Rob

bingo. For one or two games at a time, fontenot is a fine backup. If there's an injury, Barney is ready now. And Castro could force his way up at any time.

What the hell is there to "forgive" Sori for? It's not like he was trying to play badly.

I was on colvin as a bounceback candidate before spring training. Do I get a free pass?

Tell me why they didn't sign him then? Because of steroids and the possibility of jail time? That's partially correct. Whether or not you or I believe in the effect of "chemistry" effecting a team, Bonds has been known as a complete [expletive] his entire career, and it certainly didn't aid him in getting teams to line up to sign him. And that was my point. And my point is (still) that teams are idiots if that is why they didn't sign him. I have a hard time believing that all 30 teams are run by drooling morons So you think all 30 teams passed on a player who put up a .480 OBP because they were scared he might go to jail during the season (which he still hasn't done)? I think it had one heck of a lot more to do with the fact that for the vast majority of fans, Bonds was the living embodiment of the steroid era and most teams didn't want that negative publicity. Add in his health / mobility issues, the legal issues, the media circus and associated distractions...and it's not too hard to see why teams didn't want to sign him even though he was still the best hitter in baseball. I'm sure the personality thing didn't help, but it was way down the list, imo. don't forget that he was still looking for an $18 mil payday last I heard. That's a bunch even for the best hitter in baseball, especially after you factor in the bad defense and the fact he couldn't play every day (which required a team to sign one of the better/expensive 4th outfielders).

I'll take John's word for it. Link Musta missed that while I was down in Arizona. Still, he can physically do the job even if he isn't currently sure whether he wants to or not.

If anybody were actually interested, I'd be glad to.

John Smoltz would be a fine addition to any bullpen, provided he doesn't want a big contract. Anybody who thinks he can't pitch anymore is just wrong.

Pujols Vmart Kung Fu Panda Upton Hanson As crazy as it is, I can't recall a season like Hanson's being quite so quiet. Depending on how you feel about the other owners in your league, you may want to try holding Haren instead and hoping nobody noticed Hanson last year. But yeah, Pujols is a no-brainer. Sandoval and Upton are only going to get better, and Victor's got extreme value simply because not many catchers rack up 600 PA. Yeah, he's on the wrong side of 30, but that means you listen to trade offers... you can't let him go for nothing, especially at such a thin position.

I'd be on the phone seeing if Smoltz has interest in coming out of the pen and seeing what he'd charge. But there's not much else at a glance.

After the first two days of spring training, I'm willing to call my Colvin breakout prediction a complete success. Yup, I'm so freakin smart.

Every Cubs fan I know in person (i.e. not people on this board) had the exact same thing to say about the Bradley/Silva trade: "I'm just glad he's gone." Most people don't want to think about the other stuff. They just don't really care, or want to be told why (I think) they should. Most people don't know anything about baseball. My friends are all idiots when it comes to this stuff. Of course the unintended comedy is that the folks here that think they do know everything about baseball and everyone else is an idiot and/or uninformed, are themselves uninformed on the most critical elements of the situation. I've said it before and I'll say it again: unless you were in the Cubs clubhouse day in and day out last year, then you have no clue what was really going on, and therefore you have no business spouting about what Hendry should or should not have done with Bradley. Irony much? I have never said that Bradley didn't have an impact on clubhouse chemistry or even on performance. I've only ever said that it can't be quantified, and that the best route we could take would be to ignore it. But you, you say that he definitely had a net negative effect. And that it was a big one. And you rail against us for not being close enough to the situation to have any idea what was going on. But I didn't see you in the clubhouse last year... No, your only "proof" of your statements is that Jim Hendry, a man with a very long line of questionable decisions, has the same opinion on the matter that you do.

Kudos to you for recognizing that, just maybe, the depth and breadth of this dude's delusions made trading him at any cost the smart move -- and that only someone up close and personal to the situation (like, say, Jim Hendry) would know for sure. The armchair QBs around here were having none of that hypothesis a few months ago, when this story was still on the front burner. Milton Bradley is so crazy that Jim Hendry had to trade him! We know this because Jim Hendry traded him. Circular logic is circular.

First time I saw a curve, I already knew that it was supposed to look like it was going straight for your head so I didn't bail out. It was a fastball.

Everybody does realize that Cashner starting in the minors actually helps his development as a reliever too, right? More reps for a pitcher who's only got 2 plus pitches, a below-average change, and sometimes spotty control can't really hurt. If our pen really needed the help that badly, fine. But Cashner isn't a great bet to be much better than a long line of fungible arms we've already got lined up to be the last man in the pen right now. Why start the arb clock and hinder his development? It's not like Lou actually uses all of his pen arms anyways.

Bill James got to me first and Neyer was right on his heels. But I've loved baseball stats as far back as I can remember. I was calculating my own obp and slugging back in pee-wee ball. I was doing the same for all the players on the baeball cards back in '91, and I was seven.

What makes you think he has to be accountable to you at all? He did something awful. Nobody here is saying to let it slide. But the legal system punished him and so did the Cubs. And you can rest assured that the Cubs will be keeping him on a shorter leash going forward. He wont get many more chances. But again I have to ask... what possible good can come from holding him to a higher standard? Ryu was 19. Christensen was 21. I can't remember the exact date of Sisco's fight, but he was with the Cubs from the time he was 18 to the time he was 21. If everybody were judged by the type of stupid decisions they made while they were college aged, we'd all be screwed. I think I would love to hear what Milton Bradley said or did that made his stay "excruciating" for you.

Latham would have been what, 23 at the time of the incident? Young people are stupid. They make stupid decisions and do stupid things until they learn better. Does that make it ok? Absolutely not. But thankfully nobody was hurt and it seems unlikely he'd ever do such a thing again. What would be the point of hoping for his release at this point? Vengeance? What does that accomplish? Everybody deserves a second chance.

it's not that ESPN doesn't have people who know advanced metrics. rob neyer and keith law certainly do, buster olney does a little bit (though for a vanderbilt guy, he's still way to married to small ball and "traditional" stats), gammons did, i believe kurkjian does to some extent. but espn isn't going to start running features about UZR and WAR if 95% of their viewers don't know what those things are and don't want to know. they're a business and they cater to the casual baseball fan and the set-in-their-ways baseball fan; baseball prospectus caters to the much smaller segment of the population that is really into baseball and has an open mind for advanced metrics. Pretty much, but you're missing one minor component. In an effort to try to market ESPN Insider as something worthwhile (instead of just the paid version of rotoworld that it was), they've started paying some of the better baseball sites like BA, BP, Fangraphs, etc... for early or exclusive access to some articles. That way, they get to keep us geeks and our stats separate from ESPN-proper, but still manage to exploit us.

Of course he thinks it's a good idea to have the Red Sox be the ones who move out of the AL East. Their travel for intra-division games would be a killer with the unbalanced schedule.

1)Babe Ruth from Boston to the Yankees for $125,000 & $300,000 mortgage in 1920 2)Nolan Ryan from Mets to Angels for 3B Jim Fergosi in 1972 3)Frank Robinson to Baltimore from Cinncinatti for P Milt Pappas in 1966 4)Prospects Derek Lowe & Jason Varitek to Boston from Seattle for Reliever Heathcliff Slocumb in 1997 5)Lou Brock to St. Louis from Cubs for P Ernie Broglio in early 1964 6)Prospects Curt Schilling,Steve Finley & Pete Harnisch to Houston from Baltimore for 1B Glenn Davis in 1991 7)Larry Bowa & prospect Ryne Sandberg to Cubs from Phillies for SS Ivonne DeJesus in 1982 8)David Cone to Mets from Kansas City for catcher Ed Hearn in 1987 9)Jeff Bagwell from Boston to Houston for reliever Larry Anderson in 1990 I didnt see the show so I dont know what the measuring stick was, it appears that this list may be more about perception than fact though. Example, Milt Pappas was not awful for the Reds. Or does it take into account that Lou Brock had nowhere to play for the Cubs since he couldnt handle CF. Or that it basically boiled down to Steve Finley for Glenn Davis because the Astros turned around and made equally bad trade with Schilling. For actual production being swapped the Bobby Abreu/Kevin Stocker trade may be worse then most of those. The Bagwell trade certainly should be higher Edit: and where is Pedro for Delino DeShields? Bagwell for Larry Anderson obviously hurt the Sox long term, so I wont debate that. But they also got a reliever who gave up 3 runs over 22 innings the rest of the season... and they won the division by 2 games. I don't feel like scouring game logs, but it seems like a pretty safe bet that the Sox were very pleased with the short term results when all they gave up was a bad defensive 3B with doubles power. Of course, we all have the benefit of knowing that his doubles would start going over the fence and he'd become a fantastic 1B, but I think it's being a bit dishonest to judge the trade by anything other than the information they had at the time.

People need to concentrate on the fact that we're planning to skip the 5th starter when we can in April (which should be relatively often). You'll feel better when you realize most trips through the rotation will only feature one start by a guy not named Zambrano, Dempster, or Wells. Again, we find ourselves hoping that Lilly comes back quickly... but there are worse times to be coming back from injury than April.

He had damn well better. He's our best 2B.

He doesn't believe in variability on defense... which is just astounding to me.

I love it. It's a really good sign he's dropping and driving, as opposed to that stupid tall and fall.

Whelp, the streak is over. There was no last minute deal before the hearing. Figure expected to come tomorrow.