squally1313
-
Posts
10,383 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
23
Content Type
Profiles
Joomla Posts 1
Chicago Cubs Videos
Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits
2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking
News
2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks
Guides & Resources
2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks
The Chicago Cubs Players Project
2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker
Blogs
Events
Forums
Store
Gallery
Everything posted by squally1313
-
Going somewhere, Soto? Yes, to the Yankees
squally1313 replied to Bobson Dugnutt's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
No one is saying Shaw should be the opening day starter next year either. But all those guys were highly thought of this time last year. And I'm not saying they're worthless, I'm saying things change, quickly, and a big market team especially shouldn't be pointing towards dudes in AA as a way to justify short term deals. -
Yeah, most teams rely on third base to make up for offensive shortcomings elsewhere (namely second and short). We don't have those shortcomings, but we do have a budget crunch and a handful of cheap dudes who can be mediocre there. If it's truly the missing piece come July, then Horton and PCA can go get us Ramirez
-
Jose Ramirez could and would be a main piece for almost anyone. The issue is that Jose Ramirez's trade value is magnitudes higher than anyone else we're talking about here. Like, that Trade Value site has a fair trade as Ramirez for Morel + PCA + Horton
-
Going somewhere, Soto? Yes, to the Yankees
squally1313 replied to Bobson Dugnutt's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Just like how PCA, Canario, Mervis, Kilian, Wesneski, etc are all ready to step in to be key performers on opening day next year? The Chicago Cubs should not be avoiding long term deals for fear of blocking prospects. -
Yeah I mean, love the bat, but he's very much a platoon guy at this point. Maybe the ultimate platoon guy, and he's the heavy side of any platoon. But all signs point to him being pretty unplayable against lefties. There's ways to work around it besides Morel (find an outfielder that hits lefties and throw Happ at first for 40 games or whatever).
-
I think everyone here is hoping for a significantly better LHH addition to the lineup. But if they were to miss out on Soto/Shohei, or maybe they spend the big money on the Japanese pitchers....there's got to be some way to make a Belt/Morel platoon work right?
-
Trading Nico Hoerner to clear a spot for a guy with 70 PAs above single A is some galaxy brain stuff
-
It's certainly better if he can play one position vs zero positions, though I guess this doesn't automatically mean they think he can't play second...we just already have one of those. Looking at his raw tools (crazy strong arm, fast) and picking first base when centerfield is the other big opening is a bit of an odd choice.
-
I'm certainly not going to bad mouth the writers here covering what has thus far been by far the biggest story of the offseason. Do think they occasionally come off as a little repetitive if you're here every day, but I get the motivation and I'm sure the goal is to drive traffic here, which is a good thing. At the same time, there's a little bit of a disconnect between daily articles posted separately and everyone here's desire to contain the back and forth on a single topic to a single thread. If you don't want to read it, more power to you, but don't think we want to be discouraging people trying to build the site up.
-
Going somewhere, Soto? Yes, to the Yankees
squally1313 replied to Bobson Dugnutt's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
But ultimately your argument here is still 'write a check big enough that he doesn't think any other team will match it', which isn't really gaining much of an advantage. Being able to match the best offer on the market means you're paying more than 28 (maybe 29) teams are willing to pay. Offering anyone besides Ohtani a contract that starts with a 5 is just paying more than anyone else would have. If that's the case, I don't really care whether they do it in August or November, it's still the same result. -
Maybe, but they were 7th in offensive fWAR in September. The pitching and specifically the bullpen kinda fell apart, and I don't really know if there were good options that he avoided in some sort of hard headed method. Like, I assume the complaints are bigger than 'he didn't use Luke Little enough'....but the offense was fine, and he threw Wicks into the rotation and kept him there.
-
To be clear, that's a totally reasonable position. It just comes off a little weird when you're like 'I think you're wrong, and I think most people agree with me, but that's all I'm going to say, not because I can't defend my position, I just don't want to'
-
Not to cherry pick here, but that comment got a ton of criticism at the time and seemingly still now. And I interpreted it, at the time, as pointing to the roster that had, up to 9/6 when he said it, beaten all preseason expectations, had us in a playoff spot (2nd wildcard), and had also pretty significantly underperformed their expected record. He said this and then they won the final three games of the Giants series. At that point in the year, I didn't see anything wrong with that approach.
-
Going somewhere, Soto? Yes, to the Yankees
squally1313 replied to Bobson Dugnutt's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Yeah I think I disagree on there being much negotiation value to having him on the roster all year. But you make a really good point about getting the rights to the comp pick that I hadn't initially been thinking about. Ups the value of what you're getting even if you don't sign him long term (and theoretically ups the cost) -
I could list specifics, but I'm not, but also it's just a feeling, but also most baseball people supposedly agree with me. Ipso facto.
-
Going somewhere, Soto? Yes, to the Yankees
squally1313 replied to Bobson Dugnutt's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Thinking about a Soto extension pessimistically and probably too 'rational markets'-y....the financial details of a Soto extension for the Cubs or another team are probably such that no other team was willing to match those amounts, which implies a lack of surplus value on a go forward basis. The Cubs can decide how much a 5-6 WAR DH/bad corner outfielder making $33m is worth in terms of a trade offer for one year. I don't put a lot of stock in like, this exclusive negotiating window. He's going to go for the biggest offer 12 months from now. -
Craig Counsell, per ESPN EXWL, which I'm 99% sure is just pythag, has been a cumulative 3 games above their pythag in the last 4 years. Most people cite his record in 1 one games, which has been proven pretty definitively to not be predictive.
-
And then lost in the playoffs, repeatedly, which was famously his reputation until he ended up getting the best player in football. This is setting aside the obvious: Andy Reed designs and chooses from hundreds of different plays a hundred times a game. Baseball managers make like 4 decisions a day.
-
Joe Torre managed the Mets, Braves, and Cardinals for 14 total years and won 0 playoff games, and then went to the Yankees and won immediately. Probably all due to him!
-
Andy Reid is such a funny example to cite because he made the playoffs 9 times with the Eagles and never won, lost 4 more times with Alex Smith as his QB, and then put in Mahomes and won 2 SBs (while losing in the playoffs 3 more times). Coincidentally, Andy Reid makes $12.5m and Pat Mahomes makes $56m. But yes, go Andy!
-
It's a fun story and a team as big as the Cubs should have one of the widely considered best managers out there on a yearly basis, so definitely not against the move. But like, the title of the thread is 'so what exactly makes Craig Counsell so much better than David Ross'. And the supposed 'naysayers' here are just saying: there isn't anything exactly, because he's not.
-
It was actually 1.2 more fWAR but go off. And I would think you would argue that that's a bad investment because instead we used $7m to upgrade our manager position by like 5-10 wins, which is a way better return on investment.
-
What makes you say that
-
It's always the games Ross (not the players) blew. It's never the games we came back and won, or the leads we held onto. I get that that's just the way we remember things, and it's a mostly thankless job, but Hoyer signed two starters who struggled significantly and went into opening day with a bullpen that was by all measures bad, and that was before Hughes and Boxberger gave us 33 innings total. Like Kyle said, every single team in baseball had the opportunity to offer him $10m a year, and chose not to. If you're going to make the argument of like 'well Jed clearly thinks this is a good move', go for it. Every other GM absolutely had the financial opportunity to beat it and didn't.
-
Genuinely curious how you, knowing what you know now, would have wanted last offseason to go for the Cubs, that aligns with your repeated point that the Cubs don't spend enough money.
