squally1313

Yeah I think the main argument for Bellinger is that, mainly given the current roster makeup, Bellinger represents the best use of $150m-$200m, with the secondary argument being that a PCA trade opens up the potential options significantly. The team needs offense. PCAs like, 90% ceiling is probably a center field Hoerner, so even in the best of outcomes you're still looking at another glove first guy. A very valuable glove first guy, to be clear, but you're really starting to test the limits of how you want to get to that 40-45 fWAR number. We need to figure out a way to find an offensive upgrade, but he can't play short, second, left, or right. You aren't going to pay a first baseman $200m (because, in my opinion, using Freeman and Olson's contracts as benchmarks, there are no $200m first basemen available), the best third baseman upgrade is a glove first guy not worth that kind of money, the only real DH option went to the Dodgers, and catcher there's obviously nothing. Bellinger represents premium offensive production relative to centerfielders. And PCA represents maybe the most valuable trade chip out there for a team looking to rebuild, cut costs, etc.

I think I'd be fine with Gio on a short term deal, but not sure I'd want to lock up his lack of ceiling for that long. Give him like 2/35, give him a chance to go prove it and land a big free agent deal.

It kinda sounds like you want the right to post whatever you want, but you don't want other people to have the right to respond. You made a couple posts criticizing Jed in response to the Matsui signing, I responded by essentially saying your criticism was dumb and/or tiresome and/or misplaced. Freedom to post applies to everyone right? You're free to post your thoughts, I'm free to respond that your thoughts are bad.

No one is policing anything. People are criticizing your posts.

If you're still stuck on the breather/break thing, apologies. All I was doing was saying that I thought your particular opinion there was bad, which I think is fully in bounds in a message board/discussion setting. I'm not sitting here responding to every one of your posts with some sort of attack. But you posting your opinions and then me posting the opposite opinion without any sort of interaction isn't a discussion. I'll try to focus my responses on the content and limit the snarkiness, but if people disagree with my takes I'd rather they call me out on it than just ignore me. Otherwise I wouldn't be posting here. Edit: And apologies to everyone for being a major contributor in bogging down this thread. I, maybe sadly, think there's value in these kind of discussions, but probably don't belong here. Will leave it alone after this.

I'm much sadder in that I usually stay away I'm drinking and if you see me on here late at night it's almost definitely because I'm swamped with work, angry about that, and using this to procrastinate even more.

Zips had them as a 78 win team, Pecota had them as a 75 (was 77 until it updated for Seiya's spring injury) win team,

Would I rather have a dead board or a board where people used every minor signing as an excuse to trash the Cubs, the team we are supposedly fans of? Man, such tempting options with apparently no other path. i keep thinking about this narrative that the cubs have this theoretical limit, and how the most recent example is last offseason, where they, to fit that narrative, cheaped out on the shortstop market…as if Dansby didn’t go out and put up the best season out of all those options. And somehow that isn’t a good thing. Jed put together a team last year that exceeded projections, that by advanced metrics played like a 90 win team, and we’re still currently in a position where there’s about a dozen paths to opening the year as the division favorite with a top five farm system. Which in my mind is not bad? But it’s not the dodgers, so apparently the whole thing is broken.

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.