Tanaka,shamaka. He did the Cubs a favor. IF they sign both Maholm & Hammel,there is a chance of 22 victories between the two of them. Tanaka,high end might give you 16-18 next season....You see Cubs win!

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Cubs To Sign Jason Hammel
By Jeff Todd [January 31, 2014 at 12:39pm CST]

EDIT: Jon Heyman reports he could earn an extra million in incentives.


1:14pm: Hammel will receive a one-year deal that is expected to be worth around $6MM, tweets Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports.

12:39pm: The Cubs have agreed to sign free agent starter Jason Hammel, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. The deal is pending a physical. Hammel, 31, is represented by Octagon.


After posting a strong 3.43 ERA in 2012 season that was shortened due to knee surgery, Hammel failed to repeat in 2013. Hammel had reached 8.5 K/9 and 53.2% GB% in 2012, both of which represent career highs by a substantial margin.

As MLBTR's Tim Dierkes noted in ranking Hammel 48th on his list of the top fifty free agents, Hammel saw a dive in his strikeout and groundball rates and dealt with elbow issues. He ultimately ended up with a 4.97 ERA over 139 1/3 innings in 2013.

Prior to the long DL stints in his last two seasons, Hammel had registered three straight years with at least 170 innings for the Rockies. Though he averaged only a 4.63 ERA in that stretch, his numbers were inflated by pitching at Coors Field. Fangraphs put his value at 8.9 fWAR for those three years, though Baseball-Reference saw it as a less-impressive 4.0 rWAR.

The Cubs had signed only three players to guaranteed MLB deals before landing Hammel, none of whom are starters. Hammel will presumably fill out the club's 2014 rotation, joining Jeff Samardzija, Edwin Jackson, Travis Wood, and Jake Arrieta to form the regular starting five.

After missing out on Masahiro Tanaka, Chicago had been rumored to be looking to make a value play on a mid-tier starter. WIth recent injury issues holding down his value, Hammel looks to be the same kind of pitcher that the Cubs targeted last year, when they inked Scott Baker (one year, $5.5MM), Scott Feldman (one year, $6MM), and Carlos Villanueva (two years, $10MM).

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Championship.

The Cardinals model??? The Cardinals win in the MLB and have a good farm system. You dont need to lose for 5 years to get good in the MLB. THe Cardinals are laughing at the Cubs for trying to emulate their system by losing for 5 years. Thanks for the free division titles!!

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only if you read the MLB standings on your desktop like Spiderman.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

I feel the Cubs still need one more 4-5 starter type for depth purposes.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

That's alot of cash for mediocrity. WTF?

Theo said that himself about a week ago. IMHO,3.5 mil with another 3 mil if he reaches 200ip seems fair.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Jon Heyman ‏@JonHeymanCBS 17 mins hammel gets $6M, plus $1M incentives, for 2014 deal. #cubs

6M not 3M per Heyman.

Sorry,that 3 million was just my opinion.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

They did well with Feldman and Wood, so hopefully this guy can be flipped too. I guess he is better than Villaneuva. Not a ground ball pitcher either.

We'll see.

I think he's just referring to building from within instead of acquiring Free agents. Neither of those teams are big spenders on free agency.

He gave up 22 HR's in only 139 IP last year.

Ouch.

Wait, what? Depth for what exactly? Never mind the fact, they have a roster full of 4-5 starters and no 1's or 2's.

You only need depth if you are fielding a team ready to contend. You don't need depth to finish closer to .500.

In Coors on a down year

I like Hammels

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Maybe with some decent pitching & bounce-back seasons from Castro & Rizzo,they can play close to 500. Which might get them in whistling distance of the final playoff spot. Not too hard to believe,in January at least.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Not Coors. Camden. But still....

James McDonald. Minor league deal with an invite to big league camp. There were times he looked pretty good for the Pirates. He went to shit after a nice run early last year.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Boo.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

You have that Boo on cut and paste

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Elections have consequences.

Minor story but I don't know if the Cubs can afford letting any halfway decent pitcher go for nothing. Especially a LHP.

The Twins have claimed lefty Brooks Raley off of waivers from the Cubs, reports Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune (via Twitter). Raley, 25, had spent his entire career in the Chicago system.

Raley has thrown just 38 1/3 MLB innings over the last two seasons, and made his first go at relief in 2013. Previously, Raley had worked almost exclusively as a starter. In 141 1/3 innings at the Triple-A level last year, Raley posted a 4.46 ERA, with 6.0 K/9 against 2.9 BB/9. According to Pitch F/X data (via Fangraphs), Raley throws both a four-seam and two-seam fastball, each of which sit around 89 mph, and also offers a slider, curve, and change. Over his time in the upper minors, Raley has actually shown a relatively minor platoon split, though big league righties have hit him hard.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Not Brooks Raley!

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Arietta is behind in camp already because of some off season arm "tightness"!!! Hell yes!!!

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

Gonna be ugly.

I think the Cubs have a somewhat realistic shot at 110 losses. So that's exciting.

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Nice asset and should be able to flip him when some team gets desperate. Not bad for league minimum on a minor league deal.

Brett Taylor ‏@BleacherNation ·28 mins
In case you're just tuning in, Cubs have signed Emilio Bonifacio to a minor league deal: http://www.bleachernation.com/2014/02/1 ... ague-deal/ …

I like the move.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

With extension talks still at a stalemate, the Cubs could still potentially deal top starter Jeff Samardzija before the start of the season, reports Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times. Two sources said that was a strong possibility, while another rejected the idea that trade talks were in progress.

It has been nearly a month since the 29-year-old's name has seen the pages of MLBTR in reference to trade chatter. While he avoided arbitration with Chicago in the interim, both player and club have given recent indication that the sides are somewhat entrenched in terms of a longer deal.

With only one premium starter (Ervin Santana) still on the market, the Rays seemingly likely to open the year with David Price in their rotation, and Homer Bailey now not even a theoretical trade candidate, an opportunity could conceivably arise to get solid value for Samardzija. Surely, the likelihood of a deal would rise if the team does not believe it can get him to sign a new deal at a palatable price, though a mid-season move might still be a preferable strategy. Fueling the sense that a trade could still be in the works, says Wittenmyer, is the fact that manager Rick Renteria has declined to name Samardzija the Opening Day starter, saying that "so many things can happen over the course of the spring that I'm not going to lock myself in[]."

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

How many teams are still looking for pitching? Toronto is for sure. Maybe Seattle? There's not a very big market anymore. At this point they should probably wait until the deadline and hope a few playoff teams get in a bidding war.