Email a copy of 'Offseason In Review: Chicago Cubs' to a friend
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By Tim Dierkes | at
Email a copy of 'Offseason In Review: Chicago Cubs' to a friend
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Steve 39
They are already in midseason form 4 games into Spring Training, that is impressive
phillies1102
“James McDonald, SP: one year, $1MM. Under team control for 2015 was an arbitration eligible player.”
change “was” to “as”.
Steve Adams
Thanks.
phillies1102
Sure thing.
“The Cubs ultimately went nearly 50% over their international bonus pool, so the slots acquired from Baltimore can be considered nothing more than $58K in overage tax savings.”
change “overage” to “average”.
martinfv2
I did mean overage, in that case.
phillies1102
Oh, I probably should have read the whole sentence closer.
blob
The ‘c’ in ‘change’ should be capitalized, since it’s the first word of the sentence. This also applies to your first post.
phillies1102
Well the “b” in “blob” should be capitalized the same way my username should be too. We could go all day.
The point is, these are professional posts that are part of a business and should be grammatically correct, but I don’t mind helping out the mistakes. This is a comment section, where people are not even expected to be morally correct.
blob
My username, ‘blob’, is not meant as a proper noun. The lower case ‘b’ is correct. I didn’t even think to check your username, but you are correct there. ‘Phillies’ is a proper noun and should therefore be capitalized.
There are two missing commas in the first sentence of your most recent reply.
Also, ‘The point is,’ should probably be changed to: ‘The point is:’
I would also recommend changing ‘helping out the mistakes’ to: ‘helping out with the mistakes’ in order to clear up the sentence. Otherwise, I think this thread is shaping up nicely.
Aramis Ramirez' Basement
Love that last line.
westcoastwhitesox
“The Cubs would probably admit they missed the mark on Sveum” – does that mean the Cubs probably wish they wouldn’t have fired him, or that they wish they never hired him in the first place? The Cubs fans I know were pretty split on his handling of the team….I can’t imagine any manager getting good results out of the Cubs roster the past few years.
martinfv2
The Cubs wish they hadn’t hired him. I can’t really say whether he should have done more with what he was given, but the Cubs think he should have.
schaddy24
It means they wish they never hired him.
jmo mls
They should have done the stand-up thing and hired Sandberg. Dollars to doughnuts that Sandberg gets to the World Series as a manager for another team before the Cubs ever get there.
schaddy24
I agree that Sandberg would have been a much better hire. The only issue with hiring him is that if he doesn’t do a good job, it’s harder to fire him because of his past with the team. Not to mention it would cause an uproar with many fans, even if he deserved to be fired. Overall he would have been a smarter pick than Sveum.
jmo mls
If he stunk up the joint, firing him would’ve been no problem. The problem was that they told him to go down to the minors to fob him off, hoping he’d get bored and resign. Obviously he did better than anyone thought he would, yet they still stiffed him and hired Quade and THEN Sveum. Then they wonder why the franchise is cursed.
natural_light
I wish I could give that pearl of wisdom 2 thumbs up.
Jim Hendry drove Sandburg away by hiring quade and according to Sandburg himself didn’t even offer him AAA Iowa’s manager job for the coming year and told Him that he wasn’t even 2nd choice for the job. I don’t blame Ryno for leaving and I am glad that he went back to the phillys AAA team and won there. I am even more glad that he didn’t get hired as the Cardinals manager, and us cubs fans have to see him win a world series with our rivals.
natural_light
it cost the cubs their 2nd chance at Sandburg. Who in all of baseball knew the cubs minor league system better than ryno? No one! Who could possibly be better at player development than Ryno? No one that’s who. I don’t like to say this but theo and hoyer big time messed that hiring up because it may have permanently drove away the best cubs icon from the 80’s-90’s in Ryne Sandberg. I must admit that really hurt.
unclejesse40
a lot of former royals on that list of signings, yikes.
Cubsin20xx
The Royals are going to outspend the Cubs this year, so it makes sense?
raymondrobertkoenig
Excellent article.
johnsilver
It’s still hard to believer that value Epstein feels Smardzija is worth. Asking the Jays for both Strohman, Sanchez and more was outlandish. They might have been able to get one of those guys with little more added (Sanchez, not Strohman), but asking for the moon cemented them ending up with another Garza situation where they will possibly not end up getting top dollar in prospects to further rebuild for when the rest of their prospects are ready.. 2-4 years and Smaradzija will be a FA, or cost 100m to keep.
Sky14
I agree he seems to be greatly overvaluing Smardzija and leaves them open to risk either through injury or performance but the Cubs did pretty well with the Garza trade.
DarthMurph
He could conceivably be holding on to him for a deadline trade, where a contending team would be more desperate to overpay but would still be inclined to do so since he’d still have a year and a half of control. I agree that Epstein is overvaluing him, but that might be a good move.
docmilo5
That full year is huge at the deadline in that the team can keep him a full year and offer a QO and get compensation in return if he walks.
natural_light
and hope and pray shark has a monster first half plus on this coming year.
Giff
They got an amazing return for Garza.
And he’s asking for a ton because he can. The FA market was terrible and Shark us controlled for two years for fairly cheap. There’s no rush. At all. So unless a team is willing to overdo it in a trade, they have the luxury to wait.
bhambravesfan
They got some pretty good prospects for a half year of an injured Garza
natural_light
sanchez and strohman are PROSPECTS they are hyped and have proven absolutely nothing in the majors and may still be busts. Shark is hyped also but he has done some of what he was projected to do and is no bust in the majors. Some rival GM’s think that he is the real deal and will be willing to take a run at him in june/july. So spare us on how it would be a huge over pay by the Jays by trading 2+ for one good number 2 and possible ace in the making. Remember maddux glavine R Johnson verlander and several other aces didnt start out as aces they eased into that role over a few years.
Ben Zautner
If there aren’t awards given out for the kind of work you do Tim, there should be, and you should get them. Nicely done, sir.
Is this the first installment in the 13-14 Review series?
tenncub
While the Cubs fan-base may be long suffering, I would certainly stop short of calling us patient. Baez, Bryant, Olt and some of the others will probably make their initial appearances at Wrigley Field this year. When they arrive, we should already have the ace of the staff on board, but it looks doubtful that will happen. Theo has been too busy trading SP for prospects when he should have been looking for 1 very good starter to build a staff around.
daveineg
This Cub team that will start the season is actually worse than the last two. But unlike the last couple years, the team that ends the season should be better than the one that starts it.
I’m not sold on Olt, so I’d hold up on the euphoria over the Garza trade if I were a Cub fan. Bryant and Baez are the real deal. Fans are going to want to see them sooner rather than later.
jmo mls
Heard this song before. Just change the names Bryant and Baez to Bobby Hill & Hee Seop Choi. Or Corey Patterson & Julio Zuleta. Or Jerome Walton and Dwight Smith. Or Kevin Orie & Gary Scott. Or…
natural_light
the bobby hill trade worked very well for us cubs fans by netting us Aramis Ramirez. Ask the pirates how they liked bobby hill. LOL
jmo mls
True, but you can’t always rely on another team buying into your hype on your prospects.
Cubs Cubs Cubs
Terrible! I know they have a great farm system now but Pit and STL have just as good if not better farm systems. Cubs are in a big hole in their division with no end in sight. They are tanking this season and the next for high round draft picks. They have no TOR guy and can’t pick up one in FA because it looks like James Shields will be the only decent available. Plus they won’t be willing to give up a top 5 pick in the 2015 draft.
natural_light
no team is required to surrender a top 10 pick in any draft. It would be a second rounder that a team will lose.