35thstreetswarm

It's funny, almost any trade can be justified by playing the "circumstances at the time" game, since all were made by baseball professionals and few trades are patently terrible on day 1. Most trades, though, do end up getting evaluated by fans and organizations based on tangible results, i.e. what actually happens with the players. Every manager on his way out the door can deploy a million persuasive ex ante rationalizations for all their "bad" moves -- fans are not usually willing to deploy the same reasoning in their favor, though, unless the team has built an insane amount of goodwill. It sounds to me like the Cubs' performance during their fast-closing window was good enough to buy your blanket forgiveness for a while. Fair enough, but I just don't think one title after an uber-hyped multi-year tank job will buy that much from most.

I agree that we'll have to make the same *types* of decisions that the Cubs did. I just hope we'll make better ones. I think the knock on the Cubs is they traded the wrong prospects (though tough to know if the deals would've been available at the time for different prospects) and signed the wrong free agents (e.g. Heyward). Not that they should've just avoided trades and the free agent market altogether. And the Darvish example aside, it's not like there weren't better moves available at many points along the way - they likely could've had Verlander, for example.

I think that's why the poster wrote "what not to do on the back end." The whole "Cubs won a World Series and I'd be happy with a World Series" post kind of goes without saying [typing?] at this point.

The Cubs really seem to be waging a multi-front war on their fans over the last couple seasons.

It's funny, I suspect that if you took a poll back in late 2019 to see who folks wanted to be the *regular* RF, Puig would have beaten Mazara handily. Mazara was not even on the radar. Now we're arguing over whether he'd even be a suitable backup to Mazara. I think a lot of folks have talked themselves into Mazara (myself included) and are measuring Puig against the version of Mazara they've built in their minds. Puig has a world of talent and is on the right side of 30. Particularly given the strong support system on this team I think he's worth a flyer.

I remember this little older lady standing next to me literally jumping into my arms after Iguchi’s homer. I was jumping up and down with the rest of the crowd cradling her like a baby. Leaving the stadium that night was definitely the first “oh my god, this could really happen” moment for me.

Blackout game ALDS game 2 Funny how these threads also function as “age polls” (reminding me just how young a lot of the posters are).

Me too. If nothing else I hope I get to return to watching my Cub fan friends hate us right back, all while bending over backwards to appear not to (a time-honored Cub fan tradition).

Happy to start this as an unapologetic member of the "I care about how we do as compared to our crosstown rival even though I fully recognize they're not in our league or division" club. Will the Cubs continue their now-clear downward trendline, or will the pretty-intact core of a former World Series team rebound? Will Bryant get traded? Will the crosstown series become fun again?

Yeah, that was rock bottom for me (from a fan perspective).

He had a couple nice outings between the debut and the blowout where he was clearly hurt. He looked like he had conquered some of the control problems that plagued him earlier that season. In any event, I’m really excited to see his progress this year but prepared to be patient.

Nice story, but more importantly: did the helicopter go over 110 and was anyone's mom present?

Which part of you - the part that likes 6 WAR players? All of me wants him to be right!

Well, it could be worse: http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/padres-phase-out-their-spring-training-hat-after-fans-say-design-resembled-a-swastika/ar-BBZVBkE?ocid=ientp

He's back.

Very lazy/boring list, but then power rankings usually are. After making a big deal up front about how "2020 is not 2019" they basically just reproduce power rankings from the end of 2019 with a few little tweaks. It would be fun if one of these would actually take a position and predict huge jumps/huge declines that will inevitably happen over the course of the season.

Wow we're still going with the speeding thing. This thread is bonkers and I like it!

It really is strange. He’s the voice of the White Sox and he’s in there mixing it up with anonymous fans on Twitter, and getting riled up in the process. Someone needs to remind him that there are many debates that you lose just by entering into them.

My eyes just read a huge spider crawling on somebody's 2019 ST hat. I keep instinctively swatting at my screen

Yes, I prefer expensive and useless. In seriousness, every team should pray for players on its roster who are handy and cheap, particularly in a bench role. If Holt comes relatively cheap he'd be a great addition to this roster.

I'd be good with that. I always thought black on black and white on white would be a cool look for the Sox, but fear that the negative fan reaction to some of the poorly-designed white-on-whites from players' day may have poisoned the well on that idea.

Pretty close: https://jerseybarn.com/collections/majestic-2019-mlb-spring-training-jerseys/products/mens-white-sox-yoan-moncada-2019-spring-training-cool-base-black-jersey

I've long thought it would be cool to do the right kind of uniform refresh to coincide with the Sox coming out of the rebuild, but this is not what I had in mind.

Fine. Hope he tortures the Cubs.