ThePenguin11

He's got a lot to work on before he see's the light of day at Wrigley. Since he's batting below the Mendoza line, I don't see a return until the September call-ups.

After seeing Shawn Green play CF, it makes me think Lawton or Burnitz could pull it off. Burnitz looked very comfortable out there in his only start and the prospect of his arm out there sounds enticing. Murton-Burnitz-Lawton?

I believe someone said 85 games at CF.

While it's not the blockbuster trade everyone was hoping for, it does add to the depth and versatility of the team. As of right now, you have 3 options for LF, 3 for CF, 3 for RF, 3 for 2B, 2 for leadoff, etc. Unfortunately, instead of Hairston replacing Macias as supersub, I'm sure Cedeno will go down to AAA. Hopefully, the Cubs will cut Remlinger when Williamson and Wood return. Who knows, maybe they can get a little something (very little) for him when he goes on waivers. After Mitre's performance today, I'm betting he's returned to Iowa. I wish Remlinger was headed somewhere - like DFAville.

According to this http://www.topofthefirst.com/letsgobucs/letsgobucks.html , Lawton's contract is up after this season and has no options.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Duh...I'm an idiot...I was still thinking there was a way to make him a full-time starter. For whatever reason, I was thinking that he'd be competing with Holly. Too many cups of coffee today. I even posted earlier that this should mean the end of Hollandsworth in the starting lineup - suggesting that Murton would platoon against lefties with Lawton facing righties. Thanks for making me feel so stupid. On another note, anyone else notice that the platoon of Matt Murton and Matt Lawton makes for an interesting combination of similar names. Maybe we could call them Matt Murlawton or Matt Lawmurton. Okay, I think it might be time for a nap. I've clearly lost my mind. :oops: EDIT: I remember - I was thinking that Lawton could move to center allowing Murton to play left field - but because Baker would favor Hollandsworth over Murton - Murton would only face left-handed pitchers. Hence, if Murton was a lefthanded bat - he would get the majority of the playing time. I think.

How great would life be today if only Matt Murton had been born a left handed batter?

hahaha what? we clearly upgraded in left, and gave up virtually nothing at all. how can you say you are happier staying put? I wouldnt say that we gave up nothing for Lawton. i would. where was jody supposed to play? he wasn't going to start over hollandsworth, and murton has been playing more and more. he's ben grieve with better defense. matt lawton can legitimately help this team. We actually traded Dubois for Lawton if you think about it. I would have traded Dubois for Lawton so we could have a real leadoff man anyways.

I think with Lawton we're getting a speedy-poor-man's Brian Giles. Their statistics are pretty comparable although Giles is very slightly higer in most categories. Any thoughts? EDIT: Giles does of course have 26 more walks than Lawton, but he's still 5th in the league - not too shabby.

Lawton can't hit lefties so it would make sense to let Murton face LHP's. The odd man out should be Hollandsworth since he's a lefty who can't hit anybody.

Dubois for Lawton sounds better than Dubois for Gerut.

Lawton will be an upgrade at leadoff. I guess this means that Murton's going back down.

I am 99.9% sure that all deferred money is to be paid by the team that the player signs the contract with.

average enough to lead the minor leagues in strikeouts Hill is not a strikeout pitcher in Major league Baseball. Except that Hill's 9.72 K/9 (albeit small sample size) says your wrong! Seriously, go to http://www.espn.com. They have all kinds of great stats there. Look at his starts. 5 k's in each of them. Like I conceded he'll be a decent strikeout pitcher. But it is WRONG to think that he's going to strike out nearly as many guys in the majors as he did in the minors at AA. And frankly, I think your tone is condescending and rude. I'm getting tired of some posters here acting like know-it-alls and acting like posters with only 300 or less posts couldn't possibly know anything regarding baseball. I had already edited it out above, but within 5 minutes you made two embarassing claims (Rangers offense is same as Cubs and Hill isn't an ML K pitcher) that could have easily been adverted if you would have looked them up before you posted. Next time you dont want 17 posters telling you you are wrong just look it up before hand. I realized the tone could have been condescending (especially after i saw everyone else jump on you) thats why I deleted it even before you posted. Im not a know it all but the stats are out there an easily available. I dont think theres a single person alive who thought that Hills K rate would not drop making the transition to the majors. But even with a drop, he can still be one of the better strike out pitchers. A lot of people also backed me up that the Rangers also have deeper lineup. 17 posters didn't tell me I was wrong either. All I'm saying is that Hill is not going to be a prolific strikeout pitcher like he was in the minors. Someones argument was that he led the minors in strikeouts. So what? Zito was probably good at striking out AA players too. It doesn't mean that he wouldn't eventually be effective in the majors. I think Hill will be good in the majors - I argue that he's not going to strikeout 200 guys in a season until (or if) he develops another pitch. Your post was truly uncalled for and its posts like that - that really make me want to take a break from this board. Thanks man. What a great day for baseball, I think I'll take some in.

average enough to lead the minor leagues in strikeouts Hill is not a strikeout pitcher in Major league Baseball. Except that Hill's 9.72 K/9 (albeit small sample size) says your wrong! Seriously, go to http://www.espn.com. They have all kinds of great stats there. Look at his starts. 5 k's in each of them. Like I conceded he'll be a decent strikeout pitcher. But it is WRONG to think that he's going to strike out nearly as many guys in the majors as he did in the minors at AA. And frankly, I think your tone is condescending and rude. I'm getting tired of some posters here acting like know-it-alls and acting like posters with only 300 or less posts couldn't possibly know anything regarding baseball.

Better to make no deals at all than make a bad one... It's hard to see how those two statements can be reconciled with one another. Runs/RBI are clearly inefficient methods for player evaluation. Stats that isolate a player's production from context are vastly superior, and they show that Walker and Soriano provide the same level of offensive production. My point is that both are good for evaluation. But even Bill James and Billy Beane will tell you that you cannot throw out one or the other when evaluating a player. And in this instance, Soriano's classic (not archaic) baseball statistics more heavily outweigh Walker's abstract data. You just cant throw out one in favor of the other - that's not the way Sabermetric and abstract statistics were meant to be used. No, the SABR-style thinking woud mean you'd use the best available data to evaluate the two players. The best avaialble data clearly indicates Soriano is no upgrade at all over Walkewr. That's just being stubborn. But like I said before, I'm done debating Soriano. I'm agreeing to disagree.

I just noticed that Hill was born in Boston. Interesting...

If he had a splitter or forkball - then I wouldn't trade him for very many guys. He would be sick provided that he could keep it down and fool hitters into thinking it was his fastball.

average enough to lead the minor leagues in strikeouts Hill is not a strikeout pitcher in Major league Baseball. In 16 and 2/3 major league innings, he's K'd 18 guys. Looks like the K's are carrying over. His k's per inning we're greatly higher in the minors. If you went with the same ratio he should have truck out like 26 batters. I should rephrase it: Hill will not be as dominant a strikeout pitcher as he was in the minors. In say ninety innings in the minors you could expect 140 K's. In the majors he'll get you about 90-100 k's. They won't carry over at the same rate because major leaguers can hit his curveball and aren't offset by it when he throws his fastball.

average enough to lead the minor leagues in strikeouts Hill is not a strikeout pitcher in Major league Baseball. As for Texas' lineup, yes, you're right that they're scoring more runs than us. Upon further review that's correct. But all that really matters is that Lee, Ramirez and Burnitz will be batting in front of him. The Rangers are deep all throughout the lineup. They also have a good DH to thank for that. I'm just going to have to say we should agree to disagree. I don't feel like debating this anymore. Let's just get Dunn so we can all be happy.

WHAT? That's not what I'm saying at all. How the heck do you claim I said he'd hit 14 HR? The issue is that you apparently believe that runs and RBIs are self-contained, independent numbers and that is undeniably wrong. They have to do with the team, the situation, and coincidence. So Manny Ramirez would have the same number of RBI if he were on the Pirates? Is that what you're saying? It's not about if you "believe in" sabermetric stats, they also give real production. Are you suggesting they are hypothetical or imaginery? Because they're not. How often you get on-base is real, too. Texas has scored the 3rd most runs in baseball - does this have nothing to do with having high R or RBI numbers? If you think these numbers have more meaning than the numbers I gave, you're simply wrong. RBI and RUN do NOT carry over by team. The idea that you think Manny Ramirez would still drive in 130 runs on a team like the Pirates is pretty absurd. Yes, Soriano obviously hits more homeruns. Outside that, there isn't very much unless you want to ignore all complex numbers and dismiss them as not real production, and assume RBI and R are the true measure of a player's production. Similarly, a pitcher's Wins carry over from the best team in baseball to the worse, right? Our offense isn't that much inferior to the Rangers' offense. AT NO POINT DID I SAY THAT JUST BECAUSE A GUY IS GOOD IN ONE LINEUP THAT HE'LL BE GOOD IN ANY OTHER. I'm saying that the Cubs lineup will present just as many opportunities for Soriano as the Rangers'.

Better to make no deals at all than make a bad one... It's hard to see how those two statements can be reconciled with one another. Runs/RBI are clearly inefficient methods for player evaluation. Stats that isolate a player's production from context are vastly superior, and they show that Walker and Soriano provide the same level of offensive production. My point is that both are good for evaluation. But even Bill James and Billy Beane will tell you that you cannot throw out one or the other when evaluating a player. And in this instance, Soriano's classic (not archaic) baseball statistics more heavily outweigh Walker's abstract data. You just cant throw out one in favor of the other - that's not the way Sabermetric and abstract statistics were meant to be used. They are a supplement for evaluating talent and in most cases they are used for minor leaguers and prospective draft picks. You use them for minor leaguers because there are so many external factors that separate the different minor league levels.

Yeah, and Adam Dunn has 125 advantage in OPS but has nearly the same about of runs and rbis as soriano, are they equal players? Runs and RBIs are nearly worthless stats that are not indicative of a players production because they are extremely heavily dependent on the other players in the lineup. Just like wins are for a pitcher. Again, I love Adam Dunn, but what if we can't trade for him? I didnt mean anything about trading for dunn, i was just saying using your stats to evaluate the hitter, you would say dunn and soriano are equal hitters which is one of the more ridiculous arguments posted here. If you cant believe taht runs and rbis are nearly useless stats then I think you need to realize exactly what nees to ocurr for a player to score a run or bat a run in. Unless its a home run, ANOTHER PLAYER NEEDS TO DO SOMETHING. Frankly, when evaluating players I'd like to use stats that they actually have some control over. Thats like saying Kerry Wood sucks because when he pitches the cubs don't score a lot of runs. Dunn and Soriano are both greatly productive for different reasons. What I don't understand is why everyone thinks that our lineup is so far inferior to the Rangers'. Todd Walker wouldn't be any more productive playing for Texas and Soriano wouldn't be any less productive batting sixth for the Cubs. Is that such a stretch?

RBI's and runs don't dictate production No they display it.

Yeah, and Adam Dunn has 125 advantage in OPS but has nearly the same about of runs and rbis as soriano, are they equal players? Runs and RBIs are nearly worthless stats that are not indicative of a players production because they are extremely heavily dependent on the other players in the lineup. Just like wins are for a pitcher. Again, I love Adam Dunn, but what if we can't trade for him?