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Hairyducked Idiot

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Everything posted by Hairyducked Idiot

  1. Castillo for A-ball pitcher(s) Cheap veterans to replace him
  2. OK, I'll take a crack Wood, Jackson, Arrieta in the rotation Strop, Parker, Villanueva, Parker and Rosscup in the bullpen Lake, Sweeney and Schierholtz in the outfield Olt, Barney, Rizzo in the infield Vitters, Bogusevic and Valbuena on the bench No catchers So I'm going with 17
  3. You can't use ERA for relievers. Even if he was overused, he had a 4.11 xFIP in the first half when he was supposed to be good. Last three years xFIP: 4.49, 4.35, 4.77 Marshall's last three years as a Cub: 3.77, 2.50, 2.50 If Theo really thinks he can get a young starter of any value at all for Russell, I'm just ... confused. Russell is barely tenderable.
  4. Umm, I'm willing to grant that Theo probably knows that James Russell is way worse than Sean Marshall was, but does he really think other teams don't know that too?
  5. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/11/huntington-qualifying-offer-for-burnett-did-not-fit-budget.html Pirates' GM is starting to cry poor, which would be nice if true. Also had some interesting things to say about that national TV deal that kicks in this year.
  6. My guess is that it's referring to the maintenance on Wrigley Field? I've heard that's pretty significant.
  7. It seems like Castro's falling apart and Jeff Samardzija's curious desire to be paid market value were the push that made him say "screw it, let's just wait for our own draftees"
  8. Jesse Rogers ‏@ESPNChiCubs 5m Fan to Theo: "Mr. Epstein I like your plan but I don't get Edwin Jackson." Ha. Jesse Rogers ‏@ESPNChiCubs 5m Theo response: "Give him another chance." Then says maybe we "got ahead of ourselves" Might as well just drop trou and take a dump on the MLBTR Top 50 FA list. It'd be getting the same point across.
  9. Jesse Rogers tweeting from one of the STH meetings: Jesse Rogers ‏@ESPNChiCubs 23m Theo to fans: "It takes great courage to be patient." Jesse Rogers ‏@ESPNChiCubs 16m Says of 50 players on WS roster this yr , 35 were homegrown or acquired using homegrown players Jesse Rogers ‏@ESPNChiCubs 15m Theo making the case for young, homegrown players Jesse Rogers ‏@ESPNChiCubs 9m Theo points out they have traded 8 vets for a total of 4 yrs of "control" for 14 young players for 78 total yrs of control Jesse Rogers ‏@ESPNChiCubs 9m He admits "it better work" because it comes at a cost (losing) Jesse Rogers ‏@ESPNChiCubs 4s Theo on providing an atmosphere at ML level for players to succeed: "I haven't done a good job at that"
  10. It's darn close to axiomatic that a 66-win team had way more underperformances than overperformances. It's hard to build a 66-win team on paper.
  11. My bad, for some reason I was thinking he was the Hapsburg guy, but google says it was Pee Wee Herman.
  12. That episode was unwatchable, and the 30 Rock with him in it was just as bad.
  13. Almora strikes me as the kind of guy who could maintain the exact same level of production at every stop.
  14. Tyler Houston once borrowed my sharpie to sign everyone hanging over the dugout before a game but forgot to sign mine before walking off with my sharpie. I will hold that grudge forever.
  15. What do you mean by this? It's in the contract, according to Levine, they can't bring in an outside source through the entire CSN deal. According to a pair of the knowledgable guys at PSD, its only true if WGN decides they can't pay at least what the "fair market value price" is, which was given to them on Tuesday. Tribune today said that it was the higher of "fair market value" appraised and a pre-written level in the contract, and in this case the pre-written value is higher.
  16. What do you mean by this? Cubs' deal with Comcast forbids them from dealing with any other cable stations for the rest of the games. That just leaves over-the-air, and there doesn't seem to be any interest there.
  17. I don't think that will happen, either. But I do think that the timeline of when these players start producing and whatever isn't going to necessarily be in time for us to be .500 in 2015. This is the time of year where every prospect's ETA seems to be pushed up to the absolute soonest that could be remotely feasible, but what we have right now is a bunch of really exciting A-ballers with one guy who had an amazing half-season at AA but lots of caveats as to why he is very raw. We're not going to be terrible forever, but we're not going to be good soon unless the front office decides they want to accelerate the process. And I've seen nothing from them to indicate they'll do that.
  18. We've never been linked to those FAs in a serious way. Just the local media saying "sure, we'd like players" or the national media just randomly listing big market teams. Nobody seems to seriously expect us to land any of those big players this offseason.
  19. It made sense in 2012 and 2013 too. I'm way past the point where "it'd seem to make sense for them to be good" is a reason for me to believe they will be. Doable isn't likely, and the hot rumors right now are that we're selling off before the season even starts. I'll believe we enter 2014 with that payroll when I see it. We ended last year at $95m and I'm barely expecting us to reach that again. In the current MLB environment, $50m over five years gets you like one average starter. Well, like I said, I think the path you've laid out here is plausible. I'm just not willing to call it probable. It's too easy for too many things to go wrong.
  20. I think that if I'm asked for a baseline projection for 2015, those two don't give enough to push the team to or over .500. They might fail, they might succeed. They might succeed but not quickly enough to have a major impact that quickly. Heck, I think there's still a really good chance that one or both are them aren't even making their MLB debuts until 2015. Those three pitchers combined for 4.8 fWAR last year. The median for an MLB starting staff last year was 11.5. So even all three of them stay healthy and effective, we're basically seven wins short. So, all we need is two pitchers better than anyone we have. I'm not exactly counting on it. I'll place that 2015-ready MLB pitcher we get for Samardzija next to the 2014 MLB-ready pitcher we were definitely going to get for Garza and the Rizzo-like trade acquisitions we were definitely going to make last offseason. I'm not saying your scenario is implausible. t's worth dreaming on. But I don't think it rises all the way up to "likely."
  21. That's placing a ton of faith in two guys who have less than 250 PAs combined above A-ball. And even if that happens, we'd need to get the pitching too. I'm sure the waves and waves will get us there eventually, but I'm not willing to place even money on it for 2015.
  22. Yep. I looked at some of those for fantasy baseball purposes in March and he seemingly had half the starters in the majors going over an .800 OPS. There was a really funny moment last offseason where these came out (also not affiliated with Bill James, incidentally, they just bought his name to put on them) and a Royals blog ran an excited post how if you added up all the WAR that those projections accounted for, it had the Royals at like 90 wins. Then that turned out to be 10th in the AL or something, because it had everybody with amazing win totals.
  23. I doubt that, too. Nope, I'm pretty serious. I don't think we're going to be .500 in the next two years. Too far away, too little interest and/or resources in closing the gap quickly.
  24. Well, it's better than what I actually expect to happen.
  25. Judging from where the team is right now, I'd be pretty happy to find out we reached .500 by 2015.
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