squally1313

You'll forgive us for being a little skeptical and disappointed that this is the biggest offensive free agent pickup since Jason Heyward, especially considering it either pushes Contreras to the (still theoretical!) DH spot, which makes yesterday's other signing more of a mystery, or it makes it more likely that they are going to trade our best offensive player. But go ahead, get pumped over a mid 30s catcher signing a multiple year deal I guess. I don't understand the binary here. Do you think Gomes is going to catch 120 games whether Contreras is on the roster or not? If they had paid Gomes 2/7 and the same news came out about playing time would that give you the same reaction? It's strange to me that the Cubs paying a slight premium(if that, Roberto Perez is clearly worse and got 5 mil) to get the only worthwhile FA C before the lockout when they have a need regardless of Contreras's future or role is something that can only portend negative things. I'm just not going to get excited for a catcher in their mid 30s on a two year deal when our timeline is increasingly looking like two years of rebuilding, especially when this deal makes it more likely we trade Contreras and fully commit to the rebuild. Yeah, we have a backup catcher need, we also have about 37 other needs and most of them are more pressing. Maybe some big moves are coming! Probably not! But at least with a Miley you can hope he goes on a BABIP streak and turns into a higher end prospect. This is just the guy they can point to and say 'we were able to deal from a position of depth' when Contreras gets turned into two double A prospects, only for Gomes himself to get traded for some rookie ball pitcher in 2023.

"Complimentary players who could help a team trying to contend" is a very nice way of saying "the 2022 versions of Scott Feldman".

You'll forgive us for being a little skeptical and disappointed that this is the biggest offensive free agent pickup since Jason Heyward, especially considering it either pushes Contreras to the (still theoretical!) DH spot, which makes yesterday's other signing more of a mystery, or it makes it more likely that they are going to trade our best offensive player. But go ahead, get pumped over a mid 30s catcher signing a multiple year deal I guess.

Didn't we just slot Contreras into the DH spot for like half the year? Are we just going to run a Frazier/Contreras/Rivas/Schwindel platoon at this position that may or may not exist?

Hearing rumors about Baez to Seattle. Couple that with the KB rumors about ending up there, and with a newborn coming in late January, could definitely get into a Baez/KB infield for those late nights.

I got a text a couple weeks ago asking if I needed any help renewing, which I ignored, and then a couple days later got an email from her saying she was taking a different job within the organization. Haven't heard anything since, so maybe I just slipped through the cracks? Should probably make sure there's no auto-renew thing going on. If it was Hannah she got promoted. My new rep is Ariel. Yep, same thing. Must not have gotten to me on her list yet, if I'm even on the list. Can't imagine my 3 years of 2 bleacher tickets ranks very high.

My new STH rep called me yesterday to try & talk me out of not renewing after I let them know I'm done because the owners don't care about winning. Surely they can't be that desperate. I got a text a couple weeks ago asking if I needed any help renewing, which I ignored, and then a couple days later got an email from her saying she was taking a different job within the organization. Haven't heard anything since, so maybe I just slipped through the cracks? Should probably make sure there's no auto-renew thing going on.

Pretty incredible goal there to equalize.

Counterpoint, Jokic is an incredible player who is also an horsefeathers with serious temper problems and probably should have gotten this figured out a while ago.

This is just picking up Zach Davies again, but without having to give up the dude who finished second in the Cy Young. If this would have been the price for Davies, I would have loved it. Hopefully this one works out better.

Because they played a 60 game season last year so everyone pitched a fraction of what they typically do (and minor leaguers even less) and then were expected to go back to a full workload?

Because nothing is happening in that extra time. We're not getting 4 hours of baseball, we're getting 2.5 hours of baseball spread over four hours. It's the sports equivalent of a Judd Apatow movie. More like we're getting 30 minutes of baseball action over 4 hours. Also, horsefeathers these managers and their overmanaging. Greinke had given up 3 hits on 56 pitches over 4 innings the other night and Dusty pulled him. Why? Why is this the thing now? We had World Series for over 100 years where the starter went 6 or 7 innings, now managers can't get out of their own way. This is a weird hill to die on. Greinke had a 4.71 FIP this year. They needed innings, he gave them what they needed, but they have better pitchers and it was a win or go home game. It's absolutely not sustainable to do it this way for 6 months straight, but losing the World Series because you chose to continue pitching a worse, tiring pitcher would be very dumb. Edit: Was not an elimination game, the rest of my point still stands.

Overmanaging + too many commercials + no pitch clock I don't understand people bitching about watching something they purport to enjoy being too long and boring. Baseball is like an opera and for a fan of the teams/game, the ups and downs and pauses make it that much more compelling. It's for the World Series where one mistake can make or break a season. Then start the game at 3:00

The last thing I want to do is absolve Toews, Kane, or anyone else present and silent during all of this, but as mentioned above, it's not terribly difficult to figure out who this player is, and (assuming I have it right) in 2014 he was no longer a member of the Hawks organization. Of course, there's those other stories from 2011 in which all those guys were there. Just disgusting up and down the organization. Edit: See below, important to get the facts right.

northsidebullsball.com amirite

$3300, but yea. Guessing they got a lot of thoughtful response along the lines of what I told them when they offered the opportunity this fall. I probably should have known this by now, but when I clicked through mine I saw the schedule that basically just did Thursday/Friday games and asked if that was an option. Was told that they haven't offered that in years, was just for the people that were grandfathered in, and then her super helpful suggestion was to find more friends to split up the full season. Like she didn't see the last two months of bleacher tickets going for $5/each on Stubhub.

Just give me drama. And/or chaos. If I can't get game 7s, I want Sale to be a superspreader right before they start the World Series.

All except the "Thor, Gray and Matz" part When the first guy listed in there has thrown 10 innings in the last 2 years, forgive me for not getting too excited. Here's your roster below: C - Contreras $8m 1B - Rivas $600k 2B - Madrigal $600k 3B - Escobar $10m (based on one Brewers blog I wrote, that's the high end) SS - Taylor $14m (Zobrist contract, saw a couple comparisons) OF - Conforto $20m (says he's a lock to accept the QO, so let's just guess a little higher) OF - Happ $6m OF - Rosario $15m (total guess) C - Chirinos $1m UT - Hoerner $600k IF - Wisdom $600k IF - Schwindel $600k IF - Bote $2.5m That's $79.5m. Heyward at an almost complete loss gets you to $100m. Hendricks $14m Mills/Wick/Adam/Heuer/Azlolay/pick 5 other bullpen dudes $600k each, $6m You think we should be looking at $50m to fill out the rotation?

Did Tom Ricketts write that post

It's not "giving up", but it's admitting that you have pushed the idea of a competitive team back another year or two. Considering he only has one year left, 'or two' is not accurate. Or at least it's a different conversation where you can prove out a reasonable extension.

For the 'absolutely don't trade Willson' crowd, is there a reasonable extension you'd be happy with? He'll forever be a Cubs legend, but he's basically the Rizzo conversation again, except worse because he's a catcher who has repeatedly had the 'he's too worn down' conversations surrounding him. I can squint and see working with him enough to get to an adequate level of first base defense, hope more reps over there keeps his bat in the 120 wRC range, and run with some bizarre Schwindel/Rivas/Contreras/second division starter rotation at 1B/C. But if that's the case, I want to see KB and Correa or Seager on the left side of the infield.

As we have seen, that's much easier said than done. It's stupidity draped in 3-dimensional chess. 19 teams managed it last year, the Cubs were not one of them.

No problem with them feeling out the market for someone with one year left before free agency, especially when that guy is a 30 year old catcher who has been used very heavily when healthy for the last 5 years. Fair amount of teams facing 40 man roster crunches, and as much as we all love Willy, the difference between him and a couple stiffs who can throw together a 1.5 fWAR isn't going to make or break the season.

not to mention that they have a tv station that they cant afford to completely cripple with a long tank + rebuild, unsustainably high (much higher than what they were in 2011-14 when they also had the good will of people buying in to the theo rebuild) ticket prices that nobody will pay to watch a rebuild (and a season ticket base that isn't just going to stick around in hopes of getting to see that first world series like they might have in the past), and just flat out the fact that the landscape has changed - hoyer himself has said the sign and flip stuff they did back then would not fly today. all that said, horsefeathers ptr and his stupid horsefeathering letter. I believe the majority of the TV revenue comes from people who pay for it as part of their normal cable package, which was always the plan. Seeing rumors online that season ticket prices will drop a very small amount, which, combined with the 6 digit waiting list and your standard stream of Chicago tourists, will be more than enough to keep ticket revenue high. I can see there being some pressure just in terms of keeping the surrounding area lively, but it's pretty much a locked in cash cow at this point.

Maybe as well start googling '2021 version of Scott Feldman'