TruffleShuffle

probably not. am i the only one who is sick of hearing about ronny's "upside" without the caveat that he was horrendous for an entire year and is very unlikely to reach that upside? not nearly as sick as I am of hearing about how horrible Ronny is and how he can't hit ML pitching, without the caveat that he was 23 freaking years old. you say "23 freaking years old" like it's unheard of for a guy to come up at that age and perform well. i'd venture a guess that the average major leaguer breaks into the league around age 23. and i am still waiting for some examples of guys who have been truly horrible players for their entire first year of play, at age 22 through 24, and turned out to be above average major leaguers.

yeah i was too busy trying to make sure that i had the right number of wins (81 times 30) and forgot to check the loss column to make sure i had every team at 162 games. should be better now.

probably not. am i the only one who is sick of hearing about ronny's "upside" without the caveat that he was horrendous for an entire year and is very unlikely to reach that upside?

given theriot's skill set, i think it's very, very unlikely that he'd be one of the five worst offensive players in the game over the course of a year.

do you recall that the cubs went into the last weekend of 2007 without having the division locked up? we won 85 games and took the back door into the playoffs because milwaukee crapped the bed at the end of the year. they have a lot of good young players, and might be a few games better this year. losing a game or two because of poor personnel decisions could cost the cubs a spot in the playoffs.

Mets 93-69 Braves 88-74 Phillies 86-76 Nats 72-90 Marlins 70-92 Brewers 90-72 Cubs 88-74 Reds 85-77 Astros 76-86 Cards 74-88 Pirates 73-89 D'backs 90-72 Rockies 89-73 - Wild Card Dodgers 86-76 Padres 79-83 Giants 64-98 Red Sox 95-67 Yankees 93-69 - Wild Card Devil Rays 79-83 Blue Jays 76-86 Orioles 61-101 Indians 95-67 Tigers 91-71 White Sox 83-79 Royals 72-90 Twins 72-90 Angels 87-75 Mariners 81-81 A's 74-88 Rangers 68-94 NL MVP - David Wright AL MVP - Grady Sizemore NL Cy Young - Johan Santana AL Cy Young - Justin Verlander NL ROY - Kosuke Fukudome AL ROY - Clay Buchholz First round: Mets over Rockies, D'backs over Brewers, Red Sox over Angels, Indians over Yankees ALCS: Indians over Red Sox NLCS: D'backs over Mets WS: Indians over D'backs

I'd take him for that. 2nd day picks are a crapshoot anyways. The last 5th round pick that actually turned out well was probably Herschel Walker back in '85. Now it's all about what kind of money and playing time he expects to get. yeah, there haven't been any 6th round players to lead their teams to 4 Super Bowls recently And how many ended up on the practice squad or in the Arena League? The draft is, and always has been, a roll of the dice. If you can get a young player with proven abilities for a 5th round pick I'll take that. The Patriots were able to steal Moss for a 4th rounder. Yeah, but that wasn't the point. the point was that you suggested that Hershel Walker was the last 5th rounder to turn out well, which is utterly absurd. i just randomly took a look at the 5th round of a couple of nfl draft years: 1996: Joe Horn, Fred Miller, Christian Peter, LaRoi Glover 2000: Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, Dante Hall, Clark Haggans, Sammy Morris 2003: Terrence Holt, Justin Gage, Jordan Black, Bobby Wade, Donald Lee, David Diehl, Brian St. Pierre, Dan Koppen, Hunter Hillenmeyer so yeah, just using a random sampling of three nfl years, i have found that it is indeed absurd to suggest that the 5th round has produced no good nfl players in almost 25 years.

I'm behind this whole list - except here. I loved the Farns. And yes, it's mostly because he threw really hard and punched someone in the face. Immature or not, that was awesome. I vote you replace him with Felix Heredia. God I hated him so much. i didn't like him because he had a ton of talent and generally all he did with it was get drunk and get in fights.

Why would you ignore it? Oh, I was saying to ignore it because the ceiling/floor argument actually helps Cedeno's case. If Ronny is at his floor, he's horrible. If he's at his ceiling, he's a well above average SS. If Theriot is at his floor, he's horrible. If he's at his ceiling, he's just bad. ugh. for the last time, there are different levels of horrible. cedeno's 2006 was 1.5 or 2 wins less horrible than theriot's 2007. theriot doesn't have much of a "floor" or a "ceiling," he is what he is.

PECOTA isn't a crystal ball. It functions more as an indicator of the actual talent level of the players involved. And in this case, the lessons its giving us are fairly important. Not only was Cedeno's 2006 a fluke year (in the bad way). But Theriot's 2007 performance was a fluke (in the good way). In essence, what PECOTA is telling us is that we haven't seen the real Ronny Cedeno... and that Theriot, horrible though he is, is actually playing over his head. Cedeno is the better player right now. you are assuming that PECOTA is right. PECOTA was wrong on Ronny Cedeno in 2006 and i think it would be wrong on Ronny Cedeno in 2008. also, it is silly to say that Theriot's 2007 was a "fluke" when his BABIP was below the league average. his projected EqA is just a few points lower in 2008 than it was in 2007; it doesn't say anything about his 2007 except that you can expect to see that sort of season again.

i support this idea, not because i think these are particularly great songs for a relief pitcher to come out to, but simply because i can hear the arcade fire pretty much endlessly and not get tired of them.

that, plus the marlins game, really made me irate toward dusty. i had been giving him a chance most of that year. when he left prior in for way too many pitches in game two, i was done with him.

edmonds' diving for easy plays is the least of his troubles these days. the bigger problem is that he's old, slow and gets hurt all the time. as for theriot, he isn't that good, but i don't see where he's the worst player in baseball, as it seems he's being made out to be in this article. i don't recall him being a bad baserunner or swinging at a ton of bad breaking pitches last year. his bb/k ratio last year was 1/1. perhaps it's just some backlash at him for being not as good as some people think, but if people keep writing stuff like this about him, he'll actually end up becoming underrated.

no, just stop making promises like that in the first place. Then you wouldn't get players to sign below market value(market value in this case a less attractive deal on the table) yeah the cubs have really gotten a lot of bargain deals in the free agent market with their "we'll do anything you ask us to, and by the way here's a no-trade clause for your troubles" approach

right but if you're going to take "suck" then you want the options that "sucks" less. over the course of a season, the difference between 2006 cedeno and 2007 theriot will be about 1.5 or 2 wins. as last year demonstrated, that can be a pretty big deal.

i agree. the biggest problem IMO is that he hasn't added any loft to his swing. unless you've got blazing speed, you simply aren't going to be a very productive player while hitting 50-60% of your balls in play on the ground.

i guess if i were putting together my list of most hated cubs per position, it'd go... C Todd Hundley 1B Fred McGriff - not many to choose from at this position, but the whole making up his mind about the trade thing pissed me off. you were in baseball hell and got a chance to go to a competitive team with great fans. not a tough choice. 2B Neifi Perez (putting him here so that I can put, at SS, ...) SS Jeff Blauser 3B Steve Buechele LF Moises Alou (he was pretty good, but the constant first-pitch GIDP really pissed me off. as did his three worst OPS+ years in like a decade coming with the cubs) CF Juan Pierre. what a bum. RF Jerome Walton (thanks for getting our hopes up, jerk) SP Shawn Estes SP Danny Jackson SP Jose Guzman SP Shawn Boskie SP Micah Bowie RP Latroy Hawkins RP Kyle Farnsworth RP Mel Rojas RP Scott Eyre RP Bob Patterson

And he has a floor that Theriot doesn't, which is just as important. plus we cannot talk about cedeno's "upside" without understanding the likelihood that he gets there. it's not like cedeno is jose reyes, 20 years old and coming into the big leagues for the first time. he's had as many ABs as theriot has had in the majors, and for the most part has been a complete failure. the chances of him reaching his upside are, at this point, pretty small.

agreed. cedeno makes too many fielding and baserunning mistakes, and in 2006 he was one of the worst hitters in baseball. the two guys have roughly the same amount of PAs in the majors; Theriot's big league EqA is .260 while Cedeno's is .214. that's right, .214. with theriot you know what you're going to get, and it's mediocrity, but it's not a complete black hole. cedeno could be a better player, but we've got more than a year of major league sample size to look at, and he's been far worse in that time. for a team that is in contention right now, i don't know if you have another year to see if he will sink or swim. He was 23!!! yes, he was. the guy who was the best player in the national league last year was 24. i understand that most guys don't hit their peak until their late 20s; however, the chances of a guy becoming successful in the major leagues after being one of the worst players in baseball for a full season are very slim. Most organizations don't misjudge a player's value so severely that they bring him up that much before he is ready. Or on the flip side most organizations are dumb enough to write off a player after one awful season in the majors. yes but cedeno had a solid year for WT at age 21, and an excellent 2/3 of a year for Iowa at age 22, followed by a good cup of coffee with the cubs at the end of that year. i'll put it this way, there wasn't a better alternative in the system (unless the cubs had signed furcal, which a lot of people didn't want because we had cedeno) and he'd shown the ability to hit at the level just below the big leagues. going back to the david wright example, he ended 2003 in high-A ball and ended 2004 with the big club, having taken about 400 PAs at AA and AAA combined. i'm aware that every situation is different, but cedeno was 23 years old and had shown success at both AAA and in his abbreviated stint with Chicago. it can easily be argued that patterson was rushed; i really don't think that argument holds true for cedeno.

not a great argument for your side, considering that theriot has always walked at a higher rate than cedeno.

I'm not sure about your first point. Baltimore fans seem to love him. He is a flashy leadoff hitter that steals bases, plays the game "the right way", and is a big community guy. That's a big draw to bring in the casual fan in any market. As far as trade value, I agree completely. I think his trade value will only get down because he'll be getting closer to the end of his contract, and then the Orioles won't be able to re-sign him in 2 years. The only reason to keep him is to placate the fans for the next couple years. he's the most popular player on the team, but if people are going to orioles games at this point, at least 95% of them are going to see professional baseball players play a baseball game, and because they like sitting outside watching baseball. roberts will sell some tickets, but not enough to keep him around. the best thing the orioles can do for their fans (aside from exiling the owner to the moon) is not keep around a good, "scrappy" second baseman, but get a good return for him and show the fans that you're committed to building a good base from the farm, and then showing some aggressiveness and intuition in the free agent market to replace some of the salary that has been shed.

in some ways, your wish came true.

agreed. cedeno makes too many fielding and baserunning mistakes, and in 2006 he was one of the worst hitters in baseball. the two guys have roughly the same amount of PAs in the majors; Theriot's big league EqA is .260 while Cedeno's is .214. that's right, .214. with theriot you know what you're going to get, and it's mediocrity, but it's not a complete black hole. cedeno could be a better player, but we've got more than a year of major league sample size to look at, and he's been far worse in that time. for a team that is in contention right now, i don't know if you have another year to see if he will sink or swim. He was 23!!! yes, he was. the guy who was the best player in the national league last year was 24. i understand that most guys don't hit their peak until their late 20s; however, the chances of a guy becoming successful in the major leagues after being one of the worst players in baseball for a full season are very slim.

i'm fairly certain that cedeno's projected EqA in 2006 was not .208.

1. Male or Female? male 2. Have you always been a Cubs fan? yes 3. Have you ever heard of the Curse before? of course 4. Do you believe that there is a Curse preventing the Cubs from going to the World Series? no 5. Do you believe that some fans use the Curse as an excuse for the Cubs loses? yes 6. What reasons can you give to explain why the Cubs haven't had a World Series win in 100 years? incompetent management, very poor development of home-grown talent, overly cheap ownership in a large market, a little bad luck (1984, 2003)