My prediction is Machado to Mets and Harp to cubs

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Harper has a goldfish named Keith Hernandez

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Yankees signing all of their complementary pieces on one year deals (Gardner & Sabathia), they are going to have money for someone big.

Machado has a whore named Guaranteed Rate

they will be

The better example would be a guy like Heyward, who had the ability to opt out but underperformed to the point that the existing contract is above market.

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

So you're saying it's a given that Stanton opts out of his guaranteed 7yr/$210M contract at the age of 31?

yes

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

Woof.

JD Martinez got 5yr/$110M last year at age 30. Maybe the market for big hitters will bounce back. We shall see.

Harper to the Astros was vetoed.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/2523 ... -nationals

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

What a bunch of idiots.

Owners. Can't live with them, can't bury them in the backyard

Hyun-jin Ryu Will accept the $17.9M qualifying offer.

It sounds like he’ll be the only one accepting which means some team is going to way overpay for Yasmani Grandal to be a 1B/DH.

Nope. What did Moustakas lose by not taking his QO? 6 or 7 million?

ya and what's scary is Grandal is the perfect Theo type pickup if you're a Cubs fan.

He’s a great pitch framer! despite leading the league in passed balls the last two years. Now explain that one to me. Well when he actually catches the ball he’s really good!

What Bill James said was representative of most MLB managements. These cost analysis wizards know exactly what a guy is worth down to the penny. 30 yr old Grandal is basically alright, maybe worth $8-9 mil a year for the next 3 years but that's it. Agents are done as far as overselling their clients. It ain't happening.

Well, Theo should fire his guys then.

No way.

Dollar to a donut there's no one more upset than Theo over the stupidity of the Darvish deal. Cubs have dug themselves a hole. Atlanta, Philly, Milw, all racing ahead of them. Then there's the Dodgers that can eat mistakes like M&Ms.

repetition of past mistakes even after he said he recognized his problem and would correct it this time around

Theo should demand that the owner of his next team lash him to the foul pole when free agency begins to save himself from answering the Sirens

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

Where would you rank Epstein among GM's in the last 20 years?

None of those teams are racing by the Cubs. Atlanta has a chance to do it eventually. Milwuakee will fade and Philly still has a loooonnngg way to go.

The Dodgers part is true.

Here's to hoping Yu Darvish turns into "good David Price"...and soon.

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I don't know if he'll turn into a good post season performer but I fully expect him to be a good (injury prone) starting pitcher, as he has pretty much always been.

His long illustrious career of 870 innings

Ok

The guy has been an all star (pitching in Arlington, btw) four times in 6 seasons. You're right, he's not been good at all.

My guess is Theo is a mixed bag from a bottom line minded owner's perspective (like John Henry and probably Joe Ricketts). A fanboy, gentleman farmer type owner like Tom Ricketts probably thinks Theo is the greatest.

Teams for which he held the position of GM have won 3 championships due to varying degrees of his involvement. That cannot be denied. Satan Claus has won four in that time period and he is considered Satan Claus while Theo walks on water so rankings are subjective.

He's a good GM. Just like managers in other industries, he might be great with start ups and bad with more mature organizations. Time will tell on that part as we see what happens with this Cub group.

I do say that "GM" is not the same title across all organizations. Some limit the job to generally manage baseball operations while others are in charge to manage the whole thing. I'd be really interested to see how much Theo was entrusted with managing the new construction, IGA and real estate acquisitions because those were all horribly mishandled. Heads would have rolled with a more sophisticated owner at the helm but everyone kept their jobs. People look starry eyed at Rosemont Southeast, but that project came in heavily overbudget and well over time. Despite the proclamations of "money will not be a problem" from the sophisticated business reporters like Jesse Rogers, I wouldn't be so sure money isn't a little bit of a problem when you take all the entities into consideration.

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

7 seasons. First 3 an All Star. Trending down. Now a beat up 32 yr old who's averaged 124 innings a year.
So sure, he'll be fine. He always has been.

seems like more and more Cubs are out of the Harper hunt. seems like it'll maybe be like last year where everyone gets signed late in the offseason.

I think most GMs are not clamoring for Harper for what he'll be asking. SF now seems like the team in the lead but does he really want to go there?

Harper doesn't seem like a San Francisco shit on the sidewalk sanctuary for felons type guy. But, who knows.