nilodnayr

The wording from various sources is unclear if Gathright would even get a major league contract, I really doubt he's getting 1-2 million. And I'm pretty sure the 3 players Colin is referring to are Ibanez, Abreu, and Bradley. Ibanez and Abreu(throw Dunn the RF in here too if you like) are the inverse of Gathright, giving away their offensive value with wretched defense. Bradley isn't much better than anyone if he can't stay healthy. Personally, I'm skeptical of Gathright's offensive projection like I mentioned earlier, but it's not like he's never hit at that level(below average instead of replacement level), and he's 28 so if he were to step up offensively now would be the time(especially going to an easier league like Colin mentioned). Also of note is that Gathright has no platoon split. .631 career OPS against both RHP and LHP. Ibanez is plus 1 win on offense and negative 1.5 win on defense with I'm guessing negative a half a win or so on the bases. So a roughly negative 1 LF'er. Abreu is plus 1.5 win on offense and negative 1.5 win on defense with I'm guessing neutral value or so on the bases. So a roughly 0 RF'er. Dunn is plus 3 win on offense and negative 1.5 win on defense with I'm guessing negative a half a win or so on the bases. So a roughly plus 1 LF'er. Bradley is plus on both offense and defense, but as TT said, you have to scale that down for playing time, which is anyones guess, so I'm not even going to provide #s (but even in limited playing time is probably better than all the above) Gathright is negative 1 win on offense and positive 2 win on corner OF defense (1 win in CF) with I'm guessing positive 1 win or so on the bases. So a roughly plus 2 corner OF, plus 1 CF. All of the above #s are rough. If hes used solely as a double switch pinch runner defensive replacement, then Lou can utilize his postivite attributes (speed on the bases and defense) without having to have him bat. As mentioned before, he takes over for Pie when Pie gets traded. Thats a good use of resources.

Lou could do a lot of pinch running double switch defensive replacements for Bradley...afterall, whos going to pinch run when we get rid of marquis? :D

Badnews much?

Well, lets do the same thing with UZR and wOBA instead of BRAA and OPA! and keep the baserunning stat Pizza Cutter used. 2007 Bonds Btting=+39.5 Fielding=-8.0 Baserunning=-1.52 =30 2008 Lewis Batting=+8.4 Fielding=+5.6 Baserunning=+4.92 =19 Not nearly as close as Pizza Cutter has, but still worth the difference in salary (and headache). Of course, the big problem in Pizza Cutter's reasoning is that Lewis's 2008 was pretty darn lucky (367 BABIP on an 18.4 LD%) and definitely better than what should have been expected.

In other words, if only Dunn made contact more often. I stand by my statement, DH was designed for hitters like Dunn. Put him in the lineup (not in the field) and he'll hit 40 HRs, strike out 200 times, walk about 100 times, and not much else. Putting him on the field diminishes any positive offensive numbers that he produces. About half. his defense diminishes about half of the positive of his offense. Which ain't bad compared to Ibanez, whos defense truly does diminish all positive impact from their offense (or Abreu whos close).

I'm not sure I can answer the second question, but the answer to the first might be that it is a completely seperate deal. Marquis would go to the Padres and then the Padres would try to trade Marquis to some other team (Brewers?). Actually, I was thinking that Hendry ought to trade players like Marquis and Pie to SD in the Peavy deal and let Towers deal with getting the extra pieces that he wants. So are you implying that the Brewers are unaware of the Cubs needing to move Marquis to fit Peavy into the payroll? No I'm not implying that. My point is that Marquis can be traded to the Padres at a reduced rate. If the Padres can then find a taker (Brewers?) for Marquis at his reduced salary, they can trade him for the 2 prospects mentioned. I think Marquis @ $5 million will be in demand after the FA signings. I wasn't saying that it wasn't going to take a 3rd or 4th team, what I was saying was that Towers isn't going to take a guy from the Cubs AND THEN try to trade him to another team. Its only going to get done all at the same time. That was in response to your initial post about a separate deal. Towers isn't going to want to get stuck with some Cubs player that he doesnt want.

When does Will Carroll do his rankings?

I'm not sure I can answer the second question, but the answer to the first might be that it is a completely seperate deal. Marquis would go to the Padres and then the Padres would try to trade Marquis to some other team (Brewers?). Actually, I was thinking that Hendry ought to trade players like Marquis and Pie to SD in the Peavy deal and let Towers deal with getting the extra pieces that he wants. So are you implying that the Brewers are unaware of the Cubs needing to move Marquis to fit Peavy into the payroll?

And that's probably the best way for this deal to go down, especially now that Philadelphia has seemed to move on. Um, not from the Padres perspective. They'd be damn sure to walk away from the deal with the players they want, not the players they don't want and take the chance that at some point in the offseason they might be able to use the players they don't want to get the players they do.

You mean like Mark DeRosa's 2006? And heres one thing a lot of people overlooked about DeRosa's 2006...his BABIP was 348 which caused everyone to say he got lucky, but his LD% was 22.6% meaning his eBABIP was roughly 346, so it was fairly luck neutral. And while Bradley's BABIP was 396, his LD% was also 24.7% meaning his eBABIP was roughly 367, therefore 396 wasn't as much luck as you might think.

Scarey, your argument only holds water if the guy behind Dunn is a bad hitter. If in the second inning there is a man on third and 2 outs and the 8th hitter is up, absolutely he should be putting the ball in play because the pitcher is up behind him so the chance of that guy on 3rd scoring is very low. But, Dunn would be hitting in the heart of our order. Whoever would be behind him (ARam, Soto, whoever) would be a perfectly capable hitter. So, in the real world case, the dropoff from Dunn to the hitter behind him would be much much smaller than the increase in run expectancy by having an extra guy on base.

seriously...its right in the post, the padres don't want to trade gonzalez.

Welcome!

Hughes is out of options, is he not?

No, thats not really what you said at all.

As far as whats reported, towers never demaned soto or even mentioned him. You lose.

And it's also clear that it's just the opposite with the bat, the far more important part of their games. My point is people are making huge assumptions about the exact nature of the difference with their gloves. Well, in terms of offense per position, I'd say Ibanez is slightly above average with the bat and Fukudome is pretty decently below average. What assumptions are people making about the difference in their gloves? Both observationally and quantitatively, its ridiculously obvious. In terms of the importance of their defense vs offense, I think that will be one of the next big things studied. Colin just did a quick and dirty at HBT asking the question "is a run saved equal to a run earned"...his answer, was it was pretty darn close.

what was that package? I'm talking about the package you referenced when you said "especially when they had a trade in place without giving him (DeRosa) up," and later "we didn't/don't need to get rid of DeRosa to get this deal done." Those quotes clearly imply Hendry should've taken the offer, so I figured you'd know what was in it. The only thing I know about it is that it's been described by the agent as unreasonable, and by the Cubs as a Herschel Walker-type deal. Original deals seemed to center on us trading Pie for Olson and flipping him with Marshall, Vitters, Cedeno, et al to SD. That seemed like a more reasonable price to pay. The only time I saw "unreasonable" attributed to Axelrod was yesterday, after all the DeRosa hullabaloo. It seemed like as the winter meetings started and continued reports insinuated that the amount of value we were going to have to trade away to get Peavy grew and grew...and thats what I think Axelrod was refering to as unreasonable.

and the numbers bear out that Fukudome was a superior player to Ibanez last year and will most likely continue to be for the next three seasons I don't see it. defense I understand the assumption, I just don't see it. People are going a bit overboard around here pretending they can accurately determine the defensive differences. Defense fluctuates a lot, but Fukudome is clearly a plus defender and Ibanez is clearly a minus defender. Both by a fairly decent margin.

what was that package?

and the numbers bear out that Fukudome was a superior player to Ibanez last year and will most likely continue to be for the next three seasons I don't see it. defense

That's what I'm thinking. I could see Angels offer a deal around Brandon Wood and Nick Adenhart among others to the Padres, and Towers is foaming at the mouth for at the deal and he goes to see if Peavy will waive his NTC, only to watch Peavy reject the trade. It wouldn't surprise me if Peavy/Axelrod tell Towers that it is either the Cubs or he'll stay with the Padres. I think to a degree, the LAA talk is a bluff. They have have Santana, Saunders, and Weaver for the next 3-4 years. Right now they are working on an extention for Lackey. That leaves them with 1 open rotation spot throughout the course of Peavy's contract (and Escobar's signed through next year and I believe healthy again). Not to mention that they are a below average team offensively and have been vehemently against trading away their prospects. It doesn't really add up at all.

especially when they had a trade in place without giving him up Hey let's not go pretending like we know what exactly was in that offer. I'm certain there's plenty of he-said she-said going on here, but what both the Cubs and especially Axelrod are putting out there now is that the Pads were being completely unreasonable. I'd hate to see what completely unreasonable looks like with no DeRosa involved. all i know is that derosas name popped up way late in the peavy talks And that proves what? That we didn't/don't need to get rid of DeRosa to get this deal done.

i'd argue Fukudome had a more productive season last year overall and projects to have a more productive season this year as well, by more than a small margin I wouldn't argue with you.

I would not call Ichiro an average defender unless his arm regresses quite a bit. P.S. Is this Ichiro in center or Ichiro in right? Like I said, theres been a lot of discussion on how UZR rates Ichiro, but its good to know you wouldn't call in an average defender. This is a combo of CF and RF Ichiro.