Grand Marquis

[Amazing_Grace]

If I had to predict how good Marquis will be over the course of the season, I'd say that the odds favor him being awful. However, there is a possibility that he'll be okay.

 

That's not worth 3/21. I was in favor of signing Marquis to a one year deal, but I'm sick that we had to commit three years to get him.

 

This is exactly correct, in my opinion. I would have no problem with signing Marquis to a one year deal. You risk one year's salary of him there's a possibility he'll rebound. You don't risk three years commitment on a "maybe he'll rebound".

[Amazing_Grace]

It's not a matter of the prediction-it's the people who are saying that Marquis has absolutely no chance to be decent to good (or a negligible chance). If you said "There is no way for anyone but Ohio State to win this tournament" I'd point out reasonable ways that other teams could win. Marquis is one of those players where it would be reasonable to say that he's going to be anything from good to horrible (I'm not sure that it would be reasonable to think he could be great, so I left that out)-the definitiveness of what some people think he's going to be to the point that they think that there is no way he could be anything else is what people were addressing.

Right on again.

 

The issue here is, it seems for many the range of potential outcomes with Marquis never approaches positive territory. For them, it's just a question of exactly how bad the guy's going to be.

 

For me, the question has very little to do with how good or bad Marquis is likely to be. Regardless of how good or bad he is this season, he's still signed over three years for a large amount of money that could have been used for resigning Zambrano, or upgrading other positions. The numbers say Marquis is likely to be mediocre at best and horrible at worst. If he's average, the contract probably isn't as bad as Hundley's, but the money still could have been used in other ways that will benefit the Cubs more than Marquis will. If he's horrible, then Hendry flushed 21M over three years.

 

Here's something to think about. Z will be making 12.5M or so this year. He wants to make 18. So, if the Cubs hadn't signed Marquis, then his salary would easily pay for that raise to Zambrano. Would you rather have Zambrano and Guzman making 18M combined, or would you rather have Marquis and Lilly making about 18M combined? I know which one I'm picking. It may or may not come down to that, but it forces you to think about which is the better way to spend the money. Both the Marquis and Lilly contracts were bad, but Marquis was the later signing, the riskier signing, and is more likely to be the one we regret later because there's as good a chance he's terrible as there is that he's decent.

 

Here's another what if. What if the money Marquis is making would have enabled the Cubs to both resign Zambrano, and add ARod next offseason?

 

This is one reason why Hendry is a bad GM and is how the Cubs spent so much money to lose 96 games last year. He isn't looking at what he's getting out of the money he's spending or thinking about the long term implications of evaluating players individually rather than as parts of a larger team and organization.

 

If the Cubs win this year, it will be mainly because Hendry was forced to fire Dusty, which I don't believe for a split second he would have done if not for the fans and media pressure, and that the Trib, for whatever reason, decided to dump a ton of extra cash into the team this year. It won't be because he's a good GM and he shouldn't get much credit for it.

[Danny82]

Here's something to think about. Z will be making 12.5M or so this year. He wants to make 18. So, if the Cubs hadn't signed Marquis, then his salary would easily pay for that raise to Zambrano. Would you rather have Zambrano and Guzman making 18M combined, or would you rather have Marquis and Lilly making about 18M combined?

 

I'm still thinking about it, because your hypothetical really doesn't make much sense.

[wolf stansson]

Suppan (the one in the example) has successfully done it for years now-I'm sure some of the others fall into that category.

Suppan does consistently what Marquis cannot, which is command his stuff and control his pitches location. He played in front of a very strong defense all three of those years which benefited him greatly. This is why the deal from Milwaukee was ridiculous.

im still in a state of shock that people are defending marquis.

Me too.

[Mephistopheles]

It's ridiculous to compare Marquis and Suppan's dERAs to ERA together. They were on the same team.

[nilodnayr]

Just for fun I calced Jacque's MORP for 2006. It was $11,673,359.84. Impressive. Put me in the camp that Marquis most likely will be a poor pitcher, but has a chance of being average. BP puts that at about a 25% chance, which seems about right to me. I wouldn't have minded taking that chance for one year for depth's sake, but not for three, especially considering the pitchers that should be breaking into the bigs in 08 and 09. He will have to induce a lot of grounders to keep the ball out of the air and in the park with the amount of base runners he lets up because of his low K rate.

[Amazing_Grace]

Here's something to think about. Z will be making 12.5M or so this year. He wants to make 18. So, if the Cubs hadn't signed Marquis, then his salary would easily pay for that raise to Zambrano. Would you rather have Zambrano and Guzman making 18M combined, or would you rather have Marquis and Lilly making about 18M combined?

 

I'm still thinking about it, because your hypothetical really doesn't make much sense.

 

What's not to understand. I'm saying that paying an extra 7M to retain Zambrano is money better spent than 7M to sign Marquis. I'm simply thinking of what CAN go wrong. If the Cubs don't go to 18M for Z, one will have to ask, why not? Well, there's 7 million dollars that could have made the Zambrano deal happen but instead went to Marquis. IMHO, Z should have been resigned before either the Lilly or Marquis deals were done. He's far more important than either of them.

[Danny82]

For one thing, the Lilly or Marquis signings aren't going to have an impact on whether or not the Cubs are able to extend Z.

 

Secondly, during an offseason, you don't see guys under the control of a team for another year like Zambrano typically get extended prior to the free agent signings anyway. But, as my first paragraph stated, it really doesn't matter anyway.

 

Third, I don't see the point of the Z/Guzman and Marquis/Lilly comparison. It wasn't a zero sum game with the signing of those two vs. extending Z. You are trying to make the Marquis signing have a negative impact on extending Z when there really isn't an evidence that that is the case.

 

Essentially, what it boils down to is that your position really isn't ripe for argument at this time. If the Cubs don't end up extending Z, then maybe you can point to the Marquis signing as a reason why. Until then, it's just meaningless hand-wringing.

Edited March 14, 2007 by Danny82

[Lefty]

There might be a bright side. If Marquis can have an average year, that's about a 4.50 ERA, he'd be an average pitcher with a 2/14 contract. If any of our young guys can step in, that contract will be very moveable. And coming from a division-winner might give him a little cachet too.

[Danny82]

There might be a bright side. If Marquis can have an average year, that's about a 4.50 ERA, he'd be an average pitcher with a 2/14 contract. If any of our young guys can step in, that contract will be very moveable. And coming from a division-winner might give him a little cachet too.

I might be mistaken, but isn't his contract pretty back-loaded? So much so that after this year, his contract would be more like 2/16?

[Derwood]

i have an idea. let's let the guy pitch a few games before we rake him over the coals. I know there isn't much to talk about this time of the year, but I get tired of endless predictions about who will do what.

[Amazing_Grace]

For one thing, the Lilly or Marquis signings aren't going to have an impact on whether or not the Cubs are able to extend Z.

 

If I don't "know" that Marquis and Lilly will definitely have an impact on resigning Z, then you don't "know" that Marquis and Lilly will not have an impact on resigning Z.

 

Secondly, during an offseason, you don't see guys under the control of a team for another year like Zambrano typically get extended prior to the free agent signings anyway. But, as my first paragraph stated, it really doesn't matter anyway.

 

This is true, but Hendry could have played it safe and only signed one FA pitcher. If it turns out the Cubs resign Zambrano anyway, then I'll cut Hendry some slack and assume he knew the money would be there.

 

Third, I don't see the point of the Z/Guzman and Marquis/Lilly comparison. It wasn't a zero sum game with the signing of those two vs. extending Z. You are trying to make the Marquis signing have a negative impact on extending Z when there really isn't an evidence that that is the case.

 

It may not come down to that particular choice, but the dollars work out about the same. One thing is certain; no team's budget is unlimited and the dollars you spend on one player are dollars you can't spend on another player. The question is how to get the most value for your dollars, and I don't believe that Jason Marquis at 3/21 is a very good value over the long term.

 

Essentially, what it boils down to is that your position really isn't ripe for argument at this time. If the Cubs don't end up extending Z, then maybe you can point to the Marquis signing as a reason why. Until then, it's just meaningless hand-wringing.

 

Maybe so, but people always say things like "hindsight is 20/20" to defend GMs when saying this or that player was a bad acquisition when things go badly, but are more than willing to give GMs plenty of credit when things go well. I'm not using hindsight. I'm saying the Marquis deal is a bad deal now. If he defies all statistical evidence to the contrary and pitches decently for three seasons, then I'll be wrong, but at least I won't be second guessing the signing two years later, when anyone who can read the stat sheet can tell whether the deal was good or bad, after defending it when the deal was done. To say that we won't know for certain whether the Marquis deal is good or bad until we see what he does for three years is a tautology. The results will indeed tell who is right and wrong about the Marquis deal, but to me, if you're going to criticize a deal, you should have the courage to do so up front with the same information the decision maker has.

 

Yes, I'm predicting what's going to happen. That's a big part of what Hendry and other GMs are supposed to do, take the available data about players and get the right ones to put together a winning team, within the constraints of the budget.

[wolf stansson]

It's ridiculous to compare Marquis and Suppan's dERAs to ERA together. They were on the same team.

Merely pointing out that comparing Suppan and Marquis and then saying Marquis can do it because Suppan did was ridicuous because they had the same opportunities in terms of run support and defense.

[abuck1220]

sorry, but i don't think jones exceeding expectations last season has any effect on marquis doing the same this season.

Of course it doesn't. But that's not the point at all.

 

ok, so what is the point?

The doomsday predictors don't know as much as they think they know.

 

well, i was right about neifi, dempster, pierre and the team as a whole sucking last year, so maybe i'm pretty smart after all.

 

and we all know i was right about hill being good.

Edited March 15, 2007 by abuck1220

[abuck1220]

i have an idea. let's let the guy pitch a few games before we rake him over the coals. I know there isn't much to talk about this time of the year, but I get tired of endless predictions about who will do what.

 

you're right...complete silence until opening day. shut the boards down.