Bertz

I think you play the starters. Less because of the bye and more because of the Vikings. While obviously the bye is crazy valuable, I don't think it's particularly likely the Rams lose. On the other hand, the Vikings are WAY better than the current Eagles, so if we can knock them out it's much smoother sailing during the Wild Card round.

I really wanted Graveman at this time last year. His 2018 was a disaster and then obviously the surgery but there's some real talent there. And all it costs is a 40 man spot.

I really need to look into getting a dislike button. It's a joke. Chill out.

Check their projections Didn’t realize that and also Peralta was 31 vs Puig 28. For some reason I thought Peralta was closer to 26-27. And don't get me wrong, Peralta is good and basically exactly what this team needs. He's just the boring responsible choice compared to Puig and particularly Bryce who both literally piss charisma

Well, to be fair, the three players the Dodgers traded have some intrinsic value, while the players we would like to unload are extremely bad. Even if this is a salary dump, I'm surprised not to hear more substantial names other than Bailey because Puig and Wood are both very valuable players. Yeah the return seems light for the Dodgers. I think one of these things is at play here: - The Dodgers made a trade that is kinda bad in a vacuum but they don't care because it lets them sign Machado/Harper - Wood and Puig had less value than you'd think. Puig because of off the field stuff and Wood because he always wears down and turns into a pumpkin late in the year - Someone, whether it's the Dodgers or another team they're trading with (say for Kluber or Realmuto), really likes these specific prospects

I don't know if I buy that, but even if true Puig was still the only guy available anywhere close to as fun as Harper. Peralta was worth nearly 4 WAR last year. Puig hasn’t been worth that much or more since 2013. Check their projections

Peralta is better than Puig I don't know if I buy that, but even if true Puig was still the only guy available anywhere close to as fun as Harper.

Ughhh Puig was my preferred backup plan for if Bryce didn't work out too. So this is a double whammy. I'd guess we're probably looking at like David Peralta or something? *sigh*

The Miller signing is a lot like the Goldschmidt trade. It substantially improves the Cards at a position of need which is obviously bad, but at the same time I was bracing for Craig Kimbrel so in that sense it's a relief.

This is how I feel as well. So glad I bought Baez WS jersey beginning of 2017 season so it won't bother me about buying another Cub related merch for a long time. Now to the bold part. Is there any blowback to the Cubs from Boras in this situation? Like if Cubs just outright release him and lets say Russell can't find a team to sign him all offseason, would Boras throw up his arms and start talking to MLBPA about filing a grievance or whatever? Boras could be like, "There's no video proof, convicted/arrest, etc and all we're relying on are the words of a couple womens and that the Cubs should still be paying him this season." It's a horsefeathers look for Boras, but I can see him sticking up to his client in that way. Surely Theo/Cubs aren't worried that this could happen right? I'm just trying to think of another option on why Cubs have kept Russell so far that haven't been talked about. I don't think this has been brought up in this thread yet. If the team had cut Russell, and Boras had come back with a grievance and won, the downside to the club would have been that they got to play or trade Russell (who, on a purely between the lines basis is still a modestly valuable asset) while having shown unequivocally that they do not support his behavior. The situation would be similar to the Yankees with Arod near the end of his career. It puts Joe Maddon in an awkward spot (which honestly might be a bonus for Theo at the moment) but if the Arod precedent were to hold it wouldn't spill over to any of Boras' other clients. I don't remember reading at any point during the Arod drama about them having issues acquiring or retaining other Boras clients. The one negative thing it would do is force the team to hold Russell's potential ~$4m aside in case they end up having to pay it. That sucks with money being so tight, but he's not making $30 mil like Arod was, they can deal.

I'd like to think I'm as disgusted as everyone else by this, the potential Sinclair news, etc. But I also think it's pretty easy to make statements like this in the middle of December. For better or for worse, I dealt with Chapman, I dealt with Murphy, I've dealt with Russell even knowing parts of how he was a scumbag. Wrigley is my favorite place in the world, I finally got bleacher season tickets after waiting 15 years last year...this all makes me pretty sad, but I know I'm not able to give it up. I'm not going to pretend I'm not enough of a hypocrite to just switch off a lifetime of Cub fandom over all of this, but I am dead serious about not directly giving the team any of my dollars. Yeah, I'll watch games, but I'm not paying for a damn thing. Yeah I think that's the line I'm drawing too. I'm going to watch the games, because I frankly don't have the willpower not to, but I'm not buying tickets while Russell's on the team. And one of the more striking things to this saga is that Russell's not even good anymore, which shows just how little of a crap the team gives. The Chapman thing was rightly described as a deal with the devil because they did something bad for a much better chance at the world series. At this juncture they are holding onto Russell because they'd rather pay him $4m to be league average than pay Jody Mercer $5m to be slightly worse. The stakes could barely be any lower for dumping him, and yet they're still plowing ahead. Unreal.

By DVOA the '86 team was WAY better, while the '06 and '12 teams were modestly better. That being said. I think you could pretty easily make a qualitative argument that this team is more talented than those last two, that the results just aren't quite at that level because of Mitch and Mack's injuries, and Mitch's early season growing pains.

You are. Keeping Russell is 1000% on him rather than ownership.

I think I'm still more grossed out by the Russelll situation, but the fact that there's a second comparably upsetting thing occurring in the same horsefeathering offseason is really tough to swallow.

Teams do better off of byes, Thursday games are super sloppy, and weird upsets are more likely in September are three bits of conventional wisdom that I believe the data has borne out as totally being true.

You have to be real sure Baseball Prospectus is measuring framing correctly to want Grandal over Contreras. Grandal is kind of a mess at all the other parts of catcher defense and if you think Contreras is streaky at the plate wait til you watch Grandal for a season.

Yeah, that's usually a 1-2 week injury, so we *should* be in the clear. The question now is how much should Nagy take his foot off the gas the next two weeks. Play next week like normal and them treat week 17 like a preseason game?

They're still pretty thin, but the Mets are another bat away from being very solid

Also, I don't know what the tiebreaker situation is, but with the Cowboys losing too I think we're reasonably locked into the #3 seed.

Not that it matters, but why did the clock stop on an offensive penalty? Also. Leonard Floyd is really good. It's very clear at this point that his early season struggles were because of the club on his hand.

Not a doctor, but I feel like non contact injuries are generally either really bad or fairly minor. Given that he walked to the locker room on his own, hopefully the latter. There's three weeks before we have another meaningful game afterall.

Oh no that might be really bad

I love Cohen, but my goodness does he make a lot of bad decisions. He's bizarro Javy