MLB: 2020 Chicago Cubs Season Thread

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CYdTracked

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Mar 23, 2006
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Great article on how Contreras has improved his framing through a lot of hard work in the off-season. Perhaps having a catcher as a manager has something to do with it.


His last manager was a catcher too. Granted he played in a different era but still...
 

JP4CY

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As a die hard, it's sad that I agree with the KB takes. 3,4 years ago, I never thought I would.
 

ISUCubswin

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In all seriousness, my hope is that these guys have all played themselves to affordable contracts for us.

I’m comfortable with saving some money next year with our SP and throwing Mills and Alzolay in the rotation and working out a deal with the core.

Rizzo becomes a free agent his age 32 season, so he isn’t going to get a ridiculous offer.

Bryant is not a top 5 third basemen, so he isn’t going to get the elite offer he believes he deserves.

Baez has had one year where he was a top 20 position player in the NL

Schwarber in general shouldn’t be expensive
 

enisthemenace

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In all seriousness, my hope is that these guys have all played themselves to affordable contracts for us.

I’m comfortable with saving some money next year with our SP and throwing Mills and Alzolay in the rotation and working out a deal with the core.

Rizzo becomes a free agent his age 32 season, so he isn’t going to get a ridiculous offer.

Bryant is not a top 5 third basemen, so he isn’t going to get the elite offer he believes he deserves.

Baez has had one year where he was a top 20 position player in the NL

Schwarber in general shouldn’t be expensive

I really like Schwarber, from a personality perspective. Seems like a great dude. That said, I was hoping they would try to trade him to an AL team 3 years ago, and I still think they should have every day (hyperbole, but you get it). His trade value was never going to be as high as it was then.
 

Clonefan32

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Nov 19, 2008
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I really like Schwarber, from a personality perspective. Seems like a great dude. That said, I was hoping they would try to trade him to an AL team 3 years ago, and I still think they should have every day (hyperbole, but you get it). His trade value was never going to be as high as it was then.

This can be said for about 75% of the team. Long-story-short, they held on way too many guys who have driven their value to ****. As was mentioned before, the only hope coming from that is they've driven down their value to a point they can be kept and hopefully turn it around.
 
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chuckd4735

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I'm sure the White Sox would like nothing more to beat the Cubs and cost the Cubs the Division this weekend.

They wont get a chance. The division should be wrapped up by Thursday. If its not, the Cardinals and Brewers playing each other and the Reds playing the Twins this weekend doesn't help those teams too much.
 

CYdTracked

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In all seriousness, my hope is that these guys have all played themselves to affordable contracts for us.

I’m comfortable with saving some money next year with our SP and throwing Mills and Alzolay in the rotation and working out a deal with the core.

Rizzo becomes a free agent his age 32 season, so he isn’t going to get a ridiculous offer.

Bryant is not a top 5 third basemen, so he isn’t going to get the elite offer he believes he deserves.

Baez has had one year where he was a top 20 position player in the NL

Schwarber in general shouldn’t be expensive

Define affordable because I haven't seen anything in the past 2 or 3 seasons from some of these guys to want to lock them into anything too long term. Rizzo and Baez are the 2 guys I would feel OK with doing that but I don't see a scenario where KB stays since he is a Boras client and if the Cubs don't pony up a big deal for him Boras has a history of finding deals for his clients with other teams even if it means waiting until the last minute. He's not going to get the big payday he was hoping for without a good 2021 season but Boras doesn't have affordable and home team discounts in his vocabulary. I wish they had traded both him and Schwarber when they had more value and interest in them. Based on recent production you have to weigh if going out and signing or trading for someone with similar financial terms is a better fit. I think Rizzo can probably be affordable but Baez probably not so much and there will be teams that would pay well for Baez I bet.

As for pitching I think they have to at least find 1 SP this offseason. Hendricks, Darvish, and Mills are the only 3 in the rotation under team control after this season unless you pick up the $25 mil option on Lester. They may still try to work a deal with Lester regardless but I don't think there is enough depth in the system right now to not go out and acquire some kind of veteran guy that can eat up some productive innings in the back end of the rotation.
 

chuckd4735

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Also, if the season ended today six of the nine teams we played this season would be in the playoffs.
 

Clark

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This can be said for about 75% of the team. Long-story-short, they held on way too many guys who have driven their value to ****. As was mentioned before, the only hope coming from that is they've driven down their value to a point they can be kept and hopefully turn it around.

Theo called the offense broken like two or three years ago and didn't do a single ******* thing to fix it (and in fact has made it worse each offseason since)

We're going to need a good amount of luck in the postseason to advance very far.
 
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Clonefan32

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Theo called the offense broken like two or three years ago and didn't do a single ******* thing to fix it (and in fact has made it worse each offseason since)

We're going to need a good amount of luck in the postseason to advance very far.

Just have to hope Yu and Kyle are hot and the bats can do just enough.
 

VeloClone

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I'm sure the White Sox would like nothing more to beat the Cubs and cost the Cubs the Division this weekend.
With the Twins breathing down their necks they have plenty of incentive to keep their foot on the gas. Destroying the Cubs' chances would just be icing.
 

BigJCy

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Apr 11, 2006
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1 run again tonight and now 2 straight losses to the worst team record wise in the League.