Hairyducked Idiot

I'm OK with it. That's true. He's more like a MacPhail.

If you call up Olt today, you can't option him again without sending him through waivers because of service time or something like that. I don't care about that, but I can see the front office caring about it. Can't put the guy on the team because you can't play roster games with him.

Unless it's *really* bad outside of the guys I know, I'd take 2 playoff years in the bank and them over what we have. I think if you were a fan of any other team, and you looked at the Cubs, and a Cubs fan said he'd take the Cubs' 2016 and 2017 chances over every other team in the division combined, you'd roll your eyes pretty hard. It's like going over to Mets Refugees and seeing them talk about their future. Our young hitting isn't producing right now, and our plan for pitching in the future is basically "hit on multiple guys from outside the organization every year and nobody important gets hurt."

I'll have to dig it up again, but I believe last year I came up with three teams who were below us in either a 2011 or 2012 farm ranking report, were under .500 in 2011, spent less than $100m in payroll each year, and made the playoffs in either 2012, 2013 or 2014. Once shouldn't be under consideration since you just said twice was a MAYBE for you. It was a maybe because I don't know the White Sox's current situation all that well. I know they've got like Sale and Rodon and Abreu, but I have little idea beyond that.

I'll have to dig it up again, but I believe last year I came up with three teams who were below us in either a 2011 or 2012 farm ranking report, were under .500 in 2011, spent less than $100m in payroll each year, and made the playoffs in either 2012, 2013 or 2014.

I said with "normal improvement" that'd be where he ends up, maybe a little better. He's got breakout potential to be a lot more than that, but I wouldn't exactly place high odds on him reaching it. His ZIPS last I checked had him topping out at 2.6. I think "average starter" is a more than reasonable median projection for him. Maybe even a little generous.

And I think that's the fan in you talking. The Cardinals and Pirates probably would take themselves too, and there's probably a stable of Reds and Brewers fans promising that if the rebuild starts right now, they could take it by 2017.

With 0 playoff berths? No. If they had one or two, maybe.

I think the future is being severely overrated. It's good, but it's not *that* good. For one thing, nobody's future is that good, it's baseball and there's too much variance. For another, there's a lot more flaws in the future than we want to admit sometimes. We've got one elite prime hitter, one elite young hitter and hopefully a second in Schwarber. Jorge Soler is 23 and hasn't shown himself to be anything more than below-average so far. Even with normal improvement (not a given with his K problems), he would still top out at an average starter. That's the strength of our organization, and it is strong: 2-4 young or young-ish hitters. Meanwhile, Baez, Alcantara, and Castro have all pooped the bed spectacularly. Our minor leaguers in general have not had a particularly impressive year. Vogelbach is all BABIP and still doesn't look like a guy who will hold a major-league starting job once you strip that way. Gleyber Torres is a million years away. Almora is hoping to maybe become CF Darwin Barney. Edit: Glossed over McKinney, a useful guy who doesn't project to anything special. And the pitching situation is precarious. We've had success at the MLB level this year, but it's all on the back of old starters and guys like Hammel who have long histories of ups-and-downs. There's basically no help on the way. Pierce Johnson, Armando Rivero, and CJ Edwards are both walking the world in the minors, the first two can't stay healthy, and there's nothing impressive coming up behind them. We've seen the effects of that thin-ness in 2015: Guys like Richard and Beeler getting starts, the back of the bullpen being a perpetual problem. And that's in a year when we've had relatively good luck with pitching injuries. 2016 and 2017 look just as thin going forward and guys like Lester and Arrieta will be older and have had more chances to injure themselves. The waves and waves of pitching that was supposed to come from drafting them en masse after the top pick just isn't showing up. We weren't the best team in the division this year, and it wasn't close. I wouldn't take us in 2016 or 2017 against the field. So again I ask: Is the future *that* amazing?

I think that in order to be thought of as unquestionably good at this point, we should have employed parallel fronts to at least two competitive seasons and an above-average stable of young talent (doesn't have to be mega-super-elite, just 14th out of 30). So like Hahn, if they win 84 this year? Is their stable of young talent above-average?

I think that in order to be thought of as unquestionably good at this point, we should have employed parallel fronts to at least two competitive seasons and an above-average stable of young talent (doesn't have to be mega-super-elite, just 14th out of 30).

OK. So if we lop off 2012, that gave Epstein a year to get one of the best farm systems in baseball going. Can we start counting from then and at least have some sort of measurable criteria against we can judge Epstein? It's like pulling teeth to get people to give any sort of objective criteria against which failure is possible sometimes. I don't even think Epstein's doing an unquestionably bad job. I just think the idea that he's doing unquestionably good one is based in ordinary fan exuberance and nothing more, even in a place that thinks of itself as being smarter than the average fans.

How much of that slashing was due to the restrictions, and how much of it was voluntarily diverting resources to the minors? And even if 2012 wasn't in play, that doesn't justify losing all the way through 2014. Plenty of teams in bad shape post-2011 made the playoffs at least once in the next three years.

Virtually every poster on this site thought 2012 was in play at the time. They only changed their mind after the fact. The only guy who didn't think 2012 was in play was davearm, more or less.

OK. Theo Epstein is currently on pace to make it 0-for-4 by that benchmark. Jim Hendry made it 3-for-9 (or 8 or 10, depending on how you want to split partial season). Does the fact that Epstein needs to go on a tear just to be slightly better than Jim Hendry make you suspect that at the very least, the success of his term with the Cubs should be questionable?

I don't think *any* other GM would have done what Epstein did, and I think many of them would have had better results. The pointless personal shots are, as usual, noted and given their due relevance.

So you didn't mean "regular-season wins" when you said "regular-season wins." You just meant you like it when your baseball teams win a lot of games, but also when they win fewer games but get in the playoffs anyway? Thanks for chiming in, I guess.

I've been mostly avoiding post-binges this summer and I've got three hours until I have to go pick up my kid. So much pent-up spew.

Probably Szczur. But I wish it was Javy.

Yep. Those were our choices that offseason. Epstein, Beane, Amaro and Stewart. The only four on the table.

And here we see these conversations in a microcosm: Cubs fan lays out his criteria. Realizes Epstein is in trouble by those criteria. Changes criteria immediately. All within a couple of posts.

I don't think you're going to like where that one takes you. First, it leaves no room for valuing evaluation of your league and division stance. You don't think a GM should act differently if he thinks the division is relatively weak or strong? As opposed to what? No, not really. I think a GM should put together the best team he can and try to win the most games he can. If he's not trying to win as many games as he can, what is he opting in favor of? If you've got the best team in the division on paper by four games, you can afford to stop adding. If you've got another team right there with you, you can't. We saw it play out in those epic arms races with the Yankees that made me think "Man, I'd love to have *that* guy as our team-runner..."

I want to see an alternate universe where Epstein treats the Cubs like he would have treated the Red Sox in the same situation. Or at least one where we hired someone else.

I don't think you're going to like where that one takes you. First, it leaves no room for valuing evaluation of your league and division status. You don't think a GM should act differently if he thinks the division is relatively weak or strong? Second, the hole that Epstein has dug himself with the Cubs is going to be awfully hard to dig out of by that metric. He currently stands at 256-333 (.435). He's going to need four 90-win seasons just to get back to .500 after this year.

Herrera is reliably replacement level. I'm not sure I like the risk of Utley's continued turdiness just for the reward of a slightly better bench bat.