Bull

I hear this stuff and am very recently coming to realize that often the intention is to take from the older players to give to the younger players. While I can’t assume that is what you mean, that can also burn in hell It's very simple: players are grossly underpaid in their prime years, so they ask for monster contracts to make up for it in their post-prime years. Owners are now cooling on those mega-contracts, so they are setting up a system that they don't pay the players in either case. The Bryants and Betts and Lindors of the world should be getting paid more earlier in their careers I just think that players should be paid when they’re producing and that EVEN Bryce Harper will not produce enough to justify a $35 million salary in his age 36 year, And that the nationals should have been paying him more the last few years. This is much more pronounced with players like pujols. the Cardinals got ridiculously cheap production out of him and now the Angels are hamstrung. I just think the Cardinals are awful and deserve awful things. Basically, if a player never realizes a big free agency payday due to an injury (potentially even caused by misuse and medical team incompetence) he could have provided great value to a team without ever getting paid for it. So yeah, Tom, I’m saying pay older (post prime) players less and younger (valuable) players more (commensurate with their value). Sorry if you don’t like it, but it’s what needs done.

Both guys are only 26, and have been each worth approx. $236 million in about 7-ish seasons of play apiece. Free agency is fine. Fix prearb

Bryant in 2018: 2.3 Baez in 2018: 5.3 So a relatively healthy Bryant gains 3.7 fWAR, making up for the 1.3 fWAR Baez loses almost three times over. It seems you and Tim agree.

All of this is true. It's also true that Bryant has reached that level in every season in which he was "fully" healthy and also was on pace to go well past 6 WAR last year before the injury. It's possible that the injury will limit the finish on his swing going forward and that his results dip as a result. But I'll take bets on the gap between his 2018 and 2019 more than offsetting the dip in Javy's, assuming KB and Javy each play in 145+ games. Any of you doom bonering people want to wager? I offered to make wagers as a responce to his doom bonering before. I never heard back. (Although, that 145+ game stipulation is pretty significant.) Easiest way to quantify “healthy” this far in advance. To Tim’s credit, would also include “relatively healthy,” so he’s givng more than he has to.

Brach in Black?

“Hey Dex, I’m sorry. Sorry you have to play in a stupid boring town.”

Must have named his dog Wrigley because it craps on the floor in the winter.

Well the year I went, I bought the stupid passes and then discovered that anyone could walk in off the street and do everything because there was no ticket checking/taking checkpoint anywhere in between the hotel doors and the convention hall The year I went (2016), I bought the passes off of an autograph hound for $20 bucks via craigslist. They just kept the autograph scratch-off. We met at the door. I went to the sessions (and asked if the Joe was serious about Javy Baez in centerfield), they got a ball signed and sold it on ebay.

Love it. Perfect response in my opinion. We’re not going to write him off as a person, but three times affirms that there’s a long road of accountability for Russell to walk.

Think I read that more details would be coming soon Saturday Night with Ryan Dempster and Sunday Brunch with Ryan Dempster? The Ryan Dempster talk show style sessions really are fun live (at least when I went in 2016). Surrounded by people having a good time, seeing the Cubs have a good time. Since then they’ve seemed less so. Maybe because I’m not there live, maybe because the schtick wears thin, or maybe because you guys make me awful and ruin everything.

yeah, i mean to me, intuitively speaking, there's no way we are so cash strapped that we can do literally nothing. we must be in a holding pattern for harper (or possibly machado). Surely this it.....Surely. Please?

I’ve contended this all along. Theo is fancy like that.

While I agree with the sarcastic sentiment here, Zobrist is old and crusty, and there’s no guarantee he’ll continue to get on base at a —— holy crap! He had a .378 OBP last year?!? Nevermind.

This offseason can really go horsefeathers a goat. Even the rumors are idiot level Ffs the Mets are the most respectable ML team this offseason. The Mets! Just get used to it. This is the new normal. They should just move the Winter Meetings to late January. Front offices are far more cautious and less willing to be the first teams to make a big splash in free agency. Switch the arbitration deadline with the winter meetings. Get arb out of the way earlier and let the teams have a better handle on their actual budget. Winter meetings then return to their proper position, that being where things get done.

I was just reminded that Harper’s full name is Bryce Aron Max Harper. I have decided I prefer an outfield of Schwarber, Happ/Almora, Heyward.

Too late. You’re dead to me.

Casey's pizza is actually good and you're wrong. The more you get to know people the more your idealized notion of their greatness and nobility is destroyed.

Does this sound familiar to anybody else? I feel like some offseason there was thought of us having all this money to spend and then all a sudden we were broke because of X(renovations?) Are you thinking of the Tanaka money that was not spent that off-season but 'saved for later' after they didn't get him? I remember a quote about signing "two offeseason's worth" of free agents. I can't remember what year that was though.

Or Bryce is happening and they're waiting for the convention to announce it... please?

Ah, yes; Chicago's under-policed mini-Bourbon Street with the wonky crime stats to not scare away the suburban bros and bro-ettes and their precious, precious dollars. So deliciously and impressively revitalized now that there's a hotel, too. I'm very satisfied that that is the criticism you chose to offer. Doesn't really take away from my point. May add to it. I'm not an expert on the situation by any means, but its pretty clear to me that business people gonna business.

Hilarious that Kozma is batting 3rd for any team.

I don't know what to do with this. If you mean "owning a sports team shouldn't be a business," I can go along - but only so far. But that's just not realistic. Maybe I have some sort of strange Stockholm Syndrome from following the Cubs during Tribune ownership, but I don't see how its anything but a business. **I'm not a businessman, so forgive me if I misuse some terms** Have we forgotten the whole saga of tribune ownership, and underspending? Tribune in bankruptcy and selling the team? Sam Zell and the resrictions put on the Rickett's as far as requiring a certain debt load (if I'm remembering correctly)? The revitalization of the neighborhood? As much of a fan as Ricketts might be, you can't be naive enough to think that someone with a background in BANKING AND INVESMENTS would go through countless hours of meetings, fights with the neighborhood, the rooftops, and the city if they didn't think it would gain them a profit. These people live life by ROI. And all the other owners are business owners as well. I don't have to like them. I don't have to like big business, but to fail to recognize that an asset acquired for nearly a billion dollars is anything but big business is somewhere between gullible and dense. Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others. I feel the same way about capitalism. It is the worst economic system, except all the others. It really is the worst. but its what we have, and to expect people who have played that system for generations, and have invested the time and energy they have in it to not turn a HEFTY profit is to fail to understand the world around you. I wouldn't be surprised if they are leading the way on collusion. I'd image the penalties on baseball collusion will be much less than the same behavior in the banking industry and the Ricketts' know it. That said, the Cubs have a top 5 payroll, will continue have one. They have been more competitive this last 5 years than any other time in my lifetime or yours (I haven't checked the numbers, but I'd image even averaging in the "tank" years, they've set an 8 year high in W/L record at this point) due to quality hires and open wallets. I want Bryce and will be dissappointed if they don't get him. But to expect the Ricketts to be anything but what we knew they were walking in is just silly. They're investors and they're doing pretty well with this investment, both in terms of its success and thier profit. tl;dr. Baseball is a business. You don't have to like it, but its true. The Ricketts' are good at business and the Cubs are more successful than ever, while the Ricketts are making tons of money, which is kind of what bankers do.

What is the perceived negative connotation about Univision to which you are referring? He made no reference to any connotation whatsoever. He’s saying, “I don’t care what network they are on if it provides the finances to sign Harper.”

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole You're stuck on this concept of a "financial hole". It is a fictional construct. There is no hole. It is an artificial barrier that league ownership has put in place in order to maximize their portion of the profits. The Cubs could easily run a $250M payroll, pay the associated luxury tax and still run a profit. They could probably run a payroll closer to $300M and be fine. Rough numbers: Ticket proceeds: $58 average face value ticket price * 3.18M in attendance = $184M in ticket revenue alone TV Contract Revenue: $65M in local tv contract revenue in 2016 So right there, that's ~$250M. That ignores the $50M all mlb teams got from the online business. And their share of the national tv contracts. And the radio revenue. And the concession sales. And the concert revenues. etc. Now, from that they have to cover much more than just the 25 man roster payroll. But the Cubs bring in a ton of profit. Is there an eventual limit to what they can spend and still make a profit? Of course. But they are not anywhere close to it. Yeah, but are they close to the limit to what they can spend and still make an obscene and ridiculous profit?

The discussion is all hypothetical about what he would receive (long term or short term). Since we being hypothetical, if his best offer was $300/10 yrs (with opt outs) I could see him accepting accepting $200 million/5 yrs (with opt outs) and hitting FA again at 28/29 years old when salaries have increased with new money floating around (i.e. Cubs network). I get that the millions make it harder to understand, but without knowing your income, if your boss guaranteed you that you’d make $100k per year pretty much no matter what for 10 years, and then another company offered you $133k per year for 4 years, would you really consider the second offer if the jobs were the same? Absolutely. In fact, I’ve made that decision. But I’m not a world class athlete whose career could be irreparably derailed by a poorly timed hangnail. Your point stands, but the broad brushed painting here doesn’t do the question justice. These guys are different.