TruffleShuffle

And these signings aren't taking away any of our current crop of prospects either. Theoretically, if any of these guys work out, it will make the big contracts all that much easier to handle in future years. If they start trading their best pitching prospects for relievers and bench players, then the future is in jeopardy. But, if they hold onto those guys, or only use them in trades for really good regular contributors, then we're fine. Yeah, that's why I like what the Cubs are doing this offseason. If you can trade for a real superstar - A-Rod, Miguel Cabrera - hey, go for it. But don't mortgage the farm for a stopgap or even a pretty good player. The Cubs are going after free agents and are keeping what little there is in the farm system intact. Down the road, I can see Patterson taking over at 2B and DeRosa shifting to the utility role. If Schmidt sucks or is hurt in his 4th year, maybe someone like Veal, Gallagher or Pawelek will have arrived and will be pitching well, for really cheap. One of the things that this insane free agent period will show is how critical it is to at least develop some minor league talent that contributes at a major league level. Think of how big it is for the Phillies to have a masher like Howard making less than $1M, or the same for the Twins to have Morneau and Mauer. Even guys like Hill and Murton, who had an ERA+/OPS+ over 100 last year, can be give good production for really cheap. You can't plug 8-figure players like Soriano, Lee and ARam into every spot in the lineup, so you've got to manufacture some regulars of your own.

You know Kip Wells wouldn't be a bad idea. I would take a chance on him. too late, he's winning the Cy Young award next year with the Cards

Source: http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/features/rumors Hendry will bid 4/60 soon. Would rather have written off 2007 and given our stable of 4A pitchers a chance to earn a rotation spot, then evaluate and address needs in the offseason. Sadly that ship has sailed(sigh). Was there even a ship to begin with? Outside of Hill, our current crop of youngsters ain't too pretty. I'm thinking some of them will improve, but do you really think any of them until Veal and Gallagher would improve THAT much? I don't know, but it would have been nice to find out. Not having humongous bubble-year contracts on the books for the next half decade would have been cool too. Hopefully you weren't one of the people saying "please I don't care what you have to do, just win a World Series" during last season. Look the fans want to win now, and that is what the management is trying to do. I know its completely short sighted and we'll regret it, but within reason, I'll worry about the future in the future. In terms of our 'crops' of pitchers, I saw enough of that last year. not to mention that our crops of pitchers that were supposedly spectacular in the part of this decade yielded exactly one good, reliable starter - unless you count someone like Willis, who wasn't that highly regarded at the time of his trade. Every pitching prospect the Cubs have who is close to being major-league ready has serious questions, in terms of ability and/or health.

Man, why do the Cubs have to be too dumb to find the bargains like this? I probably like Kennedy's bat a little better than DeRosa's, but DeRosa is a better fielder and offers value as a utility guy. In any case, good, smart signing by the Cards (unfortunately).

yeah, talk to the new york knicks about how that's working out for them

Oh yeah, give me 1 example of a team that didn't work for. No statistics, please. Last years Cubs. Spending a bunch of money on relievers is stupid if you completely neglect the starting rotation and offense, as the Cubs did last year. If you address all three areas, then sure, go get yourself some reliable relief help. that's the problem. relievers fluctuate so much year in and year out, that it's foolish to throw 3-4 year deals at them. i can't think of any big contract middle relievers that have lived up to their contract. I don't really buy this. Bob Howry has been reliably good as a middle reliever for most of his big-league career. Guys like Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton were good almost every year until they got old. Good pitchers are good pitchers, regardless of whether they start, pitch middle relief, or close. Like I said in another thread, Carlos Beltran was a below-average player in 2005. Anyone, regardless of position, can have a down year.

Exactly. It's totally seperate from the payroll. It doesn't mean he'd get a huge contract afterwards. Count against the payroll for MLB purposes or not, the Trib would be spending an extra 25 million this season. That money does have to come from somewhere. It's a pretty big company. I'm not sweating it. In contrast to almost everyone else here, I hope that the Cubs DID put in the highest bid. SPEND THEM DOLLAS AND POP THEM COLLAS. It's a pretty big company that's not in great financial shape, and actually has to answer to investors. If the Cubs run a $50 million deficit this season, there are going to be some pissed off people. This team isn't owned by Mark Cuban or Roman Abramovich (if you know your English soccer). There aren't unlimited resources. If the Cubs spend $25M on Igawa, that's definitely going to cut back on what else the Cubs can do this offseason. And please don't pop them collas. Not if you have any self-respect.

It is important to allocate resources well, but the Cubs' rotation was just so bad last year. I want someone I can rely on, who can go deep into games. The young guys weren't doing that last year, with the exception of Hill toward the end of the season. So you'd end up with Glendon Rusch or whoever your crappy long reliever is coming into games and also getting drilled. Having too many inconsistent and unreliable pitchers in your rotation really can be crippling. I can live with this offense if the Cubs go out and grab two more starters. Your points make some sense - they seem well thought out and rational - but I just don't think I agree with them.

Hey, Jason! Chicago is only halfway! plenty of non-stop flights from ORD to SFO too!

Well, I'm a week late thanks to my internet service provider, but I'll share my thoughts. Obviously the contract is big. Huge. Will he be overpaid? Sure. But, he's a good player, quite possibly very good if his 2006 season wasn't a fluke. It was going to take a buttload of money to sign him, and with guys like Gary Matthews Jr and Juan Pierre making about $10M per, this deal doesn't look so outrageous. If the current economic climate is really here to stay, the deal might look really reasonable in a year or two. Anyway, will he sustain his 2005 performance? I tend to believe that he will, because he's an extremely talented player whose main weakness was strike zone judgement. He hit very well for several years without controlling the strike zone much, and last year, when his plate discipline improved, so did his numbers. Remember, Sammy Sosa was a good-but-not-great hitter for 8 big league seasons before he took off, as a result of learning how to control the strike zone. The steroid whispers, if you believe them, increased Sosa's ability to hit the ball far - but not his ability to not swing at crappy pitches. For some guys who are super-talented but always used that natural talent to succeed, it takes a long time for the plate discipline to click. I also think Hendry is probably right when he says Soriano is a "young 30." He's a great athlete and is still fairly small and wiry despite his big power numbers. Obviously, his ability to steal bases will go downhill as he gets older, but good base-stealers like Bonds, Sosa, Biggio and Molitor lost their ability to run fast as well, and still were good players well into their 30s. The important thing is that his game isn't built on speed, like Juan Pierre. Yeah, Carlos Beltran would've been nice. But when you look back to his signing - he too was coming off a career year. His discipline clearly had been improving, but his OBP was below-average just two years before his free agent year. He's younger, and that is important... but he had a below-average OPS+ (95) his first year in New York, so obviously he's not infallible. I'd surely take him over Soriano, but what's done is done, and all the Cubs can do is go foward and try to build the best team they can. The offense was incompetent in 2006, and Soriano is a huge upgrade over Pierre. With Lee and Ramirez, you have three real cornerstones in place, and Barrett and Murton are two very solid complementary players. This should not be a bad offense in 2006, and quite possibly could be a pretty good offense. It's not my money, and as long as the Cubs are committed to expanding the payroll, I'm happy about the signing. If they go cheap in 2 years and want the payroll less than $100M, then Soriano's contract will be a millstone, but I really do feel optimistic about how he'll produce in a Cub uniform.

Nooo. Lugo Bad for going to Red Sox. Were we ever serious contenders for Lugo or was that all just rumor? I thought I remember hearing or reading that Piniella really wanted him, but I'm not really sure. I think it was last week,chicagosports.com said the cubs talked to him and he was willing to play CF if he came to chicago... His bat plays way, way better at SS than it does in CF. If he's getting signed, it had better be to play SS. Put Soriano in CF and hope it works out. The plan was to put him in CF until Pie was ready..Then move him to SS unless you don't believe Pie will ever be ready...

I'd probably do it, but I'd really want to have some sort of assurances in there for the 4th year to kick in at full price - either in terms of appearances or performance.

Nooo. Lugo Bad for going to Red Sox. Were we ever serious contenders for Lugo or was that all just rumor? I thought I remember hearing or reading that Piniella really wanted him, but I'm not really sure. I think it was last week,chicagosports.com said the cubs talked to him and he was willing to play CF if he came to chicago... His bat plays way, way better at SS than it does in CF. If he's getting signed, it had better be to play SS. Put Soriano in CF and hope it works out.

oh jeez, please don't be the Cubs. $25 million? Give me a break. Some team is awfully desperate.

Oh yeah, give me 1 example of a team that didn't work for. No statistics, please. Last years Cubs. Spending a bunch of money on relievers is stupid if you completely neglect the starting rotation and offense, as the Cubs did last year. If you address all three areas, then sure, go get yourself some reliable relief help.

To care enough about Pete Rose to fret over his hall status is borderline ridiculous. I don't really care. But I like debating HOF-worthiness. Pete Rose is not somebody worth debating in that respect, unless you want to debate whether his gambling should keep him out. But of course, it's just a game where people hit a round thing with a stick, so why do any of us care. I guess it's silly that people debate whether signing Soriano and Schmidt is a good idea, because we don't know either of those two guys, and what does it matter if the team we like is as good as any other team at throwing, hitting and catching a little white ball?

The problem is, what do you do with Izturis? Nobody is going to want him, so he's just going to be a backup if Lugo signs, and considering he has been a starter is whole career, that's likely to cause some unrest. Not to mention that there are already good backup infielder options (Theriot) in the system. I suspect the Cubs are just stuck with him and we'll have to hope he puts up numbers like he did in 2004. Man, what a bad trade that Maddux deal was. A turd in a basket would have been a better return.

you see the one about Crede and Garcia for E. Santana and Figgins? That would be another bad deal for the Angels.

I still think I prefer Cliff Lee, but maybe given his team-favorable contract, he's not on the block.

Well, it's not Olerud's fault that he was underrated his entire career - people looked too much at HRs and RBI and not enough at OBP. But regardless of this - yes, Olerud might have had a chance if he'd played as long. What he has working against him, however, is that even though he got on base a lot and had a good OPS+, his proficiency at the plate never really translated into huge offensive production. Only once was he in the top 10 in his league in runs, and he never placed in the top 10 in RBI. He only ranked in the top 10 of his league twice in runs created. According to Bill James' book, his win shares per 162 games was 22.92 in 1999. Out of his next six years, only two were above his career average (in terms of OPS+), and his last three were sharply below his career average, so one can guess that his WS/162 over his career is probably closer to 21. Rose's WS/162 is 24.80, meaning he was a more productive player over the course of his career than Olerud was, and while longevity shouldn't count for everything, it should count, and clearly Rose has a big advantage there. He also played 628 games at 2B and 634 games at 3B, which are positions from which less offense is expected than a first baseman. Rose ranked first or second in times on base 14 times during his major league career. I mean, Rickey Henderson's OPS+ was worse than Olerud; it was 9 points higher than Rose's, and he played a superior offensive position for much of his career. Plus, he was a lousy fielder. Should we also debate whether he belongs in the Hall? Rose's career WS/162 ranks right there with guys like Yastrzemski, Stargell, Billy Williams, Gwynn, Clemente, Reggie Jackson and Kaline. A lot of people may not like him for who he is, and that's fine, but to debate whether his playing career is Hall-worthy is borderline ridiculous.

This team is going to be in a bind 5 years from now anyway. Schmidt or no Schmidt. Just because of Soriano and ARam (and hopefully Zambrano)? I doubt it. But regardless, I don't want to guarantee than Schmidt will be on this team when he's 39 years old. His pitching arm might not even be attached by then.

I'd rather overpay him for 3 years - say, $48M - than go to 5/$70M. I really, really don't want to go that long on a guy who has been abused the way Schmidt has.

Anybody got numbers for the Mongolian Winter League?

C-Patt from 2003 or 2005?

If this is the final price, then walk - no, run - away.