*****Official Cubs 2020 thread*****
- Thread starter QChawks
- Start date
What's your definition of "extended"? This team still currently has Baez, KB, Rizzo, Contreras, Hoerner on the way, Hendricks & Darvish. We're not exactly talking about the Orioles here.
And what did that roster get you this season? Getting Castellanos back is crucial with the hints that mgmt isn't going to be aggressive in free agency.
BTW: My definition would be 3+ yrs.
Somebody want to explain it to this guy?
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By your own posts, this team was a bullpen away from having a big lead in the division by August.
The blown leads in JuneJuly eventually took it's toll. Injuries didn't help, obviously. That said... the constant turnover in batting/pitching coaches was another issue.
I don't expect Kimbrel to stink it up again. And as someone else stated last summer... Epstein can add a couple arms and the bullpen could actually be a strength, eventually.
Another potential problem is KB's mental approach. It's clear he wants out.
All of which support the idea that the cubs will have a chance to be pretty good in 2020 if they play the offseason right. Not 100 wins good, but 90+ will have them in contention. If they aren’t there, then they can move KB and a couple others at the deadline to speed the reload.
I get that and that's why I disagreed with the approach from the start, but in all reality, as much as young players get screwed by this CBA, Bryant should lose his grievance and the beef should be with the owners and players' union for setting things up that way in the first place.
Theo very clearly made the moves he made so that KB's service clock wouldn't start until he secured an additional year of team control. Theo also isn't the only person to employ that strategy. Personally, I thought Theo's strategy was short-sighted because one of three things was going to happen, regardless of the service clock:
- Sign a long-term deal before the service clock to free agency runs out. This isn't exactly the Scott Boras MO, but it's happened with his guys before. There's always a number. If the Cubs were to offer KB the Mike Trout contract today, he'd accept it in a heartbeat and drop the grievance (the Cubs won't and shouldn't). I thought it was more likely that the Cubs could lock him up long term if they didn't piss him off right away.
- KB might not pan out. Not all top picks develop. If KB had been one of those guys, or even if he developed into a solid player but not a star, the service clock would mean much less because it wouldn't be potentially costing KB a year at $25-30M or more.
- KB could be traded. He could have been traded as a young player/prospect or he could have been traded as a young vet if there was a deal that made sense.
None of those are really good reasons not to play the service time game. It cost the Cubs like 15 games in April, in a year they were thought to be a year away from contending, to get an entire season of relatively cost effective team control for a future MVP. It's a no-brainer. System might not be fair to players but that's not on the Cubs front office.
1. Boras will get his money no matter what, he wasn't going to cut the Cubs a deal because they played fair if they brought Bryant up early.
2. If he doesn't hit and is only a solid player, well now the Cubs have another year of cheap control over that solid player.
3. They can still trade him and now they have an extra year of team control at this point so trading a guy like KB with two years of team control can bring back a lot more than just one year of him.
None of your reasons really make any sense on why they shouldn't have kept him down like they did.
Well, you're not wrong....it is the smart play with most players - and there will always be a line. Given that the Cubs were not expected to contend, had the deadline been later, I think the Cubs might have kept him down for up to a half season. I didn't lay out a very good argument. Mostly that the one down side to his strategy has come to pass - elite talent, potentially still mad about the way things went down. That said, I don't see KB dogging it and he seems to enjoy his teammates, so I don't think it's affecting his play and he's not outright demanding a trade or anything.
I do want the arbitrator to rule on this quickly so that the Cubs aren't hostage to the decision all off-season. Nobody is going to trade for KB until this is all worked out because the Cubs will want to trade based on the 2nd year of team control and nobody is going to want to pay for the year until they know they'll have it.
And as I said above, as much as the current CBA really hoses young stars with 7 years of team control, I don't really see any reason why the Cubs should lose this. The CBA is what it is and the Cubs made their moves within the letter of the CBA.
Somehow, in the span of about 4 months, Yu Darvish has gone from being a source of anger to one of my favorites.
I've not seen anything about him demanding or requesting a trade. While it looks like he might be unlikely to sign long-term, I don't see any negative attitude on his part.
The optics are that he wants to become a FA sooner and pick his own team.
Or......... he just wants a fat contract a year sooner.
Of course. None of that necessarily implies that KB wants a trade. Unless there's more true bad blood than KB has ever let on, I'm sure Boras has a number that KB would sign for today if the Cubs were to offer. I'm also quite sure that the number is beyond what it would seem the market value for KB is because that's how he rolls. I think it's pretty likely that KB hits the market whenever it is that his time comes.
Well, I"d say it's pretty much a guarantee that the Cubs aren't retaining the entire core group of JB/AR/KB/WC, when the time comes. And the comments from mgmt about not spending freely on FAs proves it.
It appears the strategy is to mirror the Cardinals approach, but the farm system seems years away from doing that.
I guess when we see the opening day roster next spring... everyone will know the direction they've taken.
Of course not. I posted in 2015 as all these guys were coming up that there was never going to be a period of time where the Cubs had Javy, Addison, KB, Rizzo, Schwarber, Contreras, Hendricks all together for like 7 years. They were always going to have to enjoy the cheap control years and then lock in a couple guys on a staggered basis and then the rest would have to trade some of the guys you aren't locking up and/or enjoy the time you have them and then replace them (ideally from within) with other guys.
The primary trade I'd reverse if I had it to do all over again is the Quintana trade. We'd have spent the last couple years without Q, but with an up and coming Jimenez and Cease. It would have opened up other trade possibilities (with those players or others) and the Cubs would be looking at both guys potentially in the lineup/rotation.
I’ve never heard a whisper that he is disgruntled. Maybe he is miffed, but if he is he’s being a pro about it.
My personal feeling is he becomes a FA and signs with whichever warm weather team offers him the most money. Most likely a team in the Phoenix to SD to LA area.
verlander, he was placed on waivers and the cubs could have had him for nothing but his salary.
Organizationally catcher is a deep spot. They could live with Caratini and an experienced #2, with Taylor Davis sitting in Des Moines again if needed. He's a FA, but I think he might come back. Beyond that they have Amaya as a potential #1, and Pereda as a potential career back up. I'd like to see Contreras in LF, but Theo is unnaturally attached to Schwarber, and I just can't see him being moved.
The biggest area of concern should be clutch and situational timely hitting.
This is why the hammer needs to come down on the Astros and the players' union should be all over it. Regardless of whether Darvish, specifically, was truly tipping pitches or whether Houston was stealing signs at the time, them stealing signs is going to lead to reputations like what Darvish picked up, it's going to make guys question themselves and wreck their confidence.
I love how Darvish has battled back, but allowing Houston to use technology to cheat (and anything other than a harsh punishment will be tacit acceptance) will lead to more of this and it's going to destroy careers.
Again, if a runner on 2nd can steal signs or if a base coach or the other dugout can steal your signs, I'd tell the pitcher and catcher to get better signs.....but using technology effectively makes signs useless. There's almost no chance that a human pitcher and human catcher with very limited mound visits could come up with a system complex enough to cheat the eyes in the sky and still be consistently on the same page.
its interesting too to think of the chain of events this caused. Supposedly the Dodgers didn’t consider resigning Darvish because of his World Series performance and maybe he’s not available for the cubs to sign.
Very wise decision by mgmt. Know who you got so you can decide to what you have to trade.
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