Also, Alcantara, who I believe is a "star utility player".

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

So, why are Hendry's last 2 years considered rebuilding when he obviously wasn't trying to rebuild?

I'm starting to get worried about Sox fans feeling that the Cubs are rebuilding too quickly for their liking and need to make it seem like it's taking longer. I hope they're OK.

Believe me, this is taking long enough but it's at least starting to pay off.

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You know me like that.

Too good to play every day!

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

JOrr, the strikeout madness won't last much longer. We're in a new deadball era right now, it's clearly not a winning strategy to see a bunch of pitches and endure many K's.

He wasn't trying to lose 90 games. So what the fuck was he doing?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

I think it can be a winning strategy when you get to a soft bullpen in the fifth or sixth inning.

It will have to be addressed with a rule change just like the Pistons "defense" of grabbing and knocking down was. In this case I would suggest going back to the traditional strikezone where a letter high pitch is a strike.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

As I explained, when it is then followed up by more years of rebuilding you start to look at when it truly started. It's not like Theo got here and then they started making moves towards the future. As I said, rebuilding is not the same as intentionally losing.

When did the White Sox start rebuilding? I'm using the same logic on them so you can take your Sox/Cubs stuff off the table. 2013 and 2014 were rebuilding years when viewed with hindsight.

I don't know why this is so offensive. If you are bad for 5 years in a row you don't just get to say "We've been rebuilding for 3 years". No. You've been rebuilding since you were bad. You may not have been intentionally trying to lose but you can't just reset the clock because now you feel like intentionally being bad.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

He traded half the good prospects he had for Garza. He signed Pena for $10 mil. I think he was trying to save his job.

I don't think he was planning to win the 2013 World Series.

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You know me like that.

You can't say in hindsight a team is rebuilding just because they were bad - especially if they are making moves that suit their immediate needs more than the impacts on their long-term benefits.

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You know me like that.

Yeah, but the thing is that most inseason moves are done to rebuild when seasons like that go south.

So, I ask once again, when did the White Sox start rebuilding? By your logic, they never have been rebuilding.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I have no idea.

I don't follow the White Sox.

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You know me like that.

Sox rebuild started this year. JR was too cheap to start like 5 years ago when it should have been.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

In that case, by your logic, they never have been rebuilding.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You don't see any difference between a team that goes into a season understanding they won't win and trying to maneuver to make themselves a better team for upcoming years and a team that ends up being bad for whatever reason and trades a couple guys at the end of the year?

I don't think Jim Hendry considered the 2011 Chicago Cubs to be rebuilding in April 2011.

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You know me like that.

I do see a difference. It's not all or nothing. You can think you aren't rebuilding in April and think you are rebuilding in June. This is what has happened with the White Sox. They thought there was a chance they could be good at various points too. It doesn't mean when you judge where they are now that they weren't in a rebuilding process.

When you judge the last 5 years of Cubs baseball, you see things that happened across the whole time period that put them in the strong position they are now. I consider the rebuild to have started when those important pieces started to come together. The Cubs may have made a few midlevel signings or trades to give them a chance to be competitive but that happens. Theo signed Edwin Jackson to a big contract too. That doesn't mean he wasn't rebuilding.

Anyways, use whatever term you want. "Period of extended losing process" or "non-competitive years" or whatever you want. The Cubs didn't start from square one when Theo got here. They were already had multiple young players who would become important, with another high draft pick coming up. It's ok to say that.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Sure, you can say they kept a few players to help them rebuild.

I don't think Hendry was rebuilding. I suspect I won't change your mind.

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You know me like that.

We just seem to have different definitions. Yours requires that from the first day of the season they plan to suck. I allow for the fact that a team during a rebuild can make moves which could cause them to have a more successful season.

I agree that Hendry was not tanking but he also wasn't trading away all his young talent to go for it all either.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Except he pretty much did.



By your definition, every team is rebuilding all the time. Of course a team during a rebuild can make a move to make them better now and in the future but the future is the longer term perspective.

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You know me like that.

Just took a look and 2 of the top 5 and 3 of the top 10 prospects in the Cubs organization went for Garza in January 2011.

No chance the Cubs make that same type of move to this point in the Theo Era.

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You know me like that.

Missed one - Chirinos was 12th.

So 33% of the top 12 prospects went in one deal for basically one guy.

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You know me like that.

Yeah, the first one is the Royals and the Astros. The second one is the Red Sox or the Yankees. That's the thing that's so galling for fans like jimmypasta. This planned horribleness has never happened before with a King Kong heritage ESPN powerhouse like the Cubs. This is uncharted territory.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Okay. Is Albert Almora that important to your argument?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

No. In my opinion, rebuilds don't start when someone pushes a magic "rebuild" button. They start once you are bad. If the White Sox decided to tank next year the rebuild wouldn't be in year one. It would be in year three. Now, if you have a one year fluke like the Red Sox are this year you are not rebuilding. If they were bad the next two years then I think you'd have to look at what happened here as the start of the rebuilding.

To put it another way, a rebuild job starts once you are bad and ends once you are good. You may not be intentionally losing for the whole period but what is putting you in position to end your rebuild started in that first year of being bad.

So, every team that is bad over multiple years is rebuilding.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

...and "star utility player" Alcantara.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Trading several young prospects for Matt Garza would be an indication of a win now move (despite what we now know about Garza-at the time he was a 26 year old coming off a 15-10 year in the AL east)

26 year old...

Also, we once again have the Edwin Jackson signing to show that teams do things like this even when rebuilding.

I'll ask you when have the White Sox been rebuilding?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Rebuilding, imo, is when you start making moves with the future in mind that are not best for winning RIGHT NOW

Failing

No, the Edwin Jackson things is not at all like the Garza thing.

They gave up highly rated prospects (aka guys you want for a rebuild) for Garza. They gave up nothing but money for Jackson and the commonly held belief is they got him with the FLIP in mind. It was a rebuilding move.


Im not sure what the White Sox have done is a full rebuild. Kind of rebuild on the fly. But Id say the Peavy trade was the start.

You dont have to be trying to lose, but you cant be trading packages of highly rated prospects and say you're rebuilding.

Perhaps when Ricketts took over, they ceased to be the powerhouse you expect