2008 winter meetings: YOUR ideas of what to do

[Post Count Padder]

Get Cuban to buy the Cubs then sign/trade for every good player in the league.

 

C - Soto

1b - Pujols

2b - Utley

3b - A-Rod

SS - H. Ramirez

LF - Soriano

CF - Sizemore

RF - Fukudome (we'll keep him around for the funny last name)

 

1. Zambrano

2. Harden

3. Webb

4. Liriano

5. Santana

 

 

then call it an offseason and get ready for spring.

That team would be awesome.

[CP_414]

Resign Wood and Dempster. Howry, Blanco, Ward, Edmonds can go. Give Marquis to whoever pays most of his salary.

 

Offer John Smoltz a 1 year deal. Decent base, Incentives up to $16M based on IP.

 

If they are available make a run at Beltran, Magglio, or Holliday. Dunn, Burrell, or Abreu are good backup options.

[Rob]

Trade Lilly, DeRosa, and Wuertz to the Mets for Beltran, Moviel, and cash.

 

Trade Marquis + the cash to cover 80% of his salary for whatever flawed prospect some team is willing to give us.

 

Re-sign Demp and Wood. Exercise Harden's option. Let everybody else walk.

 

C - Soto

1B - Lee

2B - Fontenot

3B - Ramirez

SS - Theriot

LF - Soriano

CF - Beltran

RF - Fukudome

 

SP1 - Zambrano

SP2 - Harden

SP3 - Dempster

SP4 - Marshall

SP5 - Samardzija

 

CL - Wood

RP - Marmol

RP - Guzman

 

And the rest of the usual suspects in the pen and off the bench.

[Old Style]

Count me as one that would like to see Hank White re-signed.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

It's near impossible for me to give any specific ideas at this point. The Cubs aren't going to be able to spend big to acquire players(because they'll be using most of their payroll increase to give raises to current players and retain current free agents). Therefore, an upgrade is most likely to come from somebody who gets it in their head through poor judgment, fan pressure, etc. that a good player needs to be dealt. Beltran would be the prime example here. Unfortunately, many of those guys have bigger contracts(again, Beltran), but the motivation for the team trading them away isn't money(entirely at least), so it might be a way to get rid of the contract of say, Marquis or Lilly(or Fukudome if we make our own set of rash decisions).

 

In conclusion, it appears I like to use parentheses.

[BigbadB]

I envision pretty much the same team next year, with only a few noticeable changes (if the Cubs win it all).

 

A lefty reliever to replace Howry.

Pie replacing Edmonds in CF, but platooning with Johnson.

Resign Blanco, Wood, Dempster

 

If the Cubs do not win it all, I could see a few FA signings by the new ownership group letting Cub fans know they intend to win.

[erik316wttn]

I'm torn on Demp. I really am.

 

For one, I'd make a lousy GM. I'm too much of a fan to think with my head. Demp has been fantastic for us this year and is a big part of why we've been so good. I'd love to see him be a big part of this rotation for a long time. However, that being said, I've said on here before that one should always be leery of guys who underachieve or are average and then have a huge year in their contract year. Usually when you throw money at those guys, more often than not it kills you (see: Beltre, Adrian and Blauser, Jeff).

 

I'd also put out feelers about other 1Bmen via trade or free agency. If we can't do better than what we've got now, fine. But it would be nice to at least explore the options at first.

 

And also: Manny. Throw a crapload of money at him. Move Soriano to right and Kouske to CF.

[Mephistopheles]

Get AJ Burnett.

[nilodnayr]

Get AJ Burnett.

 

An oft injured pitcher coming off of a season in which he'll throw the most pitches in baseball? Not worth the risk. The Jays were heavily leaning toward working something out with him and now with Marcum out for 2009, they are going to pay him whatever he wants. Despite the fact that he wants to come here badly, hes not going to give us enough of a discount to make it worth it.

[Mephistopheles]

Better than overpaying for a pitcher who will throw about the same amount of innings this year as he did the previous four seasons combined. Not to mention the guy with a better track record, both physically and statistically as well as better pure stuff.

 

Honestly, with Zambrano and Harden we'd probably need a dependable pitcher who won't go down for spurts. Burnett's not that guy. Dempster's not that guy. Still, Marquis and Marshall are probably that guy. We can have a rotation of Harden, Zambrano, Burnett, Lilly and Marquis for most of the season. When Zambrano, Harden and Burnett have their month breaks we have Marshall to insert in the rotation. Marshall's honestly a better pitcher than Marquis so we're really not at a disadvantage throwing him out there for 15-20 starts.

 

Personally with the vacant spot in the rotation I say get a big upside guy, even with the risk, or get a no risk whatsoever dependable guy. I don't think we should give to a limited upside, high risk, high cost guy (read: Ryan Dempster).

 

Given the state of the division, the Brewers will suck. The Cardinals probably won't win 80 games. Unless there is a major signing (read Dunn to Houston) it's not a very likely scenario that any team outside of us in the division will be above .500. Even if Burnett misses three months of the season and we throw in Marshall for them, we still will win the division. We'd have a playoff rotation with Zambrano, Harden and Burnett at the front which would rival any top three in history. I'll take my chances and go for the home run.

 

A few other starters I would be interested in depending on the price: Oliver Perez, CC Sabathia, and Mark Prior (!). I Sure has heck hope Wood comes back. I just can't even imagine Wood in another uniform.

 

Rocco Baldelli could be available. Why not? Incentive laden deal, high upside.

 

So why not.

 

My overall possible hope list:

 

1. Sign Rafael Furcal (if health reports are good)

2. If possible, trade for Zack Greinke, if not sign one of {AJ Burnett, Oliver Perez, CC Sabathia, Randy Wolf}

3. Sign Rocco Baldelli

4. Sign Damaso Marte (if bought out) then Jeremy Affeldt

5. Resign Jim Edmonds

 

I think those five are reasonably possible. If Greinke is available at all, whatever it takes to get him. I don't care if it's Samardzija + Vitters. I'd do that in a minute. We might be able to sell high with Ryan Theriot in a trade to the Royals....

 

1. Rafael Furcal

2. Mark DeRosa

3. Derrek Lee

4. Aramis Ramirez

5. Alfonso Soriano

6. Kosuke Fukudome/Reed Johnson/Jim Edmonds

7. Geovany Soto

8. Rocco Baldelli/Jim Edmonds/Reed Johnson

 

1. Carlos Zambrano

2. Rich Harden

3. AJ Burnett/Zack Greinke/CC Sabathia/Randy Wolf/Oliver Perez/Sean Marshall

4. Ted Lilly

5. Jason Marquis

 

In all seriousness, what I would want to do:

1a. Sign Adam Dunn

1b. Resign Kerry Wood

2. Trade Mark DeRosa for Hong-Chih Kuo and Ivan DeJesus/Blake Dewitt (if 5 doesn't work, then Andrew Lambo)

3. Trade Ryan Theriot and Felix Pie for Khalil Greene and Cedric Hunter (before 5, I'll keep Hunter)

4. Sign Rocco Baldelli

5. Trade The Farm + Ivan DeJesus/Blake Dewitt + Cedric Hunter for Zack Greinke

6. Resign Hank White

7. Sign one of 1,000,000 utility infielders

 

1. Alfonso Soriano, LF

2. Mike Fontenot, 2B (Ronny Cedeno vs lefties)

3. Derrek Lee, 1B

4. Adam Dunn, RF (Reed Johnson vs lefties)

5. Aramis Ramirez, 3B

6. Geovany Soto, C

7. Kosuke Fukudome/Rocco Baldelli, CF

8. Khalil Greene, SS

 

Bench:

1. Micah Hoffpauir, 1B

2. Ronny Cedeno, INF

3. Rocco Baldelli, OF

4. Reed Johnson, OF

5. Generic Utility Infielder

6. Hank White, C

 

Rotation:

1. Carlos Zambrano

2. Rich Harden

3. Zack Greinke

4. Ted Lilly

5. Jason Marquis....Rich Hill!?

 

Bullpen

1. Sean Marshall, LHP

2. Hong-Chih Kuo, LHP

3. Angel Guzman, RHP

4. Jeff Samardzija, RHP

5. Carlos Marmol, RHP

6. Kerry Wood, RHP

 

With Guzman, Kuo and Marshall we have three guys who are pot'l #4's at worst when healthy.

 

Basically a rundown of what I'm doing is: Selling high on Theriot and DeRosa. Looking for pot'l buy low candidates. While doing that decomposing Theriot and DeRosa's "value" into parts that can be summed up to acquire Zack Greinke, the centerpiece of the offseason, if you ask me. I'd consider him more important than Dunn or Burrell or any slugger we may be linked with. I'd be content with Fukudome in RF, and Rocco/Edmonds if resigned/Reed Johnson in CF if changing that meant no Greinke. If you look at the potential contract situation, obviously there's a big increase for Adam Dunn, and probably one for Kerry Wood as well, but the rest of it isn't all that much.

 

And if Rich Hill is back. Well hot damn. Jason Marquis don't let the door hit you on the way out. I don't advise selling on Hill. All in all the team has very good depth in case Zambrano or Harden go down. Kuo's not dependable in the rotation for long, but for a couple starts he'll be great. Lilly has been durable as a Cub, but that was never his strong suit before. We'll have four ML quality SPs (assuming Hills alright), that can be inserted in the rotation if one goes down. One thing that is hurt, though, is the depth of our bench. DeRosa's loss hurts a bit, but selling high is important.

 

So I guess I should reorder by importance:

1. Trade Ryan Theriot + Felix Pie for Khalil Greene + Best possible prospect

2. Trade Mark DeRosa and Prospects to Kansas City for Zack Greinke, who then flips DeRosa for prospects from the Dodgers. If Kuo is possible on top of this, we get Kuo. Kuo is NOT a deal breaker, but is something that should be workable.

3. Resign Kerry Wood

4. Sign Rocco Baldelli

5. Look at potential corner outfielders: {Manny Ramirez, Adam Dunn, Pat Burrell, if we can afford one, get one, if not fine}

6. Resign Hank White

7. Sign Generic Utility Infielder

 

And if Khalil Greene's decline is legitimate, we're not screwed because we have Ronny Cedeno who can, at the least, post numbers equal to Theriot with better defense. So 1+2 combine to be: Prospects, Ryan Theriot, Felix Pie, and Mark DeRosa for Khalil Greene, Zack Greinke and possibly Kuo.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Can you really call Dempster a low upside guy compared to Burnett? You can argue the likelihood of him repeating it, but this year is just as good or better than any year of Burnett's career.

[Mephistopheles]

Sure. We're talking about expected values. The probability of Dempster having another season like this is a lot lower than Burnett's. If you want to look at it that way, it's quite possible that Jason Marquis could have a season as good as Dempster's this year. Oh wait he already has. Demp's VORP is around 55, Marquis had one around 50 in St Louis. We can say Dempsters upside is higher than Marquis Edited September 23, 2008 by Mephistopheles

[SouthSideRyan]

I'd say you're giving up way more than necessary for Greene.

[Mephistopheles]

I'd say you're giving up way more than necessary for Greene.

 

We're getting a prospect in the deal to flip for a good starting pitcher.

[nilodnayr]

I'd say you're giving up way more than necessary for Greene.

 

We're getting a prospect in the deal to flip for a good starting pitcher.

 

The padres have prospects?!?!? Since when?

[Mephistopheles]

heh.

[nilodnayr]

I'd say you're giving up way more than necessary for Greene.

 

We're getting a prospect in the deal to flip for a good starting pitcher.

 

Like I said above, it might be a fantasy, but we should look to take advantage of San Diego's ownership issue. I completely agree with SSR that we could get Greene a lot cheaper and my comment about the padre's lack of prospects wasn't so much a joke...their system is nearly completely barren. I would expand the Greene deal and throw Vitters et al to try to get Peavy. Pie, Theriot, Vitters, Rich Hill?, Fontenot? etc would be a pretty decent haul and be a huge step for them to rebuild their team with a youth movement while simultaneously not necessarily knocking them out of contention in a weakened division (ala the A's this year). If not Peavy, then reign back the package quite a bit and try to get Giles (assuming he'll approve a trade). He'd be perfect patrolling RF, moving Fukudome to CF.

 

We could match up really really well with the Padres given that we have an abundance of middle IFs as well as a farm system that won't be of great value to us because we have a lot of positions locked down and are (hopefully) going to have a new owner very soon who will spend.

 

Given their ownership situation and lack of a farm system, young cheap players are worth more to them than they are to most other teams. I'm not saying we are the only ones who could throw a bunch of young cheap players at them for Peavy and Greene, but we will hopefully be in a unique position (you may call it Yankee-esque) where we will be able to trade away young cheap players for older players with larger contracts. In order to avoid the yankee downfall, all you need to do is pick the right players. Giambi isn't that guy, Peavy is.

[BigbadB]

There are a ton of teams that have way more talent than we do to offer up for Peavy. Peavy isn't realistic, and I doubt they'd deal him anyway.

 

Greene's value couldn't be any lower than it is right now. I think they'd like to move him. San Diego wants to get fast since they can't hit home runs in that spacious park.

[Guest]

Why so much interest in Greinke to make him your number 1 offseason target, Meph?

[Mephistopheles]

Peavy won't be dealt. Giles will be 38 next season. Greinke's blossoming into a stud. Great multiple pitch mix. Great pitchability. Good command. Even though he's been around forever, still just 24.

[nilodnayr]

Peavy won't be dealt. Giles will be 38 next season. Greinke's blossoming into a stud. Great multiple pitch mix. Great pitchability. Good command. Even though he's been around forever, still just 24.

 

 

Hey, I like Greinke as much as the next guy, but the Royals have said over and over and over and over and over that hes untouchable.

[Rob]

Peavy won't be dealt. Giles will be 38 next season. Greinke's blossoming into a stud. Great multiple pitch mix. Great pitchability. Good command. Even though he's been around forever, still just 24.

 

 

Hey, I like Greinke as much as the next guy, but the Royals have said over and over and over and over and over that hes untouchable.

 

There's different levels of untouchable... and Greinke falls somewhere in between Pujols-untouchable and Sam Fuld-untouchable. He can be got.

[Mephistopheles]

Peavy won't be dealt. Giles will be 38 next season. Greinke's blossoming into a stud. Great multiple pitch mix. Great pitchability. Good command. Even though he's been around forever, still just 24.

 

 

Hey, I like Greinke as much as the next guy, but the Royals have said over and over and over and over and over that hes untouchable.

 

With their fans, interest, suckage and market, do you think they are going to come out and publically say "Yes, Zack Greinke can be had."

[BigbadB]

Greinke doesn't appear to have been beaten up at this point. Very modest IP totals.

[Clem Fandango]

Did Greinke piss anyone on the Royals off this year like he did last year, or did his meds keep him in check?