2020 Chicago Cubs Offseason Thread

[ILMindState]

You guys have some wild expectations. If Darvish wasn’t a great signing then who is?

[Stratos]

You guys are nuts if you don’t think it was a fantastic signing.

He got hurt in 2018. Over the next 2 years he was healthy and he was worth far more than he was paid. Over the last year and a half he’s been one of the very best pitchers in all of baseball.

We had him for 3 seasons. For the last 1.5 seasons he was one of the best pitchers in baseball I agree. For the first 1.5 seasons he was horrendous and essentially had no value. Which is why I say the signing was decent. You can't be garbage for half of the time you spent on the team and still be called a "fantastic signing". This is a case of "what have you done for me lately".

Some of the prospects we got for him might turn into something, but the fact remains they're lottery tickets. We traded one of the elite pitchers in baseball for a #133 ranked prospect and some guys that didn't crack the Padres top 10. We didn't get any baseball players just a bag of tools that might turn into baseball players, or might not.

Anyways, we can agree to disagree.

[CP_414]

You guys have some wild expectations. If Darvish wasn’t a great signing then who is?

Jon Lester earned 16.6 fWAR as a Cub. Using $8 million per win that amounts to $132.8 million in value. The Cubs paid him about $145 million. I guess that signing wasn’t a home run either.

[cuzi]

You guys have some wild expectations. If Darvish wasn’t a great signing then who is?

Ben Zobrist was paid about $20M less than he was worth during his time on the Cubs. That was a pretty great signing that led to the Cubs winning a WS. Jon Lester was about a wash in terms of value, but at his peak his was a pivotal part to the Cubs winning a WS. That was a pretty great signing.

The reality is that these big long contracts are very hard to be "great" value because you are paying for the peak years and dealing with the regression later. If you don't win anything during the peak years it's hard to be great and the Cubs won 0 playoff games with Darvish on the roster. The best year the Cubs had when Darvish was on the team, Darvish was on the IL.

Looking at other teams around the league, Max Scherzer was an absolutely disgusting signing.

[Sofnr]

The Cubs in 2018 had to evaluate which pitcher on the market was likely to be the best going forward. I'd definitely say they made the best choice. Yu Darvish entering year 4 of his contract is arguably better then he's ever been, and top 5 in the league. Guy is one of the smartest pitchers in baseball. Barring injury i expect he'll continue to thrive. Pitchers get injured. There is no preventing that. It's too bad it cost us a whole year of Darvish. But he's an absolute stud when healthy. I'd say the Cubs made a pretty great evaluation when they handed out that contract. Many in here wanted Jake back on similar terms. Imagine having 3 more years left of Arrieta.

[chibears55]

https://twitter.com/BleacherNation/s...806115329?s=19

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[JHBulls]

Jon Lester earned 16.6 fWAR as a Cub. Using $8 million per win that amounts to $132.8 million in value. The Cubs paid him about $145 million. I guess that signing wasn’t a home run either.

Mike Trout’s is fascinating. Between his career earnings to date and his upcoming money, his career earnings will be $485M through 2030. Using the $8 million per war, he has been worth $605M through 2020, includes two abbreviated professional seasons. I know that is the opposite to your post but wow.

[CP_414]

We had him for 3 seasons. For the last 1.5 seasons he was one of the best pitchers in baseball I agree. For the first 1.5 seasons he was horrendous and essentially had no value. Which is why I say the signing was decent. You can't be garbage for half of the time you spent on the team and still be called a "fantastic signing". This is a case of "what have you done for me lately".

Some of the prospects we got for him might turn into something, but the fact remains they're lottery tickets. We traded one of the elite pitchers in baseball for a #133 ranked prospect and some guys that didn't crack the Padres top 10. We didn't get any baseball players just a bag of tools that might turn into baseball players, or might not.

Anyways, we can agree to disagree.

You are welcome to be wrong, but it’s still wrong.
In this post you refer to him as “one of the elite pitchers in baseball.” 3 years into the deal he’s one of the elite pitchers in baseball and he’s bringing back high upside prospects and you don’t think it was a fantastic signing? Lol.

I’m sorry that a 17 year old 50 FV prospect showing up on a list of top prospects in baseball doesn’t do it for you. A list that includes 30+ guys who already made it to MLB and who will soon graduate from prospect status. If you are on that list at 17 you have a chance to be in the top 10 at 20. That’s a significant upside prospect. The Padres had a great farm system.

Regardless, the signing was an easy home run. If you get high quality performance and you leave the deal with the player having surplus value then it was a great deal. Obviously.

[cuzi]

Mike Trout’s is fascinating. Between his career earnings to date and his upcoming money, his career earnings will be $485M through 2030. Using the $8 million per war, he has been worth $605M through 2020, includes two abbreviated professional seasons. I know that is the opposite to your post but wow.

Ronald Acuna is going to be another fun contract to watch. The Braves signed him to 8/$100M. In his roughly 2 full seasons worth of playing time he's already been worth $93M+.

It's not totally fair to include these contracts though because they are watered down by buying out pre-arb and arb years so their salary doesn't have the potential to match their field value.

[cuzi]

The Cubs in 2018 had to evaluate which pitcher on the market was likely to be the best going forward. I'd definitely say they made the best choice. Yu Darvish entering year 4 of his contract is arguably better then he's ever been, and top 5 in the league. Guy is one of the smartest pitchers in baseball. Barring injury i expect he'll continue to thrive. Pitchers get injured. There is no preventing that. It's too bad it cost us a whole year of Darvish. But he's an absolute stud when healthy. I'd say the Cubs made a pretty great evaluation when they handed out that contract. Many in here wanted Jake back on similar terms. Imagine having 3 more years left of Arrieta.

In hindsight, based on WAR, that pitcher was Mike Minor.

[Stratos]

The Cubs in 2018 had to evaluate which pitcher on the market was likely to be the best going forward. I'd definitely say they made the best choice. Yu Darvish entering year 4 of his contract is arguably better then he's ever been, and top 5 in the league.

Which would be relevant to the Cubs if he was actually playing for us for the next 3 years or we got a return that was near matching his value as an MLB player.

Everyone was PO'd about that trade return when it happened and now suddenly it's a good return. I don't get it. Some kid who has never played a game of pro ball or college ball and can't even vote let alone hit a curveball vs one of the best pitchers in the MLB. Which would you rather have?

[1908_Cubs]

Which would be relevant to the Cubs if he was actually playing for us for the next 3 years or we got a return that was near matching his value as an MLB player.

Everyone was PO'd about that trade return when it happened and now suddenly it's a good return. I don't get it. Some kid who has never played a game of pro ball or college ball and can't even vote let alone hit a curveball vs one of the best pitchers in the MLB. Which would you rather have?

This a pretty horrible misunderstanding of both the return the Cubs have gotten (which, my god I've tried to explain 100 times now), but also a complete misunderstanding of trades.

Who would you rather have? A former all-star SP just a few months removed from a 3.4 fWAR season or some 18 year old prospect who's only played 50 games and has put up a 103 wRC+ ? Whoopsies, you just took James Shields instead of Fernando Tatis Jr! We can play this game for very MLB for MiLB talent trade.

Yes, as of today, I would rather have Yu Darvish. Yes, it sucks the Cubs had to stoop so low as to trade the man to clear salary. The Cubs should have kept him and won the division. But Moneybags Ricketts had a bad year and Darvish had to go. Take the frustration out. The trade isn't "Who do I want in 2021?" it's "Did the Cubs get fair value for Darvish". The answer is; pretty much. It wasn't just Preciado, he's just the highest rated player today. All four players the Cubs got back are high upside players. All four do contain risk. The combined surplus value is probably a bit under the remaining surplus value of Darvish, however, with the economics of baseball right now, prospects are holding added value, while money left on contracts is holding less.

We can both be upset the Cubs dealt Darvish, but also intelligent enough to not whittle trades down to obtuse levels of "Who would you rather have a 17 year old or Darvish?" It takes literally all of the nuisance of the trade out. I know I wish the the Cubs had kept Darvish. But moving on from that, I can also identify the players the Cubs got back are good players and we should be quite excited about their futures.

[Stratos]

In this post you refer to him as “one of the elite pitchers in baseball.” 3 years into the deal he’s one of the elite pitchers in baseball and he’s bringing back high upside prospects and you don’t think it was a fantastic signing? Lol.

He's an elite pitcher now and could be in the next 3 years, this is totally irrelevant to the Cubs, it doesn't help them win a single game. The only thing that matters from the Cubs perspective of the signing is what he's done as a Cub and what he brought in the trade.

Darvish sucking in 2018 cost the Cubs a division title and a spot in the Division Series. Him sucking the first half of 2019 helped the Cub miss the playoffs that year.

I think the contract that was signed by Theo was a very good contract and Hoyer/Ricketts chucked it down the river for the Padres to get the most out of it. That's not Theo's fault so that part shouldn't count against him, so maybe looking at it that way we agree. What i'm saying is what the Cubs actually got out of the contract was decent to good at best and not "a homerun".

Preciado is like getting a raw high school draft pick with tools and little experience, not sure where he'd fall in the Draft maybe late 1st rnd at very best or 2nd round? MLB.com has him as our #10 prospect. If Corey Patterson could flame out then I don't get too excited for these guys until they prove something in pro ball.

[1908_Cubs]

He's an elite pitcher now and could be in the next 3 years, this is totally irrelevant to the Cubs, it doesn't help them win a single game. The only thing that matters from the Cubs perspective of the signing is what he's done as a Cub and what he brought in the trade.

Darvish sucking in 2018 cost the Cubs a division title and a spot in the Division Series. Him sucking the first half of 2019 helped the Cub miss the playoffs that year.

I think the contract that was signed by Theo was a very good contract and Hoyer/Ricketts chucked it down the river for the Padres to get the most out of it. That's not Theo's fault so that part shouldn't count against him, so maybe looking at it that way we agree. What i'm saying is what the Cubs actually got out of the contract was decent to good at best and not "a homerun".

Preciado is like getting a raw high school draft pick with tools and little experience, not sure where he'd fall in the Draft maybe late 1st rnd at very best or 2nd round? MLB.com has him as our #10 prospect. If Corey Patterson could flame out then I don't get too excited for these guys until they prove something in pro ball.

Preciado is too young to have been in a draft if he wasn't an IFA player. He's not 18 yet. His "draft year" would be this summer. He was 17 and being invited to Arizona for fall instructs with SD. He held his own generally speaking despite going against much older players. If he does anything even at an average offensive level at low-A through June, I think it'd be fair to say that he'd be as high of a pick as a top-15, possibly top-10 type of a pick. but it's hard to say; IFA kids from Panama have far less scouting on them than a 16 year old in travel ball in Florida. With that said, I think you could easily put him in the top tier of prep bats. He's got a major body, he's clean from both sides of the plate, has a chance to stick at SS (though think it's more of a 3b due to his size). It's hard to say exactly where he'd go. But he's the kind of prospect that could be a safe "top-20" in the entire league by the end of 2022. That's all that really matters.

[cuzi]

He's an elite pitcher now and could be in the next 3 years, this is totally irrelevant to the Cubs, it doesn't help them win a single game. The only thing that matters from the Cubs perspective of the signing is what he's done as a Cub and what he brought in the trade.

Darvish sucking in 2018 cost the Cubs a division title and a spot in the Division Series. Him sucking the first half of 2019 helped the Cub miss the playoffs that year.

I think the contract that was signed by Theo was a very good contract and Hoyer/Ricketts chucked it down the river for the Padres to get the most out of it. That's not Theo's fault so that part shouldn't count against him, so maybe looking at it that way we agree. What i'm saying is what the Cubs actually got out of the contract was decent to good at best and not "a homerun".

Preciado is like getting a raw high school draft pick with tools and little experience, not sure where he'd fall in the Draft maybe late 1st rnd at very best or 2nd round? MLB.com has him as our #10 prospect. If Corey Patterson could flame out then I don't get too excited for these guys until they prove something in pro ball.

Eddy Julio Martinez was going to be the next Andruw Jones and hes basically not existed since playing professional baseball and will more than likely never reach the majors.