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Hairyducked Idiot

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Everything posted by Hairyducked Idiot

  1. Hairyducked Idiot
    We could have upped our Sanchez offer with Concepcion's money.
  2. Hairyducked Idiot
    10% of the worst teams made the playoffs the next year? Seems pretty high-variance to me. Not that it means much other than we're terrible often, but I think three of those teams were Cubs.
  3. Hairyducked Idiot
    Also, when I said "we could be competitive in 2014" I didn't just mean in an "if we open up the pocketbooks" sort of way. Baseball is weird, and we have a ton of interesting talent in the organization. Sometimes talent breaks out. Sometimes (and since we have yet another year of it not happening, it's really hard to convince people of this) you have a lot of good luck in a season. If our entire offseason is picking up a bargain FA outfielder and one starting pitcher, I still think we could compete with the $90m payroll that would result. Emphasis on could. Take that offseason I described above, then fill out the roster with players already in the organization. Now imagine Castro/Rizzo/Samardzija remember that they are supposed to be core and combine for 12 WAR like we hoped instead of the 5 we're going to get from them this year. Then our huge stockpile of interesting, hard-throwing or tricky bullpen arms comes forward and replaces all the schmucks we have now, and we have a slightly above-average bullpen. Then Javier Baez comes up in May and hits 20 HRs the rest of the way. Then we get a fluky-good year in clutchiness. Nothing extreme, just three or four extra wins. That team might win 95 games.
  4. Hairyducked Idiot
    The teams with the best record in the AL and the second-best in the NL were projected to finish fourth in their divisions by the consensus of statistical projection models. Of course, now everyone *knew* that the Pirates and Red Sox were going to be awesome and they totally weren't in that ".500 with little chance" category before the season.
  5. Hairyducked Idiot
    I'm not going to do that and I don't care if you don't take it seriously or not. Here's what happens when you post an alternative offseason: Person - Well, what could they have done differently? *spends three hours digging through free agent lists, presents exhaustive alternative offseason that gets the team to 92 wins and under budget using WAR totals from that season* Person - Well, you didn't know at the time those players were going to do that. *spends another hour reconfiguring offseason to use pre-season projections from that time instead of actual results* Person - Well, you didn't know that those players would sign with us for that money. *spends another hour making an 88-win team that overpays all its players* Person - Well, that might not have even made the playoffs and we would have missed out on three prospects! *spends another hour reconfiguring to make sure we get plenty of prospects too* Person - Well, you used the wrong WAR. Do it all over again with a different one.
  6. Hairyducked Idiot
    I believe his explanation for payroll falling mostly because it's the only one to come along that makes any sense. It's roughly 18 billion times more plausible than "Ricketts has let the team be terrible four years in a row and slashed baseball spending while seeing attendance go down 700k per year from its peak because really that's the right way to build a baseball team and it was the only way to send us to long-term success" or whatever.
  7. Hairyducked Idiot
    I think it's perfectly plausible that they could end up worse off from owning it. But sure, if you look at it from a "Ricketts doesn't care about the team, only the profits" viewpoint, then I guess he might come out ahead.
  8. Hairyducked Idiot
    So I guess that answers your question. If the only acceptable endgame for the Ricketts was owning the Cubs, then literally anything was a "win" for them so long as it ended with them winning the bidding. But that's a pretty circular-logicy way to set up the scenario.
  9. Hairyducked Idiot
    Because presumably nobody else would have been a sucker enough to agree with it and the Tribune would have had to back off the demands. I think that's *exactly* what happened. I think Ricketts knew that the deal was extremely restrictive, but he figured that he'd be able to squeeze $300m out of the city for a quick ballpark renovation that would let revenues grow to make up for the restrictive arrangement. Four years later, he's begging to pay for the renovation and attendance has plummeted.
  10. Hairyducked Idiot
    I kind of hate the entire concept. If you aren't the Astros, you are competing for the playoffs when you start the season. It's a high-variance sport. We could have been competing for the playoffs this year.
  11. Hairyducked Idiot
    And that the budget is more restricted than they expected.
  12. Hairyducked Idiot
    It's mostly an outgrowth of what MLB has been trying to do for a long time: Making sure that the small-market teams have enough money to entice these young players to extend.
  13. Hairyducked Idiot
    Is the "stuff" still something like low-mid 90's fastball and solid splitter? If so, does seem like an intriguing pen option for next year. Last report I heard, yes. And I'm really interested in seeing him as a bullpen candidate for 2014. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if we turned over the entire bullpen over the offseason, and not much of it has to come from outside the organization.
  14. Hairyducked Idiot
    gee - ya think? still suffering from corey patterson/ryan harvey high upside first round draft pick PTSD. This is why I'm so hyped about him. AA is the age where the numbers for Patterson started to diverge from the hype. Baez got put in a pitcher's AA league that was supposed to humble him, and is getting better.
  15. Hairyducked Idiot
    Man, those cherry picked stats are nice, but the guy's OPSed .800 once in his MiL career so far and is striking out 4 times for every walk. Throw in the errors and I'm not terribly optimistic. I hate agreeing with Kyle. I put him in the category of "needs to come in above his median projection to be an MLB starter." If he just keeps being himself and progressing through the levels, he peaks out as a .620 OPS guy in the majors or something like that, imo. It's possible that this second half hot streak could be the beginning of a leap in skills that could be just what he needs, but I'm not ready to call it just yet. And that is an awful lot of errors for a guy who is supposed to get a ton of value from defense. I try to be pretty skeptical of defensive reports in the minors, because there tends to be some exaggeration/clinging to the absolute best report.
  16. Hairyducked Idiot
    You can join the bandwagon if you want. I'm still not crazy about him.
  17. Hairyducked Idiot
    He might be, but it probably wouldn't be what's best for his long term development. Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure letting him just beat on pitching he's too good for will be much better. He needs to be challenged, and there might not be a league in the minors that does that at this point.
  18. Hairyducked Idiot
    gee - ya think? I'm starting to think Baez 4th on a total MLB list might be a little too low.
  19. Hairyducked Idiot
    Someone make a convincing case that Javier Baez wouldn't be one of our four best options at infield right now, or at least in 2014 when he has passed the service time thresholds.
  20. Hairyducked Idiot
    What really strikes me as the difference between MacPhail and Epstein is the competitive drive. I think MacPhail knew how to build a good organization, I just don't think he cared enough to really want to put the work in. He was just in a holding pattern while he waited for bigger and better things to come along.
  21. Hairyducked Idiot
    Someone elsewhere said he crushed a home-run length foul ball for the first strike.
  22. Hairyducked Idiot
    there isn't a gif on the internet that can accurately sum up how I feel about this.
  23. Hairyducked Idiot
    Andy MacPhail, 1996
  24. Hairyducked Idiot
    :stickman: By this time next year, I want to be facing the "where do Bryant and Baez play" problem.
  25. Hairyducked Idiot
    Not on the 40-man, so probably not. But I think he makes the team out of ST next year.
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