CubsWin

Dear Santa, It's Christmas Eve and I know you're very busy so I'll keep this short. I've been a very good boy this year. I was frugal. I spent money wisely. I was industrious. I worked long hours. I was diligent. I asked all the right questions, didn't take short cuts and trusted in the process. I was faithful. I held to my principles no matter what my doubters were saying. Please, if you could see to it that Masahiro Tanaka signs with my team, I sure would appreciate it. But don't just do this for me. There are millions of people out there who have been hoping for a miracle since 1908. They still believe in miracles, and Christmas is a time for miracles. I'll put out a couple extra cookies this year for you, Santa. Signed, Theo

It's official. Merry Christmas, Cubs fans! Now go get him, Theo!!! EDIT: Multiple sources now confirming, not just Jim Allen.

No official announcement, but Dylan Hernandez has tweeted that a Japanese publication has reported that Tanaka has been posted. http://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2013/12/24/5242726/masahiro-tanaka-reportedly-posted-by-rakuten-eagles

http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/2013/12/cubs-sign-top-ifa-wladimir-galindo/ Awesome. This is what I was hoping for. Not him specifically mind you, but just sign as many restricted guys was we can since we decided to bust through the cap. Might as well load up on Talent. What is that now, 5 of MLB's top 30? That leaves Mayky Perez, Yimmelvyn Alonzo, and Wasner Peguero unsigned. I wouldn't mind signing all 3. I'm also hoping someone exciting pops up between now and the next spending period. No doubt the Cubs will at least be interested since the gloves are off. Were the reports on Mayky Perez signing with the Padres for $634,000 and Yimmelvyn Alonzo signing with the Rangers for $350,000 wrong? I know these things often fall through or were unofficial to begin with... Along with Peguero still being available, SS Obispo Aybar-Lara will become eligible to sign in April. Glad to have another lottery ticket in the fold. I wonder how much they paid him. Whatever it is, they had to pay MLB the exact same amount in tax.

You could call this a fluff piece on Baez, but I wouldn't. Just a great heart-warming story about his miracle sister. The work he's done with kids with Spina Bifida in the Jacksonville, FL area is chronicled, too. Kinda puts to rest any notion that Javy's a cocky jerk. Clearly those reports came from his opponents to whom he can do whatever he wants. He may have gotten that from his sister Noely (great Christmas name) who seemingly can do whatever she wants, too. It's a good read. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article/chc/every-day-with-sister-noely-is-special-for-chicago-cubs-player-javier-baez?ymd=20131223&content_id=66112700&vkey=news_chc Merry Christmas, everybody.

At least he can't be out for the season with a torn up shoulder in that position. Not with that attitude, mister. That's hilarious. Audible laughs from me. Side note, I predict ALFM will overtake LOL by the end of the century.

Why not? It's not just the FO; it's also (mainly) the owners. The hope/expectations was that you'd have new money taking over a major market franchise and they'd be able to act like a big market franchise while rebuilding the farm. Agree totally. The deal the Ricketts took from Zell certainly seems to have handcuffed them and that is quite disappointing. My comments were about those of us who are blaming Theo & Co. for not being able to put winning teams on the field the past two seasons. If there are any, that is, I may have misunderstood people's comments all along... And yeah, personally, my frustration is much more at the owners than the FO; the FO is far from infallible, but I simply don't believe that they're willfully handcuffing themselves from using money that's actually available to them. Completely agree that the FO has made their mistakes. Of course, I never expected perfection either. But I think they are choosing not to spend money that is available to them. Don't have a ton of evidence, though. If Tanaka is posted and they're all in on him, but chose not to go after Ellsbury or Choo, I think that would denote they have the funds but are being selective. Obviously, that hasn't happened yet...

Why not? It's not just the FO; it's also (mainly) the owners. The hope/expectations was that you'd have new money taking over a major market franchise and they'd be able to act like a big market franchise while rebuilding the farm. Agree totally. The deal the Ricketts took from Zell certainly seems to have handcuffed them and that is quite disappointing. My comments were about those of us who are blaming Theo & Co. for not being able to put winning teams on the field the past two seasons. If there are any, that is, I may have misunderstood people's comments all along... BTW, what's the gif in your sig from?

There was like *one* time in all of Cubs history that they simultaneously spent money to get the best possible players in the majors and sort-of shortchanged the rest of the franchise (although not as much as some want to believe), and it was a blip. Barely even a year or two. You're right. The wording I used in the above quote was poorly chosen. What I should have said was, "It seems to me that spending the money they had to spend on getting the best possible players at the major league level while ignoring the rest of the franchise is what the Cubs had been doing for much of my lifetime."

I don't know about that. The number of widely agreed upon impact prospects is a measurable thing. The number of top 100 prospects across several different rankings is a measurable thing. The numbers those prospects are producing at certain levels and ages are measurable, too. What they've accomplished is real and quantifiable. Many of the Cubs minor league assets were not here two years ago and are an important part of building a healthy franchise. Beyond that, (and to an earlier point, sorry) the number of scouts and developmental staff, the cameras in every minor league stadium and the staff to compile the video, the technological & sabermetric teams, the improved facilities in Mesa and the Dominican, the money spent on IFAs are all measurable things that either weren't in place two years ago or have improved since. These things haven't amounted to one more win at the major league level since Theo took over. But they are certainly quantifiable, and I'm glad the Cubs have them now.

That's more or less true, but it's not like that money was being diverted to the major league product very often. The Cubs underinvested in all aspects of the organization, top and bottom, for most of the 20th century. Then in the 21st they've kind of bounced back and forth between a few different plans. There was barely any time at all where the reason scouting/development was underdeveloped was the MLB product hogging resources. Totally agree. I really like that they are now heavily investing in the scouting and development side as well as the technology side for the first time ever. That's exciting. I didn't mind the quip about Cubs fans forgetting that other teams want good players on their rosters and want to win lots of games. I thought it was a sarcastic & funny joke, and my response was meant in the same vein, but it seems some people are really upset that the Cubs haven't won a lot of games since Theo took over. That I don't get.

That's correct, they are not a healthy franchise yet. Never said they were. But it is incorrect that they haven't taken measurable steps in becoming one.

I remember the promise of building on "dual fronts". Yeah, those results have not been great...

More speculation on a posting announcement. This time from Ben Badler of Baseball America.

It is literally amazing to me that this complete and and total horsepoop has become accepted fact for so much of the fanbase. PR firms exist, and make lots of money, for a reason. And it's amazing to me that you think a team that was saddled with so many bad contracts, had two losing seasons prior to Theo taking over and little to no young, controllable, impact talent should be able to magically conjure a winning team immediately upon signing a new GM while at the same time building a healthy franchise where there hadn't been one in 60 years. It's also amazing to me that you could also be blind to all of the progress that has been made in building a healthy franchise able to produce teams that will consistently be in the playoffs. They're not there yet, but the progress is measurable whether you want to see it or not.

If the point of building a consistent winner is to avoid losing seasons then they've already failed with multiple losing seasons. You can't praise the process of building a consistent winner and ignore all the consistent losing. I think you missed the point. They are building a consistent winner. Not conjuring one. Taking an unhealthy franchise, one that had sold out it's long term for it's short term for decades and had very little in the way of young, controllable, impact talent, and building one from the ground up takes time. If you'd like to criticize them for having two losing seasons, be my guest.

Line drives don't touch the ground. These can. You can have an extremely well struck ground ball.

A very interesting article by Mark Simon of ESPN.com involving a new stat (at least one that I've never heard of) on the Cubs signing of one Justin Ruggiano. The stat is WHAV or well-hit average. To sum up the article, Simon provides a pretty strong statistical argument for why Justin Ruggiano will have a rebound season and may be more than just the short end of a RF platoon.

And we did, in fact, have a pretty decent rotation despite all that happening. For having to deal with a Garza injury and trade and a Baker injury, it ended up being with spitting distance of average. The bigger problem was that our lack of pitching depth forced us to sign swingmen to do double-duty and try to patch the rotation and pen at the same time, and when those guys got pressed into service in the rotation, the pen fell apart. From Gregg's first save to the day of the Garza trade, the team was 39-40. 5-13 before Gregg, 22-43 after Garza. This post has me irrationally optimistic about how decent the team could be if Rizzo's results improve and Castro bounces back to at least 2010-12 form...a little Baez call up magic could make things interesting. That is, of course, assuming the rotation isn't a dumpster fire, which it very well could be depending on what happens with Samardzija and Tanaka. I agree that there's enough there to hope on, but the problem is that while we should get some improvements from Castro and whatever, that's probably balanced out by not having a bunch of random replacement-level infielders go out of their minds like Ransom and Murphy did. And I'm not ready to count on 3-4 wins from Welington Castillo every year just yet. And thanks to North, I now know that Junior Lake is awful despite what we got from him last year. It feels like we're almost Hendrying in that we're addressing precisely what went wrong with the previous season and letting new problems emerge (but I guess you can't fix everything with our current budget restraints). It's hard to see the bullpen not being at least adequate this year if not better, but the rotation looks iffy and the offense looks pretty putrid to me. I agree. If this is the roster the Cubs take into the start of the season, it likely won't be pretty. And I agree that Lake isn't as good as some of his numbers might be suggesting to others. But I hedge when it comes to declaring him awful as if that's all he'll ever be. He was 23 last season.

If you say so. Are people still questioning this? It seems pretty implicit that it is true. I'm not questioning whether the owners do or do not have limited funds. Obviously, they do. To what extent they are limited, I certainly do not know the number. If David or anyone else does, then they know a lot more than me about the inner financial situation of the Ricketts family. What I don't question is that the decision how to prioritize those limited funds, namely to create a healthy franchise from the ground up first and then when the windows line-up switch the priority to the big league club, is Theo's. That's been the clearly communicated plan from the beginning and every action the front office has taken has been in line with it. The question remains, if they have the money to go hard after Tanaka but didn't go all in on Ellsbury, et al, then is it a matter of not having the funds or an issue of wanting to prioritize how to allocate them?

If you say so.

But they'll get another year of Tanaka It's sometimes hard for Cubs fans to remember that other baseball teams perversely want to have good baseball players on their roster and win lots of baseball games. Oh yeah... Good players. I forgot about those. Silly me, I thought it was about building a healthy franchise top to bottom that will consistently produce playoff teams thus increasing their chances of winning a world championship...or several. I got all wrapped up in that Theospeak and lost focus on the real prize, get as many good baseball players on your major league team as you can no matter what method, and win as many baseball games as you can this season. Thanks, Mr. Logic, for once again showing some of us lost Cubs fans the light. Those things aren't mutually exclusive and shouldn't be treated as such. Major league seasons are precious. Time is precious. You don't just throw it away on purpose. Just as Kyle, I assume, was being somewhat facetious, so was I. In the way I facetiously described it, they are mutually exclusive. From where the Cubs were two years ago, you can't throw enough of your limited resources towards getting as many good players on your major league roster as possible and have enough resources left over to build a franchise that will produce consistent playoff contenders year after year once the rebuild is complete. If you've got nearly unlimited resources it gets easier, but it's still a matter of priorities. You unfortunately have to make hard choices. I, for one, don't think it is a bad allocation of limited resources to build for the consistent winner as a team's main priority for a few seasons while making it the team's second priority to spend money to get the best possible major league players in the present season. Occasionally, those two priorities combine as in the case of Tanaka. And eventually, once the franchise is rebuilt from the bottom up, the windows for winning converge and the spending priorities shift. It seems to me that spending money on getting the best possible players at the major league level at the expense of the rest of the franchise is what the Cubs had been doing for much of my lifetime. I'm ready to try the other way and then, when the time is right, converge the twp priorities and create more balance between the two. Unfortunately, during the first phase, the club employing this approach will be open to attacks, facetious or otherwise, from impatient fans. The Cubs are still in the first phase and so...

But they'll get another year of Tanaka It's sometimes hard for Cubs fans to remember that other baseball teams perversely want to have good baseball players on their roster and win lots of baseball games. Oh yeah... Good players. I forgot about those. Silly me, I thought it was about building a healthy franchise top to bottom that will consistently produce playoff teams thus increasing their chances of winning a world championship...or several. I got all wrapped up in that Theospeak and lost focus on the real prize, get as many good baseball players on your major league team as you can no matter what method, and win as many baseball games as you can this season. Thanks, Mr. Logic, for once again showing some of us lost Cubs fans the light.

No pressure to win? Being a part of the team that ended the longest championship drought in sports history? I can't imagine most US players give much of a [expletive] about that, let alone a Japanese import, let alone to a team who is terrible. I can. It's as much of a valid reason as "wearing the Yankee pinstripes". After the money, the selling points get very subjective. Who knows what teams Tanaka has rooted for/followed closely in the past. But the Cubs have a very loyal following all over the world. It's just as good a reason as any of the other crazy reasons out there. Eloy Jimenez reportedly got offered more money by another team, Yankees if I recall correctly, and he turned it down because his favorite player growing up was Sammy Sosa.

Also, when asked to name the starting roster for his all-prospect team. He picked Bryant as his RFer. The team went: LF: Taveras CF: Buxton RF: Bryant 3B: Sano SS: Bogaerts 2B: Odor 1B: Singleton C: Hedges RHP: Walker RHP: Bradley RHP: Gausman RHP: Ventura RHP: Syndergaard Closer: Meyer Not necessarily a comment on his ability to stick at 3B. More of a comment on how good his bat and athleticism are. I'll take it.