Well, they kinda have to be in contention at that point, correct?

It's fair to say the Cubs shouldn't have signed Price or Zimmerman or Shark at the prices they appear to be able to command. But don't insult intelligence. The Cubs need to trade some young talent for young cost controlled pitching.

If the Cubs aren't in contention by the trading deadline next year, bump this thread.

_________________
Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

Weren't they just going to pick up pitchers this off season?

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

you can ding the both of them for that. They really did believe that Price might take a discount and that Shark would do the same.

Gordon Wittenmeyer. Has real scoops. One day they'll mend a fence with him.

_________________
Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

Gordon's on Mully and Hanley. He's been on this low spending off season stuff for a while.

wait a minute CoF, isn't zimmermann @ 5/110 right in the cubs' range? personally i've been a longtime zimmermann guy but i will say that last year he was prone to getting rocked for like 3-4 starts in a row, and his 3.66 ERA reflects not just the rockings but also the adjustments to have a season that was far and away his worst season as a pro (watching from the perspective of a back-to-back-champion fantasy baseballer who watches a lot of pitchers start-to-start throughout the course of a season) but he STILL ended up only 3.66 when his career average is like 3.27, so all in all that wasn't too bad.

i'd just be afraid that he was having some structural problems cuz IIRC zimmermann had an early TJ / major arm/shoulder surgery and started his nice ~4 year run of ~3.27/1.14 or whatever after he recovered from that, and if last year's rockings were the result of physical problems then maybe that 5/110 is a bit iffy....but still, averaging 22mil/yr for a career 3.27/1.14 (and that includes last year's 3.66 ERA) isnt that bad when you consider that edlose jackson was getting 13mil/yr to come in here and provide quality shitty innings that would amount to 15+ losses and a higher draft pick that enables you to get bryant and/or schwarber.

that said, holy shit that david price money is crazy. didnt kershaw just get his ~200mil a year ago? maybe a year and a half ago at the longest? has the market inflated so much that we've already gotten to the point where the not-best-pitcher-in-the-game gets paid more than the best-pitcher-in-the-game simply because it's 1-1.5yrs later? i remember people bitching about how they wouldn't tie up 200mil guaranteed in *KERSHAW*, so i can only imagine what ppl think of david price.... who is indeed nice and has rebounded from those "off" years of like 3.45/1.20 to have another 18-5 2.45/1.10 ~1K/IP or +.... but then again like kershaw b4 him price has been shit in the playoffs (2-7 5.14/1.17 or something? and yeah a 5.14 ERA with a 1.17 WHIP tells you that he's getting hit HARD, and sure enough his postseason HR rates are basically twice as much as his regular season HR rates) ---- but yeah david price still ain't clayton kershaw. yeah they're lefties i'll give you that, but other than that clayton kershaw >>>>>>>>>> david price. look at kershaw's stats last year and remember that's an off year for the guy cuz he was like 4.24/1.24 around may 10th-15th or something. c'est la vie!

_________________

thas what the man said!

poor Cubs can't roll with the league's big boys. maybe they need a bigger park!

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

They won't admit that Ricketts is going on the cheap.

He saw what happened last year and is seemingly willing to role out roughly the same team next year.

_________________
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!

now they are quoting fangraphs that appear to show the Cubs could be competitive with replacement level players, 85 wins.

they won't come out and say it, but they think the Cubs would be ok to stand pat.

_________________
Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

"next year's team will be good enough to win the WS".

Well, that may or may not be true. I think the Nats will be very good and the Cards should win the division again. I guess it depends on how good the Mets are...and the Pirates.

_________________
Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

wasn't the plan to buy top notch pitching??

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

"They need randomness to go their way"

What a stupid sport if that is true.

_________________
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!

Yes but they signed one last year and got one for Scott Feldman two years ago.

OK, so two down, three to go.

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

oh and btw, as dan sits here and reads off projected WAR totals for HIS 2016 chicago cubs next year ("WITHOUT a 5th starter, WITHOUT a bench, if your cubs roster was just those 15 guys with those replacement level players you've got an 85 win team!") i just gotta say that breaking everything down to WAR and looking at it that way is just soulless and wrong.

i mean i get that the math is in.... i get that the optics look good cuz REALLY. SMART. PEOPLE. have developed a formula/algorithm-or-2 for all the stats that MATTER and space age maths technology has come together to give us baseball into ne easy to compare stat to add all stats.... but isn't this just soulless to sit here on dec 4th and say "welp the cubs' #CoreFifteen are projected for 47.4 wins above replacement so that's 85 wins right there and now if we can add 10WAR via FA/trade we're right where we need to be for contending for the division next season (cuz if you settle for the wildcard it's entirely possible this chosen one team of destiny could still end up CUBBED and have arrieta or whoever give up 6ER in 1-3IP and yeah do that in WC/163 and you're what the spanglish call "el donezo" aka "el fuckedo."

now don't get me wrong, doing my fantasy baseball thing i'm a slave to stats, but the more traditional avg/HR/RBI/SB thing with runs being the all important 5th category. then for pitchers it's ERA/WHIP with Ks (per IP) and W/L is just kind of the icing on op of the cake, you know? i like for there to be some separation / breakdown so there's wiggle room to look at more specific aspects of a player's game, as opposed to conglomerating it into one be-all/end-all stat where it's like WELP HE'S A 5.2WAR SO THAT'S 100% BETTER THAN A 3.9 WAR. * CLAPS HAND * CASE CLOSED!

it just seems kinda weird that bernstein would go embrace such an all-encompassing/simplistic/definitive stat to end all stats, but then again maybe i'm off base cuz this WAR is the end result of REALLY. SMART. PEOPLE. taking in all the DATA. THAT. MATTERS. and putting it out there in such a way that it's a ridiculously easy to compare definitive trumps-all stat that even the biggest meathead can go 7.2 GOOD 4.9 NOT AS GOOD and compare players with all of the proclivities of statheads/SABR-geeks, but they have one easy definitive # to use for the comparisons as opposed to saying that one guy's FIP is better than another's weighted ERA and when you factor in K rates and the OBPA for each pitcher well then how valuable is a K for a pitcher who's more likely to give up a SLG% of X to a guy who gets on base against him? just say 8 WAR > 5 WAR and be done with it.

ah well, here's to hoping the winter ZIPS by til that holiest day of all the holy-days when we get our PECOTA projections and we find out how good our team/s are gonna be....... when the game is played in a mainframe server somewhere in a giant data center up to one mile below (johnny) utah.

THIS POST SPONSORED BY POINT BREAK! CATCH THE REMAKE OF THE MONTH/SEASON/YEAR/DECADE/MILLENNIUM THIS CHRISTMAS AT A THEATER NEAR YOU!

_________________

Not sure they are going to have 5 top notch pitchers or why you would think that

to be clear: I agree with the Cubs moves so far. It's just that it's now time to start selling good position player product for good pitching product. This is the year. The aces aren't getting any younger.

_________________
Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

have fun never winning the world series RPB!

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

What moves?

_________________

uhhhh, wasn't it because that cubs fans were told that #ThePlan called for spending "big" amounts of $$$ on "top tier FAs" "WHEN IT'S TIME"??? who can forget that pedantic ass shit ~5 years ago when the cubbies were about to massively slash payroll (offset by 4-5mil/yr to theo/jed and the boys, which is STILL undeniably a brilliant business move IMO) and there were worries that the cubs' ownership wasn't necessarily rolling in dough cuz they were leveraging a lot of debt to actually get the team (trying to avoid that "HEY DAD....." that could bail them out like *fingersnap* at any time) so when asked about that in lieu of the potential debt/leveraging, that's when cubs fans were assured that the cubs have $$$ and the cubs WILL be players in FA with the dodgers/yanlees/mets/giants, it's just that they're not gonna spend that money until "it's time" because that's the kind of responsible spending that grown ups do THE RIGHT WAY(TM) as opposed to, say, [the rest of baseball]

and then, of course, you had that whole tanaka thing where a ~25-26 y/o potential-ace was posted by his japanese team (and thus essentially being a young FA compared to the usual ~30-33 y/o FAs that are out there) and the cubs went out of their way to make sure they were finalists in that so they could convince their rube-base that "hey, we TRIED to get tanaka but those damn yankees nipped us in the bud on that one.... ah well, "wait til next [time]" and we'll be sure to get our man" --- to me that was a potential warning sign that they might not be 100% gung ho "WE DODGERS NOW" (or even "WE HENDRY-CUBS NOW") when "it [was] time" because i seriously don't know why they'd effort a situation enough to make the finals for the signing, but then ultimately weren't even close to tanaka's market value..... was it all a PR move? if so, why?

so yeah, i'm not saying that it was necessarily 100% expected for the cubs to have 5 bigtime near/ace pitchers in their rotation by opening day 2016, but i just thought that after their !!!! last year and all of those assurances of spending/big "when it's time" that they'd at least be finalists in the negotiations to get zimmermann and/or price (especially zimmermann) because right now you've got an exciting team that had a real chance in this year's postseason (and they certainly should have done better against the lowly mets!) and you don't wanna end up like the ~2012/13/whatever natinals who forsake a chance to get over the hump ASAP because they assume that they're going to perennially be around for years to come.... you could wake up from your nightmare fighting jonny papelbum and next thing you know dusty F. baker is your manager!

TLDR = with cubs brass saying that they'd spend $$$ on bigtime top-tier FAs "when it's time" you figured they'd be making more noise than they have thus far because IT'S FUCKING TIME if you haven't noticed by chance =D

_________________

not spending 5/110 on zimmermann or spending 7/217 (realistically 3/93 or whatever if he doesn't get hurt or start sucking) on price.

personally i wouldn't have spent the $$$ on price, but then again i think you can do a lot worse than setting up a potential mega-deal with an easy-3yr-out for the guy so if he stays at a high level he's going to walk again to re-up that papes and therefore you end up with price for 3/93 right smack dab in the middle of your window.

hey cubs fans.... right now would you take price for 3/93?

_________________

have you seen his postseason performances?

and yes, CH, the moves I refer to are non-moves.

_________________
Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

and the Giants and the AL team that will be better than them

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

5 top notch starters?

Who has that?

They always said that they'd add pitching and that they'd have to use FA sometimes (Lester)

I dont really know or care what they promised though at this point. They have two top of the rotation guys and I think that's why they are looking at 3-4 types. Maybe that's the wrong thing to do but that's what they're doing, imo

I think without the Arietta thing they probably are in heavy on Price or Zimmerman etc

the point is you can't have 60% feces in your rotation.

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

Giants?

_________________
Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

No way you can say that. That is just baseball dumb.

They aren't going to go big payroll until this "TV deal" happens. Just my guess.

Well, I named two top line guys and you said get three more. I took that to mean three more top line guys

I was thinking during the Hawks game last night about how the Sens have their games on TSN, the Canadian ESPN, but only from Kingston to the Maritimes. The Jets do the same thing but for the Prairies. Could ESPN perhaps get into the RSN game and create a Chicago/Midwest version of ESPN that breaks away from the national feed for Cubs games and other Chicago stuff? I don't see any other media company having the muscle to get a Cubs channel on the air with Comcast after having broken away from Comcast.

_________________

A stupid fucking comment!