Amazing_Grace

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of getting Vicente Padilla and Milton Bradley from Texas in exchange for 1 of Pie/Patterson, Murton, Marquis, and Marshall/Gallagher. Padilla makes more than Marquis and his deal is 1 year longer so the Rangers would be saving quite a bit of money. It might not take that much to get this deal done. Padilla is by no means a sure thing to be a #2 starter, but he may well be among the best available. If the Cubs feel Bradley can still play CF, then that problem is solved. Bradley has been a solid, consistent, though not spectacular hitter his whole career. He also is a switch hitter who doesn't have ridiculously imbalanced splits, a rarity in today's game.

If Soriano's legs got so bad he couldn't play anywhere in the field except 1b or 3b (which he would be awful at for any number of good reasons already mentioned), I wouldn't play him there. I'd trade him. If I had the money to eat part of the contract and get good value for him, I would. If not, I'd take back someone else who also had an awful contract but who happened to play a position that was open in the organization. Most likely, I'd be trading him to an AL team in need of a DH. I think the Cubs probably will end up trading Soriano a few years down the road and eating most of his contract to do it. I don't see that happening till after the 2010 season at the earliest, and more likely it will be around 2012 when he has just a couple years left so the Cubs can juggle bad contracts with another team like they did with Hundley. A lot depends on the new owner and how much he spends over the next few years. If the budget goes into the 140-150M range like the Red Sox, then Soriano's contract won't be that big of an issue, because we can just sign players to replace his declining production. If the new owners hold the budget more or less where it is, then that contract will be a problem, but not an insurmountable one. The Cubs will just have to be creative about trading him. If the new owner drops the budget back to the 90-95M range, then we can all enjoy watching a 38 year old Soriano make 17M to put up a sub .800 OPS for a most likely awful team in 2014.

As irritated as I was about the Edmonds signing, he's still well behind several other ex-Cubs. Here's my top 10. Edmonds is just number 8. If he stinks it up all year and still manages to stay on the team, he'll move up. 10. Jeff Blauser 9. Jose Macias 8. Jim Edmonds 7. Rey Ordonez 6. Jacque Jones 5. Augie Ojeda 4. Alex Gonzalez 3. Corey Patterson 2. Antonio Alfonseca 1. Todd Hundley Hundley is my least favorite ex-Cub and it's not particularly close. For it's time, his contract was horrid. Not as bad as Marquis's or Soriano's, but bad nonetheless. He and Jacque are the only players I can remember that ever publicly argued with the fans, but Hundley was much worse. He barely cleared a .200 BA and was one of the worst defensive catchers in baseball to boot. He was so bad, many fans including myself were calling for 30 year old journeyman AAA player Robert Machado to take Hundley's place as starter. You'll notice Neifi's not on my list. He had a decent season in 2005, and it really wasn't his fault Dusty Baker was a moron and decided he needed to start. Neifi's valuable as a "plays any position" 25th man defensive replacement or injury fill in, but not much else. I blame Baker for playing him and Hendry for not signing someone better to start.

I wonder why Soriano was always such a bad defender. At this point, he's only been a LF for a little over 2 years and has been fighting leg injuries for a lot of that period. Still, when he was younger and had better physical tools, he should have been a lot better than he was. Looking at his hitting approach and defense, one has to wonder if Alfonso's problems are more mental than physical.

He's not expensive yet and is only 26. I can't think of why the Pirates would trade him unless we blew them away with an offer. They have a CF prospect who is only 22 and putting up an .871 OPS so far this year in AAA. They might deal McLouth if they got a good enough offer. Whether the Cubs can or should make that offer, I don't know. I doubt the Pirates would be interested in Pie at all for the same reason they might trade McLouth. Add in the fact that the Pirates and their fans are probably still kicking themselves for the Ramirez trade, and my guess would be that the Cubs offer would have to start with Hill and Cedeno to even be considered.

This scenario is easy. MLB simply tells the umpires that if there's doubt as to whether it's a home run or not, quickly rule the ball in play so that the play happens as it would assuming there was no HR, and then you can easily recheck whether it really was a HR and override the play. This is similar to what the NFL did the first couple years of the challenge system when you couldn't overturn a "down by contact" ruling. The officials were told to rule anything close a fumble knowing the play could easily be reversed. Now that rule has been changed, I would assume because the coaches were tired of using challenges on things that the official would have ruled the other way on, but didn't because the possible consequences of missing the call one way are worse than the other. MLB would never have that problem unless they went to some kind of challenge system, and I doubt they would. As for the other "reviewable" plays, whether someone swung or not, and balls and strikes, should not be reviewable. Those calls have always been mostly subjective to begin with. Umpires call the zone differently, and who the hell even knows how they tell if the player swung (it looks totally arbritrary to me). It's part of the game. I would make safe/out calls reviewable in certain circumstances, such as plays at the plate and stolen base/tag out situations. Force outs really shouldn't be reviewable. I seldom see the umps get those wrong, and you'd end up reviewing every other groundout. Something that hasn't been brought up is whether a player legally caught a ball. There are a lot of plays that are ruled catches that look like traps where the ball ricocheted off the ground first. The only problem with replay is that it slows down a game that already moves too slowly. This is a compelling argument. You have to find some way to keep reviews to a minimum or we'll have 4 to 5 hour games become a regularity. I've always thought the easiest solution to baseball's time dilemma is a pitch clock like the play clock in football or shot clock in basketball. You have X number of seconds between pitches. It keeps the Steve Trachsels of MLB from making a game nearly unwatchable. Coupled with limiting the number of timeouts called per inning and limiting the number of throws to first base, it would more than compensate for any instant replay time.

Theriot has no power. This is simply a physical fact, and obviously there's not much he can do about it (without cheating that is). In order for him to be valuable, he has to get on base. In order to get on base enough to make up for his lack of power, he needs to hit somewhere around .300 with a good IsoD to boot. You don't see that many players who can hit around .300 and draw a lot of walks with no power. The odds are against him. Still, it's not impossible. Guys like Rickey Henderson and Tony Gwynn never hit for much power but still kept their average good. Ichiro has a career SLG of just .434. I know everyone hates this example, but I think Eckstein is a good one. His career SLG of .361 is just 11 pts higher than his career OBP. I think Theriot's realistic ceiling is something like that. Frankly, we could do and have done worse than Ryan Theriot at SS. There have been years when a .326 OBP would have looked quite acceptable and a .350 would have made us drool. It's not like Theriot has a huge contract. We're getting cheap production out of a position, and that's good. I doubt Theriot is going to keep up hitting .329 (it's great if he does, but the odds are against it), but I doubt he's going to be an absolute black hole with a sub .300 OBP either, and let's be honest with ourselves, we all remember what that was like.

1. It's the middle of May, and there's a lot of season left. 2. He's still slugging a respectable .431, just 13 points away from Mark DeRosa, who has the same BA. He's getting his share of doubles. He's not Ryan Theriot. 3. It's his first year in MLB, and his OPS is .840, his numbers are outstanding for a rookie. If it weren't for the Pujols-esque numbers put up by that Soto guy, he'd probably be the front-runner for ROY. 4. OBP>SLG>HR 5. It's not his fault that Lou is hitting him 5th instead of at leadoff where he belongs. Fukudome is a big reason for the Cubs success and he's well worth what we're paying him. If Lou weren't so bound and determined to have a LH behind Ramirez (like Soto and DeRosa aren't good enough protection), we would have no leadoff problem.

Milton Bradley is the most obvious candidate if they look to add a CF. He can probably be gotten for the right price. We know Texas was interested in Murton. Unlike most switch hitters, Bradley doesn't have very pronounced splits. He hits for more power from the right side but better OBP from the left. His OPS comes up about even from both sides. He's only 30 and would fit nicely in the 5 or 6 spot in the batting order. The only issue is that he hasn't seen significant action in CF since 2005. He's been a RF and DH the past 2 years. It's an open question whether Bradley would be a better option defensively in CF than moving Fukudome (assuming that's even an option). I can't see Bradley being much worse than Edmonds/Johnson, and if Hendry/Lou were worried about defense, they wouldn't have been using Johnson as the everyday CF with Pie on the bench. Bradley's on a 1 year deal and Texas will get nothing if he leaves as a FA, so I'd offer a package of Pie or Murton, Hoffpauir, and a low level pitching prospect, maybe Mateo. If they want a pitcher, I'd consider giving up Gallagher or Marshall but not Hill, and Texas would have to accept a lesser position prospect than Pie or Murton. Ryan Church might be available again depending on what happens in NY, but I doubt they're out of the race so probably would be looking to get someone back that could contribute quickly. Just about everyone else that you might want to have (Rowand, McLouth, Beltran, Hamilton, Ichiro, etc.) is either untouchable or nearly so. Vernon Wells could probably be had but his contract is about as awful as they come. If Kosuke is willing to move to CF, it opens things up quite a bit, but purely looking for a guy that can play CF will be rough going, IMHO. As far as the pitching situation go, I'd like to see Marquis dealt to another contender, preferably in the AL, for a prospect or 2 to recharge our minor league system. I'd honestly rather Hill be able to come back and be a #2 type starter. I just don't see much out there that's going to be much better than just having Lilly #2. Burnett would be the best choice if he's still healthy in July. Of the two guys in Texas, I like Padilla better. He's younger and has more upside. Millwood is very much in decline and I just don't see him regaining form. Getting Bradley and Padilla in the same deal would kill two birds with one stone. If I were Hendry, my gameplan would be to trade 1 of Pie/Murton and 1 of Gallagher/Hill/Marshall plus no more than 3 of Veal/Samardzija/Colvin/Cedeno/Patterson and whatever other trade filler might be wanted (Hoffpauir, Wuertz, Cotts, Piggy, Fontenot). I'd try to hang onto Ceda, and in general as much pitching as I could.

Am I the only one who sees EPat as little more than a AAAA type player? His best case scenario is about on par with Murton's 2007. I'd take Murton's numbers out of CF in a heartbeat. Murton's problem is and was that in the eyes of Cub management, he can only play one position, and it happens to be the one occupied by Alfonso Soriano.

Weren't they trying out Eric Patterson in CF last season. How did that work out? Patterson is a much more patient hitter than Pie, so maybe Lou would give him a longer leash.

PECOTA had him projected at 283/336/467 for '07. .291/.344/.480 for '08. With his defense, and that line as a 23 year old, I'd say he's projected to be an elite player. If Pie were going to get a chance to play this season I'd tell you I'll eat my hat if his OPS is above .800 this year. He simply does not have the plate discipline to translate his minor league skills into major league skills that quickly. Given a whole season of experience facing ML pitching, he might have been up to a decent level. Of course, now we'll never know. The Cubs have concluded that Pie is going to be drag on a WS run and at this point I agree with them, but then nobody has all-stars at every position. I think we could have lived with an all-glove no hit CF for half a season and still be able to compete for a playoff spot. We'd have half a season of numbers to look at, and some idea of where we were in the playoff race. Then we would be in a position to decide if Pie was going to cut it or not. Maybe the rest of the team is raking and we don't need Pie to do anything on offense. Maybe we are a few games out, the offense is struggling, and we realize we've gotta get someone that's gonna contribute. What's frustrating to me is that Lou or Hendry or both couldn't wait a couple months to see what happens. We'll never know what would have happened because of Jim's itchy trigger finger. Instead, we've sent Pie down for two guys who are no more likely to have solid offensive production than he is, so we still have the same "problem" we had before, downgraded our defense for no real purpose, and we've also hampered one of our top prospect's development by playing him inconsistently for a month and a half then sending him down. That, to me, is the idiocy of the Edmonds signing. Hendry didn't solve the problem he had, and he created two more problems you might not have had if he had shown a little patience.

PECOTA isn't very bullish on Ankiel's offense. But let's say he reaches his 75th percentile projection of .272/.335/.534, pretty awesome for a CF, right? Especially compared with Crisp's .270/.334/.414. Those work out to about a 20-run difference in VORP, not even enough to make up what Ankiel gives back in CF. I get what you are saying in the general sense, but I think you massively underestimate the range of potential values from defense in center field. It was once trendy to dismiss defense when looking at things sabermetrically because defense was poorly understood and generally saying a guy was good defensively was a proxy for saying "Stats say he sucks but I like him." The Cubs lead the league in defensive efficiency, one of three stats most linked to overperformance in the postseason. I'd like to keep it that way. I'll grant that Edmonds/Reed Johnson is a pretty mediocre platoon out there and we should be improving it, but raping our outfield defense isn't the way to do it. Playing Pie is. So the real difference from Crisp to Ankiel isn't 39 runs but 19, and that's an example of a very good defensive CF with OK offense vs. an extremely bad one with above average but not great offense. How does PECOTA project the Johnson/Edmonds platoon to do vs. Ankiel and/or Crisp. As for playing Pie, he may be a good player down the line somewhere, but I don't think anyone projects him to be an elite player. At any rate, he's not likely to do that this season. He is a very impatient hitter. He's not quite as bad as CPatt was but he does not draw many walks and swings at a lot of bad balls. With his lack of patience, he's going to have a very long learning curve. I would think his OPS could end up about .750ish at best and low .600's at worst. He may be a good prospect but it's a good bet he won't be very good THIS SEASON. This season, what we can realistically expect from Pie is he'll be a streaky hitter, strike out a lot, walk seldom, hit for some power, and play good defense in CF. In any event, his best shot was for the Cubs to start him Opening Day onward and hope he develops enough during the season to be decent down the stretch. The fact is he didn't get the chance. I agree that this was a bad move on Piniella's part, or Hendry's or whoever made that call, but nevertheless, the decision is made. If Pie is brought back up, he'll be pretty much starting over again and have 2 fewer months to work through his struggles. In other words, I think that the Pie ship has sailed, at least for 2008. Edmonds/Johnson is not the answer. Coco Crisp is not a solution either. His plate discipline is worse than Pie's and he's making a lot more money. Right now I don't see a whole lot of options if we're not willing to move Kosuke. Maybe you try Cedeno or DeRosa in CF. I don't know, but I know none of us will be happy going into the stretch run depending on either Reed Johnson or Jim Edmonds to produce well beyond what their stats suggest.

If I recall correctly, Dempster was fairly highly regarded when he first came up and has always had good stuff, but for whatever reason never put it together as a starter.

CF not only has to cover more ground, it also has more balls hit to it. Even at Wrigley, CF *is* much larger than left or right. PECOTA projects the difference between Coco Crips and Rick Ankiel in center field to be 37 runs. That's pretty significant. But how many more runs will Ankiel generate with his offense? The question becomes whether the upgrade in offense is worth the downgrade in defense. Besides, what we have now is a platoon of Reed Johnson (who played a grand total of 64 MLB games in CF before this season) and old Jim Edmonds. I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that the difference between that platoon and Kosuke is a lot less that the difference between Crisp and Ankiel.

I hope Gallagher sticks because it will push Marquis out of the rotation and probably get him traded somewhere. It seems Lou is giving him an opportunity to win the job, which is good for any number of reasons. When Hill comes back, our rotation then becomes Z Lilly Dempster Hill Gallagher That will allow us to spin Marquis off for a minor leaguer and trade one of Marshall, Hill, Gallagher for an established dominant starter. More likely it would be Marshall or Hill traded since Lou and Hendry seem determined not to have 3 lefty starters.

It's only May, but even so, this move has gone far better than I'd ever dreamed it would. Dempster could give up 5 runs in 5 innings every start the rest of the year and he'd still have surpassed my expectations just based on what he's done so far. It really is a good thing that he's pitched well, given that Rich Hill fell apart, Lilly had a bad April, and Marquis has been Marquis. I can't imagine Dempster will be able to keep it up all season, but if he can keep it up until Rich Hill figures out how to throw strikes again, I'll be thrilled.

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see why outfielders moving positions means much at all. They all use the same skillset. They run, they catch the ball, they throw, they have to make judgments about where the ball will land when it's hit. The biggest difference that isn't a bunch of traditionalist baseball nonsense is that the CF usually has to cover more ground because CF is larger. Of course, in Wrigley, due to the field configuration, the difference isn't that large. I think the real problem is that the traditionalist baseball types think that the RF has to have a great arm, the CF has to be a speedy guy, and the LF hardly matters. In reality, I suspect the LF takes the greatest share of throwing out baserunners from the OF and making catches due to the majority of hitters being RH and most of them tending to pull the ball more than go the other way.

An act of God.

If such a swap granted us the image of Fukudome taking a bat to one of the Milwaukee sausages with the might and grace of a samurai warrior, I would support it on a temporary basis. This is true. Randall really knew how to beat a sausage. but now we have Edmonds for that

Your description "impatient, free swinging, and streaky" fits most power hitters. Your description "way overpaid" fits 98% of major leaguers. What? Most power hitters are patient, only a handful are free swingers, and very few of them come close to the streakiness of Soriano. Soriano's overpaidness blows away 98% of all other overpaidness. Did you know that there's a 90% chance that 50% of all stats are made up on the spot and 75% of all people believe them anyway.

I suppose there are worse things that could happen.... Dusty Baker could buy the Cubs and name himself manager and GM for life. Derrek Lee could spontaneously combust. Aliens could mindswap Kosuke Fukudome and Randall Simon Wrigley Field could be renamed Viagra field

I have a soft spot for guys whose OBP is 75 points higher than thier BA, but yeah you're right there are probably better choices if we're going to move Kosuke. If only Adam Dunn were a CF or RF. I'm grasping at straws because I already hate Edmonds being on this team. Why not try Cedeno there like they had talked about. Why not sign Lofton? Why not sign a random crippled guy off the street? Why not just play with 8 players? How bout we revive the Brian Roberts thread. DeRosa can play CF, he already plays every other position on the field.

Yup...and that would automatically disqualify him in the eyes of the Cubs organization, regardless of availability... I just LOVE our front office!! meh :cray: 2010:$21M, 2011:$23M, 2012:$21M, 2013:$21M, 2014:$21M That right there is what should automatically disqualify him. Yup, plus he had a .706 OPS last year, and has a .787 OPS so far this year. 4 of his last 5 seasons have been less than an .810 OPS. He's basically Soriano's contract without nearly as much productivity to back it up, even accounting for the positional difference. Simply a horrible option. Yikes, I didn't realize his numbers had slipped that much or that his contract was that awful. At least he won't be 38 at the end of his though. Well, in that case maybe we could get Wilkerson off them and move Kosuke to CF.

So, it seems the writing is on the wall concerning Pie. If he isn't traded by the first of August, I'll be shocked. The question now is what to do about our outfield situation. If the problem is that we're not getting enough production out of the Pie/Johnson platoon, Jim Edmonds is NOT the solution. So who would everyone realistically like to see us acquire in trade down the line to play CF, or would you rather see us acquire a RF and move Kosuke to CF. The Rangers will likely be out of the race. Can Milton Bradley still play CF? Would the Jays trade Vernon Wells? Aaron Rowand might be available if the Giants decide to rebuild. Vernon Wells would be a truly awesome pickup if the Jays were willing to deal him, though the Cubs probably wouldn't consider it because he's LH. Any other thoughts?