Especially if the hangup is a 4th year. No thanks

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Russell will sign two contracts before Schwarber catches his first MLB game

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I doubt he will catch.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

So it makes perfect sense to pursue Russell; thank you for agreeing.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

This might sound really stupid but why not sign him for more money in the first few years of the contract and than taper off the last two years. He still gets the guaranteed money but you arent stuck with that bad contact at the end. You'll still have to pay him but it won't be as bad at the end. Sure you'll have to overpay now but you'll be better in the long run.


God I hope there isn't some rule where the money has to be spread out evenly.

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This might sound stupid too but giving Martin $40M+ regardless of how the contract is written up is probably worse than signing Edloss Jackson.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I don't know if that's quite true ...

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

This may sound stupid but sometimes I stare at dogs and think they are transferring telepathic messages to me.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

This only works if Martin eats,shits and pisses in a house on wheels.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Ok with Martin you aslo lose a 2nd round pick because the first is protected. So that has to factor into the decision along with a loss of international money I believe. So yeah maybe if we were a good catcher away within a year or two of winning this would be an easy yes. Don't go crazy right now.

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Well, my opinion has been, and continues to be, decent push in 2015 and full-on push in 2016 and beyond, so as your take lines up with my understanding of the plan, I'm quite comfortable with signing Russell, again considering there's literally no other option a quarter as good in 2015 and 2016 free agency and I don't presume Schwarber to be Johnny Bench pt II.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Im totally fine with 4/$40 million. You aren't going to be subjected to a salary cap. I just don't want to see 14-15 a year for him over 4 years.

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I think he's going to want much more than that.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

that is obvious

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

hey remember back in march/april i was in cubs threads here saying that they should go acquire corey dickerson from the rockies? when the season started they had a 3 way platoon @ CF with charlie blackmon, the freshly-signed drew stubbs, and then 29th round draft pick corey dickerson. the kid isn't any sort of ballyhooed but if you check out his minor league stats he produced everywhere he went.... yet instead of the rockies giving him any sort of chance, they went out and signed drew stubbs as insurance in case charlie blackmon sucked (and he ended up, what, .280/18/75/20 or something off the top of my head? maybe he was a proper 20/20 but he had a hell of a year) and then when the season started dickerson couldn't get any at bats, they demoted him.... then some outfield injuries started happening so they pulled him back up within a week of demoting him, and then they benched him, giving him MAYBE 1-2 starts a week with sporadic pinch hit at bats.... and the kid hit. every time they put him out there whether as a starter or a PH the kid delivered.... and yeah you can say that something was fishy @ coors this year because EVERYONE and i mean EVERYONE was mashing the ball over the field with the exception of wilin rosario and the oft-injured carlos gonzalez.... and even when dickerson started to get a string of starts and produce produce produce and then they'd start him once every 4-5 days for a couple more weeks HE STILL FUCKING PRODUCED.

and even tho charlie blackmon started off like baseball jesus hitting .400+ for a long time and ultimately going ~20/20 on the season, corey dickerson FORCED the rockies to keep putting him out there and the result was 436 at bats of .312/24/76/7.... and i mean all season long even after he established his !!! as a ~.330 hitter with ~30HR power and 10-20SB speed and all that, once he had a few games where he went 1/12 or something they'd go and bench him for another 2-3 games and then when he was given a chance that 29th round draft pick would step up and start delivering again. he managed one pretty decent slump to get down from .320-.330 to ~.300-.310 and ended up finishing the season .312, so i mean this kid has whatever it takes to stay fresh and ready to go and get back out there and produce.....

...and the rockies seemingly didn't want anything to do with him. i mean even tho his #s last year didnt set the world on fire, you have likely sub-.500 team that needs a lot to go right to make the playoffs and you're signing guys like drew stubbs to 1-2 year deals to be a stopgap CF if charlie blackmon fails, and instead of seeing what this dickerson kid WHO HAS PRODUCED AT EVERY LEVEL HE'S BEEN AT can do if blackmon fails you're trotting out stupid vets whose best case scenario is doing really well so you can trade them to a contender @ midseason a la the cubs?

so yeah pardon my bravado and gusto here.... but i was telling anyone who'd listen that even my dumbass perfunctory looks at this kid's track record said he could come here and be a STEAL for the cubs.... but hey, i guess we can instead trade a whole bunch of shit to get carlos gonzalez under the assumption he's no less than 75% of his usual ~.300/25/100 self and then hope and change 2015 and rah rah rah. or perhaps the organization can be proactive and go look for kids like dickerson who have a 29th round draft pick pedigree and their organization actively shitting on them and looking to prove every bit of success to be some sort of a fluke or something that's just a blip on teh radar, yet every piece of empirical statistical evidence available shows that this kid becomes a ~.900+ OPS hitter wherever he plays baseball and the cubs coulda got him for dirt cheap and had a potentially-studly nice .300+/20+/85+/10+ OF going forward to be out there with the babe (bryant) and rizzo and castro and the whole gang.

ah well if you can't listen to some crazy guy on a sports msgboard who can you listen to in the year of our lorde 2014?

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Martin would be nice but not for 60 mil over 4 years....no way! Another argument against is Cub SP,Kyle Hendricks loves working with Castillo.

Per Patrick Mooney's column:
Kyle Hendricks gave Castillo a strong endorsement near the end of his breakout rookie season (7-2, 2.46 ERA and the Cubs won 11 of his 13 starts).

“He’s been on the same page with me since Day 1,” Hendricks said. “That’s made it so much easier for me to adapt at this level, and I can’t thank him enough for how hard he works and how much time he puts in to know the hitters.

“When I go out there, I can trust him and not have to think so much about what I have to do.”

If possible,backing up Castillo with a solid defender who can hit better than Baker would be fine by me. If they decide to splurge on Martin,that would be great too. It's just I don't want to see the Cubs tying themselves up to bad contract again.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

You do realize that Castillo could backup Martin and still catch for Hendricks, right?

Castillo regressed a bit with the bat last year, but 27 is still young for a catcher. I'd give him another shot to be the starting guy. If he does what he did in 2013, there aren't a whole lot of catchers out there better than that.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down to get it!

I thought Joe Sheehan was ok with Seattle giving Robinson Cano a 10 year deal last off-season, so maybe that thought process is evolving to the argument that there is no such thing as bad money on the end of a contract if it the front end gets you to the playoffs?

When would we be able to expect your post in July about how the Cubs were unable to sign a top tier free agent catcher named Russell Martin because of Theo's ineptitude.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Likely in July.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

July is tied for the longest month of the year.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!