in wins. And the media will probably give a lot of credit to the manager. In actuality, he will probably have little to do with it. There's certainly such a thing as a bad manager (we've all witnessed it firsthand), but I'm not convinced there's such a thing as a universally "good" manager. I think an individual manager's success will depend more on fitting into the right situation. I would think if Baez & Bryant are everything that we hope they are and they come up while Rizzo and Castro awaken from their respective naps, it won't matter too much as to who the manager is.
  20. Backtobanks
    Ok. What do you choose to believe? To start with, I think Ricketts realizes that he makes a ton of profit with a payroll of $75 million. I think the thought that he could tear down and rebuild the Cubs with a reduced payroll for a few years intrigued Theo into coming on board. It wasn't exactly a secret that Wrigley needed renovations, the farm system was lacking, the FO and scouting were behind most other teams, the roster was bloated with overpaid players, Chicago and Illinois were broke, etc.
  21. Backtobanks
    I'm still having trouble believing that all of these brilliant, successful businessmen (Ricketts, Epstein, etc.) with their army of lawyers and financial advisors didn't have a clue about where they might be financially at this point.
  22. Backtobanks
    Seems kind of redundant after getting Olt, but I guess it's worth a flier because he's cheap.
  23. Backtobanks
    I never said it would be a bad thing, but so far having the smartest FO hasn't done much to help at the ML level. It would be a group that'd eventually win, so long as they don't succumb to groupthink ala Pearl Harbor. Does your post come with a guarantee?
  24. Backtobanks
    Dartmouth, Northwestern, Stanford, plus all of the wonks in the FO. We may not win many games, but we'll lead the league in IQ.
  25. Backtobanks
    Maddux, Pena, etc. don't have the ML managing experience. Hinch has some experience, but most importantly will probably come cheap.
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