Re: Where's Meph? (Khalil Greene)

[CoolHandLuke]

Inflates it in the same way hitting more home runs does.

[SouthSideRyan]

Would you rather have:

.240/.400/.900

 

or

 

.300/.380/.850

 

All else being equal, the first guy. Seems like an easy call.

[sneakypower]

Would you rather have:

.240/.400/.500

 

or

 

.300/.380/.470

i'd take the 2nd guy, though the first might be a more valuable player of the two if he's in the leadoff spot.

 

i see more value in driving in and advancing all the extra runners. the difference would still probably be too marginal to cause much difference in the standings.

[SouthSideRyan]

Would you rather have:

.240/.400/.500

 

or

 

.300/.380/.470

i'd take the 2nd guy, though the first might be a more valuable player of the two if he's in the leadoff spot.

 

i see more value in driving in and advancing all the extra runners. the difference would still probably be too marginal to cause much difference in the standings.

 

The guy with the 240 BA is hitting for a lot more power with an ISO of 260 compared to the 300 guy's 170.

[wrigley23]

meph...you are putting quite a few words into my mouth. I'm not going to rehash all of it. I do think Greene would boost our production in the middle although I think it would be improved greater by solidifying a solid leadoff hitter. I'd love to buy into the Reed Johnson at the top all season but i know better than to expect that. He also would be a solid 8 hitter in front of the pitcher as he has a knack for the strike zone. I still cannot believe Lou is putting soriano back at leadoff. That blows my mind how they continue to cater to this guy. Soriano's days as a 40 hr hitter are over. Pitchers will not give him enough fastballs to get anywhere near that number. He also will not be a base stealer any longer so your argument does not hold water there. In a perfect world, I wish we would get

Roberts to lead off, hit fuko second, soriano 3rd as he would see plenty of fastballs in front of lee & aram. It would be great to have a left handed Dunn somewhere in the middle as well. I would prefer Dunn over greene due to the obp difference as well as the power diff. I certainly don't see Greene hitting near as many as Dunn & certainly not enough to make up for his obp hole. I still think we need to slot in a #2 starting pitcher. It will be interesting to see what move is made. We definitely need to make one before the trade deadline to legitimize our post season chances.

[shnsajax]

Inflates it in the same way hitting more home runs does.

 

Which is also in line with my point. With guys like Lee and Utley if the HR's are not there they get replaced by doubles. It doesn't work that way with Dunn. If he only hit 30 hr's last season he would have seen a drop in his slug% buy 80 point and would take him down to an .820 OPS. He still had a superb isolated obp last season of .122. If that simply dropped down to .100 which is superb for any player in baseball his OPS would have been right about .800. Thats would have been around 14 less walks last season. So we are now looking at 24 PA that resulted in a .100 increase in his OPS. Statistically he is walking on very thin ice from looking solid with his OPS to very crappy for a guy with his power. Walks and HR's play way too much of a factor in Dunn's stats, more so than any other player in baseball.

[Jehrico]

Inflates it in the same way hitting more home runs does.

 

Which is also in line with my point. With guys like Lee and Utley if the HR's are not there they get replaced by doubles. It doesn't work that way with Dunn. If he only hit 30 hr's last season he would have seen a drop in his slug% buy 80 point and would take him down to an .820 OPS. He still had a superb isolated obp last season of .122. If that simply dropped down to .100 which is superb for any player in baseball his OPS would have been right about .800. Thats would have been around 14 less walks last season. So we are now looking at 24 PA that resulted in a .100 increase in his OPS. Statistically he is walking on very thin ice from looking solid with his OPS to very crappy for a guy with his power. Walks and HR's play way too much of a factor in Dunn's stats, more so than any other player in baseball.

He's a modern day Rob Deer, with more walks. I'd take Burrell over him in a heartbeat, due to the rest of his game (and the fact that Dunn doesn't strike me as too agile, I see him being a DL-frequenter in a couple of years), but I wouldn't complain about Dunn in our lineup. He can't play CF, tough question as to whether I'd take him over Sori or Kosuke.

[Sammy Sofa]

meph...you are putting quite a few words into my mouth.

 

Meph is banned. You've been talking to me. Of course, given your demonstrated attention span thus far, this comes as no surprise.

 

I'm not going to rehash all of it. I do think Greene would boost our production in the middle although I think it would be improved greater by solidifying a solid leadoff hitter.

 

In no way can a healthy Soriano not be considered a solid leadoff hitter. No, he doesn't fullfill the ideals of a certain type of leadoff hitter, but his obvious skills more than make up for it. The only way you can say he's not "solid" is if over a season he doesn't produce as a run maker. You can't say that now and be serious.

 

I'd love to buy into the Reed Johnson at the top all season but i know better than to expect that.

 

You should...we have much better hitters on this team besides Reed Johnson. There's a good chance his split numbers will show up again and he'll be mediocre or worse against righties. And check the leadoff OBP for the Cubs since Soriano went down.

 

I still cannot believe Lou is putting soriano back at leadoff. That blows my mind how they continue to cater to this guy.

 

Yeah, it's nuts "catering" to a guy that's shown he can hit 30+ HR's and 70-90 RBI's out of that slot. How stupid of Lou to tolerate such a performance.

 

Soriano's days as a 40 hr hitter are over. Pitchers will not give him enough fastballs to get anywhere near that number.

 

Ridiculous argument. Nobody thought it was terriby likely he was going to have another 40+ HR year. What has been expected, and wisely so, is that he'll still have 30+ HR seasons. Talking like he's suddenly useless because he probably won't hit 40 HR's or more is laughable.

 

He also will not be a base stealer any longer so your argument does not hold water there.

 

I didn't say aything about his stealing in this thread, but I will now...I don't give a damn if he never steals another base. I don't care if I never say ANY Cub ever steal another base. It's a largely outdated aspect of the game that in no way is required or necessary of anyone in the lineup.

 

In a perfect world, I wish we would get

Roberts to lead off, hit fuko second, soriano 3rd as he would see plenty of fastballs in front of lee & aram.

 

So your solution to deal with Soriano is to structure the lineup so that the two biggers threats in the lineup see less AB's. Brilliant.

 

It would be great to have a left handed Dunn somewhere in the middle as well. I would prefer Dunn over greene due to the obp difference as well as the power diff. I certainly don't see Greene hitting near as many as Dunn & certainly not enough to make up for his obp hole.

 

OBP ISN'T EVERYTHING. Good Lord...it's an incredibly valuable stat, but stop acting like anyone who has less than a .350 OBP is automatically a detriment to the team.

 

We definitely need to make one before the trade deadline to legitimize our post season chances.

 

The only reality-based thing you've ever posted here. Congratulations.

[Andy]

Meph also had an irrational dislike of Pie. He also mentioned in the post that he's discounting Cedeno because the organization wasn't going to give him a chance. Calling it a smart move in the hypothetical to trade Pie and Cedeno becuase the organization won't play them is short-sighted. "Oh our team is stupid and won't give chances to legitamate players, let's trade them away." If the people in charge are being stupid about real talents, then let's hypothetically get rid of the people in charge.

 

We had 2 question marks heading into the season in SS and CF. We have 2 players whose track record would show they can at least be passable in filling those holes, and have the potential to be plusses in both of those "holes" But we want to give in to the organization's stupidity and trade these guys away because "they'll never play them" (which is far from proven anyways.) I'm not going to argue against Khalil being an above average SS. My problem comes with trading 2 guys I think will be above average to get that part.

 

What on earth has Cedeno done to convince you that he will be above average?

At the risk of falling into the sample size trap, .367/.417/.545 in 44 ABs this year, working more deep counts than ever, going oppo like a pro and generally owning most of the ABs he has had in 2008. And everyone else already mentioned the AAA numbers.

[Sammy Sofa]

Also at the risk of the same trap, I hope Cedeno keeps on making a Greene trade look less and less necessary.

[imb]

It doesn't work that way with Dunn. If he only hit 30 hr's last season he would have seen a drop in his slug% buy 80 point and would take him down to an .820 OPS.

 

this made lol pretty hard

[imb]

hey guys if instead of homering, dunn struck out instead, he would have only had a .500 ops so hes pretty terrible

[CoolHandLuke]

But if instead of striking out out he homered every time his OPS+ would be almost a million or something.

[cbbryan]

Surely the Pads would want Sam Fuld over Felix Pie...............

 

 

 

[javy knows my name]

Surely the Pads would want Sam Fuld over Felix Pie...............

 

 

 

 

Sam Fuld's untouchable, dude

[muntjack]

Can we just get a 1a starter and call it a WS, please?

[Schwarber Fan]

I emailed Bruce about this...

 

I have not [heard the rumor], but I'll look into it. I'm also an Aramis fan. All that stuff about "hustle," to me is a phony issue. I'll take the numbers the guy puts up. Thanks for the note.

 

Bruce

[JWCUB]

Can we just get a 1a starter and call it a WS, please?

 

+ 1

[shnsajax]

Can we just get a 1a starter and call it a WS, please?

 

+ 1

 

agreed, Toronto should look into dealing Halladay to us since they can't win a game for him :-). They can have Pie, Zamardja, Colvin, whoever they want for him.

[TheDude]

Greene for Pie right now makes a lot of sense. Those concerned about 'giving up on the future' need to recognize this team has the talent to win now. I will take the risk of moving Pie for solid talent like Greene if it makes an already favored team even better.

[Banedon]

I emailed Bruce about this...

 

I have not [heard the rumor], but I'll look into it. I'm also an Aramis fan. All that stuff about "hustle," to me is a phony issue. I'll take the numbers the guy puts up. Thanks for the note.

 

Bruce

 

The author of the "rumor" more or less already debunked it...

 

I emailed the guy that wrote the Union Trib article, and he replied. My email first...his follows:

 

Just so you know, this little blurb has caused quite the conversation piece on Cubs forums today. Is this something that is currently going on, or is this just speculation? After the Brian Roberts rumors, there’s some understandable skepticism.

 

The general consensus is that this makes too much sense to happen.

 

 

No sweat, just an item revisited what happened last May, very low level.

[Jehrico]

Meph also had an irrational dislike of Pie. He also mentioned in the post that he's discounting Cedeno because the organization wasn't going to give him a chance. Calling it a smart move in the hypothetical to trade Pie and Cedeno becuase the organization won't play them is short-sighted. "Oh our team is stupid and won't give chances to legitamate players, let's trade them away." If the people in charge are being stupid about real talents, then let's hypothetically get rid of the people in charge.

 

We had 2 question marks heading into the season in SS and CF. We have 2 players whose track record would show they can at least be passable in filling those holes, and have the potential to be plusses in both of those "holes" But we want to give in to the organization's stupidity and trade these guys away because "they'll never play them" (which is far from proven anyways.) I'm not going to argue against Khalil being an above average SS. My problem comes with trading 2 guys I think will be above average to get that part.

 

What on earth has Cedeno done to convince you that he will be above average?

At the risk of falling into the sample size trap, .367/.417/.545 in 44 ABs this year, working more deep counts than ever, going oppo like a pro and generally owning most of the ABs he has had in 2008. And everyone else already mentioned the AAA numbers.

More than just working deeper into counts, he finally looks like he has a solid approach at the plate. He always had the talent, the question was whether he would ever "get it." He now looks like he "gets it."

[Jehrico]

Can we just get a 1a starter and call it a WS, please?

 

+ 1

 

agreed, Toronto should look into dealing Halladay to us since they can't win a game for him :-). They can have Pie, Zamardja, Colvin, whoever they want for him.

As much as I'd hate to trade Ronny right now, I would gladly throw him into a package for Halladay if needed.

[Schwarber Fan]

Get Pie out of town before he loses value.

[wrigley23]

mojo...the losing w/ soriano reconvened today. He sure looked awesome all the way around today.