davearm2

I may actually agree with that. But there is a possibility that he gains SOME power, by moving away from Dodger Stadium. My main thing though, was he's an excellent defensive 1B and I think that will entice us, in this case. It's his llast year of arb and he may wind up as a Type B and Theo could look ahead at the additional pick possibility. The defense would really be the only argument for Loney. And that could be enough to make him a target, who knows. It's pretty much impossible to know what Team Theo thinks about anyone's defense, though, since their algorithm is confidential.

I don't disagree. But the important thing is signing the right player to a longterm contract. I know it's common for people to point to his FIP as proof that he was unlucky. But his BABIP didn't stray too far from his career average. What really killed him was the increase in line drive percentage. That could be luck, but that could also be a decline in his stuff, which wouldn't be too surprising given his age. I don't have a problem with Dempster, but it's not a given that he'll go back to a mid 3's ERA. This is another assumption that isn't the guarantee you paint it to be. Samardzija has been nothing but awful as a starter. It would be nice if he could build on last year, but it shouldn't be a surprise if he struggles again as a starter. Cashner shouldn't be counted on for anything. Z and Wells could be average, but it's just as likely they repeat last year. Yep. I don't get the acceptance of Barney. After April, he was the worst or second worst regular second baseman in baseball offensively. We're basically relying on questionable defensive metrics to derive value from him. He's a guy that needs to be replaced. Again, guys on the downside of their careers that weren't even average last year. They're probably not going to get better next year, and they may get worse. I don't really have a problem with the bullpen, but it's the easiest part of a team to build. The problem isn't just that we don't have stars. The problem is also the fact the best-case scenario for a lot of our players is that, if everything breaks in our favor, they're average. We need players with higher ceilings than that. So much spot on here. I haven't seen anyone here argue the Cubs should not sign ANY players to a long term contract at all. Yet anyone against signing Pujols/Fielder immediately gets slapped with this tag. Right on with Barney. His bat is barely playable, and measuring his defensive value is difficult. Right on with Soriano and Byrd. They're more likely to get worse than better. The Pirates are also a team stuffed full of decent players (Walker Doumit McCutcheon Tabata Alvarez etc). I doubt anyone would make them a contender if they replace Overbay with Pujols or Fielder.

Francona, obviously. In the back of my mind, I keep thinking Francona is the measuring stick for the rest of these guys. To borrow a golf analogy, Francona's the leader in the clubhouse at even par; if one of these others can step up and break par, they'll win.

To try to say this with any kind of certainty is just dumb and something you can't possibly know. We know that Baker can't hit righties, and something like 75% of the season's ABs are against righties. Given those facts, we should all hope that Baker isn't a part of the Cubs plans. He's a bench player or the short half of a platoon. Those guys are easily replaceable and imminently expendable. Baker hits lefties well enough that having him on the bench changes late game strategy. Opposing managers have to hesitate bringing in a lefty against someone like Colvin because they wouldn't want their lefty facing Baker. Players that can consistently put up? 850 on either side of the platoon do not grow on trees. He'd certainly have more value on the other side, but he is worth what he makes right now. I didn't mean to suggest Baker doesn't have value... he does. It's just limited. His value is on par with a guy like Reed Johnson. He can contribute, but he won't be a starter on the next great Cubs team. Someone like Flaherty or LeMaheiu might be... we can't know yet, because they haven't had much of a chance. That's why I'd prefer to give the playing time to those younger guys. The Cubs need to find long-term solutions, and Baker isn't one. I won't really care one way or the other if Baker is on the team or traded away, so long as nobody in charge is thinking he's "part of the plan" in the big-picture sense.

They mentioned the Aroldis Chapman contract as a benchmark

I've not said it won't be worth a lot nor have I said it's irrelevant. What I've said is that we should have the payroll room and young, cheap talent coming up through the system at that point to absorb the cost. $30 million is a lot of money, but it shouldn't be crippling if the new front office builds this franchise properly. That part of my post was more in response to the flippant "ain't no thang" comment made earlier by someone else. Paying a guy $30M to provide $10M worth of production is a "thang" for any team. There seems to be this rather bizarre sentiment that so long as it's not crippling, then it's smart. There are obviously all sorts of shades of bad between crippling and smart.

To try to say this with any kind of certainty is just dumb and something you can't possibly know. We know that Baker can't hit righties, and something like 75% of the season's ABs are against righties. Given those facts, we should all hope that Baker isn't a part of the Cubs plans. He's a bench player or the short half of a platoon. Those guys are easily replaceable and imminently expendable.

You don't think it's realistic to think that the third biggest market in MLB could be worth enough to have a $180-190 million payroll 8 years from now? The Red Sox and Phillies are in the $160s now and I have trouble believing we can't be at least where they are in payroll or a decent amount higher if the new front office is able to make this a successful franchise on the field. If the new Cubs TV idea comes to fruition, that would do nothing but help, I would think. What I think is that 8 years from now, $30M in payroll is still going to be worth a heckuva lot. Poo-poohing it as something the Cubs can just swallow without missing a beat is just silly (to me). Just to be clear: I'm not opposed to shelling out a massive contract for an elite player. I do question the timing of it right now though. Ideally, Team Theo kills it in the next few years and gets that pipeline of cheap young talent flowing to the bigleagues... THEN you sign the 2014 or 2015 version of Pujols, so that the marquee guy's prime years coincide with the homegrown guys' cheap years. Using up Pujols' remaining prime years while the bigleague team around him just isn't that good (sorry, it's not) seems misguided.

$30 million is always going to be a "thang". That's likely to be ~20% of the payroll. Besides, just because they could doesn't mean they should. It's still $30M they can't spend elsewhere.

I really hope that writer is correct and Texas isn't willing to pay Wilson. I'd be all over a 5/80 deal for him regardless of his postseason numbers last season. I just can't find the logic in disregarding 400+ innings of stellar pitching because a guy struggled in a handful of postseason games. Especially when he pitched fine in the 2010 postseason. That's the line of thinking that helped dismantle the 2008 Cubs. They won 97 regular season games, flopped against a string of right handers in the postseason, and Hendry felt the need to bring in lefties at all cost - meaning too much playing time for guys like Aaron Miles and Joey Gathright. You should never overreact to a small number of games in baseball, too many variables involved. LOL Hendry's "overreaction" was to sign the guy that led the AL in OPS the previous year. The "dismantling" he did was to trade DeRosa at the perfect time. Minus DeRosa, the same guys that made the 2008 offense so good were back.

If the Cubs are struggling to have two high priced, non-home grown players on their roster in 2018, then either Theo/Hoyer/McLeod have done a really poor job on the farm system and/or Ricketts has reigned in spending to a huge degree. This is a team with a very big payroll, the means by which to expand it, and the owner willing to pour money into the product on the field. If the three-headed monster heading up the Cubs builds the type of farm system we all expect them to, then we'll have a steady stream of cheap, productive players hitting Chicago each year. If that's the case, and payroll keeps rising as it should, then the Cubs shouldn't be hard pressed to sign a major impact player if they feel one is worth the cost. The Phillies have two players making $20 million, one making $15 million, and one making $10 million and still were able to find the budget room to fit in Cliff Lee at $24 million AAV. That's $65 million tied up in 4 players (without counting Lee) and two of those players are Ryan Howard making $20 million per and Joe Blanton making $10 million per. Overpaying one player isn't going to cripple this franchise if it's built well, and there's no reason to believe Theo and co won't build it well. I understand that point, but it's an idealistic scenario that isn't likely to happen. There's never a perfect scenario to overpay for a player. There's always some reason why you shouldn't sign a guy. If you have the means to pay a player without crippling yourself, you have a major need at a position, and you have two elite players on the free agent market, you're not going to find a more perfect scenario. You say you understand the point, but then finish by saying "you're not going to find a more perfect scenario". A more perfect scenario is if you already have a very good team (comprised of several young/cheap homegrown stars, ideally) and are one impact player away from being incredible. The Phillies adding Cliff Lee to an already outstanding core is a great example of this. I trust nobody would argue the Cubs are currently in this mode.

You don't think we'll be competitive for 6-7 years? That's when Pujols will be 37-38. There's no reason why the Cubs can't be a favorite for a playoff spot as soon as 2013 and they might have an outside chance at one next year. That's if we have an elite talent at first base. And if you look at Fielder, we'd have him through his age 34 season if he signed an 8 year deal. If you sit around waiting for the absolute perfect time for all of your young talent to be in the majors and about ready to peak and for there to be elite talent on the free agent market at the exact position you have a need, you're probably never going to sign any elite free agent. That scenario can't be planned and elite free agent players don't come around every offseason. To me, it's perfectly logical to jump at the opportunity for a big market team capable of turning things around in a year or two (and has done it twice in about 8 years) and with no MLB talent at first base above rookie league (or wherever Vogelbach is) to sign an elite talent that should have at minimum 3-4 years of prime left. Well to be clear, I'm just restating this author's viewpoint. I hope the Cubs are going to have a lot of great young talent on the bigleague roster in 6-7 years. It would be a shame if they were limited in what they could spend on a Mike Trout or a Bryce Harper (or some other organization's Starlin Castro for that matter) because they still owe a formerly-impactful Albert Pujols $100M. Anyway, the point is that ideally, you want your big-dollar free agent's prime years to overlap with your homegrown guys' cheap MLB years. Right now the Cubs don't have that volume of cheap homegrown guys that are producing at a high level in the bigleagues... Castro is basically it. Thus, however many prime years Pujols/Fielder have left would not be leveraged well here.

I think the point being made re: Pujols and Fielder is that the Cubs need to have their elite, mega-dollar players be in their prime years when the system eventually starts kicking out Lesters and Papelbons and Ellsburys and Pedroias. Bringing those young players online when the veteran stars are 37 or 38 and clearly in decline (or in Fielder's case, 280# or 300#) won't get the Cubs where they want to get. If that means you pass on this year's elite free agents in favor of those that will come available in 2 or 3 years, so be it.

I live in Wisconsin too. Sveum has never impressed me much in the interviews I've seen him do. He seems like a pretty robotic cliche-spewer; can't recall ever hearing anything particularly progressive come out of his mouth. I can't really articulate it well, but something about how Maddux carries himself leaves me impressed. He seems to inspire calm and confidence in his pitchers.

I don't even think he's really a candidate. Francona is the "none of the above" option.

I think I have to join him on this dream. Mike Maddux would be such a coup for this franchise....he's arguably the best coach in baseball right now...and I absolutely love what Texas has said they're doing with their pitchers (something akin to pitch counts are for c-words). Is there actually support for this somewhere? I know Ryan is quoted as saying that pitchers aren't working enough these days, but I don't know much about their actual program. Can you expand your point since you seem to have some idea of what is going on there? Or are you just going all old-school with the "pitchers these guys are pansies" kind of thing? There was a great article on the Rangers in SI awhile ago. It focused quite a bit on how they're handling pitchers. The gist of it is that they've chucked just about all of the conventional wisdom about protecting pitchers, limiting pitch counts, etc. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1169750/index.htm

2011 was 2006 all over again.

Why? Have you seen any evidence that he wouldnt sign with the Cubs other than he grew up a Cardinal fan? If he likes living in Chicago, and the Cubs are offering more than the Sox and the Cardinals arent interested, he will sign here. Well there were several quotes earlier in this thread (I think, or maybe another) about how much he despises playing at Wrigley. Something about how he would probably sign with the Cardinals even though it would mean 3 trips a year to Wrigley. Reading between the lines, it sounds like he kinda despises the Cubs too. Not hard to imagine a guy that grew up cheering for the Cards and then spent his career with the White Sox would have a little Cub hatred ingrained. That part is all my speculation, though.

What is the alternative to being picky, though? I'd imagine it's swinging at pitches you recognize you can't do much with, and hitting weak balls in play that usually turn into outs. Seems like "being picky" is the opposite of a problem.

The Cubs would have to be the proverbial last team on Earth to get Buehrle to sign with them. Even then, he might retire instead. Just let this idea go.

Unfortunately, there probably isn't an option that can approach Ramirez's production, but Stewart has posted some pretty good OPS's against righties, and his upside is higher than any other third baseman we have in the system. You sleep on the Vitters, though Stewart probably plays better D. I figured Vitters would be brought up, but go look at Stewart's minor league stats. He was successful at every level. Yeah I know the background....former top prospect....first round pick...good minors numbers...kind of player who'd generate interest if he was out there as an inexpensive maybe he breaks out option...still not someone I'm overly high on to see a leap in performance. You make him sound a lot like Alex Gordon.

How funny would it be if Jamie McCourt can manage to swing this buyout. You'd have to think that would take things from bad to worse for the Dodgers.

My post didn't suggest something stronger than that. The only thing implied by my post is that the sabermetrics (which come out of -- you guessed it -- a computer model) indicate Ramirez is not going to be worth his next contract. Further, Theo appears to be basing his decision not to retain Ramirez primarily on that analysis. If you inferred anything beyond that, you were mistaken. Now you're trying to justify your error by attacking me over my reputation. Regardless, your hostile tone is unwarranted and certainly unhelpful. My suggestion is that you apologize, so we can all move on.

Yep. I've heard that Cuban won't have to go through the MLB approval process in an auction. I highly doubt MLB is going to relinquish their approval process here. Makes no sense. Unless you're saying that Cuban has essentially been pre-approved since he's been through that process previously. I'm saying I've heard that MLB doesn't have a choice due to laws regarding the bankruptcy auction. So if Pete Rose puts in the high bid, he gets the team?

I haven't worked hard to establish a reputation. I couldn't care less about my reputation on this board. I'm here to discuss baseball and voice my opinion. Shame on you for suggesting there's anything else going on. The computer model *is* guiding decisions. Not sure why that's objectionable, or even disputable. In fact I'm at a loss to understand what other reason there would be to build it in the first place, if not to guide decisions.