Maggs

[PrimeTime]

Roto

 

The Detroit News speculates that the Tigers "might need to consider trading Magglio Ordonez even if little is obtained in return."

The newspaper adds that the Tigers may even "agree to absorb some of Ordonez's remaining money if they could gain a reliever, shortstop or catcher in return." Almost every article regarding the Tigers' offseason plans has centered around potentially dealing Ordonez because he's 35 years old and has $48 million remaining on his contract, but it's unclear how getting pennies on the dollar for someone who's hit .323/.383/.510 in four seasons with Detroit would make the team any better.

 

If he's there for the taking for almost nothing we should definetley grab him. Move Fukudome to CF and platoon him with Reed and then just have mags patrol RF. I would love him in the middle of our lineup and he's still putting up great numbers even when he's up there in age. We definetley could put a package together for him.

[UMFan83]

The problem is he doesn't hit from the correct side of the plate.

[Little Slide Rooter]

Build something around Sean Marshall and Ronny Cedeno or Ryan Theriot and we could be in buisness.

[Prior4CyYoung]

If he is a cheap as they say he is then we could easily put together a package for him. He would greatly improve our team. They would probably have to absorb some of the contract and if they did that we would probably have to add more in but it would be worth it for sure.

[nilodnayr]

I know I'm a broken record, but where is this money coming from?

[rawaction]

Magglio scares me Howryless. .893 OPS in 4 years in Detroit, but that is skewed by his 1.029 OPS in 2007. Every other season has been less than that, including his 1st two which were .795 and .827, respectively.

 

He's old. He's a defensively liability. He's an injury risk. He's due to hit a wall any day now. I'd much rather go after Hermida w/ some upside or someone that won't cost prospects and a multi-year deal.

[apete6]

I know I'm a broken record, but where is this money coming from?

 

Not resigning Wood and/or Dempster?

Trading Marquis/Lee?

 

Hopefully some combination of the above. However, if we're spending that kind of money, why not just go after Teixiera or CC.

[nilodnayr]

Heres the convo between me and TT in regards to 2009 salary...In essense, we can get to a $10M bump in payroll by not resigning wood and getting rid of marquis, while signing Dempster. If we were to get rid of Lee, Marquis, and not resign Wood, we wouldn't have a 1st baseman AND we still wouldn't have enough money for Maggs.

 

Where is this money coming from?

 

Trading Lee? Not bringing Wood back? Trading Marquis?

 

Trading Lee lops off 13M from 2008

Not brining back Wood lops of 7.5M from 2008

Trading Marquis lops off 6.375 from 2008

 

Grand total of about $27M saved over 2008 budget from the guys you mentioned

 

We'll also lose Howrys 4M, Liebers 3.5M and Wards 1.2M, for roughly $36M total

 

Now lets look at the increase in salaries from 2008 to 2009

Z=2.75M

ARAM=1.65M

Sori=3M

Lilly=5M

Fukudome=5.5M

Dempster=lets assume 7M (increase from 5.5M to 12.5M)

DeRo=.75M

Harden=5M

Gaudin, Johnson, Wuertz, Cotts, and Cedeno go to arbi, lets estimate $3M more total.

 

So thats roughly $34M in increases meaning net net, we can drop our firstbaseman (without any reasonable subsitute), our closer (without adding another back of the BP guy), and our 5th starter (with a more than viable replacement) and save a whopping $2M from the 2008 payroll to go out there and throw at Tex!

 

Now the above doesn't include signing bonuses. I don't think anyone is really sure how MLB teams account for them. Additionally, Crane did say that the payroll could be bumped. But all in all, the point of the exercise is to show that the Cubs are gonig to need a payroll bump to bring back the same team and even will need a bump if they get rid of Marquis and don't sign Wood. Where this money is coming from to throw at Tex, I still have no clue.

 

Harden is only a 2.5 mil increase, from 4.5 to 7.

 

I had a bit of a simpler exercise in mind. Would you agree that money wouldn't be a problem in the team bringing back Wood and Dempster(within reason of course)? I hope so, because that's the assumption I'm running with. To simplify, let's say Dempster would sign 4/50 and Wood 3/30. Trading Lee and not bringing Wood back is 23 million. Teixeira for ~20 mil and Cruz for ~5 is right there and it fits easily with any type of backloading on Teixeira's deal. If Lee brought you back a good SP, then you don't have to bring back Dempster, or you can drop Marquis' expiring contract on whoever wants his innings, that frees up an additional 6-12 million.

 

We didn't have Harden for the entire year so we didn't pay his entire salary. Hence, for the Cubs, Harden's salary will increase ~$5M.

 

As for your assumption. I think based on what we are hearing on Wood, its not a safe one. I also think they are banking on trading away most of Marquis' money. In total, we can bring back the same team (minus Howry, Lieber, Ward) with Demp at 4/50 and Wood at 3/30, we are looking at a $150M payroll. Thats over a $30M bump from this year. Last year we also got a $20M spike. To put that in perspective, in the 6 years from 2001-2006, our payroll increased $30M.

 

Getting rid of Marquis and not re-signing Wood puts us back down to $130, which seems pretty reasonable to me. $10M is a bump, $30M is an out and out bonanza. Your scenario only works if that decent pitcher that we get back makes no money and is good enough to allow us to have faith in our pitching depth to get rid of 2/5ths of our rotation (ie Matt Cain). And frankly, I don't think Lee for Cain is all that likely.

[Backtobanks]

Magglio scares me Howryless. .893 OPS in 4 years in Detroit, but that is skewed by his 1.029 OPS in 2007. Every other season has been less than that, including his 1st two which were .795 and .827, respectively.

 

He's old. He's a defensively liability. He's an injury risk. He's due to hit a wall any day now. I'd much rather go after Hermida w/ some upside or someone that won't cost prospects and a multi-year deal.

 

I agree that I would like to see an OF who still is young enough to help the team for a few years. McLouth, Hermida, Beltran, etc. rather than Maggs, Abreu, etc.

[OleMissCub]

No thanks.

[jersey cubs fan]

I'd rather have Cabs.

[fiver]

I'd rather have crabs.

 

fixed. Maggs isn't a good fit.

[haubrich91]

Not a lefty: not an option.

 

No thanks.

[ParadigmShift]

Maybe I'm dense, but I fail to see how subtracting Lee to add Mags makes us a better team.

[wade]

Maybe I'm dense, but I fail to see how subtracting Lee to add Mags makes us a better team.

 

Maybe moving Lee allows them to add a lefty 1B? Tex or Dunn?

[apete6]

Anyone get the feeling that Maggs is destined for Tampa Bay? They need a power hitting RF and have a ton of young pitching that the Tigers NEED. I don't know how Maggs' knee would hold up at the Trop, but he could also DH if they resign Baldelli. The Rays could then have an OF of Crawford, Upton, and Baldelli/Hinske with Maggs upgrading their DH slot from the Cliff Floyd/Ben Zobrist mix.

 

Would a guy like Jeremy Hellickson get the job done OR would they have to give up a guy like Wade Davis (if the Tigers paid some of the salary)?

[nilodnayr]

Anyone get the feeling that Maggs is destined for Tampa Bay? They need a power hitting RF and have a ton of young pitching that the Tigers NEED. I don't know how Maggs' knee would hold up at the Trop, but he could also DH if they resign Baldelli. The Rays could then have an OF of Crawford, Upton, and Baldelli/Hinske with Maggs upgrading their DH slot from the Cliff Floyd/Ben Zobrist mix.

 

Would a guy like Jeremy Hellickson get the job done OR would they have to give up a guy like Wade Davis (if the Tigers paid some of the salary)?

 

He would be nearly half of the Rays payroll. They'd have to pick up a TON of his salary to get a guy like Davis or Hellickson.

[apete6]

Anyone get the feeling that Maggs is destined for Tampa Bay? They need a power hitting RF and have a ton of young pitching that the Tigers NEED. I don't know how Maggs' knee would hold up at the Trop, but he could also DH if they resign Baldelli. The Rays could then have an OF of Crawford, Upton, and Baldelli/Hinske with Maggs upgrading their DH slot from the Cliff Floyd/Ben Zobrist mix.

 

Would a guy like Jeremy Hellickson get the job done OR would they have to give up a guy like Wade Davis (if the Tigers paid some of the salary)?

 

He would be nearly half of the Rays payroll. They'd have to pick up a TON of his salary to get a guy like Davis or Hellickson.

 

Do you think the Rays would give the Tigers a lower tier prospect and take on all/most of Maggs' contract? I know he would be 1/3rd their payroll or whatever, but they should have a lot more attendance next year and all of this year's playoff revenue to spend.

 

Let's be honest, if they don't start spending money, it's going to eventually become a sad situation there. They won't be getting high picks anymore because of their good record and if they don't spend any money, they're going to have a 5 year window of being good if they don't resign all of their guys (like they did with Longoria) and then back to the crapper.

[fromthestretch]

Anyone get the feeling that Maggs is destined for Tampa Bay? They need a power hitting RF and have a ton of young pitching that the Tigers NEED. I don't know how Maggs' knee would hold up at the Trop, but he could also DH if they resign Baldelli. The Rays could then have an OF of Crawford, Upton, and Baldelli/Hinske with Maggs upgrading their DH slot from the Cliff Floyd/Ben Zobrist mix.

 

Would a guy like Jeremy Hellickson get the job done OR would they have to give up a guy like Wade Davis (if the Tigers paid some of the salary)?

 

He would be nearly half of the Rays payroll. They'd have to pick up a TON of his salary to get a guy like Davis or Hellickson.

 

Do you think the Rays would give the Tigers a lower tier prospect and take on all/most of Maggs' contract? I know he would be 1/3rd their payroll or whatever, but they should have a lot more attendance next year and all of this year's playoff revenue to spend.

 

Let's be honest, if they don't start spending money, it's going to eventually become a sad situation there. They won't be getting high picks anymore because of their good record and if they don't spend any money, they're going to have a 5 year window of being good if they don't resign all of their guys (like they did with Longoria) and then back to the crapper.

 

They could deal a few of them off for prospects as their price tags get too high. Also, the fact that they might not have the first pick of the draft doesn't prevent them from getting quality players in the draft.

[nilodnayr]

Anyone get the feeling that Maggs is destined for Tampa Bay? They need a power hitting RF and have a ton of young pitching that the Tigers NEED. I don't know how Maggs' knee would hold up at the Trop, but he could also DH if they resign Baldelli. The Rays could then have an OF of Crawford, Upton, and Baldelli/Hinske with Maggs upgrading their DH slot from the Cliff Floyd/Ben Zobrist mix.

 

Would a guy like Jeremy Hellickson get the job done OR would they have to give up a guy like Wade Davis (if the Tigers paid some of the salary)?

 

He would be nearly half of the Rays payroll. They'd have to pick up a TON of his salary to get a guy like Davis or Hellickson.

 

Do you think the Rays would give the Tigers a lower tier prospect and take on all/most of Maggs' contract? I know he would be 1/3rd their payroll or whatever, but they should have a lot more attendance next year and all of this year's playoff revenue to spend.

 

Let's be honest, if they don't start spending money, it's going to eventually become a sad situation there. They won't be getting high picks anymore because of their good record and if they don't spend any money, they're going to have a 5 year window of being good if they don't resign all of their guys (like they did with Longoria) and then back to the crapper.

 

While I agree that RF and DH right now are question marks for the Rays, they can find much better ways to spend money than to trade for Maggs.

[rawaction]

I don't know about Magglio to Tampa, but it will be interesting to see what they do this offseason. They have plenty of years w/ their current group. David Price to the rotation and Jackson to the pen, makes them stronger next year. Does this year's taste make them go out and spend some money? I could see them being players for someone like Adam Dunn.

[anabiono]

I don't know about Magglio to Tampa, but it will be interesting to see what they do this offseason. They have plenty of years w/ their current group. David Price to the rotation and Jackson to the pen, makes them stronger next year. Does this year's taste make them go out and spend some money? I could see them being players for someone like Adam Dunn.

 

yep, i agree

 

i think adam dunn will be a ray come 2009