Theo Epstein Sploosh Thread

[Eli]

With the news that the Cubs have outbid everyone by 20-30 million, I figured I would post this scouting report on Tanaka from a little earlier this month:

So the question everyone is asking is, how do these numbers compare to other starting pitchers? According to the Baseball Prospectus Leaderboards, there are some real big names with similar stuff. In 2013, no starter touched that amount of vertical movement on their four-seam fastball. Clayton Kershaw gets the closest with 12.18 inches of "rising action," but the lefty only had 0.93 inches of horizontal movement, where Tanaka showed nearly 4 inches in the WBC. The slider, which is regarded as Tanaka's best out pitch, is probably closest to Zack Greinke's in terms of velocity and movement. In 2013, Grenke averaged 85.5 mph on the pitch, 3.87 inches of horizontal break, and 0.66 inches of vertical break. Finally, the changeup/splitter matches best with Yu Darvish, who averaged 88.8 mph on the pitch, with -6.03 inches of horizontal movement and 4.09 inches of vertical movement.

Here's another one with some gifs of his performance from the WBC.

He's almost definitely not Clayton Kershaw or maybe not even Greinke/Darvish, but if he's a legit 1/2 starter (and Theo and Jed clearly think he is, based on their offer) he could speed up the Cubs' timeline a lot.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

With the news that the Cubs have outbid everyone by 20-30 million

Can't tell if this is a joke.

Is this that classic dry Eli wit?

[Eli]

With the news that the Cubs have outbid everyone by 20-30 million

Can't tell if this is a joke.

Is this that classic dry Eli wit?

A couple people on Twitter have posted version of this.

As of a week ago, Yankees have lowest bid, D'Backs, Dodgers within +/- 8M of each other...hearing Yanks adjusted/matched-Cubs +20-30 over

[J. Walter Weatherman]

With the news that the Cubs have outbid everyone by 20-30 million

Can't tell if this is a joke.

Is this that classic dry Eli wit?

A couple people on Twitter have posted version of this.

As of a week ago, Yankees have lowest bid, D'Backs, Dodgers within +/- 8M of each other...hearing Yanks adjusted/matched-Cubs +20-30 over

No mention of the White Sox.

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/1/18/5323578/masahiro-tanaka-rumors-offers-diamondbacks-cubs-dodgers-yankees-white-sox

Five major league teams made formal offers to Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, per Nikkan Sports. The report says the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs and White Sox all made offers of over $100 million for six years.

The Diamondbacks are said to have made an offer of 12 billion yen, or roughly $115 million dollars to the right-hander. Tanaka, who was posted by the Rakuten Eagles on Dec. 26, has until 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 24 to agree to a contract with an MLB team. The winning team must pay a $20 million release fee to his former NPB team.

Guess we'll have to see how it plays out.

[Saul Goodman]

With the news that the Cubs have outbid everyone by 20-30 million

Can't tell if this is a joke.

Is this that classic dry Eli wit?

A couple people on Twitter have posted version of this.

As of a week ago, Yankees have lowest bid, D'Backs, Dodgers within +/- 8M of each other...hearing Yanks adjusted/matched-Cubs +20-30 over

No mention of the White Sox.

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/1/18/5323578/masahiro-tanaka-rumors-offers-diamondbacks-cubs-dodgers-yankees-white-sox

Five major league teams made formal offers to Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, per Nikkan Sports. The report says the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs and White Sox all made offers of over $100 million for six years.

The Diamondbacks are said to have made an offer of 12 billion yen, or roughly $115 million dollars to the right-hander. Tanaka, who was posted by the Rakuten Eagles on Dec. 26, has until 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 24 to agree to a contract with an MLB team. The winning team must pay a $20 million release fee to his former NPB team.

Guess we'll have to see how it plays out.

Levine says they're frontrunners. Wittenmyer says they're longshots. I just need someone to tell me if Epstink is terrible or not.

[Bort]

With the news that the Cubs have outbid everyone by 20-30 million

Can't tell if this is a joke.

Is this that classic dry Eli wit?

A couple people on Twitter have posted version of this.

As of a week ago, Yankees have lowest bid, D'Backs, Dodgers within +/- 8M of each other...hearing Yanks adjusted/matched-Cubs +20-30 over

No mention of the White Sox.

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/1/18/5323578/masahiro-tanaka-rumors-offers-diamondbacks-cubs-dodgers-yankees-white-sox

Five major league teams made formal offers to Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, per Nikkan Sports. The report says the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs and White Sox all made offers of over $100 million for six years.

The Diamondbacks are said to have made an offer of 12 billion yen, or roughly $115 million dollars to the right-hander. Tanaka, who was posted by the Rakuten Eagles on Dec. 26, has until 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 24 to agree to a contract with an MLB team. The winning team must pay a $20 million release fee to his former NPB team.

Guess we'll have to see how it plays out.

Levine says they're frontrunners. Wittenmyer says they're longshots. I just need someone to tell me if Epstink is terrible or not.

No matter what he does, he's terrible.

[SKO]

So let's have a fun exercise in the vein of TJ's post.

What if the Cubs are (with roster as presently constructed) somehow hanging in the race in July. It's late July and let's say the Cubs inexplicably hold a 3-4 game lead in the division. Maybe the Cards have some crippling injuries. Maybe the Pirates are back to being the Pirates. But let's just say Cub pitching has far exceeded expectations and while they still can't hit for shit, they're just not giving up enough runs to lose.

What do you think happens?

Again it's a slim lead nearing the trade deadline and in this fake future I've created everyone's waiting for the other shoe to drop. The Cubs don't have the players to win the division. Sell? Buy? Stand pat?

I think it'd be really interesting to see what the front office would do.

Stand pat.  I don't see them trading a single valuable piece of the future to back a team of Ruggiano, Schierholtz, Barney, et al.

But every chance to win is sacred though, right Epstein?

I think it's weird that it bothers you that it bothers me that the Cubs suck.

It should bother you. It bothers me a lot.

I think any of us should be that depressed about the Cubs being irrelevant for 6+ years and embarking on a slow, methodical, painful rebuilding process that may take another 3-4 years to show any real progress on the major league level, or could backfire and result in no progress whatsoever. That's not to say it's the wrong road to take, it just sucks, and the only alternative anyone ever advocates appears to be spending a lot of money they don't have on players who aren't really deserving of it. The road they're on sucks. The other roads available to them suck. Being a Cub fan sucks.

This is where I disagree.

But I think we've already been down this road.

I didn't mean it sucks in that's it's the wrong way to go. I'm sure eventually this will all payoff to some extent and they'll be competitive again, it just sucks that they have to punt who knows how many seasons before doing so.

[Slaky]

With the news that the Cubs have outbid everyone by 20-30 million

Can't tell if this is a joke.

Is this that classic dry Eli wit?

A couple people on Twitter have posted version of this.

As of a week ago, Yankees have lowest bid, D'Backs, Dodgers within +/- 8M of each other...hearing Yanks adjusted/matched-Cubs +20-30 over

No mention of the White Sox.

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/1/18/5323578/masahiro-tanaka-rumors-offers-diamondbacks-cubs-dodgers-yankees-white-sox

Five major league teams made formal offers to Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, per Nikkan Sports. The report says the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs and White Sox all made offers of over $100 million for six years.

The Diamondbacks are said to have made an offer of 12 billion yen, or roughly $115 million dollars to the right-hander. Tanaka, who was posted by the Rakuten Eagles on Dec. 26, has until 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 24 to agree to a contract with an MLB team. The winning team must pay a $20 million release fee to his former NPB team.

Guess we'll have to see how it plays out.

Levine says they're frontrunners. Wittenmyer says they're longshots. I just need someone to tell me if Epstink is terrible or not.

No matter what he does, he's terrible.

For me, it comes down to them actually bidding 160 million. That's the figure I last heard. If that's the case the fear that they have no money is baseless. They just won't waste it on guys who give them a couple wins above replacement.

It's good. I feel better if that number is accurate. Even if they lose out on Tanaka.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

With the news that the Cubs have outbid everyone by 20-30 million

Can't tell if this is a joke.

Is this that classic dry Eli wit?

A couple people on Twitter have posted version of this.

As of a week ago, Yankees have lowest bid, D'Backs, Dodgers within +/- 8M of each other...hearing Yanks adjusted/matched-Cubs +20-30 over

No mention of the White Sox.

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/1/18/5323578/masahiro-tanaka-rumors-offers-diamondbacks-cubs-dodgers-yankees-white-sox

Five major league teams made formal offers to Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, per Nikkan Sports. The report says the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs and White Sox all made offers of over $100 million for six years.

The Diamondbacks are said to have made an offer of 12 billion yen, or roughly $115 million dollars to the right-hander. Tanaka, who was posted by the Rakuten Eagles on Dec. 26, has until 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 24 to agree to a contract with an MLB team. The winning team must pay a $20 million release fee to his former NPB team.

Guess we'll have to see how it plays out.

Levine says they're frontrunners. Wittenmyer says they're longshots. I just need someone to tell me if Epstink is terrible or not.

No matter what he does, he's terrible.

For me, it comes down to them actually bidding 160 million. That's the figure I last heard. If that's the case the fear that they have no money is baseless. They just won't waste it on guys who give them a couple wins above replacement.

It's good. I feel better if that number is accurate. Even if they lose out on Tanaka.

Even if that particular number is off, by all accounts the Cubs do have a $100MM+ bid in. Fair to say the hand-wringing over the Cubs' "new mid-market reality" was premature?

[SKO]

With the news that the Cubs have outbid everyone by 20-30 million

Can't tell if this is a joke.

Is this that classic dry Eli wit?

A couple people on Twitter have posted version of this.

As of a week ago, Yankees have lowest bid, D'Backs, Dodgers within +/- 8M of each other...hearing Yanks adjusted/matched-Cubs +20-30 over

No mention of the White Sox.

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/1/18/5323578/masahiro-tanaka-rumors-offers-diamondbacks-cubs-dodgers-yankees-white-sox

Five major league teams made formal offers to Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, per Nikkan Sports. The report says the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs and White Sox all made offers of over $100 million for six years.

The Diamondbacks are said to have made an offer of 12 billion yen, or roughly $115 million dollars to the right-hander. Tanaka, who was posted by the Rakuten Eagles on Dec. 26, has until 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 24 to agree to a contract with an MLB team. The winning team must pay a $20 million release fee to his former NPB team.

Guess we'll have to see how it plays out.

Levine says they're frontrunners. Wittenmyer says they're longshots. I just need someone to tell me if Epstink is terrible or not.

No matter what he does, he's terrible.

For me, it comes down to them actually bidding 160 million. That's the figure I last heard. If that's the case the fear that they have no money is baseless. They just won't waste it on guys who give them a couple wins above replacement.

It's good. I feel better if that number is accurate. Even if they lose out on Tanaka.

Even if that particular number is off, by all accounts the Cubs do have a $100MM+ bid in. Fair to say the hand-wringing over the Cubs' "new mid-market reality" was premature?

Or they leaked that number to shut you sheeple up knowing full well some other team will top it.  Baaaaaa. Baaaaaaaaa.

[Eli]

I didn't mean it sucks in that's it's the wrong way to go. I'm sure eventually this will all payoff to some extent and they'll be competitive again, it just sucks that they have to punt who knows how many seasons before doing so.

This. Just because a fan is frustrated with the current state of the major-league team doesn't mean they don't agree with or understand Jepstink's plan.

[Bort]

I didn't mean it sucks in that's it's the wrong way to go. I'm sure eventually this will all payoff to some extent and they'll be competitive again, it just sucks that they have to punt who knows how many seasons before doing so.

This. Just because a fan is frustrated with the current state of the major-league team doesn't mean they don't agree with or understand Jepstink's plan.

I'm just hoping they're playing a deep game Re: The Snork FIREBARN.

[Slaky]

All accounts that aren't Gordo say it's Yankees and Cubs in a game of chicken over Tanaka.

That doesn't mean the Dodgers can't come in last minute, I guess.

Wouldn't shock me if he took less money to be in NY or LA. Of course the Yanks could just wait to hear Tanaka say "I like the Yankees but the Cubs have offered me 8/160" and Cashman would say ok here's 8/160,001

Either way I'm glad they at least have this money to offer. Plan B will be really boring but at least we know it's boring intentionally and not because they're poor.

[Slaky]

Last night Kap reported on the radio the actual Cubs offer was nowhere near the reported 160 million.

I didn't want to believe the Cubs had a real shot at this guy and it appears I don't have to. But now I'm concerned at how much they actually did offer. I suppose as long as it's well over 100 million I'll be fine.

Nowhere near leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Though it's been suggested Kaplan is acting on behalf of someone in the Cubs org. to put out some of the smoke.

Maybe someone knows who Kap's sources are since a few of you know him personally. I think he's a clown but he's usually pretty good about breaking Cubs news.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

So, basically... We'll see how it plays out on Friday.

That, or just fire up Google Translate and freak the fuck out.