dew1679666265

Think of him as Augie Ojeda with more walks and outfield experience and without the ability to play SS. Haha, nice. Okay enough bench bat I guess, as long as he's cheap and a short term filler.

For those who know, what kind of ceiling does Campana have? Is he a 4th or 5th OF only in the future or is there a possibility he could be more (maybe a marginal CF starter as long as he's cheap)?

Unless Ricketts is willing to go to $140-150+, I'd probably hold off on Reyes in the hopes I could get Kemp. We have tons of middle infield depth in the minors even after dealing Lee and some combo of Barney/DeWitt/Baker should be decent options until Lemahieu or somebody is ready or a cheaper (yet still good) FA option comes along. That's if we get Pujols, that is.

It'd probably be an either/or with Reyes and Kemp if we get Pujols, and given the choice I'd definitely take Kemp. I think financially we could swing two of those three, though. FA OFs: Asterisks mean there's an option for 2012 - either club or player. Jackson would be a cheap, one year filler. I'd also look at a Cody Ross/Tyler Colvin platoon for 2012 and then go hard after Kemp that offseason if he comes available. A Soriano/B Jackson/Kemp outfield in 2013 would be really nice, with Colvin perhaps platooning with Soriano. Swisher, Sizemore and Kubel would be the best players on the list, I think.

Just out of curiosity, for those who don't want Pujols - who would you go after for first base both short and long term? Is there anybody specific people are considering or is the desire simply to pass on the high risk/high reward contract and hope a better option comes along down the line? Not trying to be confrontational, I'm legitimately curious what other plans might be if you support passing on Pujols.

In most of those 10 years, the Cardinals had Pujols, a pitcher or two and a whole bunch of grit. The Cardinals have had some good teams, but really not much to get all that excited about most years. The key to them being a highly competitive team was getting 7-8 wins a year from first base instead of 2-4. Teams don't win only because of just one player, but a hitter like Pujols can turn a mediocre team into a good one and a good team into a great one. The Cubs have all the resources in place to have a good team over the next decade, but adding Pujols instead of short term filler or a 3-4 win guy like Fielder could give them great teams in the upcoming years. That could be the difference between seeing a repeat of the 2000s or winning a World Series or two. And if the Cubs invest $30 million a year into Pujols, they'll still have more than $100 million to spend on the rest of the roster. There's no reason whatsoever why they can't build a good to great team around Pujols with those resources.

Signing both Pujols and Reyes would cost us in the area of $40-45 million next season, meaning we'd be left with somewhere in the range of $10-20 million to replace Reed, Pena, Grabow, Shark, Kosuke and Wood. That's if we retain both Dempster and Aramis. However, we'd only have about $68 mil invested for 2013 - Soriano, Marmol, Pujols and Reyes - for non-arbitration guys with about $70-80 mil left for the rest of the roster. Question marks like Vitters and Jay Jackson would have to develop and become productive ML players, but I think we could do it.

Out at least 2 weeks, MLB Network says.

MLB Network reporting Aroldis Chapman has been placed on the 15-day DL with a shoulder injury. Righty Jordan Smith has been called up to replace him.

Same here. Definitely watching on mute tonight.

I'm on board with this. I'd probably go above $300 total if I had to, but not a lot. $32-35 mil per year is probably the highest I'd go.

This isn't directed at you soccer, your post just prompted this thought. I've seen a lot of comments recently that the Cubs have multiple albatross contracts and a number of players locked up for big years/money. That's really not the case. Here's the Cubs' payroll obligations in upcoming years: 2012: Soriano - 19 mil; Zambrano - 19 mil; Dempster - 14 mil; Byrd - 6.5 mil; Marmol 7 mil; Marshall 3.1 mil; Aramis - 16 mil club option or 2 mil buyout. Total - 70.6 mil for 7 players or 84.6 mil for 8 players + 6 arbitration guys. 2013: Soriano - 19 mil; Marmol - 9.8 mil. Total - 28.8 mil for 2 players + 8 arbitration guys 2014: Soriano - 19 mil. Total - 19 mil for 1 player + 6 arbitration guys 2015: 4 arbitration guys 2016: 2 arbitration guys Five of our top 10 prospects (according to BA) are currently either in AA or AAA and likely will be in the majors within the next two years. Six guys currently on the roster will get a minimal raise (if any) next year and three of those are starters - Castro, Barney and Cashner. The only guys we're set to lose off this year's roster: Reed, Wood, Grabow, Shark, Pena and Kosuke ($35 mil total off the books). So we'll have 6 roster spots to fill next year and around $50-60 million to spend to fill those holes. Dempster and Aramis have options, but the likelihood is at least one or both will be back. If we signed Pujols to a 10/300 deal and paid him $30 mil next year, that'd leave us with $20-30 million to spend on 5 roster spots, spots we spent $24.9 million on this year - and that's with $8.1 mil going to Grabow and Shark alone. We could backload Pujols' deal and pay him something like $35 mil next year and still have enough to fill our holes with similarly priced players as long as we don't sign high priced free agent relievers.

One of the more minor league-knowledgeable guys can tell you more, but from what I've heard/read Castillo has the ceiling to be similar to Soto defensively, but probably won't hit nearly as well as Soto has. He's more of a defensive specialist kind of catcher, as are pretty much all of the our minor league catchers. Soto profiled as that as well when he was in the minors until he broke out with a huge offensive year in AAA and has been good since.

I'm not advocating giving him a 10/300 contract because I want to. If we can get him for cheaper, we should certainly try. I'm simply using 10/300 because those were reportedly his demands and that's likely the ceiling of what we'd have to pay. If he'll accept a more ARod-esque contract (10/275), fantastic. I'm guessing, though, that if he hits the open market he'll use ARod's contract as a baseline and his actual contract will be somewhere between that and the 10/300 he reportedly wants.

average WAR: Albert Belle - 3.7 (first 8 seasons before signing with White Sox) Albert Pujols - 8.0 (career) Belle wasn't close to the player Pujols is.

Exactly. Attendance is tied directly to excitement and winning. By signing Pujols you increase both of those substantially, meaning attendance will rise.

Adding Pujols would only increase attendance, so if I were to amend the offer I'd make it larger if attendance continues to decrease. That said, I don't think we'd have to bump up an offer of 10/300 much at all since all but about 2-3 teams won't be able to match it. The Yankees, Red Sox and Angels are probably the only teams that can afford that kind of an investment and two of those three would have to finagle things to play Pujols at first (something I think he wants to do, if I'm remembering right).

Colvin started 10 of the first 12 games this season and went 5-41 in those games. He closed out April with just 2 starts in 9 games. If Quade were against Colvin from day one, I don't think he'd have started that much early on. In fact, Quade wanted him to get at bats so badly that he played him out of position (first base) while Pena was hurt. Quade's been a pretty vocal supporter of Colvin since he took over the job and backed it up through the first 12 games this year. Colvin's .121 BA over those 12 games - and the very good play by the other OFs at the same time - had much more to do with his current spot on the bench.

That's a poor memory on my part I guess. I remembered his OBP and power numbers fluctuating, but didn't go back to check myself. Not sure what I was thinking of.

If we take a step down in years and money, here are the recent contracts/players we'd be looking at getting (age is when they signed): (note: I limited it to free agents or players who were traded and then re-signed, eliminating the hometown discount issue. I also focused only on $100+ mil contracts since you're not going to see an established elite hitter sign for less) Jayson Werth, 31, 7/129 ($21 mil/yr) - avg WAR: 2.75 Alex Rodriguez, 33, 10/275 ($27 mil/yr) - avg WAR: 7.0 Mark Teixeira, 29, 8/180 ($22.5 mil/yr) - avg WAR: 4.6 Miguel Cabrera, 25, 8/152 ($19 mil/yr) - avg WAR: 4.7 Carlos Beltran, 28, 7/119 ($17 mil/yr) - avg WAR: 4.2 Matt Holliday, 30, 7/120 ($17 mil/yr) - avg WAR: 5.1 Carlos Lee, 31, 6/100 ($16 mil/yr) - avg WAR: 2.5 Vernon Wells, 30, 7/126 ($18 mil/yr) - avg WAR: 2 Adrian Gonzalez, 28, 7/154 ($22 mil/yr) - avg WAR: 3.2 Albert Pujols, 31, 10/300 ($30 mil/yr) - avg WAR: 8.0 (hypothetical contract) I limited it to players somewhat similar to Pujols - power hitters, primarily corner guys - and I left out some pretty dreadful contracts (like Ryan Howard's). None of the players on that list, save for ARod, have been close to as productive as Pujols. Most of them have barely been half as good as Pujols over their careers (all careers have lasted nearly 10 years). So we can sign a guy for less than what we'd have to give for Pujols, but we're going to get production similar to that dropoff. Basically, Pujols could fall off a cliff from his current production and be half as good as he is now for the entire second half of his contract and still be nearly as good as, or better than, most of the guys on that list. What kind of a free agent deal are you looking to give out?

The problem with waiting for the exact perfect free agent is that free agent doesn't exist. If you sit around and pass on each major free agent because there are some flaws or questions, you'll never make a big free agent signing and you'll probably never win a World Series. The Cubs are in a position right now where we have some good, young major league talent and we have a ton of prospects on their way up who look like good major leaguers. However, we have no real starpower in the minors or on the team. The potential is there for a very good supporting cast, but no core for that cast to support. We also don't have much money committed beyond 2012 and the third highest payroll in the MLB. Given all of that, one of the best players to ever play the game may just hit the open market this offseason and would give us that core player we don't have in the system. If we pass on Pujols and Fielder in the hopes that the perfect free agent falls in our lap, we'll see a lot more of the type seasons we saw in the 2000s (good teams that weren't great because they lacked a great player) in the coming years. Signing Pujols is a gamble, but sometimes you have to take gambles to win championships and if I'm going to take a gamble, I want to take one on the best player in the game.

The analogy would fit the Royals much better than the Cubs. The Cubs would have plenty of money left to go get the furniture as long as they spent with some level of intelligence. Plus they're about to fill at least a couple rooms with really cheap but nice furniture soon.

Exactly. If we were a $100 million payroll team, I might think differently. But after signing Pujols we'll have $100+ million still to spend on the rest of the team and that's not accounting for any payroll boosts Ricketts may favor in the future - which Pujols' revenue would make more likely.

And he's going to turn 32 this offseason while looking for a massive deal, possibly 10 years long. I have trouble believing that doesn't make more people at least pause and think a little bit before getting out the spray charts. If you do it, you better be prepared to add a few other pieces and go for it all-out in the next 3-5 years. The Cubs are in a very good position to add a Pujols-esque contract right now. Just two players signed beyond 2012 to significant money (Soriano and Z - if his option is picked up) and a farm system with not much star power but a lot of quality depth nearly ML ready. We don't have a lot of big contracts weighing us down and can fill a lot of holes cheaply through the minors. If Ricketts were to slash payroll considerably that would change my view, but all indications are it'll stay right around its current level, which leaves us over $100 million to fill the rest of the roster spots - more payroll space than a lot of teams have period. I agree if we sign Pujols we need to make every effort to win immediately that we can, but we don't need to go into desperation mode either.

Pujols has all the attributes you look for in a player who can be productive through his mid-late 30s and, perhaps, even into his 40s. He's in good shape, is a hard worker off the field, has a very patient approach at the plate, good quick hands and is athletic but doesn't rely on speed and athleticism for his production. He's probably not going to be the best player in baseball throughout a 10 year contract, but he can afford to decline some and still be a very productive player. Pujols averaged 8.0 WAR per season from 2001-2010 - the next closest player to him was ARod with a 7.0 WAR. After that, you had Lance Berkman at 5.3. It's a pretty safe bet he'll stay in that 7-8 win range over the next 2-3 years at least and then even if he drops to, say, 6 wins per season we're still just paying him $5 million per win. Then you factor in the huge amounts of Pujols jerseys and T-shirts the team will sell, the increase in ticket sales just to see Albert Pujols play and the increase in ratings as fans turn to the Cubs to see the best player in baseball. Plus any postseason success we have (especially World Series rings) in large part because of his production and Pujols will be well worth the mega-contract he'll get. For almost any other player I'd say a 10/300 type contract would be ridiculous, but Pujols' value both on and off the field and likelihood to stay great to fantastic for at least half the contract make him the rarest of exceptions. He'll drop off at some point, sure, but expecting him to be so bad that he'll get boo'd at 36 is undervaluing his production, I think.