Stratos

Payroll and salary and value per dollar aren't imaginary. Imaginary is the fact that you pretend they don't exist simply because in your fantasies you don't want them to. The business of baseball is a reality, for better or worse. Complaining about it in 90% of your posts isn't going to change it, it's a giant waste of your time and energy and is irritating to read over and over again. It matters to a front office whether a player makes 20 million or 2 million because they don't run a charity or a social commune, they run a business with limited resources. Stop whining and deal with reality.

Thanks. Just to be clear, when I said "Trading PCA for him would be insane based on his injury history" I meant that based on all the time Robert missed with injury it would be ridiculous to trade PCA for him. I didn't mean that it would be "insane" to trade for him only based on his injury history. 3 years of Robert for 5-6 more years of PCA at much cheaper salary is such a lopsided trade that Hoyer wouldn't even bother to consider.

I assume you're still talking about Luis Robert Jr. I don't know his injury history but at 26 years old i would be skeptical he's toast. It definitely could partly be his environment, but I have no idea. Trading PCA for him would be insane based on his injury history though. Then if we look at cost and control there's no argument whatsoever who the most valuable player is.

This was a terrible game to watch.

I think PCA can improve on the BB rate a bit as he gets more comfortable in the league, but i agree with you, he's going to typically have a below-average BB rate.

Dansby hitting 127 wRC+ since July 10, over 95 PA's. Getting more production from he, PCA, and catcher has been huge.

I can't remember ever seeing that before.

Great name for a stadium though.

They signed Neris at 35 years old and his results from 3 of the last 4 seasons were pretty average, and so was his xFIP last year. I don't think he's a bad pitcher but I don't think he's anything that special and his overall results (ERA and xFIP) this year are fairly in line with what he's done over the last several years. The guys you mentioned are fine, but they traded Bigge, Little is meh, and there's a decent chance they overpitched Adbert to more injuries last summer because most of the rest of the pen was weak. When is the last time the Cubs developed (and kept) a high quality late-inning reliever? I guess Adbert counts for one season? And if we look at the top 100 relievers in the MLB this season the Cubs have none of them. Sure relievers can be pretty random but that's not good.

That's fine, but their philosophy has also failed this team badly in the first half of the last 2 seasons. My point is if they don't want to pay for a real closer in FA that's fine, but then trading a bunch of relief talent away just doesn't make much sense either. If they want to load the pen with random dudes they think are worth taking a gamble on then it may often take months to figure out who stinks and who doesn't, and by that time they've blown a bunch of leads in games.

Cubs are always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

Well you made the same argument last offseason and the offseason before and the exact same thing happened both years as I had warned. I get not wanting to spend 15m on a reliever, but they could also develop some young arms. They cut Estrada when he was going through some control issues and now he's a horse. They just traded Bigge and Leiter, and Effross before that. I get the logic of these decisions, but if they're going to keep putting such a low value on quality pen arms and trade most of the good ones away because Hoyer thinks they're "overvalued" they're going to end up with the type of pens they've had, which is mostly just a bunch of random dudes. Real talent is real talent. Pedro Strop, Mariano Rivera, Josh Hader etc is real talent and are going to be good far more than they're bad. Extreme examples but if Hoyer wants to rely on luck then they're relying on a pen with a coin flips chance of being effective rather than stacking higher odds in their favour by acquiring or developing/keeping talent, and the results speak for themselves.

Yup same thing that happened last year. I don't think it would be so bad if we had some real quality late inning guys to anchor the pen and the annual randoms could slot in mostly in middle relief. As of right now the pen is mystery for next year. We have Merryweather, and probably Hodge who hopefully is solid, but then we have no idea what we get from guys like Neris, Miller, Almonte, Pearson, Wesneski etc. Should be June again until we figure it out.

A bit of tangent but I see Cubs have a fairly easy schedule the rest of Aug, so could get interesting by the end of the month if Cubs play well. Mixed schedule in Sept, playing some chumps but also Dodgers, Yanks, Phillies. They might have to get hot in Sept. Good news for Sept is Cubs have 16 home games and only 10 on the road.

Re: Paredes, Hoyer mentioned after the trade that they had been working on that deal for a while, I think he said for like a month before the deadline, and that there were a lot of teams bidding on him.

Catcher is tough position to find guys that can hit obviously, and you usually are looking at 2 of them to find. Last year the league average for team totals at the catcher position was about 2.0 WAR and 92 wRC+. If they can find someone who is good that's great, but I'd be more than happy with something around league average output on our catching combo, or even a bit below average who are very solid defensively and working with pitchers. Someone like Gomes before this year was solid enough. I think there's something to be said about catchers with experience knowing the hitters/teams around the league and adding intangible value to the pitching staff. Catching prospects are notorious for flaming out offensively so i'm not all that keen in trading good prospects at other positions for them. if they trade real value for a catcher i'd like someone with a few years & results in the league.

I like Boog but he's a know-it-all and Girardi is from the old school era, obviously not the same intensity of analytics guy Boog is. I think Boog just needs to chill a bit and stop fighting with the guy on every point, even if he's right most of the time. He doesn't need to always be right for his own ego.

Originally it was "right forearm strain" LOL. We know that can be code for elbow. Thanks for the smoke and mirrors Cubs.

I think there's a higher likelihood they sign Soto over Ohtani, Correa/Turner/Bogaerts, Harper, and Machado. With Correa (cheating), Harper, and Machado there were some "personality/clubhouse" concerns, plus for the latter 2 the Cubs were pretty tapped out on their payroll limit at the time. Ohtani we may have given a great offer but he was going to the Dodgers no matter what. And Turner/Bogaerts were both 30 years old and their contracts IMO were quite overpriced even for a big contracts. The thing that could stand in the way may be the fact that Soto plays a position we don't have a need for, we just could use the offensive upgrade. But eventually getting rid of 2 of Bellinger/Happ/Suzuki would make roster and payroll room for Soto and Caissie. OF + DH could look something like Soto/PCA/Caissie/Suzuki. We have Suzuki under contract through 2026 and before the contract is done Alcantara and/or Ballesteros/Triantos (at DH) should be ready, meaning Seiya could be traded. Over the next 2 seasons we should be able to get some solid prospects for Happ & Suzuki, plus Nico if they see Shaw replacing him at some point. I like the Cubs staying fairly young (as many guys as possible still in their prime years) & able to consistently reload the farm by turning the roster over. Even with Soto they get to stay in his prime for several years, and could trade him when he hits his 30's before his value crumbles.

They've also had a few crappy players in the lineup much of the year.

It's possible his BA will drop. His BABIP is quite high, but has been pretty consistent, and he had similar in the upper minors. But his K% since June 1 is 27.2%, and 25.2% since July 1. So he's improved. We don't know if he can keep it up though, guess we'll see.

PCA is probably watching the ball the whole way and doesn't know exactly where Nico is and that he had settled under the ball. If you're the CF you're taught that its easier to make a play coming in than an infielder going back so its your ball on those in-between play unless called off. On the one hand if PCA calls Nico off he better know he has a good play on it. You can't call for the ball and then dive for it. But I get Floyd's point because it took Nico a bit to concede to PCA and made the play harder for him. I think ultimately its PCA's fault, he's gonna know Nico has a better play and back off, which he's had problems with before. His enthusiasm is bigger than his brain.

He really needs to learn when to back off in the field. If I played with a guy like this it would piss me off. His enthusiasm is bigger than his brain at this point.

Only have to hop 6 teams for a WC birth. Let's do this.

My favorite player is Motorola.