Game 62 Thread - Garza vs. Porcello

Surely Garza upped his price last night.

I guess he wants to stay here?

Oops, with Seattle too. I think I was on the wrong B-R page for him, I was only seeing minor league stats for whatever reason.

So Ian Stewart is going to AAA pretty quickly?

the multi-city lineage...NY/SF and technically the NY Gothams from 1625 BC or whatever.

it's been 130 years either way.

Of course that would not be part of the plan right now. I guess you missed these parts of the article.

'There's always another day to fight. You don't have to get everything done in one offseason just because of what's going on in the environment around you."'

[ ]

'As for his first season as president of the Cubs, Epstein says he is "putting an emphasis on the long term" as he starts the rebuilding process for a struggling club that is just 21-40, deeply entrenched in the NL Central cellar.

"We're at a different point in the evolution of this franchise," he said. "We're having to start some things from the ground level and build up. It's going to be a bit of a longer process."'

Signing big name free agents will take place once the team is ready to compete.

How would you have felt if they had signed Adrian Gonzalez? I know I would have thought - "wow, good player".

Free agency right now is a mess. These players want mega contracts so that as they age they can still make 20 mil a year or whatever. This situation is really not sustainable economically, any more than the housing bubble was. I actually don't blame Ricketts for waiting until he at least has a competitive team to add a good free agent to.

He's got a .730 OPS and is owed another 140 million dollars.

Holy shit. Two mediocre months of one season clearly makes this a terrible deal.

A-Gonz is 30, and is struggling a little this year..he still has 35 RBI's and is leading the league in doubles.
He's also won a few Gold gloves at 1B. He's been an excellent player for the last 6 seasons.
Dunn is 2 years older, is not a good first baseman, and last year the Red Sox would have been crucified for picking up Dunn instead of Gonzalez.

That is a bizarre read of the article. Any sane person would read that as him taking responsibility. He is saying that fans, owners, the media, etc. were all clamoring for something and that rather than do a good job and make the correct, even if unpopular decisions, he failed (i.e. it was his fault, he is taking responsibility) at his job and made some decisions that he had not fully vetted. That is not blaming the owners.

And we all do that from time to time and hopefully we learn from it.

I am living in faculty housing right now and it is a dump. We really just want to get the hell out of this place. But if I buy a house too quickly without taking my time and investigating everything, I could end up with some over-priced piece of shit that I will hate for the next 7 years (i.e. a Crawford), or a house that ends up falling a part on me (i.e. a Lackey). So even though I really just want to do something NOW, I have to take my time and go through the process thoroughly just like I am perfectly happy here and have plenty of time to make a decision. If I bought something now and regretted it, it wouldn't be faculty housing's fault, it would be mine for letting the circumstances get to me and affect my decision.

That's a long analogy, but that's all Theo is saying. Theo is telling us that we do have money and COULD go out and buy some free agents now, but we need more than that. If he does that, we could hate the next house just as much as this one, or it could fall a part in a few years and we are back on the market, etc. So Theo is telling us that we are going to live in this dive for a year or two, but then when we do buy a new house it will be fantastic and one we will be living in it for many years to come. At least that's his plan.

Hasn't it been confirmed over and over again that Hendry did not negotiate the Soriano deal?

I did not support the Soriano signing because I wanted the team to rebuild. I did not feel we had enough of a core to warrant giving a bunch of money to a player I did not feel would get us over the top. I support overspending on a player if you are adding him to an already very good, potentially World Series caliber team.

In addition, Carl Crawford was a player who consistently had over 110 OPS+ and hit a ton of hits and Lackey was a pitcher who consistently had 115+ ERA+. Speed was not Crawford's only + tool and Lackey was not some reject pitcher. Yes, Theo overpayed. He overpayed for some good player who were an upgrade on a potentially World Series caliber team. You don't make deals in a vacuum and in the end if you need to upgrade a position somewhere you make do with what you have. I'm sure Theo didn't just sit down and say "oh boy I got a ton of money, let's overpay someone." There are other teams bidding and such. But if you feel you have a team that could potentially win it all with a few upgrades then if you don't spend then your criticism about locking the wallet down might hold water.

Theo payed star money to a player who was not a star but was still a very good player in both Crawford's and Lackey's case. If the Cubs had a team that could win the World Series and Theo brought in upgrades to two positions by overspending and that won us the World Series, I would probably worship the ground he walks on for those deals, even if it hurts us some in the future. We don't have that team now and I do not want Theo overspending now.

he is