Offseason discussion/rumors

DanTown

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Regarding Soler (and the view that the Cubs are "overpaying"), not every guy on the roster is destined to stay here and play for the team to provide the team value. While it's a shame to see a guy like Torres guy or a guy like Soler go, these are guys who did bring back very good baseball players (albeit on a short term basis) and the cost for two years of an elite closer isn't that high.
 

CSF77

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Sox under played their talent. Any team with Sale and Q with the hitting talent they have had should have been play off bound every year.

I believe they need to retool the front office ownership down like the Cubs did. Having talent? They have had that. Cubs had that and got no where.

Not enough is put into the clubhouse culture. That was a driving factor in the Cubs win.
 

chibears55

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So the White Sox have gotten what I'd say is good value for Eaton/Sale but I question the fit of how it plays with their system. They have gotten one guy I really like in terms of potential at the top of a rotation in Giolito but I question that with the rest of the guys plus what they've recently spent in draft capital, have they limited their upside? Hopefully they can flip Quintana for some long term hitting prospects because while they have potential arms, they have a LOT of potential arms and very few bats.

Just thinking about this myself..

They traded one of the best LH starter in baseball and a pretty good OFer /leadoff hitter.. Both with years til FA..
For 4 SP prospect and a 2B prospect

I don't know, it just doesn't seem like they really got much in quantity for those two ..
I guess the future will tell us if they got quality in return, especially with the pitchers..


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beckdawg

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Chapman was a major factor in the play offs.

Was he though? He had a 3.45 ERA over 15.2 innings and 3 blown saves. I get the narrative that Maddon apparently only trusted him and Montgomery but Strop had a 3.18 ERA over 5.2 innings. Rondon had a 4.50 ERA over 6 innings. Montgomery had a 3.14 ERA over 14.1 innings. Edwards had a 2.84 ERA over 6.1 innings. Wood had a 2.84 ERA over 6.1 innings. I think people are overstating Chapman's value likely associating him with Miller's value. Miller threw 19.1 innings with a 1.40 ERA. There's over 2 runs difference in their ERA. I still don't like that trade. I think there's a reasonable argument out there that the cubs could have found someone substantially cheaper to give them 15.2 innings of 3.45 ERA.

Trading Soler doesn't really bother me. However, I think there's an argument to be made that Soler + the Chapman package is enough to acquire a legitimate young starter. In fact, if you were to also throw in Happ think that's likely enough of an over pay to potentially land Archer. You're talking about 2 top 25 prospects and Soler. Instead the cubs ended up with half a year of Chapman and a full year on Davis. If they were so concerned about the bullpen I would have rather seen them trade for 3 years of Kimbrel before 2016. I have to imagine that costs less than what they've given up for Davis and Chapman.

It's just a disappointing use of assets in my eyes.
 

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Rondon and Strop falling apart forced the Cubs to trade for Chapman. Without that we would still have Torres. Blame those two clowns not Theo for acting correctly to the situation.
 

Washington

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It's easy to do Monday morning QB'ing re: Chapman. The bottom line is we won a WS with him. I'd give up that package for a WS every time as winning a WS is difficult and rare. With all the injuries in the BP and Maddon not having faith in many, I am not sure we win out without Chapman.

I'm very happy with the Soler trade. I don't think Theo is done with the bullpen either.
 

SilenceS

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Rondon and Strop falling apart forced the Cubs to trade for Chapman. Without that we would still have Torres. Blame those two clowns not Theo for acting correctly to the situation.

Rondon and Strop were great before the Chapman trade then they got injured. Blame your age for your shitty memory
 

Omeletpants

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Maddon on wade Davis

[video]http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=18230895[/video]
 

Omeletpants

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Rondon and Strop were great before the Chapman trade then they got injured. Blame your age for your shitty memory
The biggest, angriest troll on CSS happens to be one of the Mods. LOLOLO
 

chibears55

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@CSNMooney: Before acquiring Aroldis Chapman, #Cubs checked in with #Royals and the trade-deadline asking price for Wade Davis was Kyle Schwarber.


Someone asked why they didn't try and get Davis last year..
Here why

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chibears55

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Cant go by ERA for a closer with minimal IP
1 bad game and it sky rockets...

NLDS 4 games 3 Saves 1 ER
NLCS 4 games 1 Win 2 ER
WS. 5 Games 7 2 I P 1 Win 1 Save 3 ER

He pretty much Dominated the NLDS
He did his job in NLCS and held lead
He had 1 bad inning in WS otherwise he was everything you can ask for and more for a closer.. 5 games 8 innings in a week

Sorry but I personally don't think a healthy Rondon would of been able to do what he did .
Cubs needed Chapman to succeed in playoffs

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DanTown

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I mean when the Cubs made the trade, Rondon went on the DL less than a week later and Strop soon followed. I assume the Cubs knew about the injuries and so they didn't want a situation where they were in the playoffs and had no out guy in the bullpen. I mean, what is Torres future role on this team? His value was probably always going to be in a trade for a long term TOR this off-season.
 

Omeletpants

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I mean when the Cubs made the trade, Rondon went on the DL less than a week later and Strop soon followed. I assume the Cubs knew about the injuries and so they didn't want a situation where they were in the playoffs and had no out guy in the bullpen. I mean, what is Torres future role on this team? His value was probably always going to be in a trade for a long term TOR this off-season.
Of course the Cuba knew about Rondon's condition which is why they traded for Chapman
 

beckdawg

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I mean when the Cubs made the trade, Rondon went on the DL less than a week later and Strop soon followed. I assume the Cubs knew about the injuries and so they didn't want a situation where they were in the playoffs and had no out guy in the bullpen. I mean, what is Torres future role on this team? His value was probably always going to be in a trade for a long term TOR this off-season.

I mean basically what you're saying here is they haven't done a good enough job securing pitching in their upper minors. Part of the reason they were up shit's creek was they were relying on Cahill, Richard and Warren to play big roles. And part of the reason those guys were needed was they lack pitching with options in the AAA area. I certainly see that they essentially had to rely on those guys because had someone gone down they had little pitching depth in their rotation. So, I'm not saying they were in an "easy" situation. But if they had more depth they likely sustain the loss of Rondon/Strop internally. Maddon also seems to believe he over used Rondon and caused his injury in the first place which also plays in with the depth issues.

I'm not trying to get in a hindsight game here. Certainly they could have done any of 100 different things. What matters to me more though is they are largely still in the same trap. If someone in the rotation were to go down who are we counting on? They haven't really addressed the problem they had last year. Their bullpen is one guy deeper but it's also a guy who missed significant time with an arm injury. And to that effect, the 2018 cubs are likely in an even worse situation because not only are they down a closer but Strop is a FA and you're losing Arrieta and Lackey.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as there is still more offseason but I think these are fair questions to ask. I'd feel a lot better about things if they were able to cheaply deal for someone like Smyly who would be useful out of the pen with another option to start. I think we're taking for granted too much that Montgomery will just slot into the 5 slot fine and even if he does an injury could really set the team back.
 

CSF77

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Jed said the hitters are set now. They are still looking at BP depth for the most part.

Pen is:

Davis
Rondon
Strop
Edwards

That is 3 guys rotating in the 7-8 with Rondon able to give Davis a day off if the Cubs are on a hot run.

Where I see them looking to upgrade is Zan as a LH LOOGY. They seem fine with Grimm in MR. They were in contact with Wood but he wants to start and 7 teams are courting him as a starter.

So at best they go after a primary lefty in the pen and let Rob be emergency depth in Iowa. Maybe let him start to build endurance early season. I've read his change is his 2nd pitch and his cutter is his 3rd. His main issue is his fastball is pretty strait. Got me thinking that he should use a cutter primarily with a change to counter. So the cutter would go into the fist of a RH batter with his change fading away off the plate. His fastball then would be a pitch used to catch them off guard if they are looking in or away too much.

His curve is not good so I'm not expecting anything there.

All said and done they really should look at a LOOGY more than anything else.
 

czman

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I like the Solar for Davis trade. I still think Solar is overrated. His health, bad defense are huge question marks and his bar probably won't ever get to where some think. He seems like the kind of player who will hit well in stretches and tease people then get injured or go in long slumps. I kind of think he may end up with that one huge season that gets him a really big contract and then he will go to the DL for the contract and really hurt some team financially. I am glad he is traded.
 

beckdawg

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You keep going on about these blown saves but I believe most of those occurred when Chapman was used incorrectly (i.e. in the 8th inning). When Chap was brought in when he should have been (the 9th), he was money.

Doesn't that illustrate the point though? If it's "incorrect" to use him in the 8th inning then why were the cubs paying the lofty price they did? The reason Miller was worth so much is because he was basically throwing starter innings out of the bullpen in the playoffs. The fact Chapman struggled with that illustrates they difference in the two and why I disliked the price.
 

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