BigbadB

I think this really comes down to Peavy. The Padres dangled him and I think he officially wants out. Peavy's contract extension was based on the Padres staying competitive. I wouldn't be surprised if Peavy forces the trade to the Cubs. I've held firm all offseason that this deal will happen. I'm also expecting it to happen sooner now than later. Both teams still have work to do if Peavy isn't going anywhere, and less and less players will be available to either team the longer this deal takes.

I never said he sucked, but I did say they aren't comparable. Buckner was a mid .450 SLG guy while Pods is a mid .350 SLG guy. A perfect example of how they aren't comparable can be found in your own post. Buckner: 1200 RBI Pods: 200 RBI Buckner played most of his games at 1b. I liken this to comparing Juan Pierre to James Loney. Simply not comparable.

Bill Buckner and Maury Wills? Are you seriously comparing Scotty Pods to these guys? They played in a completely different era and completely different ballparks. Maury Wills' career was played entirely during a dominant pitching era. Buckner was nothing like Podsednik. Period.

I think they could have possibly gotten one of those guys for DeRosa. But, we don't have DeRosa anymore, so no.

You would be wrong. Most people here were fine with trading DeRosa while his value was high. However, the return he got for DeRosa was as if Hendry was pawning DeRosa off as if his value was low. I guess that's what you get for being in the same rut of trading players while their value is at an all time low. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who is giddy about Stevens, Archer and Gaub. And if that's really all the team could get for DeRosa while his value is at an all time high, then we might as well have kept him. If Peavy isn't in Hendry's sites, or if the Cubs miss out on Peavy, I will look back on this offseason wishing that Hendry didn't make any changes, rather than making a bunch of changes for the worse. As it stands: DeRosa, Marquis, Wood, Howry, Blanco>>>>>>Luis Vizcaino, Milton Bradley, Joey Gathright, Aaron Miles, Kevin Gregg Hendry currently needs to trade for Peavy at this stage to change my offseason GM grade from an "F" to a "C".

Huh? Peavy isn't a free agent, what does his agent have to do with whether the Cubs can get him? And Sheets is a free agent, so Brewers wouldn't exactly be giving him to the Cubs. I could be wrong, but isn't a player's agent still heavily involved in trade talks? You're right about Sheets, but it would be a huge slap in the face to Brewers fans if he went to the Cubs. To the extent that Peavy has a no-trade, his agent will talk to the owners. But Axelrod has already been pushing for him to go to the Cubs and had nothing to do with the Padres high demands. That, and maybe convincing his client to make the team getting him guarantee that last year in his deal.

Magic? Wizard? Interesting choice of words. Certainly not the words I would use.

That's probably right. I also seem to recall Bruce Miles mentioning that DeRosa was one of the few RH hitting guys Hendry could actually move, due to NTC's. Soriano, Lee and Ramirez aren't going anywhere, for the most part. No team in the world has enough to give the Cubs for Geovany Soto. If the Cubs were going to get more left handed, the only positions they could do it were 2b, RF, CF and SS. Oddly enough, this team isn't really going to be anymore lefthanded in '09 than they have been in the last few years. '08- Edmonds, Fukudome, Fontenot, Pie, Hoffpauir '09- Bradley, Fukudome, Fontenot, Gathright, Bako, Hoffpauir???? Fontenot will get more playing time than last year, but it appears he'll be platooning with Miles. Edmonds' 08 and Bradley's '09 will probably be pretty close in at bats. Fukudome may end up with quite a few less at bats if he doesn't turn things around. If you ask me, that's a lot of offseason moves just to upgrade from Jim Edmonds to Milton Bradley.

I just noticed on Milton Bradley's baseball reference page that he was traded by Cleveland for Franklin Gutierrez and Andrew Brown. Later, he was traded from Oakland to San Diego for Andrew Brown.

The sneeze analogy perfectly illustrates what I've been trying to explain. People sneeze all the darn time, and nothing comes of it. Just like as dextermorgan has explained, professional baseball players step awkwardly on their leg all the darn time, and nothing comes of it. So if throwing your back out sneezing is a freak injury (since you've sneezed countless times with no injury occurring), then by the same logic, tearing your ACL stepping awkwardly is also a freak injury (since you've stepped awkwardly countless times with no injury occurring). Except people almost never get hurt sneezing. That's why it's a freak injury. People get hurt by twisting their legs. You're leaving out that very huge difference. Also, I'd say that there's a pretty big difference between a sneeze and a twisting of your leg. One is a natural thing that the body does by itself. The other is something that your body is put through due to a mistake. Your definition of a freak injury is: something people almost never get hurt doing (reference the bolded statement above). You've told us over and over and over again how baseball players step awkwardly on their leg all the time without getting hurt. Therefore by your own definition of the term, when a baseball player gets hurt stepping awkwardly, it's a freak injury. To resolve the whole freak injury discussion for good, I will finally explain the true definition of what constitutes a freak injury. Freak injury = WHO FREAKING CARES? Are any of you honestly listening to yourselves argue about what adjective should be in front of the word injury? Absolute nonsense. Bud Black should have manned up and helped Milton Bradley punch that umpire in the face repeatedly until all racial prejudice seeped out of his pores. If Black would have done that, Bradley may never have blown out his knee.

I'm going to guess Garrett Olson.

I'm picturing the line up on days that neither Soriano or Bradley can go: Gathright Theriot Lee Ramirez Soto Johnson Fukudome Miles

I doubt they'd load up all the lefties in the 5 (SH), 7, 8 spots. I know Lee has sort of been the staple of the #3 hole the last several years, but it's high time to move him down in the order, IMO. I would go: Soriano Fontenot/Miles Bradley Ramirez Soto Lee Fukudome/Johnson Theriot If Fukudome can find his groove, I'd move him and Johnson back to the 2 hole. Until then, those are some decent OBP guys to get on base at the bottom of the order for Soriano. Now we just need to see what Cleveland might want for Mark DeRosa, and our offense will be all set.

Is anyone getting the MLB Network in HD? And out of curiosity, how many HD channels is DirecTV offering these days? I don't have designs on changing my current status, just wondering how well my cable company is keeping up with the times. I'd say that I'm currently getting between 60-70 HD channels right now. I also wonder how soon we can expect HD MLB EI?

Hopefully soon or right after the Marquis deal becomes offical. I think clearing his salary is holding up the Bradley signing. I dont get whats holding it back. Last I heard, Marquis was out of town, but it's not like he has a NTC, or at least I hope he wouldnt. Why not just pack up his locker, ship it to Denver, and be done with it? I imagine he has to pass some kind of physical. If that's the case, I have a few ideas on how Bradley can safely get to the medical complex without suffering a career ending injury. Some would prefer that you don't share those ideas with him. If all of these rumors hold true, and we don't end up with Peavy, I'll be one of the people who wouldn't want that information shared.

Hopefully soon or right after the Marquis deal becomes offical. I think clearing his salary is holding up the Bradley signing. I dont get whats holding it back. Last I heard, Marquis was out of town, but it's not like he has a NTC, or at least I hope he wouldnt. Why not just pack up his locker, ship it to Denver, and be done with it? I imagine he has to pass some kind of physical. If that's the case, I have a few ideas on how Bradley can safely get to the medical complex without suffering a career ending injury.

For a guy who has seen his share of Dodger games in 2008, Andruw Jones is not someone you want on your team. Besides the obesity, the injury problems, the lack of plate discipline and the ridiculous contract, he did not help matters when he took the "I don't care" approach to his abysmal season. He was constantly seen laughing as he waltzed back to the dugout after a strike out, with an astounding chorus of boos from the fans. I was happy to be wrong about Edmonds last year. I don't think I would be wrong about Andruw Jones. He's done.

The really awkward thing about this whole Peavy fiasco is that the Padres would essentially have some spending money once Peavy is moved. However, the Padres need to make upgrades before all the players are plucked up off the market. Their roster as it is currently assembled is: LF- Chase Headley CF- Jody Gerut/Scott Hairston RF- Brian Giles 3b- Kevin Kouzmanoff SS- Luis Rodriguez 2b- Matt Antonelli 1b- Adrian Gonzalez C- Nick Hundley/Luke Carlin CF, SS, 2b and C are all huge issues for this team right now. And that's not even bringing the starting rotation into the discussion. Even if Peavy were to be traded, this team has a lot of work to do.

While I think you might be right about Peavy, I think you are way off base if you think Boston has any desire to take on Soriano's contract, and that's ignoring the fact Soriano has a no trade clause in his contract. If I'm Boston, and I want to make a big splash this offseason to counter what the Yankees are doing, I'd talk to Milwaukee about Prince Fielder. I'd talk to Oakland about Matt Holliday. I'd talk to San Diego about Peavy. I'd talk to Arizona about Webb or Haren. I'd talk to LA about Matt Kemp. I'd talk to Colorado about Garrett Atkins or Todd Helton. I'd certainly talk to the Mets about Beltran or Reyes. Realistically, Boston doesn't need to do anything. They are deep in talent and could very easily win the division next year with the line up they already have. They certainly have the young talent to trade for someone like Ramirez, who they actually groomed in their own minor league system. It certainly didn't hurt to ask if Florida was ready to part with him. And it's not a surprise that Florida said no. But, that doesn't mean Boston HAS to look to Soriano, who doesn't really make a lot of sense to Boston, since they'd need a CFer or a 1b more than they would need anything else. Boston only plays half their games in Fenway. An outfield of Bay, Soriano and Drew wouldn't be very good. Couple in the fact that Soriano has been a walking injury the last few years, and that contract may look awful ugly in a few more years. It's just not realistic.

Is there any chance that Aurilia's agent also represents Manny Ramirez or Adam Dunn?

None of this makes any sense, whatsoever. Mark DeRosa>>>>>Aaron Miles AND Rich Aurilia a) DeRosa only uses up one roster spot b) DeRosa will arguably put up better production than the two combined c) How much difference in price are we really talking about? 1m? 2m? And if you trade Luis Vizcaino, wouldn't the salary basically be a wash at worst? Sure seems to me that Hendry is setting up a Peavy deal. I would hope he has discussed his plans with Towers, because Towers is either playing stupid at this point or has agreed to play by Hendry's rules of keeping mum through the rest of this whole process of fitting Peavy for a Cub uniform. Pie to Baltimore for Olson. Vizcaino to whoever will take him for whatever you can get Olson, Vizcaino return, Hart, Vitters, Cedeno and Stephens for Peavy? If Peavy isn't in the plans, the signing of Miles and Aurilia to replace DeRosa is just plain stupid. Actually, it's beyond stupid.

Let's wait and find out how much we're actually paying him before getting too upset about that. True. But, haven't we been hearing 3/30m?

My other issue is the 10m allocated for Bradley. Was there really a market to pay Bradley 10m a year? If there was, let whoever else wanted to pay that, pay that. There is just no justification to pay a guy who played a total of 21 games in the outfield last year that kind of money.

I was all for selling high on DeRosa. I didn't think that would mean trading for marginal relief prospects and signing Aaron Freaking Miles. I think BBB's point was that selling high on DeRosa (something I was also in favor of) was fine to the extent you don't "aggrevate" the loss by signing someone who is injury-prone to play in a spot that DeRosa could fill. So, had we signed Adam Dunn, for example, losing DeRosa wouldn't mean as much as it does. The only solace - which I have not seen brought up but might have missed - is that Fukudome can always play RF if and when Bradley is hurt. Johnson would then play full-time in CF, or platoon with Pie (assuming he is still here). Not great, but not horrendous either, IMO. The first paragraph is pretty accurate. I don't mind signing Bradley if DeRosa is the guy who can step into that spot when Bradley is hurt. Now we don't have DeRosa and Bradley WILL be hurt. As far as the second paragraph, I think you are correct up to the point you mention Pie. I think Pie will be the next victim. IIRC, Pie is out of options. The Cubs signed Joey Gathright, so reword your paragraph with Gathright and Johnson splitting time in CF and I think that's the likely scenario. Regardless, I'm very disappointed in the return for DeRosa. I'd have much rather seen some sort of return that might have been included in a deal for Hermida, Hawpe, Choo, Scott, Kubel or some other LH bat that won't cost 10m to play half a season.

I hadn't heard LT wasn't playing. Forget everything I said, then.