Morning Mound Visit: Two ways to view the Yu Darvish trade

Sara Sanchez | Bleed Cubbie Blue: The Yu Darvish trade has, uh, not been viewed favorably by Cubs fandom. The return for the Cy Young contender (and pretty good back-up catcher in a thin market for catchers!) was conspicuously light, so it’s obvious this isn’t a rebuild. It’s a fire sale.

Al Yellon | Bleed Cubbie Blue: Or, if you want to take the optimistic viewpoint, the offseason is far from over, and most of the best free agents remain available. The Cubs theoretically could re-allocate the money they saved on Darvish and fill some of the other holes they have on the roster (like starting pitching for instance). The roster’s just a little airborne, it’s still good, it’s still good.

Jay Jaffe | FanGraphs: The person who wrote the book and designed the metric on how to evaluate Hall of Fame candidacy finally got a ballot of his own. Jay Jaffe revealed his first Hall of Fame ballot, and unsurprisingly, it’s a good one.