Amazing_Grace

Of the many reasons to be disappointed in the Jason Marquis signing, this, IMHO, is the very least of them.

If I had full faith the Cubs would do something smart with the other 20 mil, yeah, I would too. However, I'm fairly confident that Marquis will be better this year than Park, and I'm not convinced that extra money would have been better spent, so I'm not sure... They might have gone harder after Lugo. They might have gone after JD Drew. They might have gotten into trade talks with the Braves for Jones or Seattle for Ichiro, and had money to extend either one. Heck, they might even have done NOTHING and been better off with extra leeway to make moves in the offseason. Unfortunately, you're probably right. They likely wouldn't have done any of these and we'd have paid through the nose for Weaver or Meche instead.

Augie Ojeda on his best day was about as good as Neifi was on his worst day, and Don Baylor was worse than Dusty Baker. Neifi can at least claim some value as a 25th man making league minimum to play any position, and has a couple of career years where his numbers were actually respectable. Augie has no business on a major league roster, period.

No. The Pirates haven't played in the World Series since they won it in 1979. Well that's good news. If anyone in baseball deserves to go their entire career without a WS, it's him.

As bad as I know Chan-Ho Park is, I'd still prefer him at 1 year and 600K over Jason Marquis at 3 years and 21M.

Didn't the sportswriters say the same thing about Don Baylor? He was quite possibly a bigger idiot than Dusty. Dusty is an OK manager if you have a team of veteran players, basically nobody younger than 28 or so, that play in a pitcher's park where it's hard to hit. His managing style favors a small ball style of play. He ignores walks on both sides of the ball, which is a strategy that, while still stupid, is much less stupid in pitcher's parks where there are a lot fewer hits and HR. The NL West is probably the most pitcher friendly division in all of baseball, save Colorado, and the Giants perpetually had one of the oldest teams in baseball. Dusty also does have a knack for getting older players to overachieve. Between the favorable conditions I mentioned, and the fact he had the steroids version of Bonds, he was able to have some success. The problem is that the Cubs were not a team like that and were never going to be a team like that. They were in a situation where they needed to break in several young players, and Dusty was terrible at that. The Cubs were never as strapped for cash as the Giants and our farm system was better so we didn't have to go the route of hoping the likes of Marquis Grissom and Benito Santiago could return to prime form for a short period. Dusty's ignorance of the importance of the walk also killed us in Wrigley, and the other HR havens in the NL Central. It was a bad fit from day one and it ended predictably.

Did Bonds ever win a WS with anyone. I know he didn't with the Giants but did he ever win one when the Pirates were good in the early 90's? I hope that something, anything, short of Bonds being paralyzed or killed, happens to keep him from breaking Aaron's record. Aaron was a class act and abundantly deserved the record. Bonds is a dishonest, cheating, rude, ungrateful, jackass who doesn't deserve to be remembered as anything but a dishonest, cheating, rude, ungrateful, jackass. If he hadn't juiced and had the mega homerun spree in his late 30's, he could have retired a first ballot HOFer. Now he'll be lucky to get in at all, and he has absolutely NOBODY to blame but himself.

They should be comparing Sheets to Prior, since the odds of either being completely healthy are about the same. Other than that I mostly agree. Pretty meaningless at this point since one injury changes the entire picture.

LOL, that is so true.

I think a more likely scenario is A-Rod not opting out of the contract then asking to be traded somewhere. I'm frankly surprised that ARod didn't ask for a trade this offseason. We can only guess that he feels he has something to prove in NY or he thinks NY is his best chance to win a WS before he retires, even if that means enduring constant abuse from fans and media. I think ARod is probably going into the decline stage of his career and will continue to decline. Of course, a declining ARod is still one of the best players in baseball and if his decline continues slowly, he still will be for several seasons. Nevertheless unless he's moving back to SS, I wouldn't give up much to get him. We already have Ramirez, who is in the prime of his career, at 3B for 5 years on a very favorable contract and it wouldn't make much sense at all to trade Ramirez to get ARod, unless it somehow meant getting someone like Miguel Tejada to play short. Let's say ARod opts out. With who we've signed this year and the dollars committed, we'll face a choice this coming offseason of resigning Z or signing some other big name FA, such as ARod, and that's a best case scenario. Ultimately, I think the Cubs will resign Zambrano and other moves next offseason will depend upon being able to unload Marquis and maybe another reliever.

I like that article. I also agree with everything in it except that I don't think the season really depends upon the health of Wood and Prior. For the Cubs to be a 90+ win team, here's what I think has to happen. 1.) Someone has to be a legitimate #2 starter, whether that means Hill being Hill from the 2nd half of last year, or Prior being healthy, or someone else having a career year (I wouldn't be shocked if Lilly got his ERA down to around 3.75 or so, he's in his prime and moving to the NL). 2.) As many have stated, Piniella must make a lot of decisions a lot better than Baker. He needs to bench underperforming players contract-be-damned. He needs to keep pitchers at reasonable pitch counts and get them out of games where the outcome isn't in doubt. He needs to put higher OBP players at the top of the order (No Izturis in the 2 hole). Recognizing splits and getting in-depth into the stats would be nice, but really if he just gets a few basics like putting OBP guys at the top, power guys in the middle, and Izturis 8th, he'll be fine. 3.) DeRosa and Soriano must come closer to their 2006 numbers than their career numbers, especially in terms of OBP, as they likely will be hitting 1-2 in the order. 4.) Barrett, Lee, and especially Ramirez must stay healthy most of the year (at least 120 games). The backups at those positions are a significant step down from them. Really every team has some variation of this. For the Cards, it's probably Pujols, Edmonds, and Rolen stay healthy most of the year. Pitching wise, the Cubs need Zambrano healthy, unless the unthinkable happens and we get 2003 Mark Prior. I don't think all of these will happen. I think some will. I don't think we'll have a legit 2 starter. Hill will be inconsistent as most young players are with stretches where he's great and some where he struggles. I think Lilly will be average, Miller will be adequate for a 4 starter coming off serious injury, Marquis will suck, and Prior will get injured, if in fact he ever gets off the DL to begin with. Further, I think the Cubs management will lack the testicular fortitude to bench Marquis and his fat contract regardless of how bad he stinks and how many other players that are available that could be better. Piniella might be willing to do it. I doubt Hendry will let him. I think Soriano will be very good, but his OPS will not match last year's. I'm looking for probably around a .330-.340 OBP with OPS around .850-.875, good but not as good as last year. I think DeRosa could very easily bomb completely. He's had just 1 out of his 6 big league seasons of 100 or more ABs with an OBP above .340. His .357 OBP last year was preceded by seasons of .316, .293, and .325. We may well be looking at 2B come July for an upgrade. On the positive side, I think Lou will be a lot better than Baker. I think we'll see a lot fewer really completely stupid things like the inexplicable double switches. I think he'll be more apt to bench guys if the team is losing, as he seems to be all about winning at any cost, whereas Dusty was all about keeping his players happy at any cost. Hendry hired Lou, so I doubt he'll be much different than Baker with respect to team OBP. I think Lou will probably overwork the pitchers less, as he may be more apt to listen to Rothschild (I tend to believe Dusty was overruling him as has been reported since it fits with what we know about Dusty). I think Lou vs. Dusty is good for at least 5 wins over the course of the year. Also, I think the Cubs should be healthier. Last year, to have so many injuries to key players was unlikely. To have it happen two straight years would be really unlikely, especially when you consider that Wood and Prior aren't being heavily counted upon. Also, we have more depth, especially in the outfield with 4 good players plus Pie as a possible callup midseason, so unlike last year, we're not stuck playing someone completely crappy if one guy goes down. If it's Lee, Barrett, or Ramirez, however, we could be in trouble because we don't have great depth there. On the whole, I think I'd put the Cubs where most everyone else I've heard putting them, about 75-85 wins. One final note, gooney is right about Hendry's philosophies being the real problem. Had he copied what Billy Beane did in Oakland or what Theo Epstein did in Boston, the Cubs would be winning the division every year by now and probably with a lower payroll.

Marquis becomes the 2nd most expensive middle reliever in Cubs history. Kerry was 1st. I hope you're right. The thought of Marquis starting and Hill in the pen or at AAA sickens me. Also, I find it very cool that I can post here on my new PS3.

You say that like there haven't been any major injuries to big time players over the last three seasons. If the Cubs suffer the league average type and amount of injuries over that span, they certainly make the playoffs in '04 and possibly some of the other years, too. Its difficult to say. Having Sosa deteriorate so quickly made it hard. Hendry had to rebuild on the fly. Before Hendry, as Sosa went, so went the Cubs. Now, the team has several good hitters. That's improvement. That's results. Wins and losses are not the only way to judge a GM. In fact, they're not even a good way to judge a GM. Look, Hendry has signed guys that I hate. He has failed to provide a good bench, got bit taking gambles on some players like Nomar, failed to go the extra mile on Beltran, made a dumb trade for Pierre, failed to do what it took to get the Cubs in the playoffs in '04 and waited a year or two too long to stop counting on Kerry Wood. The list goes on. He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments. You make a good point about wins and losses not being the only way to evaluate a general manager. Again, I don't think he is much better or worse than other GM's in the players he's signed and traded for. He's done some good, Barrett and Ramirez in particualar, and Lee to a somewhat lesser extent. He's done some bad, Jacque Jones, Neifi Perez, Juan Pierre. He's had some things that should have been good backfire because of injury, like Nomar. I basically agree. Though, so far, I would put Jones in the good catagory. Its not like he had a lot of RFers to choose from that off season and looking back, he did pretty well. Jones wasn't who I wanted him to sign. I was pulling for Brian Giles who apparently never wanted to leave San Diego. And a good thing that was, too, when you look at the numbers he put up last season. First, you seem rather convinced that Hendry doesn't value OBP. I have to ask on what evidence do you base this opinion? I agree that he may not value it as much as some might want him to, but I believe there is a lot of evidence that he is trying, but failing, to improve it on a team wide basis. Hendry took over in July of '02. He didn't really have much time to construct the team in his image that season so lets call '02, the last MacPhail season. That year, the team put up an OBP of .321 which was most influenced by Sosa's team-leading OBP of .399. The next season the Cubs team OBP gained two points on its way to .323 even though Sosa's OBP dropped to .358 and his team lead in that catagory was taken over by Hendry acquisition Mark Grudzielanek's .366. Grudz's trade partner Eric Karros put up a .340 OBP along with Hendry-guided farmhand Hee Seop Choi's OBP of .350. Next, Jimbo traded for Derrek Lee, who had posted OBP's in the mid-.370s the previous two seasons. Lee produced a .356 OBP in his 1st season with the Cubs. Still an improvement over Choi/Karros/Simon of the year before. Aramis Ramirez, another Hendry acquisition and still a younger player just coming into his own in '03, exploded OBP-wise in his 2nd full season with the Cubs posting a .373. Hendry traded for Michael Barrett that off season and his .337 OBP was a sizeable improvement over Damien Miller's .310 the year before. Hendry also brought in Todd Walker to split time with Grudzy. Walker posted a .352 OBP in his first year with the Cubs. Hendry had struggled to find the Cubs a decent SS all year long so at the trade deadline, he pulls off a miracle and gets Nomar Garciaparra (and Matt Murton) for next to nothing. Nomar posts a .364 OBP in August and September which was a vast improvement over the OBPs of Neifi Perez (.295) and Ramon Martinez (.313) that season. And even though Cubs lynchpin Sammy Sosa's OBP plummeted all the way to .332, the Cubs still managed to improve their team OBP for the 2nd straight year in a row to .328. No great shakes to be sure, but when you factor in an offense that was built around a dying superstar, the improvement that Hendry is providing becomes clearer. They are still 11th in the league in OBP, but Hendry has managed to move the Cubs to 2nd in SLG and 6th in AVG when they were 8th and 15th respectively the year he took over. Now comes the injury-riddled season of '05. The Cubs had put together the greatest infield the northside had seen in my lifetime and had finally freed themselves of the incredibly shrinking superstar. Sosa's OBP in Baltimore that year was .295. Burnitz was not the Carlos Beltran I was hoping for, but his .322 OBP was 27 points higher than Sosa's. Unfortunately, injury struck the Cubs infield hard. Walker missed 52 games. Ramirez missed 39 and Nomar missed 100, and wasn't himself in the 62 he played, posting the worst OBP of his career (.320). Hendry's weak bench came back to bite him as Neifi saw major playing time filling in at all 3 infield positions. Couple that with the absolute collapse of Corey Patterson who had been posting OBPs in the .320s, but in '05 only managed one of .254 and it explains the Cubs poor team OBP that season of .324 which would have been much worse if not for Derrek Lee's breakout season in which he had an OBP of .418. Despite all those injuries, the Cubs still managed to finish 2nd in SLG for the second year in a row and 2nd in AVG. That brings us to 2006 and we all know what a disaster last year was. Some of it is Hendry's fault for not having a stronger bench...again, a lot of it is losing Derrek Lee for the basically the season. Along with Prior, Wood, Cedeno playing as bad as he possibly could given his two previous seasons, etc. Clearly, the evidence shows Hendry is attempting to improve the OBP of this Cubs team. Injuries and his weak OBP bench players have lessened the impact of his efforts. I agree that he might not value it as much as some would like him too, but to say that he doesn't value it at all simply doesn't mesh with the facts that clearly show him acquiring players with the ability to get on base more often than the guys he is letting go. I would agree that not considering those stats in the eval of your roster would definitely be a flawed approach. I haven't seen the evidence that shows that that is what Hendry is doing. In fact, given that the Cubs SLG% went from .413 in 2002, still the height of the Sosa HR hey day, to .416 in '03, .458 in '04 and .440 in '05 with the Cubs finishing 2nd in the league in that catagory '04 and '05, I would say the evidence shows that Hendry rather strongly values SLG%. Save major season-ending injuries to key hitters again this season, and the Cubs should once again be among the league leaders in SLG% this season. That may be a balanced argument but it still isn't a good one. I said Hendry wasn't valuing OBP as a stat and I'll stand by that. Let's look at Patterson. You say that Hendry couldn't predict the terrible season Corey had in 05, yet many on this board pointed out how Corey was an impatient hitter, rarely drew walks, and would likely always be a player whose OBP was driven by batting average. Corey had an awful year with the bat, and his OBP fell through the floor. I, for one, wasn't terribly surprised. Further, you also give Hendry credit for several things that happened that were unexpectedly good (more later). Now, when Hendry traded Corey for squadoosh, he proceeded to sign another impatient player whose OBP was driven by batting average, only this one (Pierre) had no power. Let's look at the Karros/Grudz deal. Those players were gotten from the Todd Hundley trade, which was a good trade, to be sure. However, the main motivation for it was to get rid of Hundly and his contract, not to acquire Karros and Grudz, who were also considered to have terrible contracts, the difference being theirs were for just 1 year. Now, they overachieved that season and made that trade look great. If he can't predict bad things like injuries, then he can't predict good things like old players having career years. You can't have it both ways. How about Michael Barrett. You mention his OBP of .337 being higher than Miller's .310, but that's hindsight. Barrett had been an often injured and inconsistent performer in the Montreal organization before coming to the Cubs. Hendry didn't have a .337 OBP to look at. He had three previous seasons of .280, .337, and .289. So, again, which is it. Either Hendry can predict things or he can't. If he can, it should include bad things and good things, and he gets blamed for injury prone players getting injured and also credited for inconsistent or old players making major contributions. How about Todd Walker? He was signed many times, and that is to Hendry's credit. However, not once was he simply handed the full time starting 2b job. He was part-timed for the likes of Grudz, Perez, Bynum, etc., simply because Dusty and Hendry valued speed and defense at 2b more than OBP and SLG, and in Grudz's case, playing the guy with the bigger contract. Hendry might have removed Perez from Dusty's sight at any time. He had no big money contract, but Hendry didn't deal Perez until the fans and media basically forced him to. How about the Lee trade. Sure, Lee worked out great, and had shown an ability to get on base at Florida, but the man Hendry traded, Choi, had shown such patience that he posted a .350 OBP despite a .218 average. Now, hindsight shows Choi never amounted to anything, and that that was a good trade, but again, let's be even handed and remember that Hendry couldn't possibly have anticipated that. At the time, that deal could have gone either way, as we traded a promising, cheap young player, for an older, more proven, but more expensive player. The Nomar are Ramirez trades were both brilliant, and those, in my mind were the capstone of Hendry's career. I still don't believe he was targeting those guys for their OBP, and in the end, they weren't enough. Finally, we come to the crux of your argument, the improvement in team OBP. The stats say it happened, but there's a catch. What stat is Hendry really valuing? The year's 2003 through 2006 saw the Cubs OBP ranking in MLB go from 24th, to 23rd, to 20th, then down again to 29th. During those same years the Cubs BA went from 22nd, to 14th, to 9th, and then down to 17th. So, since BA is a component of OBP and it went up faster, which does Hendry value more? The differential between Cubs BA and Cubs OBP rankings in MLB went 2, 9, 11, 12. So, tell me again that Hendry values drawing the walk, plate discipline, and getting on base however it's accomplished. It looks to me like if Hendry values OBP at all, he values it less than the rest of baseball does, and chooses to value BA more. What was it he said this offseason "5th in the league in hitting so we're getting guys on, and not knocking them in" or some such rubbish. All this, and we haven't touched on perhaps the worst indictment of his career, his abuse of pitchers. Hendry could have overruled Dusty in favor of Rothschild, if, in fact, Rothschild had a differing view. He could have overruled them both and put Prior, Wood, Zambrano on pitch counts and demand they be pulled from games where the outcome isn't in doubt. He is Dusty's boss and should be held partly responsible for everything Dusty did, just as my boss is held partly responsible if I screw up under his watch. Hendry is not a good GM. It could be argued he is an average or OK GM. But I'm not buying that he values OBP. I'm not buying that he be excused for the bad things that were unexpected then given credit for good things that were unexpected. In the final analysis, it's the results that matter, and as we've all seen, the results since 03 leave much to be desired in many more ways than just wins and losses. EDIT: As for SLG, it went up in 03 and 04, but then went back down in 05 and 06 when JH made the critical mistake of having terrible offensive players (Perez) to back up injury prone great offensive players (Nomar), and of course, made the horrible Pierre trade and signed Jones, who has neither the SLG nor the OBP I want to see out of a corner OF. I'll give credit for valuing SLG and power to some extent since the numbers remained high and the players he signed had decent power numbers. He still overvalues speed (Pierre) and defense (Perez, Bynum, Pagan), but he at least has some concept of power being a key to driving in runs, (though I still believe that like with OBP, he's looking more at component stats like BA and HR rather than SLG itself).

Which will once again confirm that Jim Hendry and most of the rest of the Cubs management are either idiots who have no idea how to make a winning team, or cowards who haven't the guts to tell an MLB veteran to shut up, sit down, and collect the millions we stupidly agreed to pay you. Hill>>>>>>Marquis

You must remember that health will be the overriding factor. I see the rotation, as of Feb. 2, as: Zambrano Lilly Hill Marquis Prior/Miller or Miller/Prior Bullpen: Eyre Ohman Cotts Howry Wood (if healthy) Dempster Battle among Wuertz, Novoa and somebody I'm surely forgetting if Prior wins the last spot what will the Cubs do with Miller? If Miller wins the last spot does Prior go to AAA? If Miller wins the last spot, it probably means Prior is on the DL. If Prior wins the last spot, it means Miller is on the DL, somebody else is on the DL or the Cubs don't see enough from Miller to keep him. We're a long, long way from these things sorting themselves out. Wait? What if Prior and Miller are both healthy and effective in ST? Would they move Marquis to the pen? They wouldn't be stupid enough to send Hill to the pen or AAA would they? Also, unrelated question. Why do the Cubs seem to view Soriano as a viable option in CF but don't view Jones as a viable option, even though Jones has played CF, and played it decently in Minnesota, while Soriano has never played the position before? What are they seeing that we're not? As to the first question, I'm not sure what they would do. Let's see how it plays out. As to the second, they probably see Jones as more of a right fielder than a center fielder. If his shoulder is healthy, maybe we won't see as many "spiked" throws from right. They also may worry about Soriano getting acclimated to a very tough right field in Wrigley. Center field is relatively small there, while right presents a number of potential hazards. That's a good point. With the wells in RF and LF and the stands being so close to the foul line, Wrigley field is a bit of an enigma in MLB in that RF and LF can be, arguably, more difficult than CF. I certainly hope that, if Prior and Miller are healthy, the Cubs management is tough minded enough to send Marquis to the pen, 21M contract or not, and go with the five best pitchers, which would be Z, Hill, Lilly, Prior, and Miller. That said, the odds of both Prior and Miller being healthy and reasonably effective by April are probably next to nil. Thanks for your answers Bruce. It's always good to hear from an insider.

](*,) ](*,) ](*,) Yeah, strange that Prior isn't guaranteed a spot, but not strange that a guy who had an ERA under 3.00 and a WHIP barely over 1.00 after the all-star break is not guaranteed a spot. I think it's strange. If Miller, Prior, and Marquis are all in the starting rotation and Hill isn't, it will basically be the same crap the Cubs always have pulled under Trib management. Play the guy that has the contract regardless of whether or not there's someone that could make the team better. There's no good reason Hill shouldn't be guaranteed a spot and Marquis should. The numbers don't justify it. It makes no sense. I don't care who gets paid what for how long. The idea is to put the best team on the field or the best product on the market. It's the same stupid business logic that keeps managers dumping millions into failed projects because "we've already spent $XXX on this project so it can't fail, we must press on". If this is how the Trib runs the rest of their company, it's no wonder they are about to be broken up.

You must remember that health will be the overriding factor. I see the rotation, as of Feb. 2, as: Zambrano Lilly Hill Marquis Prior/Miller or Miller/Prior Bullpen: Eyre Ohman Cotts Howry Wood (if healthy) Dempster Battle among Wuertz, Novoa and somebody I'm surely forgetting if Prior wins the last spot what will the Cubs do with Miller? If Miller wins the last spot does Prior go to AAA? If Miller wins the last spot, it probably means Prior is on the DL. If Prior wins the last spot, it means Miller is on the DL, somebody else is on the DL or the Cubs don't see enough from Miller to keep him. We're a long, long way from these things sorting themselves out. Wait? What if Prior and Miller are both healthy and effective in ST? Would they move Marquis to the pen? They wouldn't be stupid enough to send Hill to the pen or AAA would they? Also, unrelated question. Why do the Cubs seem to view Soriano as a viable option in CF but don't view Jones as a viable option, even though Jones has played CF, and played it decently in Minnesota, while Soriano has never played the position before? What are they seeing that we're not?

Doesn't ARod have an opt-out clause at the end of this season similar to Ramirez's? If he opted out to get out of NY, that would qualify as a big surprise.

Darn, Ichiro would go a long way to solving the team's OBP woes. I suspect if the team stays as it is now, we'll end up leading baseball in solo HR.

Hey, lets watch the personal attacks. Whether you agree with them or not, they make a good point. Ichiro is getting up there in years; and his OPS was actually lower than jones. Either way; personal attacks are a no-no at NSBB. Yeah. He should have said it's idiotic to want Jones over Ichiro. That would be attacking the post. It would also have the added benefit of being true. Ichiro's OPS comes from his OBP and Jones's is from slugging (Jones OBP last year was .334). Last time I checked our roster, we have plenty of SLG and not nearly enough OBP. Now, we may not want to give up a whole lot to get a one year rental of Ichiro, but for this team as it is now, for one season, there's no way Ichiro wouldn't be a huge improvement over Jones and his career OBP of .328.

I'm torn. I hope Houston signs him because that's money that won't be used on Clemens and they'll be wasting their payroll on a guy who is like an old version of Jason Marquis. On the other hand, I hope he doesn't sign with Houston because his games are painful to watch on account of how it takes him like 60 seconds between each pitch, and we'd have to probably watch several.

He's in a walk year and they probably don't want to resign him next offseason when he's 34. But his numbers from his age 31 and 32 season were down from his peak seasons, as expected. And they will probably continue to decline. I think the only thing the Cubs have to worry about, if this is true, is how much his numbers will decline this season and how much we have to give up, as the Cubs will almost certainly not resign him with Pie being ready by next year. If the Cubs sign Z long-term, then 4 of their 5 pitching rotation spots will be decided through at least 2009 and 3 of 5 through 2010. That doesn't leave a ton of room to break in prospects. If Prior ever gets healthy, he won't reach FA status until 2009, and we have a lot of pitching prospects with basically 1 opening save injuries (unless Marquis sucks so bad they release him, which isn't impossible I suppose but do the Cubs ever eat contracts). I think 1 A-/B+ pitching prospect plus a disgruntled player plus a C pitching prospect is not bad for a one year rental given the Cubs current roster and likely pitching openings in the future.

I don't doubt that there is interest on the Cubs side...I question the interest on the Mariners side... They'd save about 5 million this season (Jones makes 6 vs. Ichiro's 11), and given the market this offseason a .750-.800 OPS type player would be worth considerably more than 6M. They may also feel they can't afford to extend Ichiro after this season given the market, and would like to get 2 years of Jacque Jones for about the same price as one of Ichiro, and get a prospect, rather than let Ichiro walk and get nothing but a draft choice. The only reasons that make any sense to me are financial. I can't think of a baseball reason that the Mariners would do this. It's basically the same as all the Andruw Jones speculation out of Atlanta. If they move him, it will be because he can't be resigned, not because it makes the team better right now.

Other than that Houston being his "hometown" or the state where he currently lives, per-se, I can't imagine Houston having a strong shot at the playoffs. My guess, back in Boston or NY. Both of those two teams has a better chance of making it to the playoffs than Houston, IMHO. I hope you're right, and I agree Houston doesn't have a great chance at the playoffs even if Clemens returns there.

That's an interesting deal. Could be good or bad depending on the PTBNL. If the PTBNL is one of our many mediocre pitching prospects at AAA, not a terrible deal, if it's Pie/Patterson/Veal, bad deal. I still don't understand why the Cubs don't just put Jacque in CF for this season, trade him after, and put the issue to rest. That scenario is the one that makes the most sense. The fact that we're still talking trade this late in the offseason makes me think there must be some non-baseball factors at work. Jacque must really want to get out of Chicago or Hendry really wants him gone for some reason that we don't know.