FanPost

Success is in the Eyes of the Beholder

I've never posted a diary but figured this might be a worthy topic to discuss since things have been slowing here a bit with the end of the winter meetings.

I've heard a really wide variety of reactions to this Cubs off-season and I wanted to get a feel for what people's expectation of the off-season was and what they view as a successful off-season because I think there's confusion amongst us due to our differing expectations.

So let's take a look at 10 general scenarios in how the off-season could've played out and let me know which matches up most with where you feel we ended up and which matches up most with what you were hoping for coming into the off-season?

  1. We have improved over last season and not sacrificed our chances for being competetive in the future
  2. We have improved over last season
  3. We have improved to the point where we'll likely be above .500 and not sacrificed our chances for being competetive in the future
  4. We have improved to the point where we'll likely be above .500
  5. We have improved to the point where we're a legitimate Division contender and not sacrificed our chances for being competetive in the future
  6. We have improved to the point where we're a legitimate Division contender
  7. We have improved to the point where we're one of the top NL contenders and not sacrificed our chances for being competetive in the future
  8. We have improved to the point where we're one of the top NL contenders
  9. We have improved the point where we're a world series contender and not sacrificed our chances for being competetive in the future
  10. We have improved the point where we're a world series contender
I myself feel that we're currently at #3 and since we play in a weaker division we're at #5 as well. I think we've improved our team to the point where we should be in the 80-87 win range depending on health. Unfortunately I also believe we've inhibited ourselves a bit in the future by committing approximately $65 Million to 6 players for the next 3 seasons(Marquis, Ramirez, Lee, Soriano, Lilly, & DeRosa). Throw in a Carlos extension in the 16-20 million range and we're suddenly at $80-85 Million on just 7 players, which leaves (if we estimate a budget at 140, being generous here) 60 million for the remaining 18 players on the roster, or a little over 3 million per player, which in this market gets you Henry Blanco.

Anyways, thought this might be a good way to understand each other's viewpoints of the off-season as well as our expectations or hopes for the off-season coming in.

Obviously the off-season isn't over so there's plenty of time for things to change.

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