DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Bleacher Bums Forum
HTML https://bbf.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Archives
*****************************************************
#Post#: 250740--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs in '16
By: craig Date: October 24, 2015, 9:48 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Cubs philosophy has been to accumulate players.
1. They said they could always transact a player for a pitcher.
Perhaps that time is now.
2. Philosophy is fine, but scouting is what decides. Cubs need
to evaluate the guys we've got and the pitchers that are
available. Good luck to them.
3. Baez is surplus. If they can do a **fair** trade and get
**comparable pitching value** back, it makes sense to me. Not
everybody agrees on how much value Baez has; that's a scouting
eval. But if his value is high, and if you could get an
equally-high-value pitcher back, I'd say that would be logical.
4. Soler was mentioned; I think he's a really, really top-end
hitting possibility. Much better hitting prospect than Baez or
Russell, and good chance to end up being more productive than
Bryant offensively. But if you could get a comparably
promising pitcher in return, that could make sense. I think it
would take a really, really, really high-interest young pitcher
to provide comparable value, though, personally. In my amateur
view, Soler for a Mets-caliber guy, sure; for one of the
Indians-caliber guys, I'm not interested. But again, that's all
about individual scouting valuations. (Not likely Hoyer reads
my projections! :)
***Philosophy got us cheap players. Cheap players provide $$
opportunity.
Rather than trade away good talent, it makes better sense to
simply $$$ pitching. Yes, FA's cost big; yes, FA's are too
long; yes, FA's can get hurt; yes, a guy old enough to be FA is
expected to decline a lot well before the contract ends. But,
the cheap players save you the $$$ to afford the FA pitching and
to afford the financial risk. Spend big on Price or Zimmerman
or whomever, knowing you're committing to some bad-value years
for hopefully a couple of WS years early.
Any interesting Cuban or Japanese guys who could be a second
pitcher?
Relief pitching is huge. A great pen covers a lot.
#Post#: 250741--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs in '16
By: Ron Date: October 24, 2015, 9:58 am
---------------------------------------------------------
I"m really interested in knowing what others think about this.
IF the Cubs are seriously considering options such as Price or
Greineke, is there any reason not to front load the sort of
long-term contracts they will command? We read all the time
about back-loaded contracts. But in the Cubs' situation with so
many high talent, low salary young position players, wouldn't
front-loading a contract for one of those expensive guys, while
the kids are still cheap, make acquiring them more viable?
#Post#: 250745--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs in '16
By: davep Date: October 24, 2015, 10:35 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Instead of front loading (or another form of front loading)
would be shorter contract, higher per year contract.
I would rather pay Price 40 million for three years than 30
million for 7 years. If Price is willing to take his chances as
a free agent at 33 or whatever, he might be interested.
#Post#: 250746--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs in '16
By: CurtOne Date: October 24, 2015, 10:41 am
---------------------------------------------------------
You'd pay him $10m for 4 years fewer control?
#Post#: 250747--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs in '16
By: CurtOne Date: October 24, 2015, 10:42 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Did you mean 40m for 3 rather than 80m for 7
#Post#: 250749--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs in '16
By: CUBluejays Date: October 24, 2015, 10:55 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Maeda is the Japenese guy if he gets posted.
Their is a hard throwing 25 year old Cuban by the name of
Sierra. Guitirez and Ruiz are IFA pool pitchers that really
interest me.
#Post#: 250751--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs in '16
By: FDISK Date: October 24, 2015, 11:29 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Craig, why is Baez surplus?
#Post#: 250752--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs in '16
By: Dave23 Date: October 24, 2015, 11:36 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Yasiel Sierra was hitting 95-96 this week down at PG...
#Post#: 250753--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs in '16
By: Jes Beard Date: October 24, 2015, 11:41 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Playtwo link=topic=376.msg250737#msg250737
date=1445696548]
I think the 2016 Cubs will be fine if they can add one starter-
Price. It they can do that, there's no reason to spend
significant resources on a middle to bottom of the rotation
starter. Use that money to deal with the problem in CF.
[/quote]
While I also believe the Cubs will be best served by holding
onto most of their assets, and I am not even big on the idea of
signing Price (considering expense and the history of big FA
pitcher signings proving to be very poor investments), it is
highly unlikely that the incumbant Cub starters will be close to
as good in 2016 as they were in 2015. It would be great if
Arietta could repeat his performance, but I doubt that a close
examination of pitchers who had years of his kind of 2015
dominance, combined with the kind of increased workload he saw,
came close to repeating their dominant performance the following
year, particularly when their dominance sort of materialized
almost from thin air. Lester will likely show age-related
decline, as will Hammel, and Haren is gone. Even if Hendricks
improves quite a bit, which is entirely possible, given age and
experience and the fact that the incredibly predictive FIP was
more than half a run below his ERA, such improvement is unlikely
to offset the declines.
This does not necessarily mean, however, that the Cubs need to
look outside the organization to significantly improve the
starting pitching. I agree with davep that Grimm should get a
rotations shot, and that he could be a very good starter.
Cahill may merit a look, and hopefully the Cubs would at least
use Edwards as a swingman for part of the season to try to
stretch him out and give him a rotation opportunity.
And come July, if it appears the team does need another strong
starter, there are always mid-season move which can be made, if
trade chips have not already been traded and budget money has
not all been spent. Certainly the current makeup of the Cubs,
even without a single roster addition (and I am not suggesting
the Cubs should resist making any moves, but merely pointing out
that it is not close to crucial that they make any) is strong
enough you should anticipate them at least being in the race in
mid-July of 2016.
#Post#: 250755--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs in '16
By: Jes Beard Date: October 24, 2015, 11:47 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Ron link=topic=376.msg250741#msg250741
date=1445698698]
I"m really interested in knowing what others think about this.
IF the Cubs are seriously considering options such as Price or
Greineke, is there any reason not to front load the sort of
long-term contracts they will command? We read all the time
about back-loaded contracts. But in the Cubs' situation with so
many high talent, low salary young position players, wouldn't
front-loading a contract for one of those expensive guys, while
the kids are still cheap, make acquiring them more viable?
[/quote]
I agree that it would make great sense to the Cubs. The only
question is whether it also would to the player. It SHOULD make
sense to a player, but that does not mean that it would.
[quote author=davep link=topic=376.msg250745#msg250745
date=1445700912]
Instead of front loading (or another form of front loading)
would be shorter contract, higher per year contract.
I would rather pay Price 40 million for three years than 30
million for 7 years. If Price is willing to take his chances as
a free agent at 33 or whatever, he might be interested.
[/quote]
After correcting the numbers (40/M per year for three years, as
opposed to 30/M per year for seven years), I agree.... but Price
might well not.
*****************************************************
DIR Previous Page
DIR Next Page