Iceblink

Geeeeeaux Tigers!

What a ridiculous excuse for a trade. You could lobotomize Bavasi and he could do no worse.

Bruce: surely a slip. Lilly's a lefty If he could pitch with both arms and go twice every 5 days, he'd still only be worth half of what he got.

Lilly and...Marquis. :)

And game tickets and cable bills and cups of beer go up just a little bit more while the team doesn't get appreciably better. To me, "this market" translates to "people haven't stopped paying us what we're charging, so we can take this huge profit and over-spend it on average or even below-average players." It makes sense to spend the money to improve the team. Like I said in the Lilly thread, spending isn't improving.

David DeJesus. Though I'm not sure if he's a good defensive CF or not. More of a doubles guy who draws a few walks.

I think the odds are better you'll get Ted Lilly of the 2.004 WHIP for this entire contract.

Bleh. I wonder if Marshall would've been better than Lilly by 2008. I'm pretty sure my dead cat will be better by year 4.

http://www.benmaller.com/archives/2006/december/06#124379 First I've heard of 5 years, though it's not citing a real offer. Ugh, ugh, and double ugh.

Go Blue Jays, go!

I'm in the Lilly will "not be great, but won't be bad" group. But I rather have him, then say....Jeff Suppan or Jason Marquis. My camp is expanding to: "Lilly=bad, Suppan & Marquis=also bad." They're average-ish guys who are likely to be even worse in Wrigley (especially Lilly). Not worth the money. Padilla would be almost worth the money, but I've heard of too many character issues with him. Pass. ok, so who do you want the cubs to get then? I know we're in a position where we can't be choosy. I also like to take the negative side too often. The only pitchers I've heard are available that are quality pitchers are Schmidt, Westbrook, and Jason Jennings. Jennings one year might've been an illusion, but I'd take a shot on him. Granted, Westbrook and Jennings won't come cheap. Westbrook might cost Pie. Lilly's health and pitching tendencies would make him a sizable risk. Walks and homers and a bad shoulder don't promise much. The odds, IMO, are greater that he'll be bad rather than good. If things went great, he might be a bad #2 starter. In a good case, he could be a decent #3. Most likely, he's a solid #4 pitching 1/2-3/4 of 4 seasons at $10M per. Just because there's not much on the market, do you tie up a roster spot and $10M a year for the next four years on what's likely an average pitcher, at best? Sometimes it's wiser to accept you can't recover from years of injuries and bad personnel decisions in one offseason. Spending isn't necessarily improving. And I'd actually take Suppan before Lilly, too. Neither will be a staff-saver, but Suppan can at least throw a ground ball.

I'm in the Lilly will "not be great, but won't be bad" group. But I rather have him, then say....Jeff Suppan or Jason Marquis. My camp is expanding to: "Lilly=bad, Suppan & Marquis=also bad." They're average-ish guys who are likely to be even worse in Wrigley (especially Lilly). Not worth the money. Padilla would be almost worth the money, but I've heard of too many character issues with him. Pass.

I'm firmly entrenched in the "Lilly=bad" camp.

Sign Lilly, Zito, trade Zambrano for a left-handed starter, start Cotts, and problem fixed. :lol: Bingo. :) Plus, we'd have the home-runs-allowed record chase to watch all summer!

Can we really have a successful offense with 8 righty bats? Or 7 righty bats and Izturis' "bat?" Hall would be a huge upgrade, but that lineup would need some balance.

I've been pining for DeJesus for many months, but losing Barrett to get him completely defeats the purpose. Well, there's little else to trade. Adding a younger, OBP-heavy lefty bat in CF would be a fair swap for Barrett. In my slap-happy scenario above, we'd move Jones and Barrett for Jennings and DeJesus. It's a pipe dream, but that's a net gain, IMO.

So Lilly, with a high walk rate, high homer rate (especially against righties), and a bad (and worsening) injury history is worth $9-10M a year? I posted it once, but here's his injury history again. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2006/10/2007_mlb_free_a_6.html Odds Lilly could keep his ERA under 5 in Wrigley: 33% Odds Lilly will pitch more than 175 innings per year over the 4 year deal: 25% I hope Hendry has someone else do his grocery shopping.

I applaud your wisdom, sir. :)

Work in some 3-way magic where we give the Rockies Jones and Barrett and they help come up with prospects to get David DeJesus in center. Ok, so that's about the only lefty hitting CFer I can find. Let me dream.

So to rebuild our rotation that has been plagued with talented guys who get hurt too much to depend on, we're going to spend a ton of money on a totally average pitcher who gets hurt too much to depend on?

Absolutely, positively not.

Agreed. This guy is worse than Izturis and that is pretty bad. Somewhere, there's a post where I predicted we'd go after Clayton this offseason. My reasoning was mostly the assumed defensive prowess and the fact that he's the only active player challenging Neifi for the 'worst offensive player ever' stat, which is actually kept on some sites. That was before we traded for Izturis, so I suppose he took over the new Neifi role.

Dammit. I can't link to the image of the #19 Murton customized jersey and say how sharp it looks. I blame Bud Selig and Dusty Baker.

The ESPN rumor page has the Cubs interested in Vicente Padilla. For his character more than his stuff, I hope we don't land him. As for Zito, this was interesting: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/pitch-location-and-groundballs/ Scroll down a bit to Zito's graphic.

I'll take Bruce's word for it. If character is an issue, I don't want Nevin.