I mean, he’s not wrong. The mega deal for a top of the line starter didn’t really materialize anywhere.
You can make up for it by extending Tucker. That is, if you care so much about the future.
Not getting Kelly could prove to be damning. We need contributions towards the end of the year from Caissie, Ballesteros, and maybe even Wiggins. I’d like to start seeing Caissie get some shared time with Happ.
Owen Caissie was being floated for Mitch Keller and Matt Shaw for Gore.
So, yeah, I’d say the market was nuts. Cubs needed a top of the rotation guy in a bad market for one.
Rangers gave up their #5, #9, and #13 prospects for Merrill Kelly so the asking prices were pretty high.
Maybe if they raise beer prices to 40$ a beer they can extend Tucker
I would argue that the best time to make a move is when nobody else is.
It sucks we didn’t get a quality starter, but we still added some solid players. Plus I’d prefer to be in this situation than whatever is going on in Minnesota. The Twins straight up traded like half their roster
Fair enough. Doesn’t make the pill less bitter.
No way we can give up Shaw
Agreed. There just wasn’t any big-name SP out there. He did what he could to fortify our pen and got another emergency starter. No point to give up so much of the future for what was out there. As long as you get in, you have as good a chance as anyone else.
If De Vries only gets you a mid closer, no chance it’s worth it to go for a SP
I don’t disagree, it was a rough buying market. That makes the decision to save $ for the deadline more puzzling
If Assad and J-Mo come back, play solid and stay healthy, we’ll be okay.
Pretty clear this was the issue league wide
Im ok with it. Dont sell the farm for rentals. Championship isn’t guaranteed, must ALWAYS plan for the future.
Assad had a good rehab start yesterday.
Makes sense.
But if we weren’t getting a top SP I wish we would have gone for a higher ceiling reliever than Kitterridge and Rogers.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. In my eyes personally: either win World Series or (Jed didn’t do enough) or resign Tucker. Anything in between was a waste of Cam Smith and other prospects for a marginal improvement. That’s my feelings, hated what Jed did this deadline and others are welcome to disagree (I’ll respect their opinions on it so no hard feelings). This is me venting in disappointment. (Please note I was at game 1 & 2 vs brewers where our pitchers got manhandled by them.)
Remember this quote when Ben Brown gives up 7 runs in 2 innings this weekend and Rea is getting his shit pushed in Game 3 of the Divisional Round against Ranger Suarez and the Phillies
If we traded Owen Cassie for Mitch Keller I would’ve freaked out
Jesus Christ though. We just kept hearing how “the Cubs are all in” and they are the most active team and likely to make a splash, blah blah blah. I gotta to stop listening to these dipshits. It’s all noise and nobody knows what theyre talking about(or just straight lying). I get it, but damn I wanted a starter.
[removed]
I think far too many people are quick to defend. If not now, then when? This year is arguably the weakest path to the WS. Aka dodgers don’t look the same. No one in the AL scares me. So why not now?
This smells a lot like they aren’t confident about signing Tucker back. Because why not just go for it. I get the price is high but you can’t just hoard your prospects when you have nowhere to put them next year? And it’s not like the market gets cheaper in the offseason. It really doesn’t make sense. Do they want to win WS or no? Because it feels like the said not so loudly “this team wasn’t good enough to yield prospects for it. We’d rather the youth movement.
You’ve got Steele coming back next year. A rental at a reasonable price would have made sense. But paying big for someone with more years of control wasn’t necessarily the biggest longer term need.
Matt Shaw is improving almost every game. Glad we kept him
While this may be the case, I don’t think this rotation is good enough for the playoffs, which is unfortunate. Unless the whole rotation is healthy, and all the bats are firing on all cylinders, maybe we have a shot in the playoffs. But I really think we needed a 1 or a minimum a 2 to really contend this year. I hope I am proven wrong.
Looking at prospects I’m thinking Cubs are looking long term success. They don’t sign Tucker and bring up Caissie, they’ll have(hopefully) Steele, Imanaga, Boyd, Horton, Taillon(maybe) if he shits the bed when he gets back then maybe they go after a better deal. They’ll give their prospect pitchers a go in Spring training. Assad and Wicks in bullpen. It’s a wonderful problem they have in regard to their prospects.
He should’ve pivoted to bolster the bullpen. Their were plenty of options to really make it a strength.
Using this deadline is just an excuse for neglecting the obvious need for years. Coming into this season, Justin Steele was the only starter during Hoyer’s tenure to put up a FIP lower than 3.50. Swanson is the only player to get a $100M contract from Jed Hoyer. The second-largest deal he’s given has been to Seiya Suzuki, at $85M. 5 relievers are free agents after this season, along with Soroka, Willi Castro, and Tucker. Based on the team’s spending habits, I don’t have high hopes for how they’ll address all of those vacancies.
If they won’t pay the money to build a sufficient pitching staff, they won’t give up the prospect cost, and they don’t have any elite pitching prospects, where is the solution coming from? Steele is out until the middle of next season. Who’s taking those innings…still Colin Rea? If Tucker leaves, are they going to call up Caissie and call it good, hoping to limp along to “looking serious” for a 6th season in a row?
I don’t buy his excuses. The fact they needed a starter at the deadline is due to how he built this pitching staff. My hopes for him to pay up for a guy like Cease or King or Valdez after shedding payroll and doing with the Bellinger savings are very low. They supposedly have a great, deep farm and are 4th in revenue, yet they have BY FAR the worst pitching staff of any contender. An excuse here and there is reasonable, but the pitching has been a problem for multiple years now, and he’s shown little intention to go beyond incremental upgrades.
As much as I’m worried about the cubs down the stretch, I agree with Jed. The Justin Steele injury hurt us but they can’t play desperate and give up the farm for rentals that aren’t even good. People were really throwing names around like sandy alcantra when he has had a similar year if not worse than Ben brown. Dylan cease who hasn’t been great. Even gore hasn’t been amazing but Gore, joe ryan, and maybe Cabrera are the only ones I would’ve even thought about making trades for. The asking price was probably just too high.
I get why fans are frustrated, this rotation is not a playoff caliber rotation. And they are one more pitching injury away from maybe not making the playoffs. It is a legitimate concern, shota has been dealing with injuries all year and this is the most Boyd has pitched since 2019. Hopefully taillon comes back strong. I don’t have faith in Assad. The only pitcher I would’ve wanted them to get aggressive for was Joe Ryan. Other than that though I’m glad they didn’t overpay for a middle of the rotation guy. I also don’t think the soroka pick up was terrible like everyone else seems to.
One observation though is that we kept all of our outfield prospects. Which could mean Tucker is gone after this year. I think the cubs front office and cubs fans in general rely too much on hoping a player falls in love with the city and wrigley and the culture, but at the end of the day money talks the loudest. I personally wouldn’t even want to sign Tucker to a massive contract. I would like them to sign him if it was a 5 year deal but anything over that is absurd for him I think. The problem with that is I’m sure there will be teams out there that offer him an 8 year contract.
If the cubs want to make a run this year their bats are going to have to get hot and stay hot!
31 comments
I mean, he’s not wrong. The mega deal for a top of the line starter didn’t really materialize anywhere.
You can make up for it by extending Tucker. That is, if you care so much about the future.
Not getting Kelly could prove to be damning. We need contributions towards the end of the year from Caissie, Ballesteros, and maybe even Wiggins. I’d like to start seeing Caissie get some shared time with Happ.
Owen Caissie was being floated for Mitch Keller and Matt Shaw for Gore.
So, yeah, I’d say the market was nuts. Cubs needed a top of the rotation guy in a bad market for one.
Rangers gave up their #5, #9, and #13 prospects for Merrill Kelly so the asking prices were pretty high.
Maybe if they raise beer prices to 40$ a beer they can extend Tucker
I would argue that the best time to make a move is when nobody else is.
It sucks we didn’t get a quality starter, but we still added some solid players. Plus I’d prefer to be in this situation than whatever is going on in Minnesota. The Twins straight up traded like half their roster
Fair enough. Doesn’t make the pill less bitter.
No way we can give up Shaw
Agreed. There just wasn’t any big-name SP out there. He did what he could to fortify our pen and got another emergency starter. No point to give up so much of the future for what was out there. As long as you get in, you have as good a chance as anyone else.
If De Vries only gets you a mid closer, no chance it’s worth it to go for a SP
I don’t disagree, it was a rough buying market. That makes the decision to save $ for the deadline more puzzling
If Assad and J-Mo come back, play solid and stay healthy, we’ll be okay.
Pretty clear this was the issue league wide
Im ok with it. Dont sell the farm for rentals. Championship isn’t guaranteed, must ALWAYS plan for the future.
Assad had a good rehab start yesterday.
Makes sense.
But if we weren’t getting a top SP I wish we would have gone for a higher ceiling reliever than Kitterridge and Rogers.
Miller, Duran, Doval, Bednar, Helsley, Jax, Miller, Finnigan, Sewald, Dominguez, Soto all got moved.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. In my eyes personally: either win World Series or (Jed didn’t do enough) or resign Tucker. Anything in between was a waste of Cam Smith and other prospects for a marginal improvement. That’s my feelings, hated what Jed did this deadline and others are welcome to disagree (I’ll respect their opinions on it so no hard feelings). This is me venting in disappointment. (Please note I was at game 1 & 2 vs brewers where our pitchers got manhandled by them.)
Remember this quote when Ben Brown gives up 7 runs in 2 innings this weekend and Rea is getting his shit pushed in Game 3 of the Divisional Round against Ranger Suarez and the Phillies
If we traded Owen Cassie for Mitch Keller I would’ve freaked out
Jesus Christ though. We just kept hearing how “the Cubs are all in” and they are the most active team and likely to make a splash, blah blah blah. I gotta to stop listening to these dipshits. It’s all noise and nobody knows what theyre talking about(or just straight lying). I get it, but damn I wanted a starter.
[removed]
I think far too many people are quick to defend. If not now, then when? This year is arguably the weakest path to the WS. Aka dodgers don’t look the same. No one in the AL scares me. So why not now?
This smells a lot like they aren’t confident about signing Tucker back. Because why not just go for it. I get the price is high but you can’t just hoard your prospects when you have nowhere to put them next year? And it’s not like the market gets cheaper in the offseason. It really doesn’t make sense. Do they want to win WS or no? Because it feels like the said not so loudly “this team wasn’t good enough to yield prospects for it. We’d rather the youth movement.
You’ve got Steele coming back next year. A rental at a reasonable price would have made sense. But paying big for someone with more years of control wasn’t necessarily the biggest longer term need.
Matt Shaw is improving almost every game. Glad we kept him
While this may be the case, I don’t think this rotation is good enough for the playoffs, which is unfortunate. Unless the whole rotation is healthy, and all the bats are firing on all cylinders, maybe we have a shot in the playoffs. But I really think we needed a 1 or a minimum a 2 to really contend this year. I hope I am proven wrong.
Looking at prospects I’m thinking Cubs are looking long term success. They don’t sign Tucker and bring up Caissie, they’ll have(hopefully) Steele, Imanaga, Boyd, Horton, Taillon(maybe) if he shits the bed when he gets back then maybe they go after a better deal. They’ll give their prospect pitchers a go in Spring training. Assad and Wicks in bullpen. It’s a wonderful problem they have in regard to their prospects.
He should’ve pivoted to bolster the bullpen. Their were plenty of options to really make it a strength.
Using this deadline is just an excuse for neglecting the obvious need for years. Coming into this season, Justin Steele was the only starter during Hoyer’s tenure to put up a FIP lower than 3.50. Swanson is the only player to get a $100M contract from Jed Hoyer. The second-largest deal he’s given has been to Seiya Suzuki, at $85M. 5 relievers are free agents after this season, along with Soroka, Willi Castro, and Tucker. Based on the team’s spending habits, I don’t have high hopes for how they’ll address all of those vacancies.
If they won’t pay the money to build a sufficient pitching staff, they won’t give up the prospect cost, and they don’t have any elite pitching prospects, where is the solution coming from? Steele is out until the middle of next season. Who’s taking those innings…still Colin Rea? If Tucker leaves, are they going to call up Caissie and call it good, hoping to limp along to “looking serious” for a 6th season in a row?
I don’t buy his excuses. The fact they needed a starter at the deadline is due to how he built this pitching staff. My hopes for him to pay up for a guy like Cease or King or Valdez after shedding payroll and doing with the Bellinger savings are very low. They supposedly have a great, deep farm and are 4th in revenue, yet they have BY FAR the worst pitching staff of any contender. An excuse here and there is reasonable, but the pitching has been a problem for multiple years now, and he’s shown little intention to go beyond incremental upgrades.
As much as I’m worried about the cubs down the stretch, I agree with Jed. The Justin Steele injury hurt us but they can’t play desperate and give up the farm for rentals that aren’t even good. People were really throwing names around like sandy alcantra when he has had a similar year if not worse than Ben brown. Dylan cease who hasn’t been great. Even gore hasn’t been amazing but Gore, joe ryan, and maybe Cabrera are the only ones I would’ve even thought about making trades for. The asking price was probably just too high.
I get why fans are frustrated, this rotation is not a playoff caliber rotation. And they are one more pitching injury away from maybe not making the playoffs. It is a legitimate concern, shota has been dealing with injuries all year and this is the most Boyd has pitched since 2019. Hopefully taillon comes back strong. I don’t have faith in Assad. The only pitcher I would’ve wanted them to get aggressive for was Joe Ryan. Other than that though I’m glad they didn’t overpay for a middle of the rotation guy. I also don’t think the soroka pick up was terrible like everyone else seems to.
One observation though is that we kept all of our outfield prospects. Which could mean Tucker is gone after this year. I think the cubs front office and cubs fans in general rely too much on hoping a player falls in love with the city and wrigley and the culture, but at the end of the day money talks the loudest. I personally wouldn’t even want to sign Tucker to a massive contract. I would like them to sign him if it was a 5 year deal but anything over that is absurd for him I think. The problem with that is I’m sure there will be teams out there that offer him an 8 year contract.
If the cubs want to make a run this year their bats are going to have to get hot and stay hot!