Diffusion

Well, technically, Jesus is right!

Ooh, replacement surgery, sounds to me close enough to a brutal procedure for getting undeserving pitchers off a roster that I like it!

Down years happen. Players with Giles' track record of success and of Giles' age tend to bounce back a lot more often than not. Talk about steriods is at the very least cheap, and completely irrelevant if on the other side of things you're happy to overlook the series of problems Giles had last year with his left hand - a sprained ligament in his middle finger, a jammed thumb and a deep bruise between the index and middle fingers that required a cortisone shot. The bottom line is this - Marcus Giles is a 28-year-old career .285/.361/.448 hitter that plays a good second base. I'll "take my chances" on that over Mark DeRosa every single time.

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say with that. Are you saying we should look only at DeRosa's career numbers because the difference between splits for a right-handed hitter, however large, is probably co-incidential (as righties that can't hit righties are rooted out in the minors)? sort of - i was saying he probably isnt as good against lefties as his splits suggest. Fair enough, but that doesn't really counter the point that he's not good enough even against righties for an everyday job, unless you assume some transferance of his lefty split to his righty split. What's the case that it's fair to assume that? I think I've perhaps unfairly assumed you're arguing for DeRosa here as opposed to just making a general observation, by the way.

Other than the reason DeRosa came to Chicago was to start at 2B. When a 28-year-old .285/.361/.448 career good defensive second baseman comes on the market, you make sure you revise any plans you may once have had for Mark DeRosa-types. Alternatively, you could do yourself a favour and have made better plans for Mark DeRosa-types in the first place, plans not involving a starting job and a three year commitment.

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say with that. Are you saying we should look only at DeRosa's career numbers because the difference between splits for a right-handed hitter, however large, is probably co-incidential (as righties that can't hit righties are rooted out in the minors)?

We have to be all over Marcus Giles. Fine defensive second baseman with a career .285/.361/.448 line that's 28 years old. All over him. He could prove the best move the Cubs make all offseason.

I like Marshall more than most. A rough premature rookie year and everyone's soured very quickly on him. I still see a healthy chunk of Mark Mulder in him though, right down to their rookie numbers being just about identical. The Mark Mulder that got traded for Danny Haren, Kiko Calero and Daric Barton, that is. Pitcher's frame, three solid pitches (high-eighties/low-nineties FB with lots of downward action, good curve, decent change), strong command, an inate idea of how to pitch, I don't think he's a guy that should be written off too soon. He'll certainly never be an ace, but I don't see too much reason he shouldn't be a solid three or four, which in this market is gold, apparently.

I like it, but one change: SS DeRosa/Theriot/Izturis 1) Mark DeRosa is a 31-year-old career .260/.316/.366 hitter of right-handers, and on account of that absolutely should not even be considered for a full-time job 2) Mark DeRosa is has spent just 175 innings (or 20 full games) at shortstop over the last three years, and it's for good reasons

C Barrett 1B Lee 2B Giles 3B Ramirez SS Izturis LF Murton CF Soriano RF Jones/DeRosa

Without the IBBs, Soriano's OBP last year would have been .337.

C Michael Barrett 1B Derrek Lee 2B Alfonso Soriano 3B Aramis Ramirez SS Julio Lugo LF Adam Dunn CF Jacque Jones/Mark DeRosa platoon RF Matt Murton Hehe, at second and in the outfield the defence would be brutal, but offensively at least that'd be disgustingly good! Though I have no idea how I'd put it into a lineup!

Because Jacque Jones cannot hit lefties? If Soriano was at 2b and in a dream world far away, JD Drew was signed to play CF, would a platoon of Jacque Jones/Mark DeRosa not make sense? Between the two of them, they'll make approximately 9m. If for 9m, I see: .342 .394 .589 .983 (DeRosa) .303 .358 .528 .886 (Jones) production out of RF, I can't say I would complain. The combined production of those two would match or quite possibly be cheaper than any single player who could provide that type of production (outside of the top young players in the league that haven't gotten their big payday yet and are usually not available). Even better, is the fact one of them makes for a very decent guy coming off the bench in games the other guy started. It's bench depth besides being called a platoon. Further to your point, based on last year's splits as you partially quoted them above, assuming a platoon that's 85% efficient, assuming that being platooned has no discernable effect on their performance, DeJones' combined production works out at .305/.357/.522 at a payroll cost of about $9-10m next year. Based on their career splits, in other words assuming that none of the progress either player made last year will carry over, again making the same assumptions, DeJones' combined production still works out at .290/.341/.472 at the same price.

It's no secret that Jacque Jones can't hit lefties. A less well-known fact is that Mark DeRosa can't hit much hit righties, but is a bit of a lefty killer. DeRosa last season started 59 games in right field, more than at any other single position, and seemed to handle that just fine. Jacque Jones plays right field. It's almost too obvious -- a Jacque Jones and Mark DeRosa platoon in right field! Jacque Jones -- .295/.343/.493 career versus righties (3368 PA) Mark DeRosa -- .306/.367/.487 career versus lefties (532 PA) Jacque Jones -- .228/.275/.350 career versus lefties (992 PA) Mark DeRosa -- .260/.316/.366 career versus righties (1281 PA) The perfect right field platoon then, with Jones seeing every righty and DeRosa every lefty, would, on the basis of how often the Cubs have seen lefties over the last two years and the above career splits see the Cubs get production of .298/.350/.491 out of right field, better even than what Jones gave us last year (.285/.334/.499) in his second best ever season. If any of Jones' improvement upon his career numbers last year were to carry over, or for that matter any of DeRosa's, neither entirely improbable, then obviously the Cubs would even exceed that kind of production. Last year's splits were as follows... Jacque Jones -- .303/.358/.528 2006 versus righties (433 PA) Mark DeRosa -- .342/.394/.589 2006 versus lefties (160 PA) Jacque Jones -- .234/.261/.416 2006 versus lefties (142 PA) Mark DeRosa -- .278/.342/.404 2006 versus righties (412 PA) Based just on those as opposed to the career splits, a perfect Jones and DeRosa platoon would work out at a staggering .314/.368/.545. Now, obviously, perfect platoons can't (and maybe shouldn't) ever exist. There will arise situations over the course of the year when one half of the platoon will have been taken out of the game, the other put in but needed for multiple plate appearances, including ones against wrong-armed pitchers. And there may once in a while arise situations where it doesn't make statistical sense to take one half of the platoon out, perhaps because he's got a good matchup against a certain wrong-armed pitcher, or because the other half of the platoon might be more useful in another spot, for instance as a pinch-hitter, and so on. And there may be situations where it may not make sense to take one half out because of psychological implications, or something along those lines. But supposing the platoon is 85% efficient, say (which means both DeRosa and Jones get 50 plate appearances or so against wrong-handed pitchers over the course of the year), the overall platoon numbers still work out as .290/.341/.472 based on career splits (as opposed to, against all pitchers, Jones being a .280/.328/.461 career hitter and DeRosa coming in at .273/.331/.404) and .305/.357/.522 based on last year's numbers (as opposed to, against all pitchers, Jones hitting .285/.334/.499 last year and DeRosa .296/.357/.456). Those numbers certainly suggest that, regardless of whether DeRosa and Jones regress all the way back to career levels or not, the production you'd get from a platoon of the two in right field would, together, give you a sixth "player" (DeJones if you will, sixth after Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Barrett and Murton) that you could genuinely rely on to put up really solid numbers at six spots in the lineup. Obviously the Cubs signed DeRosa with the intention of playing him at second base. If you use him only as the short side of a platoon, giving him only 200 plate appearances a year, that has implications for the rest of the lineup. The biggest - who do you play at second base instead? Well, Ryan Theriot over the last three seasons, over four levels, has hit .296/.370/.387. Though consistently very old for his level in the minor leagues over that time, the way that he took to the majors in his short stint last year was encouraging enough that I think he maybe deserves another go. Though he wouldn't hit for much power, an on-base percentage like that would challenge to lead the team and simply couldn't be passed up on. I would though, all the same, try and find a cheap alternative to Theriot who could step in if he flopped, and I'd bat Theriot eighth to start with (assuming Izturis isn't still around). The only way that this approach wouldn't make best sense is if the improvements that DeRosa made last year were real and carried over in just about their entirity. DeRosa last year was actually respectable against right-handers to the extent that, if he carried on hitting like that, giving a full-time job to someone with as little major league experience and upside as Ryan Theriot over him would probably be unjustifiable. Instead you'd play DeRosa at second, to have Theriot as a very useful bench piece, and search out another outfield lefty-masher to platoon with Jones. Personally though, I don't for a second believe that DeRosa is much for real. His track record through last year all said one thing - twenty-fifth man - and last year, let's not forget, he was hitting in a very friendly hitting environment. Since he's entirely the wrong side of thirty, 32 next February, last year screams to me nothing but career year. With Jones and DeRosa in right field and Theriot at second, Soriano would play centre field. I think he'd be fine there. C Michael Barrett 1B Derrek Lee 2B Ryan Theriot 3B Aramis Ramirez SS Julio Lugo LF Matt Murton CF Alfonso Soriano RF Jacque Jones/Mark DeRosa strict platoon

So we've established two thirds of the three-way is TruffleShuffle and Eric Patterson...