jjgman21

I think this is why I'm uncomfortable with siging Floyd. Murton doesn't need a platoon partner. Jones needs a right handed platoon partner. That's what our target should be. If we trade Jones for a right handed hitter with severe splits, Jones would be a good signing. jynx. pinch poke your owe me a coke. Next time you're in the Eugene/Springfield area, let me know. I'll hook you up! :) 9 years too late. I went to UofO for a year in 1997-98.

I would give Padilla 4/36. folks are just going to have to come to terms with the fact that league average starting pitchers get paid $9M/year. Padilla is as much of a lock to be league average as anyone, and at 28 has a chance to be a pretty good number two type pitcher.

Lou's last year in Seattle was 2002. DeRosa was on the Braves until 2004.

I think this is why I'm uncomfortable with siging Floyd. Murton doesn't need a platoon partner. Jones needs a right handed platoon partner. That's what our target should be. If we trade Jones for a right handed hitter with severe splits, Jones would be a good signing. jynx. pinch poke your owe me a coke.

I think they are looking at platooning the wrong guy. sign Craig Wilson and platoon him with Jones, put Soriano in center.

Every time I see you write this, I will have to point out that Kenny williams has NEVER HAD A BELOW .500 TEAM. Jim hendry is well below .500 for his career. It's a bad, bad, bad comparison. it boggles my mind that people give Kenny Williams this much credit. remaining a slightly above .500 team for several years in the worst division in baseball should not be a feather in his cap. I'll give credit where it is due. Kenny deserves credit for the Thome-Rowand trade and getting Iguchi. other than that, his transactions have pretty much been as big of a joke as they were when he traded for Todd Ritchie. the only difference is some of the darts he has thrown in the dark have actually found the dartboard.

it could be used for any one of a variety of reasons. doesn't like the manager, the Cubs aren't winning, his mistresses are hiding around doorways with weapons, the crowds are on him or he thinks he's not getting full market value whether he is or not. he can strong arm all he wants, the Cubs don't have to sign a 33 y.o. player to a 5 year contract if they don't want to. he can opt out and the parties can part ways. the way I understand it is at the end of four years, Aramis can decide if he wants to opt out. if he does, the Cubs can let an aging slugger walk or resign him. if he decides not to opt out, then the Cubs then have a regular team option. so he can strong arm all he wants, the Cubs don't have to sign a 33 y.o. player to a 5 year contract if they don't want to. he can opt out and the parties can go to arbitration or part ways. the only way he can hold the Cubs over a barrel is a terrible market for thirdbasemen in 4 years, no viable prospect or filler, and the Cubs are trying to remain competetive. nobody knows what the market for thirdbasemen will be in 4 years or if the Cubs will be trying to remain competetive.

And Bonds peaked from 37-40, what's your point..that theres some kinda outside element to explain why these sluggers are peaking at different times then those normally do. ummmm, there is a context to what I wrote. please look at it before accusing me of not having a point.

I looked into the all time greats a few years back when trying to determine when Sosa's decline would begin. the greatest hitters of all time tended to peak around 31-33.

let's put that to the test. top in OPS from each league Pujols - god I hope you're right. Howard - we hardly knew ye. he's already 27 Berkman - just had his second best season at age 30 Cabrerra - YTBD. sell the farm! Beltran - just had his best year at age 29 LaRoche - just about to turn 27, just had by far his best year Holliday - YTBD. turns 27 in January Atkins - same as Holliday Johnson - just had his best season, turned 28 in Sept. Bay - thus far best season in year he turned 27 in Sept. Aram - appears to have peaked at age 27 Wright - a pup. about to turn 24 Soriano - either peaked at 27 or 30. this year may determine it. Delgado - peak between 27-31 Utley - peak now at ages 26-27 Manny - steady level of greatest seasons begining at 27 Ortiz - career best this year, about to turn 31 Thome - best season came when he was 32, second best at 31 Dye and Hafner - both just had best season, both well past 27 Giambi - peak seasons from 29-31 Konerko - just had best season at age 30 Thomas - peaked when he was 27 Mauer - YTBD, just a pup still Morneau - YTBD, will be 25 this year Vlad - peak of steady greatness at 24-27 Guillen - peak right now between 29-31 the bolded players are those I consider proven great hitters. pretty much all of them peaked past age 27. the italics players present an interesting study. all of them peaked around the age you say players peak, but you have to assume they will not get any better from here on out to make the determination that they peaked at 27. I think many of them stand a great chance to keep improving or at least sustaining. I think maybe my theory holds some water and you shouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

Absolutely - Hendry needs to ignore his scouts. But at least he has a bit of data to support a slower DECLINE in 3rd basemen... the thing I wonder about peak analysis is what cosideration is given to the fact that so many players are out of the league before they are 30. in other words, do good players peak later than average players? not scientific by any means, but from years of pouring over conventional stats, it seems to me the very good players tend to peak right about where Hendry said they do, average players peak much younger and are out of baseball at ages when the good players are still putting up fantastic stats.

what do GMs, agents, and sports writers know about the 10-5 rule that we don't? with Soriano it was "ntc for the first five years." well that means its a ntc for the entire contract since he will have 10-5. with Aram it is "ntc for first four years." same thing, only I think Aram only needed three years max to reach 10-5 protection. the best part of this article is the timing. it took 11 days to come out, so hopefully we will see a story with some hints about Soriano's structure eventually and it is not a straight too many years for too much money deal.

I really have no opinion on whether the 25th man is Bynum or Counsell. I'd prefer neither. but what I want to know is, when making this comparison, why don't we hear about "the OBP component is the more important part of OPS." why don't we hear "Bynum never displayed that kind of power in the minor before and probably will never display it in the majors again" out of your? why when arguing one player v. another, do these things that you often say in other comparisons suddenly fall away? are you more interested in winning an argument or hashing out who is the better player? The OBP difference wasn't that big last year. If you are going to claim that a guy who will turn 37 next year, coming off a terrible season, after a series of bad ones, is a better option that whatever dirt cheap unproductive player you already have, then I would think a 21 point difference in OPS+ the previous season would be meaningful. It's not like Counsell is some OBP savant. He's drawn more walks in his career than you might think possible for such a poor hitter, but he's living off a career year in a WS season 6 seasons ago. Somebody tried to hand the "better" title to Counsell over Bynum without any evidence to support such a claim. I'd like it much more if neither set foot in the home dugout at Wrigley next season. There's no reason why Theriot can't handle the backup SS duties, and Cedeno should be next in line on that question. again, no problem with the conclusion, just how you got there. I've gone round and round with you in the past saying that 19 points in OBP isn't that big of a difference, only to be told, whether directly or in not so many words, that I am an idiot. Bynum's OPS is almost exclusively attributed to his flukish display of power, yet for some reason in this debate you won't touch on that, whereas if the roles were reversed (ie Counsell showed a flukish display of power) I'm sure you would bring that flukishness up here. there's basically zero difference between the impact the two would have on a team, but you're all fired up in your Bynum > Counsell expositions. they are both pretty crappy players and I'm not sure why teh debate over the two has gotten this much play on this board. I just want to see consistency in reasoning across the various comparisons we make between players, and that consistency seems to allude you in these debates. another way of illustrating this is the Lugo debate. Counsell and Lugo have extrememly similar career paths by age. shouldn't you be railing against the dangers of signing Lugo considering your opinion of Counsell's career?

I really have no opinion on whether the 25th man is Bynum or Counsell. I'd prefer neither. but what I want to know is, when making this comparison, why don't we hear about "the OBP component is the more important part of OPS." why don't we hear "Bynum never displayed that kind of power in the minor before and probably will never display it in the majors again" out of your? why when arguing one player v. another, do these things that you often say in other comparisons suddenly fall away? are you more interested in winning an argument or hashing out who is the better player?

I understand that, but it also probably uses stats under 2007 projections for every single player listed. it uses three year averages, and just about every player on the team probably projects above their three year averages. hopefully Lou will find a way to mitigate lowered production on off days by picking good match ups for the fill ins to succeed. edit - in addition, for shortstop at least, off days will create in increase in production (assumes Theriot). you can also pencil in Lee and Soriano for 160, and Jones and Murton for about 155 if not platooned. the biggest draw down would of course be at catcher. little things like Bynum and Neifi no longer being the first and second bench options will help the nine hole. it's imperfect, but gives an idea of what to possibly expect.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/Statistics/Team/playerstats?team=chc Just select the "as 2B" or "as LF", etc. and look at the total at the bottom. awesome thanks - we'll see how the run predictor does with actual numbers. not sure what predictor you are talking about I ran a calculation with a run predictor and started a thread in Baseball Discussions. re Cubs catchers, I don't know that the production will drop all that much. the Cubs should have Barrett for the entire year. even though Henry had a good year for him, the overall catchers numbers were really dragged down by Barrett only playing in about 100 games. if Barrett's production drop to about half way between his 05-06 and Henry repeats his 05, the Catchers stats will be about exactly the same as last year, assuming a 130/30 split in starts.

Doesn't matter. The last team he played for was the Cubs so therefore he is a returning FA. Also, I don't see the Cubs signing more than 2 more A or B FAs. One FA Pitcher and Perhaps one FA bat with the rest of the holes filled through trades. Cool, thanks. Looks like each team is alloted 5 A or B signings anyway, so I doubt they would reach the limit. It appears the consensus is that Soriano will play RF if the current OF personnel stays the same. Anyone hear differently? 5? everyone was saying 4.

that calculator pretty much says that is the case as you can see by the lineup it projects as best.

906 runs in a 162 game season when using each players last healthy season's stats (Lee 05, Izturis 04, last year for everyone else, plus last years 9 hole stats).

last year a few of you may have seen a tool for calculating the optimum lineup. Nilo also mentioned it in the Soriano thread. the tool is here http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py? to calibrate, I plugged in the Cubs numbers last year for each spot in the batting order, and it was within 12 runs, or .07 runs per game. I figure this will be Lou's usual lineup as the roster now stands Soriano DeRosa Lee Aram Jones Barrett Murton Izturis 9 hole I plugged the three year averages into the above tool (Murton's ML career averages, same as last year for 9 hole) and it comes to 5.116 runs per game, or 828.792 runs over 162 games. last year that would put the Cubs between the Mets and the Tigers for 8th in baseball. thinking out of the box, the true purpose of this calculator is to determine which is the optimum lineup. that would result in 5.389 runs per game and 873 runs over 162 games. (Murton, Lee, DeRosa, Aram, Barrett, Soriano, Jones, 9 hole, Izturis). that's second only to the Yankees last year, just ahead of Cleveland. I would be interested in seeing someone plug projected stats instead of just three year averages. the team consists of alot of players that can reasonably be expected to finish better than their three year averages (although there is alway a disaster lurking with this team).

exactly what I came on here to post.

Pretty funny seeing as he hit a would-be World Series winning homerun off of Curt Schilling. Isn't that true of most hitters? Hitters hit pitchers' mistakes. Bad pitchers make more mistakes than good pitchers. If every pitch was thrown where it was supposed to be, there would be little to no offense. Most hitters have hit would-be World Series winning homeruns off of Curt Schilling? One at bat does not a hitter make. Nor does a single playoff run. However, in this myopic view taken by Dan Patrick's guest, wouldn't a homerun off a great pitcher in likely Soriano's most important at bat ever qualify as hitting a good pitcher or hitting in the playoffs? I'm not saying that single homerun says anything about Soriano's talents, but I'd think Patrick's guest would. it's just talking point fodder. some hitters hit some pitchers well and others not. sometimes there is a rhyme or reason to it, sometimes there is not. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/6154/batvspit;_ylt=Arposg5K021XCg9s1BdRO6.FCLcF?year=career&type=Batting just looking at some prominent lefties, Mulder, Pettitte, Dontrelle, and Glavine would disagree with Dan Patrick. Santana, Buehrle and Zito would agree with Dan Patrick. in sum, an absurd comment by Dan Patrick.

still no breakdown of the years and money?

I can't wait to once again see four off days in the first two weeks which results in 23 straight days without a day off a couple times in the summer. or better yet, the four time zone road trips. or maybe even a couple more 4 cities in one week trips. and if they can squeeze a few more night games followed by day games in different cities for no apparent reason whatsoever, that would be great. I have seen no other team that has these anomolies scheduled, but the Cubs are scheduled that way year after year.

Donsty Baykler? there was a difference? it just goes to show what domination in one aspect of the game can do for a team. for that Cubs team, it was a totally dominant bullpen. I've always felt Dusty got exactly what he wanted from Hendry and that was one of the problems all along. Dusty cried that he needed a lefty starter, he got Estes. he cried he needed veterans and the team was stacked with crappy veterans. he cried he needed pitching depth and he got Dempster, Rusch, LaTroy, and Remlinger. he cried he needed defense and speed and he got Jones and Pierre. if Dusty had asked for the right things, I think Hendry would have gotten them for him. Dusty didn't ask for the right things.