nilodnayr

Yes, however, 24-27M is just a bit less than 45M. Evidently though it hasn't affected their chances since all reports say they've already offered Drew a contract. And just put yourself in BoSox FO shoes...you are probably cracking up, freaking out, and crying about all of these $s being thrown out regarding the winning Matsuzaka bid (depending on what they actually bid).

That would come to 7/105. Jeez, since when did the Huston Chronicle become a nationwide paper?!?!

I don't believe Molina is much of an ugrade defensively over Barrett, but I like the idea of selling high, especially on a catcher leaving his prime. Updated from the heart attack thread... Sign JD Drew to a 4/50 deal Sign Z to an Oswalt extension (adds 7M to 07 payroll) Trade Barrett, Prior, Eyre, Moore for AROD Sign Molina to a 1/4 Trade Jacque Jones, Cesar Izturis, and AAAA arm (if necessary) to Washington for Kearns, Church, and Vidro Sign Vicente Padilla to a 3/27 Trade EPatt? (or whoever) for Aaron Heilman Sign Tony Graffanino Sign Daryle Ward/Richard Hidalgo, Edwardo Perez, Jose Cruz Jr. That puts us at about 117 or so. We could also go cheaper at second or use Theriot.

Yes, he should be available, they have still have a wealth of talented young SPs that are waiting for open spots in the rotation. 2 of the 3 pitchers they traded to the Yanks were RPs.

While true they should have no problem staying under the lux tax point, the posting fee doesnt grow on trees. It has to come from somewhere.

Texas says hello. Plain and simple, Sori was league average for 2 of the last three years (in a hitters heaven taboot), how does that not scare the bejesus out of people? Yes he had a teriffic 06 but please put it in context. The world did not begin in April 2006, we have more info than that to make our decisions! Soriano is not guaranteed to do anything for you. Even though before last year, the two seasons he had the most homers (39 and 38) came with the Yankees, right? 2 of Soriano's 3 seasons as a Yankee (besides his rookie season) were both better than his two seasons in Texas. Look at his career averages: .280, .325 OBP, 35 homers, 94 RBI's. I think he'd be a good beneficiary of the summertime winds at Wrigley as well. All Im saying is to use all the information we have to evaluate him. Yes, hes had very productive years and unproductive years. In the future, will you get the 2002-03 Soriano? Will you get the 2004-05 Soriano? Will you get the 06 Soriano? No one knows. The last three years are going to be better predictors than 02 and 03. Looking at the three CF options lets play the Player A game. Player A's OPS+ for the last three years 158, 148, 125 Player B's OPS+ for the last three years 98, 110, 132 Player C's OPS+ for the last three years 101, 96, 119

Have there been rumblings Washington wants to deal these guys? If it were still cool to do bandwgns I would have started the Church one a long time ago as I can rarely go a day without posting my standard Nationals trade, however I just read on rotoworld today that evidently Bowden values him singificantly more than Robinson did (he was 3rd on the CF depth chart). Im sure he still can be had, but he may not get stolen for nothing as I was hoping. As for Kearns, he made it known that he was extremely unhappy in Washington. He had a horrible first month there but turned it around in the second month. Bowden isn't thought of too highly (or should I say Bowden's 12 year old son who makes all the personel decisions), so it was assumed that Jones would be attractive to him because his conventional metrics are much better than Kearns'. The other rumblings out of Washington is that they desperately want to move Vidro so they can move Lopez to second to open up the ss spot for the wondefully overpaid Christian Guzman (see disparaging remarks about Bowden). Vidro was pretty healthy in 2006 and has significant home/road splits in Washington. Great buy low candidate.

Texas says hello. Plain and simple, Sori was league average for 2 of the last three years (in a hitters heaven taboot), how does that not scare the bejesus out of people? Yes he had a teriffic 06 but please put it in context. The world did not begin in April 2006, we have more info than that to make our decisions! Soriano is not guaranteed to do anything for you.

The timing of this all was so odd, especially given the final figures that were released. I wonder if the 11th hour notice was a little gamesmenship to influence other teams bids for Matsuzaka and Iwamura. Did the Iwamura bidding period end Saturday?

Well frankly, if Matsuzaka takes the bosox out of the running for Drew, it wouldnt be such a bad thing.

Reserved for when he misses out on all the non-cub FAs.

Some one said partial NTC. Also a mutual option for the 6th year, no word on how much.

I think that's very, very unlikely. Why do you say that? Since it was only a two year contract, I'd guess they would have had no problem getting it insured.

Quoting myself since too many posts past to edit... Since Wood is back and likely in the pen, what about a Jones+Dempster for Hudson deal? Atlanta gets rid of any '09 obligation, as well as at least 10 million total salary, plus a serviceable OF and a bullpen project like they've taken on before(Sosa, Reitsma, etc). A Zambrano, Schmidt, Hudson, Hill, Prior/Miller/youngster rotation would be fun. I know you've been advocating Hudson because his cumulative peripherals in 06 werent a ton different than 05, but I thought when we dug deeper, it looked like 05 was more of a lucky year than 06 being unlucky? I still think Hudson was a little unlucky last year, but that's why I have him as the secondary SP acquisition(with Schmidt), instead of counting on him to be the ace SP acquisition. What were his BABIPs for the last three years? Hes had some interesting trends...K/9 have increased each of the last three years however so have BB/9, HR/9, and WHIP. Although his 04 and 05 ERAs were identically quite good at 3.5, his peripherals are cumulatively much worse in 05 than in 04. Isnt there a tool where you can plug in the peripherals and it calcs out an expected ERA? It would be interesting to do that for Mulder's last three years. Take a look at Padilla's 06 peripherals vs. Hudson's 05. Nearly identical except that Padilla struck out over 1.5 MORE batters/9, yet Hudson had a 3.5 ERA and Padilla had a 4.5 ERA.

Supposedly hes quiet and stays to himself, no one said he was a bad teammate that I heard.

Assuming the BoSox get DMat, I think the Yanks will respond with overpaying for Schmidt. There are no reports that we bid for Iwamura, and one of the plethora of teams that need 3B or 2B will have to overbid for him. I'm weary of Igawa after the Wright interview and if you have to bid $10M for him, its not worth it. That being said, heres how I play out the rest of the offseason. Sign JD Drew to a 4/50 deal Sign Z to an Oswalt extension (adds 7M to 07 payroll) Trade Jacque Jones, Cesar Izturis, and AAAA arm (if necessary) to Washington for Kearns, Church, and Vidro Sign Vicente Padilla to a 3/27 Trade EPatt? for Aaron Heilman Sign Tony Graffanino Sign Daryle Ward/Richard Hidalgo, Edwardo Perez, Jose Cruz Jr. C - Michael Barrett - $4MM C - Geovany Soto - $0.4MM 1B - Derrek Lee - $13MM 2B - Jose Vidro - $7.5MM SS - Ryan Theriot - $0.4MM 3B - Aramis Ramirez - $14MM IF - Tony Graffanino - $1.5MM IF - Ronny Cedeno - $0.4MM LF - Matt Murton - $0.4MM CF - JD Drew - $13MM RF - Austin Kearns - $4MM OF - Ryan Church - $0.4MM OF - Daryl Ward - $1M Position Players - $60MM SP - Carlos Zambrano - $13MM SP - Vicente Padilla - $ 9MM SP - Rich Hill - $0.4MM SP - Aarom Heilman - $.6MM SP - Wade Miller - $1.5MM / Mark Prior - $4MM Rotation - $28.5MM RP - Ryan Dempster - $5MM RP - Bob Howry - $4MM RP - Kerry Wood - $1.75MM RP - Scott Eyre - $3.5MM RP - Will Ohman - $1MM RP - Mike Wuertz - $0.4MM RP - David Aardsma - $0.4MM Bullpen - $16MM Total - $104.5MM leaves us room for the incentives and any midseason acquisitions.

Quoting myself since too many posts past to edit... Since Wood is back and likely in the pen, what about a Jones+Dempster for Hudson deal? Atlanta gets rid of any '09 obligation, as well as at least 10 million total salary, plus a serviceable OF and a bullpen project like they've taken on before(Sosa, Reitsma, etc). A Zambrano, Schmidt, Hudson, Hill, Prior/Miller/youngster rotation would be fun. I know you've been advocating Hudson because his cumulative peripherals in 06 werent a ton different than 05, but I thought when we dug deeper, it looked like 05 was more of a lucky year than 06 being unlucky?

After age 28 season ARam gets a 5/73 After age 29 season DLee got a 5/65 So after age 30 season, Jim is probably thinking 4/50. It would be quite nice to have the middle of your order locked up for 4 years at present day fair to good value given the direction the market is going.

Or gets a ton of saves. You mean games finished....can't have performance stats induce bonuses. Dempster finished a few games this year that he didn't exactly save.

I blame MacPhail for this stupid out in his contract unless hendry has been trying to lowball him. Ramirez is going to go where the money is. A lot of people are awfully critical of MacPhail giving A-Ram that out...without knowing all the relevant information. The funny thing is, none of us know if he even would have been a cub the past couple of years without that clause in his contract, do we? Actually we do know. Katz came in at the end of the negotiations and negotiated some "sweetners" into the contract...this being one of them. Terming the opt out clause as a "sweetner" implies that it was an add on to a basically already negotiated contract, not a must have that was in the way of finalizing the contract.

I blame MacPhail for this stupid out in his contract unless hendry has been trying to lowball him. Ramirez is going to go where the money is. A lot of people are awfully critical of MacPhail giving A-Ram that out...without knowing all the relevant information. The funny thing is, none of us know if he even would have been a cub the past couple of years without that clause in his contract, do we? Actually we do know. Katz came in at the end of the negotiations and negotiated some "sweetners" into the contract...this being one of them. Terming the opt out clause as a "sweetner" implies that it was an add on to a basically already negotiated contract, not a must have that was in the way of finalizing the contract.

Smart move

Maybe he said he won't meet with him because by that time ARam will already be signed! Or more likely because if they haven't come to an agreement, Hendry will give him a take it or leave it # on Sat night and if ARAM doesnt accept it then he will give him a few weeks to test the market before talking to Kinzer again.

Yet, the Detroit Tigers were 3rd in HR's in the AL (6th overall) in 2006. And they ranked 20th in HR's at home and 1st on the road. They hit 50% more homers on the road than at home. Thats a rudimentry analysis, but it shows that their HRs were severly depressed at home (Thank God Zoloft just came off patent).

i don't think he's going to provide that big of a boost, personally. While that is a convinving argument, I look at the fact that he had a 906 OPS in April last year (before he got hurt), 891 OPS the year before, and 927 OPS the year before that. Yes but HGH-aided Bonds aside, players generally tend to decline after their early to mid-30's. But hes already past that point and really hasnt declined.