WrigleyField 22

How do we not have pitching? If Garza's comes back healthy and Shark can improve on or at least repeat what he did this season that's a solid 1-2. Neither is a "number 1" by the standards of the experts, but if you ask them, there's like 10-12 of those in the entire league. Wood's been as good as most 4s, mostly, and if they dont see Volstad, Rally, Rusin, or Germano as a 5, they can look into finding another Maholm. If they're willing to spend for Jackson, Sanchez, or Marcum, I really like the rotation. It's by no means 2003 or 2008, but it's not like the NL Central is stacked with pitching. Volstad, Raley, Rusin, and Germano are not 5th starters! Wood is our fifth stater. Of those other guys one can be the long man and the others are Iowa fodder waiting around for injuries. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

lol at bold http://www.csnchicago.com/baseball-chicago-cubs/cubs-talk/Soler-puts-on-a-show-at-Wrigley-Field?blockID=773759&feedID=661&awid=5119870656440859932-914 If you listened to how he said it, he clearly meant "hear", just trying to quote accurately. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'll give it a shot. 1. Sign Edwin Jackson to a 4 year deal. 10M per year reasonable? 2. Sign Brandon McCarthy to a 2 year deal with third option year. (8M avg?) (Failing those get two, theres also Dempster, Blanton, Francis, Haren, Villanueva, Sanchez, Liarano who are varying levels of acceptable, to intriguing, to underwhelming one year stop gaps to fill innings if we strike out- all depending on cost obviously. Bottom line though is filling 2 rotation spots for 2013, and hopefully filling spots beyond that) 3. Sign Angel Pagan to a 3 year deal. He should provide a decent CF option. I'm looking at him like DeJesus. 4. Find a couple mildly cost effective bullpen stop gaps. I honestly don't care enough to look who is available. No more than 3M/2yr for either. 5. Look to deal Jackson in a prospect for prospect swap. A pitcher would be nice or a 3B. If we don't find anything good I don't think we're hurting his value to keep him in AAA and let him work on things. If we end up finding a good package for Soriano, he is available to come up. 6. Keep Vitters in AAA to work on things. 7. Float LaHair as a trade chip for literally anything. 8. Would like something interesting for 3B, but it will be tough. If Youkilis isn't brought back by the White Sox, I would be up for a 1 year with an option contract. Even with my other three FA ideas, we should still have enough money. I'll say we get him. Otherwise maybe we are able to get another mildly interesting candidate to compete with Valbuena and Stewart. I'm showing something still under $115M, maybe closer to $105M, all depending on FA and arbitration costs. I don't think we owe anything to other teams either, so that's still plenty of money to pour into the developmental side and business ventures. Lineup: RF- DeJesus SS- Castro 1B- Rizzo 3B- Youkilis LF- Soriano CF- Pagan 2B- Barney C- Castillo SP- Samardzija SP- Garza SP- Jackson SP- McCarthy SP- Wood CL- Marmol BP (5) - Russell, a couple FAs and whatever else we wanna throw out from what we have. Long Man- Volstad Bench: C- Clevenger or Recker 2B/3B- Valbuena 3B- Stewart OF- Sappelt CF- Campana

I'm fairly confident the Bears put up 49, but I'm not sure GB gets on the board. Tough call. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The cost was valuable MLB playing time, which is a lot more valuable than the piddly cash we threw around on these players. Valuable playing time over which alternatives? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's a disingenuous comparison. DeJesus and Maholm's "low" were still solid players, and their highs were above-average starters. Ian Stewart's low was a sub-replacement player and his high was a barely average starter in part-time duty. You could pick up some terrible career organizational minor leaguer coming off his worst season, give him a starting job and say "see! It's buy-low, just like DeJesus and Maholm!" But it's not just like them. Why not factor in cost? Maholm and DeJesus required a bit more financial commitment. But relative to cost commitment they were pretty similair. Although not exactly. Stewarts was more a bet on improved health, but the same general thought Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Which is nuts when you consider 25% of our schedule is against Green Bay and Detroit. Yeah, but we get to play some soft divisions. Also, looking at our schedule, 5 of our last 7 games are divisional games....that's really odd scheduling. Is the NFL purposely trying to put more divisional games later? I believe they are. I remember it being a discussion point recently. I think the thought being you'll create more playoff race matchups. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So AFL is comparable to AA right? Is Baez in Chicago by 2014, with maybe a Sept call up next year? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Backloading is good. That is a little bit of an oversimplification. Backloading is not inherently good or bad. My personal preference would be to minimize backloaded contracts on a rebuilding team, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is a bad thing. Either way, it really should not be much of a factor here. No, backloading is good. Only to the extent that the following is true. The increases on salary will be covered by future additional revenue, savings, or current capital. (dont dig into a hole) There is no risk of losing unspent capital to taxes. Of course if you have 30mil extra lying around the time value of money says it will be worth that and more. Salary is one of the easiest expenses to net against revenue to lower taxable income. Essentially you dont want revenue to outpace costs too much. This is the timing effect of taxes. If more salary now helps timing, thats good because a 15% tax you could have avoided now easily negates the time value if money. The above is also less true for salary cap sports where cap planning is a concern and frontliading is more often helpful. Although there is a lux tax in baseball so you could reach the point where forwarding some salary up front saves you money because of potential lux tax two years down the road. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm still glad he's hitting 2nd because he needs as many AB's as possible. But, shouldn't one of your better hitters bat 2nd? I.e. Castro If winning is your first priority, sure. If developing guys by getting them the most ABs possible is, maybe not. But then I guess they should hit him leadoff. I'm guessing Sveum is just trying to give him the most possible protection. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Some additional cost in raises, agressively pursuing any over 23 IFA, and additional small pieces like Reed Johnsons and we should be close. Maybe down a bit just from lost revenue after our shitty season. Plus i think our restricted IFA budget will grow (everyone was equal this year and we'll have one of the hightest next year.) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm still wondering where all the money went this year. The 2011 Cubs spent around $160 million between the big leagues, the draft and IFAs. Add up this year's payroll, draft, IFA, organizational changes and infrastructure, and I'm still coming up way short of $160 million. I haven't done the math, but did you figure in our official payroll number or what we're actually paying guys? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The vision includes sucking for a few years on purpose. It's not a great vision. Well it included sucking for one year. Beyond this year, I think you'll see gradual improvements in both the short and long term until we're awesome at both. If we don't sign any free agents I can't see us being any better next year. We might even be worse. We're gonna sign free agents! Hell we signed free agents last offseason. And we've shed even more salary once this offseason is over. There's little space to shift that money unless you think it will go to Wrigley Field. And we have no reason to believe Ricketts will just pocket the money. We'll sign at least 2 SP in the Maholm mold and one starting position player. These players cumulatively will be have an AAV of around 25 and net us 4-7 WAR. We'll eventually get to the point where we have one big hole and splurge on a big time FA to fill it, while having plenty of prospects in the pipeline close to being ready, ensuring continued success. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The vision includes sucking for a few years on purpose. It's not a great vision. Well it included sucking for one year. Beyond this year, I think you'll see gradual improvements in both the short and long term until we're awesome at both. People aren't properly understanding that continuing to suck isn't going to have a significant effect on our ability to build for the future. We'll operate on more of a dual front going forward, trust me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hendry left us average assets and no vision (or just a terrible vision, not sure). Theo pawned off the average assets that were overvalued, found some undervalued average assets and gave us a vision. So basically whays changed is the vision. This is pretty simple. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Interesting rankings. I'd have to rate the Chicago uniforms: Bears, Bulls, Hawks, Cubs/Sox close enough to call a tie. None can be in the bottom 50%. As a whole you'd feel pretty confident putting them up against next to any city. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I can see that we'll hold off trading prospects, but being active in free agency can help us for the future as well. As long as they're not blocking a ready prospect, they'll help us be less worse now and if we're lucky they'll be another Maholm, or even better a guy who will continue to contribute when we are contenders. Its unrealistic that we'll suck for a few years and then flip a switch to get good. You have to add pieces along the way and then retain them in a cost effective manner. Yea, you'll be more stingy when you aren't as close, but that doesn't mean you won't look to upgrade the roster in the short term. We're at the point where we really only have one final piece that can net us a significant prospect package. Maybe 2 if you think DeJesus can put up a big season and sell high. But both of those guys could contribute to a winning team within two-three years. I think this off season will look much more dual front- like. Building our farm at this point will just come down to drafting and development. And the extra 5 or whatever draft slots/budget won't be worth forgoing upgrades to the big league club. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Agreed. Although you can throw a lot and still rack up rushing yardage if you're really good. The Saints had 4 RB rack up just over 2000 yards on 398 carries, while adding 1200 yards in the air. If his vision is NO Saints, but consolidated between 2 backs, its a vision I can get behind. (While admitting we aren't actually good enough to acheive it) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There sure as hell is. yea but its like the board's ignore feature. Things you try to ignore always slip through the cracks. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Personally I don't like ignoring posters. There's no ignore feature in real life and encountering them on the internet makes my real life interactions easier. And anyways, if you see a imbedded quote with a poster you don't care to read, cant u stop once you ser their username? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So the Trib is reporting they asked him to take a pay cut to $700k and he asked to be released. He would have made 1.26M. Can't say I disagree with the decision. For a 3rd RB whatever drop off isn't worth it for the extra salary. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

At 30% he can hold down CF for his cheap years until something better is available. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You don't even need catch all threads. For instance in Social you could easily have 5 threads for the top 5 discussed tv shows and still not clutter the board. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Another option. The only downside I see here is that bears/sox fans might not want to come here to talk Bears if they get inundated with Cubs stuff. My opinion, this isn't a high traffic board, so more sub-boards isn't necessary. Would rather consolidate discussions, so its easier to switch between discussions. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk "View Active Topics" is your friend. Or it should be. Actually when I'm on my phone I use the Tapatalk function that showsjust new topics. Is this a function on a normal browser too? I end up reading mostly from my phone. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk