adambr2

Dodgers lose again in Jansen's return. As annoying as it is to see the Cardinals keep winning, it would be kind of hilarious if the Dodgers make huge moves to go for it at the deadline, land Machado and Dozier, and end up with not even a wild card to show for it.

Oh really? Guess I assumed that since this is the Cole Hamels thread and all, that we were using the Cole Hamels trade to justify how much better Theo is than David and how David missed out on his big opportunity. Didn't realize we were going back and evaluating Theo's every historical move here. I was really just stating the obvious; That when a move needs to be made that Theo would make the better one. You can’t possibly argue that Stearns is anywhere near Theo’s skill level, right? I would have absolutely no idea how to compare the two as they operate in completely different environments. Stearns has financial limitations. Theo has far more financial flexibility. I will say (and I'm not saying Theo isn't a good GM), he has a ton of whiffs with the Cubs for all the love he gets here. Theo had really (in part because of his own good moves, I'll admit) built an embarrassment of riches as far as young talent in Chicago and has basically whittled it down to nothing. That would be fine if the Cubs had built a dynasty with what they got there, but they really haven't. Chatwood was a total dud move. Darvish, so far, has been a total bust. Quintana has not been worth nearly what they gave up. Jimenez is a top 3 prospect in baseball, and Cease top 50. Wilson wasn't a great move. His control has gone to hell since he went to Chicago, and the Tigers got a real nice player in Candelario. We can go all day about whether or not the Cubs would have won the World Series without Chapman, but giving up one of the most exciting young players in baseball for a 2 month rental, wow. Davis did well for them in his only year, but there they gave up more young talent in Soler who was breaking out this year before he got hurt. The difference is that Theo can afford to make more mistakes because he can correct his mistakes with money, while Stearns has a lot less margin for error. In addition Chicago is generally a more desirable trade destination than Milwaukee for players with NTCs. Is Theo a good GM? He is, but some do overrate him, and he definitely has some advantages and an uneven playing field.

Chase Anderson really hasn't been as bad this year as we have made him out to be. Strikeouts are still at a decent clip, WHIP under 1.20 and ERA under 4. For sure he's giving up way too many longballs, but that can be variable from year to year. I'd say he's relatively in line with what expectations should have been this year.

Well we need 3 to win and haven't put that up since the Cubs' series, so the concern may be warranted here.

Keon Broxton is a 1.5 WAR player this year. If he was arbitration eligible or a free agent, would you offer him a contract at 15 million annually? Of course not, because that would be utter insanity. So many flaws exist with using WAR to justify cost. If we are in the business of paying $10M a year for 1 WAR players we are not going to find much success as a small market team.

Get this, today is the last day of Schoop's career that he can be optioned without his consent, he hits 5 years service time tomorrow. The kicker on that -- if he were optioned today and left down for the rest of the season, he would remain under club control through 2020 instead of 2019. Call it the JJ Hardy strategy. I'm assuming they are aware of this, and I doubt it will happen. Schoop's camp I'm guessing would be furious, the MLBPA would be furious, but it would be hard to say it's not justified from a performance standpoint.

They've really kind of painted themselves into a corner on this one. On one hand, you don't trade a top 5 and top 15 prospect, plus an MLB player, for a controlled player and then non-tender him. You just don't, it's a pretty big statement of failure. On the other hand, he's clearly not a 9-10M dollar player right now, but the arbitration process does not care. Based on how they do things, he is a 9-10M dollar player. That's a lot for a guy if you're not even sure you want him on your roster let alone your starting lineup. I don't see how trading him is even a realistic strategy. If we don't want him at 10M, why would anyone else? Even if we can, the return will be basically nothing. It feels like an attempt to save face. All we can really hope is that he starts to go on a tear again.

Calling someone up for a month doesn't give up a year of control. He would still need 6 full seasons to reach free agency. If you're talking about options, is that really a concern? Braun, Fielder, Weeks, etc may have used 1 option at most. No, that's all true, but it's 1 month longer you have to wait to bring him up next year. If the plan is for Keston to be our opening day 2B next year, you may as well bring him up now if you can afford the spot on the 40. If it's not, better to wait til next year.

In my opinion the Colorado Springs playoffs should be basically a zero factor in making decisions on September callups. As a team that missed the playoffs by 1 game last season I can't fathom even leaving open the possibility of running out of pitchers in a 14 inning game the first week of September or having to have Chacin pinch hit because Barnes and Santana are down in Colorado Springs helping the Sky Sox with their playoff run.

Frankly lucky we managed to steal one considering we scored exactly 2 runs yet again.

Honestly, 2 of 3 IS fine, not the end of the world but at some point you need to get hot and rattle off 5 or 6 in a row here. Decent-ish baseball the rest of the way won't be good enough anymore the way it would have been when we were 18 over .500.

Nice win to stop the bleeding, but still on the outside looking in as of today. Rockies have gotten hot. Have to catch them or the 2nd team in the East, while still holding off the Dodgers and Cardinals. Going to be tough, need to get hot. Might end up taking 90 wins.

I just re-read my post and I'm totally lost as to what I said that so deeply offended Yaz. Can someone help me out?

Guessing he would be on for the 7th if we were in the AL or his spot wasn't up. Probably thinking 2 may not be enough and have a fresh pen so hoping to tack on some insurance with a PH and top of the order up.

Anyone giving Theo big pats on the back for 4 starts of Hamels should take a look at what Chacin has been doing all season long.

I just don't really care about the Cubs at this point to be honest for 2018, we are not catching them. The Wild Card remains realistic if we can get things turned around, though. However long-term it's of course a very good thing for us if the Darvish deal ends up being a dud like it has so far.

Schoop is under control next season I'm guessing is what he meant, you're not going to give up what they gave up for him and then just non-tender him.

If Gameday is even close to being accurate, it may as well be Stevie Wonder calling balls and strikes today.

Start putting some WD-40 on that arm Hader, we got ourselves a lead.

That infield might be set but that's a pretty ugly middle infield if Arcia's OPS is in the .500 range again and Schoop doesn't start resembling his 2017 form.

At this time last year, it was hard. But I still felt -- ok, we're not there, but we're a year or two away. Now, I'm honestly not sure. I'm not sure we're a year or two away. I'm not honestly sure we're going to be further ahead in 2019 or 2020 than we are now. The truth of the matter is, our farm is not where it was a year ago, and it would be fair to call it one of the weaker systems. The Yelich trade absolutely was still a good one, but the much-needed depth has taken a beating from rentals and short-term bandaid that so far appear to be yielding little for results. Hiura is by far the best prospect in our system, but surer prospects than him have disappointed at this level. At best, it would be unfair to expect him to come in and immediately impact this team and franchise in the way that our most optimistic hope that he will. I'm not sure our system pitching is what I thought we had. Medeiros and Ortiz are gone in mentioned short-term deals. We don't appear to believe in Woodruff. Brown and Supak give some hope, but there's not an ace walking through that door. I don't know what Peralta is, I hope he can figure it out but I'd be lying if I said I really believe that a low 90s two pitch starter is going to be impactful at this level. Burnes is the best we've got, and yet he isn't someone we even clearly believe can come in and be better than what we have right now. Hader's career trajectory looks like a complete mystery. Two out of our 3 best players are a 32 year old who could start to fade at any time, and a previously unknown first baseman having a shockingly good year. That absolutely concerns me. Jimmy should be back, and that's good news. But the truth is, we don't know yet what his future will be. We don't know if he'll be the same ace we had. I want to believe that the light there at the end of the tunnel is real, that we still are on the upward trajectory and that what we have built isn't just a recipe for the same 80-85 win purgatory as we had in the Melvin era, that right now we are just a victim of too much unactipated success too early which brought about unrealistic expectations. But right now I have more questions than answers.

Your 3rd place Milwaukee Brewers.... I figured we'd blow this eventually, just not already by August 18th. Kudos to whoever the hell the new manager is for the Cardinals that has basically turned their season around completely.

I actually found the 2016 season to be a ton of fun. You knew we weren't going anywhere, but that was okay because at least you weren't disappointing. Finding out what you had in your young guys and who you were getting for guys like Lucroy and Smith was very enjoyable.

The Corbin Burnes in the bullpen experiment is not going well.

I'm happy for some of you that can remain positive in all circumstances. I just hope you can start to understand WHY, when it's June and all is well, and the birds are chirping and the flowers blooming, and we're 18 games over .500 and have the best record in the NL, that many, many of us are still saying "Hold on. It's really early. Let's revisit this in a couple months." We've seen how this story ends. Many times. It's got numerous alternate endings, but very few of them end up being good.