Amazing_Grace

I don't know man, Fontenot might be able to get 6 if he gets 350 at bats. If he gets the full-time 2B job, and 650 ABs, you might get 10-12. Upon closer inspection, you're probably right. His SLG in the minors was usually in the mid .400s even before this season, so that would probably translate to 10 or so HR in a year.

We don't need him to be a savior. We need him to play good defense and provide average-above average offense for his position. As far as upgrade, he obviously isn't offensively. But as far as a use of the team's resources he may be. We would be upgrading by a decent amount defensively, paying less than $1M to fill both catcher spots and getting much younger. He won't have a 3-year stretch offensively like Barrett has had, but I think he's capable of putting up an .800 OPS in his best year(s) which combined with his defense and price tag, could make him a great value. It could, if that were realistic, but besides this season, in which he has under 200 ABs, he has never put up an OPS of .800 in the minors. In fact, before this year, his highest OPS was .756 in AA last year. I just hope he can put up a decent .700 OPS, which is more than any of our other catchers are likely to do. Now wait. He's been at Iowa since 2005. Did you not realize that or did you just forget to type the third A. On another note, his IsoD has been good to very good all three seasons that he has been at Iowa. He's had over a .350 OBP each year at Iowa, even the first when he hit just .253. Also, he had close to 300 ABs each season at Iowa, so it's safe to say he knows how to draw walks.

Not being great starters does not mean they have no business being in the majors. That's an incredibly stupid post. Soto had a good 2004 in AA, a good 2006 in AAA and is having a very good 2007 in AAA. Catchers generally take a little longer to develop. It's conceivable Soto could put up numbers between his pre 2007 minor league average .262/.344/.371 and his current numbers .324/.397/.555. If he managed to put up even his pre 2007 minor league average, he'd be doing better than what 11 NL teams are getting from their catcher spot. Soto has always been young for his league too, this year was the first year he's been at an age appropriate level. He's always been able to take a walk, and he's a very good defender to boot. Yes, and if you look closely at his numbers, you'll see that he's tended to improve over time. It's not as if he's had up and down inconsistent numbers. He's been trending upwards over his past 3 seasons at Iowa. He may never be much more than a backup catcher, but I don't think it's quite fair to say he doesn't belong in the majors when he's doing very well in AAA age 24. As far as Theriot and Fontenot are concerned, I don't think anybody is saying that they are the answers to all the Cubs problems or that they're going to be superstars. I've said all along these guys are not prospects and not likely to be long-term solutions. I have been saying they're a darn site better than signing the likes of Neifi Perez, Tony Womack, Tomas Perez, Jose Macias, etc. to be utility men. They're young, cheap, decent defenders with decent patience, that probably will never hit .300 and never put up more than 5 HRs in a season, but they allow you to not spend millions on bench players. They also happen to have better numbers than Izturis. When Izturis's OPS gets above Theriot's, then it's time to play him. Theriot is not a long-term solution. Far from it, but he's inexpensive and under the Cubs control for several years. If we're going to have a poor hitting SS, we may as well use somebody from our system who's making league minimum instead of paying the likes of Izturis 5M.

I think he's trying harder because he wants to be traded and knows nobody wants him. He's screwed either way. If he gets traded, it's likely going to mean somebody wanted a part time player. If he stays, he gets to hear it from the Chicago fans for 1.5 more seasons, and he probably will still end up a part time player. Let this be a lesson to players of MLB. If you can't take criticism and jeering when you underperform your pay, don't bother asking the Cubs for a contract. Just because the GM is an idiot and thinks you're worth 6M a year doesn't mean the fans will agree.

Augie Ojeda Jose Macias Freddy Bynum

you would really trade patterson for a 30-something RELIEF pitcher who throws in one of the most pitcher friendly parks in baseball? whose ERA away from Petco is a dazzling 4.51 no less. sample size says what? Linebrink's ERA away from Petco was 2.29 from 2004-2006, with a WHIP under 1.00 and a K/9 around 8. But you're probably right, let's just look at the 13 innings he's pitched away from Petco this year, that's a much better indicator of the pitcher he is. You're not going to ever get huge sample sizes in terms of innings for relief pitchers looking at a single season. They come in and pitch 1 or 2 innings and then leave. 13 innings for a reliever represents at least six or seven appearances. Besides, I'm not claiming he's a bad player. He's fine, but you don't trade arguably the fourth best prospect in your organization for a reliever on the wrong side of 30. Now, if the deal were Theriot/Fontenot for Linebrink, I could live with that, but not Patterson.

The Cubs organization never viewed Harris as a SS. Why? They buy into the traditional baseball wisdom (or stupidity is more like it), that SS is a defense first position. They'll trade hundreds of points of OPS for a marginal defensive upgrade. Besides Izturis, we've had Alex Gonzalez and Neifi Perez when we could have put guys like Theriot and Brendan Harris at that position. I hope the new ownership fires Hendry about 5 nanoseconds after buying the team. You mean the Theriot with a 692 minor league OPS and a 669 OPS this year? I said we had better options, not that the options we had were all that great. .669 is better than .613.

you would really trade patterson for a 30-something RELIEF pitcher who throws in one of the most pitcher friendly parks in baseball? whose ERA away from Petco is a dazzling 4.51 no less.

His numbers are more of the problem than the Twins willingness to move him. True...but they "seem" to be improving...a year ago this board would have been happy to add a .370 OBP no matter where it came from...if he's a lot better behind the plate, I think I like this trade. Well, last year Barrett had better than a .368 OBP so actually no, we wouldn't have been happy to trade about 150 points of SLG for 2 points of OBP. Based on Bowen's minor league numbers, I would be very, very, surprised if his OBP stays where it is now. His IsoD is great usually over .100 in the minors. The problem really is that he's a pretty terrible hitter. He doesn't have much power and a good year in the minors for Bowen was when his BA was above .260. Does anyone know how long Blanco is out? If he is coming back this season and Hendry is planning on Bowen/Blanco the rest of the year, I like this deal a lot less. If they're planning on giving Soto a shot, then I'm fine with it.

There's quite a bit of confusion on which side is actually giving money. ESPN says the Cubs are giving money to the Padres, and mlb.com is reporting that the Padres are giving money to the Cubs. No word on the amount from either side. When the dust settles, mlb.com will be wrong and the Padres will get cash from us.

I hope that's sarcasm, because if it's not.... ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

I think they leaked the earlier story of Patterson being included so that we'd all be more satisfied that they just gave away Barrett. :D I would not be at all surprised.

now that's some optimism. I would bet that if you took the same team and replaced Izturis with ARod, they'd be pretty darn close to having a top 3 record in the NL. Sure, if you added the best player in baseball at your weakest offensive position, you'd surely get a lot better quickly. You'd also add about 15M to your payroll with the stroke of a pen. The Cubs are not going to get ARod unless he, himself, is bound and determined to come here, and decides to opt out of his contract and sit around till the sale gets finalized to negotiate with the new Cubs GM and accept a lower salary. How could the Cubs trade for him this season? He's been playing great, and the Yankees are climbing back into the race as they always do. Why would the Yanks trade him and would the Cubs have anything that would be worth it to them?

Dontrelle Willis was a successful low level prospect when they traded him away. The guy the Cubs got has been awful in rookie ball and low A ball. Point taken, but if you believe as I do, that the Cubs should be sellers and our next chance to make a solid run at the division will be 2009, the trade makes sense. Getting anything is better than getting nothing for a guy that isn't a part of the Cubs long term plans anyway. I think the Cubs can and should make a solid run at the division in 2007, 2008 and 2009. This is just wrong. The Cubs are a fundamentally flawed team. They have overpaid for the wrong players. They have failed to develop young, cheap talent, and I can't imagine payroll going much higher than what it already is. They have ignored plate discipline, OBP, and offense in general to the point where we are counting on non-prospects like Theriot and Fontenot and role players like DeRosa and Floyd because the main pieces that we're paying in the 10s of millions aren't good enough to carry an offense on their own. This is the same organization that just sent Murton to the minors while still running Jones out there every single day, and moved Soriano back to LF instead of RF. 2009 may not even be a good year, but at least after 08, Eyre, Dempster, and Jones go off the books (whether they're playing for the Cubs or someone else I suspect the Cubs will be paying them). I've said this before and it bears repeating. The Cubs will do NOTHING this offseason beyond resigning current players and picking up cheap fill space players to round out the roster. The ownership change will consume most of, if not the entire, offseason. When was the last time you saw a team make big moves in an offseason where the ownership changed? It will take years to unmake the mess Hendry has created.

Dontrelle Willis was a successful low level prospect when they traded him away. The guy the Cubs got has been awful in rookie ball and low A ball. Point taken, but if you believe as I do, that the Cubs should be sellers and our next chance to make a solid run at the division will be 2009, the trade makes sense. Getting anything is better than getting nothing for a guy that isn't a part of the Cubs long term plans anyway.

EPatt isn't in the deal Yeah, I finally found that on page 4 of 23. Man these huge threads are hard to keep track of. Barrett and cash for Bowen+prospect (granted he's low level but so was Dontrelle Willis when we traded him). I'm wondering why the Padres did this now. Barrett seems to have had more value than I thought. This isn't a bad deal. Bowen will be a cheap backup for several years and then you can bring up Soto to start. If our catching tandem ends up Bowen/Blanco, I won't be too happy though.

I'm a little curious what's up with the catching situation? Who's going to be our starting catcher? Are they really going to go with Koyie Hill, or will they be bringing up Soto? Did they acquire Bowen to start? If so, we just traded a starting catcher and the 4th best prospect in our system for a backup catcher and a journeyman reliever. Great job, Jim. That said, neither of these guys had a tremendous amount of value. If EPatt really can't play 2b, then his value was going to go nowhere but down from this point forward, and we may as well trade him now and get something. I don't know what prospect Barrett would have gotten us, but I suspect that, at best, we'd get a 'project' type pitcher with a high upside but needing a lot of polishing. This seems to be a "win now" type of trade, but it sure doesn't help the offense much. Bowen's OBP and IsoD look good, but his BA in the majors is .230 and he won't hit for much power. His minor league numbers aren't inspiring either from a power and BA perspective. Unless this is a prelude to some other moves, this is not a good deal. If EPatt ends up a bust, it's no harm done, as Barrett would have walked this offseason anyway, but if EPatt ends up being a good 2b, this trade looks bad. By the way, take a look at Linebrink's Home/Road splits. It isn't pretty. His ERA is very much aided by pitching at Petco.

I would love to be able to cheer for Sosa, but I can't help but wonder how many of those homeruns he would not have been able to hit without juicing. I just can't admire someone who cheated to achieve his success, as I believe he did. I loved Sosa from 1998 to 2004 like everyone else, but I can't cheer for him anymore than I can cheer for Bonds.

C FA market is horrific this year. I think the big names are all 36+: LoDuca, Posada, and Pudge. Kendall and Barrett will both be added to that mix as well as a few other 2nd and 3rd tier FA catchers like Melheuse, Ross, etc. Think we would have to go out and find us a prospect or use Hill/Soto/Blanco if Henry can return. Blanco and Soto would be under our control, but i have not looked at the details on Hill's deal. So you want to trade Kendall for Jones straight up, with the Cubs taking back the portion of Kendall's contract the A's still owe him this year ~half of $7.5m. Then trade Barrett for a prospect. This is a huge downgrade in 2007 catcher position, but leaves the Cubs without Jones, Barrett or Kendall on the books for next year, and cleans up OF a little by making Floyd the regular until Murton comes up and splits his time. Benefits to 2007 are upgrade in catcher defense, no more Jones, save a little money. Costs to 2007 are replacing a competent bat with an atrocious one in Kendall. Benefits to 2008 are no more Jones, whatever prospect you get for Barrett. Costs to 2008 are inapplicable, as long as you aren't dumb enough to try and resign Kendall. I'm not sure the A's would want Jones for Kendall, it saves them a little 2007 money but costs them in the longterm. I think replacing Barrett's bat with another black hole in Kendall seriously damages the 2007 lineup and any hope for improvement, and I don't think they can get much of a prospect for Barrett on his own. In 2008 you have to go out and find yourself a stud SS or RF in order to make up for fact that you are going to get nothing from the C position. It's almost a foregone conclusion in my mind that Barrett will be gone by next season at this point. Even if the conflicts with his manager and pitching staff are an isolated incident, there remains the fact that the Cubs aren't likely going to have the money to re-up Barrett assuming they try to re-sign Z. Even if they did, there are probably better ways to spend it. If trading for Jason Kendall gets Jones out of Chicago, it's well worth considering. Jones already seems like a malcontent to me, and if Floyd continues to do well and eat up his PT, he's likely to get worse. If the A's could be enticed to take all Jones's contract, it would be worth giving up a pretty good prospect in the deal. If we got something comparable to the prospect we gave up by dealing Barrett, then it's a win-win. Kendall is having a down year just like Barrett is. His numbers this season have been way down from his past several seasons. It could be very rapid decline, or it could be an aberration. It's not as if we'd be committing multiple years to the guy. I'm not sure we'd get "nothing" out of the catcher position next year. Soto's minor league numbers look solid and he's only 24. His OPS is over .900 so far at Iowa this year, and his numbers have trended upwards for three years now. He also looks to have decent plate discipline for a young player, with an IsoD consistently around .075 his last two seasons at Iowa. His SLG and IsoP have gone up a lot this season and have been trending upward since 05 in Iowa. Power often doesn't come for players until they get a bit older. He probably doesn't have as high a ceiling as Pie, but he might end up comparable to what Barrett is now. People had better get used to the idea that 2008 is going to be a rebuilding year. There is no way the Cubs will go out and pursue major free agents this offseason with the ownership change. They'll spend most of the offseason just transitioning to the new ownership and very likely new GM and President. The most they'll do is re-sign Zambrano. We may as well give Soto a try next year to see what we have so we have an idea what we need to bring in from outside the organization to make a run in 09.

The Cubs organization never viewed Harris as a SS. Why? They buy into the traditional baseball wisdom (or stupidity is more like it), that SS is a defense first position. They'll trade hundreds of points of OPS for a marginal defensive upgrade. Besides Izturis, we've had Alex Gonzalez and Neifi Perez when we could have put guys like Theriot and Brendan Harris at that position. I hope the new ownership fires Hendry about 5 nanoseconds after buying the team.

I predicted the Brewers would win the division before the season started actually. And everyone laughed at me. What's with the "woe is me" routine? Quite a few people picked the Brewers. I doubt everybody laughed at you if you did pick them. Yeah, a lot of people on this board picked the Brewers. I think the Cubs were most picked on this board, which kinda makes sense being that it's a Cub fan board. The only other teams that I saw anyone on here picking were the Brewers and Cardinals (I picked the Cards...oops). I really have a hard time believing anyone on this board laughed at you for that. You have to say something really outrageously stupid like "I think RBIs and runs scored are the best ways to measure a hitter's ability" before you really get laughed at.

I was expecting a 6 game suspension, so I'm not surprised at this. I think they should stipulate that the suspension for pitchers must begin 3 days after that that pitcher's last appearance before serving the suspension in order to actually penalize them more than pushing back their next start by one day without having to treat pitchers differently than other players in terms of suspension length.

Wow, seems like Barrett has had a lucky year followed by an unlucky year for four seasons. Do you think the BABIP will stay that low or come back up? I'm not terribly familiar with the correlation of LD% to BABIP so I can't tell which years are the bigger outliers. Mind filling me in?

I like DeRosa. I'd rather keep DeRosa and trade crappy Jones or crappy Izturis. Theriot can play SS. DeRosa can backup SS and start at 2b or RF against lefties.

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