nilodnayr

They already have the white version of Jacque Jones and they plan on trading or benching him. But the black version is cheaper! Maybe they want some relievers? If we can trade some relievers for a guy who hit 35 HRs last year, can play defensive premium postitions, is making barely over league minimum and is under control for the next three years, then whoever takes over for selig should just contract the Brewers.

I believe he'll have limited no trade protection for the last 2 years, although after the 5th year he'll be a 10/5 and will have the right to veto any deal. So basically there is a one year trading window where he has limited protection.

They already have the white version of Jacque Jones and they plan on trading or benching him.

The cubs had 67 walks from the firstbasemen last year (and don't forget some of that was DLee himself). DLee typically gets about 80ish a season. So he adds about 15 walks. Nowhere near half or most of 126. Obviously not having him in the lineup made a huge difference, but not really to our IsoD, which was not horrible (.071). DLee has had the following IsoD for the cubs: 2006: .082 2005: .083 2004: .078 A full season of DLee is not going to solve our walk issues...sorry.

Exactly. Remember, Big Z could be lurking... Z's not on "the internets" for baseball sites. And I don't want to change his approach. I like the aggresive Z at the plate!

That was very nice of him, but at C230? Come on Jacque, might as well have bought them a freakin Hyundai.

In 1998, every hitter with 200+ABs on the Astros had a 337 or greater OBP!!! And if it weren't for Ricky Gutierrez, I could have said 355! Thats how you win 102 games (Pythagorean had them at 106).

1989 or 1998? In 1998, they didn't have a great OBP. It was good, but definitely not great. .335 ranked 7th in the NL. Their slugging was 5th in the NL. But yes, their pitching was poor. Sosa, Grace and O'Henry, really carried that team.

I think a couple years back Tim had an article on the front page that showed a slew of stats' statistical correlation with runs scored...and guess what, OBP had the highest correlation. Anyone want to try to find that? You have to go back to 1998 to find a Cub team that scored 800+ runs. That team went to the playoffs. And the pitching staff in 1998 was NOT good. Kevin Tapani had a 19-9 record with a 4.85 ERA. Score enough runs, and you can make a mediocre pitcher look good in the win column. I think you are responding to the wrong post :lol:

His lackluster performance in the majors last year coupled with the realization that he cannot play CF has lead to his value drastically shrinking. Yes, Milledge is still more highly thought of than Pie, and by a decent margin, but they are somewhat similarly viewed players. I'm not saying they are equal, I'm just wondering if Pie (+ others) would be an ample "plan B" to Milledge. Also, IMO Soriano is what Pie projects to be at the most optimistic level. I'd rather not have two of those types of players on a team that already has horrible OBP.

I think a couple years back Tim had an article on the front page that showed a slew of stats' statistical correlation with runs scored...and guess what, OBP had the highest correlation. Anyone want to try to find that?

I sure as heck couldn't :oops: Yeah...I was always a much, much, MUCH better IF than OF. I never could get a quick read on the ball like most good outfielders could. I don't want to make any assumptions, but I'm guessing neither of you were good enough defensively to make it to the majors. :D

Murton vs right handed pitcher 06 - 295/356/426 Career - 289/351/436 Jones vs left handed pitcher 06 - 234/261/416 Career - 228/275/350 Not to mention that its easier (cheaper) to find a lefty masher than a righty masher.

haha exactly...and I've never seen a contract with incentives like that. I'd guess it would be at least a 5 or 6 million base. I'm not really in favor of paying bench players that much money. Anything above 3 and I wouldn't bother. You've never seen a contract like that because they are not allowed by the CBA. Incentives can only be based upon appearances (ie games played, games finished (not saves), IP, PA, etc), or awards/recognition (ie ASG selection, Cy Young placing, MVP voting, etc).

Thanks Bruce, good to hear. The guy just had a bone spur that shreaded one of his achilies and has a bad history with his other. I know he said he feels great and is a fast healer, but the approach the cubs are taking with Prior and Wood (we aren't counting on them but if they are healthy, bonus) would be the same approach I would take with Floyd. Don't get me wrong, I like the guy, hes always had good IsoD and IsoP, but I'd sure do my due diligence before giving him any money.

They eye roll smiley doesnt work as well when you are mocking somewhat solid points. Its not Soriano who set the market, heck he was asking for Beltran money, Hendry gave him MORE than he was asking for. And although we do not know for sure we can assume that no other GM was willing to come anywhere near what Hendry offered. 1)The signing happened so early in the offseason. 2)The signing materialized so quickly. Soriano's agent isn't dumb, he and Hendry talked Saturday. He then took the offer the cubs had on the table and shopped in around to others teams that were interested. He was met with a resounding "Hell NO", and then quickly accepted Sunday morning. If he was even met with an apprehensive "maybe", it wouldn't have materialized so quickly. By this definition of overpaying, every FA who does not give a hometown discount is overpayed. The nature of the free agent market is such that in order to sign a player, a team must be willing to offer more money than any other team. I don't think it is reasonable to say that no other team would have bid anything near that if given the chance, especially if the contest became a drawn out bidding war. All FAs are going to be overpayed. That is pretty much the nature of the market. The thing is, good players are a rare commodity, and being able to get them without giving up talent is a valuable exchange. For a large market team, signing overpayed free agents is better than signing no free agents or signing marginal free agents. Yes, obviously the nature of the market is that a team must overpay to sign a player, I'm not debating that. And given the timing of this signing, I definitely think its reasoable to say that no other team would have bid anything near what we paid for Soriano. If they would have, then Sori's agent would have played the two teams off of one another to inflate the contract as you mentioned in the bidding war. That obviously didn't happen here given the quick materialization of the signing. Your comments on the nature of the FA market are all valid, but have nothing to do with what we are debating.

We have Theriot too. But I agree, Lugo is by far and away the best SS available this year and next year via FA. A smart GM would look down the line to next year's FA market and see that even overpaying for Lugo a little is a smart move.

So you are using July 2004 as a basis for that claim? Neifi had better months in March/April and August in 2005? Does that mean he has shown the "tools" to become a league average hitter? Izturis has over 2500 ML plate appearances to show that he is nowhere near a league average hitter. Scroll down to OPS+ I think Rob is making the point that Cedeno is very young and more likely to improve and learn from Perry than Izturis. He also had a 2005 that was above league average in AAA. I'm using 2004, where he almost was a league average shortstop, and then April/May of 2005, where he was well above average for those couple months, and then he got injured and his stats went way, way down. His injuries make it somewhat unlikely he returns to that, but he has the skills to make it back to league average for a shortstop. Ahhhh, you said league average hitter. League average hitter and league average shortstop are two completely different things. Still though, in 2004, Izturis only had two months with OPS > 700. His April/May of 2005 were good, but still thats 4 months out of 6 years in the majors.

#-o

That's a very ugly line by Pie there. At least hes keeping his Ks down (I wish I could be kidding).

Yeah, thats a lot of errors in a short period of time. Is his fielding going to be a barrier to making it as a utility guy?

Sorry!

Soriano, Matthews, Pierre Fan Graphs

This would be a classic buy low scenario based on last season's regression. I don't see the Tribe doing it or Hendry being too interested. And as I posted in another thread in transactions, I don't think Shapiro sells Peralta until he has another horrible year. Hes making barely over league minimum and even in his down year his OPS+ was close to Izturis' career year.

They eye roll smiley doesnt work as well when you are mocking somewhat solid points. Its not Soriano who set the market, heck he was asking for Beltran money, Hendry gave him MORE than he was asking for. And although we do not know for sure we can assume that no other GM was willing to come anywhere near what Hendry offered. 1)The signing happened so early in the offseason. 2)The signing materialized so quickly. Soriano's agent isn't dumb, he and Hendry talked Saturday. He then took the offer the cubs had on the table and shopped in around to others teams that were interested. He was met with a resounding "Hell NO", and then quickly accepted Sunday morning. If he was even met with an apprehensive "maybe", it wouldn't have materialized so quickly. That right there shows that Hendry really doesn't understand OBP.