jehr

I'm kind of surprised there's been nothing in the Cobb front since the Chatwoodv signing. With Othani off the board, he's got to be the next target, right?

Unless I'm missing something somewhere... losing Candelario takes them from 40 to 39, so they need to drop someone else to take on both Wilson and Avila.

Agree that Grimm probably gets sent back to Iowa to make room for Wilson, and Caratini for Avila. What about the 40 man roster? Looks like someone is going to have to get exposed. Candelario frees one spot up, but someone's going to have to get dropped to make room for two inbounds. One of the fodder pitchers in AAA? Underwood? Maybe someone on the 40 man ends up magically on the 60 day DL?

Even better comments underneath it...

Fun question for the group, just because.... Who here would do Arietta for Teheran straight up? Not that I think there's any reason the braves would be interested...

I remember when Ricky Nolasco hit what wound up being his peak and Pinto and Mitre looked like they'd be useful for awhile, that I thought the Pierre trade was going to be looked back on as a disaster. Pierre was a dud Was he? I mean, yeah, Hendry's reasoning and execution of trading for just a single season are pretty clunky at best, but the dude was a 3.1 fWAR player that season for the Cubs. The 2006 Cubs were butt, but maybe it's time to look back a bit more positively on ol' Slappy. I think fWar is a bit generous. Maybe I remember wrong, but aside from his less-than-hoped-for OBP, he had good range but he also had a noodle arm that other teams exploited at will. He was value neutral on the base paths, getting thrown out 20 or so times... Maybe he wasn't bad compared to a replacement, and maybe my expectations of a .360 to .370 obp were unreasonable, but my lasting impression of his time here was always terrible.

I remember when Ricky Nolasco hit what wound up being his peak and Pinto and Mitre looked like they'd be useful for awhile, that I thought the Pierre trade was going to be looked back on as a disaster. Pierre was a dud, but those three didn't produce as much as I thought. That said though..had we kept that SP depth in the organization, would we ever have traded for Harden?

This might be the best comment I've seen on any board this year.

Good point, I'll go sit in a corner for my poor judgement. I'm surprised (even though I shouldn't be) that no one even attempted to ask my why I thought they were both terrible candidates. First reaction was "you're wrong, that's dumb, everyone that supported him was stupid or a racist....," but no one is interested in really trying to understand why people were so turned off by their candidate, they'd rather develop a label to easily explain it away.

The group think of this echo chamber is why I quit posting on this board for about 8 years. Sorry for not falling in line with you all.

No, not really. It's time to get over it. What's dumb is acting like one of those two was a saint who was going to fix all of our problems while the other was a knuckle dragger. They were both terrible candidates. This is a pretend thing that's happening in your imagination. The fact that several posters here are vehemently disagreeing with me saying hiliary is as terrible as trump pretty much validates what I said. We'll all just have to agree to disagree, as neither side here is going to convince the other to soften their stance. We all do agree though that Trump is terrible, I'm just over the disappointment.

From his press secretary, on October 5th: “The president is a loyal Chicago White Sox fan." He leans strongly enough to where his press secretary felt it necesary to make that statement. I'm sure he was happy for the city as a whole, but he was always an out-and-out Sox fan.

this is dumb No, not really. It's time to get over it. What's dumb is acting like one of those two was a saint who was going to fix all of our problems while the other was a knuckle dragger. They were both terrible candidates.

this is dumb No, not really. It's time to get over it.

I really don't understand the strong political feelings here. Both candidates sucked, we were getting a bad one regardless. Looking down on someone for supporting Trump while acting like the hiliary supporters were right is just getting ridiculous and unnecessarily divisive, it's just perpetuates this broken two party crap that we're all victim to. During the election I acted like how I've been as a Cubs fan my whole life... held out hope even when I knew there was little chance, and I hoped a good third party candidate would come out of left field and surprise everyone. That said, I started the whole DABDA thing after the primaries were over, since I knew we were getting a crap sandwich regardless of which party prevailed. Frankly, I'm just happy that a huge White Sox fan who has spoken smack about the Cubs (and Cubs fans) in the past now has to host the World Champion Chicago Cubs.

Is La Stella the only guy from the 2016 team that's expected to be on the team next year that's not attending?

Dukes of Hazzard would have to fall into that category then.

Great question. I'd have to say the Power Rangers. My nephew loved that stupid show. Or "The Love Boat," that was one of my older sisters favorites. If the question were "shows that you watched all episodes of your own free will..." that's a tough one. I thought about answering "The A-Team," but then remembered that the A-Team was freaking awesome, so scratch that. I'd have to say Heroes? Maybe scandal (until I stopped watching this season)? Both started out interesting, but turned awfully terrible.

I wonder if he could be talked into a late-Roger Clemens type of deal... Take the first half of the season off, sign a pro rated contract for the second half and playoffs.

Pessimist.

Someone should remind that guy how many fans the Cardinals were really actually drawing while still in the thick of wild card contention, rather than just tickets sold. My favorite personal anecdote about terrible cardinals fans. I worked for a company in STL that had tickets to every home game, which employees could put there name in for and use if the executives didn't want them. At the end of the 2006 season, the woman in charge of the tickets, would call me before every game, because I was the only one that wanted the tickets out of the 500 employees that worked there. These were seats, behind the on deck circle, with free food and drinks, and if I didn't take the tickets they would go unused. This was in a year they won the world series. edit: and I most often went with my Dodger fan friend, because none of the Cardinals fans wanted to go. Maybe the common cardinals fan can't afford the gas to get there.

Since when is Boras in the business of negotiating extensions for Cy Young winners a year before free agency? What's wrong with Jake?

Regardless of whether the math works out on whether he'd pay for himself (I think you're right, btw...), if he were to make it known he wouldn't sign more than a one year deal, if no one were willing to pay the max $20 mil posting fee, then it comes down to who is willing to pay the most. So long as one team were to make a bid, someone will get the rights to negotiate with him. That number doesn't have to get to $20 mil to get him in play. Probably close to every team in baseball would be willing to take him on a one year deal for at least the minimum posting fee plus the max salary they could offer him. So the question is, would his team refrain from posting him if they weren't confident they'd get $20 million? Why would a contender that's got money, NOT give an ace a one year, 30ish mill deal? Getting a team to fork over a 20 mill posting fee for him, even just for a year, is a no-brainer. I agree... that wasn't what I was trying to say. The posting fee only gets to $20 mil if someone bids $20 mil, and I would bet multiple teams would. Just saying that even in the unlikely scenario where no team were inclined to pay a $20 mil posting fee to only have him for a year, there would still be bidding, and he'd still be in play. I'm not convinced this new CBA will delay him as much as everyone thinks. If he wants to play in the MLB badly enough, it'll happen.

I think Frazier and Melky are gone ASAP (both are impending FA's, I think). Robertson's a tougher case. I could see him moved in the winter. That said, there's a limited no-trade, and he's signed down for two more years. He's also coming off a somewhat down year compared to 2015. If the market isn't there, one could argue that they are better off holding onto him and letting him try to rebound a bit. My guess? Since they know each other's systems so well by now, it wouldn't surprise me, if after Kenley signs, that Robertson gets shipped to the Nationals for something like Andrew Stevenson and a lottery ticket like Anderson Franco. Of course, as I type that, that might not be enough for Hahn, so who knows. Hard to see the loser of Kenley (Marlins or Dodgers) jump into Robertson, but could be wrong. With the money FA closers are getting... if Robertson has a good first half, I could see him fetching more at the next trade deadline than he would right now.

Regardless of whether the math works out on whether he'd pay for himself (I think you're right, btw...), if he were to make it known he wouldn't sign more than a one year deal, if no one were willing to pay the max $20 mil posting fee, then it comes down to who is willing to pay the most. So long as one team were to make a bid, someone will get the rights to negotiate with him. That number doesn't have to get to $20 mil to get him in play. Probably close to every team in baseball would be willing to take him on a one year deal for at least the minimum posting fee plus the max salary they could offer him. So the question is, would his team refrain from posting him if they weren't confident they'd get $20 million?