Picture of Theo Baseball

JosMin said:

Why are people always assuming that you if you offer a guy a little more money, a player is going to make that take precedence over the overall situation of the team? Why would he turn down a chance to join a rotation with Verlander and Scherzer? Sanchez's agent said the offer they received from the Cubs was for $75 million (some sources say $77 million) and the fact that the Tigers gave up a lot when they acquired him and Omar Infante from the Marlins, they were willing to spend more in order to keep him. The deal unraveled for the Cubs when the Tigers also included a club option sixth year at $16 million with a $5 million dollar buyout -- something the Cubs weren't willing to do.

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Ah yes, the Club option. Then it's the no-trade clause. Then it's the length of contract. Then it's they want to play for a contender only. Then it's they don't want to play in a run down stadium. Am I missing any more reasons the Cubs can't sign players?

And people think that they are magically going to sign players that they need when the time comes if/when they are available. Maybe the Cubs can get lucky enough to have the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Tigers, Cardinals, Rangers, Dodgers, and Giants all rebuilding at the same time. :shot:

Honestly, i'm fine with them not giving an opt out clause cuz that's fucking Special person. It basically ensures that a player can milk a team for every dollar he can. NTC would depend on the player. Option year I really don't think should matter cuz what's $5 mil if they do decline the option though I imagine that Detroit would have eventually kept going up to win. Sanchez is simply worth more to them than he is to the Cubs. That being said, it's pretty clear they are 2-3 years(including this one) away from a solid offensive line up. Hopefully that means that with less money in the budget they can attack a younger player who will be around those years in the next 2-3 years of FA.

zack54attack said:

Also looks like this when finished. PATIENCE people....PATIENCE.

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lol what?!?! he inherited a 90 win team with pockets down to his ankles. please.


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beckdawg said:

Honestly, i'm fine with them not giving an opt out clause cuz that's fucking Special person. It basically ensures that a player can milk a team for every dollar he can. NTC would depend on the player. Option year I really don't think should matter cuz what's $5 mil if they do decline the option though I imagine that Detroit would have eventually kept going up to win. Sanchez is simply worth more to them than he is to the Cubs. That being said, it's pretty clear they are 2-3 years(including this one) away from a solid offensive line up. Hopefully that means that with less money in the budget they can attack a younger player who will be around those years in the next 2-3 years of FA.

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Yeap! Hopefully is the word, and hopefully the big dogs won't want their services as the Red Sox and Yankees both will be shedding a ton of payroll in the next 2-3 years. Not to mention what the Dodgers or anyone else like the Mariners, White Sox, Phillies, Tigers, or Rangers will do to name a few.

They are probably going to have to go all in for someone like Santana, or pray that the Reds don't extend Cueto or something of that nature if they want to beef up the pitching.

And the hitting.......good luck with that.

Boobaby1 said:

Yeap! Hopefully is the word, and hopefully the big dogs won't want their services as the Red Sox and Yankees both will be shedding a ton of payroll in the next 2-3 years. Not to mention what the Dodgers or anyone else like the Mariners, White Sox, Phillies, Tigers, or Rangers will do to name a few.

They are probably going to have to go all in for someone like Santana, or pray that the Reds don't extend Cueto or something of that nature if they want to beef up the pitching.

And the hitting.......good luck with that.

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Have you watched the first two games? Pitching hasn't been the issue. Going 1 for 27 with RISP is the problem. The starters and middle relief put the team in a great position to win. Guys have to plate runners.

JosMin said:

Have you watched the first two games? Pitching hasn't been the issue. Going 1 for 27 with RISP is the problem. The starters and middle relief put the team in a great position to win. Guys have to plate runners.

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When was the last time the Cubs did that with any consistency.

zack54attack said:

Also looks like this when finished. PATIENCE people....PATIENCE.

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what were the payrolls of those vaunted boston teams? also, how many prospects was theo responsible for identifying, drafting, signing and bringing up?

patience has run out. ran out 100 years ago. the florida marlins have won as many world series as the cubs have. THAT should tell you something.

diavolos said:

what were the payrolls of those vaunted boston teams? also, how many prospects was theo responsible for identifying, drafting, signing and bringing up?

patience has run out. ran out 100 years ago. the florida marlins have won as many world series as the cubs have. THAT should tell you something.

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Is it this front office's fault for the past 100 years of futility?

it is this front office's fault that they're not doing anything about it. and the owners.

when was the last time the ny yankees lost 100 games? when was the last time the yankees put together 91, 101, and 96 loss seasons three years in a row?

JosMin said:

Have you watched the first two games? Pitching hasn't been the issue. Going 1 for 27 with RISP is the problem. The starters and middle relief put the team in a great position to win. Guys have to plate runners.

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Yes I have watched them. And yes they were doing the same thing last year as well. Seems to me, that people should stop applauding a FO that knows about weaknesses like that and does absolutely nothing about it.

They had every chance in the world to sign someone to aid in this area in the last few years, but chose to sit on their thumbs and only go after Sanchez and Tanaka which they did not execute. There was no fallback plan except with fillers in either situation.

The Cubs are getting what they paid for so........suffer they will. :shot:

diavolos said:

it is this front office's fault that they're not doing anything about it. and the owners.

when was the last time the ny yankees lost 100 games? when was the last time the yankees put together 91, 101, and 96 loss seasons three years in a row?

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They lost 87, 91 and 95 games in 89 90 and 91 before rebuilding their farm system with guys like Posada, Pettite, Jeter, Bernie Williams....etc. They then had enough of a sustained core that spending money actually mattered for them. It's about changing the culture of the team. Buying a shit load of talent may make them better in the short term but they will be bad again in a couple years. We saw this exact thing happen with the Soriano year spending spree. Compare that to what the yankees did by developing those core yankees and then using their money to put players around them.

Keep in mind 89-91 was still a Steinbrenner yankees team. They were a bad team those years, a middling team until around 97 when those players started hitting their prime and have been THE YANKEES since. It's about winning long term rather than short stints of success followed by several years of rebuild. The problem is that switching from one philosophy to another when you had a poor farm system to begin with has lead to several bad seasons. Obviously the cubs have struggled. All I'm saying is that it's hardly this front office's fault for the previous front offices bad choices.

Boobaby1 said:

Seems to me, that people should stop applauding a FO that knows about weaknesses like that and does absolutely nothing about it.

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They signed Bonifacio who's been fantastic. The problem is you need more than they are getting out of Rizzo and Castro who are supposed to be their best hitters. If Castro was playing like 2011 Castro and Rizzo hit like his rookie year then are we even having this conversation? If you want to fault the front office for their poor development fine. But you simply have to let those two play because they are young and have to get better seeing ABs or fail. To a lessor extent you have the same with Olt/Castillo who have been pretty meh thus far as well.

beckdawg said:

They lost 87, 91 and 95 games in 89 90 and 91

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That isn't 100 games though and not a string of seasons losing 91, 101, 96 and what looks like another 95+ loss season either.

while i get what you're saying about the "rebuilding" yankees years, the analogy still doesn't quite fly. the yankees had played in four world series, winning two of them in very recent memory to those late 80's early 90's teams. they had a couple down years and did re-stock their prospects. but they also bought a shit ton of talent. the jeters, posadas, and williams wouldn't win anything if not for massive front-office spending. i'm talking about wade boggs, tino martinez, tim raines, paul o'neill, chuck knoblauch, david wells, david cone. and on and on.

also, they've not been THE YANKEES since 97. they've been THE YANKEES since 1923.

i'm also still shocked that even now, people are still ripping soriano. because ripping 30 hr and 100 rbi's isn't cool anymore?

diavolos said:

while i get what you're saying about the "rebuilding" yankees years, the analogy still doesn't quite fly. the yankees had played in four world series, winning two of them in very recent memory to those late 80's early 90's teams. they had a couple down years and did re-stock their prospects. but they also bought a shit ton of talent. the jeters, posadas, and williams wouldn't win anything if not for massive front-office spending. i' talking about wade boggs, tino martinez, tim raines, paul o'neill, chuck knoblauch, david wells, david cone. and on and on.

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They bought those players AFTER they were bad and got players like jeter et. al not during those 3 years. That's my point. If you don't have a young group of your own guys buying players ends up exactly like the Soriano years with the cubs because when the 30+ year old FA fade there's nothing behind them and the way MLB contracts are structured is that in the first few years you get around appropriate value for level of play and then get massively hit on the back end when they start to fade.

Look at it this way. Let's say they went and threw a ton of money at Ellsbury and Choo. Are they a better team in 2014? Sure. Are they a playoff team? I highly doubt it but maybe if Rizzo and others play well. Where are Ellsbury and Choo in 2-3 years when you hope for the touted prospects to be playing? Similarly to Soriano now they likely are average or worse players making super star money. And the important fact is those $18-20 mil/year contracts now limit your ability to add players. That in turn slows your ability to retool quickly. If you hold onto the money for 2-3 years when that group of talented prospects hopefully become talented MLB players then you can spend $18-20 mil/season on guys who are still in their prime vs. the average level players that older guys like Choo and Ellsbury would be.

This is what I mean about sustained success vs peaks and valleys. And in the new CBA that peak and valley type play actually hurts your ability to retool compared to the past because your limited in IFA money as well as limited in slot money for draft pick not to mention picking lower. You're also giving up picks when you sign players like Ellsbury.

you have to spend money to win. that is actually the point. you're not going to win if you don't spend money. either now or later. the cubs refusal to spend money speaks volumes.

honestly, have you seen the number and amount of people that the yankees brought in during those years? fine, they brought up jeter, posada, williams, pettitte. if you're going to tell me that derek jeter powered the yankees to 5 world series titles, you're being ridiculous. great player; hall of fame player even. but you know, a-rod, tino, o'neill, tim raines, wade boggs, david justice, david wells, roger clemens, david cone, mike mussina. heck, what about glenallen hill, cc sabathia. dude, seriously, the list goes on and on. it's not even funny.

also, correct me if i'm wrong here because i haven't looked it up in awhile, but aside from jeter, the rest of the aforementioned prospects were actually pretty late picks. it's not like the yankees stock-piled jeter-like draft picks into a serious contender. in theory, any team with a 20th round pick could've picked up jorge posada.

i really think we're kind of in agreement. but i think you're giving epstein and the ricketts the benefit of the doubt. i am no longer giving the cubs the benefit of anything.

diavolos said:

also, correct me if i'm wrong here because i haven't looked it up in awhile, but aside from jeter, the rest of the aforementioned prospects were actually pretty late picks. it's not like the yankees stock-piled jeter-like draft picks into a serious contender. in theory, any team with a 20th round pick could've picked up jorge posada.

i really think we're kind of in agreement. but i think you're giving epstein and the ricketts the benefit of the doubt. i am no longer giving the cubs the benefit of anything.

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Rules were different during that era. While they didn't stockpile picks the same way, they bought Soriano and numerous other IFAs which you can't now because you're capped based on your finish. Similarly, you could over slot draft picks who might other wise turn down teams and go to college. As for giving them the benefit of the doubt, it's been 2 years. I get people are hungry for a win but how exactly is 100 years of losing their fault? I get that people wanted them to be better the past two years. However, quite simply, they were a 70ish win team when he was hired with aging player as their "best" players.

Clearly anyone could see that that core group of players were if not at the end of their run very close to it. What has the past front office given him that is ready today? We're talking Castro, Shark, Castillo, to a lessor extent Rizzo since they traded Cashner and finally Lake as a young "core" to build around. That's what they've been left with. Even if you talk about a team like the dodgers who have thrown money around like crazy, they had Kershaw who easily is the best pitcher in the league and may soon start to creep into the best ever territory, Kemp who was a MVP candidate as well as a farm system stocked enough to make that big trade with Boston.

If people want to shit on the Ricketts, I'm not going to stop them because if there is an issue with signing FAs it starts with them. Personally, I think it has a lot more to do with issues from previous ownership(Wrigley has large amounts of upkeep not to mention because Zell forced a leveraged partnership to avoid paying taxes the cubs have to pay around $35 mil per year in interest that they can't pay off the debt on because of the leveraged partnership). On the contrary, Theo has stated they spent every penny in the budget the past 2 seasons. Maybe he is lying but frankly we don't have any evidence to the contrary. That leads me to believe their budget has been in the $105-110 mil range. Obviously this year they didn't hit that but clearly they saved what they had left for Tanaka and came up short.

So, quite simply the situation Theo walked into was pretty shitty. His draft picks have been strong thus far. While they haven't spent a ton of money he has found a lot of very useful players for cheap. Jackson, his one big signing struggled last year but was strong in his first outting this year. He's clearly not been perfect but he's done a lot of good things. So yeah, I'm willing to give him a chance.

diavolos said:

also, correct me if i'm wrong here because i haven't looked it up in awhile, but aside from jeter, the rest of the aforementioned prospects were actually pretty late picks. it's not like the yankees stock-piled jeter-like draft picks into a serious contender. in theory, any team with a 20th round pick could've picked up jorge posada.

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No need to be corrected because you are 100% correct.

Jeter was the #6 overall pick.
Pettitte was a 22nd round pick.
Posada was a 24th round pick.
Bernie and Rivera were amateur free agents.

So they didn't have to pick in the top 5 for an extended period of time to build a strong farm system despite our experts insistence that can't be done.

They have also remained very successful long after they have produced these players and how many above average players have they developed after this batch?

2?

Soriano and Cano??

Neither of whom was drafted?

But clearly you aren't a true Cub fan unless you believe that drafting in the top 5 for an extended period of time is the only way to be successful.

beckdawg said:

His draft picks have been strong thus far.

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Really?

He hasn't had a draft pick even play a game in AA yet, but somehow they can be proclaimed strong draft picks??

So posters like you can rush to judgement that Theo's draft picks are strong when none have played above A ball but posters who are unhappy with the regression of the major league team with three complete offseasons to make improvement are rushing to judgement.

Usual hypocrisy.

patg006 said:

Really?

He hasn't had a draft pick even play a game in AA yet, but somehow they can be proclaimed strong draft picks??

So posters like you can rush to judgement that Theo's draft picks are strong when none have played above A ball but posters who are unhappy with the regression of the major league team with three complete offseasons to make improvement are rushing to judgement.

Usual hypocrisy.

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Look at what the farm ranking is. That's how you can gauge the drafting quality, Genius.

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