CincyCubsFan

Which is essentially what the front office has done this offseason.

Right. Signing Fielder right now would be a more prudent move than waiting for Votto (who may or may not even make it to FA). Banking on potential free agents not to be extended by their team or traded and extended while passing on current FAs is a flawed and dangerous strategy. The same old choruses are going to be repeated offseason after offseason (he's not an ideal age, we'll be overpaying in the last two years of the deal, let's wait for someone better to come along, etc.,) I don't know why people think things are going to be different in 2013 than they were this year. That's my point; I'm surprised/amused at how often Votto is brought up here as a FA target when he'd be turning 31 that first season after he's signed and you'd have so many arguments against signing Fielder due to fatness and Pujols because he's 32 and how they don't fit into the plan of "the new Cubs." OK, how does a 31-year-old signing a huge contract fit into "the new Cubs" for those people? I completely agree with you. It's been mentioned a few times, I don't think a lot of people who keeping dropping Votto's name realize how old he's going to be when he hits free agency. Once that offseason rolls around and we start hashing out the pros and cons, we're going to start hearing the same reasons not to sign Votto that we did with Fielder and Pujols. If we're not willing to compromise once in a while to get established talent, what is the strategy? Try to field a completely home-grown, competitive, minimum salary team? Keep our fingers crossed that a roster full of 25 year old, stud superstar players magically hit the free market and we aren't outbid on them? The offensive FA class next year isn't looking so hot. Are we punting 2013 too?

so you think the cubs are going to be run as a small market team and never sign big ticket free agents any more? or just that you will be reading the same things on nsbb every offseason? The latter.

Right. Signing Fielder right now would be a more prudent move than waiting for Votto (who may or may not even make it to FA). Banking on potential free agents not to be extended by their team or traded and extended while passing on current FAs is a flawed and dangerous strategy. The same old choruses are going to be repeated offseason after offseason (he's not an ideal age, we'll be overpaying in the last two years of the deal, let's wait for someone better to come along, etc.,) I don't know why people think things are going to be different in 2013 than they were this year.

Is he done playing in Japan?

they'll have no choice but to move him when they hear that davearm is willing to give up barney to get him and a slightly bad contract that ends after this season. =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D>

I can't figure out what they intend to do with it. If you combine last year's payroll with the surplus from the CBA changes, they've got to have something like $40-50 million left on the table. And they are talking about trading Garza, too, which would shed another $8 million (minus his replacement). They could sign Fielder and Cespedes and still have a ton of room left over. Maybe it just goes into the Ricketts' pockets, maybe it's saved for future seasons, I just don't know. I feel like we're Pam Beesley, asking management for new chairs...but Michael just wants his 20% surplus bonus.

Someone needs to remind Jed that the Cubs actually have a payroll.

The first two didn't strongly impact our chances of contending, I don't think. Stewart could be horrid, but could be pretty good too. DeJesus would actually be exactly the type of productive value player we'd need to offset bringing in impact FAs and paying them as such. The reason this team has basically no chance to contend next year and very little chance in 2013 is passing on Darvish and Pujols, and possibly Prince. This team needs impact players in order to be able to contend, and two of the three that would have fit this team are off the board and there's very realistic doubt that we'll be involved with the third. Yes, Stewart COULD be good. There's a better chance that he sucks. A big market team that's interested in contending doesn't count on a player like that to play a corner infield position. I agree with your point on DeJesus, if we were actually interested in surrounding him with impact FAs. Which to this point, there is no indication that we are doing. The Cubs are going to HAVE to spend on free agents eventually. Next time, we probably won't be so lucky that both the Yankees and Red Sox won't be in on any of them.

Are Jeff Baker, Blake DeWitt, Darwin Barney, and Jeff Bianchi not utility infielders? So was Ryan Flaherty. DJ LeMahieu too. Don't forget Marwin Gonzalez. At least Jeff Baker, Blake DeWitt, and Darwin Barney can do somehing resembling hitting the ball, sometimes even out of the infield. Are they just trying to re-construct the 2006 Cubs so that people will be happy when they manage to put together a near .500 team for the following year? At this point, I wouldn't expect the Cubs to be interested in anyone worth a [expletive], honestly. This sounds about right to me.

Giving third base to Ian Stewart Giving right field to David DeJesus Passing on every halfway decent free agent to this point Shopping Garza

Garza has obvious value. Marmol, Byrd, Soto all have non-zero value imo. And Dempster and Zambrano could probably rebuild their value with decent starts to the season. You really think that Soto and Marmol have 0 value? Come on now. I guarantee we can get at least 1 top 100 prospect and 1 more of that teams top 10 for Soto and probably similar for Marmol if we were willing to eat enough salary. He said "non-zero" value. As in, positive value.

Necessary for what exactly? Taking us from a 68 win team to a 69 win team?

If you draft and develop they probably won't be doing much for another 5 years. I was kinda including the guys already in our system (including that high ceiling last draft), but that's irrelevant. The point was just that there were other ways to acquire impact talent than buy it. I was being kinda nitpicky. There are other ways, but avoiding free agency is stupid. Especially when next year's position player FA class is so weak, and the competition for the current crop is so thin.

Reed Johnson in a useful piece on a competing team. He's not as useful on a team destined to be in the basement of the NL Central next season.

Trading Marshall to a key divisional rival pretty much seals it. The problem with a rebuild is that we have about 3 players that we could actually trade for anything of substantial value. Two of them are named Castro and Garza. So as it stands right now: We have little of value to trade. We seem to be unwilling to sign any free agents because we aren't close to competing and don't want to overpay. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's not that Wood is a horrible return. It's that Marshall is one of the most dominant relievers in the game and we find it hard to believe that the Cubs weren't able to get a better offer for him.

I'm still waiting for concrete evidence that we're 'doing a rebuild'. NOTHING has came from Theo/Jed/Ricketts to say that a 'rebuild' is in place. The media also knows nothing - the new regime is so tight lipped it really has to be frustrating the Chicago media, who are not used to the business being ran that way. And not signing Pujols/Wilson/Darvish does not in any way imply to me that the Cubs are rebuilding. The moves the Cubs have made - DeJesus was a nice value sign which would make no sense for a rebuilding team (give that playing time to Jackson or Campana if you're throwing 2012), and Stewart, well someone has to play 3rd next year, and it might as well be a guy with some upside. The Cubs could still sign Fielder, Cespedes, and Kuroda, trade Garza, Byrd, and Marshall for some quality packages, and not only be in good position to compete in the division this year, but in great position for 2013 onward. Not purusing any big free agents. Signing middling free agents to short term deals. Trading Marshall Shopping Garza.

Aside from Garza, who I doubt they move for a lesser package than the Latos return, everyone youn mentioned was an expiring contract or an older player. If you think about it, the majority of this team is expendable and the phrase full rebuild doesnt necessarily mean turning into the Astros. Hell, I'd we traded Soriano, Byrd, DeWitt, Baker, Marmol, and Z and signed Fielder and Cespedes that would pretty much be a total rebuild but that doesnt make it a bad thing. If we trade those players, but don't sign Fielder and Cespedes, then does it qualify as a failure? And what in God's name do you think we're going to get of value for Byrd/DeWitt/Baker?

Looking ahead to next offseason, would you expect the Cubs to sign one or two of the starters available in FA? Unless everyone gets over this aversion to "overpaying" for top talent, I fully expect us to be dumpster diving next year as well.

Really? You're telling me the notion of having a fire sale and rebuilding wasn't lambasted around here every time it was mentioned by the Chicago media over the past few years? Over the past few years, yeah, but that's because nobody had any faith in Hendry having any clue on how to go about doing that because he didn't look for the right things in players. Now that Theo is running things, there was hope that they would reload, but I don't think anybody is lambasting the idea of rebuilding, they're just disappointed that it's now going to be a few years before the Cubs are good again. So now, $140 million payroll teams do sometimes have to rebuild? That was never mentioned before. Only that Chicago media were idiots for suggesting the Cubs needed to have a fire sale last summer.

This offseason keeps getting better and better.

Really? You're telling me the notion of having a fire sale and rebuilding wasn't lambasted around here every time it was mentioned by the Chicago media over the past few years?

Well, when you're unwilling to sign established players to multi-year deals for fear of "overpaying," the alternative strategy is dumpster diving and hoping to strike gold.

How is this "breaking news"? Theo has been dumpster diving for the last few weeks and has offered to trade anyone that anyone will take (except Castro). As for Fielder, any of you posters who think we've been serious bidders have been smoking something. I find it hilarious that so many on this board thought Rogers, Rosenbloom, etc. were idiots because they've been suggesting the Cubs go for a complete rebuild since last year. "How stupid Rogers is. Teams with payrolls the size of the Cubs don't need to rebuild!" Everyone was dying for Epstein to take over. And now that he has, we're doing a rebuild. Absolutely classic.