BigbadB

Hey, who are all these guys you speak of? :D

Wow, this argument is crazy. Baseball is not about trying to get the best players for the least amount of money. It's about winning divisions and playoffs and World Series. It's about putting the best team on the field everyday. Wait a year or two for someone like Greene to maybe become available and maybe want to play for the Cubs? I don't think so. Derrek Lee, Aramis, Soriano, Fukudome and Zambrano are here now and they aren't getting any younger. Renteria has WAY more value than Marmol. And the Cubs just happen to have a mammoth gaping hole at SS. I know it's only a hypothetical, but come on. I like Marmol as much as the next guy, but for a quality SS, I'll drive him to Detroit.

I would.

I'd give them Theriot and Dempster for Renteria. :D

Don't mind me, I just wanted to share my favorite post in this neverending thread:

This guy keeps coming in here at random times and posting stuff like this as though he has some form of inside info. Does anybody know who he is? I am Peoriaman! :) That is what the O's wanted. They call cedeno, Marshall, etc "spare parts". Roberts is an all-star and they want one very good major MLB player in return. That is Hill. Hill is better and much cheaper than Roberts.....i dont know if Andy would have even asked for him cuz he already knew the answer The Cubs went to the O's. You had better believe the O's weren't shy about who they wanted from the Cubs. They wanted and asked for Hill. Roberts is an all-star. Just the facts. Roberts was the LONE all-star on a 69 win team. That's like the prettiest ugly chick left in the bar!! Come on. Heh heh. I like this guy.

He definitely had more at bats in the top half of the order last year.

MLB EI does not show ST games.

Just go in your cup after you finish your beer like a real fan would. Yeah, but the danger with that is that you can't tell the difference between the pee-cups and the cups filled with Old Style or Budweiser. SELL BETTER BEER, dag nabbit. Cold glass of beer colored liquid= beer Warm glass of beer colored liquid= not beer Drink your beer before it has a chance to get warm and you should be okay.

I don't even think the mini flare up has anything to do with it. If Payton is coming this way in the deal, you have to figure that Marquis is going the other way. I don't think there is any possible way the Cubs take on Roberts and Payton's contract without sending some contract back the other way. That might be what the hold up has been up to this point. Baltimore might be requiring the Cubs to take Payton or one of their other bad contracts along with Roberts and trying not to take any contract back. But Marquis is probably more valuable to the Orioles than Payton would be. Payton has basically zero value considering how much he makes.

I'd love to see us include Cueto in that deal.

RF is flooded because RF sucks. :wink:

Agreed. No way the Padres would have done Barrett for Greene. Not a chance.

Agreed. However, there are many teams out there that would find value in having Marquis in the rotation, depending on the cost. Marquis wants to start and that's really all that was said. I don't think it hurts his trade value. Either a team has a need for a starter or they don't.

The Cubs got gold from the Hundley trade. Hundley was as deep in the doghouse as one could possibly be and the Cubs managed to move him and his 2 or 3 (can't remember how many years he had left) year contract to LA for Karros and Grudz. Let us not forget that we had to include superstar Chad Hermansen in that deal. Jacque Jones was a losing proposition, as I think he had more value than a minor league reliever, which is basically all we got for him while also paying part of his salary. But, I wouldn't hesitate to trade Marquis to Atlanta for Omar Infante, and then spin Infante to some other team for a minor league reliever, while paying 3m of Marquis salary.

While I can agree that he is probably not the most ideal CF platoon guy defensively, Pie more than makes up for him there in that regard. Pie becomes a good late inning replacement guy for Ross since it gets Pie's lefty bat in the line up in the late innings against RHP, but the improved defense will be helpful for the pen. I see Pie playing every game against RHP and Ross playing until the LH starter gets knocked out. There are a lot of lefty starters in the NL these days. It would be nice to have a RH complement to Pie. Where's Dustin Mohr when you need him? :D

I believe that at the very least Pie will have a platoon partner in CF for LHP. Whether that platoon partner is Crisp, Byrd, Ross or someone else remains to be seen. A Pie/Ross platoon would not really be that much of an offensive burden, especially if Pie starts raking like he's done in the minors.

I don't necessarily agree with that. I think Theriot could be a decent #8 hitter. And I don't really think we've seen enough from Pie yet to make any kind of judgments on how good or bad he might be playing everyday.

Shawn Green's bat still protects my house. He gave it to the kids after swinging some batting practice before a Padres/Dodgers game at Qualcomm several years back. It was kind of cool, because he asked one of the kids to hold the bat as he grabbed the sharpy to sign a baseball card and a notebook the kids provided. When he was done signing those, he signed the bat and told them to keep it. It was loaded with pine tar. He was a class act. And I'm glad his declining years were spent with someone other than the Chicago Cubs.

Meph and I had a discussion about Ross a few weeks back. We both would love to have Ross, I just don't see a reason for the Marlins to get rid of him. De Aza is horrible. If Maybin needs more seasoning in the minors, Ross is an ideal replacement for them. I hope I'm wrong and he's platooning with Pie in CF. That would be perfect.

I don't think we'd ever see that. Barring injuries leading to it as an emergency plan in one game, at least. Probably not. But a guy can wish, can't he?

I used the Lineup Analysis tool at Baseball Musings: http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py If you take the Cubs splits from 2007 for the 2nd through 9th spots in the order and plug in Soriano's numbers in the leadoff spot, you get 4.712 runs per game, which equals 763 runs over the course of a 162 game season. It's not that far off considering the Cubs scored 752 last year. If you take the same splits for the Cubs but substitute Roberts' numbers for Soriano's, you also get 4.712 runs per game. Probably a bit of a crude method, but to me it shows that a .377/.432 line out of the leadoff spot is not going to yield a significant number of runs over what a .337/.560 line would, even if you factor speed into the equation. So what do you get when you plug Roberts into the leadoff spot and plug Soriano's numbers into the 2 thru 9 position? My response was to his claim that Soriano only scored more runs due to a superior lineup. I used the Lineup Analysis tool to show that there isn't much of a difference between Soriano leading off and Roberts leading off. Soriano's clear advantage in slugging pretty much makes up for Roberts' advantage in OBP. The question remains, would Roberts leading off and Soriano in the middle of the order be better than Soriano leading off and Roberts batting second? Probably, but I doubt the difference between the two lineups would be very big. I think it would be a nice dilemma to have. I know Sorianio's numbers have been a little better from the leadoff spot and this could be debated forever. If he hits 40 homers from the 4-6 spots he's going to have more RBI's than if he hits 40 homers while batting leadoff. I guess it depends on whether you believe he'll hit worse from down in the order. Personally I think if he was moved down and left there he would be a force and I would not mind seeing him hit between Lee and Aram. Pitchers would have to throw hittable pitches to one of them. If we don't get Roberts, and I don't believe we will, I'd leave him in the leadoff spot because without Roberts there is no one else nearly as good at it as he is. This is all just an opinion though. No sources to prove any of it. There's a good article on BP right now explaining how dumb it is batting Soriano leadoff. It's free also. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7184 Thanks, great article. I especially like this paragraph: Score one for Wrigley23 with Baseball Prospectus on his side. However, I see a changing of the guard in regards to the conventional or prototypical lead off hitter. I think the biggest reason Soriano only had 70 RBI in 2007 had more to do with how pathetic the bottom of the order actually was. Ignoring for a moment that Soriano missed nearly a months worth of games, he was hitting behind the pitcher, Bowen, Koyie Hill, Henry Blanco, Cesar Izturis among others. Cubs 2007 #7 hitters: .321 OBP Cubs 2007 #8 hitters: .294 OBP Cubs 2007 #9 hitters: .227 OBP The Cubs (if they get Roberts) should have a much better bench with DeRosa, Murton, Ward and Cintron to improve the PH role in the 9 spot, and if they have Theriot hitting 8th all year, there should be improvement in that spot as well. Also, a full season of Soto and continued development of Pie and I think Soriano drives in over 100 runs while also scoring well over 100 runs. That's a pretty good problem to have for your lead off hitter if you also have Roberts, Lee, Ramirez, Fukudome, Soto and Pie in your line up regularly. Add in DeRosa grabbing some starts at SS and I think you have a great offensive line up on those days. Jimmy Rollins isn't exactly an OBP machine. Neither is Chris Young or Curtis Granderson. Put good hitters all the way through the line up and I don't really think it matters all that much where people hit.

Speaking of dust, won't they need to dust off a whole bunch of seats that rarely ever get sat in, also?

Oh, alright. I'll do it.

The patron saint of NSBB has spoken. Nice work, IMB. =D>