KeithStone53151

Rather see if they are interested in Quantity over Quality. Ray/Ortiz/Supak/Nottingham If that's the best offer the Marlins can get for Yelich, Jeter might as well just pack up the franchise and move it somewhere else. I'd tend to agree. You can't look at a trade by "what spare parts can I dump on this guy and disguise as talent". What guys would you want if you were making a trade with us? I'm personally looking at some more recently drafted guys lower on our list. Lutz, Ernesto, pennington, herrera to go along with at least one of the top 3 and one of the next tier. If I'm the Marlins, my lowest asking price would be one of the big 3(brinson, hiura, burnes) one or two of harrison/ortiz/peralta/erceg/diaz and probably one or two of the fliers I listed above. I have no interest paying that for Yelich, but that's probably what the ask is and roughly what they'll get from someone. We aren't going to be able to throw a bunch of guys like Ponce, Supak, Ray, Grisham, Bickford, etc at them and get the deal done.

I'll give them this year. Let's see how Hendricks and Lester and Rizzo and Heyward and Zobrist and Quintana and other key players on their team age. Out of those 4 teams I listed, the Cubs pitching is the worst and it isn't even close. The Cubs are also at serious risk of being passed by the Brewers or Cardinals by 2019 or the Reds by 2020. Swings happen in baseball much quicker than most people realize. Young teams get projected to be OK with big upside, often the upside happens and they win 90-100 games. See Cubs/Yankees/Twins/Brewers. Often teams with established players in their late 20s and early 30s and no depth whatsoever will see injuries and guys fall off a cliff lead to a very quick decline. See Brewers, Giants, Tigers, Phillies, Pirates...and very soon Cubs. The Cubs may not have great depth, but the key members of their team are in their primes. Even Heyward is only 27. Lester and some of the relievers are really the only guys that aren't. I agree that they've exposed themselves to some depth issues, but these teams can stem the tide for a few years in which injury occur. The end of the Tigers' run (2014) had key players: Miggy (31), Kinsler (32), Victor Martinez (35), Scherzer (free agent to-be), Torii Hunter (38), Verlander (31), Sanchez (30), Rajai Davis (33), Porcello (not a ton of control remaining, traded away), Nathan (39). A lot of their depth was of the utility man variety. The Cubs' 2018 roster has: Zobrist (36), Lester (33), and half of their bullpen is 29-32. That's it. All of their key position players/defenders are in their 20s. I disagree that their pitching is much worse than the Brewers and Cards'. They have arguably the best defense to prop up their pitching. They probably are going to just shuttle relievers around if they have pitching depth issues to make it through the year. The 4 I was referring to were Dodgers, Nationals, DBacks. Their biggest 3 threats on paper at this point. Their pitching on paper is better than ours and probably a push with the Cardinals at this point, however both the Brewers and Cardinals have far more upside.

I'll give them this year. Let's see how Hendricks and Lester and Rizzo and Heyward and Zobrist and Quintana and other key players on their team age. Out of those 4 teams I listed, the Cubs pitching is the worst and it isn't even close. The Cubs are also at serious risk of being passed by the Brewers or Cardinals by 2019 or the Reds by 2020. Swings happen in baseball much quicker than most people realize. Young teams get projected to be OK with big upside, often the upside happens and they win 90-100 games. See Cubs/Yankees/Twins/Brewers. Often teams with established players in their late 20s and early 30s and no depth whatsoever will see injuries and guys fall off a cliff lead to a very quick decline. See Brewers, Giants, Tigers, Phillies, Pirates...and very soon Cubs.

I agree with this. The big name QB that we know well are all getting old and on the verge of retirement. Some younger QB are going to have to step up and make a name for themselves. And aside from that, who in their right mind outside of Boston wants to see Brady and Belicheat in the Superbowl again?

Friedman is good. Cardinals GM is good, though he's shifted from his model of success earlier this decade. The concept is to find a way to be consistently successful and avoid a rebuild. The Cardinals won 2 world series and have been consistently a playoff team for what seems like forever. The Rays find a way to stay in the mix most years with a much smaller payroll than ours. But looking specifically at the Dodgers, that franchise is set up to be in World Series contention now and to be good for the forseeable future. There is no window forming for that franchise, because their GM understands the value of their prospects and developing from within. Sure, they can supplement their developed talent with top notch free agents...but they've done so in a manner that maintains the ability to compete and be successful in the future. The Cubs could have(and should have) been able to do just that, but Epstein's decisions instead led to an all-in window. And looking at the Cubs team, I don't know that they are one of the top 3 teams in the NL. The Dodgers are surely better on paper. The Nationals and Diamondbacks are at minimum comparable to the Cubs, and both teams are much better positioned for the future and to add at the deadline than the Cubs. I personally think the Cubs window of being a WS contender is closed. They have some good years left of being the favorite to win the division, but I doubt they even make another WS in the next 3 years let alone win one...and by that time they'll likely have to go to full on rebuild mode.

Everyone knows what the solution is, but it won't happen. Hard salary cap with true revenue sharing. Right on, but also with a salary floor. But agreed, no way it happens. There are basically 3 sides to labor negotiations/competitive balance in baseball. Small market teams, big market teams, and the players. Salary cap/floor is unwanted by the players and big markets, so it won't happen.

Absolutely I do. I not only think he does, I know he does. He just recently got Epstein to overpay for Quintana, trading pretty much the last of their farm system. Epstein is basically Dombrowski 2.0. He has a very talented 25 man roster, but it also has it's warts and he has no ammo left to plug holes as he overpaid in prospects to plug holes with short term fixes. He also has significant payroll issues coming up with guys like Bryant/Baez/Schwarber/Russell all hitting arbitration, so I doubt we see a spending spree anytime soon. The more dumb moves Stearns can help Epstein make, the more their window shrinks. Sure, Epstein is shrinking the window a little bit, but unless this is coming across wrong on a message board, you have a very strange negative tone towards a guy that has built 2 franchises that have won 3 World Series titles and have plenty of time to win at least 1 more with the Cubs. I don't think many moves that Epstein has made are that dumb given the constraints of baseball and their payroll. I don't think highly of Epstein's approach. Boston was an absolute dumpster fire when he left, and they would have been bad for an extended period if the Dodgers didn't completely bail them out the following year for a wildly unknown reason. That's exactly where the Cubs are headed, and he'll probably leave when he sees the mess he's creating for himself. And he's also manned the ship for 2 of the biggest markets in baseball. I also contend the Cubs don't even win their one world series without pretty much everything breaking right with his team, other teams, a timely rain delay, and significant umpire assistance. They also probably won't win another one as he's pretty much out of ammo to improve the 25 man. If Stearns had the resources of Epstein and wanted to empty this great farm system he built, he could probably build a team capable of contending for the World Series in 2018 and for the next handful of years. But he doesn't have those advantages and isn't stupid enough to empty the farm for a small window and then have to deal with a massive rebuild.

Absolutely I do. I not only think he does, I know he does. He just recently got Epstein to overpay for Quintana, trading pretty much the last of their farm system. Epstein is basically Dombrowski 2.0. He has a very talented 25 man roster, but it also has it's warts and he has no ammo left to plug holes as he overpaid in prospects to plug holes with short term fixes. He also has significant payroll issues coming up with guys like Bryant/Baez/Schwarber/Russell all hitting arbitration, so I doubt we see a spending spree anytime soon. The more dumb moves Stearns can help Epstein make, the more their window shrinks.

Sure, there are some teams that even signing Arrieta won't move the needle much. But a team like the Phillies could easily be in the mix for a top notch FA starter. A young, talented core with money to spend. I think it's more the asking prices than anything for them, they aren't over there like "well the nationals are too good, so we might as well not even try competing yet". Same for the Rangers, if they thought they had no chance...Hamels would have been traded already and they wouldn't be so widely reported to be in the mix for the top SP. There are only maybe 6-7 teams this year that appear to be tanking or in full rebuild mode. The remaining teams have their reasons for not having signed the big FA already, I just don't think any of them are "well those other 7 teams are too good, I'm not going to try and compete with them".

How would it be any different than it is now? Top free agents have 8 teams trying to sign them. Teams like the Brewers sign C tier free agents because we can't responsibly afford A and B tier. The problem only gets magnified when we have less team control and we can fill a much smaller chunk of our roster with min salary guys. Let's say the new model was 2 years of min salary and 2 years of arbitration before free agency. Well we have Davies, Shaw, Santana, Aguilar, Bandy, and Broxton in their 3rd year of min salary set to hit arbitration next year. They would instead be in arbitration this year, and that alone would chew up probably an additional $15-20 million in payroll. Guys like Nelson, Knebel, Villar, and Perez would have seen significant increases as they would be in their 2nd year of arbitration...especially Villar considering he would have had a much higher starting point hitting arbitration in 2016 offseason. Let's say that eats another $10 million in payroll, we go from our current standing of $70 million to $95-100 million. Right now, we could sign just about any free agent and stay at a reasonable payroll level under the current model. Changing the structure as I've noted would have destroyed that, giving us no shot at a big free agent this year. And we happen to be in a fantastic spot with payroll, no bad contracts. Imagine how quickly that could change if we make one or two bad multi-year free agent signings...that would decimate our ability to compete.

I don't think other teams being well built significantly impacts what other teams will do. If the Brewers were willing/able to spend $150 million this year, they'd be far more aggressive targeting the high end pitchers. They aren't going to NOT target them because the Cubs are too good and even adding one or two good pitchers won't make them good enough to compete on paper. The Cubs fell almost 10 games short of their general consensus projection last year. The Giants fell almost 30 games short. The Mets fell 15 games short. Mariners 10 games. Tigers 20 games. Blue Jays 10. Orioles 10. This stuff isn't written in ink. Any of the Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs, Astros, Indians, Nationals, Red Sox could fall off a cliff just like the Giants this year.

I'm not sure I like the longer control by draft round, but I tend to agree that team control should be reduced from maybe 6 MLB years to 4. I don't think minor league control should change, it takes time for players to develop. Age 30-31 free agents would be 28-29 instead, they still might have some peak years left. But keep in mind, doing this would severely impact small market clubs ability to compete. It would have to come with some additional revenue sharing from big market clubs...which they will surely resist and will lead to a massive labor dispute. It's also possible/likely the remaining guys sign solid contracts, and next year there's a spending bonanza and people no longer care about the slow offseason of 2017-18.

Your Brewers example doesn't fit very well, but I tend to agree regarding Santana. Unless the Dbacks are in dire financial straits, I don't see why they can't sign someone to a 1 year deal that can play RF reasonably well and post a 750ish OPS. Maybe someone like Ichiro for $2-3 million? Maybe Jaso or Jason Werth? What I was implying is I wouldn't bother trading Corbin if I was them UNLESS I was filling a hole at the MLB level. The only hole I see is RF, they seem solid everywhere else. I'm sure Santana would interest them, but maybe not at the prospect cost.

I don't know if that's true. A baseball player can spend much of his 20's in the minors, come to the majors for six years through his prime and not get offered a big deal after "team control" is over. He'll make more than a "normal person," but not nearly as much as a NBA or NFL guy will get in his initial contract after being drafted. Actually, the way baseball is set up if teams stop giving dumb deals to older guys who have no chance of living up to them, then I think the union has painted the players into a bad position. Only the guys who are brought up in their early 20's and therefore hit free agency before their "prime" years will have a chance at getting paid anywhere near what everyday players in other sports make. That is wildly untrue, laughable in fact. How is it fair when around 20 teams have no realistic chance at top free agents? How is it fair when certain teams have twice as much money to spend as others? Bryce Harper is going to be sought after by about 8 teams when the reality is all 30 should participate but won't as they clearly have no shot at him. The current system is like having a fantasy football draft and 20 teams not being allowed to pick until the 5th round. How is that fair? What a joke...

I read this article yesterday. Passan makes some good points about the system being broken. Finding something better will be difficult to say the least. Giving younger players money earlier in their careers is more fair, but will make it tougher for smaller markets to compete. I'm sure big markets won't want to increase revenue sharing to account for the competitive imbalance. Much of the discussion this year is driven by this particular offseason. The factors driving this offseason come down to four things. The 2019 free agent class, the new CBA, the ridiculous asking prices of this years free agent crop, and younger/smarter GM's. I'm sure GM's are looking at historical deals and see the dangers of free agency. There have been 16 contracts signed in free agency for over $100 million in the last 4 off seasons(not counting this one). Of those 16, 5 of those contracts were dreadful from day 1 with the player never having a good season(Heyward, Zimmerman, Sandoval, Hamilton, Ellsbury). Of those 16, 6 have delivered subpar results in my opinion to this point(Price, Greinke, Chris Davis, Cueto, Cano, Choo). 4 have delivered solid results to this point(Cespedes, Upton, Lester, Tanaka). 1 guy, Scherzer, has done what I'd consider exceeding expectations. And keep in mind this is so far, these are supposed to be the good years of locked in production...yet only about 1/3 of these contracts to date have worked out well for the team. A GM spends $400 million on 3 guys, and he should expect 1 solid performer, 1 subpar performer, and 1 absolute dumpster fire? That's wildly unreasonable, hence why GM's are reportedly willing to pay high salaries but less years. They'll pay for performance, but they don't want to get stuck paying a guy like Pujols $30 million/year to get fat and lazy and completely useless to a baseball team.

Anything giving money to players early should come with additional revenue sharing for smaller market clubs. I'm sure the big markets would lose their minds at the idea of that, at the same time baseball wouldn't be nearly as successful if there were only 6-8 real teams and 24 minor league teams. I wouldn't hate seeing a salary floor come along with this, to force teams to make an effort to be somewhat competitive.

https://sports.yahoo.com/heres-baseballs-economic-system-might-broken-224638354.html I read an article by Passan where he explored potential collusion and basically criticized teams for not spending. Link above. As you've noted, next offseason and the CBA are playing a significant role in the spending this offseason. Another is the ridiculous asking prices. I personally hope JD Martinez sits out until midseason and wastes potentially $10 million trying to get what he deems a fair market value contract. Teams are getting smarter, and they see how these massive contracts end for teams. Ellsbury, Price, Zimmerman, Pujols, the list goes on...dreadful contracts before the ink even dried. Ellsbury is getting 20 million for the next 3 years to be a 4th outfielder and never had a season even remotely worth his contract. Zimmerman posted a mid 5s ERA for the tigers his first 2 years with 3 to go. Price got paid 30 million last year to pitch 74 innings, mostly in relief. Pujols is at best a replacement level player at this point and can only be DH, but is owed another 115 million over the next 4 years. He also cracked 800 OPS once in his 6 years with the Angels so far. Too many players sign these big contracts and simply coast. It's all guaranteed, what do they care? Why work hard in the offseason anymore, why not get fat and lazy like Pujols did? GM's are getting smarter and see all this. They'll pay for production, they won't pay for a players decline anymore.

Seems reasonable, if not him then another one of the big 4 pitchers.

I tend to agree, I'm not sure why the Dbacks would want to move him. For arguments sake, they have Greinke/Ray/Walker/Corbin/Godley as their starting 5 currently with Banda pretty much ready to go. I know Banda had a rough 2017 but he's likely to improve in 2018, not a terrible option for a 5th starter. They also have Taylor Clarke pretty much ready to go, but will probably open in AAA as first man up. They also technically have the option to move Bradley back to the rotation. Most likely if they did move Corbin, they would slot Banda into the 5th spot with Clarke as a backup plan. So technically they can do it and have reasonable options to fill in. Going from Corbin to Banda is risky for a contending team though, I personally would have no interest in moving Corbin unless I was filling another hole at the MLB level. I see a gaping hole in RF, but none of our outfielders match up well from a value standpoint. Broxton probably isn't enough(and is the least ideal fit) while Santana/Phillips/Brinson are worth more than 1 year of Corbin. If I was them, I might explore trying to package Corbin with others for Santana...but i don't see that as likely.

It's $7.5 million for 2018, free agent in 2019. I'm not sure where $15 million came from.

With Jimmy Nelson so far ahead of schedule, it might make more sense to make do with an internal option for a handful of starts. If he actually starts throwing this weekend as has been reported, I wouldn't completely rule out him pitching in April...with a May or June return completely reasonable.

That's why you include team option for the 3rd year. Hiura's the best pure hitter they've drafted since Braun. I'd be quite disappointed if he's not the full time 2B if not opening day 2020, but at least after the super 2 time expires. I would be open to an option year, even an option that vests at 800 PA over the first 2 years of which 400 must be the 2nd year...something like that. Just a reminder that we are 27ish days from pitchers and catchers reporting.

He's likely going to get an opportunity to close in Minnesota, I can't see him unseating Knebel unless he completely falls apart. I know front offices are getting smarter, but closers are still generally overvalued.

This is probably the end of the Cubs adding relief help. Morrow, Strop, Edwards, Cishek, Grimm, Wilson, Montgomery, and now Duensing. They may wind up dealing Montgomery which would create a spot, but aside from that they are probably done in the RP department.

I have 2 issues with offering 3 years. First off, the issue you noted about potentially blocking a potentially more talented player in the 3rd year of his deal. The bigger issue is inherent risk with signing any free agent in his 30s to a longer deal. The 3rd year adds more risk that he falls off during the deal and we waste money. He could fall off in the 1st or 2nd year, but we would be on the hook for much less dead money in that case than if it were a 3 year deal. If you could virtually guarantee he would match his career line for 3 more years, then signing him to a 3 year deal is a no brainer. But I don't think it's worth the risk considering what we have and what's coming through the pipeline. All that said, I wouldn't be overly upset by a Walker signing or trade for Harrison. Not as upset as I'd be if we shelled out a 4/110 deal to Arrieta or 6/150 deal to Darvish. Neither 2b deal would completely hamstring our payroll or significantly impact our prospect situation...not like a deal for one of those pitchers.