dew1679666265

If Anibal gets 5/90, you don't sign him. I threw him out as an example, not as a necessary target. And if Tampa gives the qualifier to Upton, you probably pass on him as well, though I'd still be tempted to give up a 2nd rounder for him. I'm simply throwing out possibilities right now, not absolute targets. The main point I'm getting at is we can make an effort to improve the major league roster without making crazy moves in an effort to have to win in 2013. It's not an all-or-nothing thing. I really hope Theo doesn't pay $4 million each to 2 bullpen guys. And like I said before, if contracts get too high, you simply move on to the next target. We can make ourselves fringy playoff contenders by next season without severely hampering ourselves long term. And being fringy playoff contenders next season likely means we're just one player away from serious contention in 2014, instead of tanking our 3rd season in a row that year. There's no reason signing Anibal Sanchez and BJ Upton should keep us from ever becoming a special team. We have what you've termed possibly the best positional group of prospects in the majors and one of the highest payrolls in the majors. There's a lot of really good young talent in the low minors working their way up and we have a big budget to use this offseason and a really high pick - couple that with great talent evaluators in the front office and we should be able to build up the farm without tanking numerous seasons. If not, we're probably paying the Theo regime way too much money. Should we be adding more than one bigtime contract going forward? I think we could field a very good, even special, team with one bigtime contract, a 2-3 guys like Garza/Upton/Anibal, and the rest largely guys we've developed from the system. Especially since we're starting from the baseline of having Castro and Rizzo on the team and producing at very high levels. Again, if the return for trading Garza is really good, go ahead. If we can get a couple near major league ready arms with TOR upside for him, fine. But if we're determined to trade him no matter what, there's a good chance we don't get top value for him. So if we settle for an upside arm low in the minors and some other pieces, what if those guys don't pan out? Then we don't have a Garza producing at a high level for us and we have to use the money we could have spent on him to overpay somebody in FA. Or just tank another season. So because Hendry did it, it's automatically the wrong thing to do? Hendry didn't develop enough players from the minors - that was reason #1 why we underachieved with him and no other reason is particularly close to that. He actually did a really good job finding non-elite guys to supplement the roster well - guys like DeRosa, Lilly, Byrd, Dempster, etc. His problem was lacking the elite level guys (outside of Lee and Aramis) and not developing guys from the farm. The Theo regime is really, really good at developing talent from the farm and we have elite level guys currently on the roster (Castro, maybe Rizzo) and in the minors (Soler, Baez, Almora) with a top 1-3 pick coming up in the draft. Signing a couple of solid FAs shouldn't hamper us from becoming special, it should make it more likely if we develop the talent on the farm better than Hendry did.

That's a good point. I guess I feel like a major market team like the Cubs should always be making some kind of a "push." Again, I'm not saying go all out to win in 2013, but Upton and Anibal would be signed for multiple years, so you don't have to throw all your chips in for 2013. You can add the two of them (primarily Upton's the guy I really want, I'd be ok with keeping Garza and grabbing guys like Liriano and/or Edwin Jackson) to make your team better and still not expect to be truly competing until 2014. This seems like a new idea to me that you only sign players of significance in FA if you plan to make a WS run the next year and I really don't agree with it. Signing a guy to a 4-5 year deal is a long term idea and that player can fit into a long term plan. It's about filling holes as they come open and both Upton and Anibal are young enough to help make us more respectable in 2013 and make us better for the next few years to come. I think people will start to get antsy possibly as soon as this offseason. The idea of a long term rebuilding process is fun in theory, but it becomes hard for a fanbase to stomach when it's blatantly obvious that the organization is capable of putting a much better product on the field without hampering the future. I think it helps, though, that Theo and Jed are so smart and are catering to the whims of the masses. Casual fans and media members love phrases like "doing things the right way" and the Theo regime is making full use of phrases like that. I think what they're saying will help buy them more time as the masses eat up the Theo-speak.

Is a team going to find a steady, quality OF at DeJesus' pricetag though? He's signed for next year at about the optimal level for a small market team that needs a solid addition to the OF and it wouldn't shock me if a team decided to claim DeJesus rather than wait around for the offseson and take a chance that they won't find as good a value.

If we see a team lose an OFer between now and Septamber and get offered close to what the Dodgers got for Victorino, I think he's gone. Quick. You think he'd clear waivers up to a contender? He could, but a shrewd GM might see him as an opportunity for cheap production (basically the same reason Theo signed him in the offseason).

I'm not even advocating gutting the farm system or spending like crazy in the offseason - I think either would be a bad idea. But making a concerted effort to improve both the major league roster and the minor league system would be ideal. Spend some money at the ML level (BJ Upton would be ideal, also maybe Anibal Sanchez) and make use of the large budget and high picks in the draft and IFA - basically the "parallel fronts" idea that Hoyer talked about when he and Theo took the jobs. Make the entire system better for 2013 and maybe contend if a few things go right. It doesn't have to be video game rebuild or gut the system and spend like mad. There is middle ground and that's where I think we should have been from day 1.

Contract demands change all the time. Hamels seemed almost a certainty to hit FA because his demands were ridiculously high, but through negotiations he actually signed a relatively reasonable deal. I'm sure Garza is asking for $20+ million per year for 5-6 years now, just like I'm sure the FO is offering $14-15 mil a year for 4 years now. That doesn't mean those will be his demands this time next year. I'm fine with entertaining trade offers and taking one if you get blown away. But I think it's a really bad idea to insist upon trading him because he's demanding a contract higher than what he's worth, something that every athlete in history has probably done.

Garza was a mid-rotation guy when we traded for him. His 2012 is better than anything he did prior to becoming a Cub - he's pretty clearly better than a mid-rotation arm at this point. He's probably not consistently the ace he looked like in 2011, but he's closer to 2011 Garza than he is to pre-Cub Garza. He's not elite, but he's definitely a TOR guy.

Yeah, I don't really care that much about trading away Maholm - he's the definition of replaceable and we got a really good return for him. My concern is how dead-set they seem to be on moving Garza. With the pretty lousy offense we have and the lack of upper end pitchers in the system after Garza, I think any chance we have of being competitive rest squarely on Garza being on this team. If the Theo regime is insistent upon trading him this offseason and do, I think we're easily looking at tanking 2013 and probably 2014 as well. Unless we're willing to spend this offseason and get some breaks (i.e. Greinke and/or Anibal are FAs).

If we sign him to a 5-year extension, I think he can be very good for 3 of those years pretty easily. It wouldn't shock me if he pitched well until he was 34, though. He's been a better pitcher this year than he was prior to being a Cub. His K/9 is in line with his pre-2011 career best while his BB/9 is better than last year's level. His GB% is in line with last year and he's posting the second best xFIP of his career, with it being much closer to his 2011 xFIP than his previous ones. The only real disturbing stat is the HR rates and then the poor defense is holding down his value a bit. I'm not certain he's a 5+ WAR pitcher consistently, but his peripherals indicate he's a lot closer to 2011 Matt Garza than pre-Cub Matt Garza.

Contract extensions are still allowed, hence why I said "unless we decide he is." He's still young enough this offseason for a 5-year or so deal to make sense, so we shouldn't rule that option out. Yeah, I've been hoping that we weren't doing the full video game rebuild, but every bit of evidence so far points to an overly lengthy rebuild.

Jerome Williams and Henry Blanco are the two most surprising names to me in this thread. I thought for sure Williams had been out of baseball for a few years and I figured Blanco would be a coach by now.

That's incredibly disappointing. Both that the apparent plans are to tank until 2015 and that the front office seems so intent on trading Garza. Even if they would prefer to trade Garza (which I think is pretty obviously the case), I really hope they don't get so dead-set on it that they take a lesser deal. He's a very good pitcher and will be 30 when 2013 starts, that's hardly a "short term asset" unless we decide that he is.

I might have this concern if the Delgado trade hadn't been agreed to. Taking both trades into account, Atlanta simply looked like a desperate team willing to overpay from a position of depth for a major league need. Theo simply took advantage of that. There's also the matter of Maholm pitching very well this season and being under control for another season on a very team friendly deal, while Liriano has struggled over the entirety of the season and is a rental.

I think one high ceiling, major league ready guy and one more low level high ceiling guy is a must.

:-k Must've been a PTBNL in the Demp trade that everybody missed. Not sure how the Rangers got Cutler though.

I don't really dislike him, I'm just not very excited about him. Seems like a throw-in and I'm not sure I like Villanueva enough to be excited about him and a throw-in.

If he's consistently 91-93 rather than 87-89, I may get pretty intrigued by Hendricks with his terrific control.

First off don't get me wrong, I don't blame the FO for missing Delgado - that was all on Demp. That said, there's ton more certainty with Delgado and probably quite a lot more upside too considering one of the scouting reports on the previous page called Villanueva's "perfect world" upside as above average 3B. I kinda like the trade, but it seems like a pretty large step down from what we could have gotten. As for the deadline as a whole - it was decent, but I'm not thrilled with the Geo trade and the Demp trade was pretty good. The Maholm/Reed deal really makes the deadline a whole lot better though, so I'll try to focus on it.

CCP just posted he's been sitting 87-89. Holding that velocity through the entire game or starting or end? I don't know. He posted a BA link, but I've not read it yet.

I'm pretty intrigued by Villanueva, but not to the point that I think we got good value if Hendricks was just a throw-in. If Villanueva was the only quality player we picked up, then this seems like a fairly poor trade.

My honest guess is they stuck with Gould and Withrow. Would you take this trade or Gould/Withrow? As much as I wanted pitching(and I like Gould), I'd take this. Villanueva is the best prospect in either deal. Thanks.

CCP just posted he's been sitting 87-89.

My honest guess is they stuck with Gould and Withrow. Would you take this trade or Gould/Withrow?

This is basically how I feel.

Could be the rumored extension. But I'd be fine if not.