bigkid66
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Everything posted by bigkid66
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Sweet. Does that lend some credence to the idea that the payroll cuts might have been a political move (sucks either way - just a thought)? I know a lot of people on this board don't trust/like Ricketts but I haven't seen any reason to doubt that he really loves the Cubs, wants to win and his driving force behind these changes is to put the Cubs in a better place to do that and to get the players/fans a nicer facility (I'm sure his family will make plenty of money also). However, I could see how the talk of not being able to field a competitive team (payroll cuts) could be used as leverage (and much better than the threat of moving). Attendance figures have shown that the Cubs may have priced themselves out of the "hey it's a nice day, let's go to Wrigley and have few beers and watch a crappy baseball team" market. A boring team with no playoff buzz lowers attendance and that probably hurts the businesses around Wrigley more than the Cubs. Share the Pain is good leverage. I believe a deal will get done. Maybe with a 4000 sq ft sign instead of a 6000 sq ft one...but that's probably what they wanted anyway.
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OK, you've got the land for free. Where's the money for the actual building of the stadium going to come from? That's a $500m-$1b outlay. The normal places? I don't know if it's been disclosed how Ricketts plans to raise the current $500M but I'm sure it's not coming out his bank account. If they can raise $500M to renovate Wrigley (with hotel) why couldn't they raise $500M to build a new ballpark, which may allow them even more flexibility in revenue streams? It's hard (impossible) to say without seeing the numbers. Maybe the government of the new location gives them 50% of the Amusement Tax for the first 20 years to help fund or maybe they give them tax credits that make it work. Having said that, I don't think there's any way they move. There's too much money to be made by all parties involved at the current location.
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Have a lot of experience negotiating hundred million dollar deals that include the City of Chicago, do you? I assume he doesn't want to start piecemeal improvements until he has the whole plan approved, which makes perfect sense. Extreme patience is required.
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Yes, please.
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I can see what Sveum means when he says Jackson has a "lazy head" (or whatever he said). On that last curve he didn't seem to be tracking the pitch at all. He seemed to be gazing out at the pitcher at the end of the swing.
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Minor League Discussion & Boxes 8-3-12
bigkid66 replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
Stretching out Wang? There's a joke in there somewhere... -
You need good players to win. The Cubs don't have many of them and they just gave a couple of them away via trade. I don't think they "gave" them away. I think they got back some young players that hopefully turn into assets around the time the team is competitive again (I'm hoping 2014).
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I think with the current rotation they're back to be being awful The roster is neither aging or expensive. It's getting younger on a daily basis. A fair amount of the young talent already is contributing. The only aging/expensive players I can think of are Soriano and Marmol. I think it's obvious he's referring to young talent currently in the Minors contributing in 2014. I can't wrap my head around how how a roster gets younger on a daily basis. I would think the vast majority of the time the roster gets older on a daily basis.
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Somewhat disappointed in Castro's year so far. I was hoping to see more growth offensively. His OPS is 5th on the team and only slightly above Barney's (.756 vs .745). His 6/41 BB/K numbers are not encouraging. I'm still hoping for a superstar but I'm worried we'll only get above average.
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pretty much my thoughts. i really don't care about saving money in the short-term at all, there's no place for it to go. With the 30 some mil that came off the books last year and went mostly untouched I don't know what benefit an additional 5 or so mil could be. Maybe it makes it more of a lock that we sign Soler? Maybe we have more to give him if perhaps the bidding gets a tad bit higher? We have more than enough to sign Soler regardelss. In addition to what we freed up last year, theres an additional 35 or so mil (Dempster, Byrd, Pena, Zambrano, Baker, Johnson) coming off after this year. I think the benefit of an additional 5 or so mil would be...5 or so mil. Maybe they use it towards Soler, or maybe they stockpile it and use it towards a young free agent this off season, or maybe they use it to upgrade their facilities in Latin America. Who knows? Not to do the deal because you have nothing to spend the money on right now is short-sighted.