XZero771679666304

LOL But yeah, wtf is going on over there

Who is saying that? I firmly in the "add if it helps but doesn't hinder the long term product" camp. In that mindset, adding Darvish/Cespedes would have made sense, but Pujols/Fielder would not have. At all. And I think the evidence indicates that Theo and Jed made legitimate plays for the former pair. I'd like to see more wins as much as anyone, but I'm not going to delude myself into the belief that with a few sensible additions the Cubs could have been good this year or next. You can say that comparing WAR and the like to gauge how many wins the team might or might not have had is silly, but it is at least grounded in some logic. WAR does provide some idea. Adding a couple superstar players isn't going to have a magical transformative effect. This isn't the NBA. In order to have fielded a team that was at all competitive, we'd have had to keep guys like Marshall, Cashner (given the state of the bullpen going into the season) and Ramirez, on top of adding 2-3 top tier FAs. You can go on all day about how the team could have been decent and the same system gains could have been made at the same time, but it doesn't make it true.

They've got four players in their lineup right now with a better OPS than .750. There's a very decent chance the 2013 Cubs don't match that if they don't make a significant effort to acquire immediate impact players. The Cubs don't need to add impact players for 2013 to avoid being as bad as the 2012 Astros. Houston has two qualified position players, one with a .777 OPS and another with a .681. The other Astros with .750+ OPS' have either been injured or are part time players.

If we take the same approach as last year, this team is Astros-level bad in 2013. No. Explain. Really? The Cubs have a superior roster to the Astros right now. That roster is devoid of talent, we at least have some. And if Theo and Jed use the same tactic as last year, they'll at least add something (probably pitching, a Paul Maholm type, or two). The Cubs may be bad in 2013, but they're not going to be 2011/12 Astros bad. That's just spaz talk.

If we take the same approach as last year, this team is Astros-level bad in 2013. No.

What if Theo and co. just didn't like any of the big FA this offseason? All of them had risks attached given where we stood and the money required to get them. Pujols: $200m+ over 10 years, it would be tough to build a WS team while he was still at an elite level, there were signs pointing to him declining and coming back towards the pack of 1B Fielder: Poor defender, long term questions about if he could stay in the field for a team that doesn't have DH. Wilson: Short term track record of success as a starter, saw major jumps in IP over the last two years compared to his career Darvish: Would have taken $100m plus to acquire him the FO might have had a bad taste in their mouth after Dice-K. He hasn't been all that great this year. Previously had a lot of innings on his arm already. Cespedes: By all accounts we wanted him and offered him the same AAV as the A's but he wanted a shorter term deal (4 with the A's v. 7 with us) so he could potentially cash in big one more time. If he didn't like any of them why did he put in a bid for Pujols, Fielder, Darvish, and Cespedes? PR move? It wasn't as if they were either/or propositions. Cespedes and Darvish were young enough, and they apparently made the offers the thought reasonable (and in the case of Darvish, more than any other team but Texas thought reasonable). I think they thought they had a legitimate shot at both. We don't know that any offers were made for Pujols/Fielder, but if there had been, obviously they weren't willing to pay a premium for diminishing returns, which would be wise given the state of the team.

What Vision? We suck for 2-3 years and hope and pray we draft well? That's a [expletive] vision for a big market team. We draft well, spend in IFA and make shrewd aquisitions until a core is developed. Honestly, would some people really sacrifice many of the system gains we have made just to have an outside shot at being decent instead of being bad? Make no mistake, the Cubs would still be mediocre at best even had Theo/Jed signed Albert, Prince, Wilson, or whoever. And the sytem would have been worse off for it.

As opposed to what? Simply bad? How does one progress from awful to great? Do we just skip over any sort of improvement and lose 100 games the next couple years then bam 95 win juggernaut? Not by trying to plug your numerous holes with expensive assets that will lose value instead of gaining it, that's for sure. I think we will see improvement next year over this year, and in 2014 over 2013. Signing a group of older guys at exorbitant prices who won't immediately turn you into a contender isn't a sound strategy. It wouldn't have made significant immediate improvement, and it certainly wouldn't have improved the long term prognosis. In fact, the opposite is true; it would have prolonged the system building process while not providing significant enough short term improvement to make it remotely worth it. Well, it would have provided the illusion and pretense of having a chance, and maybe that's all some people really want.

As opposed to what? Simply bad?

Yeah, they're an odd case, and it's hard to get a read on wht they're trying to do. I get the impression there is some sort of disconnect/power struggle between elements in the FO. I'm thinking the noise about Lucchino's increasingly heavy handed meddling may be true.

Would our farm system be any worse right now if we signed free agents this past offseason? Would our 2013 team be better? Well, if we had went and signed Pujols, Wilson, and Cespedes, we'd not have Underwood or McNeil in our system. Two very high upside pitchers. We'd have an extra 50 mill added to our payroll. We'd finish with 75-80 wins. Dropping our draft pisitioning 12-15 spots, same with IFA's. So yes, your system would have been affected and for what? Wins that didn't get you into the playoffs or even close, in all likelihood. But hey, we'd be slightly less awful next year.

And the Cubs would still suck next year, and by the time they were good again, Pujols would be further into what is clearly his decline phase, and the Cubs would be paying him a crapton of money to not be as good as Rizzo. Put it this way, even if you add 3 or even 4 of Pujols, Wilson, Fielder, Darvish and Cespedes, not only would the Cubs still not be contenders this year, but probably not next year, either. That is unless Marshall, Cashner and Ramirez were retained (and they did try and keep ARam for 2012). If you take cumulative WAR of the players many people wanted signed and subtract the WAR of those they would have ostensibly replaced from that number, it becomes clear just what a mess Theo and Jed inherited and it helps you understand why they've taken the route they did. The improvement, both this year and next, would have been marginal at best. If we're looking beyond 2013, I'll take my chances with the young talent rather than wishing Theo/Jed had doled out ill-advised, massive contracts to older players. Going into the last offseason, the Cubs were not in the same position a team like the Angels were. I would like to have signed Cespedes and Darvish, but c'est la vie.

They'd probably say no. The Marlins absolutely would (or at least should). They weren't all that close, their season has been a disaster, and their signings disappointing. Adding those players was a transparent attempt to put butts in the new seats, and it didn't even succeed in that. I can't argue with the way the Angels went about things (though I still cringe at that Pujols contract, which is gonna look uglier in a couple years). This is because they had a pretty nice group of players on the roster already. Pujols and Wilson rounded out the team. Pujols and Wilson on the Cubs would have been band-aids on bullet wounds. And then the band-aids would fall off after 162 games. This team with Pujols and Wilson and even Cespedes would still be well under .500.

They'd probably say no. The Marlins absolutely would (or at least should). They weren't all that close, their season has been a disaster, and their signings disappointing. Adding those players was a transparent attempt to put butts in the new seats, and it didn't even succeed in that. I can't argue with the way the Angels went about things (though I still cringe at that Pujols contract, which is gonna look uglier in a couple years). This is because they had a pretty nice group of players on the roster already. Pujols and Wilson rounded out the team. Pujols and Wilson on the Cubs would have been band-aids on bullet wounds.

A combination of A and C, maybe a tiny bit of D. I'd go 75/25 between A and C. I think the "dual fronts" talk was mainly just PR to keep as many people possible interested and coming to the park. But I think the Theo regime is intrigued by the chance to build from the farm almost entirely and they see their opportunity to do that in Chicago with the media/fan frenzy for "young players who really want it and care" instead of "old, overpaid guys who just want to count their millions." Likely finding out the minors were a bit more barren than they originally thought just encouraged that line of thought. Eh, I think the "dual fronts" issue has become a case of different people interpreting the statement in the way most palatable to them. Some people think that the statement meant they would come out checkbooks blazing and somehow stocking the farm system. I think any realistic chance of that went by the wayside with the new CBA. I think what many others do, that they will spend when it makes sense to. Spending this past offseason would not have turned this team into a solid contender, and they knew that. I definitely don't think it was a blatant lie for PR purposes, nor do I think they had to start spending on the FA market immediately to fulfill that statement. I don't think they have some notion that they can build an entire roster from within, or even close. That's not realistic. I think they want to build a core (a few very good/star position players, a couple starters and a few pen guys) from within. Assembling 80%+ of a championship team from within isn't remotely likely to happen, and while that may be a fond, "best case" hope, I don't for a second think that's the plan. I think they're looking at teams like the Yankees of the late 90's/early 00's and the Red Sox of the mid-2000s as models; teams with a core of great, home-grown players, supplemented by a few shrewd acquisitions and a handful of prime FAs. I think they thought they'd be able to expedite the process by spending big in the amateur draft and that they probably underestimated just how barren our system was (especially in the pitching department), and those things may have stretched out their anticipated timetable, but I don't for a second think there's egregious deception going on.

Seriously. I snooped around for one here and when I didn't see one, I headed to BCB to read more. Definitely. There's going to be ongoing discussion and keeping it confined to an old daily thread seems silly.

Did anyone see Stanton's homer tonight? Good god.

I'm not convinced that his intellectual prowess extended much beyond the statistical/baseball analytics realm. His statistical analyses were pretty sweet, though.

My take on temps: 90+ = It's hot (especially if it's humid, then it becomes FU weather) 80-90 = Pretty warm, but within tolerances 70-80 = Warm 60-70 = Ideal (65 is perfect) 50-60 = Cool but pleasant 40-50 = Brisk, but not horrible <40 = Too [expletive] cold Cool is always nice at night. If you have to use the A/C overnight, it's too hot.

So are nights in the 50s. In August. How's that a bad thing? I have no idea how someone could consider it a negative.

So are nights in the 50s. In August. It's not ideal, but I'll take 60s/70s during the day and 50s at night over 90+ with humidity every single time. I live in the high desert and it often drops into the 50s during the night, even on the hotter days. And it's far more comfortable than the muggy, balls soup summer nights of the midwest. I've spent many awesome summers in Chicago, but the weather was never, ever a selling point. Midwestern summer weather sucks out loud, and I don't miss it one bit.

I agree, but SF is way down my list of ideal places to spend a summer. I'd much rather spend a summer in Frisco than practically anywhere in the midwest, including Chicago (weather-wise), but there are many, many places better than the bay area as well.

I don't think you're the only one making that comparison. On the surface it might seem it's just because they're both fat, but there are a lot of similarities. Both are LH 1B, have big power to all fields, and have good hit tools. Neither can defend or run, but aren't as much of an athletic disaster as their physiques might indicate. Obviously Prince is probably more athletic and has a better hit tool, but there is a comparison there to be made that goes beyond the obesity.

I can't really see ruling SF out because of the weather, but it's not idyllic, either. I actually like cool, foggy marine air, but I also like a semblance of predictability. Like N&G said, it's just weird. I guess Sori just loves the nasty summers in Chicago. Or maybe it's the freezing springs.

I thought Jennings was going to break it up opening the ninth. He was clearly geared up for the fastball, and when he got one he fouled it straight back. But that was the only one he got.