nilodnayr

And 1st in stats that have no predictive value.

Suppose the Braves signed Furcal as the answer at SS (irony won't allow this, but it's hypothetical). Then they trade for Peavy. they make several quality budget moves. They are still behind the Phillies and the Mets in that Division. The point is this; if 'contender' is truly Peavy's motive to waive his NTC, the Braves still won't be the answer come April, even if they pulled off an A+ offseason. Meanwhile the Cubs don't have to do anything but trade for Peavy, and they are the favorite instantly. The Brave's absolutely could be considered a contender with an A+ offseason with the $ they have. Will they be considered a favorite? Absolutely not. But with Peavy and $30M to spend, they can get somewhere close to "in the mix". I'm not saying they have a great chance, but it would be ridiculous to write them off with the money they have to spend and the prospects they can trade. They aren't Washington or anything. There are a few teams that are out of it at the beginning of the year (such last year's Giants, Nats, Marlins, Bucs, Royals, O's). Then there are the teams that are not in a great position to contend, but have a somewhat middling team at the beginning of the year (such as last year's Padres, Reds, Cards, Astros, AL West minus Angels*, White Sox, Twins, Rays, Blue Jays). And finally there are the favorites for the playoffs (such as last years Dodgers, D'backs, Rockies, Cubs, Brewers, Phillies, Mets, Braves, Angels, Indians, Tigers, Yanks, BoSox). Its a good bet, the majority of the playoff spots are going to be eaten up by that last group of teams, but typically a "decent" team in the pre-season is going to make it there too. I'm not arguing that Peavy doesn't have a better chance of getting to the playoffs with the Cubs, he certainly does. But if the Braves get him and have a good offseason, I wouldn't shut the book on them whatsoever. *LOTS of people picked the Mariners, but they were effen [expletive].

Well "could" and "should" are very very different things. Yes they are. That's why I listed them both. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/11/olney-as-nearly.html

A point that has been somewhat ignored is the interconnectedness of your first paragraph and second paragraph. The Braves have a pretty large chunk of change to spend this offseason (~$40M). The loss of Escobar can be remedied by an acquisition of another shortstop. A loss of Hanson obviously would be a blow to the future of the organization, but so far the Braves are not willing to include him. And while Schafer is good, the Braves have a plethora of outfield prospects to not blink and eye losing him. The reason they want to get the Peavy thing done is because they still have assets and work to be done to improve the team this offseason.

Ohh, about 47 pages ago, I staked the claim that Peavy shouldn't get a massive haul of a trade package because after 2009 his deal goes from very team friendly to slightly undermarket. Here's Victor Wang's take on it. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/jake-peavy-trade-analysis/

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?playerId=5641 3.41 ERA/1.28WHIP/29 Saves last year. In the pen, perhaps. At the end of the pen, no thanks. 8 losses (9 blown saves) from the guy at the end of the pen is not what I want to see. The most telling stat to me: 4.88 BB/9 last season. :shock: The dude reminds me of Farnsworth. yeah, its marmol-esque Not exactly. http://www.fangraphs.com/comparison.aspx?playerid=2790&playerid2=1793&playerid3=&position=P&page=3&type=full (You can pick any of those) BB/9? yeah they are really similar. thats all i was saying...and it was a slight at marmol, not saying its ok for gregg

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?playerId=5641 3.41 ERA/1.28WHIP/29 Saves last year. In the pen, perhaps. At the end of the pen, no thanks. 8 losses (9 blown saves) from the guy at the end of the pen is not what I want to see. The most telling stat to me: 4.88 BB/9 last season. :shock: The dude reminds me of Farnsworth. yeah, its marmol-esque

Well "could" and "should" are very very different things. Yes they are. That's why I listed them both. I remain completely unconvinced.

Well "could" and "should" are very very different things.

about 4 years ago

That's just plain old stupid. How is that serious egg on the face? Samardzija has a no trade clause, we know that. That makes it difficult to trade him, but not impossible. We know that. There's no egg on the face for pointing that out and still seeing a guy traded. Poster A: We should trade Samardzjia, Player B, and Player C Poster B: NTC. He can't be traded. If it turns out that the NTC doesn't limit certain trades -- such as one to the Padres -- Poster B was actively wrong. Thus, egg-in-the-face. Wait, wouldn't it only be egg on Poster B's face if the conversation continued into something like this... Poster A: Actually, Shark has a LIMITED NTC, he can be traded to some teams. Poster B: No he doesn't. Poster A: Yes he does, I read his contract even though no one outside or the organization, Shark, and his agent has access to it. Poster B: I'll kill you.

On the other hand, I don't know anyone in their right mind that would argue that the Cubs with Peavy and without Dempster (and without the players it would take to get Peavy) would be anything but massive favorites in the NL Central, not to mention the NL in total.

If that is seriously all that the Cubs are offering, what on earth could the Braves package be that the Padre's would even consider the Cubs offer? Escobar and a bag of balls is a better trade than that. Maybe Peavy is being stubborn with the NTC about not wanting to go to ATL if they give up too much, or maybe the Braves really don't want to give up Escobar, Hansen and other top prospects. Even if we threw in someone like Ceda or Castillo to finish it off that still is an average return. I guess everyone was saying the same thing about Johan last year, that it was going to take a teams top 2-3 prospects, and he went for a similar package. If thats all we give up you have to wonder if there is a third team involved, which has been speculated. Yeah, but the difference was that the trade package for Johan was basically a posting fee. Once you got him you had to negotiate a market deal with him. At least with Peavy you get one year of way below market value and then, although his salary rises dramatically, for the most part its still a bit below market value.

ha, infact I'm wearing a Cubs T-shirt right now

As in Milton? Yeah. By "Cubs will have to go cheap in RF", I think that means something way south of what Bradley will get, like less than half.

Rosenthal keeps talking about Cubs prospects in the lower minors. Lets start some speculation on who that might be.

They have a glut of OFs. I'm not saying they have to trade him, but its a position of depth for the A's. Carlos Gonzalez is their CF and Travis Buck is their RF.

Well I tried to list everyone who would be cheap in terms of money and possible in terms of tradeability (ie no Holliday, Crawford, Upton, etc). Obviously, guys are going to vary in costs to acquire from nothing (ie Edmonds) to a lot (ie Hawpe/McLouth). We'd have to find the right balance between salary, players to give in return and expected production (and how long we'd have them under contract).

That's the case with most relievers because they're middling talents whose performance can really fluctuate in short spans, especially with short relief outings. Wood is in the pen because of health, and that's the chief risk in giving him multiple years given his success as a reliever and his stuff. That said, I don't mind letting Wood walk and taking the picks, and I think we could probably even get by in the pen with the odds of Marmol and 2 of Samardzija, Wuertz, and Gaudin having good years(Ceda would be lingering as well if he's still around). I wouldn't feel good about the talent level in the pen though, and would want to add someone like Cruz or Affeldt, at which point you debate if it's simpler and maybe just as efficient to keep Wood around. I wouldn't mind letting Wood go either if only for the health factor. Actually, if I had my way, I'd let both Wood and Dempster go and sign Lowe and Cruz to replace them. You gain a whole lot more certainty with Lowe (in performance) and Cruz (in health) and at probably lower costs AND you net yourself two sandwich picks.

I disagree. In a person neutral setting I'd take Demp over Wood. Contracts ignored. Carlos Zambrano and Rich Harden are liable to miss a combined 20 starts or so. I wish i was exaggerating, but I am not. Jason Marquis, while crap, is useful as a safety blanket if Zambrano or Harden go down. If we acquire Peavy and deal away Marshall, which is inevitable in such a trade, then we no longer have the safety blanket. If we acquire Peavy and sign Dempster and retain Marquis, we do have one, a pretty damn good one too. Yes, but if they get Peavy and keep Dempster then they will definitely trade Marquis. Hes not going to the bullpen. And you'll still have Gaudin as a saftey net (I also wouldn't say Marshall going in the Peavy trade is inevitable, likely, but not inevitable, especially since his name hasn't come up much).

That's what I was thinking in the Dempster thread. But I truly hope not. I also think its a negotiating ploy for the Braves to step up their offer of Peavy. Sounds like something a couple of guys might concoct up on the golf course after a few bloody marys...

Well with the latest Rosenthal buzz lastnight, he mentioned the Cubs going cheap in RF. We all know they CRAVE a lefty, so lets think of some cheap lefties (or switch hitters) we could sign or have been rumored to be on the block/could be traded for to play RF. Internally we could go with Hoff or move DeRosa to RF and put Font at 2b. Heres a list I came up with: Good players via trade: Hawpe McLouth DeJesus Luke Scott Jeremy Hermida Nick Swisher Ryan Sweeney Jody Gerut Ryan Church Rick Ankiel (extremely implausible for the Cards to trade him to us) Fairly decent to not entirely terrible players via trade: Fred Lewis Mark Teahen Seth Smith Randy Winn Coco Crisp Adam Lind Gabe Gross Chris Duncan Geoff Jenkins Endy Chavez Dave Roberts Nate Schierholtz Fairly decent to not entirely terrible players via FA: Edmonds Hinske Mark Kotsay Luis Gonzalez Brad Wilkerson Kenny Lofton Probably too expensive (not that I'd want the top 3 anyway): Juan Pierre Griffey Garrett Anderson Brian Giles Raul Ibanez Not all those guys are good options, infact many of them are not (maybe "not entirely terrible" is being generous to some), but I tried to be fairly exhaustive while working within reality. A lot of the guys at the top we just won't have the necessary players to send back in trades. Frankly, resigning Edmonds would actually be one of the better options out there. Another interesting option would be trading the A's for Ryan Sweeney. Hes superb defensively and has actually started to hit pretty well. I imagine he wouldn't cost as much as the other guys in the top list and could outproduce most of them. BP's transalted batting stats have his 2008 season at 303/374/425 with a 281 EQA. Ohh yeah, and hes 23.

This sounds awful. Giambi seems like a surefire bet to fall off a cliff baseball-wise and health-wise. To his credit hes been healthy except for the stomach tumor thing in 2004 and jacked up foot in 2007, both pretty freak ways to miss a lot of time. He is a gigantic guy whos going to be 38 so there is a concernm, but hey look at Bonds.

Even taking defense into consideration, Giambi was 2.5 wins better than DLee last year (according to Chris Dial's system). If the Cubs needed to get rid of DLee to make other things work, Giambi wouldn't be a bad idea at all at something around 2 years 10M per.

He would be nearly half of the Rays payroll. They'd have to pick up a TON of his salary to get a guy like Davis or Hellickson. Do you think the Rays would give the Tigers a lower tier prospect and take on all/most of Maggs' contract? I know he would be 1/3rd their payroll or whatever, but they should have a lot more attendance next year and all of this year's playoff revenue to spend. Let's be honest, if they don't start spending money, it's going to eventually become a sad situation there. They won't be getting high picks anymore because of their good record and if they don't spend any money, they're going to have a 5 year window of being good if they don't resign all of their guys (like they did with Longoria) and then back to the crapper. While I agree that RF and DH right now are question marks for the Rays, they can find much better ways to spend money than to trade for Maggs.