Cubs Trade Samardzija and Hammel to Oakland A's

[berniebrewer4life]

Is that really that much for what were 2 of the top 5 arms on the market?

 

That was my thought as well. Yes, Russell is an amazing talent, but other than that? I'm underwhelmed. I think Hammel by himself could pull in more than McKinney and Straily. To get both pitchers in one deal, you'd think the A's would need to give up a premium.

 

I think it's a decent deal by the cubs, but not really that big of a haul.

 

The Cubs also got the A's #2 or 3 prospect in McKinney, who is an intriguing talent himself. Straily is about to become Chris Bosio (you guys remember Bosio, ) new pet project. If Jake Arrieta, Scott Feldman, 2013 Travis Wood, Jason Hammel, (now if the Cubs can get Ed Jackson to listen to Bosio) are any indication, then Straily is going to become a really good pitcher.

 

The deal is a little light for my taste, but they still did very well. And should the PTBNL become a "Neil Ramirez" type talent, then this deal becomes awesome. Yes, the Cubs are getting a PTBNL. Morosi and Rosenthal are wrong on that.

 

McKinney is in high A(and is struggling there, btw). He may be the A's #2/3 guy, but at that low of a level he still has a high flame out rate(remember, the hardest jump to make is usually A-AA). Straily has been terrible this year. Could Bosio get him on the right track? Maybe, but at this point you are buying low on him and he is far from a sure thing. He did well his first year, then the league got the book on him and lit him up. If he can make adjustments, he can do well. If not? He's another AAAA pitcher like Ben Hendrickson. Again, neither guy is at the point where you should consider him a main piece in a trade for a front line guy. If it was just hammel, that would be an decent return, but nothing mind blowing. When you consider it's basically Addison for Shark, and Straily/McKinney for hammel, it's really not that great of a deal. Like I said, not bad but not great either.

 

The PTBNL could make it better, but I'm not gonna judge a trade based off of uncertain variables right now. When he is named, we can reevaluate. Until then? Meh.

[djoctagone]

right now, brad mills is begging teams to take him for 50 cents.

[502 to Right]

As a Brewer fan, I'm very concerned with the juggernaut Theo is building in Chicago. If I were a Cubs fans I'd be very, very excited for the future.

 

I have to give credit to Theo, he has stuck to his plan of building a team for future and has not gotten distracted with wasting money on mid-level FA talent that won't be with the team in 2016.

 

Also, with respect to shortstops--a team can never have too many SS prospects. It's the most difficult position on the field to find, teams are always looking for them (making them excellent trade chips when you have too many), and a shortstop's defensive talent nearing always translates to other positions (assuming they hit well enough to justify the position change).

 

And why would Cubs' fans complain? They supported the team through dozens and dozens of terrible seasons before with a management that had no clue and no plan. Now they have "terrible" team with management that has a plan and a bright future. For this season (and maybe next) they should be content to get drunk on Old Style and watch losing baseball like they always have.

 

 

 

Edit - Here's an excellent article from Joe Posanski on Theo's rebuilding plan:

 

http://www.nbcsports.com/joe-posnanski/epsteins-building-offensive-juggernaut

[logan82]

If I were the Cubs I would wait to buy Price when he becomes a free agent. No reason to give up anything now when you can buy him a couple years from now when he will really help the team. Use your resources to get talent not available in free agency in a couple years.

[homer]

I'm sorry but I'm glad I'm not a Cub fan. It's one thing to rebuild for a couple years. It's another to keep sticking it to fans who are paying major league prices now. They were playing pretty decent ball in large part because of a very solid rotation. Now for the 3rd straight year, Epstein has gutted the roster at mid season. What a con artist. As long as he can keep expectations low, he's under no pressure to win. Meanwhile the fans that do show up especially in the second half of seasons, are treated to non competing roster.

 

 

"Pretty decent ball" = 75 wins at best.

 

Epstein knows what he's doing. It took the Brewers roughly 6 years to build a winner through the farm system. It will take the Cubs about the same amount of time.

[homer]

Aren't the Cubs in need of pitching? How many SS's do they need? Not trying to be sarcastic, just thought they were lacking potential impact arms in their minor league ranks.

 

They can always flip a prospect (or a major league guy) for pitching later on. I think trading for position players is a much safer bet than getting young pitching.

[ewitkows]

Just look at how KC juggernaut turned out.

[502 to Right]

Just look at how KC juggernaut turned out.

 

There is no comparison between KC and Chicago's resources + Theo Epstein. I think after the 2015 season Chicago will be mopping the floor with teams like the Brewers, Red, and Pirates. I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it.

[RockCoCougars]

I'm not that worried about the Cubs moving forward. They look to have lots of good positional players set to emerge in the next several years, but no pitching. Yes, they may be able to swing some rental type deals with some of these prospects that overlap positions, but the price for pitching is generally very steep- both monetarily for free agents or for prospects. If you are going to acquire frontline pitching via trade, you need to find a special circumstance AND be prepared to outbid everyone else. Though he's probably not a franchise arm, guys like Samardijza don't grow on trees and won't be easy to replace. You also have to figure that roughly half of these guys are going to bust. The Cubs' luck and/or track record in the transition from the minors to the majors hasn't been that great over the past 50 years. They've had a lot of 'can't miss' guys miss there over the years.

[3and2Fastball]

So far the Cubs seem like they are building the 2009 Brewers. Great hitting/not much pitching. The difference however is they have more $$$ than the Brewers have ever had, in order to buy pitching. If the plan is to build positional strength through the farm system and then sign bigtime pitching, that could work.

[fondybrewfan]

I think it mght be questionable to say that the Cubs have that much more money than the Crew. From what I can tell Ricketts really saddled the team with a ton of debt when he bought them. I don't think the Cubs will be spending $150 Million anytime soon.

 

I think KC is a fair comparison. For all the hype many of those prospects got; it has mostly been disappointment. Yes the Cubs are better suited to fill in the gaps with high dollar signings but there prospects could flame out just like KC's have.

 

That being said I think that offense in Chicago in 2015 or 2016 is going to be really solid; with so many young guys cracking at once their might be some growing pains though. Plus they obviously will need to get some pitching from somewhere and that won't come cheap.

[JohnBriggs12]

Look, I'm not saying what the Cubs are doing won't pay off. My problem is that teams can build for the future while still putting a representative team on the field for now. Yeah it's great that by 2018 they'll have a strong team. But baseball fans come in all ages. Many, many current Cub fans will be dead by that time. Seriously.

 

Yes it took the Brewers a while to build a representative team. But they never purposely lost 100+ games. They went down swinging. I remember when Damien Miller became a Brewer. Some fan yelled at him in spring training, "Hey Miller, help this team grow" Miller looked back at the fan and said "I'm here to help this team win". That's how athletes think. What the Cubs have done since Epstein got there is just put junk on the field. It's unprecedented and an anathema to anyone who's a competitor.

[trwi7]

Look, I'm not saying what the Cubs are doing won't pay off. My problem is that teams can build for the future while still putting a representative team on the field for now.

 

Uhh, no, because you typically get those players at the top of the draft.

[homer]

Look, I'm not saying what the Cubs are doing won't pay off. My problem is that teams can build for the future while still putting a representative team on the field for now. Yeah it's great that by 2018 they'll have a strong team. But baseball fans come in all ages. Many, many current Cub fans will be dead by that time. Seriously.

 

 

They've gone over 100 years without a championship. Lots of people have died without seeing them win a World Series.

[brewcrewdue80]

This is an awesome trade by the A's. They just acquired the two biggest names that were developing for trade in Pitching. And it only cost them Russell and a 1st'rd pick that, let's face it, next season=last Arb for Samardzija and after that=1st rd. QO pick so they only delay that 1st rd pick by 2years. Russell? Meh, this is a Resurging SS, day in age. I mentioned that awhile back with Segura, there's gotta be 10-12 SSs hitting ML that began last season/and be here by the end of next season. What does that mean? 10-12 Older/Veteran SSs who's jobs are replaced and they are available on the FA market. A's will just do their moneyball and snag the best one out there for the money I'm sure who likely provides pretty equatable value that Russell will.

 

Straily, I'm sure the A's are thrilled to have dumped. The guy dominates AAA and then blows in the ML. AAA1/2A pitcher it seems. Not even AAAA. I remember when he came out, it sorta was just a okay he's done all he can do numbers-wise in AAA to be worthy of a Rotation spot. Had what? a 12.5/k/9? But in the Majors, he's just a nobody not even filling in enough innings to have some kind of value.

 

As far as the Cubs strategy, look, we all knew Samardzija and Hammell were going to be traded this season with how poor their team is. So why sit there and complain with what they are doing like this shocks you? The Cubs are supremely loaded with Position prospects. The Brewers never had this kind of Position prospects stocked at one time, ever. They'll find a SP when the time is right, and sign another or two when the time is right.

 

The best part of this trade is that the Brewers should dominate the remaining games vs. the Cubs. Pitchers like Wood/Arrieta just aren't going to maintain their positive starts to the season. Where my figure is 36 or more wins left to make the Playoffs, 10-12 of them are going to come from the Cubs alone. Just leaves 24-26 wins out of the other 61 games to attain Playoffs!

[homer]

And the Cubs were right in the Tanaka sweepstakes too. So they will spend money on the right guy. Samardzija is 30 though. That's not the kind of pitcher they want to throw big money at right now.

[gregmag]

This also helps the Brewers this year. The Cubs should get easier to beat and they have 13 remaining games against them which is toughly 20% of their remaining games.

This is important. What I don't know (working lo tech right now) is how many games our division rivals have against the Cubs. The trade helps all contenders who still have to play them a bunch.

 

I get Briggs' point; I know I'll be bummed out if I'm 80 and the Brewers are in a full rebuild. The big question is what tradeoffs the Cubs are really dealing with. I don't think the MLB draft is the NBA draft, where outright tanking for draft position makes sense, at least not in any given season. If you have big money and great scouts, I think you can rebuild without bottoming out. If you're strapped for cash, though, it makes more sense to tear down.

 

The thing about this trade is that the 2014 Cubs are as dead as dead can be on July 4. All four of the other teams in the division are markedly better than the Cubs. When that's the case, any resource that's good for this season only needs to be cashed in. I don't think many Cubs fans will care that this year's team just went from dead to deader.

[PrinceFielderx1]

If I were the Cubs I would wait to buy Price when he becomes a free agent. No reason to give up anything now when you can buy him a couple years from now when he will really help the team. Use your resources to get talent not available in free agency in a couple years.

 

This is exactly why the Cubs plan wont work and they wont be able to get good pitching. Price will go to a team that will re-sign him and prevent him from even going to FA. That's how much money is in MLB right now.

[logan82]

The Cubs were not likely to be a lot better next year either. Samardzija and Price look to be available after the 2015 season. Sign both and make another trade for a pitcher along with their expected offensive and things turn pretty quickly.

 

Let's not pretend a team in a market as big as Chicago won't have money to spend. Their TV deal is kind of a mess right now but half their games are up for sale with the rest coming up in 2019.

[igor67]

I get that on paper the plan is to acquire the pitchers later, and they certainly have more money to work with when it comes to that, but there are also a limited number of pitchers available at any one time. You can't assume that you'll acquire a rotation in a single offseason no matter how much money and how many prospects you have. The extra resources do help, but there is still a lot of room for the master plan to go sideways. That said another year of super high draft picks won't hurt.

[3and2Fastball]

Could see them trading Castro for pitching if Addison Russell continues to develop

[jjfanec]

I was with a couple Cubs fans this weekend and they were very disappointed in the trade. They know they got a very good prospect but I think they just saw their team in the last for at least another season maybe more with their lack of starting pitching. Even if you look at their top prospect only 1 of their top 10 is a pitcher and he is currently in AA and hurt. Outside of Arrieta they have no starting pitching that impresses me and that is a lot of money you would need to spend. I would think they will have to trade some of their impact bats for some pitching.

[DuWayne Steurer]

We had no impact pitching come up with our big group of prospects (Fielder, Weeks, Hart, Hardy, Braun, Lucroy) that lead to two playoff appearances, except Gallardo. We had to trade for CC, Greinke, and Marcum, and Wolf. The Cubs can bring up their impact bats and then trade or sign for the pitching they'll need when the time is right.

[pacopete4]

STL & CIN each have 10 games remaining with Cubs

PIT has 6 games remaining with Cubs

Brewers have 13 remaining with 3 coming the last three games of the season.

 

If anyone's intersted, check out the Brewers whole month of September. All games against division except a 4 game series against MIA. Gonna be crazy exciting.

[logan82]

How much did the Brewers starting rotation in 2011 resemble the starting rotation in 2009?