Backtobanks

Better to spend it on possible future talent than sitting in Ricketts' pocket.

Put him in a package for Headley.

My problem with the FO is exactly that - what the expected timeline to be close to contending (or actually a contender) actually is. When Theo signed a 5-year contract, I expected a serious contending team within 3-4 years. Now it seems we're talking about waiting until 2016 to see whether our prospects actually can play at the ML level. Rizzo and Soler look like "sure things", but everybody else is a maybe. Hopefully some of these trades (Garza, Dempster, Soriano, etc.) will bring young players that have some ML experience and success so that we can plug them in this year. More 20-year old prospects strengthens the minor league system and increases the chances that some minor leaguers will eventually help the team, but we need to start filling holes in 2013 and not in 2017. You really think they won't a single top pitcher/player for 4-5 more years? They won't wait until all of their current 20 year olds are proven in the majors before signing FAs, but they do need to acquire some more young talent. I'd bet they are improved next year and competitive by 2014. Let's hope they're improved next year considering we're on course for 100+ losses this year. If you're really looking at their best prospects (Soler, Baez, Almora,etc.) to begin making the roster at ML level, you're looking at 2015. Giving them a year or two to adjust puts you into the 2016-2017 range. I'm not saying the FO won't sign a single top pitcher/player for 4-5 more years, but you won't know whether these guys can make an impact for 4-5 years.

My problem with the FO is exactly that - what the expected timeline to be close to contending (or actually a contender) actually is. When Theo signed a 5-year contract, I expected a serious contending team within 3-4 years. Now it seems we're talking about waiting until 2016 to see whether our prospects actually can play at the ML level. Rizzo and Soler look like "sure things", but everybody else is a maybe. Hopefully some of these trades (Garza, Dempster, Soriano, etc.) will bring young players that have some ML experience and success so that we can plug them in this year. More 20-year old prospects strengthens the minor league system and increases the chances that some minor leaguers will eventually help the team, but we need to start filling holes in 2013 and not in 2017.

If you signed a FA and he blocks a prospect, you trade one of them for something you need. You will never know exactly who your prospects are in the majors. My point is to let these guys come up and actually play and see who they are, then you add FA around them. Then you know exactly who they are and exactly what you need. And what if there is a weak FA crop when Theo decides to spend? Or if the time is right, then Theo can pass out Sorianoesque contracts and overpay middle relievers. FAs who are reasonably young and talented (Hamels, Upton, etc.) need to be signed when they're available, not when we wait for another 5-6 years to figure out whether our prospects are able to play at the ML level. Or you look more than a SINGLE year ahead. That may have been Hendry's MO, but I think Theo may, just may, be a tad different. That's exactly my point. Players like Hamels, Upton, etc. are young enough (and are going to demand multiple year contracts) to help with a winning team in the future or at least help determine which positions still need to be filled.

HENDRY WOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT Another expected brilliant reponse. For someone who hates Hendry, all of your responses seem to include his name.

If you signed a FA and he blocks a prospect, you trade one of them for something you need. You will never know exactly who your prospects are in the majors. My point is to let these guys come up and actually play and see who they are, then you add FA around them. Then you know exactly who they are and exactly what you need. And what if there is a weak FA crop when Theo decides to spend? Or if the time is right, then Theo can pass out Sorianoesque contracts and overpay middle relievers. FAs who are reasonably young and talented (Hamels, Upton, etc.) need to be signed when they're available, not when we wait for another 5-6 years to figure out whether our prospects are able to play at the ML level.

No use criticizing Jaramillo or his methods. The bottom line is that all hitting (or pitching) coaches help certain hitters (or pitchers) and doesn't help others. The best coaches affect a higher percentage, but it's certainly not anywhere near 100%. Rudy has had success for a long time and a record he should be proud of.

Darvish is the one player that they certainly should have gone after. The winning bid was almost exactly what everyone was predicting, so Theo could have gone higher than the predictions. Cespedes also was attainable. I wasn't a big fan of the Zambrano trade, but it was a forgone conclusion that they wanted him gone. I would have tried for a deal involving Headley from SD instead of Stewart at 3B. They might have been a bad team this year, but they would have had a few more holes filled for next year and beyond.

I still have issues with the idea that the only two options were: awful now and great later or mediocre now and mediocre later I'm not convinced we couldn't have built a better product today by adding assets that would help us be better in the short term without hurting us long term (Cespedes, keep Z, put together a better than awful bench, etc). I have full confidence the Theo regime will make this organization and team great in time, but I think it's misleading to assume the previously mentioned were the only two options we had. I totally agree. It gets back to the idea that whatever Theo does has to be the right way. NO IT DOESN'T. This is seriously the stupidest tangent you've ever gone on, and that's impressive. You've for some reason built up this inane idea that people don't given Hendry enough credit, so that's mutated into how everyone blindly loves the new FO. What is even your point in all of this? You don't want Theo can co. running the Cubs? I do think that the Theo Koolaide has been devoured by many of the posters here and yes, they are blind when it comes to the FO. I have posted often that I have confidence in Theo & Co. improving the organization, but I do think they are going to take far too long to be a serious contender. Also, I think that this year's club did not have to be this bad while the FO rebuilds. I know the Theo & Co. will own the city if they gets us to the WS (and especially if the win the WS). If they're going to get that much credit if (when) they produce a winner, then they deserve the blame for the crappy team (possibly historically crappy) they put on the field this year.

I still have issues with the idea that the only two options were: awful now and great later or mediocre now and mediocre later I'm not convinced we couldn't have built a better product today by adding assets that would help us be better in the short term without hurting us long term (Cespedes, keep Z, put together a better than awful bench, etc). I have full confidence the Theo regime will make this organization and team great in time, but I think it's misleading to assume the previously mentioned were the only two options we had. I totally agree. It gets back to the idea that whatever Theo does has to be the right way. There's no way the 2012 Cubs had to be this terrible.

Amen! The overwhelming majority of posters thought that this team would win more games than last year (71). I think it's pretty obvious that this team isn't going anywhere near 71 wins especially if they trade Soriano, Dempster, and Garza. As others have pointed out, a 100+ loss season postpones rebuilding into a contender by another 1-2 years.

Uh . . . no crap. Really, just like Soriano was untradable before he got in his hot streak. The long baseball season normalizes most players' performance. Just look at Garza and Dempster coming back to "normal".

I think you're dreaming. Theo will be lucky to get much of anything for Soriano. All it takes is for Soriano to fall out of his hot streak or hurt his knee more to make him untradable and then the Cubs will be stuck with the rest of his contract.

Apparently you don't realize that Stewart is just unlucky. :yahoo:

That Theo Koolaide is pretty potent stuff.

Hamels is probably in the $150 million over 7 year range.

Back2Hendry is of course hilariously wrong, but using Stewart's career #s doesn't show anything. Cubs are above average at RF, LF, 1B, SS, and 2B. So how the [expletive] has our offense been so bad? Some posters look for statistics to prove their point and don't open their eyes to what they see on the field.

Contending teams can afford one (or 2) weak player(s) in their lineup because they have very good hitters in the rest of the lineup. That's when a defensive specialist (usually SS or CF) comes into play. 1B, 3B, LF, and RF are considered offensive positions unless you have an offensive force (like Sandberg) at a "non-offensive" position to make up for it.

Obviously since Stewart is in the majors and Vitters is in the minors. Stewart is not a decent choice for a 3B on a contending team. He's okay as long as the Cubs suck, but he needs to be replaced when the Cubs become contenders.

Probably shouldn't start this debate again, but why do you think this? Are you arguing his BABIP won't improve, that his numbers won't get better even after his BABIP adjusts up, or that he'll quit hitting the ball hard as his BABIP rises? I can understand not believing there will be a huge spike in his numbers when his BABIP adjusts, but to say that he "is what he is" right now seems to ignore the strong likelihood of a strong improvement in his numbers correlating with a natural BABIP adjustment. He's in a "hot streak" now and his numbers for the last month are pretty good, but I don't think he's going to be more than "adequate" as a long-term 3B. If you take statistics a month at a time, there are months where Soriano still looks like a superstar. Stewart will do for now, but I think he's a place holder for Vitters/Lake/Baez/????.

I totally agree, but I don't think Theo is going to spend the necessary money next year. I think he will continue to analyze the situation for another year and then spend or trade to fill in the holes.

I can't see how standing pat with this horrorific offense is going to "become average" next season. Brett Jackson could (should) be an upgrade in CF. I've read the discussion about Stewart's bad luck, but he seems to be all he's ever going to be at 3B. Soto & co. at catcher is always a question mark because you don't know what you're going to get. I like LaHair, but I do think the league is going to catch up with him and bring the numbers back down to earth. Obviously Rizzo is the one big hope to help the offense. I think the key is to bring in one big bat (Upton?) and hope that Rizzo and Jackson can produce decently as rookies. Of course an improved offense may not translate to many wins if Dempster and Garza are traded and we have to go with youth in the rotation.

Hendry had definite strengths. The net of it was that he was a below average GM, though. You have an interesting way of minimizing Theo, though. I could also say that he worked with resources similar to what he has with the Cubs and fielded a team that was one of the two best teams in baseball during his nine year tenure. I'm not minimizing Theo and I will admit that what he did during his 9 year tenure with the RS was impressive. My point is that he started with a very good team and made them better. Davell posted that Hendry left the Cubs with a "bottom 5" organization and very little talent at the major league or minor league level. If that is true, Theo has no experience in rebuilding this kind of team. As I posted before, I think Theo will improve the organization from the top to the bottom. I do think times have changed with the new CBA and I'm not sure that Theo will be able to turn the Cubs into a perennial 95-win juggernaut like many posters do.

You're not mentioning the reason Theo has been given the right to start over is he probably sat down with Tom and calmly explained that if you looked at every single bit of talent within the organization and compared it to other teams, it'd fall in the bottom 5 of baseball. This being the case and having more resources than probably about all of baseball, other than 5 teams or so, is why Jim Hendry was not a good GM. In fact, he's probably worse than I had even thought. The part in blue is a post from you in another topic. Everybody you mentioned in the first part was drafted by Hendry except Soler. I'm not saying our system is great, but looking at your post, it certainly doesn't sound like "it'd fall in the bottom 5 of baseball". Good lord, not even sure where to begin. It's the ENTIRETY of the organization. Not JUST the system. And yes, I think totally we are in the bottom 5 altogether, before Theo got here. Jim provided Brett, Baez, and Szczur, with Lake and Vitters. He did NOT give us the supplemental round picks(because it's not known whether Pena or Aramis would still be here or not). Yes, you could say he "gave" us the 6th pick this season, because of how [expletive] a major league team he threw out there last year with a gigantic payroll attached. Yes, he gave us Dempster and Garza, 2 of the very best pieces we have, that "help" us get to where we are, which has literally been NO WHERE. Yes, I do think we'll have a top 10 minor league system at the end of this season. But when I say that, we're also going to have one of the 2-3 worst major league teams in the game. And I totally see the reasoning of Theo to do it this way, whether you can or not. If we have enough major pieces in place to warrant spending bigtime money, we'll do so. If not, we'll grow the system more and re-evaluate again. Hendry never re-evaluated ANYTHING. He threw money at problems, changed the team 'theme" every year and literally hoped for the best, while running us as an equivalent of a mom and pop shop. Theo looks at a bigger picture, period. The advances the Cubs have made statistically, growing their scouting department, building up the front office.....These things take time and they didn't have to undo a Hendry mess here, they just had to start from scratch basically. I know you have no idea how to look at an organization from top to bottom, much less put weight on it, but Theo took over a team with a very average minor league system and a very below average major league team, with one of the smallest scouting bases and front offices around. You put those things together, it doesn't equal the UTOPIA of what you think Hendry left the Cubs with. And whether you agree with Theo's way of doing things or not, if you can't look at his track record versus Hendry's and see which one you should be happy with as far as running our team goes, then I have no clue what to even bother saying. My point all along has been that Hendry had strengths and weaknesses that I acknowledged, but many posters refuse to acknowledge his strengths. NEVER did I post or infer that the organization that Hendry left was a "UTOPIA". I do have confidence that Theo will improve the organization, but I do have problems with the timeline for putting a contending team on the field. Taking a crappy 2011 team and making them crappier for 2012 and 2013 so that we can draft or trade for prospects that might make it to the ML level in 2014 or 2015 is the desired method for a small market team, not a large market team. As for the track record, Theo took a very good big-market team (89 win avg for previous 5 seasons) to an excellent team (93 win avg over 9 seasons). He has no experience taking a bad, "bottom 5" organization and rebuilding them into a World Series Champion.