Aaron_Kennelly

How are we going to have the imaginary decade of dominance if this front office can only draft well at the front of the draft? Because if there are superstars in place in, I don't know, maybe a couple of our top-five picks and Rizzo, then we can add pretty good prospects from later in the draft to complement them, rather than just relying solely on guys drafted later in the draft.

That last line should continue, "... just enough to win 79 games and still not have any playoff hopes, and then be deprived of Albert Almora (eh), Kris Bryant, and Kyle Schwarber + three high school arms with good upside." Thank goodness we dodged the terrible drafting they did in Boston. ... under a different draft system, when they could throw a bunch of money at the draft and get a lot of good, lesser talents and some eventually turned out really good.

That last line should continue, "... just enough to win 79 games and still not have any playoff hopes, and then be deprived of Albert Almora (eh), Kris Bryant, and Kyle Schwarber + three high school arms with good upside."

Not to mention that we have a guy in Valbuena who has been worth about 1 win less than Sandoval in each of the last three years. While, at the same time, our only two starting pitchers that have been with us for longer than a year rank last and next-to-last in ERA of any qualified pitchers in the majors. Even not factoring in "holes," if we wanted to use our available funds to add the most value to the team, the most efficient way in doing so is by adding two starting pitchers.

The benefit is multi-layered, too. On top of all the things tiger mentioned, it also helps when you are buying out years if you are buying out, say, 5 years instead of 4. And, extending a player's controlled years through his most productive ages is so much more important than getting him up while he is 21 or 22 for a few more AB's. There is so much value monetarily, and in value that they produce on the field for you. And it might cost us a win, at most, for like a month... when we have Ruggiano, Coghlan and Valbuena already on the roster.

So what, we just let them walk after that? The Yankess did with Cano, and they aren't very cheap.

And praying for no holes. Yeah, pretty much. Hop aboard! But, we are better positioned next year, if a couple of spots end up being holes. We have Valbuena, Coghlan, and Ruggiano in place as back-up plans (or at least being relied upon less/in lesser roles), instead of Joe Mather and Donnie Murphy. Now any of them could pull a Schierholtz on us and suck. But, I think we are in much better position to weather the storm if there are holes.

Agreed. They very likely could be holes. But, that's what makes next year exciting and terrifying at the same time. But that's not what Tim said. There may be holes, but there's no reason to spend heavily on them this off-season because of all the young talent available. I agree with Tim. What I am saying is we don't know if they are holes until we play the young talent, which we are definitely going to do so. So I agree with him that there is no need to really spend on free agents at all of the current holes. But, to say there are no holes is a little disingenuous, when we don't know if there are or not. We don't know what holes will need to be filled in the future, but we do know that no more than one will be filled this off-season by free agents.

Agreed. They very likely could be holes. But, that's what makes next year exciting and terrifying at the same time.

"Easy" when you have $40M to spend and no position holes to spend it upon. Yes. Slow down. Catcher? What other position would you fill through FA this offseason? No idea, because I don't what's out there because Theo has killed my love of baseball. My black heart full of heart is just always a little amused when people talk like the Cubs can basically set their future lineup in stone. Setting the future line-up -- as in 3 years from now -- in stone is silly. But, when you have three highly acclaimed prospects in AAA right now, you can set them into next year's lineup in stone. At least I hope we do. They are ready to be given a shot, and once given a shot, they will be given allowances to start everyday. So, they are set in stone, for now. They may suck and we might need to find replacements for them. But, Rizzo, Castro, Alcantara, Bryant, Baez, and Soler are six spots that absolutely should be set in stone.... unless there is a trade. Maybe that's not until May, even. But there's no need to spend on a guy who will block one of them, when we have several credible guys that can hold spots for those guys for a month, or if one/multiple of them are out of their element and need to be sent back down for awhile.

Pixie dust is potent stuff. There's enough of that stuff to go around. I imagine Renteria is like this when Bosio pulls it out (NSFW):

they'll both show up but i already [expletive] hate the CBA that incentivizes this, if that answers your question It's such an antiquated idea. But, if you aren't trying to take advantage of it, then you are just stupid. I hate it so much, though.

What's Rivero's velocity at and what is his stuff like? Fastball/hard slider, I assume? I don't know much of anything about him, other than that I can't wait to see him in the majors.

Poor guy, all he had was Starlin Castro, Jeff Samardzija, Matt Garza, Wellington Castillo, Ryan Dempster, Andrew Cashner, Darwin Barney. Not a spec of MLB production or trade value in that bunch. That's not what I am saying. I am saying if one of those guys we weren't counting on turned into an 8-win superstar that changed our team makeup from being a 74-win team into an 82-win team -- solely because of the development of one player -- then it probably would have been wise to move the process along a little quicker, so we weren't wasting 8-win players during their prime. We didn't have anyone playing like that and were stuck in 70-75 win Loserville, so he correctly decided to become a terrible team the past two years.

I should say, I'm not in agreement with everything Theo and co. have done. I hated the Jackson signing; I have no idea what they were doing trying to get more cap space for international free agents and then just blowing past the cap anyway; and I wanted more semi-competent guys traded away earlier (Wood, Schierholtz, DeJesus, and Barney, to name a few). But, I also thought the Arrieta and Strop return was uninspiring, even given the fact that Feldman is garbage. And I wasn't a fan of the Feldman or Hammel signings, either. So what the hell do I know? My happiness for Theo is based solely on the fact of where I wanted the organization -- as a whole -- to be at right now, and how this organization measures up to those expectations I had. But, I also think there are a lot of great things Theo has done: 1. The trade for Anthony Rizzo and subsequent early extension. 2. The drafting of Kris Bryant. 3. The trade for Addison Russell. 4. The revelation of Jake Arrieta. I think all of those moves took balls, and they are the type of big moves that could pay off monumentally. I also applaud the "Eff all pitchers" approach and think other smart GM's will eventually see the error of their ways and look to emulate such an approach.

Fine, 6 or 7 seven years, where we could make the playoffs in five or so years. I would still rather have that after three years of suck, when the alternative is to try to turn a 70-win team into an 80-85 win team. I mean, Kris Bryant is gonna be pretty damn good. Also, it's shame that Theo had Josh Vitters and Brett Jackson to rely on, rather than an unheralded third-baseman like Josh Donaldson languishing in the minors. Had a guy like Vitters turned into an 8-win player, I bet Theo would have accelerated the timeline. Sometimes [expletive] just doesn't work out.

Who thought the "plan" was going to take a shorter amount of time than this? Literally everyone three years ago. Even the people who wanted to rebuild would say things like "If we're not good by 2014, then I'll be right there with you." Well, that's not the plan I wanted. I wanted to be really bad for at least two years, and maybe be around .500 this year. But, I always saw 2015 as the year that was the tipping point. I don't want to bring in old arguments, but I saw you recently bring up how the A's were in a similar position after 2011. But I don't want to follow their path, anyway. If they don't win it this year, they are pretty much fucked. Maybe they can next year if things go right, but Cespedes is now gone, his replacement, Lester, is gone, Samardzija is probably going to be traded this off-season. Then everyone is gone the following year. And their farm system is a bunch of junk. We have built the Dominican Academy, brought in Tom Tango, brought in Derek Johnson, have a great pitching coach in Bosio, a collection of hitting prospects that rivals any group of hitting prospects in history. We are moving forward with the renovations, have new TV and radio deals soon to be in place, hopefully the debt burden from the sale will soon be gone. And we are in a huge market. The state of the organization was terrible when Theo took over, and not just in talent at the minor league and major league level, but everywhere -- especially financially because of Zell holding Ricketts hostage on the sale. It had to be a multi-year ordeal. But, I feel like we are in a great position going forward. And most importantly, I think making a push too early would have given us what Billy has -- a small window for success. I think our window for success right now is a decade long. I couldn't be more happy with what Theo has done.

Who thought the "plan" was going to take a shorter amount of time than this?

What makes them magically immune to variance in the postseason? Building a team that can repeatedly make the playoffs, and have more and more chances to have variance work to their advantage. So how many times are you envisioning them making it under this regime? I'm just saying "complete confidence" is probably unfounded. Even if they make it 6, 7 times, they still could easily not win it all in that time. Depends on how long they are here for, I guess. But, in the next decade, I see no reason that we can't make it 6 or 7 times... provided things work to plan. If we make the playoffs 6 or 7 times in a decade, then not winning it once would be a major letdown, though totally realistic, I agree.

What makes them magically immune to variance in the postseason? Building a team that can repeatedly make the playoffs, and have more and more chances to have variance work to their advantage.

You must think he is getting called up on Tuesday.

http://37.media.tumblr.com/c34f8008988755fc342607744d943f6e/tumblr_mv716c4rMi1rb3vwro2_400.gif

Javy!

I just want to win a World Series, and I have complete confidence in Theo, Jed, et al. to get that done. I don't care about sucking the last three years. I actually like watching this team, right now. And I can't wait for next season. I have never wavered from believing in "The Plan."

There are things with bullpen management, line-up construction, and, mainly, bunting that I haven't been a fan of, but the main thing we were looking for was someone to help Rizzo and Castro (and other youngsters) develop. I'm not sure how much of that credit really goes to him, but those two have certainly been much improved. And, the other stuff hasn't been as much of a concern, now that we have weeded out a lot of the terrible players. I hope some of the things he has done to try to manufacture runs won't be employed when we have a better offense. Passing grade, with room for improvement.