Cubswin11

A) Only an idiot expects a team to perform at the high end of their expectations. B) They made it perfectly clear their number 1 goal was to trade veterans for prospects. C) The higher end of realistic projects by non-morons wasn't high in the first place. I'm not "acting" like anything. Rather I am actually living in the real world where the Cubs took an obvious dive last year and lost a lot of games as result. It wasn't luck that did them in, it was not trying to win games in the first place. The fact that the team at the end of the season was worse than the opening day roster was not a result of a weird series of events, it was the whole goddam point in the first place. Not arguing against any of this, but an argument could be made that the Team/Organization as a whole was a lot better and in stronger condition long term at the end of the year than it was at the begining.

10 months? It's bad enough people buy into the notion that Theo should get 3-4 years of not winning before he can be judged, but now we're going to pretend he's had less time than he really did? Okay 13 months, I thought he was hired in January of this year for some reason and not October of last year when he actually was.

You're right, all plans must start succeeding and show immediate results from day one with no time to allowed for adjustments and a foundation to be built all while changing an entires organizations paradigm from the top down. Well, yes. It's a results-oriented business. If they didn't think they could operate on parallel fronts, then someone else should have been hired. who says this isn't parallel fronts though? They lost 100 games last year, it's not parallel fronts. Anybody who is being the least bit honest will admit this isn't parallel fronts. So it's only parallel fronts if the ML team wins?

You're right, all plans must start succeeding and show immediate results from day one with no time to allowed for adjustments and a foundation to be built all while changing an entires organizations paradigm from the top down. Well, yes. It's a results-oriented business. If they didn't think they could operate on parallel fronts, then someone else should have been hired. Sooo adding all the good young players over the last 10ish month Theo has been here, reorganizing the entire FO/coaching staffs/scouts etc. with guys that will teach and preach what you want to your players (hiring/firing of guys, adding more positions), bringing in new technology throughout the minor league and major league parks to better analyze players, getting the new baseball academey started in the DR, signing your best young player to a long term extension, adding another young potnetial impact player at the ML level (Rizzo), and make smart, non-wasteful, signings on the ML roster isn't an example of operating on parallel fronts in about a 10 month period?

You're right, all plans must start succeeding and show immediate results from day one with no time to allowed for adjustments and a foundation to be built all while changing an entires organizations paradigm from the top down.

Not in November 2012, no. When at least 4 of the starting rotation spots are already taken? At the very least, Shark and Vizcaino should be above Wood. The front office is also showing they can pick up decent pitching on one year deals in most offseasons, too. You're missing the point. I'm not saying, gee I wonder what the 2014 roster will look like, it's that we're not building toward anything. If the 2014 rotation is Shark, Wood and one year flotsam we aren't going to try to compete until 2015 which is ridiculous. I think they are also waiting to see if they hit on any of the young guys added within the last year +/- (Maples, Vizcaino, Blackburn, Johnson, Underwood, Paniagua, etc.) to see what they have internally before they look to commit major money into the big league rotation. Not saying it's right or I agree with it, just what their line of thinking may be. Plus it's very possible we draft a college arm with the #2 pick in June.

As much as I'd like to agree, I have a feeling the Bears won't be favored against the Pack, even at Soldier. Probably depends on the relative health of the two teams going in, both should win their next 2 games so I don't think it will be a case of one team playing/looking drastically better. But both are dealing with injuries to some pretty significant guys. If I had to guess I'd say the opening line is somewhere between Bears -1.5 and Bears -3 as of right now.

I will admit, it's hard from that angle to tell if it was helmet to helmet at all. It's still illegal to "launch" yourself at a guy and leave your feet even without making helmet to helmet contact/target his head, isn't it? "Launching" can be a fine/suspension worthy play if it's deemed bad enough, right?

I don't know but there are more than a few guys, if dropped, that wouldn't be missed.

Like the move :good: . I think it's pretty clear pitching is going to be very expensive this offseason though with the early signings (Feldman gett $6mm this year and the Guthrie contract).

That really sounds like nothing serious at all. He'd be a pretty good addition to platoon at 3B with someone and provide a backup option for all the IF positions and possibly be an emergency OF as well. He's a career .333/.376/.487 (.864 OPS) against lefties, btw.

When did he break his leg?

Well that's what it talks about. There have been a few that actually did test for it and had their suspension dropped/reduced when the league investigated their appeal, but then some suspensions have stayed despite being appealed. Basically since the league doesn't make public what players test positive for there really is no way of knowing if they are telling the truth or not for what they tested positive for v. what they say.

This was awesome. :lol: Any chance you can record this convo for us all???

Simmons tweeted this article about why players basically all claim they just tested positive for adderall when a positive drug test comes up. http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/07/31/is-adderall-becoming-the-new-excuse-for-steroids-users/

They just paid more than six billion dollars for the television rights to a team that just sold for two billion dollars. They could have paid the two billion, and gotten the television rights along with the rest of the revenue from the Dodgers. Instead, they decided to pay a lot more to get less. That makes no sense to me. And it's not like they needed to know how to run the team, either. Every team has presidents and GMs and directors who make the actual baseball decisions. Owners don't need to be active, and typically are not. I'm not really advocating that Fox Sports should have purchased the team. I'm just stunned at the apparent disparity between the sale price of the team and the value of the product. It makes no god damned sense to me. $6-7B over 25 years is "only" like $250-280mm a year, it's a lot easier to come up with that money than the required debt/equity it would take to come in with $2B +/- up front to buy them. They aren't paying the $7B up front, they probably gave them a percentage up front of the $7B (like under 5%). Plus the $7B is paid off of advertising revenue so they know what the market is going to give them for advertising and the $7B is paid out of that revenue, likely requiring them to commit little to no up front equity/debt to do just the TV deal. Your talking at most for FoxSports to come up with a few hundred million dollars up front to secure that deal, rather than $2B+ it would have taken to buy the team.

And what might those opinions be? Nice reporting, Mooney :good:

I might in the right circumstances. If I were trying to win in the present, had a large-market payroll and had another option handy for 1b. Right, I think if both Molina and Rizzo were made available right now, Molina would definitely get more interest and probably generate a greater return. Two, maybe even one, year from now it will likely be the other way around.

in a perfect world, we could even swap Castro for Baez, and even include Soler if the Fish insist, given their earlier presumed interest this also seems more like the Marlins modus operandi for firesales, preferring the high-ceiling prospect (Miller, Maybin, Hanley, Marisnick) who's yet to reach the majors Soler (or Almora or any of the other 2012 draft/signees) can't be traded, even as a PTBNL. They could be included as PTBNL around a trade in like February +/- a month, I think. The rule is you have to hold onto a guy for a year before trading him after signing/drafting him and a PTBNL needs to be named/traded no later than 6 months after a trade.

How awesome would it be to have both Rizzo and Stanton back-to-back in the order for years to come! FFS, just die already Phil Rogers

Wow, that's a hell of an opportunity for a substitute teacher who spent about a decade floundering through various farm systems with a cup of coffee and a stint in Japan to show for it. Good for Bobby, that is quite the promotion (if that's what you want to call it). Pretty sure in his brief time up they talked about how great a person he was and he was a pretty smart guy. A guy with his background (meddling in the minors, Japan, sub teaching, etc.) should do well in a poisition like that and I think will bring a unique perspective.

How much did the Dodgers sell for? If the television rights are worth that much money, why didn't Fox Sports just buy the team outright? Maybe they didn't want to get into the owning/running an MLB team business and wanted to stay with what they know in the broadcasting business?

They're playing in the Kohl Center. That's worth half a dozen points right there. Pomeroy has it as an 85% Badger win. Granted, his system LOVES Bucky. That's true. But just from what I've seen, if Virginia is even a mediocre team this year like NIT/Bubble team talent level (and I have no idea if they are) they will give Wisconsin a game. I bet it will be within 10. I don't see it being a sure win, be it at the Kohl Center or not, they just aren't very good this year outside of Dekker and Berggren. For those that have the ability to watch on Wednesday I do recommend you tune in for at least a bit to see Dekker play, he's very exciting and only a freshman.

I've seen parts of all the Wisconsin games, they are incredibly average and could lose to Virginia. Dekker and Berggren are the only two guys who are any good and Dekker is going to be very good. Brust's stats look nice now, but he's only put them up against the [expletive] teams on their schedule (Presbyterian, Cornell, SE Louisiana) and has played awful in the three games against good-decent teams when he goes up against actual D1 talent (Florida, Creighton and Arkansas).

Assuming most of the injured guys play I really like the Bears only giving 3.5. As the week goes on and assuming Forte, Tillman, Briggs, etc. get cleared/it's known they will play I bet that gets up to 5 maybe even 5.5 before gametime.