jjgman21

the hope of course was a rotation of Z, Prior, Wood, Maddux and one of Williams or Hill, but more realistically Wood could not be counted on early in the season pushing both Williams and Hill into the rotation. Prior made 15 post ASB starts with a 3.89 ERA in 2005. there was little reason to think he would come to camp and once again have a bum wing. so what do you at that point? magically conjure a #2 starter out of thin air? there was a backup plan. unfortunately it, like just about everything the past three years, was a fricken disaster. Williams couldn't even win a starters job in ST. swingman Rusch was forced into starting duty out of ST and fell far below most people's worst case scenerio. the bevy of good major league arms amounted to crap until Hill came on strong late in the year. Miller and Wood never were useful because of injury. many individual transactions and what to me seems more of a lack of philosophy than wrong philosophy have really pissed me off, but I think it incredibly short sited to not see Hendry at least in part as a victim of circumstances not of his own making. people can throw "$95M payroll" around all they want, but we all know the Cubs have not put $95M in players on the field for the better part of the last two years and there was little Hendry could have done to change that other than develope a magic healing potion in his spare time.

I'm a helluva lot more relieved that it would end the "Bonds to Cardinals" talk. hmm. interesting poll questions which is worse: Bonds becoming a Cub Bonds becoming a Card.

I don't disagree. been saying that since June. but I don't understand why now is the time. Because now it's becoming more clear how much Moore values guys that have the physical makeup to be great players, even if the performance aspect isn't there. gotcha.

and get on base 45% of time. bonds is still a great hitter, and he's not as bad as people make him out on defense. he's much more likely to be worth 16 million dollars during his contract than soriano is to be in any season during his. no he's not. no matter how extraordinary he may be, he's not going to be doing anything in about one third of the games the Giants play.

I don't disagree. been saying that since June. but I don't understand why now is the time.

So they'd have Gonzalez-Pierre-Wells? We'd HAVE to make them an offer for Ethier or Loney. Gonzo and Wells would only be on the hook for one year. I would think the Dodgers would hang onto both prospects in case they are needed to take over in 2008.

That's what I said. But stronger than what they were doesn't mean good. I'd be shocked if the 2007 doesn't tack on .015-.020 to the 2006 team OBP, which would put them in the upper half of the NL. I'd be shocked if the Cubs are in the middle of the pack in terms of OBP. Soriano is a career .325 DeRosa is a career .331 Sure the addition of Lee may help, but the Cubs haven't done much in the way of addressing a major weakness, yet. A weakness that they've had for the run of the Hendry GMship. And if Soriano is leading off and DeRosa bats in the two slot I don't see a whole lot of improvement in the runs scored department aside from a lot of solo HRs from Soriano. I did the analysis about a month and many threads ago, but the cubs 2006 firstbasemen actually were quite patient thanks to Walker and Lee. The improvement with a full year of lee was nominal. Cubs 2006 first basemen ave/obp = .266/.337. I think we can count on a full year of Lee leading to improvement that is a little better than "nominal." NY - 2006 Cubs leadoff hitters obp = .329. second hole = .319. I think we can expect some improvement there. XZero - if what you say is true, that Soriano was pitched around thus leading to the walks, are we expected to believe that he will not hit the pitches he sees while not being pitched around? doesn't it stand to reason that if he's not being pitched around he will see better pitches to hit and have even better power numbers?

What would be the question? I don't think it's crazy to predict an OBP over .340, I just think it's darn right silly to say you'd be shocked if he didn't surpass .340. so that's silly to you, but saying 'the Cubs have had the worst offense in the league' isn't silly, and pointing out your blatant factualy error is a proper basis for the rant you went on?

Quit making me do work!!! I'll do the actual vs expected HR analysis for Lilly over in the Lilly thread. thanks for doing that. I will look for it tomorrow.

two of the three pitchers ahead of him just went off the boards. one of those pitchers was signed by a team not interested in his services in the first place, the other signed with a team still interested in his services. thus, demand has not changed, but supply has gone down. plus it was probably just a negotiating ploy by his agent anyway.

Who do you think we have that is better than Floyd and Gio? Gallagher and Ryu. you don't like Lilly, but you like Garcia that much? that seems incredibly irrational to me. I don't like Garcia very much and I wouldn't trade Gallagher and Ryu for him, but I think its a better package than Floyd and Gonzalez. I got lost in the thread and missed that you were merely giving an equivalent package as opposed to agreeing with the original poster who seemed upset that we didn't get Garcia.

Um, haven't a couple of people already told you tonight that you can't kid? No that was can't reproduce. The kidding he's talking about means something different. and while we're at it, NO SOUP FOR YOU!

Yeah, if BABIP stays consistenly 40 points below what it should be, we will be quite happy with this deal. If he isn't so lucky...well we can kiss a chance at the playoffs goodbye. yes. all is riding on Ted Lilly equalling his best season. c'mon. If you normalize for luck his opponents BA increases from 235 to 266. I don't know how to predict what affect that would have on his ERA, but for a guy who gave up 26 HRs and had an IsoD of .080, I'm guessing it would go up significantly. Anyone know how to adjust his ERA for this? I guess you'd probably have to look at game charts, which theres no way I'm doing. My guess is his 120 ERA+ drops to 107ish, but thats a complete guess. So, my point is that Lilly does noto have to pitch as well as he did in his best season, he just needs to get as lucky as he did in his best season. that's not my point. my point is that Ted Lilly not performing like a #2 starter does not equal missing the playoffs. no one players performance is enough to make that kind of a difference in baseball. you may not like the deal, I don't particularly either, but you take the consequences of Lilly failing to become a #2 way too far. Isn't one way to talk about player's value by saying how many wins they are worth over a player they are replacing? So if we miss the playoffs by 3 games, wouldn't we have given ourselves a better chance of making the playoffs by acquiring a player who would have been greater than 3 wins marginally better than the player they would have replaced? If one player's performance is enough to make a few win difference in baseball, then why don't we sign a bunch of replacement players? For each of them you can say "ohh well, one player's performance can't make the difference between making the playoffs and not". and like we already discussed, can't the extra 6M saved by not signing Schmidt give you a player that can be 4 wins above replacement? I also refer you to my previous post. he is what he is.

Ted Lilly pitched 4 or fewer innings/gave up 5 or more earned runs in a quarter of his starts last year. How many times do you really think the cubs' best assortment of rookies would do this? let's change the perameters slightly. Carlos Zambrano gave up 5 or more runs in 9 of his 33 starts. Ted Lilly gave up 5 or more runs in 8 of his 32 starts. he's not going to shut an offense down completely like Z, but our "Ace" is just as likely to get blown out as Lilly. I think RichHillIsABeast's original point was that Lilly will usually give you 6 innings and that will help us a lot. However, Lilly didn't go 6 innings in 13 of his 32 starts last year. While an improvement over our rookies for sure, hes not the poster child for going deep into games. he's a 170-190 IP per year pitcher who will dominate 1/3, give you a chance in 1/3, and get hammered in 1/3 and more than likely have a league average ERA+. why the need to demonize him from all angles is beyond me. he is what he is, an #3 type starter with a chance to be a good #3 starter. I don't like the contract. I didn't like Jones's contract either. but like I started saying in June, Jones came to the Cubs as a slightly below average outfielder and is being paid what slightly below league average outfielders make in free agency. Lilly is a league average starter being paid what league average starters make.

Not to mention they can't play any of those three in center because of Slappy. Right. And they're looking at Luis Gonzalez. He is a bottom 5 GM in the majors imo. Let's see.... The Dodgers got Schmidt and Wolf The Cubs got Lilly and might get Meche when players are falling over themselves to play on the shores of Lake Michigan I will accept this as a basis of comparison. Have you forgotten about Cliff Floyd already? are you seriously missing the point that badly?

Not to mention they can't play any of those three in center because of Slappy. Right. And they're looking at Luis Gonzalez. He is a bottom 5 GM in the majors imo. Let's see.... The Dodgers got Schmidt and Wolf The Cubs got Lilly and might get Meche when players are falling over themselves to play on the shores of Lake Michigan I will accept this as a basis of comparison.

Who do you think we have that is better than Floyd and Gio? Gallagher and Ryu. you don't like Lilly, but you like Garcia that much? that seems incredibly irrational to me.

Ha! Yeah he knows them because the best player coming back was the one he traded to Phillie for Thome...who would have guessed he would get Gio back and not Rowand. the Phillies? Gonzalez sucked last year as well. He had big problems with homers and walks, but did strike out over a batter an inning and put up a 4.66 ERA in AA as only a 20 yr old. He let up 169 fly balls, but 24 HRs, so those extra 7 HRs over expected hurt. Plus his BABIP was about league average (.300), but his LD% was only 9%, so his expected BABIP should have only been .210. (That can't be right, can it?) He did give up an IsoD of .100, which is horrible, but I would say he far from sucked. young for the level, but I think the bolded is the operative part and enough to conclude he sucked. you can parse the peripherals all you want, but when those two peripherals are so out of line with anything one would consider 'ok' I think it safe to conclude he sucked last year. I agree the homers and walks are a big problem. However they are both very out of line with his previous 200 innings. There is no statistical explanation fro the walks, but the flukish HR/FB % explains the problem with homers (his HR/9 drops from 1.4 to .99). If we assume the most conservative scenario (the extra homers were all solo and didn't extend any innings to account for any additional runs), his ERA is lowered from 4.66 to 4.25. If you assume the 7 extra homers accounted for 12 extra runs, then his ERA drops below 4 and we wouldn't even be having this discussion. similar to our Wilkerson/Soriano discussion Nilo. are you ready to apply the same analysis to Lilly? he allowed five more homers than "expected" last year (assuming your 'expected' HR calculation is based on a 1/10 ration?). if you want to apply a method of analysis, isn't it fair to apply it across the board, for all players in similar circumstances? but whatever. the Phillies/White Sox trade and the players traded mean little to me.

Yeah, if BABIP stays consistenly 40 points below what it should be, we will be quite happy with this deal. If he isn't so lucky...well we can kiss a chance at the playoffs goodbye. yes. all is riding on Ted Lilly equalling his best season. c'mon. If you normalize for luck his opponents BA increases from 235 to 266. I don't know how to predict what affect that would have on his ERA, but for a guy who gave up 26 HRs and had an IsoD of .080, I'm guessing it would go up significantly. Anyone know how to adjust his ERA for this? I guess you'd probably have to look at game charts, which theres no way I'm doing. My guess is his 120 ERA+ drops to 107ish, but thats a complete guess. So, my point is that Lilly does noto have to pitch as well as he did in his best season, he just needs to get as lucky as he did in his best season. that's not my point. my point is that Ted Lilly not performing like a #2 starter does not equal missing the playoffs. no one players performance is enough to make that kind of a difference in baseball. you may not like the deal, I don't particularly either, but you take the consequences of Lilly failing to become a #2 way too far.

Ted Lilly pitched 4 or fewer innings/gave up 5 or more earned runs in a quarter of his starts last year. How many times do you really think the cubs' best assortment of rookies would do this? let's change the perameters slightly. Carlos Zambrano gave up 5 or more runs in 9 of his 33 starts. Ted Lilly gave up 5 or more runs in 8 of his 32 starts. he's not going to shut an offense down completely like Z, but our "Ace" is just as likely to get blown out as Lilly.

As if we've never gone into a season with a bunch of "ifs" before. :roll: I don't appreciate the eyeroll. Yes, we've gone into seasons with "ifs" before, but I think we're all setting ourselves up for a massive dissapointment. Soriano alone won't fix the lineup. We're status quo with Ramirez (but that's a good thing), and we added Lilly and Cotts to the pitching staff. Wowie. But looking at all these posts.... "IF Prior is healthy" and "IF Hill can pitch like he did in the 2nd half" and "IF Wood's shoulder can hold up" and "IF we can do better than Izturis and SS"... just far too many unknowns to be absolutely certain of any type of success this year. the definition of setting ones self up for disappointment is expecting few or no ifs. going into a season with no ifs is also setting up for disappointment because no team goes into October with the same team they go into October with. somebody will fail, somebody will be a pleasant surprise. but one thing I am certain of, the Cubs have considerably fewer ifs going into the season than any other team in the division.

Ha! Yeah he knows them because the best player coming back was the one he traded to Phillie for Thome...who would have guessed he would get Gio back and not Rowand. the Phillies? Gonzalez sucked last year as well. He had big problems with homers and walks, but did strike out over a batter an inning and put up a 4.66 ERA in AA as only a 20 yr old. He let up 169 fly balls, but 24 HRs, so those extra 7 HRs over expected hurt. Plus his BABIP was about league average (.300), but his LD% was only 9%, so his expected BABIP should have only been .210. (That can't be right, can it?) He did give up an IsoD of .100, which is horrible, but I would say he far from sucked. young for the level, but I think the bolded is the operative part and enough to conclude he sucked. you can parse the peripherals all you want, but when those two peripherals are so out of line with anything one would consider 'ok' I think it safe to conclude he sucked last year.

Hey!!!! I was one of those 9. I had a bag on my head. Was that the one where he dropped the easiest fly ball? Ones that Little Leaguers have no problem catching? I really wonder what his fantasy rank will be. He dropped lots of things in that game, but yes I'm pretty sure a lazy fly ball was one of them. Jacque Jones was out in RF laughing at Bynum being heckled. Then Jones did something stupid and got taunted. He didn't think it was as funny. iirc, he really mixed it up to. bad throw, a boot and a bobble along with a drop. Now I'm really glad I missed all of the summer because I was on vacation from June 10 the August 9th.. when was this? Painful to watch, I'm sure. This was late, possibly in September. Was actually a fun game, Cubs were down big (8-0 maybe?) and came back to win it in extra innings. There were like 500 people left at the game when it ended. Oh and the best part is Bynum shoulda been charged with another error, but it was on a DP so they couldn't. that's the bobble I remember. two throwing error?

Hey!!!! I was one of those 9. I had a bag on my head. Was that the one where he dropped the easiest fly ball? Ones that Little Leaguers have no problem catching? I really wonder what his fantasy rank will be. He dropped lots of things in that game, but yes I'm pretty sure a lazy fly ball was one of them. Jacque Jones was out in RF laughing at Bynum being heckled. Then Jones did something stupid and got taunted. He didn't think it was as funny. iirc, he really mixed it up to. bad throw, a boot and a bobble along with a drop.

Ha! Yeah he knows them because the best player coming back was the one he traded to Phillie for Thome...who would have guessed he would get Gio back and not Rowand. the Phillies? Gonzalez sucked last year as well.