nilodnayr

Hughes is on the 60 day DL with a rib fracture. Hence, "for a player who is currently injured"...contrary to popular belief, you CAN trade a player who is on the DL.

Yeah, well maybe that wasn't exactly selling high, I copied and pasted the comment from the Theriot deal and forgot to change that. I see Hu as (like you said) a more consistant fielder, but with a bit of a weaker bat that Cedeno. Overall, they are both fringe starters. I don't think the Pirates would be willing to give up the 2 best players in the present and the future in a deal, regardless of salary.

Braves did it in 2003 and 1998. White Sox did it in 2005. I'm sure its happened more often than you'd think, and more often the further back you go in history. Its not really about having great starters, but having healthy starters (and a good pen and good hitting). It was 2006. Woops, sorry about that you are right. I'm sure there are a ton more, I just knew the Sox did it recently and figured the Braves had to do it a couple times in their run so that was all I looked up.

Well things have died down and probably will be dead for the cubs for the rest of the month so I'm going to throw some crazy stuff out there. I know they are stretches, but... Marquis, Cedeno, Pie, Wells for Giles and Greene--deal prospect depth for players who can contribute in 2008 and 2009 to a team that isn't in contention Theriot, Veal, and Hart for Kershaw--sell high to a terrible GM who is fighting for a playoff spot, needs offensive help badly (and SS is their worst position), for a player who isn't on the ML roster Lilly and Wuertz for Hughes--sell high to a terrible owner who is fighting for a playoff spot, needs SP help badly (Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson are in their rotation), for a player who is currently injured and whos stock as fallen. I know these types of trades aren't made (except by DePo), but I'd love for us to find some teams we match up well with and improve ourselves for the future, while not sacrificing the present. And, these teams would be getting more than just rentals in return. In real life a GM would never want to tinker with a first place team thats doing so well and upset the chemistry or whatever old saying you want to use. But call me crazy, but I don't see Edmonds and Theriot repeating their first halves. And for the obligatory lineup/rotation... Soriano Fukudome Lee Ramirez Giles Soto Greene DeRosa Z Harden Dempster Kershaw Hughes (Marshall, Gaudin, Hill)

I thought it was 2 under the last CBA as well Yup, me too. There really should be clarity of how they do the rankings. It would open it up for some extreme scrutiny, especially from (gasp!) bloggers, but frankly, it really needs it.

Braves did it in 2003 and 1998. White Sox did it in 2005. I'm sure its happened more often than you'd think, and more often the further back you go in history. Its not really about having great starters, but having healthy starters (and a good pen and good hitting).

I don't know how they handle players who change positions, so I can't be sure. If he keeps a nearly 150 ERA+ this year though, I think it's hard to imagine him not being Type A since he wasn't terrible as a reliever. That was my thinking as well. If hes labled a Type A, Id love to get 2 picks for him, and odds are somebody will want to sign him quick if he hits the market. This has actually been a point of (for lack of better terms) 'anticipated minor controversy' with the FA typing, because they have no prescribed formula to measure guys that shift from either starter to reliever or reliever to starter. It's the type of topic that will fill a writer's blog for a day or a 90 second spot on PTI. The concern is on the side of the departing club getting short-changed because the typing looks at a 3-year spread, with one exceptional year not necessarily swaying the value. For starters there is consideration for number of starts or innings, and for closers the number of saves. A guy like Dempster isn't going to look great in either when considering 3-year averages because he doesn't have 3 years of either, though he certainly looks stellar in just per year averages. But the typing doesn't want to use per year, because you're back to having one excellent year sway the value. Unfortunately for Dempster, his 2006 and 2007 closer numbers are not type A numbers. So the real question is; how much will 2008 starter numbers weigh, despite being 1/3 of the sample, given he will be signed as a starter by whomever picks him up? Is it 3 years? I thought it was 2.

If Will Carroll hadn't been concerned about Z's arm before this, well then hes worse at his job than I thought.

Probably because Theriot was putting up his usual craptatstic 750 OPS at the time and Fontenot was in his 3rd AAA season and was the best infielder on the team.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7825 Did anyone else read this? I found it to be ridiculously stereotypical, bordering on racist. I didn't expect much considering the author, but by the end was kinda shocked. Aren't there like 28 BP writers that live in Chicago, why'd they have to go with a Cardinals guy to write an article about a Cubs/Sox WS. I acknowledge its a tightrope to walk on when trying to explain the differences between the north and south sides and their respective fans, and I actually think he did a decent job of it at the beginning, but it just deteriorated at the end into this...

Yeah, but WE aren't playing Harden 4.5M this year. Thats offset by the fact that Wood's base salary is 4.2M. Hes got 3.45M in performance bonuses which he will most likely get all of.

Well, when Lilly and Fukudome each get 5M raises, Z, Marquis, and Soriano each get 3M raises, ARam gets a 2M raise, and then you've got Harden's money and possibly resigning Wood, it probably becomes a big deal. But I think thats been the plan all along...afterall, it'll be someone elses problem.

Its not that hes going to fall off completely, BUT, he is a pretty decent injury risk as well.

But the point that was trying to be made was that a pitcher could change him from a FB hitter to a GB hitter in another park, therefore negating (to a degree) the increased value he would have in another park. Frankly, its a point I completely disagree with, but that was the point that was trying to be made. If indeed a pitcher could do that, his stats would only get very slightly better because groundballs are turned into hits more often than flyballs instead of get much better because his fly outs would be turned into HRs.

I have Hamilton, and I'd agree, hes most definitely a sell high candidate...BUT, when you have guys that are performing near the top in the league, you should really be targeting guys that came into this year at the top of the league, not guys like Granderson and K Rod (unless you are desperately in need of saves and its a deeper league). I'd never trade Wright for Hamilton, but there are quite a few owners out there that think if a guy has been awesome in the first half, he'll be awesome in the second half.

THIS. Yeah, it seems like a lot of people don't get that point. Also, his BABIP is 60 points lower than his LD% would indicate, and as we already mentioned, because of his park and his FB tendency, a lot of HRs turn into outs which hurts him even more. It appears as though this year, its hurting him more than others. He is swinging at more pitches out of the zone, but thats probably a slippery slope when you start slumping.

i'd wager pitchers would approach him differently if he had a park where he showed the propensity for hitting balls into the seats. if you're pitching in the Polo Grounds (with a decent CF), you'll probably try to induce guys into hitting flyballs into CF and won't care much if they go 400+ feet. i guess i'm saying i don't completely buy that you can just pick him up and move him into Wrigley and he'll be pitched to the same way. It'd be interesting to see if the SD pitchers induced more flyballs at home than they do on the road, but I don't know of anywhere where you can find splits on batted ball data. My guess is that there might be a slight slight variation, but its not like a pitcher has the ability to go from a GB pitcher to a FB pitcher or visa versa. If they DID have that ability, most likely it would come along with amazing control and a great repetoire of pitches and he'd be a ridiculously amazing pitcher regardless of what stadium hes in.

Yeah, I think most people knew about the Chris/Christina thing, but I was surprised to learn that Silver is basically the CEO of BP. I was just under the impression that he did PECOTA and Lies, Damned Lies. He kinda seemed like a hired gun whos there pretty much just for the projection system, but pretty impressive that he runs the show as well.

I don't remember who to apply the credit to, Meph or TT, but one of them provided a spray chart that showed a lot of Khalil Greene's fly balls at Petco to be home runs at Wrigley for the 2007 season. Obviously, each home run nullifies an out, which in turn improves his OBP, AVG and SLG. I'll take a quick look at his splits to see what visiting parks he's played in so far to see if a lot of them are more neutral than the one's he's yet to visit. Only 17 games have been at what I would call hitter friendly parks (Jacobs, Wrigley, MinuteMaid, Chase, Citizen's Bank), and he didn't play all that well there, either. There might be a little truth to a loss of intensity considering how horribly the Padres have been as a team this year. I'm not sure what to make of that, but the Cubs aren't playing poorly, so it probably wouldn't be a concern. As bad as he's been, I still like what he offers defensively and in power. Last year, he had 7 HR's at NL Central ballparks (at least one at each park) in 20 games. Actually, that was me, but I just provided links, one of them might have made pretty charts. And actually, once again, PETCO is destroying him this year. Hes hit a ton to the warning track that would be long gone in Wrigley. He'd probably have another 6-9 HRs in the first half alone if his home park was Wrigley. http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com/stats/individual_player_hitting_chart.jsp?playerID=425867&statType=1 I completely agree with not throwing out half of his stats but adjusting them appropriately. However, in doing so, you have to realize that Greene is going to be penalized (as a fly ball hitter) by PETCO more than other players, so his adjustment should be much more than just some park factor. Other points...anyone who wanted him going into this season should still want him. A half of a year of stats doesn't show a change in true talent. Also someone said Toronto was a good pitchers park...far far far from it. Toronto is heaven for right handed power hitters. Off the top of my head it inflates righties HRs by 30%. I applaud the cubs for going after Greene this year and hope that this offseason they resume talks.

One of my good friends writes for the U of C alumni magazine and published this article on our PECOTA founding friend. http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0878/features/nate_silver.shtml

Just because its a question about baseball, doesn't mean that a scout should be the authority on the correct answer. Just because your sell computers for CDW, doesn't mean you know how to run a company.

Once again, his hit charts (even in his current year) show that hes hitting a ton of warning track shots that would be gone in Wrigley.

Am I the only one who thinks thats a terrible comparison?

"Old school" ideal of a leadoff man: Ton of speed, high batting average "Just read moneyball and don't really get this whole saber" ideal of a leadoff man: OBP, OBP, more OBP Actual ideal leadoff man: One of your best hitters since he is going to get the most about of plate appearances. High OBP is important since you can't score from the bench, but power is also important because the chance of scoring from second and third is much greater than scoring from first (and obviously much greater with a HR). You win games by scoring more runs than your opponent. You score more runs by having your best players come up to the plate as much as possible. A player needs a balance of getting on base and hitting for power in order to score the optimal amount of runs.

Hey Guys, remember when the A's were eyeing Rasmus and Anderson for Rich Harden?