champaignchris

I couldn't remember which Baker that was. It's neither Scott nor Jeff. It's John. The Cubs sure ran through the Baker brothers there in the early '10s. (They're not brothers.)

I predict both Jay and Heyward have higher WARs for the Cubs than Fowler does for the Cardinals.

Not to reignite the WAR discussion, but Rivera has a higher career WAR (per B-R) than Red Ruffing, Three Fingers Brown, Whitey Ford, Schoolboy Hoyt, Sandy Koufax, Al Spalding and Early Wynn, all of whom are in the HoF as starting pitchers. Rivera arguably deserves to be in the Hall because he was just that good period. And that's even before getting into his completely absurd post-season record. I'm fine with relievers getting into the Hall if Rivera is your standard.

I don't think either should be in the Hall, but I don't understand how you can vote for Hoffman and not for Wagner. I especially can't see how the difference can possibly be 74% to 10%. Wagner's rate stats are better than Hoffman's across the board.

The farther I get away from it (and Buck's incessant blathering on the subject) the more reasonable Chapman's workload for the Series looks to me. Beginning at the end of the NLCS, his work load was - 3 days off- 1 inning - 3 days off - 1.1 innings - Day off - 1 inning - day off - 2.2 innings - day off - 1.1 innings - 1.1 innings. He'd pitched 7 times in 17 days and it was the first time he'd been asked to work two days in a row in that stretch. And it's not like he'd pitched 90-some innings heading into the Series. It was 66. If he's going to demand that kind of money, he's got to want the ball when the stakes are high. As inflexible as Chapman seems to be about when and how he's pitched plus the fact that he looked gassed before ever hitting the 75 inning mark on the season for the first time in his career, I think I've become ok with not dumping that crap load of money on him. His value doesn't come from being the best 60-ish inning pitcher during the regular season. The difference between him and maybe the 15th best guy in the league at closing out games is two games in the standings at most, which isn't going to be the difference between the Cubs making the playoffs or not. His value, if he's going to make that kind of money, is rather to shorten games in the playoffs. It's unfair to compare him to Mariano Rivera, but if he's not going to be Mariano Rivera - if he's going to be just another really good reliever - there's really no reason for the Cubs to pay him that kind of money when they can pay Wade Davis - a really good reliever - significantly less.

I've seen a couple places that the Cubs should try to trade for and then extend Duffy. Why do people think he'd be willing to extend considering he'd likely be the third best starting pitching free agent behind Kershaw and Arrieta and younger than both of them?

There are so many different baseball players. It's hard to keep track of them all.

So how does this work? Milwaukee drafted Smith in the Rule 5 and then traded him to the Cubs? We know for what? Same Rule 5 rules apply even though he was traded? If he doesn't make the Cubs roster, the Yankees can take him back?

I'm not objective about this since I've never loved Soler and Davis is (was?) one of my favorite non-Cubs. We're trading our fourth or fifth outfielder for what will be our best bullpen arm. Yeah, Davis only pitched 45 innings last year, but Soler missed two months of the season, too. Really, Davis just needs to be healthy come playoff time.

They might be good in a couple years, but they are really going to be a special kind of awful this year. Fangraphs is projecting their position players to put up a 6.5 WAR combined. And that's before they inevitably trade Braun.

Sam Dyson or Alex Claudio, please.

Random musings... I figured that Detroit would decline Cameron Maybin's option and that he'd be a possible depth candidate. He seems like a Theo-y kind of player. But the Tigers traded him to the Angels and the Angels excercised the option. I think the problem with re-signing Dex will be the years, not the dollars. Someone will give him a four year contract. The Cubs will pick up Hammel's option. He's a bargain for the price, even if he is the Cubs fifth or even sixth starter. But I could see them trade him. The free agent pool of starting pitchers is so thin right now, a team that thinks it's a number three starter away from competing might be interested in a cheap, short term option. The Rangers seem like an obvious candidate. Who on the Rangers would be a possible trade target? Dyson too far-fetched? If the Royals think they have one more go around in them, they'd be another possible trade partner. Soler is going to be traded, right?

I am just so happy right now. Nothing else to say.

More lurker than poster the last couple years. Still check the site every day.

I had to de-lurk to say that Lackey moved to the "like" side of my ledger with his "Not here for a haircut; I came for jewelry" post-game interview.

My problem has never been with people who didn't like or understand the plan. My problem has been with people who wanted Jim Hendry gone and then got mad when Theo Epstein didn't run the team just like Jim Hendry.

Maybe this, maybe that... Maybe he just turned 25 last month and started to mature a bit. I'd have hated having a troop of reporters following me around from ages 20-24 criticizing my every misstep. I can guarantee you I made a lot more questionable life-choice decisions than Starlin did. We're talking about a guy who played a grand total of 57 games above the A-ball level before being called up. He had to learn some of the basic lessons on professionalism, that other players get a couple years of AA and AAA experience to hash out, while being the face of a franchise and making three All Star teams. All the attention on Bryant, Lester, Maddon, etc. have to feel like a huge burden off of his back.

It's pretty early for statistical measures on defense, but on the eye test, he's looked pretty decent. Of course anyone is going to look pretty good next to the complete butcher we've had fielding Left most of this year.

If you consider that their other 2013 FA pitcher signing (Feldman) played quite well and was then flipped for Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop, I'm not sure you can say that. In the four seasons before signing with the Cubs - ages 25-28 - Jackson was a very solid pitcher, 812 IP, 3.98 ERA, 3.89 FIP, 11.1 WAR. Saying they should have signed someone else is 20/20 hindsight. If Jackson had worked out the way he was supposed to, the Cubs may have spent that Tanaka money on a position player and been quite a bit more competitive last year.

Was that Ron Cey?

Unless it's a package for Giancarlo Stanton or some other young, power-hitting corner outfielder, I'm not interested.

OK fourth outfielder. Was never healthy.

Mike Olt

...because they get no offensive production from 2B and two of the three OF slots.

...the Cubs lead the Majors in homers as 8 different guys each hit double digit home runs.