squally1313

Milton Bradley was perfect for my dumb fandom at the time because I was still incredibly naive and/or had blinders to player's personal lives, but also thought I was a genius sabermetric fan who just discovered walk rates and assumed every hitter was basically a .270 hitter who just had good or bad BABIP luck. Between him and Fukudome I thought we were set.

Mostly this, yeah. In an era where a team can have 3-4 bullpen pitchers more effective than the starter in a one inning stint, having one of those relievers guaranteed to face the other teams best sequence of hitters in the first is another benefit for me.

Thread title change?

The next ten games or so look really favorable (or at least relatively favorable, as the Hawks are still statistically worse than most of these teams). 7 of the next 9 at home, with only Boston (7th in the east), Columbus (8th in the east), and Dallas (6th in the west) as playoff teams. That stretch takes them right to the trading deadline (March 25), which works out perfectly. While it's clear Toews and Kane have been bringing it all year, I'm hoping that there's another gear for Keith (top pairing defenseman) and Seabrook (playable defenseman) that they can get to for a home stretch. If the stretch doesn't go well, pack it up, hand the keys to Cam Ward, and see how far you can fall.

Relative to the last four years? No. Given everything else that the start of the Cubs season represents (spring, sunlight, something to watch/follow every day, two less months of Trump, etc.)? Yes. The second outweighs the first.

Considering making a new account just so I can like that again.

Awesome...now lets see the projected WAR from returning players. I assume Cole Hamels gives you $20m worth By the calculation that uses total money spent on free agents as the denominator, and usually gets to about $8-$9m per win, he does. But my new way of looking at it, where $20m to Cole Hamels is infinitely better than $20m to Tom Ricketts or some Republican PAC, he definitely does.

Bryant in 2018: 2.3 Baez in 2018: 5.3 So a relatively healthy Bryant gains 3.7 fWAR, making up for the 1.3 fWAR Baez loses almost three times over. It seems you and Tim agree.

Hedges is fine, but we should really at least be keeping tabs on Realmuto before the Dodgers get him for pennies on the dollar. Flip Contreras for whatever upgrade elsewhere.

https://lifestyle.clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606

David if it helps I also don't want the girl on the team.

No Lester, no Rizzo. Guess they're just punting the convention along with the rest of the offseason.

Kyle Hendricks, per Fangraphs, has been worth $120m in his career (and that's not even including throwing the best start in Cubs postseason history and starting the greatest game in Cubs history). He has been paid less than $13.5m thus far.

And even on the small chance that it is, you can still fix that! if the Cubs felt it was incredibly important to pick up the Hamels option at that point, that means they thought they were getting a good deal, and he'd be worth more on the open market. That means he still is. Yes, he can block trades to 20 teams, but you know the 10 teams that are options would be contenders. If that doesn't work, Hamels and Quintana are projected to be basically identical pitchers next year. Quintana definitely has value. Go save yourself that money. I can understand that the Ricketts may be frustrated based on the last couple years. The plan was waves of homegrown talent. The team won 97 games in 2015, and then went out and signed the most expensive hitter on the market. Last year, we signed the most expensive pitcher on the market. Now they're asking to sign the biggest contract of all time. Neither has worked out so far, and it doesn't look great going forward. It's a legit criticism. But it shouldn't keep them from Bryce. Or from trusting Theo.

His Harry Caray call of the Bote grand slam walk off will leave you in stitches!!!

Dozier to the Nationals, 1 year $9m. Was garbage last year, but at that price I would have taken that garbage over Russell's garbage every day.

Yes?

They retweeted Randy horsefeathering Rosario tweeting about being excited for the convention. That's where they're at right now. Obviously, everyone in the front office knows it will sell out regardless, and it's not like there's no one left to get. But yeah, this is boring and concerning. Do something please.

I certainly agree that they obviously have the money/net worth to go do whatever they want (even if they had to tap in to personal money vs just Cubs "business" money). But this is all a paper gain, they don't have $2B in cash all the sudden. We know MLB has lending limits/ratios teams can't exceed so there are restrictions for them to just go lend against their paper gain (which is a whole other discussion and we can argue if that's stupid or good). It's possible they've maxed out what they can borrow going by MLB rules and spent that money on things like the renovations, neighborhood projects, ST facility, Dominican facility, etc. so maybe they are tight from a cash flow perspective because maybe those projects cost more money, aren't coming on line as fast as they thought or not returning what they projected (or maybe they are just being plain greedy and pocketing money). Which is pretty dumb and poor planning knowing this offseason was coming and they certainly can dump personal money in, you'd assume, if they really wanted to make something happen. I'm not defending them by any means, just trying to figure out what the hell could be going on. But it can't be this dire. Their ownership has gone about as well as they could have possibly expected, save another title or two. And it's gone on during a period of constant economic growth across the board. There's no way that this kind of success can have them backed into a corner like this, because that means pretty much any other alternative would have made them declare bankruptcy or something along those lines.

For what it's worth, scanning quickly it looks like the Brewers have the same September schedule, with Thursday 8/29 off instead of Monday 8/26. Obviously they are less likely to have rain outs. Cardinals look to have the 29th, 9th, and the 26th off.

The Ricketts bought the Cubs, Wrigley, and 25% of Comcast for $900m in 2009. For simplicity, let's say they just bought the Cubs for $900m. In 2018, Forbes estimated the Cubs were worth $2.8b. With a B. So, no, I don't give a horsefeathers how much money they are or aren't making on a year to year basis.

https://www.golf.com/news/news-features/2019/01/08/jose-de-jesus-rodriguez-long-hard-journey-to-the-pga-tour/ Amazing story, and publishing this story today of all days is pretty great.

This is a nothing trade. Bulls get cash, send a pick that is top 55 protected to Houston (so, essentially, nothing). Houston needed to get rid of MCW by the end of the week for cap reasons. Bulls have already waived MCW.

Yeah that flowchart isn't exactly fair, but that makes the Curry trade seem like an absolute steal.

https://deadspin.com/your-favorite-baseball-team-can-afford-any-free-agent-i-1830890838