Geech

Is Soto sore or something? Why is Hill starting consecutive games?

Yeah, Kosuke's contract is only a sunk cost if the Cobs can't trade him without eating the entire thing. Since he's an overpaid player rather than a bad one it should be possible to trade him for some salary relief. If benching Fukudome in favor of Colvin made that less likely, then that is a legitimate criticism.

If the Cobs don't sign Adam Dunn or trade for Gonzalez this offseason, Dan Johnson might make some sense as a stopgap. As a fan of Oakland, DJ is a player that I've kind of liked for a while now. Unfortunately, he hasn't had a great career in the majors, but I think there are some encouraging signs that may help his case. For one thing, he has crushed the ball in the minor leagues. With the Rays' AAA team, he posted a .307/.424/.556 line for a .425 wOBA in 486 plate appearances during 2008. He spent an unfruitful 2009 in Japan only to return and post a .303/.430/.624 line with a wOBA of .445 in 426 PA this season. At a quick glance the International League seems like a pretty friendly offensive environment, but those are solid numbers even in a league that favors hitters. At the major league level, his career .243/.344/.413 is very underwhelming, but there are still some positive signs. His career BABIP is only .252. Although I don't know where to find xBABIP data, quick and dirty calculations using his LD% suggest that he's been pretty unlucky. His secondary skills are actually quite solid. He's drawn walks in 13.4% of his plate appearances while striking out in only 16.5% of his ABs. He hasn't shown great power in the majors, but he has posted a pretty solid .169 ISO. BR and Fangraphs both consider his defense to be average or slightly above. Despite his mediocre results thus far, I think DJ might actually have the skills to succeed in the Bigs. More importantly, he might be available pretty cheaply. It's tough to know what the Rays think they have in Dan, and they might have him pegged as a cheap starter for 1B or DH. If they don't, he could be a good, inexpensive choice for the Cobs next season. Thoughts or reactions?

I love the idea that Soriano would be replacement level at first base while Hoffpauir is somehow average. I guess people are assuming that Soriano would be 30 runs below average in the field or something. Anyway, if people are really concerned about Soriano's defense at first, moving Colvin instead is fine with me. I think Colvin is likely to penciled in as a starter one way or another next season, so unless we get rid of Fukudome this is a much more cost effective solution than hiring a free agent stopgap at first.

Quite possibly. There isn't much else available, so I think he'll get a big payday.

Huh? You can stick anyone who can hit at 1B... there's no reason to move Soriano there when he's more valuable in the OF. I'm responding specifically to Riscio's claim that we should sign an "average 1B" -- as if that is something that just grows on trees -- by asking who he thinks is available. As far as moving Soriano, why isn't he "anyone"? If you can stick anyone there according to you, why not Soriano? Any outfielder would be more valuable in the OF than at 1B when you follow Riscio's logic, so that won't change. Someone like Hoffpauir is essentially a replacement player, so that's not really much of a solution either. Who do you recommend putting at first?

What average 1B is available? Dunn? He's going to be way overpriced for what he brings to the team. Signing a player to be a stopgap at first is a terrible waste of money.

I don't think that makes much sense. LF is as big of an offensive position as 1B, so if Soriano has value in LF then he should have value at 1B. Besides, it eases the logjam in the OF, which is worthwhile.

After their homeruns, Lee's SLG is the same as Pujols' OBP.

Someone should let the giants now about Wells FIP. I don't think they got the memo.

The writing was on the wall, but I'm still sad to see him go.

Anyone could have made the exact same argument about bringing him up this year, though. If he had struggled offensively instead of starting hot, he could have lost his starting job early and never received a true opportunity to prove himself. Being patient with him this year is not somehow different than being patient with him next year.

Nice to see Fukudome with a great performance.

It's good that he's gone, but he never should have been signed in the first place.

I think you're underrating Todd. His career line was .289/.348/.435 for a wOBA of .339. He was certainly worthy of being a starting second baseman, and if his defense had been better than he would have been a very good middle infielder indeed. We should be so lucky as to have Blake DeWitt develop into a similar offensive player. As far as being a negative clubhouse presence, has anyone but Steve Stone ever made that claim?

Oh, man. I just realized that I have to change my signature.

This thread is for discussing Kerry Wood to the Yankees, not Kerry Wood and cancer. That should be a different thread.

I like the trade. Good return. Who pissed in Illini Iceman's pot, though?

I'm going to hire a Comic-Con nerd to stab Berkman in the eye with a pen. Anyone wanna go halfsies?

Well, at least he carried the no-hitter into the second.

I don't dispute the second part of your post, but it's still in large part a function of scales. If the equations were different, they would well have different values, as I demonstrated. Scale is legitimately one of the reasons that OBP is more valuable than SLG. I don't understand why you are having so much trouble with this.

I don't think that's true at all. If OBP and SLG existed on a "normalized" scale -- ie if you divided SLG by 4 -- then a point of SLG would be way more valuable than a point of OBP. The scale totally matters. Just off the top of my head, a point of OBP is typically considered to be worth 1.6 points of SLG. Do the math.

Every thread is a game thread with inari around.

Theriot is really hurting the team. How much longer is this guy going to play?

He has been a very pleasant surprise. I hope he keeps it up.