Transmogrified Tiger

How does trading Happ for Samardzija help, Samardzija is neither inexpensive nor high ceiling and you're using your best trade chip to get him? Just sign Cobb.

Well yeah, Theo is cutthroat. They'll have third, fourth, fifth parties, speaking to him, paying him in bitcoins, whatever it horsefeathering takes, to get his extension happening immediately. We're all going to feel awful when we find out Theo has been using Lurie Children's Hospital via Rizzo as a front for smuggling money to Otani. Using the same trick that Jack Donaghy's dirtbag brother used to steal/launder money is a bold move but I ain't mad about it

The path to Otani preferring the Cubs is centered around him wanting to compete for championships and be part of a core with similarly aged players, while also being 'the guy' in terms of the rotation. The direction we've seen from him so far at least makes you think that's a decent part of his motivation(sacrificing millions to get over a year earlier), so that's good. The biggest problem is that the Yankees(despite me personally thinking they'll have a 2016 Astros regression next year) can say very similar things, give him a bit more money up front, offer him a rotation mate from Japan, and offer him more time as a hitter via the DH. He'd need to be turned off by New York the place/media, want to go lone wolf as the only Japanese SP, etc.

The Cubs can spend pretty significantly this year and still stay under the luxury tax and be able to make a big signing like Harper the next year without going to 40+ over the luxury tax, which I think they intend to fly by for at least a couple years starting in 2019.

interestingly enough, David is the only real person here

I think the biggest barrier is probably Stanton saying 'nah I don't want to go to St. Louis' with his NTC.

Yes, he was Renteria's bench coach.

Will it have the first down line? The angle makes that part tougher to eyeball as is, that's the only criticism I can think of, save for maybe having too distant of a view for deep balls.

I saw a tweet from her about "going to discuss this story on my show" and then a bunch of back and forth about the appropriateness of discussing this on her show, despite it being widely reported fairly quickly, and people accusing her of making others feel bad. I assume she kind of laughed at the whole stupid story and embarrassed people lashed out at her. I think this is a decent summation of the backlash against her, click through for the thread/replies for full context: [tweet] [/tweet] [tweet] [/tweet]

I try to not come across as victim blaming, but that was definitely an 'am I out of touch, no the children are wrong' moment in my head.

http://www.northsidebaseball.com/archive/viewtopic.php?p=2043244#p2043244

We live within walking distance of a Mod Pizza(for those unfamiliar, think Chipotle for pizza) which is what we get most of the time.

No one who wants Teheran thinks a FIP near 5 is his new baseline. His career line is a FIP of 4 that he has consistently beaten his FIP by .35 or more every year. Interestingly enough, there's at least a slight reason to think his drop off was related to pitching half his games in Sun Trust park instead of Turner field. That can be a positive or negative thing depending on your outlook, but worth noting if the counterpoint about his 2016 being the new norm is related to the juiced ball.

Having attempted the bolded within the last few days, be careful what you wish for. As an aside, since they were brought up, Little Caesar's new option where you pay a dollar more and get a healthy amount of cheese and toppings is a much bigger improvement than I thought it would be.

Fair enough, I agree there are certainly red flags but there are also some things I really like that he's a top target of mine if we go the FA route for that 2nd or 3rd starter. I don't even necessarily disagree, but I do think that Theo means business about limiting the walks. Not only the stuff about the bullpen, but the guys he's targeted for the rotation(Anderson, Hammel, Feldman, Jaxon, Lester), the way he's treated Montgomery who has similar issues with being effectively wild, all of that points to wanting a lot of strikes to go with your stuff if you're gonna make 30 starts for the Cubs.

I don't think Chatwood is going to throw enough strikes for the front office to bet on him for a 3 year deal or for 8 figures per. Same goes with Chacin. Maybe you get one of them without that restriction, but it's one of the reasons that I do think Cobb is a likely target.

This is a good analogy overall but misses one piece: If half of your potential customers (people who don't buy today) overwhelmingly say that they need the product to do XYZ or cost less in order to buy, the company would probably try implementing some of those changes to see if it impacts sales/profitability. They wouldn't just say "well, a lot of people say these things and don't mean it... no one is going to buy the product so we shouldn't listen to them. Let's just keep the product as-is and hope some people change their minds." The business-specific advice is to take suggestions from non-customers with a grain of salt. Obviously you don't want to be ignorant to customer demand, but by and large the people who have already decided you were worthwhile and became customers are going to have suggestions that are more valuable than those who tell you why they didn't buy. This may not generalize to every last industry, but enough that it works as a truism for this analogy.

I don't see why an AL team wouldn't let him DH at least part time.

I'm a little late, and this is largely echoing others, but a quick anecdote. I work in customer support, so we see a lot of people passing along their requests for our product, e.g. "I would totally buy your thing if it could do XYZ or if it cost less". In personal experience and in reading from other people, when you actually do those things, many if not most all of those people still don't actually buy your product. That was just a story they told themselves because they never planned on crossing the threshold of paying any dollars at all. Rather than confront their own behavior of why $0 v. > $0 is such a big leap, they conjure up the most logical reason they can for their inertia. The people who denounce anthem protesting are doing the same thing. Acknowledging the protest as worthwhile would take them too far out of their comfort zone, because they haven't had that lived experience and people as a species try to cope by assuming a baseline of 'okayness' about their environment. They wouldn't acknowledge it any differently if NFL players started donating their game checks(which requires the players telling/"bragging" to the media about it for anyone to find out), the 'method' of protest is the out that makes the default(things are okay, no action needed from me or the structures around me) more reasonable.

Joel Sherman says MLB and NPB agreed to grandfather the existing but now expired Posting agreement for Otani: http://nypost.com/2017/11/08/mlb-has-tentative-shohei-otani-agreement-with-one-hurdle-left/

I imagine that the conventional wisdom was(and still might come true) that Otani wasn't going to pass up the opportunity at 9 figures just to come over for 2018 instead of 2019.

It's not necessarily them killing it because they don't want to go to the new club. It's them requiring some enhancement to waive the NTC and that enhancement being something that one of the clubs cannot abide, thus killing the trade. Coming off the seasons they had, they know they don't have much leverage. They're the ones going to a more attractive situation, and for Samardzija it's a homecoming too.

I don't understand why all 3 having NTC is such a big deal. What indicator is there that Shark or Melancon would turn down a trade to Chicago? Heyward is a legitimate question, but Brett in particular has been talking up 3 NTC as this inhuman obstacle. Yes it's another thing to consider, but the odds of one of the SF guys killing a deal are low.

Wow, Toronto hangs on at home, but they lose Jozy and Giovinco to suspension for the first leg of the conference finals.

Last I heard, Stinnett was throwing 90-91. Any reports on his stuff tonight? Gameday has him 93-94 with the fastball, including striking out Acuna on 3 pitches.