Jump to content
North Side Baseball

davearm2

Verified Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2,776

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by davearm2

  1. davearm2
    Thanks, Gary. What was said: VOROS McCRACKEN: The lower-revenue teams are in a bit of a bind when it comes to high school prospects because they are more of an unknown. It becomes difficult for a team that's not bringing in that much in terms of revenue to take a big-money chance . . . GARY HUGHES: Why are they an unknown? I don't understand. Because of the data? What it meant: "I don't understand why you believe high school prospects that can be evaluated through scouting are an unknown. They're not unknown." What you heard: "I don't understand baseball." Gary Hughes doesn't see the difference between projecting a high school kid vs a college kid because he sees them with his EYES and feels their potential with his GUT. Not only does that fly in the face of any responsible use of statistics, it defies common sense. That's a problem. He didn't say that. That's your spin. I'm going to go ahead and continue to cling to the apparently bizarre notion that a lifelong professional scout grasps the difference between projecting HS prospects and college prospects.
  2. davearm2
    Thanks, Gary. What was said: VOROS McCRACKEN: The lower-revenue teams are in a bit of a bind when it comes to high school prospects because they are more of an unknown. It becomes difficult for a team that's not bringing in that much in terms of revenue to take a big-money chance . . . GARY HUGHES: Why are they an unknown? I don't understand. Because of the data? What it meant: "I don't understand why you believe high school prospects that can be evaluated through scouting are an unknown. They're not unknown." What you heard: "I don't understand baseball."
  3. davearm2
    I can't give him a lot of leeway on interpreting that one. So it is your belief that a man that has spent his entire professional career as a baseball scout does not realize that the development curve, risk/reward equation, maturity process, injury potential, etc. etc. is different for HS players versus college players. You believe Gary Hughes does not grasp any of these concepts, and is in fact totally oblivious to all of these considerations. Do I have that right?
  4. davearm2
    Are you sure he didn't understand or is it that his job is to try to beat the odds? I'm very sure he didn't understand. Are you sure you read the interview? You can't be serious. The guy may or may not suck at his job, but he surely understands the pros and cons of drafting HS players vs. college players.
  5. davearm2
    I'd rather have Choo or Masterson too, but the point of the trade proposal was salary dumps on both sides. I think Choo is pretty much "untouchable" and Masterson is a good young pitcher making the minimum, so I don't see a way of involving Zambrano in a trade for either one of them. If the Indians wanted to dump those salaries, wouldn't they just decline the options?
  6. davearm2
    It actually makes the defense worse.
  7. davearm2
    No, the link where Ricketts says Z will be traded.
  8. davearm2
    It would have been nice to have more seriously considered dealing Marmol at the deadline, no? Now he's about to get much more expensive, possibly less effective, and probably less important given the makeup of the rest of the pen. /bitter By the same token, I'm perfectly good with them keeping everyone, and letting the next GM make those calls.
  9. davearm2
    Profit maximization is so darn un-American.
  10. davearm2
    Imagine you're a GM candidate. Which conversation makes you more likely to accept the job? "Our current farm director is under contract, but the terms are flexible so you can keep him, fire him, or reassign him as you see fit." "We have no farm director. You'll be starting at square one there." How about this one? "You want me to be GM of a team that hasn't won in 100+ years and turn this franchise into a WS winner. You want a new direction and yet, you've just recently signed 1-2 executives to long-term contracts. Don't you think(because of my experience and contacts) that I know already who the best minor league and farm people are for this franchise? Are you going to let me run the team as I see it or fill it full of your friends, Tom?" Funny, I answered your question before you even asked. Bolded for your benefit.
  11. davearm2
    Not liking hockey getting thrown under the bus here. In fact as a general rule, hockey players are way tougher than they act, not the other way around. Hockey didn't shape Morgan into what he is. In fact his act would be far more outlandish in that sport than baseball.
  12. davearm2
    Imagine you're a GM candidate. Which conversation makes you more likely to accept the job? "Our current farm director is under contract, but the terms are flexible so you can keep him, fire him, or reassign him as you see fit." "We have no farm director. You'll be starting at square one there."
  13. davearm2
    What would be cool is if this guy offered, say, $700M if he gets to keep the team in the NL, or $500M if he's going to be railroaded into the AL. Obviously the franchise's value is tied to the league it is in, so it would make sense. Put it in Selig's court to decide which is most important -- maximizing franchise value, or getting the division alignments he wants. The guy would be a moron for not going to the AL. Bunch of games against an in state rival and more games against the Yankees and Red Sox. It's hardly a given that it would be more profitable for the Astros to play in the AL. They already play the Rangers in interleague play. And they'd trade like 15-20 home dates with the Cubs and Cards for 6 home dates with the Yanks and Sox.
  14. davearm2
    What would be cool is if this guy offered, say, $700M if he gets to keep the team in the NL, or $500M if he's going to be railroaded into the AL. Obviously the franchise's value is tied to the league it is in, so it would make sense. Put it in Selig's court to decide which is most important -- maximizing franchise value, or getting the division alignments he wants. Imagine the fit Drayton McClane would have if he chose the latter.
  15. davearm2
    Sounds like a semantics issue to me, which is as trivial as it gets. Scouting is most definitely a part of his job, and you can not and do not evaluate players without some scouting being done. We'll have to agree to disagree. IMO what Fleita does is not scouting.
  16. davearm2
    He still scouts, he might not fill out the OFP reports but when evaluating the system, he is essentially scouting them. Only if you consider evaluating your own players "scouting". I don't. How is that not scouting? The foundation of evaluation is still the same, the difference is greater access to coaches. You scout players you may be playing against (advance scouting), or players you might try to bring into your organization (amateur scouting, international scouting, etc.). Regardless, the common theme is, the guys you're scouting are not a part of your organization... they're on other teams. Look you might think it a trivial distinction, but the Cubs scouting department is a wholly separate entity from the player development/minor league system. Fleita is clearly in the latter area, not the former. Wilken is the scouting director.
  17. davearm2
    He still scouts, he might not fill out the OFP reports but when evaluating the system, he is essentially scouting them. Only if you consider evaluating your own players "scouting". I don't.
  18. davearm2
    Fleita is not in the scouting department.
  19. davearm2
    I like Carlos Pena a lot. I like Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder better. I think this is probably the mindset of the majority of the folks around here. I don't think anyone out and out hates having Carlos Pena on the team, but when you have the opportunity to sign two players who are leaps and bounds better than him, you start hoping for him to pack his bags in favor of one of those two guys. If we miss out on the Fielder and Pujols sweepstakes and we wind up with Carlos Pena again, it will be a little disappointing because we didn't land one of the big fish, but he's not a bad consolation prize because he does have good plate discipline and is good at getting on base and this team needs a guy like that. If we wind up with him because management decided he was the better option and they did not want to pursue Fielder or Lee as a by product of that thinking? [expletive] Carlos Pena I understand the reasons why just fine. It's still awfully ironic to me.
  20. davearm2
    What's funny is that most folks can't wait to get rid of the Cub with the best plate discipline and highest walk total -- by far.
  21. davearm2
    Curious what you'd say to the following hypothesis. Let me say up front that I don't necessarily buy into it, but it's surely plausible. It goes like this. Fleita is the person in charge of implementing the GM's master plan for player development. Fleita doesn't create the plan, he just carries it out. He's the caretaker... the middle-man between the GM and the minor league coaches. Put a new GM in place, with a new set of parameters and ideals and points of emphasis, and Fleita and his coaching staff will adapt their methods and approach to fit the new organizational player-development blueprint. Of course a natural outcome, if you believe this theory has merit, is that Fleita very well may have done things much differently if he was left to his own devices, rather than taking his marching orders from Hendry. We really can't know for sure. Personally I think it's much more likely that the Cubs' player-dev system is an amalgamation of Hendry's and Fleita's philosophies. But the notion that Hendry was the mastermind, and Fleita the lieutenant, surely could be accurate.
  22. davearm2
    My thought exactly. It almost certainly wouldn't be prohibitively expensive to fire Fleita.
  23. davearm2
    It is all relative. He is with the Red Sox now. No its not relative. You said the Cubs are tight with spending and they have the 6th biggest payroll in baseball, 3rd last year. Sorry if the Cubs didn't shell out an extra 20 mil during a period where ownership changed and inherited an extremely flawed and overpaid team. 20 mil probably wouldn't have made this team a playoff team so theres no point in adding more high priced and potentially disasterous contracts. Rickets did the right thing and invested the money in scouting and the draft. Epstein would love smart ownership like that, possibly because it reminds him of the team he's currently with and not the bumbling band of morons that have symbolized the cubs front office for several decades. His wording was flawed, but his point stands. Epstein has no motivation to jump ship. He has a situation that is already good. Everyone credits him with making it good, and while the Cubs' payroll is high the one he has now is higher than high. why leave? His wording wasn't really flawed at all. The point is, Epstein is going to be taking a downgrade if he leaves Boston, period. Now he may wish to leave to pursue another challenge (heck he did that already once), but his next gig isn't going to have all of the advantages he enjoys in Boston.
  24. davearm2
    "The only thing that keeps this organization from being recognized as one of the finest in baseball is wins and losses at the major league level." -- Devil Rays GM Chuck Lamar
  25. davearm2
    Except that is just about as asinine of a statement to make. The Cubs are not in a mess. The relatively new financial solvent owner has decided to make a change at GM. They have a sound, if unspectaculiar minor league system and actually assets on the major league team. The revenue continues to flow, if at slower rates than when they won more frequently. The team on the field isn't any good, but the franchise is in no way shape or form a mess right now. The Cubs aren't a mess financially, but they're paying a whole lot of money to finish in 5th place, and like WSR said, fan angst is building. The fact that so many here are so desperate to sign Pujols or Fielder should tell you something. The on-field product needs a major overhaul.
×
×
  • Create New...