Diffusion

I don't really see a reason to include Murton in there when Williams has more trade value yet is for us more expendable. But I was posting similar Zito to Phillies, Abreu to Cubs ideas before (I had Zito and Mitre to Philly, Williams, Michaels and Sing to Oakland, Abreu to Cubs), so I really think that there's real potential for a deal here somewhere. How about...? Barry Zito, Sergio Mitre and one of the A's lesser catching prospects to Philly Jerome Williams, Ryan Madson and Brian Dopirak to A's Bobby Abreu to Cubs

The point is, regardless of what you think about player loyalty, and personally I think it's all too rare a thing these days, that Sing re-signed with the Cubs doesn't prove your point about no other teams wanting him and his value therefore being essentially zero.

Or loyal. He's from Joliet, Illinois, I'm pretty sure the story when he re-signed was that he didn't want to go anywhere else, he wanted to try and make it with the Cubs, and that he knocked back offers to see that happen. If I'm remembering this completely wrong, someone please point it out. Of course, ideally, the Cubs would repay that loyalty.

Barry will be a free agent after next season. No team option? Maybe I remember wrong. I'm useless without Cot's.

That's not exactly true. You can trade the right for another team to put him in the minors. That's a luxury they don't get if they take him in the Rule 5 draft. I think his point was that at some juncture this offseason, anyone could have had Sing for free, and they all passed. Might've been because he's a 6 year minor league FA. Right. Re-post: Sing was a six-year minor league free agent. Any team could have offered to sign him and put him on their 40-man roster. It doesn't seem as though any team made him such an offer. I suppose it's possible that a team did and Sing said, "No thanks. I'd rather stay with my hometown team even though they don't value me enough to roster me.", but that seems extremely unlikely. If that did happen, a team could take him in the Rule 5 draft "against his wishes", but that seems truly far-fetched. Is it not possible that at the time Sing re-signed, he didn't know that he wasn't going to be rostered?

That's not exactly true. You can trade the right for another team to put him in the minors. That's a luxury they don't get if they take him in the Rule 5 draft. I think his point was that at some juncture this offseason, anyone could have had Sing for free, and they all passed. Might've been because he's a 6 year minor league FA. I remember hearing that other teams did indeed want Sing, but he prefered to re-sign with the Cubs to a minor league deal. Or maybe I'm making that up. Rotoworld thinks that there's a 60% chance that Sing gets selected in the Rule 5 draft, for what that's worth.

I agree, but everything I have heard is that the Phillies want a front end SP, the Cubs aren't going to give them Prior or Z. I would trade Patterson to the Nats for Wilkerson, and throw Williams, Hill, Pinto and spare parts at the Reds for Dunn. This is where a three way deal with the A's comes in. Barry Zito I think would be roughly what the Phillies are looking for. What are the A's looking for? A first baseman/designated hitter type? Brandon Sing would be helpful, perhaps. I'm sure they wouldn't say no to some young pitching like Jerome Williams. Throw in maybe Pinto. What are we thinking? does: Cubs get: Abreu Phillies get: Zito A's get: Sing, Michaels, and Williams sound right? It does, I think. Maybe the Phillies would want a marginal prospect from the Cubs for throwing in Michaels too. Sergio Mitre perhaps. Then we trade Patterson and Grant Johnson for Wilkerson, say? IMO, either Philly would want more, or an extension for Zito in Philly would have to be worked out beforehand. As a follow up, I'd prefer Lowe + Bradley to fix the hole in the rotation, but I'm not going to complain in the slightest if we get Wilkerson. I can't get Cot's to load, but I'm pretty sure that Zito's deal has another two years to run. As such, I don't think an extension is essential to any deal. The Phillies have time yet.

Clever of the Rangers to be trying to move their two most overrated players.

That's not exactly true. You can trade the right for another team to put him in the minors. That's a luxury they don't get if they take him in the Rule 5 draft.

I agree, but everything I have heard is that the Phillies want a front end SP, the Cubs aren't going to give them Prior or Z. I would trade Patterson to the Nats for Wilkerson, and throw Williams, Hill, Pinto and spare parts at the Reds for Dunn. This is where a three way deal with the A's comes in. Barry Zito I think would be roughly what the Phillies are looking for. What are the A's looking for? A first baseman/designated hitter type? Brandon Sing would be helpful, perhaps. I'm sure they wouldn't say no to some young pitching like Jerome Williams. Throw in maybe Pinto. What are we thinking? does: Cubs get: Abreu Phillies get: Zito A's get: Sing, Michaels, and Williams sound right? It does, I think. Maybe the Phillies would want a marginal prospect from the Cubs for throwing in Michaels too. Sergio Mitre perhaps. Then we trade Patterson and Grant Johnson for Wilkerson, say?

I agree, but everything I have heard is that the Phillies want a front end SP, the Cubs aren't going to give them Prior or Z. I would trade Patterson to the Nats for Wilkerson, and throw Williams, Hill, Pinto and spare parts at the Reds for Dunn. This is where a three way deal with the A's comes in. Barry Zito I think would be roughly what the Phillies are looking for. What are the A's looking for? A first baseman/designated hitter type? Brandon Sing would be helpful, perhaps. I'm sure they wouldn't say no to some young pitching like Jerome Williams. Throw in maybe Pinto. What are we thinking?

Kearns for Mitre and Nolasco. Nice try, Reds. Right now he's a .250/.345/.450 corner-outfielder with whatever defence. Maybe one day he'll quit striking out enough to be able to hit .270. And even then he wouldn't be that great for a corner outfielder. And that's what the Cubs need. A great corner outfielder. They need another big bat. Not Austin Kearns. Fair trade? Well, it's not that far out, but my gut reaction would still be no, the trading within the division factor.

The other thing is that the Nats are one of the teams that would be all over Patterson if we put him out there. Better perhaps then to use Patterson and a prospect to net Wilkerson than to burn Williams unnecessarily.

Should the Cubs should trade value for Wilkerson or get Milton Bradley cheap? Milton Bradley's probably the better player when you take into account his defence, and he's younger. Salary-wise there'll not too much to choose between them, and they're both not going to be free agents until after the 2007 season. Trouble is that Bradley's also more prone to injury and is obviously a far more volatile character. I don't think he's a bad person, quite the opposite in fact, I think he's well intentioned, but he just loses control. I'm not a big believer in clubhouse chemistry, but Bradley does make you at least pause for thought. Wilkerson will probably have the higher resale value if we need to move him to accomodate Pie in a year's time. There's a lot to consider, and I honestly don't know which way I'd go on it. Given that, I'd make RF the first priority, and if we have to trade Jerome Williams, I'd rather trade him as part of a package to net a huge bat. Williams, Hill and Pinto, that enough to net Abreu and a throw-in? Williams, Hill and Pinto for Dunn? Would either get it done? If so, then you just go with Milton for CF and you're laughing. If not, then maybe Williams for Wilkerson, which I think is fair value, makes more sense. But I think you need to find out what Williams can get you and whether Milton's going to be non-tendered first. If the Phillies and Reds say they're flat-out not interested in Williams, I guess then sending him to the Nationals makes more sense.

Did I miss something really big? Or are you just speculating? I'm just speculating. I think the Mets are going to land Manny, with Milledge, Heilman and another prospect heading to Boston. Seo could make the rotation in Victor Zambrano's place. Heilman won't make the rotation. He'll go back to the bullpen if he's not traded.

Strange that, I thought their rotation was Pedro, Benson, Zambrano, Glavine and Trachsel.

Maybe Hendry is driving up the price to get St. Louis to spend more, which would then prevent the Cards from getting Hendry's prized possession: Jacque Jones. Gah. You copied what I wrote, then added something very horrible about Jacque Jones. Just saw that on page 2. Put it this way: the only problem I have with your post is the Jacque Jones bit.

Maybe Hendry is driving up the price to get St. Louis to spend more, which would then prevent the Cards from getting Hendry's prized possession: Jacque Jones. Gah. You copied what I wrote, then added something very horrible about Jacque Jones.

It's really not that complicated. To score as many runs as possible, get as much OBP as possible, and get as much SLG as possible. The more players you have that are able to contribute OBP and SLG, as opposed to just one or the other, the more OBP and SLG you end up with overall. We've had the SLG, we need some OBP. I'm not saying Gathright's the answer, I just don't understand the glorification of some (Greenberg for one) while crucifying Gathright when there isn't a clear difference in production. I don't think anyone here thinks of Greenberg as anything more than a potentially very useful fourth or fifth outfielder.

It's really not that complicated. To score as many runs as possible, get as much OBP as possible, and get as much SLG as possible. The more players you have that are able to contribute OBP and SLG, as opposed to just one or the other, the more OBP and SLG you end up with overall.

Ah, and someone said the Americans get sarcasm.

Why? LoDuca is a career .285/.339/.417 hitter, which is merely decent for a catcher, he's not that special behind the plate, he's 33, and remember that catchers age early, and he's got $12.5m owed him over the next two years. Well, at least he's a real clubhouse guy. The Mets could have had Ramon Hernandez for not much more than $6.25m a year, though they'd probably have had to go to a third or maybe fourth year. He's 4 years younger, a far superior defensive catcher, and over the last three years he's hit .279/.332/.461, significantly better than Lo Duca, and the Mets would only have had to give up a second round draft pick, which only has the potential of turning into a legitimate prospect. Instead they've given up a legitimate prospect. Gaby Hernandez is just 20, but already has the build of a prototypical power pitcher, at 6 foot 3 and 215 pounds. He's also got two plus pitches already, a great low-nineties sinker with which he's able to miss bats as well as induce groundballs, and a very good curveball with bite. He has fine control of both pitches, and was making strides with a two-seam fastball and particularly with his changeup, which some scouts reckon has the makings of another plus pitch. His numbers... GCL in 2004, 49.2 IP, 25 H, 1 HR, 22 BB, 58 K, 1.09 ERA SS-A in 2004, 3 IP, 2 H, 0 HR, 0 BB, 6 K, 0.00 ERA Low-A in 2005, 92.2 IP, 59 H, 4 HR, 30 BB, 99 K, 2.42 ERA High-A in 2005, 42.1 IP, 48 H, 1 HR, 10 BB, 32 K, 5.74 ERA That's extremely impressive stuff for someone that at the end of the 2005 was just 14 months out of HS.

I don't see too many solo HRs if Soriano is hitting in his rightful spot behind both Lee and Ramirez. If he's hitting 1st or 2nd. I do, with the number of homers that Lee and Ramirez hit! Vlad actually earns just $14m per. That contract, along with the Tejada one, is looking like an absolute bargain these crazy days.

So that's Anibal Sanchez, Hanley Ramirez, Jesus Delgado, Harvey Garcia, Yusmeiro Petit, Mike Jacobs, Grant Psomas, Travis Bowyer, Scott Tyler, Gaby Hernandez and a lot of payroll in. And Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, Guillermo Mota, Carlos Delgado, Luis Castillo and Paul Lo Duca out. The Marlins now only have two guys left on their roster that are due to earn more than league minimum-ish next year: Juan Pierre and Ron Villone! Could they set a record for the lowest payroll in the free agent era?

One thing I'll say for Minaya, he's sure not afraid to convert prospects into major league talent. Hendry could do with taking a hint. Of course, Minaya's problem is that he sends too many too good prospects, and the major league talent he gets is all extremely expensive, if not also tied into deals through the end of the decade, and he just makes too many such trades. He's gutted their farm system and given the Mets a projected 2008 payroll that could plug the US current account deficit. And with their sucky pitching, they're still probably not going to get far in 2006. Manny, Delgado, Wright, Beltran in the heart of their order is going to be sick, but they don't have enough pitching.