UMFan83

So the plan seems to be "find guys that had a good season a couple years ago but sucked or were injured more recently and sign for a bare bones price and hope that they find their previous form"

even with castellanos, meh? they'll be a pain in the ass tho Isn't replacement level wins roughly 52? That would put this projection at 87.6 wins before Castellanos (though he probably adds like 1 win at most replacing other production)

Yeah the hype around them is a bit much. They will be in the mix for sure. But they won 75 games last year and likely only added 5-7 wins between Moustakas, Castellanos, Miley and Akiyama on the high side. Moustakas and Castellanos might take each other out on a short fly ball to RF. The defense is going to be really bad. Don't forget getting a 20+ more starts out of Bauer (and presumably the other 10 they get will be better than the 10 they got last year) and replacing Tyler Mahle with Wade Miley. Although this is the first season since 2017 where Miley won't play for Milwaukee and Houston where he suspiciously had the 2 best years of his career. That has to be worth another 1-3 wins

Shogo Akiyama Joey Votto Eugenio Suarez Mike Moustakas Nicholas Castellanos Freddy Galvis Aristides Aquino Tucker Barnhart That's a really horsefeathering solid lineup Sonny Gray Luis Castillo Trevor Bauer Anthony DeSclafani Wade Miles That's a solid rotation Raisel Iglesaias Michael Lorenzen Amir Garrett Thats a solid start to a bullpen

Disgusting. Dude has a lot of guts to make a lot of enemies by (rightfully) exposing the cheating scandal knowing that this was out there.

What a depressing horrible year of sports for literally every single team I give a damn about. Can I jump on the Illini bandwagon if Michigan doesn’t figure it out soon? Edit: not the end of the world if Michigan doesn’t make the tourney. They have a top 5 class coming in and one that should fit JH’s style better. But it couldn’t have come at a worse time with the Cubs, Bears, Blackhawks, Bulls, UMFB, USMNT, Everton etc.

In case anyone was wondering

His last full healthy season (2017) he was nearly a 4 win player. Ahh crap I didnt even realize he was out all of 2019. You're right, 2017 really good, not so good in 2018 and then injured

Interesting...was really good in 2018, not so good in 2019

Wasn't Ortiz only listed on the 2003 "anonymous" test that has been picked apart and legitimacy questioned? ARod was suspended twice and admitted to taking PEDs so he was a blatant violator. But yeah if Ortiz avoids getting dinged for only being on that 2003 report and strongly denying it, why isn't Sammy afforded the same courtesy? Sosa's career WAR is slightly higher, played a position his entire career and all his HOF markers are higher than Ortiz's. And if Ortiz really was juicing in 2003, that coincides with his career taking off. Who knows when Sosa might have started taking PEDs but he was an All Star and finished in the top 20 of MVP voting 3 times before the 1998 season. I guess the biggest differences are 1) the corked bat establishes a pattern of cheating for Sosa, 2) By being part of the peak steroid era and one of the people involved in the 98 HR race Sosa will always be looked at as one of the main faces of that era and 3) Ortiz is widely considered a good guy that sportswriters love. also uh ortiz is known as like the most clutch postseason hitter of his era and one of the best of all time and has a seemingly endless highlight reel of huge playoff (and regular season) hits. whether clutch is real or not, that matters. Yeah I thought about the after the fact. Sammy had a few big hits, but certainly nowhere near the amount Ortiz did

Wasn't Ortiz only listed on the 2003 "anonymous" test that has been picked apart and legitimacy questioned? ARod was suspended twice and admitted to taking PEDs so he was a blatant violator. But yeah if Ortiz avoids getting dinged for only being on that 2003 report and strongly denying it, why isn't Sammy afforded the same courtesy? Sosa's career WAR is slightly higher, played a position his entire career and all his HOF markers are higher than Ortiz's. And if Ortiz really was juicing in 2003, that coincides with his career taking off. Who knows when Sosa might have started taking PEDs but he was an All Star and finished in the top 20 of MVP voting 3 times before the 1998 season. I guess the biggest differences are 1) the corked bat establishes a pattern of cheating for Sosa, 2) By being part of the peak steroid era and one of the people involved in the 98 HR race Sosa will always be looked at as one of the main faces of that era and 3) Ortiz is widely considered a good guy that sportswriters love.

He looks awkward on the court being so thick and relatively short. Just doesn't "look" like a superstar, whatever that means. And then he does something super explosive and/or awesome.

Doing this exercise reminded me of the fact that Mike Fontenot tied for the team lead in batting bWAR for a 97 win Cubs team.

He did play an entire inning there in 2016 so it’s totally legit. He played an inning at SS too so maybe I move him there instead of Castro. Ok fine, move him to left field, put McRae in CF and Schwarber to the bench

The rule is you can only have one person per year so for 2016 I chose Bryant. In 03 I chose Prior. Also 93 is more than 25 years ago, I looked at Myers for 95 but apparently he sucked for the Cubs outside of 93. I do remember a Cubs fan attacking him on the mound so I guess I should have realized he sucked

Really don’t think he wants to sign a minor league deal

I saw this on twitter and spent way too much time doing this but it still needs a lot of work. Rules: I took a stab at it but it’s one of those exercises where you build your initial list and then you likely need to tweak it. I need some tweaking especially in the bullpen and I’m kind of cheating making Bryant my CF (and hurting the team defensively), but McRae can come in for Schwarber and shift Bryant to LF late in games. Also didn’t think about handedness. Only 1 lefty in the rotation, 2 lefties in the starting lineup. Probably needs improvement. So here it is, tear it apart and/or create your own. C 2017 Contreras 1B 2005 Lee 2B 2018 Baez 3B 2006 Ramirez SS 2011 Castro LF 2019 Schwarber CF 2016 Bryant RF 2001 Sosa C 2008 Soto IF 2014 Rizzo IF 2000 Young IF/OF 2012 Barney OF 1999 Rodriguez OF 1995 McRae SP - 2015 Arrieta SP - 2003 Prior SP - 2002 Wood SP - 2004 Zambrano SP - 2009 Lilly SP/RP 1997 Tapani RP 1998 Mulholland RP 2010 Marshall SU 2013 Villanueva SU 2007 Marmol CL 1996 Wendell

Toews being a good bro to Sharpie.

Somewhat interesting.... Also interesting is that the Hawks have won 5 in a row and are 3 points out of a Wild Card spot (with a game in hand) and 4 points out of a division top 3 spot. Playoff projections have them about a 40-50% chance of making the playoffs.

Time to get used to loathing Nolan Arenado

I don’t have time to summarize but Jed interview on the score seems to imply that significant changes are probably happening in the near future https://670thescore.radio.com/jed-hoyer-cubs-quiet-offseason-kind-of-just-beginning-trade-possibilities

Very astute

And Bobby Bonilla Sorry I had to

I’d be annoyed by the “Cubs haven’t won a World Series without cheating in 112 years” for like 3.6 seconds but I’d get over it