As GD pointed out. He has a history of missing on FA's...whether signing or not signing.

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It has that feeling of like when the Sox thought Roger Clemens was done and didn't sign him

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

Uh, then the Sox swept Clemens's team in the World Series

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Kyle Hendricks pitches for the White Sox?

That middle paragraph is correct though.

Almora, Russell, Bryant, Schwarber, and Happ are all worse players today than they were in 2016. That is unacceptable. Only Baez and Contreras have become better players in the past 3 years.

Russell was a 4+ WAR position player at the age of 22 on a WS winner. The Cubs will DFA him this spring at the age of 26, how is that even a thing?

That was almost a decade later. The Sox were going to sign him before he went to the Blue Jays in 1997. He proceeded to go 21-7 with a 2 ERA and won the Cy Young that year....and the next.

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

I think there are two big things:

1. The inability to teach their young hitters that they drafted how to counter-adjust to what the league did to them after 2016. Only Baez and Contreras, who both came in under Hendry, made the adjustment. Is it on the coaches, or did the scouts not evaluate the ability to adjust properly?

2. It looks like the Marquee pot of gold was quietly tied to having Sinclair successfully buy WGN and use them as a stick in negotiations with cable and satellite providers. As soon as the WGN deal fell through, the money got turned off. Coincidence?

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Clemens wanted to sign, too.

These are good observations.

Remember after he was fired Chili Davis bitched about certain players not wanting to adjust?

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You got the title you wanted so bad. You cried and laid flowers on gramp's grave and talked (endlessly) about How Much This Meant to So Many People. The whole song and dance you were waiting all your lives for finally got to play out.

On the flip side of that though is the fact that the Cubs are no longer remarkable and no longer really have any of their old identity. It was like the War of the Ring, you won but it cost you everything. The ballpark is ruined, the owners are pariahs in their own city, the neighbourhood has had what little character it had left totally erased, aside from Rizzo the players are not really endearing or fun. But most of all that narrative and identity about the Cubs is gone. One hundred years of "this is who we are" evaporated in an instant.

I guess the White Sox winning has gone down as an irrelevant, fogotten title. Ever since we've been arguably the worst franchise in the sport. But the Sox are still the Sox, that identity is still very much intact.

This thread really shouldn't be as much about stupid sportswriters making excuses for poor personnel decisions made by the hand that feeds. It should be about the century of build up and anticipation that ultimately propped up a situation where by winning the World Series you lost everything that mattered. That was the damaging propaganda, that's why you guys still feel wanting and unfulfilled by what should've been the most fulfilling moment of yours sports fan lives.

I’m pretty fulfilled.

At the end of the day it’s just sports.

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I'm very willing to bury the hatchet but not if you keep saying things like this. Its ok to be a soft Caller Bob but don't go this far..

My favorite was how Zobrist was going to come back walking on water and turn this crapfest into gold.

How did the money get turned off? Isn't their payroll around $200M?

They have made a series of questionable/bad decisions and they do have a payroll ceiling, but the amount of bad money, in long-term deals by the front-office, did limit their ability to make other moves this past off-season.

Zobrist worked out.