champaignchris

I think, more likely than the Cubs just sending cash with Bryant is them taking back a bad, but cheaper contract in return. So, in the Braves’ case maybe Ender Inciarte.

If the Cubs are going to tear it all down, Darvish and Hendricks would easily be their most bankable commodities in terms of prospect return. But there’d be no reason to tie one of them to Kimbrel and reduce the return.

That’s more likely than not. They need to win 94 games not to have a worse winning percentage.

That’s close to what I was looking at. To Descalfini and Hernandez I added... JBJ 2/16 Archer 1/4 Melanson 1/4 If these contract estimates are close to right, the Cubs can probably fill in their holes for about ~$25-30MM and not have to shed much other salary to do it. Unsexy and unlikely to lead to a 95 win team. But will probably get you an 85 win team and a reasonable shot at the playoffs.

Everyone but Bauer and Realmuto should probably jump on that QO.

He'd be a solid pickup for second base next year YOU WATCH YOUR horsefeathers MOUTH He is among the most annoying of Cardinals. He’d also be a pretty solid upgrade at 2nd base who might be had for not much money and time.

Their ability to get huge production out of scrap heap guys like Turner, Muncy and Taylor has been the thing that’s impressed me most. I mean, that’s just not fair that they can turn those guys’ careers around AND have the player development AND have nearly unlimited funds to re-sign their players and patch the occasional roster gap with a FA. Betts and Price are the only truly big ticket contracts they have after 2021 and Price is off the books after 2022. Although, I imagine they are going to start extending some of their stars, with Buehler, Bellinger and Seager probably at the top of their wishlist.

Yeah, that's one theory. The other was that they had always planned to get Tua ready over the bye week, but their bye week got changed due to all the rescheduling. I wouldn't be surprised to see Fitz to Dallas within the next day or two. They can still have a bunch of offensive talent and could make the playoffs in a terrible division. Not that it'll do them any good ultimately, but their too proud not to go for it. Dallas is about the only team that makes sense for a Fitz trade unless some front-runner is looking to shore up its #2 spot. Pretty much every other team with qb problems were going to be awful this year anyway. I suppose I wouldn’t put it entirely past the Pats to cut bait on Newton and make the trade. But, with the Dolphins only a game out of the expanded playoffs, I don’t think they’d want to trade him to another contender for that last spot.

Yeah since 15 third most wins in baseball. Same amount LCS appearances as the Yankees. Actually won a World Series which NY & LA (as of this week) havent won. Nobody has dynastied & won 2 titles during this stretch. Goes to show how important 2016 was. Great organizations like LA, NY, and CLE are still shutout of rings during this stretch. It sucks the waves and waves & dynasty didnt happen but hard to give Theo anything but an A for this stretch of consistent good with a few years of great baseball. Right. What are we measuring against? The Cubs’ history? This was the best multi-year stretch of Cubs baseball since the 1930s at worst. The best of anyone’s lifetimes unless you’re in your 90s, and even then we could argue the point - those 20s/30s Cubs went to 4 WSs, but never won one. Measured against other teams during the same time frame? No one won more World Series. The Dodgers, the gold standard during this time frame still don’t have theirs. The Royals have fallen apart and are rebuilding. The Nats finally got theirs and immediately followed up with a losing season. The Yankees haven’t won with their most recent crop of talent. The Indians are still searching for their first win. The Astros cheated to get their win and had a losing season this year. The Red Sox cheated to get their win and have been awful ever since. The Brewers lucked into a couple playoff appearances, but were never particularly good. The Cardinals seem to be stuck perpetually at above average. Am I forgetting anyone? I’d rather be the Dodgers going forward, but I wouldn’t trade the Cubs’ last 6 seasons for anyone else’s.

Taijuan Walker is another free agent starting pitcher that I haven’t seen mentioned yet. Only 28 and had a nice (60 game) season this year. But has significant injury history, only pitching 14 innings in 18-19 combined. That said, I just don’t see Stroman being THAT pricey. Looking at other pitchers contracts from 2019, he’s not getting a Wheeler/MadBum contract. I’d assume Stroman would be getting less than Ryu (4 years, $80MM) and more than Kyle Gibson (3 years, $28MM with incentives). There’s a lot of space in there, but is 3 years and $45MM reasonable? I don’t think you’re getting two of those other guys - Gauseman, Paxton, Ray, Richards, Minor - for that price. I think Odorrizzi - who took the 1 year qualifying offer last year - will be pretty comparable, maybe slightly cheaper, and I’d be perfectly happy if he were the guy instead of Stroman.

So what do the Cubs do in free agency with $35MM? Someone like Marcus Strohman as starting pitching. Good enough now to contribute. Young enough to still be contributing after the soft rebuild. Probably can be had for less than $20MM per year. Center fielder Maybin replacement (Bradley too expensive? Hernandez from the Dodgers?). Middle infielder Kipnis replacement (Schoop?). Dumpster diving for a catcher with up side (Zunino?). Dumpster dive for the bullpen again. Probably good enough to compete in the Central. If not, pull the plug at mid-season and trade everyone.

I’m still not convinced this is a good or even mediocre team. I think the Bears will be underdogs in each of their next four games, with the possibility of the Vikings getting their horsefeathers together enough to make them dogs in their next six straight games until they play the Lions again. I would be more surprised that they’re 7-4 when they play the Lions again than if they were 4-7.

That was an absolutely bizarre signing by the Bears. Actually, not the signing itself, but the signing combined with the complete absence of any sort of idea of what to do with Davis. It was one of several transactions since Pace got here where the right hand (coaching staff) didn’t seem to know what the left hand (Pace) was doing.

I think the minimum the Cubs would have to do to stay under the luxury tax and credibly claim to be trying to compete would be to sign the following: Near starting quality middle infielder - Asdrubal Cabrera or similar Fourth outfielder - [expletive] Hernandez or similar 3/4 slot starting pitcher - re-sign Jose Quintana or similar High (-ish) leverage lefty reliever - Justin Wilson or similar I’m not the payroll expert some are in here, but I think the Cubs could spend approx $40MM and stay under the tax.

Me, personally, my preference would be... 1. The consensus is that teams aren’t going to be generous with free agent signings. So if you’re going to splurge, this would be the year to do it... go get Springer, Semien, Bauer, Stroman, and Colome. Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead. Buy another World Series. But, since we all know that’s not happening... 2. Tear the whole thing down. If they’re not going to be a contributor come 2023, jettison them. Unfortunately that would probably mean that Yu and Hendricks have to go and that makes me sad, but you gotta do it. Restock the system. Go dumpster diving for cheap lottery tickets. Aim to be competitive again in 2023. But, most likely... 3. Let it ride for one more season. Sign a free agent pitcher. Mess around with the end of the bench and the back of the bullpen. Wash, rinse, repeat. Hope the playoffs stay at 16 teams and you can squeak back in with an 83-win team.

Kyle is overwhelmed with excitement over his next playoff start.

Per the Passan article on ESPN.com today, the Cardinals will play the Tigers doubleheader (or a game of it) if it determines whether someone makes the playoffs. They will not play the doubleheader merely to determine seeding. When determine seeding, they will go to winning percentage first. In your 30-28 versus 31-29 scenario, the Cardinals would get the better seed.

On paper the Phillies are one of the scariest potential opponents in the first round, but Nola either has to pitch on short rest one of his next two starts or be held back for a game 3. Add the injuries to their hitters and their laughably bad pen and maybe they're the opponent we should he rooting for. I'm more worried about our potential opponent's hitters than pitchers. With our offense we're probably not going to score a ton of runs regardless of who we are facing. Of potential playoff teams, only the Indians offense has performed worse than ours with regards to wRC+ and wOBA over the course of this admittedly short season, and their performance has gotten worse as the season has gone on.* But if our pitching can shut down the opponent's offense, we are in a good position to advance. *yes I still hold out hope that the team's collective talent can get it together and then we are a legit scary team. If you want to face a bad offense, it doesn’t get much worse than the Reds. Although Cardinals might actually be slightly worse on the road and have a much more fragile pitching staff.

They were 5.5 games up in the division then and are 5.5 games up in the division now.

I don’t want the Phillies in a 3-game series. They don’t have the pitching depth for a longer series, but in a 3-game series with Nola and Wheeler each starting one game, that leaves very little margin for error.

I know Martinez can still be called back up and do something with the Cubs, but as it stands right now, this would be the second year in a row where the Cubs made a Mid-season trade for a MLB position player who literally does not get a hit or them.

It’s ok on my phone. It’s unreadable on my cpu. You can’t click on anything because the whole screen moves every time an ad pops up.

I know we’re all a little scarred by what happened last year. But if a team is going to go on another improbable 18-2 run to blow past the Cubs in the standings, they have to start it right freaking now. This shortened season is a little disorienting and it’s easy to forget how little season is left.

How is MLB handling the fact that StL is only going to play 58 games this year? In other words, if the Cubs go 8-9 the rest of the way to finish 33-27 (.550) and StL goes 14-9 the rest of the way to finish 32-26 (.552), who wins the division?

Yeah. That’s the thing that stood out in that article to me. Had no clue that Yu and Bauer were friends. That article made it seem like Bauer idolizes Yu.