you don’t agree because you qualify all of his hits on pitching. You claim he got lucky with Hendricks. You mention arrieta as the greatest heist of all time but won’t give Theo credit for identifying pitching talent and buying it on the low. Don’t forget strop in that same deal.
you mention the current cubs situation and how it hasn’t lived up to the potential it had like the astros for example. Well, why do you think they haven’t lived up to the hype?! Hint, it hasn’t been the pitching that’s been the problem...it’s the hitting. So you can’t claim how much better of an eye Theo has for hitting talent over pitching when it’s the hitting that’s been the Achilles heel for this team. That’s why I argue Theo has a better eye for pitching.
Again my first post was geared towards the draft. You chose to open the flood gates and go all in.
Ok let's play:
1. He fails to sign Gonzalez and falls back to EJax.
2. Signs Scott Fieldman and trades for Jake and Stropp. Again I said that this was a heist.
3. Trades Dempster for Christan and Kyle Hendricks. Again Hendricks was the toss in. He took the time that Maddux was with the minor league system to heart and it worked. But at the time he was never on a radar.
4. Garza for a bunch of pitchers. Grimm was the only one that gained any return. Rest were seen as failures. And being the extra arm in the pen in 2016 and not even trusted with a game 7 doesn't make it a quality trade.
5. Lester was a reward for a long term friend. He earned it.
6. Trading for Q. Mega doah...
7. Signing Chatwood after failing to get Otani... really?
8. Darvish. Made up for the screw ups.
9. Kimbrel looks to be a solid long term move.
Getting into the draft.
Went with Almora #6. Atl's Ace and the White Sox ace both went past Theo. Both were HS teammates and conaidered the top HS arms going in. Again going back to the OP he did not target pitching in the early rounds of the draft. He opted to target easy to sign pitching that has been nothing more than minor league filler talent.
We can go on and on with this and the dynamic did change 2 years ago and they are now targeting ceiling vs floor talent.
Again you lost when you look at Bryant, Rizzo, Schwarber, Happ, Contreras all as home grown talent and Alzolay as the ONLY drafted and proved (yet to be proven) MLB quality SP talent.
Sure Theo did some good work in trading for pitching early on but he also sold higher quality talent to extend a failed success story.
That said as we speak we have Alzolay and Marquez is close. Those two could change the dynamic but it shouldn't take 10 years to finally see a result.