Bregman to sign 5 yr 175 million deal with the Cubs

[JoeBrady]

3 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Hard to know, but it probably did not help.

IMO, impossible to know.  Way too many fans, of all teams, post like they know the inside workings of the front office.  If I had to take a pure guess, I think Breslow took a pure guess.  He guessed that he had the best offer.  He was wrong.  2nd guess is that he knew he had Suarez on the hook, and decided he didn't care which player he landed.

But to attribute to poor communication skills feels a bit far afield.

[notin]

2 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

IMO, impossible to know.  Way too many fans, of all teams, post like they know the inside workings of the front office.  If I had to take a pure guess, I think Breslow took a pure guess.  He guessed that he had the best offer.  He was wrong.  2nd guess is that he knew he had Suarez on the hook, and decided he didn't care which player he landed.

But to attribute to poor communication skills feels a bit far afield.

That Suarez signed so quick after Bregman tells me they were in on him longer than we realize.  Teams and players don’t make $130 million agreements in 48-72 hours…

[moonslav59]

24 minutes ago, notin said:

That Suarez signed so quick after Bregman tells me they were in on him longer than we realize.  Teams and players don’t make $130 million agreements in 48-72 hours…

Good point, and for once a plan B or K, whatever it was, looked pretty damn good.

[moonslav59]

27 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

IMO, impossible to know.  Way too many fans, of all teams, post like they know the inside workings of the front office.  If I had to take a pure guess, I think Breslow took a pure guess.  He guessed that he had the best offer.  He was wrong.  2nd guess is that he knew he had Suarez on the hook, and decided he didn't care which player he landed.

But to attribute to poor communication skills feels a bit far afield.

Yes, and when it comes to "communication" with BorA$$, all bets are off.

This wasn't Brez sitting down with Breggie and fumbling his words and intentions.

[mvp 78]

53 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Yup. His D metrics fell off a cliff moving from the Trop to Fenway.

TBF, all his metrics dropped off once he signed here regardless of the stadium he played in. 

[moonslav59]

9 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

TBF, all his metrics dropped off once he signed here regardless of the stadium he played in. 

True DAT!

[JoeBrady]

52 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Good point, and for once a plan B or K, whatever it was, looked pretty damn good.

My bet is that Breslow, and probably every other GM, has a board with almost every possible contingency on it.  There could easily be ten major names on it, 10-20 secondary names, guys to sign, guys to trade for, guys we'd like to trade away, guys that we might trade away, guys that we won't trade away.  And probably guys that we won't trade away, but we'll still take the phone call.

I don't think we focus much on Plan A, Plan B, etc.  Even just with Bregman, my guess is that, had Houston offered us Paredes for two unimportant prospects, we'd have stopped taking Boras' calls.

[Hitch]

5 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

I doubt it.  We'd simply be talking about needing an upgrade at #3 instead.  I'm not guaranteeing anything with Gray, but I wouldn't turn down a deal like that regardless of what future plans might be.

I'm not so sure about that. There wasn't any talk about us needing to upgrade our #3 earlier in the off season, it was all about that #2 behind Crochet. And if we had that $21m going now, maybe Bregman would be here (though probably not).

Not that I'm unhappy about the rotation. But clearly Gray and Suarez was not the plan as they only pivoted because of losing Bregman, It was always one pitcher, one big bat,

 

[moonslav59]

+ Ranger, Sonny, Willson, Johan & others.

- Bregman, Devers, Gio, Refsnyder, Lowe, Willson, Buehler & others

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, Hitch said:

I'm not so sure about that. There wasn't any talk about us needing to upgrade our #3 earlier in the off season, it was all about that #2 behind Crochet. And if we had that $21m going now, maybe Bregman would be here.

Not that I'm unhappy about the rotation. But clearly Gray and Suarez was not the plan as they only pivoted because of losing Bregman, It was always one pitcher, one big bat,

 

R Saurez and Bregman would have been nice, even if it meant no Sonny or Willson.

I'm okay with the 3 we have, but without adding a big bat, it seems like half measures.

[Hitch]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

R Saurez and Bregman would have been nice, even if it meant no Sonny or Willson.

I'm okay with the 3 we have, but without adding a big bat, it seems like half measures.

Yeah same. Happy enough but we really need that 2nd/3rd base to round things off. 

I'm a tad worried about the pen, too.

[Behindenemylines]

4 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Good point, and for once a plan B or K, whatever it was, looked pretty damn good.

Agree! When I first saw the report I wasn't too excited, but after looking closer at his stats it started looking like a good deal. The guy has pretty good numbers, and shows up in October. I still believe the Sox will make one more trade for an infielder for either second or third. 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, Hitch said:

Yeah same. Happy enough but we really need that 2nd/3rd base to round things off. 

I'm a tad worried about the pen, too.

I have to think we don't go this far and spend this much without filling a glaring hole on the team: power bat and 3B/2B.

We have a logjam of quality OF'ers. We have a logjam of quality #3-#6 type pitchers. When you see Lorensen sign for $8M we know the value of our 5-8 pitchers (Oviedo, Sandoval, Crawford & Harrison.) We should be able to package one from each logjam and fill the need with a high quality player that fits both needs. We should at least be able to add an .800 bat/plus defender for 3B or 2B.

We could also sign Suarez and trade some salary to stay under line 3 of the lux tax, but he's not a plus on D, so I'm not sure we spend that much on someone more like a DH than a 3Bman. (He does fit the power need very well, though.)