XZero771679666304
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Everything posted by XZero771679666304
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Don't encourage him
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Savor it Duke, I believe Groce is going to put an end to days of Kentucky, Duke, et. al. plucking whatever player they want out of Chicago and the rest of Illinois. Never heard this one before. Imagine if you got all of the Iowa talent, you'd be pretty good. Now imagine if we could do the same. Gee I wonder why that's what we want. Sure it's what we want, but unfortunately I think that Duke and UK will still get first pick most of the time. If that ends, it will probably only be so because we started making multiple FF runs, not because John Groce is a super recruiter. Or if we start paying kids. That said, Cal/K's Illinois scraps probably constitute a better recruiting pool than the cream of Iowa's crop.
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Pirates sign Liriano 2/14
XZero771679666304 replied to David's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
I would prefer it over Villanueva but I like the Feldman deal more than the Liriano deal. Same here. I don't like Villanueva at all and think Liriano has a higher upside. The difference of course being that Villanueva was apparently willing to accept being a swingman and/or bullpen arm. Unless you like Liriano better than Feldman or Baker, there wasn't a guaranteed rotation slot to offer him. Villanueva is a swingman guy b/c he can't last 180IP without falling off the map, Baker won't be ready for the start and who knows with Garza. Even if they did run into a situation later on this Summer with too many starters for rotation spots, a productive Liriano has more trade value than a productive Villanueva. I'm not debating that, but do you get him to sign with assurances that he might get starts here or there if guys aren't healthy or get traded? I'm thinking no. Why accept any uncertainty about his role when can just sign with a team with fully open rotations slots? -
Pirates sign Liriano 2/14
XZero771679666304 replied to David's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
I would prefer it over Villanueva but I like the Feldman deal more than the Liriano deal. Same here. I don't like Villanueva at all and think Liriano has a higher upside. The difference of course being that Villanueva was apparently willing to accept being a swingman and/or bullpen arm. Unless you like Liriano better than Feldman or Baker, there wasn't a guaranteed rotation slot to offer him. -
Michael Bourn may be, but I certainly don't see any scenario where both are signed.
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I don't think seeing much of Jackson is a given at all. And if the plan really is to play DeJesus in CF, I think defense becomes a real issue if you have Swisher in RF.
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So amidst all the legitimate celebration, the question has to be asked: Why didn't we make any of these signings last offseason? I'm starting to think they really were trying to tank year 1 for draft picks. Either that, or the Dominican facility came from payroll. I think they saw a bad season coming without significant additions and overhaul, saw most of the roster as salable assets and just let things go down so they could stockpile prospects and get a draft pick. This worked well in some cases (Dempster, Maholm) and poorly in others (Garza), but I don't have a huge problem with it. If the same approach of non-action had been taken this offseason, I would have been much less forgiving.
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I've seen some writers say that. Maybe Kyle (but does he really count?). Most other people just want the guys we sign to still be young-ish and effective when the core starts showing up. Yes, this. No one has advocated just sitting on the money until our top prospects are established in the majors, that'd just be stupid. What there has been resistance to is the notion that the FO should spend whatever resources are available on whoever is the best right now with no regard for whether they'd still be good or cost effective when the "core" arrives. The Jackson signing (and the would be Sanchez signing) falls into the "long term acquisitions that are useful now and will be useful later" category that jives with the FO's stated plan. The pursuit of Sanchez and the Jackson signing should come as no surprise to those who were thinking clearly, though some here were pretty resolute in their opinion that we were going to see a steady stream of 1-year deals until 2015. And they absolutely didn't "have to" sign Jackson for four years or offer Sanchez a five year deal (indications were they were trying to do both). They could have easily signed only Villanueva, or simply called it a day with Baker and Feldman, if they were in fact doing what they were being accused of doing, which was phoning it in until the kids all arrived.
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Wood Yeah that's logical, but for whatever reason I just can't imagine Wood and Villanueva sitting in the bullpen. Granted that would make for a vastly improved pen. I think the chances that both would remain in the pen all year are pretty slim.
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Wood Yeah, it seems pretty clear Wood is going to the pen, at least to start the season.
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The 2012 Offseason Thread
XZero771679666304 replied to ctcf's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
I read somewhere a couple of days ago that the Cubs called about Porcello, but "there wasn't a fit". If it was that the Cubs didn't have what the Tigers wanted, I have a tough time seeing a fit for Smyly. -
Unless you like Bourn, who's value is just as much defensive as offensive, there aren't any bats left. The offense for 2013 is pretty much doomed. I'm not all that high on Bourn anyway. Upton was the guy I wanted to see signed. And it's too early to characterize the 2013 offense as "doomed", unless you're limiting your potential additions to those available in the FA market.
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"Appease" is such a difficult standard. There's a whole continuum of things I'd like to see happen. The more they do well, the happier I am. Our priorities should be, in order: 1) Edwin Jackson (or I guess Marcum, though I'm not a huge fan) 2) The best relief pitcher we can find still out there (Mike Adams?) 3) Figuring out the awkward OF situation, either by getting DeJesus a platoon partner or getting a real starting CFer (Andres Torres?) 4) Filling the infield depth out without resorting to Joe Mather (Good freaking luck. It's awful out there) 5) Getting a second lefty for the bullpen (Howell? Gorzelanny?) It seems like at least the first three are being pursued by the FO. Assuming Valbeuna will back up 3B and 2B (which would allow Barney to back up SS, if need be), what would you suggest for more IF depth?
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That knife cuts both ways. It'd be nice to remain optimistic without be characterized as "pious", too. No one here is happy when crap like this happens.
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Frankly I find the piety to be laudable. Repetitive tripe is annoying even when you think you're better than everyone else, guys. Clearly, anyone who isn't responding to what is transpiring with acerbic, sarcastic cynicism (as the enlightened do) is an Theo worshiping sucker, Bukie. Any pretense of optimism is a sure sign of indoctrination. NOT FUNNY PLZ LEAVE THREAD (Joxe) If that sort of post was all I had to offer, I would.
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Of course it is. Kyle is our resident drama queen. It's his role.
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Frankly I find the piety to be laudable. Repetitive tripe is annoying even when you think you're better than everyone else, guys. Clearly, anyone who isn't responding to what is transpiring with acerbic, sarcastic cynicism (as the enlightened do) is an Theo worshiping sucker, Bukie. Any pretense of optimism is a sure sign of indoctrination.
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Very, very few of them are still funny. Most are moving into the SCS realm of being an exasperating, totally predictable and entirely unfunny waste of bandwidth. If they were at least funny, they'd be tolerable. But this isn't the case, and everyone here is acutely aware of how things are going, so it's just annoying.
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I'm not sure it's the same thing. I'm quite sure it's not the same thing. When you're paying Soriano a billion dollars more than anyone else is offering, you can definitely say "I need an immediate answer" and you will obviously get one bc people like money. But you can't make a perfectly reasonable offer to a guy that would prefer to sign with a team that was just in the WS and say the same thing. You'd lose credibility and not get the deal done anyway. The Soriano contract was signed before Theo and Jed came along. What does that have to do with anything? It was a prime example of what he was talking about. The Cubs offered Soriano so much that he couldn't pass it up. That sort of strategy is the only way to ensure you get an immediate agreement. That Theo/Jed didn't sign him is irrelevant to what he was saying.
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Exactly. The only way to ensure you don't get off the phone w/o a commitment is to destroy the competition's offer(s). If your offer is in the ballpark of the others, they're going to call around to see if anyone else will match/surpass.
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I vote for "making your team more attractive to free agents by not being terrible." The participation award is a little encouraging, but the fact that they failed is just as discouraging. They are clearly intelligent, but baseball is deeply competitive and it's not easy to overcome a lot of setbacks. And there's no denying there have been a ton of setbacks in the last 18 months. Again, if your team has to be attractive to induce FAs to sign, how do sign the FAs that make your team more attractive? Quite the conundrum you're proposing. The Cubs have never had an issue signing FAs (when they want to), even when they've been terrible. For all the lip service players pay to winning, in the end it's always about the money. As for the current situation, I'm a little disappointed at losing out on Sanchez, but I'm saving the real angst for the end of the offseason, if by then a comparable acquisition isn't made.
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I don't normally wish injury on players, but I kind of hope his arm falls off now just to screw the Tigers for signing him. Why? His agent did his job and his first choice was to stay in Detroit. It's our front office's job to not get off the phone without a deal and make sure they don't get used for leverage I'm pretty sure that in the real world, the "don't get off the phone until you have a deal" thing doesn't actually happen. You can't force the other party to agree, you can only disengage if you feel you're being used. I suppose you could adopt a strategy of blowing the competition's offers so far out of the water that there's little chance of a counter, but I'm not so sure that'd be a great business practice.
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You should get trashed and then maybe you'll be funny. Maybe.
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I wouldn't mind the Tigers signing Sanchez if it lead to them trading Porcello to us. I'd much rather have Sanchez than Porcello. You're only saying that because Rick Porcello sucks. Because Sanchez is pretty good and Porcello isn't.
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Yeah, but that's a not always a good thing; this is a pretty middling FA class. Next year looks to be even worse. You gotta pick your punches based on what's actually available. I think when the first haymakers get thrown, they're going to be thrown via trade (like Price next year). Guys like Sanchez and/or Jackson would be building to that point. Just my opinion.
