MacPhail: Deal is dead (p. 297), stop posting, go outside

[RammyFanny]

It was reported on the Baseball discussions board that Levine has said the Cubs already have a plan to sign Cintron for the backup spot if/when Cedeno is traded. Cedeno is obviously the better guy due to age and potential, but i'd wager both will probably put up around an .700ish OPS next season.

[Mephistopheles]

Remember when Cintron was the next Jeter?

 

I do.

[RedFlash]

I know the package the O's are asking for from the Cubs ain't exactly the caliber the Rangers got from the Braves for Tex, but even still, the Cubs would be foolish to make that trade. I mean, my word:

 

1: The Cubs have DeRosa and doesn't NEED to trade for Roberts.

2: There are similar players to Jay Payton that can be had cheaper then what it would take to make this trade happen. I mean, Brady Clark comes to mind (I know, but he would provide the same things that Payton would provide. Or how about Brian Anderson of the White Sox. Blah blah blah.

 

I used to back the Roberts to the Cubs, but considering the prickliness (<----if that is even a word) of the O's, I would till Hendry to finish "tinkeling" with the team, and go to ST with the current group of players. We are not in dire need of Brian Roberts.

[bhogg]

is this another one of those times where hendry is bidding against himself?

[YearofDaCubs]

is this another one of those times where hendry is bidding against himself?

Gotta wonder why no other teams have been mentioned for Roberts.

[cubfan1955]

It was reported on the Baseball discussions board that Levine has said the Cubs already have a plan to sign Cintron for the backup spot if/when Cedeno is traded. Cedeno is obviously the better guy due to age and potential, but i'd wager both will probably put up around an .700ish OPS next season.

 

Ugh...that's not a great plan.

[Illini Iceman]

is this another one of those times where hendry is bidding against himself?

Gotta wonder why no other teams have been mentioned for Roberts.

 

Even if no other team is interested in trading for Roberts the O's can obviously choose not to move him if the price is not right. No one at this point can say for sure what Hendry has offered or if he has moved at all off his original proposal. However, even if he has sweetened the pot to try to make the trade happen it would not be fair to say he is bidding against himself because at the very least he is bidding against the O's option of not trading Roberts to anyone.

[Post Count Padder]

Remember when Cintron was the next Jeter?

 

I do.

[17 Seconds]

I agree, Peace seems more reliable than BigBird. So I would tend to be encouraged by him saying a deal is likely and Roberts has a 100% chance of being traded. Still is not a guarantee but I am encouraged.

 

Bigbird is a huge tool. See, here's what he does, and this is all under the assumption that he actually does have a guy he gets "information" from, (which I think definately could be BS, I'll get into that in a second). His guy tells him his opinion on what he thinks might happen and what the Orioles should do, and then bigbird spews the same stuff out. I'd say the vast majority of the stuff he passes off as "inside info" is just his opinion and speculation. Anyways, I think it's very possible he doesn't even have a "guy", and that he just piggybacks onto Peace/Belkast's stuff. The other day I was browsing that board after he claimed a deal of Gallagher/Murton/Veal/Cedeno was on the table (sure it was, bigbird), and he mentioned that he confirmed with Peace and he had heard the same thing. In a different thread the next day, Peace posted that he hadn't heard anything about that deal. I asked bigbird why he said Peace confirmed it, when he obviously didn't. Of course I got no reply, and if you question any of the almighty "insiders" on the board, you get banned. Those guys are no more "insiders" than we are after they share the stuff they hear with us. Peace's guy is just a dude that works in the same agency as Bedard/Roberts' agent, so I can't imagine him knowing all that much about what's going on in the Orioles FO.Belkast I have no idea about, but I'd be willing to bet his guy is nothing more than a friend of a friend or something like that.

[Soul]

It's just not a good match for us, that much I agree with. I understand the O's want to get as much as possible for their guy, but again -- pitching. We really don't this luxury abundance of it to be tossing potential starters out in trades all over the place.

 

I really want to see what Gallagher has for '08 now. Please don't trade him.

[CUBZ99]

It's just not a good match for us, that much I agree with. I understand the O's want to get as much as possible for their guy, but again -- pitching. We really don't this luxury abundance of it to be tossing potential starters out in trades all over the place.

 

I really want to see what Gallagher has for '08 now. Please don't trade him.

 

Agreed, just let the Roberts trade go.

[Rob]

At this point, I'm beginning to associate this whole ordeal with Brian Roberts the baseball player, not just the transaction. It's gotten so bad that I'm almost convinced I'd boo him every game, despite his production.

[GTAG]

It seems that there is a growing sentiment among many of us that we really do not want Gallagher in the trade (if there ever even is a trade). Anybody know where in the order he might pitch IF he sticks? I would think that if his fastball is in the mid-90's that he is a middle of the order type of pitcher. Could he go after Lilly and before Hill? If he is a 3 or 4 then I really want to keep him.

A-Zambrano

B-Lilly

C-Gallagher

D-Hill

E-Marquis/Lieber/Marshall/Hart

 

This would break up the 2 lefties...

[badnews]

Trade overall seems believable. Would solve their problems of needing a top prospect and MI help. Solves our need for top of lineup help and a fall back plan if Pie doesn't cut it.

 

I think its a decent deal. We are probably giving up too much, but we would control Roberts for 2 years at a decent cost.

 

This is what I mean about people thinking that increasingly outrageous deals are "decent." RynoHawk, I do not understand your post.

 

Jay Payton is due $5 million in 2008, and at this point in his career he's like a .740 OPS guy against lefties and a .690 guy overall probably. He is no more of a fallback option than Sam Fuld or Eric Patterson, and he's probably worse than Angel Pagan and definitely worse than Craig Monroe. Plus, all he does is bitch about lack of playing time.

 

So you're saying it's okay to trade our top pitching prospect, our 2nd best position player prospect, an outfielder in Murton who I think could only be a step away from becoming a Conor Jackson type hitter, and a shortstop who's fairly high risk/high reward, for a pure pricey salary dump and 2 years of Brian Roberts? Are we trading more than the Red Sox did for Josh Beckett yet? Yeesh.

 

I'm sorry. I grow increasingly baffled by the reasoning that goes on in this topic. Soon enough we'll be rationalizing how trading Soto, Hill, Marmol, Pie, Gallagher, Murton, Cedeno, Wuertz, and DeRosa for Roberts, Payton, and Danys Baez is a fair deal.

[craig]

GTAG, it's one thing to have been clocked at 96, once. It's another to consistently be throwing mid-90's. Seems to me that expecting Gallagher to be throwing his fastball at 95 with location 8 times an inning is beyond what we should expect. If he's 89-93 most of the time, hits 94 once an inning maybe, and hits 96 once every third start, that's still not an overwhelming fastball velocity.

 

If we keep him, he'd open camp as the #8 starter. He could advance from that as need, performance, and failure by those ahead of him demand.

 

But I'd think that if we keep him, he'd project to open at Iowa and see what happens from there. IIRC he didn't eat a lot of innings last year. In the minors they have very limited pitch counts in April; then he had a bad shoulder and missed a start or more; then was building back; got called up and sat; send back down to build back again, etc.. And in many of his starts he was really a long-count guy. Not a guy who'd get many 8-pitch innings.

 

I like him very much as a prospect. But I'd certainly prefer to see him open at Iowa and see whether he's raised his game.

 

I like his future, though. He seems to be committed to trying to be as good as he can become, as his weight-loss stuff reflects. While he's more advanced than his age would suggest, my take is that he's been trying different things with his breaking balls over much of his career. Slider, curve big, curve small, cutter, change, he's tried them all, and I'm not sure through last year had ever really settled in on which of those to use, or which combination. Seems also the Cubs have gone back and forth; for a while, it was curveball, don't do slider. Later slider got added back in, but two years ago i recall him saying he had trouble throwing them both well at the same time. I thought this fall there was talk of going primarily with slider rather than curve. Not sure about all of that. But I think he's smart enough, and has enough control, that I don't think he's hit his ceiling yet.

 

And I believe that a guy with a 90-95 fastball that he can locate well, and some variety of breaking balls that at times can be pretty good, and is smart, I think a guy like that can be very good.

 

With Marquis, Lieber, and Dempster all being on short leashes, there will certainly be rotation openings over the next couple of years. So if he stays healthy and works out, we could be very thankful if we end up keeping him. But it's also possible, of course, that he'll never be much better than he is now, and with some arm wear that soon enough he'll be less than that. Time will tell.

[17 Seconds]

Trade overall seems believable. Would solve their problems of needing a top prospect and MI help. Solves our need for top of lineup help and a fall back plan if Pie doesn't cut it.

 

I think its a decent deal. We are probably giving up too much, but we would control Roberts for 2 years at a decent cost.

 

This is what I mean about people thinking that increasingly outrageous deals are "decent." RynoHawk, I do not understand your post.

 

Jay Payton is due $5 million in 2008, and at this point in his career he's like a .740 OPS guy against lefties and a .690 guy overall probably. He is no more of a fallback option than Sam Fuld or Eric Patterson, and he's probably worse than Angel Pagan and definitely worse than Craig Monroe. Plus, all he does is bitch about lack of playing time.

 

So you're saying it's okay to trade our top pitching prospect, our 2nd best position player prospect, an outfielder in Murton who I think could only be a step away from becoming a Conor Jackson type hitter, and a shortstop who's fairly high risk/high reward, for a pure pricey salary dump and 2 years of Brian Roberts? Are we trading more than the Red Sox did for Josh Beckett yet? Yeesh.

 

I'm sorry. I grow increasingly baffled by the reasoning that goes on in this topic. Soon enough we'll be rationalizing how trading Soto, Hill, Marmol, Pie, Gallagher, Murton, Cedeno, Wuertz, and DeRosa for Roberts, Payton, and Danys Baez is a fair deal.

 

Here's how it works. People hear about the Cubs being interested in Roberts, and they get excited. They hear a few rumored packages and decide in their heads what is a realistic offer and what they'd be willing to give up. They want to believe that it will happen. Then someone posts a link of the latest rumored offer, which is a bigger package than the previous one. They don't like it at first, but then say "ah what the hell, it's only a little bit more, and I've got my heart set on Roberts." This goes on and on as the deal slowly gets pricier and pricier until it looks nothing like the original one. Then it's "well, screw it. we've spent all this time on it, might as well cave and get it done."

 

The biggest problem with this mindset is that it appears Jim Hendry has it as well.

[Backtobanks]

Trade overall seems believable. Would solve their problems of needing a top prospect and MI help. Solves our need for top of lineup help and a fall back plan if Pie doesn't cut it.

 

I think its a decent deal. We are probably giving up too much, but we would control Roberts for 2 years at a decent cost.

 

This is what I mean about people thinking that increasingly outrageous deals are "decent." RynoHawk, I do not understand your post.

 

Jay Payton is due $5 million in 2008, and at this point in his career he's like a .740 OPS guy against lefties and a .690 guy overall probably. He is no more of a fallback option than Sam Fuld or Eric Patterson, and he's probably worse than Angel Pagan and definitely worse than Craig Monroe. Plus, all he does is bitch about lack of playing time.

 

So you're saying it's okay to trade our top pitching prospect, our 2nd best position player prospect, an outfielder in Murton who I think could only be a step away from becoming a Conor Jackson type hitter, and a shortstop who's fairly high risk/high reward, for a pure pricey salary dump and 2 years of Brian Roberts? Are we trading more than the Red Sox did for Josh Beckett yet? Yeesh.

 

I'm sorry. I grow increasingly baffled by the reasoning that goes on in this topic. Soon enough we'll be rationalizing how trading Soto, Hill, Marmol, Pie, Gallagher, Murton, Cedeno, Wuertz, and DeRosa for Roberts, Payton, and Danys Baez is a fair deal.

 

Here's how it works. People hear about the Cubs being interested in Roberts, and they get excited. They hear a few rumored packages and decide in their heads what is a realistic offer and what they'd be willing to give up. They want to believe that it will happen. Then someone posts a link of the latest rumored offer, which is a bigger package than the previous one. They don't like it at first, but then say "ah what the hell, it's only a little bit more, and I've got my heart set on Roberts." This goes on and on as the deal slowly gets pricier and pricier until it looks nothing like the original one. Then it's "well, screw it. we've spent all this time on it, might as well cave and get it done."

 

The biggest problem with this mindset is that it appears Jim Hendry has it as well.

 

Do you know something that the rest of us don't know? Has Hendry made this ridiculous trade? Why don't we wait and see if a deal is made before we criticize Hendry on the deal instead of wild, unfounded speculation.

[cheapseats]

Solves our need for top of lineup help and a fall back plan if Pie doesn't cut it.

 

Pie would really have to suck for Payton to be a viable fall back plan. PECOTA projects an OPS for .697 for Payton.

[Soul]

Solves our need for top of lineup help and a fall back plan if Pie doesn't cut it.

 

Pie would really have to suck for Payton to be a viable fall back plan. PECOTA projects an OPS for .697 for Payton.

 

I just have a really bad feeling Pie's not going to hit.

[cheapseats]

Solves our need for top of lineup help and a fall back plan if Pie doesn't cut it.

 

Pie would really have to suck for Payton to be a viable fall back plan. PECOTA projects an OPS for .697 for Payton.

 

I just have a really bad feeling Pie's not going to hit.

 

Is that you, Dusty? :)

[TheDude]

So you're saying it's okay to trade our top pitching prospect, our 2nd best position player prospect, an outfielder in Murton who I think could only be a step away from becoming a Conor Jackson type hitter, and a shortstop who's fairly high risk/high reward, for a pure pricey salary dump and 2 years of Brian Roberts? Are we trading more than the Red Sox did for Josh Beckett yet? Yeesh.

 

Nope. Not even close. None of the players the Cubs are considering moving are near the prospect level that Ramirez was at the time, and certainly none will become what he has become. There are no sure-fire above-average everyday players in the rumored packages going to the O's. Murton has the best shot at it, but his lack of power at a power position hurts his chances in all but an Orioles-type franchise rebuilding. Gallagher is still prospect level and you never how pitching prospects work out.

 

You don't move Gallagher for unknown return, but Roberts return value is known, predictable, and needed, so the gamble surrounding the deal is almost entirely in the Orioles corner. They could end up with nothing 'real' in value. They could end up with a quality regular rotation starter and a serviceable everyday player on the cheap for a few years.

 

The inclusion of Payton in the deal doesn't make sense, but otherwise the reaction of Gallagher + Murton + Cedeno for Roberts is way overblown. Hendry would not be getting fleeced as advertised - he would be doing something people also bitch about him never doing, selling high. But that's the way people are around here; there is no concept of sell high on this board because the Cubs prospects of value are treated as gods.

[CubinNY]

Solves our need for top of lineup help and a fall back plan if Pie doesn't cut it.

 

Pie would really have to suck for Payton to be a viable fall back plan. PECOTA projects an OPS for .697 for Payton.

 

I just have a really bad feeling Pie's not going to hit.

I think it is important to have realistic expectations of how he'll preform. I think it is realistic to expect a league average CF production from Pie with well above league average fielding. To me the problem is not putting Pie in CF it is that the Cubs don't have a strong enough team to let a talented young CF learn to be a major league player. They need Pie to produce.

[David]

Solves our need for top of lineup help and a fall back plan if Pie doesn't cut it.

 

Pie would really have to suck for Payton to be a viable fall back plan. PECOTA projects an OPS for .697 for Payton.

 

I just have a really bad feeling Pie's not going to hit.

I think it is important to have realistic expectations of how he'll preform. I think it is realistic to expect a league average CF production from Pie with well above league average fielding. To me the problem is not putting Pie in CF it is that the Cubs don't have a strong enough team to let a talented young CF learn to be a major league player. They need Pie to produce.

 

IF we had a legit SS, we'd be able to handle it pretty well, since we're pretty strong in the other 6 spots in the lineup. If we do get Roberts, probably the best case scenario would be for Theriot to get hurt or suck REALLY bad so that they're stuck having no choice but to give DeRosa a good amount of time at SS. I'm not saying I'd hope for Theriot to start out poorly or get hurt. I'm just saying, realistically, it's probably the best thing that could happen.

[Soul]

Solves our need for top of lineup help and a fall back plan if Pie doesn't cut it.

 

Pie would really have to suck for Payton to be a viable fall back plan. PECOTA projects an OPS for .697 for Payton.

 

I just have a really bad feeling Pie's not going to hit.

I think it is important to have realistic expectations of how he'll preform. I think it is realistic to expect a league average CF production from Pie with well above league average fielding. To me the problem is not putting Pie in CF it is that the Cubs don't have a strong enough team to let a talented young CF learn to be a major league player. They need Pie to produce.

 

What is league average offense for a CF? My fear is that he'll be terrible, like .220/.283 kind of terrible. I know, I need to have more faith :cool:

[CubColtPacer]

Solves our need for top of lineup help and a fall back plan if Pie doesn't cut it.

 

Pie would really have to suck for Payton to be a viable fall back plan. PECOTA projects an OPS for .697 for Payton.

 

I just have a really bad feeling Pie's not going to hit.

I think it is important to have realistic expectations of how he'll preform. I think it is realistic to expect a league average CF production from Pie with well above league average fielding. To me the problem is not putting Pie in CF it is that the Cubs don't have a strong enough team to let a talented young CF learn to be a major league player. They need Pie to produce.

 

What is league average offense for a CF? My fear is that he'll be terrible, like .220/.283 kind of terrible. I know, I need to have more faith :cool:

 

.272/.337/.420. If Pie does that, the Cubs will have an above average offense next year, and possibly a top 5 offense. 7 of their 8 positions will be average or better, with a few of them having the potential to be significantly above.