Oh, I see. It's bad "value" to trade for a guy that was a prime factor in winning a World Series.....BUT....it's great value to gut what's left of your system to get a pitcher that was brutal. Don't give me any of the dumbass metrics backing up your case....I mean that's pretty much all you rely on, isn't it? Try watching the player pitch on a regular basis. My brother is a huge Sox fan and before one pitch was thrown or swung at after that trade, he informed that we got sold down the river by Theo. He told me he watched every game that Q pitched for the Sox and that he was a born loser. His control was shaky, relying on bad umpires and undisciplined hitters to get outs.....in other words, more lucky than good. Sure he was famous for not getting much support but I was informed when the Sox did get him some runs....he'd go belly up walking guys and not getting past the 4th inning. He also told me that every single one of his White Sox buddies were glad to be rid of him and elated at what Hahn got for him. I'm guessing you didn't see much of Q with the Sox, did you? Maybe some highlights on ESPN? Call me old fashioned but I'll take the eye test every day of the week. That's the big difference on these two trades....Chapman you scouted and faced for years with Cincy and you saw and knew exactly what you were getting.
If you don't like Q then whatever. Like I'm not even arguing the players I'm arguing the concept. Trading for a player with 4 years of control vs trading for a player with half a year. Clearly you want to make the case that Chapman was so instrumental in winning the world series that it was worth it. I'm arguing that the cubs put themselves into that hole by not addressing a big weakness prior to the season. Go back and look at what they started that season with. You had Rondon and Strop and who exactly? Like Edwards was fine as an interesting arm but he was super young and unproven. They were counting on Travis Wood Justin Grimm and Cahill. Are we really surprised when Rondon and Strop get hurt that suddenly there's a panic to find more relief help? Hell, Rondon was good but if we're talking playoff baseball which the team should have had eyes towards given 2015, I'd much rather Strop in the 7th, Rondon in the 8th and a better closer to start 2016.
If they'd gone after Chapman in December when no one wanted to touch him like the Yankees did I wouldn't have nearly as much of an issue with trading for him. My thing is people pin all of the logic on "well they won".... yeah in the 10th inning of game 7 of the world series after chapman had blown the save. That's not even shitting on Chapman because clearly he was gassed by joe the previous couple of games. My point is that if the coin flip bounced slightly the other way in extra innings of game 7 and the cubs lose that game then what? Then you are cleveland who hasn't won in decades either and you just gave up one of your biggest trade chips for nothing.
If you contrast the Chapman trade with the Monty trade I think it illustrates my point. I actually like the Monty trade. It fulfilled the same idea as what they did with Chapman but Monty gave them several years of quality pitching. So had that game 7 gone differently then at the very least the cubs extract some value out of the trade in future years.
In a sport where the best teams in baseball lose 40% of the time, I'm never going to be comfortable with trades that bet that way. For every Chapman there are dozens of Heathcliff Slocomb for Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek. There's Larry Anderson's for Jeff Bagwell's....etc. And the irony is that if the cubs had done more prior to 2016 to address their bullpen and had Torres in 2017, then they almost certainly would have had the ammo to grab any truly available starter on the market. So they probably would have set their sights higher than Q who looked like more of a #2 or #3 at the time rather than being a true ace.