Cubs owner Tom Ricketts said that there’s been progress in extension talks with president of baseball operations Theo Epstein, Jesse Rogers of ESPNChicago.com reports on Twitter. While the sides aren’t setting any expectations for when a deal could be finalized, Ricketts gave the impression that one could be close. As has been widely expected for some time, Epstein is in line to overtake the Dodgers’ Andrew Friedman as the game’s highest-paid executive, Bruce Levine of 670thescore.com adds on Twitter.
Here’s more from the National League …
- The Padres are hoping that Rule 5 picks Jabari Blash and Luis Perdomo can justify their roster spots not only with their long-term upside, but also their immediate contributions, AJ Cassavell of MLB.com writes. Blash looks to be the more MLB-ready of the two, notes Cassavell, with the 22-year-old Perdomo showing plenty of talent but also a lack of polish. It looks like it’ll be an uphill battle for the young righty to stick all year after a tough spring and rough handling by the Dodgers late in today’s blowout loss.
- Padres GM A.J. Preller says he’s hoping to find a way to keep Rule 5 righty Josh Martin even after designating him for assignment yesterday, Cassavell tweets. By waiting to put him in DFA limbo, rather than utilizing outright waivers, San Diego has ten days to work out a deal with the Indians to retain Martin’s rights — assuming he isn’t ultimately claimed by another organization.
- Losing A.J. Pollock for what could be a huge chunk of the 2016 season puts the Diamondbacks in a significant hole, Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs explains. What had been a promising outfield mix, led by Pollock, now appears to have significant issues up the middle and in left, as Socrates Brito and Chris Owings — along with, perhaps, some outside help — figure to share time in center while putting even more pressure on Yasmany Tomas. It’s obviously always rough for a team to lose a player who’s expected to be a major contributor, but Sullivan explains that Arizona was already a mostly-borderline contender before losing one of the game’s best outfielders.
- The Rockies have received positive returns on Jon Gray‘s efforts to work through an ab injury, MLB.com’s Thomas Harding reports. After a lengthy live-BP session, Gray appears ready to make a minor league rehab appearance and also feels he may have discovered an important mechanical adjustment. Colorado is hoping for big things from the 24-year-old, and it is certainly good news that it seems he’ll soon be ready to join the MLB staff.
Tell D’Back fans that losing Pollack is an issue, not many that comment here believe so.
It’s not just an issue. It takes the team from fringe contender to lucky to be .500, after a winter full of win-now thinking and future-mortgaging. It is about as damaging as any injury in 2016 could be.
Depending on how Owings hits it’s not an issue at Chase. It is an issue in the NL West and spacious ballparks. Now Brito and Thomas have to both step up. Although strangely this solidifies there inf defense. Pollock is a huge loss and people don’t really understand how big that loss is.
By people, I think you really have about one or two in mind. As a D-Back fan, I can assure you that most people realize that losing AJ is a huge blow. It’s not as if I’m giving up on the season or anything, they still have an underrated lineup and one of the game’s three best overall position players, to go along with an improved pitching staff (not putting much stock into Greinke’s bad start today), but assuming that Brito or CO can just replace Pollock no problem is clearly incorrect, and it puts a serious blow to any playoff chances they have
That was too general a statement. I was referring to a lot of commentators on this site. No one should put stock in Grienke’s performance. He was just simply up and Col took full advantage of it. Goldschmidt is still the staple in that lineup and so is Peralta. Offensively if Thomas and Brito can perform somewhat they can somewhat absorb that loss. Defensively is what I was referring to. It just makes the staff’s standard for error a little less. The West is going to be extremely interesting this year.
Aff10, my apologies. Yes it was intended to a select few, by no means all. That characterization was similar to someone calling out all Red Sox fans based on the opinion of bigpapi4ever. Again my apologies if you feel I lumped you into that category. Every fan base has their few, hell I might be in mine as a Braves fan. I hate you all lost Pollack, as a Braves fam I was hoping to see how both Pollack and Inciarte did this year for simple comparisons.
Have a good day baseball fans, glad the season is back.
No need to apologize Gogerty. I wasn’t offended or anything, just felt like I had to set the record straight there that it’s certainly not all of us saying “Pollock’s the best player you’ve never heard of, but we can replace easily with two more guys you’ve never heard of.” It’s undoubtedly a serious blow
There’s always going to be a subset of fans that buys into the FO’s philosophy. Unfortunately the Dbacks have had one of the worst in baseball for some time now. It doesn’t seem to matter how poorly they do either, it just keeps happening.
Thank you Fangraphs.
All teams have injuries. Some worse then others. Meanwhile as people here rap the DBacks front office and their fans, they conveniently overlook the fact that the “don’t know what they’re doing” front office have assembled a slew of quality young players and have as much position depth as any team in MLB. I loved watching 23 year-old Brandon Drury during spring training. He ended with a line of – .389 average (28 for 72) with 10 doubles, one triple and four homers. His minor league numbers show this is no fluke. Lamb is fine at 3B, so Drury is learning LF and RF. At some point this season I see him playing RF, with Peralta moving over to CF if Brito (another good-looking young player) doesn’t take over CF full-time.
The Royals won the WS last year in spite of Alex Gordon missing almost 3 months, and their closer – Holland – blowing games throughout August until the medical staff were able to pinpoint and injury, and he was shut down in late August (I’m sure Fangraphs had a lot of articles there as well – they don’t like the Royals front office either). They had other injuries, as well as a number of players that had bad seasons. All teams do each season.
Um, teams don’t just move good players into being fourth outfielders. Drury hasn’t ever been considered to be much of a prospect, and spring training stats don’t mean anything at all.
Jeez the Padres got destroyed! What a way to start the season. Maybe Blash or someone will end up being a nice surprise on what looks to be a long season to come.
Epstein really is a good GM and surrounds himself with young/brilliant minds, but he can and will get carried away with some deals and hope he doesn’t do that in Cubbie land like he did late in his tenure with Boston. Crawford was an example of that, just as Zobrist is now. Giving Heyward so much, with an early opt out if he ever does reach those mile high expectations that he’s never done so far are examples.. Then he can do the opposite and sign the key, lower FA people in brilliant moves.. Such as Lackey like he just did.
I’d like to see the Cubs with a chance to win also, but not surrounded by bad contracts in a couple of years also and Epstein at fault for them by forcing the issue.
Any great gm will have bad contracts on their resume. You can bash him for Edwin jackson or praise him for cashner for Rizzo, skark for Russell McKinney . Drafting Schwarber and Bryant. Feldman for Arrieta and strop. If gm signs Harper for 400 mil all fans will praise but if he bats .220 same fans will boo him and say can’t believe he did that. Win some lose some but have to be aggressive or set back and watch all great players go elsewhere . I judge him by the new culture of Cubs. Cards players come here to make less, fowler comes back to make less. Everyone wants to come to Cubs not jump off a sinking ship like before theo came.
I don’t see either the Zobrist, or Heyward contracts as “getting carried away”.
When you consider their other available offers, and the insane amount of money other FA’s were getting this winter, I believe both were quite reasonable.
You also have to figure in what the team needed. Improved outfield defense, and high OBP contact hitters to get on ahead of the power. They got exactly that with Heyward and Zobrist.
Theo Epstein is an extremely bright front office executive. Much of his genius lies in taking jobs with large market teams so that the mistakes he makes in giving out large contracts can be absorbed. Rest assured he would never consider a position with teams such as the Brewers, Reds, Twins, Pirates, etc. And it is no coincidence that he overpaid 2 free agents from his top rivals – the Cardinals – to come over and play for his Cubs. The Cardinals could not match those contracts as they cannot afford to eat the money at the end of them. The large-market Cubs have no problem with that.
I understand your thinking on small/large market. But Cardinals are 7th on Forbes list of team valuations, only two spots behind the Cubs. St. Louis very well could have afforded the contracts that the Cubs handed out, they simply chose not to. Also, if rumor is true as publicly stated, Heyward chose Cubs over more money from Cards and Nationals. Now with Rams out of town, St. Louis is down to baseball and hockey.
The Cardinals offered a larger overall value and would have been paying Heyward 20 million for 10 years, as opposed to the Cubs paying 23 for 8. They pay him more annually to dedicate less time to him, and could dedicate even less if he chooses to opt out. The Cardinals not only could afford it, they offered more (overall money wise) and considering the other offers, Theo didn’t over pay for Zobrist or Heyward. Just like they didn’t offer the highest bid to David Price, they didn’t offer the highest bid to Zobrist or Heyward, both players would have been paid a little more handsomely with other teams.
Let’s see how Lackey performs this year before we call that a “brilliant move.” Ha.