If anything the Cubs might look to trade a pitcher (Quintana/Montgomery) than trade for another pitcher. They are looking at Darvish, Lester, Hamels, Hendricks, Quintana, Montgomery, Smyly, and Chatwood for starting pitcher options next season. There's legit no room to be trading position players like Schwarber for another one.

And Schwarber was a credible OFer this year.

dWAR be damned - I would never ever EVER trust him past the 6th inning of a playoff game if I had a lead, but he's not a complete embarrassment out there in the Jose Martinez fashion.

I just don't see Schwarber as surpurflous at this point - y'all need the guy and you need him to be some approximation of what he was before the ASB (the guy after the ASB wasn't terribly useful). He's a second source of lefty run-production in the lineup and counting on Heyward to be that guy is a fools errand. I expect Rizzo rebounds a bit next season but you can't just do what the Cardinals did and have a single halfway decent lefty in your lineup.

I guess if you just stuck Happ out there full-time, he could end up being that guy given his splits as a switch hitter. But with Russell's issues, there's a chance he ends up being moved back to 2b. If so, you run into less of a lefty/righty issue and more of a 'who the hell plays LF for us' issue.

Bote to 3b and Bryant to LF fixes that question, I suppose. But I'd be reluctant to trust exactly what he is just yet. He was a fine hitter in the minors but nothing more than...fine. Give him a starters job and if you're lucky he's David Freese. Freese was, post-season notwithstanding....fine. And like Freese, Bote also has a bit of that 'older prospect' thing to him that makes you wonder how well he'll hold up; Freese was actually a significantly more accomplished minor league hitter than Bote was. I'm not sure how eager I'd be to trade away Schwarber to make a hole on the IF for 'Freese Light'.

Cubs have some questions and some potential answers but if I'm them, I don't move Schwarber until the trade deadline if someone ends up proving capable of replacing him out there.

The whole team outside of Rizzo and Baez was pretty embarrassing at the plate. The team started adopting the Chili Davis method of hitting and its the same method that murdered the Red Sox offense. The Cubs became the #1 team in ground ball rate at near 50%. All season the Cubs were struggling to get consistent offense beyond 2 or 3 games but in the 2nd half it was exceptionally pathetic.

Thankfully the Cubs didn't wait around 3 years and canned Chili yesterday.

I honestly dont imagine a scenario in which Happ is on this team next year. I don't buy into this whole flexibility bullshit too much. The guy can't hit anything above the belt. He's hours late on any high fastball. He's not a particularly good fielder either, just average. He was called up because of injuries and for some ****ing reason is still on the team when he doesn't fit.

He was a top 30 prospect when he was called up and showed potential in his first season so why wasnt he traded? Now all he did was lower his value by INCREASING his strikeout rate by 5% since last year. He also increased his walk rate by 6%. He simply stopped ****ing swinging.

Oh man - hitting groundballs with little authority as a preferred approach?

I'll bet Jason Heyward was as hard as a diamond in an ice storm learning from that guy...

In closing - **** Jason Heyward.

Ironically, the Cubs best hitter with RISP was Heyward with a .324/.423/.435 batting line in 131 PA.

Wow - impressive.

You should extend him...

Probably just platoon him with Almora in CF or eat half his contract and trade him for a lottery ticket to sign Harper.

But who will give his speeches?

I don't think anyone can replace Heyward's speech. It's going into the Cubs HoF.

Not that anyone cares.....but there isn't a Dodgers thread or anything (for obvious reasons)......but blow this shit up. Let Kershaw and Machado walk. **** this shit.

Dewitt needs to open up the wallet. 3 million thru the turnstiles. Baseball Village is making tons of money. Great cable TV deal. Money is up from MLB. Multiple Reputable outlets reported that we offered Stanton $310 million. That’s on top of trading young talent. There is no excuse. He needs to open up the wallet wide.

3 years of no playoffs. I bet their bottom line will finally suffer unless they do something big this off season. Mo needs to change his negotiating strategy. The fans are not going to tolerate we were close BS. We gain $20 million yearly additional cap room with the end of Waino’s contract. There is no reason whatsoever the Cardinals can’t raise the payroll another $20 million.

Harper has in the past made several positive comments about the Cardinals and their fans. We may be able to entice him to play here. Mo needs to publicly, via a leak to reputable journalist, offer this tomorrow. The fans will know your serious. Other teams too. Sure some team may try to run up the money to **** with the Cardinals but they did this to them self’s by trying to be incremental in the off seasons. It’s past time to go big.

10 years/$350 million guaranteed contract
5 year opt-out clause at age 31

We get his best prime years if he leaves, he gets family generational changing money.

If some other team offers him the same deal, you go to $400 million. They have put themselves in this position. They need to be bold and take the risk.

It won't happen, but I agree go big and give it a shot. It is the one upside bat that makes the most sense. I would be okay with an infield of Gyorko/DeJong/Wong/Carp with Ozuna/Bader/Harper and ONeill as the 4th outfielder. It doesn't make sense to keep Fowler if you actually somehow pull off this signing.

Lots of chatter about Harper's fit in St. Louis, so naturally someone will swoop in at the last second and offer just more than we did!

John Mozeliak has demonstrated an extraordinary aptitude for appearing to try to sign marquee players but knowing exactly how far he can go to come up short.

I LOVE Bryce Harper. He's one of my favorite players in baseball (odd defensive collapse this year notwithstanding). But there's not a chance in hell Mozeliak demonstrates the stones to actually close the deal there.

He'll come up short and then talk about how they need that dry powder to re-sign Ozuna. And how they fully expect Dex to come back healthy and provide the team with that lefthanded bat they were really missing in September...

Derrick Goold said on a podcast that he heard the Cardinals are at the top of his list. When asked where this information come from he said it wasn’t from the Cardinals or anyone associated with the Cardinals.

He said Harper just likes to go home after the game and be with his family and watch Netflix. He said that bottom line was that Harper saw the Cardinals and St. Louis as a good fit but doesn’t mean it’s just a matter of AAV and years on the contract. Boras expects there will be multiple team visits to set the market.