nilodnayr

and like we already discussed, can't the extra 6M saved by not signing Schmidt give you a player that can be 4 wins above replacement? I also refer you to my previous post. he is what he is. Other than Lugo at SS, I don't think an additional 6M could have netted us 4 additional wins (I totally pulled that out of my butt, I don't know the win difference between Schmidt and Lilly, some one help out here) over any other player we have.

Quit making me do work!!! I'll do the actual vs expected HR analysis for Lilly over in the Lilly thread.

Who do you think we have that is better than Floyd and Gio? Gallagher and Ryu. you don't like Lilly, but you like Garcia that much? that seems incredibly irrational to me. I don't like Garcia very much and I wouldn't trade Gallagher and Ryu for him, but I think its a better package than Floyd and Gonzalez. Thats exactly my point, you wouldn't trade an equal package of cubs prospects for him. I think they are about equal packages, but the sox usually have the notion that Cooper can right any ship, in which I would think they prefer Floyd over Ryu. IMO Gio and Gallagher are a wash. But the Sox probably value Gio more since he was in their system. In other words...I think the Sox would prefer Gio and Floyd to Gallagher and Ryu even though they are similar packages, so we would have had to give up more.

Yeah, if BABIP stays consistenly 40 points below what it should be, we will be quite happy with this deal. If he isn't so lucky...well we can kiss a chance at the playoffs goodbye. yes. all is riding on Ted Lilly equalling his best season. c'mon. If you normalize for luck his opponents BA increases from 235 to 266. I don't know how to predict what affect that would have on his ERA, but for a guy who gave up 26 HRs and had an IsoD of .080, I'm guessing it would go up significantly. Anyone know how to adjust his ERA for this? I guess you'd probably have to look at game charts, which theres no way I'm doing. My guess is his 120 ERA+ drops to 107ish, but thats a complete guess. So, my point is that Lilly does noto have to pitch as well as he did in his best season, he just needs to get as lucky as he did in his best season. that's not my point. my point is that Ted Lilly not performing like a #2 starter does not equal missing the playoffs. no one players performance is enough to make that kind of a difference in baseball. you may not like the deal, I don't particularly either, but you take the consequences of Lilly failing to become a #2 way too far. Isn't one way to talk about player's value by saying how many wins they are worth over a player they are replacing? So if we miss the playoffs by 3 games, wouldn't we have given ourselves a better chance of making the playoffs by acquiring a player who would have been greater than 3 wins marginally better than the player they would have replaced? If one player's performance is enough to make a few win difference in baseball, then why don't we sign a bunch of replacement players? For each of them you can say "ohh well, one player's performance can't make the difference between making the playoffs and not".

Ted Lilly pitched 4 or fewer innings/gave up 5 or more earned runs in a quarter of his starts last year. How many times do you really think the cubs' best assortment of rookies would do this? Z did the same in roughly 18% of his starts last season. What's your point? Z is a #1 starter. Lilly is a 3. I don't expect Lilly to be a world burner. All he has to do is not get blown out early, which happened only 3 times last season out of 32 starts. One of our rookies isn't going to do that for us. We'd be lucky to be in half the games they pitch. We have some good young arms, but most of them are a year away from really establishing themselves in the rotation (excepting Hill of course). I'm not sure what your definition of a getting blown out early is, but in the 33 starts by Guz/Marmol/Mateo, I think it only happened 5 times if I follow the starts you consider early blow out by Lilly. Again it all depends on what your cut off point is.

Can we be honorary members if we've read the Gita? How about if we quote Apu...a lot?

Now there are rumors for nearly every team having interest in Church...

Ted Lilly pitched 4 or fewer innings/gave up 5 or more earned runs in a quarter of his starts last year. How many times do you really think the cubs' best assortment of rookies would do this? let's change the perameters slightly. Carlos Zambrano gave up 5 or more runs in 9 of his 33 starts. Ted Lilly gave up 5 or more runs in 8 of his 32 starts. he's not going to shut an offense down completely like Z, but our "Ace" is just as likely to get blown out as Lilly. I think RichHillIsABeast's original point was that Lilly will usually give you 6 innings and that will help us a lot. However, Lilly didn't go 6 innings in 13 of his 32 starts last year. While an improvement over our rookies for sure, hes not the poster child for going deep into games.

Ha! Yeah he knows them because the best player coming back was the one he traded to Phillie for Thome...who would have guessed he would get Gio back and not Rowand. the Phillies? Gonzalez sucked last year as well. He had big problems with homers and walks, but did strike out over a batter an inning and put up a 4.66 ERA in AA as only a 20 yr old. He let up 169 fly balls, but 24 HRs, so those extra 7 HRs over expected hurt. Plus his BABIP was about league average (.300), but his LD% was only 9%, so his expected BABIP should have only been .210. (That can't be right, can it?) He did give up an IsoD of .100, which is horrible, but I would say he far from sucked. young for the level, but I think the bolded is the operative part and enough to conclude he sucked. you can parse the peripherals all you want, but when those two peripherals are so out of line with anything one would consider 'ok' I think it safe to conclude he sucked last year. I agree the homers and walks are a big problem. However they are both very out of line with his previous 200 innings. There is no statistical explanation fro the walks, but the flukish HR/FB % explains the problem with homers (his HR/9 drops from 1.4 to .99). If we assume the most conservative scenario (the extra homers were all solo and didn't extend any innings to account for any additional runs), his ERA is lowered from 4.66 to 4.25. If you assume the 7 extra homers accounted for 12 extra runs, then his ERA drops below 4 and we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Yeah, if BABIP stays consistenly 40 points below what it should be, we will be quite happy with this deal. If he isn't so lucky...well we can kiss a chance at the playoffs goodbye. yes. all is riding on Ted Lilly equalling his best season. c'mon. If you normalize for luck his opponents BA increases from 235 to 266. I don't know how to predict what affect that would have on his ERA, but for a guy who gave up 26 HRs and had an IsoD of .080, I'm guessing it would go up significantly. Anyone know how to adjust his ERA for this? I guess you'd probably have to look at game charts, which theres no way I'm doing. My guess is his 120 ERA+ drops to 107ish, but thats a complete guess. So, my point is that Lilly does noto have to pitch as well as he did in his best season, he just needs to get as lucky as he did in his best season.

Is the glut of backloaded contracts the Cubs have handed out this winter worrying anyone else? Guys like Lilly and Meche will be very movable two years from now. The market for SP will continue to be ridiculous. I think we're also counting on one or two guys being in the starting lineup making the league minimum. That frees up quite a bit of cash. Yeah, that was the general feeling coming out of the winter meetings in Dallas in 2000. Good thing that worked out for all those teams. Ohh wait...

Doesn't that second paragraph completely contradict the first paragraph?

Patterson has too many health concerns. When healthy, he can be very good, and is a strikeout machine. Sounds like a Cubs pitcher already. Anyway, I doubt Hendry would pursue him, as his intent right now seems to be durability in the starting staff. Really? Then why did he sign Lilly and not Suppan?

Hey!!! I created a thread proposing that a few weeks ago and barely anyone responded. Where were you then, Rob?

Who do you think we have that is better than Floyd and Gio?

Ha! Yeah he knows them because the best player coming back was the one he traded to Phillie for Thome...who would have guessed he would get Gio back and not Rowand. the Phillies? Gonzalez sucked last year as well. He had big problems with homers and walks, but did strike out over a batter an inning and put up a 4.66 ERA in AA as only a 20 yr old. He let up 169 fly balls, but 24 HRs, so those extra 7 HRs over expected hurt. Plus his BABIP was about league average (.300), but his LD% was only 9%, so his expected BABIP should have only been .210. (That can't be right, can it?) He did give up an IsoD of .100, which is horrible, but I would say he far from sucked.

Is that assuming 1/3rd of his PAs are against lefties?

Um, I'm guessing because the Phils wouldn't have traded them Thome unless they gave up Gio?

Not to mention that Floyd is out of option years so he has to be on the 25 man roster...looks like hes going to be the 14th hard throwing righty in the pen. Smart to get Gio back though...hes the bigger part of the deal. People would have been fuming here if we would have given up Veal or Gallagher for Freddy.

Ha! Yeah he knows them because the best player coming back was the one he traded to Phillie for Thome...who would have guessed he would get Gio back and not Rowand.

Is it just me or was Penny Average except for 2004. And his peripherals have been relatively consistent except for an abberantLOB% in 04. Hes signed to a 3/25, but how is he better than =Suppan Suppan has been league average or above for 7 of the last 8 years.

Yeah, if BABIP stays consistenly 40 points below what it should be, we will be quite happy with this deal. If he isn't so lucky...well we can kiss a chance at the playoffs goodbye.

Or maybe someone on this board who has connections to Hendry dropped a suggestion? :-k

I'm guessing they meant Rich Hill... Rosenthal also says nothing about platooning...pure rotoworld speculation.

I don't. I think the focus is Lilly and Meche, like we've been hearing all along. Zito will be choosing between the Mets for 5/75 and the Rangers for 6/100. Yay for overpaying for mediocrity! I pray for trade opportunities to open up. Let's look across town. Williams is supposedly shopping either Buehrle, Garcia, Garland, or Vazquez to open up a spot for McCarthy. Why don't we look into that and try to pry one of them (with the exception of Vazquez for obvious reasons) away? They need some bullpen help so I would try to trade them Eyre, Marmol, and maybe a couple of other prospects for one of those three pitchers. Whether we like it or not, that is probably the best chance that the Cubs are going to have to improve on their rotation. Either one of the Sox pitchers or Jake Westbrook. Freddy Garcia would be a good option. He's lost a few MPH, and his FB% and HRs increased last year, but he was still an effective pitcher with excellent control and IIRC Comiskey inflates homers more than Wrigley. They should have interest in Jacque considering their current starting LF is Pods.