nilodnayr

Hmmm. hes attacking the posts, not the posters

1)Type B's don't cost draft picks (you only get a sammich) 2)What other available starters? Kyle Lohse? He wasn't an A or B either.

Define "sold" not wanting to acquire him for anywhere near the pricetag or also, don't think hes that much more than Jon Garland And Garland isn't that bad either. Of course, Blanton does K more, walk less, and get more GBs than Garland. It's a significant difference too. Well, I said that much more. If you take a weighted average by IP and weight 2007 twice as much as 2006, here are their K, BB, and GB rates Blanton 5.33 K/9, 1.90 BB/9, 45.84 GB% Garland 4.41 K/9, 2.22 BB/9, 40.31 GB% Maybe I just have an irrational hatred of pitchers that put that many balls in play, I don't know.

Define "sold" not wanting to acquire him for anywhere near the pricetag or also, don't think hes that much more than Jon Garland

Define "sold" not wanting to acquire him for anywhere near the pricetag

I'm not sold on him, and wouldn't want to give up everything to get him, but I do see our starting rotation as a more pressing problem than SS. If the A's would take Murton and Marshall/Gallagher would you make the trade? What does everyone think it will take? I have to think he's an upgrade over Marquis or Dempster. Frankly, I don't think we match up that well with them at all. Assuming Murton, EPatt, Gallagher are gone for Roberts, our only real trading chip is Pie. The A's have a gaggle of OFs that are better than him. They should be looking to acquire infield and pitching. Marshall is a textbook non-saber guy.

Am I (and badnews) the only one not sold on Blanton?

Fukudome is a lefty Roberts is a lefty

I like how you put in there "Meph included" like, "Heh, if you're not sold on that, then there's NO WAY you can't believe it after I include that." Anyway, I don't think acquiring Roberts makes us paper champs. I think it's weird people don't mind giving up Gallagher's #3 potential, but we're falling over ourselves to acquire Joe Blanton, a guy who looks like Josh Towers away from Oakland. I wonder - how come if we get Roberts, Soriano can't leadoff and Roberts can't hit 2nd? Soriano just makes me nervous. I don't like tinkering with him. Dropping him in the lineup could cost production, he's just not well suited to hitting in an RBI spot it seems. It also seems like if we upgraded at shortstop it would outstrip the improvement of going from DeRosa to Roberts. I mean, we were above average in production at 2nd last year, Mark DeRosa was an .848 OPS hitter when he played 2nd, but everywhere else he wasn't so great... we had the worst production out of shortstop as any team in the NL last year, I think our shortstop OPS was like 140 points below the NL average... I don't see the picture as rosily as everyone else. Yup, I've posted this lineup before Soriano Roberts Lee Fukudome/ARam ARam/Fukudome Soto Pie Theriot Soto is going to have a lot of RBI opportunities even if he doesn't hit great ala Bengie Molina.

Cabrera would probably be no bigger than an upgrade than Roberts would be. If it were just Cabrera vs Theriot and Roberts vs DeRosa, Cabrera would be a little bigger of an upgrade, but adding in the factor of DeRosa taking away 200 AB's or more from Fontenot and Roberts becomes the better upgrade. I would tend to agree. Depends, VORP-wise, the Roberts to DeRo bump is about the same as the Theriot to OCab bump for 2007, but if you look at Roberts and OCab's 2006, and compare them to the Cub's 2007, you'd be much better off with OCab. Looking at a couple different advanced defensive metrics and it appears as though DeRo and Theriot were actually slightly better than Roberts and OCab in 2007. I think your analysis negates the fact that DeRosa would still be here, playing, and likely replacing potentially poor numbers. To pile onto myself (isn't there something against that in the Bible?), I also did not talk about DeRosa potentially not matching his 2007 #s, while Theriot will probably match his. Additionally, I like having a legit backup for 3B. Theres always the possibility that Ronnie could beat Theriot out. To respond to your point, Fontentot had 256 PAs last year. DeRo will be an upgrade for those PAs, but he'll also be a downgrade from the PAs that would have gone to Murton. Just some other things to consider.

Cabrera would probably be no bigger than an upgrade than Roberts would be. If it were just Cabrera vs Theriot and Roberts vs DeRosa, Cabrera would be a little bigger of an upgrade, but adding in the factor of DeRosa taking away 200 AB's or more from Fontenot and Roberts becomes the better upgrade. I would tend to agree. Depends, VORP-wise, the Roberts to DeRo bump is about the same as the Theriot to OCab bump for 2007, but if you look at Roberts and OCab's 2006, and compare them to the Cub's 2007, you'd be much better off with OCab. Looking at a couple different advanced defensive metrics and it appears as though DeRo and Theriot were actually slightly better than Roberts and OCab in 2007.

Cubs are a little grit, heart and toughness away from being really unbeatable. Grinder Rule #7: Fill holes that aren't really holes with inferior white guys who get dirty while ignoring the glaring weaknesses of your team.

I think you could make a good arguement that Bedard and his 13th place VORP last year is a #1. What were his VORP rankings in 05' and 06'? #33 in 2006 (borderline #1) #65 in 2005 (he was injured)

I think you could make a good arguement that Bedard and his 13th place VORP last year is a #1.

You must be thinking of Adam Everett. I just took a look at the 2006 UZRs and Cabrera was -8 runs/150 games. Miguel Tejada, who many consider so bad that he should play 3b was -3. Carlos Guillen who is getting moved to 1b was -6, and the 2b in a SS's clothes, Michael Young was -4. Adam Everett was +51.

Anyone have any idea of the last 2b we had that performed adequately that people were happy with? Johnny Evers? This clearly a personal attack against me. :lol:

Little known fact, we had back to back lefties ALL FREAKIN YEAR LONG LAST YEAR. How'd that work out for us? Why do you think we lost games 2 and 3? Touche Gary Hughes, touché

Jim Hendry, is that you?

Anyone have any idea of the last 2b we had that performed adequately that people were happy with? Johnny Evers?

So you're accounting all or most or even a significant number of the Cubs' losses to this? I was under the impression he was saying it didn't matter because we made the playoffs or something. IIRC it worked out pretty nicely with Lilly having a great year, Hill having a very solid year, and Marshall exceeding expectations until re randomly decide to replace him after like 2 bad starts with young Steve Trachsel. Yes, I was saying it worked out pretty nicely for us. The starter does not have the majority of the culpability in the determination of a win or loss (gasp!). I don't really care that we had a (slightly) losing record when we started a lefty after a lefty. Thats the pathetic offense's fault. Hill actually never followed a lefty. Lilly followed Hill for the first month (and actually his last "start" (2 IP) after we clinched) and Marshall followed Hill the rest of the way until the last month. Lilly had an ERA slightly above 2 while following Hill and since Marshall did it for nearly all of his IP, his ERA was close to his season (slightly over 4). If the cubs believe that having back to back lefties negatively affects the second lefty, then they should think that Sean Marshall is actually uber awesome, which obviously they don't (and he isn't). Just more idiocy, hypocracy, conventional thinking nonsense that has and will plague this organization.

In the unlikely event that we're able to pull off that deal for that package, I will voluntarily go on a one month Jim Hendry criticism embargo. That's not a light package. Murton is the Cubs 3rd best OF at this point and best RH bat not being paid at least 12M for this season. Gallagher may be the Cubs 5th best starter. Patterson, admittedly, doesn't have much value unless he can handle 2B adequately. Not saying that it's too much, but it's far from robbery. Roberts for two seasons at a very friendly price, then let him walk for two high draft choices. An excellent deal. I like Sean Gallagher, but a good farm system should be able to pop out a Gallagher every couple of seasons. Roberts seems like the type to accept arbitration, being that he won't get much of a raise if he hits the market, so I don't know that you can count on those picks, even if he is a type A. And yeah, I'd do the deal, but it's a far cry from the Aramis trade. Thankfully it's a far cry from the Pierre trade too. Unless Roberts is horrible as a Cub over the next two seasons, there's essentially zero chance he would accept an offer of arbitration. Yeah, I can't see him accepting arbi. It doesn't happen that often. It would have to be a Mike Cameron/Michael Barrett situation where suspensions, injuries, or just plain suckitude is involved. He'll have made about $25M by the time he hits the FA market. And unless the above occurs, I can't see him having to accept a multi-year deal that do any less than double his lifetime earnings.

There were some talented Expos teams back in the 90s though most of the homegrown talent on the 1994 team was probably scouted and assembled before Littlefield got there. Its hard to tell. Depends exactly on what he did as National Crosschecker and East Coast Supervisor from 91-95. Guys who were in the Expos minor league system from 95-98 when he was Director of Player Development include Vlad, Grudz, Vidro, OCab, Barrett, Brian Schnieder, Javier Vazquez, and Milton Bradley.

Littlefield's bio from the Bucs Page

I give... what do they have in common? They all play proffesional baseball Well, to be fair, so does Bryan Bullington. The answer is that they were all in the 2002 draft where the Bucs had the #1 pick and chose Bullington.

Except the Cubs have no business merely being "pretty hopeful". There's no excuse for such a high payroll and such weak competition to leave you with anything short of extreme confidence that the team is great. Also, Craig described the IDEAL situation where you should be improving. As you described, we are in the mix with the Dodgers, DBacks, Rockies, Brewers (and Mets). Right now there is nothing discerning any of those teams. That is the time to improve. Times not to improve are when you are far and away the best team in the division (Angels) or not close to the competition (Astros). The marginal gain from improving for either of those teams is very little. It doesn't have a huge impact on their possibility of making the playoffs. The Angels are likely going to win the division by at least 5 games. Bringing in a player that gives you a couple wins, big whoop, youre still in the playoffs. Houston is likely going to lose the division by at least 10 games. Bringing in a player that gives you a few wins, big whoop, youre still going to be on the couch in October. Its quite arguable if the Cubs are better than the Brewers as the teams stand right now. This is where you get the most bang for your buck by improving.