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| https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/7/30/22602242/mlb-trade-deadline-latest-rumors-on-cubs-kris-bryant-craig-kimbrel-anthony-rizzo-yankees |
A Sense of Doubt blog post #2359 - Baseball Trades 2021: Oh Where Have All the CUBS Gone?
I know, I know.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #485 - CUBS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #487 - CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN!
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #488 - More about Cubs winning!!!!!
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #489 - Go Cubs Go! Musical Monday for 1611.07
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #590 - Cubs Win Fall Classic: a masterpiece - ESPN
And yet, the CUBS have a fire sale this year: Rizzo, Bryant, Baez, Marisnick, Kimbrel, Tepara, Chafin all gone.
Jed Hoyer says Chicago Cubs' major trade-deadline shake-up was 'right thing for the organization'
Jesse RogersESPN Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- An 11-game losing streak sealed the Chicago Cubs' fate in the standings not only for 2021, but also for the future of the franchise well beyond this season.
In a span of 24 hours, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer tore down the team he helped build -- one that won a World Series in 2016. First baseman Anthony Rizzo was traded to the New York Yankees, shortstop Javy Baez to the New York Mets and third baseman/outfielder Kris Bryant to the San Francisco Giants.
All three popular Cubs will be free agents after this season.
"We could either hold these players for two months and have them compete for a fourth-place team or do everything we could do in our power to reset our farm system and reset our organization," Hoyer said on a post-trade deadline Zoom call. "We accelerated that over the last 10 days or so."
Hoyer also traded All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel to the White Sox. Though it looks like a full-on rebuild, Hoyer actually believes he avoided one, calling the Cubs' significant roster shake-up at the trade deadline difficult but necessary.
"Was it emotionally difficult?" Hoyer asked. "Yes. Do I think it was absolutely the right thing for the organization? I do."
He cited clubs such as the Philadelphia Phillies, Detroit Tigers and Giants, who went all the way to the end of their team control with players and then took years to be competitive again.
"They ran to the end of the cliff and fell off and they had to rebuild," Hoyer said. "We were willing to go to that point if this was a winning team this year, but we weren't, so with that we were able to speed that process up dramatically."
The Cubs sped it up even before the season began when they traded Cy Young runner-up Yu Darvish and failed to make meaningful additions to the team. Their inability to sign their own players to contract extensions also contributed to the breakup. From the 2016 roster, only pitcher Kyle Hendricks signed a long-term deal.
"I have to say that we made offers to everyone that I believe will stand up exceptionally well," Hoyer said. "We weren't able to reach deals. Does that frustrate me? It does, but I have to be honest, I know we put our best foot forward. I'm proud of the offers we made."
Rizzo turned down an extension this past spring, while Baez was a pandemic casualty as talks stalled when baseball shut down in March.
There's disagreement between the Cubs and Bryant's camp on exactly what -- or if --- he was offered a big contract several years ago. Bryant claims he never saw a deal worth over $200 million or else he would have signed it.
The team also struggled to an extent since winning the World Series. There were three more playoff appearances between 2017 and 2020 but the team was flawed, lacking contact as well as young, up-and-coming pitching. Despite being in pennant races every year, the Cubs underachieved, looking and performing poorly at the plate in particular.
The result of it all was Hoyer maxing out the situation facing him on Friday and trading for seven players over the past two days, all of whom are at the beginnings of their careers.
"There's two types of currency in this game," Hoyer said. "There's prospect/talent currency and there's financial currency. The last two or three years, we were short on both.
"We have prospect currency and financial currency going forward."
But now they are short on star players as a depleted Cubs team took the field on Friday night against a depleted Washington Nationals squad. Both organizations are resetting with the hope to compete again in short order. For Hoyer, it meant saying goodbye to players he's watched grow up. Players who helped break a 108-year championship drought.
"I don't want anyone to feel like there is a lack of emotion," Hoyer said about trading away a number of beloved players. "Did we decide as a group to not have them the last two months here? We did. But I love those guys and I hope people understand that. What we created was really special."
Chicago Cubs' Jed Hoyer says inability to sign stars to long-term deals 'greatest source of frustration'
Jesse RogersESPN Staff Writer
CHICAGO -- Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer says his "greatest source of frustration" was the team's inability to sign any of their stars to long-term contracts before trading them last Friday.
Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Baez were the talk of the baseball world last week as all three were moved within a span of 24 hours before MLB's trade deadline. After years of conversations with the trio -- attempting to sign them to long-term contracts -- Hoyer finally gave up and moved on.
"That will probably be my greatest source of frustration from this era," Hoyer said on ESPN 1000 radio in Chicago Monday morning. "I put my head on the pillow every night knowing we put our best foot forward. The extensions we offered these guys will hold up exceptionally well...against the open market. I don't know why guys didn't want to sign. I don't know why guys didn't want to even counteroffer, often times."
Hoyer wasn't just talking about Baez, Rizzo and Bryant. The lack of extensions and/or just counteroffers applied to other current and even former Cubs like Kyle Schwarber and Addison Russell.
And there isn't a one size fits all answer to why each of the big three is no longer a Cub. Baez was negotiating with the team in the spring of 2020 but the pandemic shut those talks down.
"We counteroffered then the pandemic hit," Baez's agent Nick Chanock said Monday.
Hoyer never indicated that all three refused to counteroffer, only that some didn't. After suffering huge financial losses in 2020, the team wasn't ready to spark up talks again with Baez, considering he had a terrible season. The Cubs never made an offer to Baez again as the trade deadline approached, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The same is true of Rizzo and Bryant. In Rizzo's case, the team made him wait through both of his team option years in 2019 and 2020 before making him an offer this spring to continue as a Cub past 2021. It was well below what Rizzo was looking for and talks shut down.
"Every one of these guys would say they wanted to stay in Chicago, 'we wanted to be a Cub,' but then we would sit down and do negotiations, that wasn't how they acted," Hoyer said.
Bryant's is the most confusing case of the three. Hoyer said on Friday that he made fair offers to all his stars but the 2015 NL Rookie of the Year and 2016 MVP claims he never saw anything over $200 million -- which was the minimum going rate to lock up a player of his caliber on a longer term deal.
In February 2020, Bryant was asked about a report which stated he turned down a contract worth over $200 million.
"Well north of $200 million? No," he said. "Where are those [numbers]? I've never seen them."
Hoyer referenced a relatively quick contract extension done across town with a pitcher, who was acquired by the White Sox in the winter, as an example of team and player coming together to make a deal.
"I see Lance Lynn, who comes to Chicago and signs an extension," Hoyer said. "He certainly could have gotten more on the open market this winter but 'I want to stay here. I want to be a White Sox.' Other than Kyle Hendricks, who I admire for rolling up his sleeves with us, we didn't have that."
Hoyer isn't second guessing his team's efforts to sign the players. Unless any of them ink a deal with their new teams before November, all three will become free agents for the first time in their careers.
"I know what was offered," Hoyer stated. "I know what the dialogue was. We put our best foot forward. We tried our hardest. Those efforts were not reciprocated."
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31937114/kris-bryant-joins-ex-chicago-cubs-teammates-anthony-rizzo-javier-baez-mashing-debut-homer
Kris Bryant joins ex-Chicago Cubs teammates Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez in mashing debut homer
Kris Bryant on Sunday joined former Chicago Cubs teammates Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez in making an immediate good impression with his new team.
Now with the San Francisco Giants, Bryant hit a two-out solo home run in the third inning of a 5-3 win over the visiting Houston Astros at Oracle Park. Two days earlier, Rizzo crushed a 449-foot solo shot in his New York Yankees debut, while Baez mashed a two-run dinger in his first game with the New York Mets the following day.
The former Cubs became the first trio of ex-teammates in the modern era to start the season on the same team and then homer in their respective debuts with a new club later that season, according to Elias Sports Bureau research.
"I can't say enough good things about this first day,'' Bryant said. "I feel giddy. It felt like Christmas morning honestly.''
Acquired in a trade with the Cubs for two minor league prospects just minutes before Friday's deadline, Bryant was greeted by chants of "KB, KB, KB'' when he trotted onto the field for pregame warm-ups and received a standing ovation before his first at-bat.
The four-time All-Star was cheered again after striking out swinging. Those cheers got louder after Bryant crushed an 0-1 pitch from Luis Garcia (7-6) into the left-field stands for his 19th home run this season.
"The first homer's weird,'' Bryant said. "You don't know what teams do when you come to celebrate in the dugout so I was kind of lost a little bit.''
The Giants said they expected Bryant to hit a home run given what his two former teammates accomplished.
"We were going to send him back if he didn't homer himself,'' joked first baseman Darin Ruf, who homered in the fifth. "Luckily we get to keep him. He's going to be very, very valuable to our team going forward.''
It wasn't a perfect debut for Bryant, who started at third base. His throwing error on Martin Maldonado's grounder down the line in the fifth inning gave the Astros a runner in scoring position with no outs. However, Logan Webb retired the next three batters to work out of the jam.
Still, Bryant made it clear how valuable he will be to the Giants as they attempt to stay in front of the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres in the National League West.
"It's a bat that really lengthens our group and makes our bench better," Giants manager Gabe Kapler said of Bryant. "It makes it more difficult to get through the top of our lineup. He's going to be good for us.''
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2108.03 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2223 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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