dew1679666265
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Everything posted by dew1679666265
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As mojo said, the mileage on the arm is vastly different between Buerhle and Wilson. It can't be dismissed. Also, Buerhle at his best is a nice pitcher, but if he declines at all he's nothing particularly special. Wilson is an elite arm who nearly doubled Buerhle's value this year (5.9 WAR vs 3.4 WAR). There's definitely risk involved in Wilson, but we have guys in the minors who have the upside to be Mark Buerhle (McNutt, maybe Whitenack). We don't have anybody above probably rookie ball who has Wilson's potential.
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There's really no reason not to be a player for Wilson. If you don't get him, that can be understandable (there's a limit to what I'd be willing to pay him, for instance), but there's no reason to not even get involved in the bidding.
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We signed Soriano to 8 years when he was 31 years old, I'm advocating giving Fielder 8 years when he's 28. Also, Soriano had a lot of WAR tied into his very good defense in a number of years. Generally that's a good thing, but with Soriano, his defense wasn't going to stay any good since it was primarily based on his great athleticism making up for bad reads and poor routes. His offense has been marginally comparable to Prince, but Soriano's best wOBA seasons are some of Prince's worst. For instance, in 11 seasons Soriano has posted 5 wOBAs over .370, none of those over .380. In 6 seasons, Prince has posted a .370+ wOBA 5 times, with 3 of those over .400. And they're largely OBP based, meaning that offensive value will remain as long as his back doesn't give out. Soriano had a few star level seasons because he was super athletic, Prince is a star level player. Add in that we're signing Prince 3 years earlier than we signed Soriano and the deals aren't very comparable.
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That would be best case scenario. Considering we'd have him for his ages 33-35 seasons, my point is he may well decline from the 3.4 or so WAR player he's been. Even if he declines some, he becomes not close to worth what he'd get. Even if he ages well, he probably will still decline to some degree. If we were getting a 29 or 30 year old Buerhle, I might change my mind. But a 33 year old Buerhle isn't very enticing.
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That's why I strongly favor Wilson to Buerhle, and don't have much interest in Buerhle.
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If his price is low and we give Z away, I'd have interest in Buerhle too. I tend to think he'll be fairly sought after and will probably get overpaid. The problem with Buerhle is that he's not been so good that he can decline and still be particularly valuable. He's a low-3 WAR guy at this point and if he gets worse, you're looking at high 1 WAR, low 2 WAR. If he's getting $10+ million, I'm not a big fan of that.
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Re: New GM/Cubs Future News Articles
dew1679666265 replied to ArizonaGM's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I'd kinda hate to lose Shark, but we should be able to replace him relatively easily with the pen arms we have. -
I'm not very interested in Jackson or Maholm, but I'm more interested in them than Buerhle. Jackson and Buerhle are both likely candidates to get overpaid once Wilson is off the table and that's my main reason for having little interest in either. If I had to choose from Jackson or Buerhle, however, I'd take the 28 year old over the 33 year old when both have been similarly productive. What's the interest in Saunders? He'll be 31 next year and his average WAR per season is 1.4. His lowest xFIP in a full season is 4.38. He's not very good.
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Exactly. Just like arguing that signing Pujols/Prince and Wilson would be short term, win-now moves when they're likely to still be exceptionally productive over the next 3-5 years. We have a chance to get star players who can help us a great deal for multiple years, we should do it as part of building a long term core and if we win in 2012, it's a bonus.
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I don't have much interest unless he comes extremely cheaply, but I'd have more interest in him than a 33 year old Buerhle. In general, I have next to no interest in either.
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I wouldn't. The prospect return on Byrd likely wouldn't be anything to get very excited about and we're not freeing up that much money by dealing him. I certainly wouldn't refuse any and all trade offers that came for him, but I'd hang onto him and either get moderate value in right (when considering offense and defense) or hope he has a good start to the season and deal him at the deadline if we're out of it.
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The lack of interest in Buerhle, at least on my part, is due to him being 33 when the season starts next year and likely declining rather than in his prime or improving. I'd go after Wilson, E Jackson, Maholm, and trade targets before I gave Buerhle a 3 year deal covering his ages 33,34,35 seasons.
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Nope, I simply forgot he existed. I knew I shouldn't go completely off memory or I'd forget somebody.
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I'd take Pujols in a heartbeat over Prince. However, and this is to your previous point about Prince not being as good as some make him out to be, two of his past 3 years have been 5.5 and 6.4 WAR seasons. He's nowhere near Pujols caliber, but he's a star in his own right and well worth getting huge money. He has a .391 career wOBA and has a fantastic career OBP (.390), meaning he's more likely to provide some value even if his weights saps some of his power. Here's something to consider. Prince's first 7 ML seasons: 3 .400+ wOBA seasons, two more at .370 and .380 each. ARod's first 7 ML seasons (discounting 94 and 95): 4 .400+ wOBA seasons, three more at .370+. ARod's obviously the better player, I'm not equating the two, but Prince has been comparable to ARod offensively in his first 7 years. Defense is really holding Prince back, though, from having the kind of WARs ARod put up.
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We need 2 of those pitchers if we dump Z. With Theo in charge, that may not be a forgone conclusion.
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Assuming Brett Jackson begins the year in CF, we have this: 1B: open 2B: Barney/LeMaheieu SS: Castro 3B: open LF: Soriano CF: BJax RF: Byrd C: Soto SP: Garza, Z, Demp, Wells, open RP: Marmol, Marshall, Shark, Russell, Wood, open, open B: Baker, Campana, Colvin, open© I count 6 open spots for next year, but three of those (2 pen, 1 bench or other way around if we go with 11 pitchers) should be filled from within. Without dumping Z, Soriano, or Byrd I'm seeing at most 3 spots to fill next year.
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The way you avoid a financial bind the Cubs were just in is two fold: 1) Develop a strong farm system that consistently pumps out cheap, productive major leaguers. We didn't do that during Hendry's tenure, so we had to sign both major stars and role players to multi-million dollar deals. A team with the Cubs' budget can do one of the two but not both. 2) Don't sign non-star players to star contracts. We did this with Soriano and it hurt us significantly. The thing is, none of the FAs mentioned are anything like Soriano, other than they're very expensive. Pujols/Prince/Wilson are stars and it's ok to give star contracts to star players. If you can do these two things, it's ok to give out a couple or three massive contracts when your payroll is $130-$150 million. Having Pujols and Wilson taking up $50 million of our annual budget when Z comes off the books next year, Soriano comes off in 2014, and we have lots of good prospects set to hit the majors over the next couple of years, and having Theo/Hoyer/McLeod to turn our system into a machine is perfectly fine. It certainly won't necessarily lead to a similar financial bind we found ourselves in under Hendry.
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Didn't even look at him because I didn't know he had been quite that good recently. I wouldn't oppose going after Sanchez or any of the players I listed, I just don't agree with passing on Wilson this offseason for possible options next year that are marginally or no better than Wilson.
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Who will be the manager? Quade Fired (pg 15)
dew1679666265 replied to Magnetic Curses's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I wasn't really trying to say that all Braves fans love Bobby Cox, but living near Atlanta my whole life I've known quite a few Braves fans over the years and they're either semi-neutral on Bobby or they absolutely love him. It was more a reference that if large parts of every fanbase hated their manager then I'd have heard of Braves fans (before your uncle) who hate Bobby Cox. I'm sure there are Braves fans who hate him, though. I agree with all of this. -
Who will be the manager? Quade Fired (pg 15)
dew1679666265 replied to Magnetic Curses's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I've never heard that Braves fans didn't love Bobby Cox. Do Angel fans hate Scioscia? The only Angel fan I know hates Scioscia. Ok, I had no idea. I don't think I've ever met an Angel fan. -
Cards won 90 games with Pujols and a late season surge. I'd have trouble seeing them above 80-85 wins next year without Pujols. The Brewers could be better than roughly .500 without Prince, it largely depends on who replaces him and how well that player does. However, their pythag win total was 90 this year. I also don't know what their upcoming pitching looks like, but Wolf is 34, LaTroy is 38 and Saito is 41. Wolf was their third best starter by ERA+ and LaTroy and Saito were pretty awesome out of the pen this year and all three will be a year older next year. Plus, without a payroll bump (no idea if they can/will), they'll have $25 million to pay arbitration to Marcum, Loe, Parra, Gomez, Josh Wilson, McGehee, Morgan, Kottaras and Stetter. A fall back near .500 without one of their best two players is pretty realistic.
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Who will be the manager? Quade Fired (pg 15)
dew1679666265 replied to Magnetic Curses's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I've never heard that Braves fans didn't love Bobby Cox. Do Angel fans hate Scioscia? -
With the Cards and Brewers presumably losing Pujols and Prince and with the money the Cubs have available to them (especially if payroll is raised to $150 this offseason), there's really no reason we can't compete in what would be an abysmal division. We won't be WS favorites by any means, but we can get close to .500 or greater and that may well win the division next year. Plus, signings like Prince/Pujols/Wilson aren't short term moves. You can make them with the idea that you'll likely compete later down the road.
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In 2 years as a starter, Wilson has averaged a 5.25 WAR per season. Cain: 3.4 avg WAR/28 years old in 2013/1 5+ WAR season Danks: 3.2 avg WAR/28 years old in 2013/0 5+ WAR seasons Greinke: 3.8 avg WAR/28 years old in 2013/2 5+ WAR seasons Hamels: 3.8 avg WAR/29 years old in 2013/0 5+ WAR seasons (though 1 4.9 WAR season) Dan Haren is set to be a FA if his option isn't picked up as well. With this post I'm not necessarily arguing Wilson is better than all of them. But he's right up there with every one of those pitchers and we don't know which of these pitchers, if any, will actually hit FA next year. I'd assume Greinke will not be in Milwaukee after next year, but what if he's dealt to the Yankees (for example) at the deadline next year and they re-up him? I could easily see the Phillies re-upping Hamels, the DBacks picking up Haren's option, the Sox bringing back or trading Danks, and the Giants hanging onto Cain. You don't pass on a sure thing like Wilson in the off chance that similar players come available next year and that there are enough of them to drive the price down considerably. Whatever star players we sign, we're going to overpay. Might as well overpay for a sure thing, elite player with much less mileage than any of those guys have.
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I'm thinking the mid-3.00s ERA last year will boost his price tag - especially when pitching starved teams miss on Wilson/CC/E Jackson. His numbers weren't very impressive last year - 5.10 ERA/4.40 xFIP/2.0 WAR - and I'd be concerned that he wouldn't repeat the best ML season of his career (by ERA/FIP standards) when he turns 30 next year.