squally1313

Lol my fault for all of that. Hopefully rich hill or someone like that signs tomorrow so we can start over.

Creating a hypothetical world where the Cubs only target/are willing to pay for sub 1 fWAR guys, and then getting upset when those guys are signed by other teams, is certainly a way to do things around here.

Fangraphs has Matsui as the 92nd rated free agent out there by projected WAR. There are 62 better free agents still available by that metric. But yes, Ricketts sent a text asking if he could get paid in hot dogs and got turned down, lol.

An Asian pitcher coming over to the MLB and picking a west coast team is just another Jed/Ricketts failure to like, half the board here. Cool cool cool, fun stuff.

Congratulations to our solid #3 pitcher!

I don't know what your definition of 'personal attack' is and I certainly didn't imply that you should like, not log onto the board or whatever. But taking the lack of a panel at the Cubs convention and using that as a foundation for lowering your expectations, again, for the offseason, is....kinda the definition of unnecessarily freaking out to me? Apologies if you took my response as some low blow or insulting or something, but at the same time you've kinda made a habit of coming on here every day and being super negative about this being a lost offseason and using every piece of news out there to like, confirm this pre-set agenda that you have. And I don't think I'm alone here but I'll speak only for myself in that I think you're being overly negative and fatalistic and like, taking pride in how right you think you are because another 24 hours have passed or the Cubs aren't explicitly listed in a tweet about Free Agent X. And it's a message board, which to my understanding encourages direct interaction, so if you're going to keep posting about it I'm going to tell you that I think you're wrong. Otherwise we're all just like, shouting past each other and we might as well just be tweeting into the void. Also, to maybe unfairly appeal to the time I've spent here, but I really don't feel like my responses were anywhere near the level of normal debate here. By all means, feel free to call me a stupid idiot when Matt Mervis is the opening day first baseman. But at least then it will be April.

Is this just like a blog for you? Do you not want people replying to the things that you post here?

Define 'value signings'. 5 teams have spent over $100m so far this year. 7 teams over $50m. That includes such 'major markets' as Arizona, Cincinnati, and Kansas City. The major market Mets have spent $18m, Astros have spent $12m, Red Sox $1m, Yankees $0m. As mentioned earlier like, 70% of the top 50 free agents are still available. Maybe we should just take a horsefeathers breather and see what happens? Or, alternatively, take the sun setting in the west each day as yet another piece of evidence that Jed hates all of us and has already penciled Mervis and Madrigal into the starting lineup. Whichever one works better for you!

Yeah so many of these complaints are just totally taking away agency from the players. Maybe they don't want to play in Chicago in April and May, maybe they think Chicago is some hellhole, maybe they don't want to play under a Ricketts ownership, maybe there's some dude on another team they like playing video games with, maybe like 17 other reasons. If I'm already a multimillionaire in my late 20s, there's like 15 cities I'm immediately crossing off my list. Why are these guys any different?

You literally updated your 'offseason expectations' or whatever based on this tidbit. It was on the last page. Hm, Dansby, it seems like no one else wants you to play baseball for their team. Given that information, and your apparent total lack of bargaining power.....would you like $177 million dollars?

That's crazy talk. Them not scheduling a Ricketts panel is clearly them signaling to the market and the fanbase that they hate all of us and are just going to send Jed on vacation until April 1. Please freak out accordingly.

Because Tom Ricketts didn't show up on a convention schedule?

Since the beginning of 2022 Justin Steele has produced the 16th most pitcher fWAR in baseball while throwing less innings than anyone in the top 20. His ERA over that stretch is 3.11 and his FIP is 3.09. He made 30 starts in 2023 and pitched five or more innings in 27 of them. He fits every definition of an ace pitcher besides, like, if your definition of 'ace' is top 3-5 pitcher in baseball.

Are those the two options? First ballot Hall of Famer or good #3 starter?

As mentioned elsewhere, he has played third base more than anywhere else in his professional career. And there are plenty of ways to give players a look at a defensive position, especially an infield position, without spotting him 60-80 starts in the majors. You could knock out the number of opportunities he would get in that stretch in about an hour and a half of pre-game work. The idea that the Cubs, with their second baseman, shortstop, left fielder, and right fielder all under contract for multiple years, would just now, 575 games into Morel's professional career, be like 'oh man, we never really thought about him as a third baseman, should we try to make that work?' is pretty absurd. Similar to all the comments about 'they probably just wanted him to focus on his offense', as if Morel, by all accounts an elite 24 year old athlete, spent all 5-6 hours of pre-game in the batting cage or was somehow too tired to field groundballs after all the exhausting 'focusing on offense' he was doing. Could the Cubs be wrong? Sure. But I'm pretty sure this isn't some novel idea that hasn't previously been considered.

This entire offseason: Marquee player is linked to the Cubs, goes somewhere else What the horsefeathers Jed and PTR suck so much, we're not throwing our money around and beating these deals even though we could Actual deal terms come out Woah, well, man, that is a lot of players/money, that's way more than we were discussing, don't know if I would have done that, that seems way over the top Switch to another thread Repeat #2

Signing Bellinger to play center, signing Hoskins, trading PCA or another glut of outfield prospects for pitching: Fine, good enough offseason besides missing out on the big guys. Puts above average bats at 6 of the 9 positions, who cares about catcher, etc. Signing Bellinger and bestowing upon him the first base spot and cleanup hitter role for the next 5-8 years and calling this the big and only addition we needed: Terrible offseason, and we deserve the decent chance of a Bellinger regression.

Mostly fair points, but I think it's a little bit glossed over to use phrases like 'a demonstrated ability to put up high end offensive production' and 'talented enough hitter with enough history'. The dude was legitimately broken offensively for 2 years/900 PAs until he came to Chicago, and the year before that would have made him an offensively average first baseman. Positional flexibility is nice, but if we're going to go this route I would much prefer to see his defense in center 130 games a year (while also turning PCAs potential and coveted team control into immediate 2024 production).

How do you think the Dodgers are going to plan for paying $68m/year from 2034-2044? Just, deal with it when it comes up? Have a giant hole in their budget and play like a midmarket team for 10 years? Or is it possible that the $700m is essentially worthless and they're throwing $45m or so into an investment/interest bearing account every year so that when the bill finally comes due, they have the $68m they need? They're almost definitely committing significant money to the Ohtani contract every year, even if it doesn't come in the form of a check to Ohtani himself.

Sign Bellinger, Morel plus whatever it takes to pry away Bregman, PCA and other prospects for pitchers (Miami, Seattle, Cease, etc).

Yeah, the CBA prescribed interest rate is 5%, which, to very oversimplify, is about what you could get if you took (a lot of) money down to your bank and asked for their best interest rate. $44m annually obviously qualifies as a lot of money. If the Dodgers went to BofA on 1/1/24 and deposited $44m into a savings account at 5% (and wrote Shohei a $2m check), by 2034 they'd have $68.2m sitting in that account. And then repeat that every year of the life of his contract. Obviously they don't have to do that, they'll have plenty of other revenue streams to pull from in 10 years, and at that level of money you should be able to get a lot better than 5% return on your investment. So that's the beneficial part on their end (though the downside is interest rates plummet back to where they were a few years ago and they have to make at least somewhat risky investments). Ohtani is making like $50m-$100m off the field annually right now anyways, and gets to maybe get creative tax wise in ten years when those checks start rolling in. I don't really see an issue with the contract, and think the way it's viewed for CBT purposes makes sense. As a dork, there's interesting financial/tax questions that probably still need to be sorted through. But it's fine. It's a 10 year/$460m deal. If the Cubs signed someone today to a 1 year, $100m deal but deferred the payment to 2075, they could put $10m into a bank account right now and come out $15m ahead by the time the bill came due.

Shohei Ohtani does not determine whether or not Jed is 'conceding the offseason'. When Ohtani signs, there will still be 43 other free agents.

44 of the top 50 free agents remain unsigned.

Option C : The Yankees offered a package the Cubs weren't comfortable matching, for reasons that had nothing to do with salary. I mean, it's not like there was some recruiting pitch that had to be done here.

Fair points, though they're coming off their first losing season in a while and if he's told the alternative is trading their best pen guy, second best offensive guy, and potentially their best starter, he might change his tune a little bit. Edit: Forgot this: