Cubswin11

4PM CT Friday is also when FA can officially sign

Man, where does one begin as there’s so many to pick one and I don’t want to offend by forgetting one

Bovada doesn’t even have us on the board for Machado.....

And kept the game under Ruined the over and kept the game under? Amazing accomplishment Lol. horsefeathers I completely glosses over, the over comment and just saw Rams -7.5

Kershaw is topping out at 90 this year. This is who he is at this point, he’s got to make that adjustment that comes with old age and diminished stuff to so many pitchers. He’s no big dick Jon

And kept the game under

Pretty clever move by Boras to have Harper sign a deal already to avoid competing against Steve Pearce on the open market for the best OF bat.

Or Theo on tilt offseason gave him a blank check. But yeah you’re probably right and this was joking/trolling.

Hopefully when they say it’s completed and done it’s just the decision and not actual agreement. But us going with the FU offseason throwing all rules out the window and pissing MLB and other trams off would be fun. I doubt they could really punish us that harshly anyways.

From Heyman’s most recent column..... “The Cubs will surely pick up the $20-million option on Cole Hamels rather than buy him out for $6 million.”

Maybe stop pitching Madson in leverage spots mr bullpen tactician

That was a very Almora AB

Jesus Christ, Machado

Muncy’s footwork at 1B is just awful

I was in LA 2 years ago and went to a Kings game at like 11 AM local time and a Lakers game at night at 8 PM. I think they do that a lot out there. I guess I’d assume they have too with two NBA teams and an NHL team sharing that stadium.

Joe Buck apparently would call both the Rams and Dodgers game Sunday. His Deion Sanders moment

I know they changed the rule a bit after the Trea Turner, Padres-Nats trade but I'm not sure what it is. I think they moved the date up though that it's not a full ~year after the draft anymore.

Harper's MVP 2015: - .331/.463/.649 (.371 BABIP) - 19% K rate, 19% BB rate - .462 wOBA - 198 wRC+ - 22.7% LD%, 37.5% GB% 39.8% FB% - 11.7% SOFT%, 47.2% MED%, 41.2% HARD% Harper 2016-2018: - .267/.391/.505 (.299 BABIP) - 17% BB rate, 21% K rate - .375 wOBA - 132 wRC+ - 20% LD%, 40% GB%, 39.5% FB% - 15% SOFT%, 47.9% MED%, 37% HARD% He's still pretty damn close to that MVP player with underlying things and if the BABIP is normalized, he's hit the ball a little softer more often at the expense of hard hit balls and hit a few more on the ground vs line drives. He also BABIP'd his ass off in 2015 and probably has gotten a little unlucky since. His OPS and wOBA from 16-18' would have been top ~15 in the league this year and his wRC+ top ~20. I also want to say his batted ball profile was basically the same this year (or better in the spots you want to see) in 2018 as it was in 2015. He's also still horsefeathering 26.

Yeah, I heard some scouts have questioned Nico's arm strength, but there are many SS that have gotten by with a 5 arm. He has good range and it seems like he has good hands. David Eckstein had probably a 4/below-average arm and it worked for him. Also, no one cares about the weird arm stroke if your throws are accurate and you have good carry. I mean Russell also has kind of a weird arm stroke or motion. Scouts actually like it when you can throw accurately from weird angles/arm slots. Yeah as long as they don’t think the arm stroke will lead to injury who really cares as long as he’s accurate with it. And agree on the arm strength thing, if he has good range and good instincts a 5 arm will play. Russell can’t have more than a 6 arm, right? He’s been one of the best defensive SS in MLB with that. I don’t expect Nico to be Russell good fwiw, just that Hoerner can make the arm work if other things are plus like Russell has and at least be a slightly positive defender.

The Cubs have budgets. Aren’t going to be able to re-sign KB, Baez, Rizzo, and Contreras when you are significantly overpaying for a RF that you already have. There's a good chance we don't want to re-sign any (or most) of those players once they hit FA. Rizzo will be 33, KB 30/31, Baez ~29 and a baseball weirdo that is incredibly hard to project what his value will be, Contreras will be a 30 year old catcher and giving him a big deal would be dumb and if we want to keep him the cost likely won't be prohibitive. We are also printing money for the foreseeable future, we can afford almost whatever we want. Also on the Harper vs Heyward thing Bryce Harper last 6 years (2013-2018, 2013 was Harper's 2nd year at 20 years old): - .281/.396/.519 - 162 Dongs - wOBA .387 - wRC+ 143 - 15% BB Rate, 21% K Rate - 26.3 fWAR/22.2 bWAR (has surpassed 4 by both measures in last 3 years at least once and 3 or more in all 3 years by fWAR. Twice at 1.5 or under in bWAR which we know is largely defensive metrics and even the guys who make up the defensive stats know they aren’t an exact science) Jason Heyward last 6 years (2013-2016, 2013 was Heyward's 4th full year at 23): - .263/.338/.392 - 64 Dongs - wOBA .321 - wRC+ 102 - 9% BB Rate, 14% K Rate - 17.4 WAR/ 21 bWAR (Hasn’t surpassed 2.3 by either measure since 2015) I'll give you the defense argument a little. But Harper is fine in LF or RF and lot of his WAR/metrics are dragged down this year by playing CF, Heyward is absolutely better at any spot but he has to be valuable on defense because he derives a ton of his value from it and as he ages that will likely slip. So again, I have no idea what you are talking about with this Harper vs Heyward thing especially since a ton of the Heyward offensive numbers are from a player we likely never see again and he still wasn't as good as Harper for the 6 year time period you cited that included him being a good offensive player.

Jason Martinez from MLBTR suggested Schwarber for Wright & Fried. Expand the deal to include Quintana & Gausman to solve the young pitching hole that the Cubs have. Q is only 2 years older than Gausman and both have two years left before FA (I think, Guasman at most has 3 years left). Gausman could actually be more expensive over that time too. I saw that Schwarber-Braves blurb too. He mentioned Soroka and Fried for Schwarber too. I absolutely do that. Turn Fried in to a full time reliever like Miller/Hader, groom Soroka to be in the rotation in the next 2 years.

Even if they plan to say FU to the LT this offseason I can’t see a scenario we could get both. If we do we’d be over the upper limits substantially until the CBA is done. Getting both would require moving Heyward and all of his contract I’d guess and that would be incredibly expensive to attach the appropriate players with him to get it done, if even possible.