Rob

This is like Ryan Harvey redux... if Ryan Harvey hadn't waited so long that he didn't have a realistic shot anymore.

Soriano isn't done. Maybe as a superstar, but 2.9 WAR is nothing to scoff at. Only Soto and Byrd were better amongst position players last year.

Well the problem here is that you feel his ceiling is no higher than a fringe backup catcher. It's more like good backup/bad 2nd division starter. Think of a cross between Chris Snyder and John Buck. Ramirez tore the cover off the ball his entire minor league career until the last 10 games of 2008. Yeah, his offense has taken a step backwards the last couple years but that seems to happen with young catchers from time to time... they hit the upper level of the minors and turn their focus to improving their defense and gamecalling at the expense of their offense. Not exactly shocking for a guy who just transitioned to the position in 05 that he might not have everything figured out in 4 years. Why not see if we've got something with him? He can't be worse than Hill. He could certainly be better. I'm skeptical of a defensive liability, who has to prove he can hit above AA. Its great that he's been compared to Victor Martinez but those days have come and gone. I'm glad he's at AAA. Although since I project Castillo as a backup C with the ceiling of D. Miller, I think hed be best backing up Soto and Ramirez could be at Iowa trying to improve behind the plate and hit at AAA. I don't blame you for being skeptical. But when the situation has repeated itself often enough that it gets a name like "Young Offensive Catcher Stagnation Syndrome" that has search results going back more than 10 years... well, I wait just a bit before declaring a catcher as having washed out at AAA. I wouldn't blame you for jumping to conclusions though. You'd be right more often than not. I don't see Castillo as much different from Miller either, honestly. But that's another one of those good backup/bad 2nd division starter types. Hell, when they're cheap enough they're not even bad for contenders, provided your GM is smart enough to spend the cash saved wisely.

Well the problem here is that you feel his ceiling is no higher than a fringe backup catcher. It's more like good backup/bad 2nd division starter. Think of a cross between Chris Snyder and John Buck. Ramirez tore the cover off the ball his entire minor league career until the last 10 games of 2008. Yeah, his offense has taken a step backwards the last couple years but that seems to happen with young catchers from time to time... they hit the upper level of the minors and turn their focus to improving their defense and gamecalling at the expense of their offense. Not exactly shocking for a guy who just transitioned to the position in 05 that he might not have everything figured out in 4 years. Why not see if we've got something with him? He can't be worse than Hill. He could certainly be better. The fact that the Cubs kept Hill and placed Ramirez at the same level as Castillo would seem to me to suggest that they don't like Ramirez' catching prospects all that much. Of course it could just simply be a numbers crunch, but they certainly don't seem to be too intent on promoting Ramirez' development behind the plate. Maybe he'll get a lot of action at Iowa and prove me wrong, but it doesn't appear things are going that direction. I don't doubt for a moment the Cubs are thinking of him as a Jake Fox type right now. If they weren't, we'd have cut Koyie Hill three weeks ago. That doesn't mean they aren't making a mistake.

I would be stunned if he was a Cub. We have 3 second baseman on the roster already, and all have more upside than whatever Castillo could give us offensively and defensively. The only reason he would become a Cub is if Jim Hendry's fetish for collecting broken down second basemen returned. We have three underwhelming young guys who don't offer anything we might be able to call consistent. Just knowing what you're gonna get is something Hendry seems to place a premium on. Hendry will send DeWitt down to AAA, platoon Castillo and Baker, and let Barney play backup MI. He'll then look to upgrade the position with an Aaron Hill or Kelly Johnson (maybe even a Jose Reyes) around the deadline if we're still in it. proclamation>

Well the problem here is that you feel his ceiling is no higher than a fringe backup catcher. It's more like good backup/bad 2nd division starter. Think of a cross between Chris Snyder and John Buck. Ramirez tore the cover off the ball his entire minor league career until the last 10 games of 2008. Yeah, his offense has taken a step backwards the last couple years but that seems to happen with young catchers from time to time... they hit the upper level of the minors and turn their focus to improving their defense and gamecalling at the expense of their offense. Not exactly shocking for a guy who just transitioned to the position in 05 that he might not have everything figured out in 4 years. Why not see if we've got something with him? He can't be worse than Hill. He could certainly be better.

The Phils just released him too. Kinda surprising. I'd be kinda surprised if he doesn't latch on here.

Well this is certainly interesting.

Group A: Albert Pujols Group B: Prince Fielder, Mark Teixeira Group C: Ryan Braun, Evan Longoria, Mike Stanton Group D: Kevin Youkilis, Buster Posey, Justin Upton, Justin Morneau, Travis Snider Wild Card: In your inbox later tonight.

12 team h2h league, standard 5x5 categories... positions and limits a bit different though. LF-CF-RF instead of 3F OF, only one Util and one C. 4 SP, 1 RP, and 1 P, with a max of 7 starts per week. C - Matt Wieters 1B - Prince Fielder 2B - Neil Walker 3B - Evan Longoria SS - Jimmy Rollins LF - Jose Tabata CF - Alex Rios RF - Jay Bruce Util - BJ Upton BN - Angel Pagan (LF, CF, RF eligible) BN - Manny Ramirez (LF eligible) BN - Alex Gordon (LF, 3B eligible) SP - Felix Hernandez SP - Shaun Marcum SP - Hiroki Kuroda SP - Ricky Nolasco RP - Neftali Feliz P - Jonathan Papelbon BN - John Danks BN - Michael Pineda I like my offense quite a bit, including the bench. Between those guys I should be able to adjust my lineup to get whatever I need a bit more of that week. The way my league set up pitching seems weird. I opted to try to go for a middle of the road pitching staff with some solid but uninspiring guys to balance a couple upside guys. I don't think I'll do much better than split pitching categories most weeks, so I'm relying on my offense to make me a playoff team. Hopefully they come through... this is the first year my friends and I are doing a money league.

Put on waivers according to Sullivan. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ct-spt-0329-cubs-bits--20110328,0,5658997.story Okay, that's a huge difference... not if another team claims him of course, but at least we're trying to keep him in the system rather than cutting ties completely. It's actually not a difference at all, in baseball. The terms are used interchangeably. If a player has been placed on waivers, he has been "waived." You may be confusing the term with a different sport: football. If a player is "waived" in the NFL, he becomes an unrestricted free agent (if he is not claimed by another team). Therefore, the term "waived" has the connotation of being released, in that sport. In baseball, "waived" = placed on waivers. While I am aware that from a technical standpoint no difference exists, for better or worse the terms have evolved such that saying a player was waived is associated with unconditional release waivers. Assignment waivers are generally referred to as being placed on waivers.

Put on waivers according to Sullivan. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ct-spt-0329-cubs-bits--20110328,0,5658997.story Okay, that's a huge difference... not if another team claims him of course, but at least we're trying to keep him in the system rather than cutting ties completely.

Source? And was he put on waivers or waived?

Just for fun... let's close the book on the Bradley and Silva stuff. We signed Bradley for 3/30. It was broken down with a $4 mil signing bonus, $5 mil in 2009, $9 mil in 2010, and $11 mil in 2011. Just for the purposes of this, let's go ahead and slap the signing bonus on year one (where it seems to belong) and call it $9/$9/$12. Silva was traded for with $25 million left on his contract ($11.5 mil in 2010, 2011, and a $2 mil buyout for 2012) and the Mariners sent back $6 mil, as well as picking up Bradley's entire contract (valued at $21 mil). So we paid Bradley $9 mil in 2009, Silva $11.5 mil in 2010 and 2011, and a $2 mil buyout, minus of course the $6 mil the Mariners sent ...or $28 million total. In that timeframe, Bradley gave up a 1.1 WAR season and Silva gave us a 2.1 WAR season, a total of 3.2 WAR... or $8.75 million per WAR over the course of these two contracts. If Alfonso Soriano hurt his knee and never played another game in the next four years, even his albatross of a contract would only come in moderately worse, at $9.65 million per WAR.

I'm still not sure Bradley was the wrong choice considering the other options. Bradley had performed at a higher level than either of the other two in recent years and was significantly younger. He also was capable of playing RF, something that Ibanez (-21 runs in LF the last three years in Seattle) and Abreu (-27 in RF the previous three years) couldn't lay claim to. Yeah, Bobby Abreu ended up signing for crazy cheap after it became apparent nobody else was really looking to pay big money for an OF. If anybody had known the price he'd end up going for, he would have been the right choice. But at the time the Bradley contract was signed, Abreu was looking for more years with a higher average annual salary... as was Ibanez. All in all though, it just goes to show the importance of having a good farm system...

I think he's made up with them, at least to an extent. But mainly, I want to wait it out and see if we can somehow pry Reyes away from the Mets and put him at 2B. I know Minaya is hard to deal with, but that's who I'm looking at as the biggest possible acquisition we could make this season. Minaya is out as GM. They hired Sandy Alderson, who is pretty damn sharp. I always worry when trading against smart GMs, even though Hendry has a very good track record.

It occurs to me that in my lifetime I don't think I've ever seen the Cubs have a manager I'd consider "good." Lou surprised me and got all the way up into "he's better than most." Mike has me legitimately excited though. He's pressed the right buttons so far at least.

I'm good for about one of those a year. Kinda mad I wasted it before the season even started...

Hard to say they got more insane when the move should keep Lenny Dykstra away from the clubhouse. Hahahaha omg so great Green font?

I was willing to go into this season with a platoon of Blake DeWitt and Jeff Baker at 2B. I was hoping for some continued offensive progression from DeWitt and hoping Baker would provide his usual lefty mashing while facing as few righties as possible. Instead, it appears DeWitt has regressed offensively and defensively (and I was already a bit worried with his defense) to the point that he wont be a starter. The thought of Baker ever facing righties or Darwin Barney getting 300 PA worries the bejeezus out of me... especially in a division race that's poised to be so incredibly tight. Aaron Hill and Kelly Johnson might be available at the deadline... but I don't know that it would be a good idea to wait that long. I'm ready to see what it would take to acquire Michael Young.

It's funny you say that Rob. The sentence you're referring to from my post originally said something like "typical messageboard poster", but I changed it to "casual fan" to tone it down a notch. Regardless, it's semantics, and if there is any meaningful distinction, the point I'm making applies to both groups. I really think you have a very warped view of what the anti-saber crowd is. The anti-saber crowd has been and always will be those who want nothing but "traditional" baseball. Sac bunts, the hit and run, team chemistry, batting average, grittiness, playing the game the right way, RBIs, etc... these are the tenets of the anti-saber crowd. The vast majority of them are still opposing the merit of OBP as more important than batting average or RBI. To find this sort of person, one needs only to look as far as the local sports bar, listen to talk radio, or as depressing as this is to say... watch or listen to any broadcast games (God bless Len Kasper for being one of a kind, but Bob is still old school.) You seem to have it in your head that the argument has evolved to the point that rallying against the use of stats people don't really understand is considered anti-saber. It isn't. If you feel you've been accused of that, you either interpreted it incorrectly or the accuser is/was a moron. That book you were so intent on defending? It isn't telling people that since WARP was using an obviously incorrect baseline for replacement level fielding that it was artificially boosting the value of guys like Adam Dunn while deflating it for guys like Adam Everett, hence leading the common fan to adopt something more of a mentality that disregarded speed and defense as ways to add significant value. It's telling people that it doesn't matter who our fancy computers think are good players because we can't predict with any degree of certainly what's going to happen in any given at bat. It's just a whole book that serves as a testament to the fact that they don't understand small sample sizes aren't bound to fall in line with big-picture projections. Yes, people need to understand stats better. No, that's not anti-saber of me to say so. Anti-saber is saying people don't need to understand the stats better because they don't matter.

dave, you seem to be confusing "average internet baseball message board poster" with "casual fan." Casual fans exposure to advanced metrics is limited to hearing Joe Miller try to pronounce OPS as "awps" on Sunday Night Baseball.

He doesn't seem like the type, but if Hendry criticizes ownership on his way out the door this quote will be hilarious.

Hard to say they got more insane when the move should keep Lenny Dykstra away from the clubhouse.

Sometimes the "anti Saber crowd" (which by the way is a complete mischaracterization) understands the advanced stats even better than most, and feel compelled to point out the limitations and shortcomings of said advanced stats when they see said advanced stats being either over-used or mis-used, with said limitations and shortcomings ignored. Now before I get mauled for posting that, I realize that the "true" sabermetricians don't do this. It's the more casual fans that throw around WARPs and VORPs and UZRs left and right with only a limited understanding of how those numbers are computed that are guilty of this. It's a mischaracterization only because you're confusing the "responsible use of stats" crowd with the anti-saber crowd who think the game was best understood by their high school coaches who taught them decades ago.