Several months after being on the 5-yard line the two sides have agreed to a compensation package. The details were released this morning. The Cubs send Chris Carpenter and a player to be named later. The Cubs will also receive a player to be named later. That part is confusing to me. They said a player had to be sent to the Cubs since it was a trade, which makes no sense to me. Then I noticed that Randy Winn, the guy the Mariners traded to the Rays for Lou Piniella, was actually traded for another player.
You'd think at some point one of the journalists covering this epic adventure would have realized this and reported it. I don't believe any one pointed this out. I'm actually disappointed I didn't even notice it. It would have been as simple as looking at Winn's transactions:
October 28, 2002: Traded by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to the Seattle Mariners for Antonio Perez.
The official transaction between the Marlins and White Sox was this:
Florida Marlins traded RHP Jhan Marinez and SS Osvaldo Martinez to Chicago White Sox and Bristol White Sox traded RHP Ricardo Andres to Greensboro Grasshoppers.
It was as simple as looking at a couple of pages on the interwebz to realize that the Cubs would be getting something in return. It's remarkable that the journalists covering this couldn't be bothered to report this piece of information. They wrote for weeks that a deal was coming soon. It's not like they didn't have another piece of information they could share. So not only are the Cubs beat writers once again shown to be incompetent, but sportswriters in general are pretty bad at their jobs. They had 123 days to figure this out.
Comments
Now that I know how to use Google, I think I could be a good sportswriter.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Well, even while this was happening, you had Sullivan reporting an inaccurate version of the story and Rogers not even noticing that it was going on. I mean our standard for baseball writing in this town has basically become: reports news without coloring/gerrymandering the facts + gets facts straight = good column. In short we’re lauding people for fulfilling the minimum requirements necessary. Put still another way, all that is required for excellence in sportswriting in this town in doing just enough to not be terrible. Ye gods.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
Tangentially, Randy Winn and I went to the same high school. He is the most successful San Ramon Valley athletic product I know of besides Mark Madsen, which probably doesn’t say much at all (dying laughing)
Rice CubeQuote Reply
I was reading the comments from Cistulli’s Fangraphs article from earlier…this one was interesting:
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Heck, Carpenter might end up being the Sawx 5th starter given the state of the rotation. The Sawx have a few SP prospects closer than chocolaty, salty McNutts. BTW, I called this awhile back and stand by wanting this future nobody we receive to have a cool name and be in the teens.
Can he pitch? Does he have a live arm? Yes? Well, Chris “Not that guy” Carpenter is ….Shipping up to Boston.
PezcoreQuote Reply
That comment from Fangraphs stuck with me a little. I’m as prone to Theophoria as anyone, but the facts that were listed trouble me a little.
Here’s what he noted: The Bosox had the 2nd or 3rd highest payroll in MLB, the team hasn’t won a playoff game since 2008, they have several bad contracts (Matsuzaka, Lackey, and Crawford) and the Red Sox farm system is devoid of high-level prospects (not a single pitcher in BA top 100).
I would love to keep my SuperFriends™ buzz going until Ratso Rizzo and B-Jaxx are pouring champagne over each other’s heads. But is it possible they’re not quite all that?
Steve SwisherQuote Reply
@ Steve Swisher:
I don’t know. I guess every GM will have his ups and downs.
joshQuote Reply
@ Steve Swisher:
Don’t get sucked in by people using selective endpoints and milquetoast rationalizing. That Red Sox farm system that guy is taking a giant crap on produced half the Red Sox starting lineup. Theo’s Red Sox won 2 World Series. Which is two more than the Cubs have won since God lost his shoes. They were perennial contenders in the toughest division in baseball. GMs have ups and downs. They aren’t perfect. But Theo’s done two things that give me hope. He’s done his best to build a front office that (a) employs the best people he can get and (b) has as its goal the assimilation of as much information as possible on players so that they can make as informed a decision as is humanly possible.
THoyer aren’t a magic pill. But they’re the smartest move this organization has made in our lifetimes.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Whoa, whoa, whoa, wtf? What happened to DeRosa’s shoes?
AndCountingQuote Reply
@ AndCounting:
This, this is the divine mystery.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Couldn’t agree more, but will try.
A lot of selective evidence, a lot of inconvenient footage left on the cutting room there too, such as the injury apocalypse of 2010 (Youkilis missed 50 games, Pedroia missed 80+ games, Ellsbury missed 140 games…only two SP gave them 30 starts…but no, it was all Theo dumbfuckery), and the incredibly bad luck of 2011 (Pythagorean W-L has them at 94 wins, and a fairly comfortable wild card clinch–and that’s with significant injury issues in the rotation for the second year in a row).
As many here have pointed out, take any GM and scrutinize their record, and you’re going to come up with a list of bad deals that, if presented disingenuously and without proper context, make it seem like he’s not fit for the job. Take Cashman, take Friedman, take any of them, scrutinize their every move and overemphasize the bad ones, and they’ll look like dogshit.
Smokestack LightningQuote Reply
@ Smokestack Lightning:
And even bad GM’s make good moves once in a while. Note that Hendry managed to resurrect Dempster from the dumpster and Ted Lilly was a pretty good signing.
FrankSQuote Reply
What the hell are they going to do with Soriano? Are they leaving that up to Sveum? Tell me someone has a plan to minimize the damage.
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
If he’s not being traded, then it is up to Sveum – why wouldn’t it be?
At least until the end of ST.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ josh:
He’ll have a mysterious boaking accident before Opening Day.
MishQuote Reply
From the Sam Fuld rule change article:
This seems like a weird rule change. Why have the player’s agent do it? Maybe they feel like the PR employee wasn’t fighting as hard for the player as they would or they are looking for another purpose. And what what if the player doesn’t have an agent?
WaLiQuote Reply
Steve Swisher wrote:
Same here. When I read that I couldn’t think of anything that I would have said in response other than I agree.
mb21Quote Reply
Smokestack Lightning wrote:
Exactly. We’ve said it many times. Thoyer are going to make bad decisions. They’ll make decisions that straddle this club with a financial commitment that hurts the organization for several years. That’s inevitable. It’s not a matter of if they sign an Alfonso Soriano, but when. You’d like to think that will be offset by many other good things.
mb21Quote Reply
@ FrankS:
It’s like Theo said early on. The good GMs are right 55% of the time. There will be a lot of bad decisions just like Starlin Castro is going to make a lot of errors. Castro will offset that by doing many other things well. Hopefully this front office will.
mb21Quote Reply
josh wrote:
The fact that Hoyer said Soriano is going to break camp with the team lends me to believe that he will be released (dying laughing)
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
That guy is more or less right re: valuation of Theo, though he’s forgetting that Carpenter is a relief pitcher that has an injury history and even over 6 years could easily not be worth so much as 1 WAR.
As for the rest, just (dying laughing). We can ignore Ellsbury, Pedroia, Youkilis (sort of), Lester, Bucholz, etc. because they’re not prospects anymore. Just all-stars (dying laughing).
BerseliusQuote Reply
WaLi wrote:
It seems kind of trivial, but I’m guessing it makes sure scoring changes are less arbitrary (e.g. the scorer is buddies with the player). It could be worth money to the players if they have clauses in their contracts. Too bad they can’t do the same for throwaway MVP votes and the like.
BerseliusQuote Reply
mb21 wrote:
Like raping women, for example. It all balances out in the end.
fang2415Quote Reply
@ Berselius:
Didn’t an earlier post show that he wasn’t even particularly effective against lefties last season? Just let him hit leadoff until his hammies blow and he can spend the rest of the season on the DL.
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
He OPSed .812 against LHP. I wouldn’t release him. If you have to pay the contract, you might as well get all you can out of it. He still hits for power. At the minimum, he can platoon in LF.
MuckerQuote Reply
Berselius wrote:
That’s because of the draft picks, as well as the money spent on amateur talent. Looking at that list sounds a lot more impressive than it really is. Without the ability to add as many draft picks as he did with Boston there is no chance the Cubs are going to produce similar talent while he’s in Chicago. I think the one thing Theo adds to this organization is a progressive mindset and I’d trade a lot more than Chris Carpenter for that.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
At the least they should have earlier picks in each round for the first few years so that’ll give them a bit of a head start. Plus (hopefully) improved scouting.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
New Tigers catchphrase!
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Plus (hopefully) something that resembles a player development strategy that is consistent from rookie ball to the majors.
I’m tired of batters that have no idea about situational hitting and can’t run the bases to save their lives/jobs. I’m pretty sure Michael Barrett was in charge of the organization’s in-game strategy component of player development for the last 6 years or so. Oh, and first ball strikes from pitchers, that would be good to see. If the Cubs increase first ball strikes by 10% this year, I’ll consider the season a success, even if we lose 95 games.
SkipVBQuote Reply
Rice Cube wrote:
Yeah, the early picks will help and so will the scouting.
mb21Quote Reply
My point is that the Cubs aren’t going to have 23 draft 1st round draft picks over the next 9 years. They won’t have 60+ picks in the 1st 5 rounds either. They’ll probably have 10 1st round draft picks, which was equal to what the Cubs had over the same period. I expect they will have more 1st through 5th round picks though.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
Still, we’ve got a team that’s smart enough to do things similar to piling up draft picks. Not to mention that all of those top prospects actually developed, while anyone who comes up in the Cubs system (Geo, Castro) seems to do it despite the team (dying laughing)
BerseliusQuote Reply
I don’t mean to be a heretic (burn him at the stake! Dying laughing!), but I think there are some valid concerns about Theo’s reign in Boston. That said, if Papelbon doesn’t blow two saves to the friggin’ Orioles in one week, the whole Red-Sox-pitchers-eating-fried-chicken-in-the-clubhouse thing is a cute anecdote showing how down-to-earth the team is, Theo is still in Boston, Francona is still the manager, and someone else is the Cubs’ GM.
Also, people point to Matsuzaka as a bust — he was pretty solid his first two years before injuries diminished him. And who could have foreseen Carl Crawford would spend the whole season doing a infallible Alfonso Soriano imitation?
The bottom line is, Epstein is a quantum leap forward for this team. As everyone’s favorite scribe Paul Sullivan put it, going from Hendry to the SuperFriends™ is like going from a rotary phone to an iPhone. There is now A Plan in place, which was something the team basically never had before. So please, forgive my lapse in faith. Epstein may not be infallible, and I’m sure there is a backlash coming one of these days. But whatever happens, the Cubs are now a legitimate Major League Baseball team, and that’s pretty effin’ exciting. Amen.
Steve SwisherQuote Reply
Nice lookin’ pooch, SK.
GBTSQuote Reply
mb21 wrote:
Just to reopen this whole argument, I love that the Cubs acquired a proven commodity like Theo and he’s worth what they’re paying him, but don’t think he’s unique in the ability to provide the progressive viewpoint. He’s getting $3m/yr which is only 2/3 of a win or so.
BerseliusQuote Reply
Steve Swisher wrote:
*cough*
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
How are they going to pile up draft picks? This next offseason Dempster is a free agent. There’s no way they’re going to offer him the mandatory contract that would allow them to get draft picks. And if they did, Dempster would probably sign it anyway. The same goes for Marlon Byrd and Reed Johnson. The Cubs only 3 free agents next year aren’t going to bring any extra picks. The Cubs will have 5 picks in the first 5 rounds in 2013. The following year you have Maholm, DeJesus and Marmol and none of them will be good enough to get that guaranteed one year contract offer. Soto will also be a free agent and it’s difficult seeing that happen, but if he has a good couple years it’s possible. Garza is a possibility, but I expect he’ll be traded or signed to an extension so that’s 5 picks in the first 5 rounds in 2014. Over the next 3 drafts the Cubs will have 17 picks in the first 5 rounds.
mb21Quote Reply
Steve Swisher wrote:
Agreed.
mb21Quote Reply
Berselius wrote:
I think he makes $5 million, but I know what you’re saying. I don’t think the value per win holds for managers and GMs.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
I thought there was a provision in the new CBA that allows pseudo-trading of draft pick, or maybe it was for the slot payments and not the draft picks themselves. I’d have to re-read it. It definitely won’t be as easy as trading for a dude in season and then jettisoning him to snag a sandwich pick.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ mb21:
My point is not that they’re going to pile up draft picks, just that they were smart enough to do so when they were able to do so, and the previous Cubs regime was not. I also don’t see Thoyer drafting guys like Colvin, Ryan Harvey, or Ryan Flaherty, not to mention that guys they do draft having a better shot of developing into something worth a damn.
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
The other thing is that the Red Sox already had a lot of talent at the MLB level. They let some of it walk for draft picks. The Cubs have little to no talent at the MLB level and those who are certainly aren’t worth the guaranteed offer a team must give if they want compensation.
mb21Quote Reply
(dying laughing), going through the Cubs first round picks it mentions what players they lost to get draft pick compensation. The Cubs got sandwich round picks for Todd Van Poppel and Jason Kendall (dying laughing) (dying laughing) (dying laughing). And lost a first round pick for signing LaTroy Hawkins.
BerseliusQuote Reply
Berselius wrote:
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. The mandate for Hendry was a little different than it is for Theo or was for him in Boston.
mb21Quote Reply
@ Mucker:
All right. I was thinking platooning was his best bet. The cubs don’t have a lot of power and those 25 homeruns he hit last season could easily lead the team this season.
joshQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
It’s a tribute to his master.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ mb21:
Part of the long term plan may well end up being developing guys like Castro and BJax to get 2-3 high quality prospects back in return. The system is in bad shape, no doubt. But the spending limits are not just on the Cubs but on everyone. Shouldn’t that have something of an equalizing effect? How are the Yankees going to outperform the Cubs in the draft with these new rules? Although, the Yanks may still have something of an edge in the free-agent market.
Perhaps the on-field decisions end up being more important than the drafts and amateur signings. All things being equal in terms of talent, the team that understands when to use certain tactics to leverage the scoring opportunity the best should come out ahead in the long run. Either way, I think the team is in a better position to improve.
joshQuote Reply
Video of the Cubs’ bunting drill:
(let’s try that again with the right link)
http://news.yahoo.com/video/chicagocbs2-15750637/sveum-holds-bunting-contest-at-cubs-spring-training-28383957.html
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Uh……
Metahumor?
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
yeah, everyone is on more equal footing now regarding amateur talent, but the quick turnaround a large market team was capable of before is more than likely not possible. The Cubs and Yankees will have to build their farm system in the same ways that the Astros, Twins and Cardinals do. The big advantage over the next few years is to teams who have impending free agents worth offering arbitration to.
mb21Quote Reply
@ josh:
The video auto-switched to the next one when I copied so I had to backtrack to get the right link. My bad.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Ah!
I don’t mind a bunting contest. Sometimes pitchers need to bunt. It’s like free throws. Not the most exciting part of the game, but necessary, and at least do it right. If this helps the team from overall embarrassing itself, I’m for it.
joshQuote Reply
josh wrote:
So we’ll solve the Soriano defense and potentially thin bullpen issues with a strategy like Whitey used? Put in RP1 with good stats against the RH (or LH) batter coming up. After that batter, pull weak defending OF (RF or LF) and put RP1 in OF, bring RP2 in with opposite splits to face next other-handed batter. Repeat as necessary. Shift RF, LF, RP1, RP2, as needed.
If we start seeing more attention to shagging flies in addition to bunting drills…..
SkipVBQuote Reply
@ mb21:
I agree there. They are in a spot where they need some leverage and have none. Perhaps they can find some opportunities to exploit the system in ways we haven’t yet thought of.
joshQuote Reply
@ SkipVB:
No, I mean following strategies like in the Book. I’m not saying it’s a huge advantage, but if the playing field is leveled over the course of the next few years, in terms of talent, then implementing better on-field strategy could become more important. Of course, once everyone catches on, your edge is lost, so it probably won’t mean much.
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
I think I like how the point system is set up. I can’t tell where the “100 point circle” is from that photo but it seems like they’re trying to teach the guys how to bunt to a position where they make it harder for the ball to be fielded quickly, or force the corner guys to charge it since the pitcher and catcher will be out of position.
I hope Tony Campana wins the competition.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ SkipVB:
@ josh:
I think the strategy Skip talked about was actually outlined in The Book. It was also a play I recently enjoyed from Sweet Lou.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
I remember that game. Lou was engaged in those days.
Honestly, having Marshall (or now James Russell) in LF in late innings can’t be worse than Sori being there. I think this is a smart move by the manager and I’m surprised we don’t see it more.
I don’t think Marshall could have made the catch Reed made though, but I know Soriano wouldn’t have made it.
SkipVBQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
There was this one, too. I like the look on Carlos Lee’s face, like “WTF, really?!”
There was also this one but that was necessitated by a short bench in extras so not really a reliever usage strategy. But Oswalt did record a putout and that was cool.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Palm ——-> Face
http://obstructedview.net/news-and-rumors/daily-facepalm-2-22-12.html
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
You want to make the pitcher field it if possible, but on the line. Halfway between the 3B and C on the line, maybe a little closer to the C since he gets a slower start than the 3B.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Rice Cube wrote:
I’ll be surprised. He struck me as a terrible bunter last year.
Aisle424Quote Reply