Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
Isn't the return in the Mets trade a little underwhelming? I know he was a first round pick but no games in 2020 and 17 ABs before season-ending injury this year.
Chicago Cubs 2021 season
bdutts
- Houston, Texas
I’d say so.
bdutts
- Houston, Texas
I like the return for Kimbrel.
BMoreIllini
- Baltimore, MD
My brother had a great response to this tweet in a text to me, "All these trades and Heyward is still batting 6th."
bdutts
- Houston, Texas
One thing that I realized after the Cubs firesale is how impressive the Blackhawks run of 3 cups in 6 years was (really, could have been 4 in 6 and three in a row) with a hard cap in place. The Blackhawks core either held serve or improved from 2010 to 2015 while the cap casualty holes were constantly being filled. That's a great job by the entire organization.
Unfortunately, the Cubs organization did the opposite.
Unfortunately, the Cubs organization did the opposite.
The fault lies with the core guys; they disappeared during crunch time. The Hawks were different in that the core stepped up
People just do not realize how poor the farm system was. I will continue to blame Theo. He created this mess. It is what he does, builds winners while crashing the minors then watches the major league team crumble. Rizzo will most likely be back next year. Bryant could also. Baez is gone. If the Cubs can find a trade partner for JHey that will open up financial avenues for the offseason. I was under the thought that when the season started, we were a Central contender but injuries basically killed that as we saw in the last month or so. This needed to be done. We will be so far ahead of the Cards and Brewers in rebuilding. I would rather be us than the Cards as they have nothing to deal and a GM that is trying to sink them. We will be back in the top echelon by 23. The talent we have built from these trades and what other talent we have will be in Chicago by 23.
bdutts
- Houston, Texas
To be fair, the Hawks have three or four HoFers of the core whereas the Cubs do not…but we are in agreement about the Cubs core not stepping up.
I mean, if they had won 3 WS, I’m sure there would be at least 3 of those guys you’d call HoFers.
It’s really a combination of many things. Hitters didn’t develop as consistently as projected. Pitchers in the system flat out didn’t develop, and the Cubs honestly excelled FASTER than anticipated, which kinda pushed timetables around and may have messed with the 5 year plan. When you expect to be contending in 2017/18, but instead have one of the top records in 2015, go to the NLCS, suddenly you push the chips in early and don’t get as many prospects from selling.
The biggest key everyone has to remember is this: good teams still sell on occasion. Unless you are the 2000s yankees and you buy everyone, every team will sell on occasion. The fact that we are sellers at 4 games under .500 tells me a lot about the expectations of this team. The front office wants more than a playoff spot, they want to win it all again. That means some tough trades will happen. More may happen this winter, but 6 of the players we got this year are now top 20 in our system - which makes this deadline a pretty significant infusion of talent (and that does not include nick madrigal). I trust this front office’s ability to scout and develop players. They have some good young arms in the farm system and with all that money off the books, maybe they will buy some supporting cast or a big name or 2 in the next couple years as the young players develop.
Let’s not sit and say it’s all over. Rebuilds don’t take 100 years - they have kept a few promising you g talents in place for the next run - I’m think 2024 maybe 2025 we should be contending again. It’s unfortunate the 2016 core couldn’t do more, but they had their chances and they got help and still couldn’t crack through.
That said - Contreras is likely traded this winter when they can get more back. Should be a fun next couple years with some lesser known names become fan favorites.
If this were true why did the Red Sox continue to be competitive after Theo? Oh yeah their owner John Henry gives a !!!!.
Ask me in five years whether the Ricketts family is worthy of that compliment. I am betting they aren’t. They strike me much more as McCaskeys. Willing to milk one title forever without doing that much since.
bdutts
- Houston, Texas
Except we don't know how long this rebuild is going to take. Might take another 100 years. All we know is that this FO and Theo didn't have a plan for after winning the World Series. As you said, they expected to contend in 2018 so they probably figured they'd win the WS now but when the timeframe pushed up 5 years, they didn't have a plan in place.
They had a plan. That plan do not involve Rizzo, Bryant, Russell, Lester, Arrieta and Hendricks all peaking in 2015 or 2016.
I think it also involved getting more consistent play out of Baez and Schwarber.
It also involved Almora and Happ living up to their draft picks, Heyward, Darvish, and Kimbrell living up to the free agent contracts they signed, and Quintana living up to the prospect package they gave up for him.
Good luck with that.
bdutts
- Houston, Texas
I guess what I meant is that when things changed, the FO didn’t change as quickly as they should have.
The FO owns all of those misses. We will see if they can turn the ship around. I remain skeptical but I hope they prove me wrong.
Lol no. No rebuild takes 100 years. What we saw for 100 years was failed attempts to build. At any point, a good strategy would allow any team to go from any point to contending in 5-10 years. The Cubs farm system and player development is not nearly that bad.
I wouldn’t say it was so much that they didn’t have a PLAN for post-2016, rather, they didn’t have enough time to build up the farm for sustained success before needing to promote and trade away players all at once. They really had barely enough prospects to get through the Chapman trade.
Are you conveniently ignoring that in 2012 (or the year after Theo left Boston) they were dead last in the AL East?
Remember 2014 Cubs? Yeah we were better than the Red Sox that year.
Let’s not judge anyone by a downward trajectory everyone saw coming. The Cubs bet on Schwarber, Baez, Bryant, and Rizzo carrying the team for several years and in 2018/19/20 the offense fell flat on its face. There was no way we could keep them all. Had we been contending this year, maybe they make a trade or two the other way. Maybe if they had reached the NLCS last year we don’t trade Darvish.
Bottom line - if this core could have shown they could win again, and we STILL didn’t see action, then I get your point. They didn’t. The Cubs committed to the core, signing and trading for some veteran pitchers (see Quintana trade, Kimbrel eventually, Darvish signing). Retaining the core of offensive players next season would have cost an awful lot and would require cost controlled pitching. They tried to maximize on our young hitters - who have now aged out of arbitration and will be demanding a TON of money. This was the right move and has nothing to do with anyone not being willing to spend. The Cubs GAVE money away with pretty much every trade in order to get better prospects. They are not being cheap. The luxury tax penalties in baseball get very harsh very quickly. It’s why even the Yankees are not spending like the Yankees. The luxury tax is at best paying double for players, and at worst, costing draft picks too. Let’s not blame anyone for having a couple mediocre years. Pretty much every team has them, even the Red Sox you seem to think are in the upper echelon of baseball teams have had 2 90 loss seasons in the last 10 years.
Let’s give Hoyer some time to develop the deep farm system he has.
It’s worth remembering that sustained success really only comes after a multitude of rebuilds. The first rebuild will be a quick spurt, then replenish the farm system and start again.
After several of these shorter term successful seasons, your farm system becomes very deep and quality player after quality player is produced.
It largely hinges on scouting and player development - two areas the Cubs have been heavily applauded for approving across the baseball community. The Chicago Cubs will be good again fairly soon. Let’s not go all “100 years” based on a single trade deadline selling.
Good systems maximize player value. If that means trading mookie betts or Francisco lindor or Kris Bryant than so be it. Expiring contracts are trade bait when you are realistic about it. I’d much rather have a FO that is realistic and doesn’t hold onto fan emotions the way previous regimes have.
That’s literally the cost of winning a championship. It takes prospects playing and prospects being traded. We had just enough to do both and win a WS. We did not have enough to go beyond that. The trick is in the timing. If the 2015 Cubs don’t make the NLCS, we likely see a very different 2016 offseason.
I also wonder if the Cubs would have made the Chapman trade had it only been a decade since their last WS title instead of 100 years.
bdutts
- Houston, Texas
That's a really good question. I would tend to think no. Or maybe they make a trade for a "lesser" closer (not sure who that would have been back in 2016) to help them get over the edge and perhaps they'd still have a minor league piece or two that they gave up.
Good thought experiment, though.
Having Torres making All Star games in 18 and 19 would have taken the sting out of Russell imploding.
Go Nats 88 Illini
Fairfax, VA
Went to Cubs/Nats game Sunday. It was crazy - it was the old Seinfeld bit about rooting for a uniform. I had just about no clue who was playing for either team.