BigbadB

I like it the way it is, excluding interleague play. Keep the DH in the AL. That's where old, non fielding players can go to make their last hurrah. Keep the NL the way it is. Quit scheduling them to play each other. That's what the All Star game and World Series is for.

Womack could have scored on the Barrett double if he didn't get picked off attempting to steal. Speed may not slump, but it sure can kill an inning.

Sort of related. The Dodgers had, Jonathan Broxton, Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Willy Aybar and Joel Guzman all in their line up at the same time yesterday. Here come the kids!

Not so fast. The NL Central is a dreamy place to be a power hitter. Ask Albert Pujols and Morgan Ensberg. Nevin's numbers will probably rise playing in this division. I'm not saying he'll be any savior, but I could see an .800 OPS.

I'll not even bother with all of my roster moves. Way too many to make any sense of it.

I'm not complaining. :D

Isn't Cabrera's first arbitration year next year? He should get a significant boost next year.

Yanks will surely be in the toilet soon. No team can lose players like Sheffield, Matsui, Rivera and all their starting pitcher issues and still be competitive. Right?

Yep, typo. Oh, and I see I had a typo in my last post also. My great grandfather remembers Enzo Hernandez, who played way back in 1971. :D

Enzo Anderson? Is that a typo? I remember Enzo Hernandez, and he was pretty pathetic with a bat.

There were a lot of people saying Lofton was done. We only needed a placeholder until Pie was ready, and Lofton with some combination of Hairston and Patterson would have been just fine. I was down on moving Patterson because he wasn't worth anything. I wouldn't have expected what he is doing in Baltimore right now, but I have to admit it's a bit frustrating that we gave him away so he could play this well somewhere else. If Hendry and Baker and their posse was gone at the end of 2005, could the new management team have done something decent with Patterson so that he would have been worth something at the trade deadline, or better yet, win his everyday job back? I'm having a tough time not blaming the coaching staff for everything that went wrong with Patterson.

#1. I doubt Maddux would go to an AL team. #2. I doubt Maddux would allow a trade anywhere outside of SoCal. #3. Detroit is loaded with young pitching.

The teams that have real good records right now aren't doing it by "speed and defense". Mostly they're hittiing it out of the park. It's a combination of hitting it out of the park and drawing walks. I know there are people who don't buy much into walks being all that valuable, and they are welcome to their opinion. But, look at this amazing stat: Cubs pitchers so far in 2006 have held the opponent to a BAA of .243 Cubs opponents have a BAA against the Cubs of .252 The Cubs have amassed 22 more hits than the opponents at this point in the season. The Cubs have been outscored by 61 runs. Cub opponents have drawn 100 more walks than the Cubs. The combination of OBP and SLG is why the Cubs are near the bottom in nearly every offensive category. Cubs pitching has been quite dominant if the walk was excluded from the overall picture. Unfortunately, you can't just discount walks, because they are part of the game. I wish they had an easy way to figure out what percentage of players who draw a base on balls end up scoring per walk. Yes, AVG with RISP is an important stat as well, but is that stat any more important than team OBP? Would or could the AVG with RISP be better if there were more guys getting on base?

Want Blanton for Smoltz? Blanton only gave me a complete game shut out last night. :D Well, it was KC.

Warpticon is correct. Jason Michaels, Milton Bradley and Julio Lugo come to mind as other potential lead off candidates that received mention here. I'm sure there's more. Lugo would have been just as expensive as Pierre, however.

There aren't many players that the Cubs could have traded for that would have hushed the critics. Nevin isn't one of them. Although I do find it odd that Hendry traded for a guy who doesn't fall anywhere near the "guys who can catch the ball" description.

I just did some random box score hunting on Hal Lanier and I didn't see one instance where he batted higher than 8th in the line up.

You often jump on people for generalizing (and rightfully so), so I must ask, to whom are you referring? Not me. My 2005 offseason saw Lofton, Hairston and Patterson as the CF options for 2006. :P

He may be more giving now, considering how much his circumstances have changed. He was San Diego's franchise player at one time. However, he's not good anywhere defensively. He's better than Adam Dunn, but that's not saying much.

It's not how much you spend. It's how you spend it. The Yankees haven't won a World Series since Steinbrenner started attempting to buy World Series. 95m is more than enough to win a World Series. There haven't been many teams that have won a World Series with a higher payroll than that. White Sox in 2005? 74m

<-------resident Nevin expert Look out, Chicago. The intensity level just doubled in the windy city. If there is a player in MLB more intense than Nevin, I haven't seen him. And that includes Carlos Zambrano. Absolute butcher in the outfield. He has no speed to track down fly balls and he takes horrible routes, but he's got a cannon in his right arm. He can spell Ramirez for a game or two at 3rd, but anything regular can be tough for the pitching staff. 1st is where he can do the least amount of damage with a baseball glove, but DH suits him the best. He may have had a change of heart about catching a few games, but he told San Diego to (expletive) themselves regarding catching games in San Diego. He came through the minors as a catcher, got shifted to 3rd until Shawn Burroughs came up, moved to the outfield reluctantly (and as Tim stated early in this thread), got hurt, moved him to 1st which pushed Klesko back to the outfield. He's basically a DH. Umpires must tread lightly around Nevin. Every pitch that he doesn't swing at should be called a ball, or they shall feel his wrath. I watched Nevin get thrown out of many a game in San Diego arguing balls and strikes. But, I love the guy and his intensity. The player? Don't tell Dusty, but he just traded Jerry Hairston for Jason Dubois. Personally, I'd rather have some pop than the Punch and Judy's, anyway. Nevin is as streaky as they come. He was a clubhouse cancer in San Diego, but his cancer is basically "Todd Walker Disease". He wants to win. He wants to play. Of course, when he was with San Diego, he and Klesko felt they had some say so with the Padres management team. That's not the role Nevin will have in Chicago. Basically, he is stubborn about what position he has wanted to play, but the cancer anyone brings up is basically no different than the cancer that they relate to Todd Walker. He tells it like it is. I'm dusting off my Nevin bobblehead and displaying him proudly on my desk. Early in the season, I was watching a Rangers game, I saw my Nevin bobblehead hanging out in storage, I displayed him on my desk during one of his at bats, and BOOM! He crushed one out of the park. My employee hates Nevin, so I can use the Nevin bobblehead for many various joys. Welcome aboard, Phil. May you help make the Cubs not suck nearly as bad.

In 1968, Bob Gibson was the Cy Young and MVP in the NL, and Denny McClain was the Cy Young and MVP in the AL. Vida Blue was both in '71. In '81, Rollie Fingers was both as a closer. In '84, Willie Hernandez was both as a closer. Clemens was both in '86. Eckersley as a closer in '92. Koufax did it in '63. Don Newcombe in '56.

Fernando Valuenzuela: 1981 ROY 1981 Cy Young 1981 5th in votes for MVP

What don't you like about Tracy? I've always liked him. He sure is giving Freddy Sanchez an opportunity. Something no one else did.

That depends on whether there is a cap. If you could spend as much as you wanted, Pujols and A-Rod would be ahead of Cabrera. But, have we seen the best of Cabrera yet?