Tim

I seem to have stopped getting the full page ads on mobile. Please let me know if you still get any.

I'm confused about "still" being the best team? I mean its certainly debatable but our 2nd best reliever right now is Rowan Wick and our position player and rotation depth is not great. Still have the top line talent and with solid seasons from the core we should be right up there, but I find it hard to call us the best team at this point. From a talent perspective, I think we still have more projected production than any other team in the division. I don't really buy into the theory that the whole is less than the sum of the parts with this team. I just think we experienced negative variance last year and that if you played that season 100 times, we'd win the division most of those times. None of the teams has added much and both MIL and STL have had a major subtraction or two. For better or worse, we're basically exactly the same team minus Hamels and a few relievers. While there's not much in the pen you'd point to and write in for 70 appearances of great pitching, there are a fair amount of quality arms that simply lack the longer track record that makes you feel warm and fuzzy. But there's a lot of flexibility and I've got a fair bit of confidence that they can put together a pretty good performance with what they have. The bench was awful last year, but those are actually players that have a decent track record of not being complete garbage until last year. Bote and Caratini are fine to excellent depth. Descalso, Kemp and Almora may not set the world on fire, but they shouldn't sum to a -2.0 WAR, either. The last few guys on everyone's bench look much the same. The overall offense should be somewhere between good to excellent. The big factors there are Happ & Hoerner. If Happ can provide anything like what he did in the second half, he's a well above average CF and our outfield is suddenly looking a lot better. If Nico can reproduce his quality of contact from last year and raise his walk rate to what he did in the minors, he's a very solid piece of the puzzle, too. Them producing well is huge because then you limit the number of at bats you're giving to the end of the bench. Then you've still got Bryant, Rizzo, Schwarber, Contreras and Baez to anchor the offense. Darvish & Hendricks is a heck of a start to the rotation. There's interesting depth there with Mills, Rea, Cotton, Alzolay, etc. And, yeah, that's all I'm going to say here.

I feel like a middle school teacher here. Enough.

As currently constructed, I still think we're the best team in the division. But man am I booooored with this offseason.

I think I got it so that the full page ads on mobile go away. I wasn't annoyed by having to click the X to dismiss them. I was annoyed that it would sometimes lose which posts had been read and it would just dump me at the top of the page.

I'll have to do some research, but I'm pretty sure there are public message boards that allow that option. I understand if Tim and the Mods don't want to add that option here, but I'm pretty sure it exists (and would be kinda nice). You guys aren't always the fastest at responding to trolls (like the horsefeathers poster above a few posts up with the stupid gif). This would give you a very effective option to deal with them. Mods aren't doing a great job here, and the spoilered-gif crap Tom pulled in that other thread isn't cool. The board software is phpbb3 and I've never seen an extension to it that allows it to perform anything close to what you're talking about. If you're suggesting that I take the time to investigate other frameworks entirely, change to one of those, integrate it to the rest of the site, port all the history, usernames, and such over to the other software...I'd suggest you think carefully how much time that will take. Then multiply that by about $150 per hour for programming contractors and then use the donate button to contribute that amount. If you're not willing to put up the cost for that functionality here, I'd suggest adapting.

Yeah, that's a different bias entirely.

Yeah, five whole seasons is WAY too small a sample size. We demand more than half a decade of kicking ass, I guess. It's a team of the decade. He did a lot less in the decade than McCutcheon. I'm not sure how this is even an argument. Now, if this was a list of peak seasons in the 2010's, then he'd have a place. Maybe. Nope. Not even then. In that case it would be Trout, Betts, Harper, Ellsbury, Josh Hamilton, Aaron Judge, Matt Kemp, Jose Bautista, McCutcheon, Bryant (if you consider him an OF, too) and then you finally get to Yelich and Bellinger tied at 7.8.

So he's 8th amongst outfielders. I'll stick by my recency bias statement and say McCutcheon certainly should have been there instead.

lol @ Yelich on that team. Recency bias is strong.

Good to know Theo can still sign his top off-season Target when he wants to.

Can't they still cut him after next season with no repercussions even if they pick up the option? Or it could be that I'm still drugged up from my doctor visit this morning.

I think ultimately we see both KB and Q dealt, which would put the team ~$27M under the tax. That's enough room to extend Javy (adds $8-9M), add 2-3 bench bats ($3-5M each), and leave a small reserve (~$5) for the trade deadline. But with so many moving parts, they don't want to close off any possibilities early. And if extending Javy really is part of Plan A, that may be why they don't even want to do something modest like a Shogo signing before they know they've got a preferred KB deal done. If you're trading KB and Q, then why in the world are we keeping a $16 million closer and a $13 million relief pitcher? Probably because of one of the following: 1) depending on the returns, the Cubs could either still be favored or at least have a realistic shot in the division 2) you're hoping for a solid first half from the closer to up his value from where it is right now 3) somebody still has to pitch and the "relief" pitcher would be one of the five best options remaining

Just a reminder that this guy hit .311/.359/.569 in the minors over almost 1800 PAs before graduating by 22. The lack of walks, he only topped doubled digit walk rates in 2017 at High A, will hurt him but guys like Nelson Cruz and JD Martinez have put together some really productive careers with similar issues Would you term either to be a "superstar"?

This plus Mack will not be invisible, his ineffectiveness this season is combination of many things - him sucking, Hicks injury, etc. - but, it's not because of injury. He'll come back in a big way next year. How much of it may be due to scheme change?

Yeah, I felt like Rucker earned more of a chance than he really got. I hope he does well for the Orioles.

Guess not. Carry on. He's not wrong. The Cubs are a big market team so, the only reason to trade the best player who is in his prime and still two years from free agency is... I don't really know the reason. Well, someone came up with a potential reason earlier. If the Cubs feel that he is past peak and will begin to decline, there could be a strong argument to trade him now. You have to be *really* sure that the shoulder or whatever is going to create a steeper decline phase than normal (or something like that), but there can be scenarios where it makes sense to trade him. I personally don't feel it is likely that scenario is playing out in real life, but logical hypotheticals do exist.

They are, OTOH, trying really really really super hard to be with everything done since the WS win When my daughter was a teenager she wasn't as dramatic as some of you guys.

Honest question: as rosters stand today, who would you guys favor to win the division?

Trading Bryant for a mediocre return would free up a lot of time for me next summer, though. You know, on the bright side.

Just me or is Kevin Pierre-Louis kinda beasting?

So they could be in trouble over the middle. Roquan is out for the game and Kwiatkowski just hobbled off the field after that last play.

That was distinctly more fun.

I turn it on and the first thing I see is an interception at the goal line on a terrible throw. Why did I tune in?

Bowden recommends a move for the Cubs during the winter meetings: I'd be pissed, though I'm sure it would please some people. I just have a feeling Merrifield is already declining and could collapse sooner than later.