Diffusion

Paul Quantrill as a Yankee... IPHHRBBKERA03/30/04 through 08/14/0475.080311293.0008/15/04 through 06/30/0552.192716198.43 Guy's done. I call that the "when low strikeout rates have their revenge" effect, with a bit of "I like to throw it over the middle of the plate" thrown in.

Dubois and Hill for Huff? And the Cubs aren't interested? Well, I could understand if they tried to cash in on Huff's struggles a little more and wriggle the Devil Rays out of Hill and onto a slightly lesser pitcher, but come on, that's a pretty fair offer by the Devil Rays, and the Cubs should be at least thinking about it. Because if the Cubs can be confident that Huff's problems are temporary (and that's the only problem, I'm not sure they are), there's no way they should pass up on putting him in left field.

Well, let's tinker with the deal a little bit. Mitre, Dubois, & Welly for Mench & a prospect. I've stated in numerous threads that the Rangers aren't interested in moving Mench unless they get a can't miss stud pitcher. Volume will not overwhelm them. If we asked for Mench, they'd ask for Zambrano and the discussions end right there. The Rangers are quite obviously off their rockers then. As good as Mench is (and he's good enough for my fantasy team, 3 HR, woo!), he's not that good. He's also already 27.

When you're talking about Adam Dunn, for all his ability you have to consider a few things... 1) He's getting expensive, very expensive, even if he's worth every cent. 2) He wants out of Cincinnati and is not going to stay with them beyond free agency. That means the Reds are looking not at a real impact player for the next decade, but at a real impact player just for the next two and a half years. That makes a difference. And the longer the Reds wait before they trade Dunn (and they will), the more his value declines as he gets more expensive and closer to free agency. The only way Dunn can reserve that decline in value is if he improves continually as a player, and that for Dunn has to be an average-driven improvement (ie. less strikeouts). And the Reds seem to have pretty serious reservations about Dunn's lack of contact. The Reds have to be considering their current position, which is they have no pitching, and that, Adam Dunn or not, that's not going to change in a hurry, and until it does change, their team is not going to be competitive. If they consider at that, and they look at Dunn's ever declining value, I think the logical conclusion for them to come to is that trading Dunn for pitching before the trading deadline next year at the latest (if not this year), is the right way for them to go. Now, if I were the Reds, I'd be holding out for an awful lot of pitching. Firstly, I'd be asking for starting pitching. Forget Wellemeyer then, he's not even that good. Personally, if I'm the Reds, I'd be asking for Sergio Mitre, Jerome Williams AND Angel Guzman from any other team, but trading within the division, I'd want another really good pitching prospect too, perhaps one from deeper in the system, Petrick say. And I think that'd be an extremely tough deal for the Cubs to pull the trigger on. Then again, I'm not the Reds. And if Ken Rosenthal is right, which would pretty much be a first, and they're willing to trade Dunn for a package in which the biggest pieces are Mitre and Wellemeyer, oh boy, that franchise deserves to be contracted.

I'll take a +.900 OPS from my LF any day of the week. He'd immediately be the best offensive OF on the Cubs. Well, I'm not necessarily saying he would have a +.900 OPS, just pointing out that over the past year, for whatever reason, he's put it all together. Maybe it'll all fall apart again soon. Maybe not.

06/28/04--06/28/05 Kevin Mench, .302/.376/.562 at home, .280/.336/.575 on the road Hmmm.

I here ya. Kotsay may be doing a little better then again he may be hitting alot of weak groundballs and pop ups and his stats right around what he deserves (I just put together what BABIP is...incidentally, what is Barrett's?). For future reference, you can find BABIP here. A rough way for calculating expected BABIP is LD% +.110. Barrett LD%: .253 Expected BABIP: .363 Actual BABIP: .289 Barrett's line if he was hitting his expected BABIP: .347/.385/.542/.927 Barrett has been criminally unlucky. That LD% has to be wrong. That's pretty much impossible. I know Barrett has been hitting the ball hard all year, but that's just stupid. The problem probably lies with definitions of line drives. What is a line drive? There must be plenty of different people that score balls in play, and I'm sure not all of them have the exact same definition of a line drive. I'm also sure individuals aren't always consistent, and they'll call the same thing a line drive once and a flyball another time etc. I wish Baseball Info Solutions or whatever they're called published much more raw data.

So Corey believes he's capable of hitting high fastballs? And hitting home runs to right field with every swing? And getting on-base at a high enough rate to hit lead-off?

Right.... Kotsay has an OBP of .355 for 2002-05 (playing for the Marlins, Padres and now A's). Yes, the Cubs couldn't use that at the top of the order at all. On top of that he plays defence to die for. There isn't a CF I'd rather watch play defence that Kotsay. He glides around making everything look ridiculously easy. He's the most underrated CF in the game by a mile. He only 29. He earns $5.5m this year and $5.5m next year (player option). Salaries would increase to $6.5m each year if he were traded. If you gave me $6.5m a year and I could sign any CF in the game with that money, off the top of my head I can't think of a better choice than Kotsay. That said, I'm still opposed to trading for him, because he'd be expensive in terms of prospects, as raw says. And I'm a Corey apologist. Let's see, what has his EqA been over the last 3 years, about .275? 2000: .268 2001: .288 2002: .289 2003: .266 2004: .287 2005: .265 You've got two figures that keep recurring there. About .266 and about .288. Strange. .288 is very strong. .266 isn't, it's merely okay. I believe Kotsay at .266 is a .288 player disappointing though, as opposed to Kotsay at .288 being a .266 player playing over his head. There's a difference. I wouldnt' say he's off to a poor start. Merely an okay one. I can't dispute either of your other two points. But if you read what I've said more closely, I'm not particularly in favor of acquiring Kotsay, despite being a big fan of his. But also because any player capable of repeatedly putting up .288 EqAs while playing excellent defence at a very important defensive position is worth having. That defence being a pretty enormous difference. Hairston also has significantly less power. There's simply not a comparison between the two as all-round players, regardless of the fact their OBPs are likely to be similar. Also, more of Kotsay's OBP is driven by hits as opposed to hit by pitches, which makes a difference with runners on, for what that's worth. Yes, but he's not a corner OF, which solves that "problem". If a team acquires Kotsay and puts him in one of the corners, they're certifiably crazy.

Sign on the free market that is. Obviously I'd take the likes of Jason Bay earning $350k over Kotsay earning $6.5m (even though I have reservations about Bay's ability to hit for an average much above .270).

Right.... Kotsay has an OBP of .355 for 2002-05 (playing for the Marlins, Padres and now A's). Yes, the Cubs couldn't use that at the top of the order at all. On top of that he plays defence to die for. There isn't a CF I'd rather watch play defence that Kotsay. He glides around making everything look ridiculously easy. He's the most underrated CF in the game by a mile. He only 29. He earns $5.5m this year and $5.5m next year (player option). Salaries would increase to $6.5m each year if he were traded. If you gave me $6.5m a year and I could sign any CF in the game with that money, off the top of my head I can't think of a better choice than Kotsay. That said, I'm still opposed to trading for him, because he'd be expensive in terms of prospects, as raw says. And I'm a Corey apologist.

Yes, but Kotsay is an amazing defensive CF, Hairston is awful out there. The defence gulf magnifies the offensive marginal difference at least three-fold. All the same, I'd be opposed to getting Kotsay. I'm still, if not a Corey fan, a Corey apologist.

To an extent, I hope Maddux isn't around next year. Well, no, I hope Maddux is around next year, but as the pitching coach. I love the guy to bits, but his pitching these days just isn't worth $9m in my view. I'd love... $3.55m Prior $5.6m Zambrano $12m Wood $0.33m Williams $0.33m Guzman or $3.2m Rusch $4.13m Barrett $8.67m Lee $2.5m Walker (picks up player option) $10.75m Ramirez SS LF $4.2m Corey RF $0.33m Four from Wuertz, Welly, Van Buren, Aardsma, Novoa $0.33m Ohman, Pinto or Hill $2m Williamson $0.33m Guzman or $3.2m Rusch (ie. whichever's not starting. If Guzman's still injured buy another reliever, maybe an expensive one) $1.5m Blanco $0.33m Cedeno $2m Hairston (learn to play SS and 3B!) $0.33m Dubois $1m Grieve $1m Hollandsworth That I think adds up to about $65m. Which leaves a whopping $35m to spend on the corner outfield positions and shortstop! I wouldn't mind if we brought back Nomar for another roll of the dice, and then Mench and Dunn in the corners would be fine with me if the Rangers and Reds are so keen to part with them! Dunn we all know about. Kevin Mench though is a stud too, a true .300 hitter with 30 home run power. If we could acquire him for pitching prospects (say Mitre and Leicester), that'd rock! Aw, shucks, now I'm about $20m under budget as well. We could afford Maddux if we wanted to then. I just don't see where he fits in. I don't want him blocking Williams and Guzman.

Excellent. Once again, thanks Tim and Mark for setting this up.

No, you sign or trade for a backup middle infielder that can hit at least a bit. That's where Jose Macias comes into thi...oh wait...not him either. Heck, Ramon Martinez would do, but Hendry didn't both to offer arbitration. Epstein had the right idea, he went out and got Ramon Vazquez and the Padres gave him Jay Payton, enough money to make Jay Payton cheap and a prospect for doing business with them. We'll see what Hendry's plans for Neifi are if or when he signs another backup infielder. If not, he's really going to get it from me. But until then, benefit of the doubt, mainly because I can't live with the thought that our management is completely incompetent.

His bat was used quite a bit last year, and with Dusty around, it will be used a lot next season. Would Neifi's bat have been used so often though if he wasn't performing? I'd like to think not, but if it's entirely Dusty's decision (ie. someone wise isn't reminding him that Neifi's a 242/272/325 hitter outside of Coors), I'm not sure it would have made any difference. 371/400/548 in a Chicago Cubs uniform Stud!

His bat was used quite a bit last year, and with Dusty around, it will be used a lot next season. 242/272/325 hitter outside of Coors Field, 48/40 SB/CS career. Hopefully Hendry can ram that down Dusty's throat repeatedly until he gets the message and gives Neifi no more than 20 PAs in 2005 and doesn't use him as a pinch-stealer (pinch-runner, sure, he's fast enough). And if he does that, Neifi's defence (not to mention his attitude and experience - remember he walked to the mound to advise the pitchers quite often) will be extremely valuable. I know it's unlikely as long as we've got Dusty in charge, but Hendry's not a complete idiot, and so I'll give Hendry the benefit of the doubt until my hopes are truly dashed with Neifi constantly coming off the bench instead of Dubois or something. That though is bad management by Dusty, not a bad signing by Hendry. His only fault would have been not forcing Dusty to use Neifi productively. And we don't know whether or not Hendry has been doing that or not, so benefit of the doubt. Part of the reason Neifi saw PAs in 2004 was Nomar's injury as well. Hopefully we won't have to worry about anything like that in 2005, although Hendry should be sorting out an insurance policy. Ramon Vazquez of the Padres would have been great, but he's a Red Sox now. That was a truly abysmal trade by Kevin Towers.

Quit whining about Neifi. Provided he's used solely as a late-inning defensive-replacement, he's definately worth having on your roster. Particularly when the defence of your starting middle infielders isn't great. Of course, Hendry gave him a few hundred thousand dollars too much, and we don't know whether he'll be used solely as a late-inning defensive replacement, but give Hendry the benefit of the doubt.

Sure, I'm not sure why people care about a free contest they didn't enter, though. :D http://www.northsidebaseball.com/Contests/FADestinationEntries.php I was going to, but forgot. Anyway, I'm intrigued as to where people think everyone will end up. Your link says "You must submit an entry to see this list".

Now that the deadline has passed, any chance of revealing all the submitted entries to everyone as opposed to just those who entered?