David

i cant believe we've been on this horsefeathering site for 15 years

i didn't know it was possible not to have heard this story at some point. feels like it's brought up all the time. Haven't I proven how oblivious I can be yet? Besides is that talked about among Chicago media or just in general? i feel like it's mentioned on baseball broadcasts somewhat frequently a lot of times guys will bring it up when a pitcher is talking into his glove or whatever

i didn't know it was possible not to have heard this story at some point. feels like it's brought up all the time.

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Not just that...Girardi too. i'm pretty sure i have never heard the name rick wrona in my life

you should share this with cubs twitter somehow what the hell book is this

minor pet peeve of a crazy person like me... photo day pics where they're swinging a bat with a hat instead of a helmet on

pretty spot on [tweet] [/tweet]

oh that's the other thing...having to endure all the meatballs when good pitchers get smacked around

if there's games on TV and regulars playing, that's enough to hold my interest (or prospects back when we were awful and had great ones), but it gets very old very fast

i'd rather go when they're in the workouts phase than the boring ass games

I don't think he was their top rated CB. He had the top rated single game of any CB (against Cincinnati), but looks like he was 22nd overall. https://www.profootballfocus.com/nfl/players/kyle-fuller/8649 Also, yes there are plenty of good CBs. Malcolm Butler, Bashaud Breeland, Trumaine Johnson, and EJ Gaines, who are all similar level CBs last year. But I'd take Fuller over all of them due to age (slightly younger than all except a week older than Gaines) and we already know his fit in this defense unlike the others. I also love this CB class in the top 60 picks so I'd certainly be willing to double up at the position, with or without Fuller. That being said, Fuller will be back on a franchise tag. Could have sworn Mully said Fuller was the top-rated CB last year if he did, that's wrong

EverybodyIn

it was used a bunch last year until about july https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHC/2017-batting-orders.shtml

Don’t ya think he would’ve done that already? Maybe he's another yonder Alonso who just needs to realize hitting the ball in the air is a good idea. I wouldn't bet $140 million or whatever on it tho

I thought ademan was a pitcher for a long time

what? no actually, yes. 1.7 over his last 4 with us... With regular old WAR. If you want to argue that this is a good case study of fWAR over WAR, okay, I'll give you that, but I'd still say the contract was bad there at the end there's no such thing as regular old WAR. I'm guessing you mean baseball reference WAR, or bWAR or rWAR. and yeah, it kinda sucks. on a strict value basis, the contract was always bad. just not nearly as bad as people treat it as. it was far from some horrible albatross. just a good player who was paid a bit more than his market value should've dictated.

Damn, I forgot that was Duke's name. Good summation Duke. i totally just thought you were kidding/being facetious

I don't disagree... But few thought it was a good contract at the time, and in hindsight, I don't think anyone would have done it again (we got what, maybe 2 WAR from the last four or five years we had him?). At the time, I would have preferred opening up the pocketbook a year or two earlier and nabbing Vlad or Beltran over Soriano. All that said, I would sign Soriano again in a heartbeat over that contract they gave Hosmer. According to Fangraphs, we got 8.9 fWAR from his last 3.5 years before before trading him to the Yankees. The Soriano contract was fine, both at the time and how it turned out. it turned out better than people generally seem to think, but it was still negative in value overall at the time it happened, i definitely had a bittersweet feeling about it. i was excited that we signed the best player out there to a big contract but i was also pretty annoyed that we didn't decide to throw all that money around when there was a better free agent class. soriano was the type of player i begrudgingly liked despite an approach at the plate that was everything i learned to dislike in a baseball player. he was so talented that he was still productive despite his allergy to working counts and walking (i think he did have a year or two where he wasn't so bad in this regard). and we got two division titles out of it.

I'm not defending Hendry, but there's a humongous difference between those 2 moves. At least the Cubs signed a bunch that off season. Bought themselves into being the favorites. Plus, Sori was a hell of a lot better player than Hosmer. I don't disagree... But few thought it was a good contract at the time, and in hindsight, I don't think anyone would have done it again (we got what, maybe 2 WAR from the last four or five years we had him?). At the time, I would have preferred opening up the pocketbook a year or two earlier and nabbing Vlad or Beltran over Soriano. All that said, I would sign Soriano again in a heartbeat over that contract they gave Hosmer. what? no

They immediately won the division the next two years. How was it the wrong year? wrong year in the sense that soriano was the best free agent out there. to this day i'm disgusted with not signing carlos beltran

It’s a player who doesn’t affect us signing with a team that doesn’t affect us. I’m fine with the mega thread yeah you're right with this mess of threads being constantly created it would just be stupid to have a specific place to discuss it

are we really at the point where we're megathreading a $150M 8 year free agent signing in an offseason where nothing has happened? i think i'm going to crusade against these things again

[tweet] [/tweet] [tweet] [/tweet] I can't decide what I think of this in terms of value. This isn't a horrific deal if he can be the 2015 and 2017 guy much more often than the 2014 and 2016 guy. And yet I'm still incredibly confused by what the Padres are doing here and why it took that to get him.

[tweet] [/tweet] I guess Baldy has never heard of Mark Gonzales (or filters)