chw42

Is it a coincidence that they started to play better after the Cease trade rumors started up again?

The fact that Clevinger pitched fairly well last year and nobody wants him should tell you what other teams really think of him.

Curtis Samuel just signed with the Bills. There goes an option for slot WR.

If you add the trade values of the picks, the difference amounts to the 95th pick in the draft. This at least gives you an idea for Fields' value. The problem is that the longer they wait, the less spots they can trade Fields to.

Ryan Poles really asleep at the wheel. No signings for the defensive line with a bunch of cap space. Sam Howell effectively got traded for a top 100 pick and he's apparently not even bothering to trade Fields.

I'd be interested in what his extension numbers are. He's 6'4 so he's a pretty tall guy with long arms. Sometimes having elite extension hides lack of fastball velocity. See: Lucas Giolito and Triston McKenzie.

Yeah that looked really bad. They said it's a hip problem. Hopefully it's not too serious.

Just watched some videos on Thorpe and the Giolito comparisons don't just stop at his repertoire. He has a short arm action delivery just like Giolito. Giolito probably has a better fastball (especially when he had the high spin rate that gave his fastball ride), but Thorpe's control and larger array of secondary pitches could make him less reliant on velocity.

Thorpe's profile actually reminds me of Giolito after everyone started complaining that he doesn't throw hard enough or had inconsistent velocity.

This is pretty close on Baseball Trade Values FWIW

If this is after a bidding war, what was before it?

I totally expected this site to crash after I saw the initial Passan tweet.

Preller always wins bidding wars cause he's insane.

Also, there's no way Jerry gives Montgomery a deal that's Bellinger-esque. He doesn't do opt-outs.

It also sucks that Scott isn't seen as anything more than a WR4 type.

Yeah at this point, I don't expect them to make any big time signings. Maybe Armstead is still in play. But they're probably gonna sign a cheap EDGE and slot WR and call it.

Spotrac has the draft picks taking up about $14 million. I think they are around $30 million depending on how they structured the cap hits on their signings since. They had close to $50 million after the Johnson extension. Byard is around $7 million, Swift is $6 million this year, Everett is $6 million, Owens is $2 million.

I actually like the idea of Mack on a short-term deal. The Bears need pass rush help badly. Everything I've read in the past day coping with Poles not spending big is that he doesn't want to do that until they know what they have at QB in Caleb. Well, a one year commitment to a guy who had 18 sacks last year is not exactly going to screw with your future finances.

I think the team signing Mack would be on the hook for $23 million if they trade for him. My bet is that he straight up gets cut. Bosa might not get cut till June 1 since his cap savings go up $8 million if they do that. I agree Allen will most likely be kept and they probably cut or trade Williams since his cap hit is pretty manageable for the team that trades for him.

That would the the dumbest thing to do in a league with a hard cap and a spending floor.

They made Johnson's cap hit only $13 million this year. If they weren't going to use all of their cap space what was the point of that? It seems like to me that they did have aspirations to sign guys and simply said "welp too bad" when they got outbid. I still go back to the Edmunds signing last year as an example that the Bears will overpay. It just irks me that they overpaid a middle linebacker when they had so many other more important holes to fill. It's like Rick Hahn spending big money on the bullpen. What made that signing worse was that Edmunds wasn't even that good.

Hunter apparently gave Houston a discount. But money always talks. Poles could have guaranteed more money. I guess he's saving it for Armstead or Mack when he eventually gets cut? Being frugal doesn't make a ton of sense honestly. They spent almost $20 million a year on Edmunds last year, an off-ball linebacker, while not addressing center or the pass rush. Poles might be saying one thing but his actions really haven't shown that he's adamant about building the team in the trenches.

Fields isn't even guaranteed a starting role next year. The fact that teams are signing backups before he's traded should tell you all you need to know.

They need to hit a HR on at least one signing. They're sitting on a ton of cap space. I know you don't want to ruin your future cap by giving someone too much money, but you can easily structure the cap hits to be larger this year to help alleviate that.

The Bears have definitely been shopping him. There's no way they haven't made up their mind yet.