Hairyducked Idiot

If neither Grimm nor Ramirez makes a notable contribution in 2014, that trade looks a bit less bright. Unless Olt can see after all.

See, I don't think this coming offseason is the intersection. You'll still have a bad team. Free agents will still mostly be 30+ guys looking for deals that take them deep into their decline years. They still won't be just one or two players away from being a dominant team. I've been a fan savvy enough to know about contracts and payroll for at least two decades. And there's *never* been a year where we didn't say "Look at all the money coming off the books, surely we'll concentrate all that on one or two awesome guys rather than spread it around the roster" and it never, ever happens. I imagine we'll get one MOR SP, an outfielder on a 2-year deal and some relief pitchers and a backup catcher and who knows what else.

B-R has $43m in arbitration estimates for 12 arbitration-eligibles.

This offseason is the first time they haven't spent everything available to them. Tanaka complicated things. It is slightly disconcerting that they haven't made an effort on some of the SP's out there, but who really knows what they've offered. Where do you see the 2015 payroll being, if you had to put money on it? In past offseasons, they've chosen to spend the money anywhere else but big-name FAs. I'm guessing $80m-$85m for 2015.

Nothing new.

Most of it comes straight from Epstein's interviews, and the rest comes from his actions.

I think we already saw can't vs. won't tested this offseason, and won't won. They are interested in two types of major free agents: 1) The unicorns like Tanaka or Darvish that are just entering their prime 2) The absolute last piece of an already-contention-level team, like Peralta for the Cardinals this year. Otherwise, they will pass and pass and pass some more. Unless we somehow win 81+ games this year on the backs of incredible internal development, then the most I'd expect next year is a single Edwin Jackson-level signing. Then, like TT said, you've probably got a team that has a .500ish projection, so you'll probably miss the playoffs but have enough of a shot that you can't be accused of punting either.

I really hope our front office isn't making decisions based on how it will affect attendance. No one said they were, but considering how much of an impact revenue has on baseball operations, they probably should consider it at least a factor.

Rivero surge!

I honestly think this exact sentence could have been posted in 2011, 2012 and 2013 as well. It doesn't matter if they have the money, they just don't want to do it. Unless everything goes absurdly well this year and we win 85 games, we're still going to be a bad team and major free agents are still going to be 30+ and looking for long-term deals deep into their decline. The front office has made it clear they don't want to do that with both words and actions, even if it means leaving money on the table.

There was a report last fall that Cubs internal projections have attendance at 2.3m this upcoming year. It makes sense with all the trouble they seem to be having selling season tickets.

Well, they have the opportunity to fix Castro. Which they need to do. I'm not sure they would have passed on this offseason, if Tanaka had been posted much earlier. That said, the fact they're saying they saved money this offseason DOES create the expectation it will be spent soon. Next year at the latest, in my mind. I imagine there's a good chance it will be needed next year to make up for the 300k loss in attendance they are projecting.

Both Fangraphs projections and PECOTA have the Brewers in third place, although ahead of different teams.

It seems like lately there's been a run of problems that make me really wonder if they're going to be able to maximize the results once they decide they're done stockpiling assets. You can't have things like "oops, we broke Starlin Castro" or "Don't see anything we like this offseason, pass" when you are trying to compete.

I don't think Epstein sucks. However, I also don't think we know that he's enough better than the other smart GMs around to deliver the kind of success that people keep banking on. Jim Hendry made the playoffs 3 times in nine seasons. Is Epstein going to match that? Beat it by 1? He inherited an amazing team in Boston, and by the time he left they had missed the playoffs three out of the last six (and missed again the first year after he left). Is that the kind of success rate we're waiting through multiple years of awfulness for? I think that's a possibility. I know he's better than Jim Hendry. I don't honestly know that he's better than Walt Jocketty. I don't even really know that he's better than Mozeliak or Huntington. This whole narrative that everything he's built is the best in baseball because he's the best and of course anything he builds is the best ... I just think it's fandom run amok. We're not going to be awful forever. Eventually this experimental fantasy rebuild he's using our franchise to try out is going to turn into a team full of young players. And if he gets lucky in three short series in one season, then I guess we'll spike the football and call it a success. But I don't think it's going to be nearly as easy as many people seem to think to have a run of "sustained success" that we're supposed to be aiming for.

They've seemingly gone from one of the worst to one of the best in about two years. I think it's pretty impressive. But yes, I know, modernizing baseball operations could have been done within 2 weeks of being hired, and then they should have focused on free agency to raise their star-studded roster from 71 wins to 82 wins. I love that, amidst all this angst, the 2011 Cubs won 71 games, and the 2013 version won 66 with their two best players crapping the bed. But hey, that 5 win drop says everything about the state of the organization. No, the 66 win games won 5 years into the Ricketts, the $80m payroll and the never ending rooftop saga says everything about the state of the organization. Not to mention we're going to threaten 1 million in lower attendance this year, and that's not even including the epic no-show totals.

That's not exactly what we were saying. We were saying that if the Tribune ownership was terrible, and the best you can say about the Ricketts ownership is that it is better in some ways and worse in others, then it's probably in the vicinity of terrible as well.

What makes you think our baseball operations are one of the best? Also, we keep bouncing back and forth between talking about ownership and talking about the front office.

I just don't see modernizing the baseball operations as some sort of massive achievement to be lauded. It was a bare minimum requirement of whomever they hired.

An expiration date that seems to have a way of getting pushed back every time it starts to get close.

I'd love it if he was, but subpar MLB appearance and two established MLB lefties ahead of him.

Maybe you could drop Parker, too, and add Rondon. I don't think Parker's 46 innings should necessarily lock him in. And I wouldn't mind shipping out Russell for anything. I don't see any way Cabrera makes the team, and I can't see him clearing waivers. I think he's probably done as a Cub.

I'm not going to grade them on a curve for a rebuild they chose to do. Then again, I don't want to grade them against Hendry, either.

So with Arrieta not ready for Opening Day and McDonald on an MLB deal, I guess we'd get: Samardzija/Wood/Jackson/Hammel/Villanueva Veras/Strop/Wright/Russell/McDonald/Parker/Grimm?

Mooney's tweet about it was confusing, but seemed to indicate it was non-guaranteed. 1 year 1 million with additional incentives Theo also reiterated that they spent all they had available to them the last 2 years, but did not do so this offseason, and that the remainder could be used in-season or rolled into future seasons. It looks like he's on one of those non-guaranteed (but really guaranteed unless you can prove you cut him for baseball reasons) contracts that pre-FA guys get. Like Ian Stewart last year.