I've learned something in this series.

The Cubs, record be damned....kinda suck. They have on reliable pitcher, all those young guys like Almora and Happ and Schwarber are pretty shitty. Bryant seems to openly loathe the entire organization. Their pitching staff got really damn old really damn fast.

Over 162 games they'd win maybe 75 games. That is NOT a good baseball team.
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I wouldn't argue that, they have feasted on bad teams as well. If not for damn implosion in game 2 Monday we would be taking 3 of 5 minimum from these guys and maybe 4 of 5.
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I just kinda missed it happening.

Last year seemed like a weird one-off or something. But it wasn't - this is maybe the 7th or 8th most talented team in the NL.

In no particular order I'd take the Braves, Phillies, Gnats, Dodgers, D-Backs and Padres over them without hesitation. I could be talked into the Reds and Rockies pretty easily. If Carlson develops, I'd take the Cardinals as well due to their supply of arms.

The Cubs are gonna be a middling or worse team for the next few years.
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League has passed them up.

It's the Red Sox v2 for Theo. He knows how to build them. He doesn't know how to sustain it. It's been 3 years now of "time to judge performance and not potential." And its been 3 years of hedging on potential.

Last years offseason move was to trade La Stella because he couldn't play SS and cost too much money. To fix the problem that La Stella was the cause of they signed Daniel Descalso who equally cant play SS and has managed a whopping career WAR of 1 and paying him MORE than La Stella.

After failing to make the playoffs again, it was "things are going to change." I really cant think of a single name off the top of my head that actually changed besides losing guys like Strop. The lineup outside of Rizzo and Hoerner, who is like a poor version of a young Starlin Castro, is the same hitter... all or nothing.
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I regret to inform you that Hoerner is probably going to be a slightly better version of Darwin Barney when he grows up.

I remember watching that draft (the Royals Kowar/Singer draft and our Gorman draft) and by the time the draft was done I think the Cubs had failed to take a single player inside baseball america's top 150. I've never just looked at a draft and been so completely unable to understand it.

It was so bizarre that it made me question if I was the idiot.

And yet to this point, most of the guys I thought would be good look pretty good and Nico Heorner has never looked like anything more than the 5th best player on a playoff team.

He's a complementary player through and through and near as I can tell he's easily the crown jewel of the Cubs farm system.

That's...not great. I mean from a defensive versatility standpoint he's more useful than a guy like Max Schrock (who can't play anywhere but 2b) but guys like that are pretty fungible guys.
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Dont think Hoerner was ever touted as a star. He was drafted because he can put bat to ball with gap power and mediocre defense. That's legitimately Starlin Castro while sacrificing a little power for more speed on the bases. He swings at the same garbage that Castro did simply because he can hit it resulting in a lot of soft contact and easy outs.
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My buddy the Cubs fan, who was certain that Almora was going to be Kenny Loftin 2.0, has Hoerner as the next Jeter.
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IMO, best case he's the all star version of Jean Segura. Only problem is he plays for the Cubs who dont believe in stealing bases so his speed wont ever be utilized.
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You guys hear Jimmy and Dan talking about the Cardinals not wanting to start the Service time clock with Oviedo. Didn’t want to call him up.

Does he have that much upside that we should be concerned about him wanting a $150 million contract in 6 years? Or was that just the homer hype coming out of the front office?
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Yikes

Pitching is terrifying pic.twitter.com/aUIUK0c4BC

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) August 19, 2020

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The Cards AAA team gave them all them can handle over 6 games, so yea they are overrated.
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My understanding is one day on the roster is technically a full year this season. So in that regard I guess it gets him one step closer to arbitration, etc...

So it makes him a little more expensive a little faster. But no, he doesn't have that much upside. He has 2 pitches to speak of and the breaking ball is something in between a slider and a curve that isn't really good at being either of them.

Fastball command is better than it was yesterday but by no means stellar.

Honestly, he's probably a reliever when all is said and done.

What they could have meant had more to do with options than anything. He wasn't on the 40 man, IIRC, and by adding him to the 40, they now have to use one of his option years if they want to send him back down. Additionally, as is Mozeliak's custom, he added Oviedo to the 40 man a year before he really needed to be on there.

He's not ready to be a big league starter and probably wouldn't have been next year either. So the Cardinals could've kept him off the 40 man altogether and he wouldn't have been exposed to the Rule 5. Then you pitch him in AAA in 2021 and maybe add him to the 40 next August if he shows he's ready. Call him up in September.

Then in 2022 you have him in his age 24 season with 3 full years worth of options and 6 years of service time.

Instead you've added him to the 40 in 2020, you'll need to option him next year in all likelihood (probably not this year) and you'll burn this year's service time. So instead in 2022 you have him with 2 option years and 5 years of service time.

Probably nothing critical, but there is some asset value wasted there. And obviously the worst case scenario is what happened with Reyes - a major injury that costs him 2 years when he's actually burning through big-league service time but not pitching, whereas had he been hurt in the minors, that's not big league time used up.

The Reyes thing was such a clusterfuck.
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Schwarber was more rattled than Oviedo.

I'd imagine it all happened so fast for him that he didn't really understand it until it was over. Meanwhile Schwarber was pretty sure he'd just killed a guy for a second there...
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So we burned a year of Carlson this year? I thought we would still have 6 years of control left after this year?
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I hate it when they do that stupid hand wringing, he's such a talent, we cant put him on the field. Thats a Mo thing. The brilliant player sitting on the shelf is way better than actually playing on the field. We cant trade him, he's too valuable. Later he doesn't pan out. And we got shit to show for Mo's Faberge eggs.
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