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Did you hear Theo's comment on wanting to make sure the big contracts he gives are to players we'll be getting in their prime years (26-32)?

What's your view on signing Pujols? On the CC idea, I'd be fine with giving him a 6 year deal and getting 4 elite years. Unless you think CC is going to just fall off a cliff at 35 (possible), then his decline would take him from elite to great to very good and then the contract ends. To put it another way, he may be a 7 WAR player the next two years, 6 WAR two years after that, 4 WAR, and then 3 WAR the final two years of his deal. I'd be fine with that. My opposition to CC is not that he'd be declining at the end of his contract, but that his AAV will probably be in the $23-28 range, which would put us out of the Pujols/Prince sweepstakes. Given the pitching upcoming this offseason and next and the fact that hitters are less of a risk than pitchers, I'll pass on CC in order to go after Pujols/Prince. Mixed feelings on Albert. On one hand I can't deny that it would be amazing to see him play for the Cubs, but I don't know. I think I'd prefer Prince with the savings it would allow over Pujols. Pujols just scares the hell out of me at the price he's going to demand. Too risky imo.

noah pinzur just did a fist pump

omg fanta man was right

is phil rogers even speaking real words

theo i noticed the cubs havent scored a lot of points lately and they tend to give up more points than they get so how do you plan on addressing this

wow who is the [expletive] that just asked theo how he's going to address the errors issue

i love that boston fans were all "we have the leverage, the cubs can't back out now" .... and now we're intorudcing theo to the media without a compensation deal even being done yet

id love if someone asks him if the starbucks thing really happened

"theo epstein career resume" *lists red sox and cubs*

hey theo what do you think about baseball

levine gets the first crack?

wtg mlb network. the 3 stats they showed for the 2011 cubs were overall record, BA w/RISP, and starter era

"and baseball is best of all.... when you win"

his nose is so shiny in hd

yea the mets would ask a lot for him, I'm just saying that I bet he's a hell of a lot more likely to be traded these days than a few years ago. Wright used to be a consistently elite offensive player. He's still very good, but I get the feeling that it's not necessarily going to take some amazing package to trade for him sometime during this season if the Mets aren't good.

Pretty sure that's everyone's overall philosophy. In practice, it's not that easy and it isn't so cut and dry. Ichiro will be 39 years old when he hits FA, and could easily just retire. Do you really think he'd be getting some huge, franchise changing contract? Sabathia you're just plain wrong on. He'll decline, but despite how you might seem to imply in your posts it's very possible to do that gracefully, and it's even happened before (even recently!). I never said it hasn't happened before. It's about minimizing risk. Even if you're optimistic for our chances in the next year or 2, you should still realize that Theo's priority (and rightfully so) is what the team will look like in a few years and then continuously beyond that. Your argument is that "he might not decline", etc etc., but that's not a good way to look at it. You assess the risk involved, and the older you are, the more of a risk you are. that's pretty simple. Sure Sabathia could still be an elite pitcher in 2015, but how likely is that? I feel like signing Sabathia would be saying "by the end of this contract there's a huge chance we're going to be paying 20 mil a year to a guy with an ERA in the mid 4's" and for what? So we can be more competetive right now, with a team that probably isn't going to win anyways? I'm fine with building for both now and the future, but I don't think Sabathia fits in with building for the future, at all. I mean, what's your realistically optimistic hope with Sabathia. 3 more years as an elite pitcher? Maybe 4? And how many years will be probably get? 6 or 7? And how many of those elite years will actually come in seasons where we're ready to actually win a World Series? 1 or 2? So knowing that's what he's going to try to do here, why is he going to immediately go out and spend big money on a 31 year old pitcher who will be getting into his mid 30's by the time the Cubs hope to become a Boston type organization (legit contenders just about every year). I'm not saying Theo is going to throw out 2012 (and he shouldn't) but I don't see how you can envision him going out and throwing huge money on a guy who figures to be trending downwards around the time the organization hopes to be trending upwards. Especially considering the top SP talent that will be hitting free agency in the next couple offseasons. It's like you're excited about Theo, but all your suggestions are the types of things that this organization has been doing for years. Giving out significant money to guys who are most likely going to be declining at a point when they still have big money coming to them, and going for immediate results based on who happens to be available, instead of methodically building a team when it actually make sense. "Well, Cole Hamels and Zack Greinke may be better options than CC considering what we're tryng to build long-term here, but if we just settle for Sabathia, we can have him NOW"

They're giving up a still in his prime formerly high end player turned merely good to very good player. If he's a "formerly high end player turned merely good to very good", then he is not in his prime.

Yeah, I can agree. The easy route to go would be Pujols + CC/Wilson in FA. Sit back, wait for Kemp (trade or FA) and 2013 pitchers. It's a good idea. Pretty cut and dry, and the team would be awesome. Theo Epstein's overall philosophy is to build a stable organization through continuous development of talent within the organization. He's not going to go out and give huge contracts to all the big free agents to win immediately. Especially not to guys like Sabathia, Ichiro, etc.

*responds with post telling me it's my fault that i can't decipher his complex opinions*

it's like your post progressions are deliberately incoherent

he had a 10 game stretch where his ERA was under 3 and he went 1-6

interesting style of debate. reference good points/reasoning that your opposition might make before they can make them, then say "NOT" afterwards.

Last year was a down year. Happens when you get old. Happened to Jeter just a I know players decline and etc etc, but Ichiro Suzuki is not a .272 hitter. Plus, it'd be 1-2 years just to leadoff and help win a WS. yeah, players definitely tend to get bad at baseball when they get old