OFFICIAL 2019 CHICAGO CUBS THREAD!!!!

bogeyman said:
I like Castellanos, but I just don't know if he is really the main need for this team right now. we need a CF or leadoff type guy worse. Also pitching.[/QUOTE

I agree on pitching but for heavens sake the Cubs need somebody that's going to hit the ball instead of striking out all the time. It's easier to find somebody to catch a ball than it is to hit. Cubs are full of lame batters that can catch a ball. I suppose we can warm up the old Cub saying wait till next year. I'm sick and tired of watching overpaid players stand at the plate and strikeout constantly.
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Just a quick glance looks like he averages around 150 Ks a year the last 5 or so. Which is the same # Baez, Bryant and Schwarb had this year. He had a nice hot streak for the Cubs but he isn't a "contact" hitter by any means. Much of it depends on how much salary he is demanding, but I just think we have bigger needs at the moment.
 
Cubs have the market cornered on striking out. I guess if you strike out a lot you can be a Cub! Not picking up Hamels leaves another void in the rotation to fill along with like 6 in the pen. Got some work to do there for sure.
 
The modern committee has bestowed a long overdue honor on Ted Simmons by inducting him into the MLB hall of fame. Simmons was one of the best hitting catchers of all time and a decent enough defensive catcher who had two untimely misfortunes

  • He had a below average arm in a huge stolen base era
  • His career largely intertwined with Johnny Bench, which kept him of a lot of all pro teams, and from starting all star games
He was also known as a bit of a social outcast at a time when it wasn't accepted yet, and was one of the first to grumble publicly about players getting the financial shaft, accurate as it may have been. He held out in spring training 1972 before finally backing down and signing, but the seeds to challenge the long sacred reserve clause and force free agency were being planted. Simmons would last long enough in the game to eventually reach a seven figure salary and reap a few of the benefits that his generation had long fought for.

Which leads us to the second announced induction, former players union leader Marvin Miller. Marvin outmaneuvered, out foxed and outfleeced the owners to get free agency off the ground in the late 1970's, then kept the players firm in their stance when the owners tried to regain what then by then realized they had lost (which was control not necessarily money) and forced a two month strike in 1981. The owners back in 1976 had agreed to a free agency system that they thought gave them the advantage. It's hard to believe these owners got rich enough to be able to afford baseball teams in the first place, because they flunked basic economic supply and demand. Miller's stance was to allow only a few free agents a year rather than flood the market and it still have owners six years of player control. But having only a few hit the market every year drove the price for limited commodities way way up, and owners in many cases got stuck paying for past performance. The effects reverberate to this day, and only in the last five years have owners finally started to pump the brakes a little bit. But not before accusations of collusion (the 1980's) and cooked books (the 1994 strike) and senseless bidding wars for player services (decades). Now Marvin Miller has been posthumously enshrined.
 
Man its been a slow offseason for the Cubs so far. Getting concerned we are going to try and stick the same team out there with an iffy rotation and bullpen.
 
bogeyman said:
Man its been a slow offseason for the Cubs so far. Getting concerned we are going to try and stick the same team out there with an iffy rotation and bullpen.
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Were in a tough spot. Our cheap labor from Ian Happ forward has not produced and were getting closer and closer to the day of reckoning when it comes to paying long term players. They are looking at trading core players to bring the payroll down as much as anything else. Contreras still makes sense because Caratini is almost as good and much cheaper and they have another young catcher rising up through their system. The key is for several of the pitchers that have been riding the I 80 shuttle to stick as major Leaguers. There's spots in the rotation and the bullpen.

We're still going to have to trade a young core player soon. We can't pay them all relative to market value.
 
Northside Hawk said:
Were in a tough spot. Our cheap labor from Ian Happ forward has not produced and were getting closer and closer to the day of reckoning when it comes to paying long term players. They are looking at trading core players to bring the payroll down as much as anything else. Contreras still makes sense because Caratini is almost as good and much cheaper and they have another young catcher rising up through their system. The key is for several of the pitchers that have been riding the I 80 shuttle to stick as major Leaguers. There's spots in the rotation and the bullpen.

We're still going to have to trade a young core player soon. We can't pay them all relative to market value.
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Theo really didn’t do much with the roster he had after the WS year. He was too stubborn and wouldn’t acknowledge we had too much swing and miss offensively, and missed the window to trade some of those guys for some real return. There was a window to trade Happ and Schwarber and he missed it. If he did that he could keep and pay Bryant, Baez and Contrares.
 
Northside Hawk said:
Were in a tough spot. Our cheap labor from Ian Happ forward has not produced and were getting closer and closer to the day of reckoning when it comes to paying long term players. They are looking at trading core players to bring the payroll down as much as anything else. Contreras still makes sense because Caratini is almost as good and much cheaper and they have another young catcher rising up through their system. The key is for several of the pitchers that have been riding the I 80 shuttle to stick as major Leaguers. There's spots in the rotation and the bullpen.

We're still going to have to trade a young core player soon. We can't pay them all relative to market value.
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Yep would agree with all of that! Bottom line is some guys just didn't pan out like we thought after the WS. Russell a huge one, Schwarb had a couple really down years, Bryant has been injured a lot. And of course we haven't developed any pitching and maybe the biggest struggle has been closer, that Morrow signing really set us back the last couple years. I feel like we need to get past the Lester contract this year, move a core piece or two and revamp a little. That said though, we can still be pretty competitive as we have good pieces, just need health because no depth. Right now our bench is awful so they need to find a way to revamp that big time still.
 
deanvogs said:
Theo really didn’t do much with the roster he had after the WS year. He was too stubborn and wouldn’t acknowledge we had too much swing and miss offensively, and missed the window to trade some of those guys for some real return. There was a window to trade Happ and Schwarber and he missed it. If he did that he could keep and pay Bryant, Baez and Contrares.
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And look at who Theo did trade. Gleybar Torres was the killer. It was a heavy price for a Chapman rental even if Chapman put us over the top. It's just that Theo couldn't have forseen Addy's problems at the time. Giving up Cease AND Jiminez for Q could be a bad one. Jorge Soler would command a lot more than an aging closer today, though he had to go where the DH was in play. It was the only he would stay healthy. Tommy Lastella would have solved our second base problem last year least until he got hurt.
 
deanvogs said:
Theo really didn’t do much with the roster he had after the WS year. He was too stubborn and wouldn’t acknowledge we had too much swing and miss offensively, and missed the window to trade some of those guys for some real return. There was a window to trade Happ and Schwarber and he missed it. If he did that he could keep and pay Bryant, Baez and Contrares.
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Totally agree. Could be a rebuild because kf it. I think Epstein killed himself.
 
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