champaignchris

Not surprised. That takes the biggest position player free agent off the board for 2020. Probably the only guy the Cubs would have been remotely interested. I suppose Puig could have a big enough year to gather some interest and Ozuna could have a bounce back year. Although it's just as likely that Ozuna continues to show that 2017 was a fluke and Puig burns down a large section of Cincinnati or something. Maybe J.D. Martinez has another monster year and ops out, although given the market recently, that would be really, really ballsy on his part considering he'd still be guaranteed $62-ish million through his age 34 year. After that, we're left with Mad Bum, Betances, and... ...and I'd still not be surprised if Betances were extended before he ever hits the open market.

A couple things have become apparent about that 2017-2018 offseason... 1. Previously, the Cubs had emphasized arm health in the pitchers they acquired. They certainly signed guys who’d had major arm injuries, but they’d all had a few years under their belts showing they were back to health (Lester and Lackey) or were extreme buy-low candidates (Rondon). Theo completely threw that strategy to the wayside in signing Morrow, Chatwood and Darvish. 2. Theo completely misread the market environment under the new CBA. Look no farther than the Chatwood signing. (I was all in on the Chatwood signing, by the way.) He got him early in the offseason for 3 years at $13M per. He could have had guys with similar pedigrees like Chacin, Minor or Mikolas for half the AAV and/or fewer years. Alex Cobb ended up signing for just a couple $million more per year than Chatwood despite a much better resume. The Duensing signing and trade for Kintzler also seem to indicate a misreading of the market. Those three players - all acquired since the end of 2017 - are combining to make $21M this year... that’s $10M more than Bryce Harper is making in the first year of his contract with the Phillies, by the way. We can also question whether Cole Hamels is really going to be $13M more valuable than Drew Smyly this year. I think the other misfires with the pitching staff meant that Theo couldn’t gamble on finding out and had to pay a premium for the more sure thing.

I think walking Rizzo in front of Baez is generally going to work out poorly for the opposing team this year.

Of course he got booed. Philly fans are the worst... Counterparts gif. Strong.

I could see the Cubs going after Bogaerts if he’s available. But I’m guessing the Sox never let him out of Boston.

The number of very good pitchers who hit arbitration and don't end up making 40+ million is...substantial. Pitching is fleeting, take the money. So if Nola is the benchmark, what's a Hendricks extension look like? $3M signing bonus, $9M in '20, $12 M in '21, $12 M in '22, $15M option in '23 with a $4M buyout? I was pretty damn close.

Will be interested to see how this compares to Mikolas, Nola, Snell, Severino, etc.

I’m looking at these Severino, Mikolas, Nola and Snell extensions, plus the fact that Yu Darvish is the only Cubs starting pitcher signed through 2021 and wondering how the Cubs haven’t extended Hendricks.

Rick Porcello is a pretty reliable inning eater and will be several notches below Sale and Bumgarner in price. Probably give a similar performance to Hamels this year at less than $20M a year. The entire bullpen besides Edwards is going to be a free agent, assuming neither Morrow’s or Brach’s options are picked up. I just can’t see Morrow’s $12M being worth it. Even if he manages to pitch 65 innings. Witch he won’t. If Brach has a nice bounce back year, maybe he’s back. Cishek, Strop, Duensing, Cedeno, and Kintzler will all be gone. Montgomery and Chatwood will both be back, but I’m assuming the Cubs are desperately hoping one of those two will seize a starting spot so they don’t have to spend the cash on a Porcello type. But even if they’re both in the pen, the Cubs will be looking at signing 4 or 5 bullpen arms unless some of the dumpster diver specials Theo has signed this offseason or someone from the farm catches on. And there’s very little sex appeal among next year’s bullpen free agents. (I’d be shocked if the Yankees allow Dellin Betances to leave the Bronx.) Zobrist will be gone and I assume he’ll get replaced by some 4th or 5th outfielder type. Corey Dickerson is better than that, but might be a decent semi-cheap pick up.

25.4 per year...or put another way Brandon Kintzler plus Cole Hamels plus .4 million Horsefeathers Theo just as much as Tom Now think about what Russell is making Chatwood + Duensing + Descalso + Russell + Kintzler = $25.9M. That's 5 guys that will have pretty negligible value this year and you could still have Hamels. (BTW, I will cop to being all in favor of signing Chatwood, although it quickly became apparent over last offseason that the Cubs could have waited and signed him or someone very like him for quite a bit less.)

No. It probably puts the Phillies solidly in wild card contention and gets the Giants out of last place and somewhere around 3rd place in their division. Probably. The Giants will spend. They just have a ton of bad contracts right now. The Phillies have said that they'll spend and have been throwing money all over the place (in relation to other teams, that is). The Giants are in a pretty bad salary hole right now, but will probably be able to content in 2 or 3 years. And they desperately need outfield solutions right now. The Phillies have some nice young talent that should get better. They could be contenders really soon with Harper. So, neither team is a sure shot chance to compete for the WS over the next couple years that the Cubs, Nats, Dodgers or Yankees would be, but there's a pretty reasonable chance that they'll both compete for a WS at some point during the first half of a hypothetical 10 year contract.

The longer this goes without Harper signing with another team, the more likely it is he signs with the Cubs. Right?... Right? RIGHT!?!?!? This offseason is silly.

Insert kid-coming-home-from-dentist-"Is-this-real-life" .gif here.

The Giants will be worse than the Diamondbacks.

are they gonna cycle out their 8000 stupid different camo uniforms though If it isn’t vintage Dave Winfield-era brown and banana yellow, I don’t want to see it.

The number of very good pitchers who hit arbitration and don't end up making 40+ million is...substantial. Pitching is fleeting, take the money. So if Nola is the benchmark, what's a Hendricks extension look like? $3M signing bonus, $9M in '20, $12 M in '21, $12 M in '22, $15M option in '23 with a $4M buyout?

How could be have possibly made less money by not signing this deal? Even if he got hurt. Time to strike on a Hendricks extension?

Fangraphs have them at 88 wins, two games ahead of the Cardinals for the division lead, and with only the Dodgers (93) and Nationals (91) ahead of them in the NL. The failure to do anything this offseason is less about the Cubs being bad and more about them refusing to go over the top when the opportunity is clearly there.

Poor Starlin... He doesn’t deserve this.

Lot of mentions of Game 6 against the Dodgers in 2016... Game 1 against Washington in 2017 was almost as good, and in some ways it was more the prototype of an ideal Hendricks start... weak ground ball after weak ground ball after weak ground ball.

Up to now, this offseason had been like the bar scene in A Beautiful Mind where all the mathematicians decide that they’d all be better off not hitting on the hot chick and hitting on her plainer friends instead. Except in this version, they’ve all decided that they’d be even better off than that by not hitting on chicks at all.

The current CBA is up after 2020. If the owners don’t make some concessions in the bargaining of the next CBA, there will be a strike.

I just don’t understand... The Cubs have nearly $60M in contracts coming off the book next year between Hamels, Zobrist, Morrow (I’m assuming they’ll decline his option), Strop, Cishek and Kintzler. They could free up another ~$22M if they were to decline Rizzo’s or Quintana’s options. (Unlikely in the first case, maybe not so unlikely in the second.). Yeah, they have some increase with arbitration awards and whatnot, but they can easily get under the luxury tax next year even if they’re paying Harper or Machado $30-$40M a year. They’re going to be over the luxury tax this year anyway. It makes no sense that they can’t go after one of them this year. What are they going to do with all the money coming off the books next year? Are they seriously going to fall back to a $160-170M payroll? They think they’re going to spend all that money on Xander Bogaerts, Mad Bum, Garrett Cole and Dellin Betances? (I’d bet at least two of those never make it to free agency.) Or what? The frustrating thing is that up until this year Theo & Co have always been pretty up front about what their plans are and what they’re trying to do. Now I really have no clue.

I bet she’s a Mets fan. Blech!

Right. Baseball is excluded from the anti-trust laws. The logic is that if you want actual competitive baseball games, you have to have some restraints on competition at the business level. So you can’t hire other teams’ players away from them in the middle of the season, for example.