Rob

If we do sign Bedard, I just hope we're still well in the race by the time he comes back and is effective. Same with Lilly. I just fear our rotation until Lilly comes back, if he's even effective right away. If not, it could be a long April and May. I'm not too worried about April. Lou made a point at the Cubs Convention that we're likely to skip the 5th starter a couple times because of all the days off that month anyways.

In his particular case, I would have been looking for the words "minor league deal" in his asking price.

Nobody is supporting the idea of playing Dye fulltime. OK, that one dude was. The rest of us were discussing the idea of him in a platoon with Fukudome or off the bench against lefties, so don't freak out too much. Freak your mom out. And bad jokes aside, the point remains the same. If you get somebody who can't play in the field, they become much less useful. Especially when the manager is Lou "Double Switch" Piniella and he's working with a really short bench so he can have more pitchers available than he'll ever use. All the while, Soriano is a real injury concern and we're likely to need a good 4th OF at least for a time.

Nobody is supporting the idea of playing Dye fulltime.

Defense aside, would you take Nady over Dye based on hitting alone? I wouldn't even if Nady was healthy, let alone coming off a second TJS surgery. Now I realize Dye is horrible defensively, but I hold firm to the position that you sign bench players for their bats, not their gloves. The only time this is not the case is when you're talking about backup catchers or defensive specialists like Blanco or Fuld. Nady is neither. With an injury prone guy like Soriano in left and older players in center and right, having a guy on the bench who isn't a liability in the field is important, though. With the signing of Nady, if Soriano gets hurt for a month, we won't have to rely on only Fuld to replace him. If we had signed Dye, then we would have had the choice of starting Fuld every day or starting a DH in left every day. Nady is the superior option for this team. This would be fine if Nady wasn't injured himself. I'm reading reports that TJS takes a MINIMUM of 12-14 months to fully heal. Nady had the procedure last July. So if he can't hit we should have just went with Fuld as our 4th OFer. That's for pitchers. Hitters generally get through it in 6-8 months. Sometimes less.

I love posters who overreact to some rumor. We should have fired Hendry when he signed Ankiel, Posednick, Contreras, etc. As I 've posted before, Hendry gets bashed whether he makes a move or not. It's not a matter of whether he gets the deal done. The idea that these are the players he deems worthy of pursuing is very troubling. I'd have checked in on all three of those guys to see what their asking prices were.

Defense aside, would you take Nady over Dye based on hitting alone? I wouldn't even if Nady was healthy, let alone coming off a second TJS surgery. Now I realize Dye is horrible defensively, but I hold firm to the position that you sign bench players for their bats, not their gloves. The only time this is not the case is when you're talking about backup catchers or defensive specialists like Blanco or Fuld. Nady is neither. With an injury prone guy like Soriano in left and older players in center and right, having a guy on the bench who isn't a liability in the field is important, though. With the signing of Nady, if Soriano gets hurt for a month, we won't have to rely on only Fuld to replace him. If we had signed Dye, then we would have had the choice of starting Fuld every day or starting a DH in left every day. Nady is the superior option for this team. Should I post the math yet again that proves that if they have to play the field Sam Fuld is a better player than Jermaine Dye?

Defense aside, would you take Nady over Dye based on hitting alone? I wouldn't even if Nady was healthy, let alone coming off a second TJS surgery. Now I realize Dye is horrible defensively, but I hold firm to the position that you sign bench players for their bats, not their gloves. The only time this is not the case is when you're talking about backup catchers or defensive specialists like Blanco or Fuld. Nady is neither. Nady after an injury is a bit risky, but Dye at his age and taking his precipitous decline into account is just as risky. Considering their bats are similar, I'll take the guy who is just bad in the outfield, as opposed to abysmal. That said, I'd have honestly preferred we go after Spilborghs or Reed Johnson again... somebody who can function defensively at all 3 OF spots (above average in the corners) while mashing on lefties.

The fact anybody in this thread still supported Jermaine Dye is horrifying.

He also wanting a 4-5 year deal last offseason, coming off of wrist surgery. Now he was pretty much completely healthy this last year so he could still be asking for a 3-4 year deal as well. He's also a Type A free agent FWIW, even though we're pick #16, it is a protected pick. So we'd only lose the 2nd rounder.

amazingly well? he hits a bunch of singles 2009 vs RHP - .291/.344/.360 2008 vs RHP - .298/.355/.413 2006 vs RHP - .292/.339/.399 fontenot has a career OPS of like 35 points higher than inglett Say what you want, but for $500,000 a year, I would be very happy with those numbers for my left-handed #2 hitter against RHPs. Mike Fontenot might hit .236/.301/.377 again (last year's numbers) and get paid twice that. Or Fontenot could hit .302/.393/.518 versus righties like he did in 2008. And I don't know where you've gotten the idea that Inglett is a good defender, but he really isn't. Honestly, Fontenot is better than Baker too, their fluke years heading in opposite directions last year notwithstanding.

It's not about greed, it's just the way the system works. Players have absolutely no leverage whatsoever on their contracts for the first three years of major league service time and so are vastly underpaid compared to their market value. Hell, he's still being vastly underpaid compared to his market value. I agree he's WORTH the money he's asking for, based on production. But, if Theriot was an actual free agent this offseason, you think he would have commanded MUCH MORE than the 3.4 he's asking for? I'll give you the fact that at his age, he'd get a multi-year deal. Probably 3-4 years actually. But, with the market turn we've seen over the last couple of years, I doubt we'd see a team give him more than 3-4 mill per year honestly. That's hard to say. Pretty much everybody was signed before the downturn in contracts, signed a team-friendly long term contract to get some financial security, or is still under team control. The only FA SS who have signed recently have been Marco Scutaro (2 years/12.5 mil, 7.5 WAR over the last 3 years), Cristian Guzman (2 years/16 mil, 5.2 WAR), Edgar Renteria (2 years/18.5 mil, 6.1 WAR), and Rafael Furcal (3 years/30 mil, 6.6 WAR). Theriot has been worth 7.5 WAR in the last 3 years. That's not to say Theriot would get the same contract. It's worth noting that Coletti, Sabean, and Bowden are/were 3 of the dumbest GMs in the game. Then again, Theriot wouldn't have the same warts that all those guys have either... This is why Theriot still has trade value today as his 2010 season will be under market value whether he wins or loses the arb hearing. Given the expected bump next offseason, though, that value will be pretty much gone after this season is complete. Well, there's something to be said for getting a player who, at worst, would be getting a one year deal at market value. Still, I think we're in general agreement that we'd like to see Castro manning SS for us by the all-star break and Theriot getting moved to a team that had an injury and is desperate to overpay.

Nah, it comes down to that 12th man in the huddle. If not for that, it was an automatic run call for the next play and Longwell probably would have come through. Bingo Favre could have tucked it and run, picked up a few yards and gotten them back to where they likely would have been had they not had the penalty. He didn't have to try to force a throw like he did. But he wouldn't have had to make that questionable decision if it weren't for a significant mistake immediately prior. As the mistake that started the cascade of issues that lead to their defeat, you have to say the 12th man penalty was what the game really hinged on. As to the question of whether or not the time out call itself was a mistake, I have to think it wasn't. 50 yard field goals are still pretty long. I can understand the desire to use your 3rd down to try to improve your field position by a bit.

Nah, it comes down to that 12th man in the huddle. If not for that, it was an automatic run call for the next play and Longwell probably would have come through.

Money in the bank.

Who calls heads? Tails never fails, baby.

That doesn't really make up for the missed tackle earlier, but it's a good start on it.

Wooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, that only happens on dinky 20-40 yard kicks. 50 yarders are no problem.

Weak

I thought Peterson was about to lose that one too.

Not real

He hasn't logged much time in the OF the last couple years, but what information we do have suggests he would be far better defensively out there than Dye or Gomes. i don't believe that a guy who was never a good fielder to begin with and hasn't played much of that position can do an adequate job out there as he moves into his mid 30s. branyan is about 40 lbs heavier than he was earlier in his career and hasn't played corner OF in almost 4 years. he'd be awful. I didn't say he wouldn't be awful. I just said that it's likely he's not as bad as Dye or Gomes... both of whom are far beyond awful.

The OF will be Reimold, Jones, Markakis. IF will be Tejada at 3B, Izturis at SS, Roberts at 2B, and Atkins at 1B with Wieters catching and Luke Scott getting the majority of starts at DH. That leaves Wigginton to be the main infield backup and Pie as the main OF backup.

Based on what I've observed on this board it seems to be that the best line up is to simply put your best hitter in terms of OPS first and then go down the list from there. I was debating the actual validity of that claim. Where do you get that? Nobody is saying that's the absolute best lineup. It's just used as an illustrative example in showing how current lineup structure is flawed... of particular note are over reliance on speed at the top, as well as batting subpar players #2 for want of a guy who can "handle the bat" and bunt. I posted this earlier in the thread.