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There's only two scenarios where I think this is a good idea: 1) We get blown away by a deal. 2) Theo and co are not confident Garza will repeat this season's success. Otherwise, I'm not a big fan of trying hard to move Garza.

Three of the previous 7 World Series winners were not elite teams. The 2011 Cardinals had a pythagorean win total of 88, the 2006 Cardinals had a pythagorean win total of 82 (83 actual wins), and the 2005 White Sox had a pythagorean win total of 91 wins. The 2008 Cubs were an elite team (97 actual wins, 98 pythag wins) and got swept in the first round of the playoffs. Obviously these are only a few examples and there are other examples of elite teams winning it all. However, the point I'm making is you don't have to be elite to have a very real chance of winning the World Series. All you have to do is be good enough to make the playoffs and you might get hot at the right time. Next year the Cards won't likely have Pujols and the Brewers won't have Fielder. There's a very real chance a record a little better than .500 (85-88 wins maybe) will win the division. There's absolutely no reason why a team with the resources the Cubs have and in the division the Cubs are in should intentionally give up on even one season, much less multiple years.

This is the problem the Cubs face today. We need elite talent, we don't have any coming up from the minors any time soon, and any player you acquire with elite talent is going to be severely overpaid in some way. The Reds already turned down giving Alonso for Andrew Bailey, so I don't see any way they do any variation of Alonso for Marmol. It'd probably take Garza to get it done, and while we might get a bit more than just Alonso, it wouldn't be much.

I guess this makes Raisin happy. Silly headline, though, referring to the Pac-12 championship game (I think?) as a playoff game.

Me too. However, it's because there is no "perfect" long term option to be gained through free agency. If you only sign perfect free agents, you'll never sign any free agent. Voltaire said it best: "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good"

A little late responding to this, but I don't think there's a chance Dooley gets fired after the year. We were about 10-15 scholarships below the limit last year and this year we've missed Justin Hunter for all but two games, Tyler Bray for the best opponents, and Herman Lathers the entire season. That's 3 of our 5-6 best players, including our best two (Hunter and Bray). Dooley's bringing in another good class so far this year, which will bring our talent level a little closer to the rest of the SEC. Two reasons I don't think Dooley is even a candidate to be fired: 1) Firing him now would mean 3 different coaches in 4 years - there's a really good chance we'd suffer enough attrition that it'd take the better part of a decade to recover. We're already looking at another couple of years before we can really look at being a contender in the SEC, and that's if Dooley keeps hitting really well on his recruiting classes. 2) It's entirely unfair to evaluate him this season. After the first two games, with everybody but Lathers healthy, we were the popular choice for a breakout team this year as we blew away Montana and Cincy. Then Hunter and Bray went down and, due to coaching changes, our backup options at QB were a guy who shouldn't be playing in the SEC (Simms) and a freshman who has no business playing for a couple of years (Worley). There's just no way to get a read on the condition of the program when you've been hit with so many injuries. All that said, if the idiot masses had their way, Dooley would be gone at the end of the year. So who knows. Dooley's got to win at least 1-2 big SEC games next year (UF, UGA, Bama especially) to survive for a fourth year. If I could ignore the fans, however, I'd give him a full 4 years to turn this around. This program was a mess after Kiffin left.

With the ridiculous demands the Sox have thrown out as compensation for Theo, it's good to see somebody else doing the same with them. From MLBTR:

There's not been any Hall of Famers coming over from Japan (pitchers, at least), but there's been a number of players ranging from decent/good to very good. ERA/FIP/xFIP Hideo Nomo: 4.24/4.23/4.67 Takashi Saito: 2.18/2.65/3.20 Hiroki Kuroda: 3.45/3.55/3.62 Shigetoshi Hasegawa: 3.71/4.39/4.66

Hey, just looking for 1B options if we can't get one of the big 2. The outlook on the remaining options is bleak. The problem with Trumbo is that he wasn't that productive in the minors (.804 career minor league OPS) and he doesn't walk much (7% career walk rate in the minors). He's very opposite from the Theo/Hoyer philosophy.

At a cursory glance of Conger's numbers with no real background to work from, I really like his overall numbers (.298/.361/.466/.827) but a 9% walk rate in the minors kind of concerns me. I'd definitely be interested in him for Marmol, and maybe for Soto.

There's a very high probability that using this logic is setting up another Soriano signing, to be honest. If you keep passing on elite players because the time isn't perfect, you force yourself into a corner where when the timing is perfect you absolutely must sign the best FA available that offseason. If it works out that this FA is a truly elite player, then great. But there's also a very real chance that this FA is Alfonso Soriano, a nice player who you have to severely overpay. If you pass on this non-elite FA and don't make that big signing, are you going to be able to put the team over the top some other way? Basically, there's a very real chance that you'll be in a position where you either have to overpay considerably for a non-elite talent or you take the chance that you gave up on 2-3 seasons for nothing because that major piece that could put you over the top isn't available. You can't look at this from a purely economic standpoint because there are too many variables at play. In the business world, it's pretty much never a good idea to be inefficient because profit and the bottom line is all that matters. In sports, a little inefficiency is ok if it helps you win.

Yeah, a bunch of rumors with absolutely nothing to back them up other than speculation sounds like either teams coming up with excuses not to pursue Pujols or teams leaking rumors to try to lessen the overall interest and, thus, drive down his price.

Wouldn't Pujols being a US citizen since his youth make him much less likely to be lying about his age? I'm not real familiar with how they fake the birth certificate, but it seems like a 20-something kid coming to the states by himself is much more likely to be able to successfully doctor his certificate than if that kid's entire family came to the states and made this their permanent residence. I may be way off here, though.

Couple of interesting tidbits:

I have to think that with the rash of age-related discrepancies that came out a few years ago, most of the guy playing under an assumed age have been corrected. It's kind of like with steroids - there was a huge crackdown on it, a bunch of players got caught, and now most of it has been cleared up. Pujols is so high profile and finding out he's older than he says would be such a big story that I'd think if there were anything to the rumors, there'd be more than just rumors at this point.

The question on the years, though, comes down to how pitchers decline. Do pitchers decline more slowly/get hurt less because they're elite? Or is a pitcher with fewer innings on his arm less likely to age rapidly? Like you, I'm generally opposed to long contracts to pitchers - especially those in their 30s - but with just 700 innings on his arm to this point and having had the tutelage of Mike Maddux for 3 years, I think Wilson is a much better gamble to remain consistent than a better pitcher like Cliff Lee who has 1400 on his arm at the time of his new deal. That was a really long sentence, and I apologize for that.

From the standpoint of being a highly productive, top of the line pitcher you can. It's not a 100% guarantee that the Cubs will re-sign him, but if they don't it'd be either because he gets hurt (which is a separate issue) or he and his agent decide they won't take less than a 10/300 deal or something silly like that. I agree with you that you can't include years 3 and 4 in setting trade value for him, but you can in determining how long he's likely to be a highly productive major league pitcher. And that's the point I was making - that he'll likely be an elite starter for the next 4 years or possibly more.

This idea of trading Garza, which seems to have a lot of traction on this board, is really confusing. Garza will be 28 all of next year, is an absolute stud, and will be an extreme value no matter what he makes next year. There's literally almost no chance a team will be willing to give us what it would take to make sense to move him. The really confusing thing is that both sides of this debate - the "we can win soon" and "we can't win for at least 3-4 years" debate - should love having Garza on the team. He helps us win right now and will continue to do so for at least 4 more years. There is really no upside whatsoever to trading Garza, since any trade we could come up with isn't realistically happening.

Here's the difference that you're ignoring, though - Lee signed for 5 years and 24 million AAV ($120 million total dollars). I'm advocating 5/90 tops with a 6th year vesting option for Wilson ($18 million AAV). Wilson's a star, but not at the level that Lee and CC are at.

Not entirely worthless. Given your estimated range and if Levine's number is correct, it would indicate for sure that the Cubs will enter next year with either the same payroll or higher.

They should be fine, as they each teach different parts of the game. Sveum, from the sound of it, focuses on approach, while Jaramillo is more a mechanics coach.

He's pretty much always been a quality pitcher, though, he just broke out once they gave him the opportunity to start. I'm pretty confident in the Hoyer/Sveum tandem (mainly Hoyer) to find a quality pitching coach. Speaking of which, what's Rick Peterson up to?

There's a lot of value in having a steady stream of those players, though. I don't know how many Flahertys other teams have so that would clearly have an impact if other teams are just teaming with players like him.

You still have a lot of cheap time with him, though, and you didn't give up much to acquire him.

I don't think it's a certainty he'll get selected and there definitely are many guys who should get taken and are not, I just think it'd be a really good gamble for a cash-strapped team and one that has a pretty good chance of happening.