bmags

The narrative that the cubs window closed too quickly because of trading away too many young players in 2016-17 or free agent spending to me doesn't fit quite right. To me the problem was they stopped drafting and (esp.) signing intl talent well after 2015. They had no idea how to find pitching. You can talk about Friedman being incredibly conservative in trading talent in LA, but the bigger story to me is how they never stop finding talent. They get Buehler late in the first, mlb's second best prospect Gavin Lux late in the first, Dustin May in the 3rd, and then all of the international success. Tampa Bay will not stop finding talent. The thing that will separate a window that is half a decade vs a full decade is whether we can supplement this team with our (frankly) Cuban pipeline and the draft, or if we can't.

Well, you hit on it, in this scenario we are replacing Madrigal because he was traded for something hard to acquire. And if the question is who could possibly replace madrigal, well there are three second baseman all whom have high contact profiles (Lemahieu, Wong, LaStella) while offering high walk rates to go with it. But la stella also offers a LH bat that crushes RH pitching in addition to his low k/high BB% profile, and that's really why I think he'd be the best fit. But that's just looking for a similar profile. As fathom mentioned, Cesar Hernandez provided good defense, adequate power and a high walk rate that put him on a 4 WAR pace. Jonathan Schoop put up a great season last year but at least settles likely into a 2-3 war player. He keeps getting 1 year deals. Then you have players that can be 2b. Last year Mike Moustakas became a second baseman, now he is one. Didi Gregorius is a safe 3 WAR player, good leadership. Profar is available, he put up a .340 obp and has 20 homer power. And even at the lowest end, you could probably hope that a Jonathan Villar just had a weird 2020 season and gets back to a typical 2-4 WAR on a minor league contract. So that is 7 second baseman on the market this year. This is a good year do that. But this has also been a position that has been good to "churn" in for the last few years.

How about la Stella, who struck out at a lower percentage, walked more and can hit it out of the outfield.

I disagree trading from depth always backfires. No more often than maxing out budget too early prevents needed upgrades. You gotta take what’s in front of you.

The case for cease is it might hurt but you are just pulling that production forward. We need some immediate impact. Really hope Darvish happens, more so than even Springer.

I don't see the schwarber need, he'll find work in the NL with the DH for sure. Bryant is if you have a feel for getting a bounce back. I like him as an OF for wear and tear and just think he'll crush this year.

y2jimmy can you confirm?

interesting schism between kevin o'connor having ball fall to 4 and the pretty much chalk ball/edwards/wiseman top three spouted by kc johnson.

Oh...no no not me.

Yes but I would still roll dice with Bryant in RF on a contract year.

LOL at jerry selling to a billionaire that may pay players money.

No

But what happens if everyone wants to trade back and nobody wants to trade up? I really like Williams, and FSU players in general. This was such a screwy college year, and I trust AK's scouting. SGA went 11 right? Where should he have gone? Probably 4-5 in that draft.

good call. The other weird one I could see is rangers ending ties with Jon Daniels and going Theo.

Yeah. I was getting confused by the idea that the cubs were going to make a huge shake-up when it was known Theo would leave after this year. Why put him in charge of that? This makes more sense, but definitely to me says that they are going to re-load. I'd bet ricketts are not in place to take on huge losses for a more ...sedated fanbase.

firesale?

Springer is not this year's machado. He's not even this year's Wheeler.

I'd say forcing a scheme multiple players (including a handpicked one) cannot execute is pretty damning. Like I don't think Nick Foles is good, but I also don't think he's this bad. And I also think at this point it was pretty clear that the bears would have been better spending that $22 million on the offensive line and running back Mitch. The bears just have this knack for not just having bad qbs, but getting them friggen killed.

Scarred forever from statements like this but yes I do like for once being in a favorable environment for salary (currency exchange)

I don't want Ryan Pace picking a quarterback.

Last year took most of the wind out of my sails of being a big bears fan, so this year isn't that painful. Still would like to watch football, but this is just so many years of the same crap, it seems almost impossible. I really thought I couldn't see a worse bears offense than the Krenzel bears, but then John Fox came along, and then Matt Nagy came along. Considering the offensive evolution, it is frankly incredible that Nagy and Pace somehow put together an offense this bad. Any offensive scheme, with any offensive talent, should be able to get more points the last few weeks against the defenses they played. It is the qb, but it's not just the qb. It is the coach, but it's not just the coach. It is the talent, but it's not just the talent. It is an org that somehow, even when they put every emphasis on fixing it, always ends up in the same place. Just incompetence. You know they are an incompetent org, because they keep getting swayed by smooth talking interviews. You have Bruce Arians in hand, you go with Trestman. You have chris ballard in hand, you go with Pace. When you know nothing about football, you constantly end up getting swayed by people that seem the most likeable and biggest salesman.

Pelicans definitely got a lot of value out of trading Nerlens Noel for Jrue Holiday.

5-11 to 7-9, the classic bears range of bad but not quite bad enough.

Well we did have that whole fanfic era of Sox signing both Harper and machado