squally1313
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Everything posted by squally1313
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I don't know why this is bothering me so much, but going into the offseason thinking that we're in this like, 9 win hole or whatever that we have to make up before we can call the team improved just strikes me as very unnecessarily pessimistic. I don't think you can name a team out there that doesn't have somewhat significant production from last year currently unsigned/without a contract. Said another way, there's a ton of talent that was contributing across the league now sitting in the FA pool. It seems one sided to only look at Stroman and Belli. We also 'lost' the -2.3 fWAR generated by Young, Mancini, Hosmer, Rios, and Mervis. And even if we don't replace Stroman and Belli with stars, you can still reasonably expect like, 1.5 wins from each position just from internal replacements or minor signings. PCA is projected for 1.1 in 94 games, as an example. Basically, of course it would be nice to still have that production under contract. But the Cubs lost their 3rd best offensive player and 3rd best pitcher by overall fWAR value. Not exactly an emergency, and I'm sure that 'loss' isn't unique across baseball.
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Oh man I just clicked on the little Newspaper thingy again and the post blurbs disappeared. Potential game changer. Thank you a lot
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I'm the same way and honestly this is the issue I have with the 'new' version of the Active Topics that Wrigley (helpfully) put together and Poster (also helpfully) linked above. The page shows the most recent post in the thread, so I'd be 'spoiled' (in the lamest way possible). Whereas from what I remember before it just showed the topic name and a reverse chronological list based on latest posts, and would take me to my last read spot when I clicked on it. Not sure if there's a fix for that. But, like I said before, small issue, just have to do it through each forum.
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I get the frustration, and in an ideal world I'd cut a check from my endless money supply to cover operating costs on this site for the next 50 years and turn it back into NSBB circa 2012. But, bluntly, that site (in that form) doesn't exist anymore, and neither does your old site, and there are reasons for that. They're clearly trying to use the articles to drive traffic here, and if I had to guess they probably aren't thrilled with the most popular thread of the last month being 'Cubs Offseason Chat'. But they haven't done anything about it as of yet. I'll absolutely take this site over the alternative of Tim shutting down oldNSBB and nothing so far has made me really consider anything else, although that's probably for more 'I'm old and stuck in my ways' reasons than anything else. I don't know if the business plan works. But happy to put up with these types of minor inconveniences if it keeps this place up and running.
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Bingo. They're going to make him captain or something dumb like that. Need someone to fill the Wainwright retirement tour slot.
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Career wise, that's a fair answer. 2023, the difference between Ohtani and Alonso was bigger than the difference between Bellinger and Hoerner
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Define 'similar'
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Fairly sure there's not a forum breakout that's going to please everyone. Assume Brock and team have run the numbers on what arrangement is most likely to drive engagement. Feel like even at the old site we went through phases, mostly dependent on how the organization was doing. There were offseasons with expectations like this one where I feel like 90% of the activity was in the Transactions forum and no one ever really did anything in the Cubs General one. The years they were good and then forum was active, feel like there was always a fresh game thread up and that got most of the posts. Everyone here has obviously figured out a way to make it work, otherwise they wouldn't be here. My one frustration is that I never found anything that reliably replicated the 'Active Topics' feature from the old site, so I'm still having to click in and out and of the sub forums. But, the notifications are nice (and instant), the site generally moves quickly, it's fine.
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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
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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
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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).
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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?
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Trading Nico Hoerner to clear a spot for a guy with 70 PAs above single A is some galaxy brain stuff
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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'
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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.
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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.
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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.
