Rob

Did I miss something about how he was actually connected to steroids or is every fluke season by a guy this board doesn't like going to elicit a stupid response about steroids?

I couldn't care less if he looks impressive out there so long as he's getting it done.

Seems like everyone has jumped off the Soto bandwagon and forgotten about him. Soto is not going to be a #8 hitter for the rest of his career. I think he'll build on his 2008 season and put up some good numbers this year. And as Rob (I think?) pointed out, Soto and Fukudome were victims of some pretty lousy luck last year as well. Soto's year wasn't nearly as bad as his slash stats indicated. Yeah, that was me. Soto's luck was far worse than anybody elses, and we should have been looking at just about a repeat performance of 2008.

On the whole, our team was 16.7 runs below average in CF last season and 1 run below average in RF (that's despite Fukudome contributing 7.9 runs above average in RF). Even if you think Byrd is a -10 defender in CF and Fukudome is only +5 in right, that's a full win right then and there. And all available evidence points towards Byrd being an average defender and Fukudome being a +15 or so. That's about 3 wins... and there's no reason to change that downwards based on offensive performance (Fukudome, Bradley, and Byrd all had an identical wRC+ of 108, with little reason to expect significant dropoff from that number going forward). That's called improvement. Now whether the true talent level of the team is higher, that's certainly debatable. Expecting defensive adjustments in CF from Fukudome and an offensive rebound from Bradley might have easily given us the same improvement. But to say it's not improvement is being terribly dishonest or terribly ignorant, take your pick. Even if you don't trust UZR to be exact (and it isn't), the gap is simply too large to pretend otherwise. I don't put the same faith in those numbers that you do. Let's set aside the fact that Fukudome is a platoon player for the most part. Those numbers are mostly made up (not by you, but by the silly formula that is used) and don't equate to reality very well. There's simply no way that the defense in CF was that bad last year. And there is simply no way that moving Fukudome from CF to RF and replacing him with Byrd makes that much of a difference. You can trust the models, but I don't. Do you actually have any idea how the models come up with those numbers, or do you just not trust numbers in general? I'm especially interested to know if you realize how Dewan's +/- numbers are calculated, as they're largely in agreement with UZR and I don't think you'd have an easy time refuting them.

Great lineup. Still wondering if they are really gonna roll Martinez out there at C everyday. I guess when you have the money, you just sign the player no matter what. Man, baseball needs a cap. He'll probably DH when they face a lefty, but I imagine Youkilis gets the vast majority of starts at 1B... and if he has to fill in at 3B to cover a Beltre injury, you're probably looking at Kotchman getting the start more often than not. And I think you'd be shocked if you saw how little the Red Sox were actually paying. I know their payroll was actually lower than the Cubs last year at least.

On the whole, our team was 16.7 runs below average in CF last season and 1 run below average in RF (that's despite Fukudome contributing 7.9 runs above average in RF). Even if you think Byrd is a -10 defender in CF and Fukudome is only +5 in right, that's a full win right then and there. And all available evidence points towards Byrd being an average defender and Fukudome being a +15 or so. That's about 3 wins... and there's no reason to change that downwards based on offensive performance (Fukudome, Bradley, and Byrd all had an identical wRC+ of 108, with little reason to expect significant dropoff from that number going forward). That's called improvement. Now whether the true talent level of the team is higher, that's certainly debatable. Expecting defensive adjustments in CF from Fukudome and an offensive rebound from Bradley might have easily given us the same improvement. But to say it's not improvement is being terribly dishonest or terribly ignorant, take your pick. Even if you don't trust UZR to be exact (and it isn't), the gap is simply too large to pretend otherwise.

C - Martinez 1B - Youkilis 2B - Pedroia SS - Scutaro 3B - Beltre LF - Ellsbury CF - Cameron RF - Drew DH - Ortiz That's some serious defensive versatility and a pretty damn good offense. And with a bench containing Varitek, Kotchman, Lowrie, Lowell, and Hermida... A pitching staff with Beckett, Lackey, Lester, Matsuzaka, Buchholz and Wakefield to cycle in and out... not to mention Papelbon and Okajima to shut down games in the late innings. Talk about overpowered... The last few years, the Red Sox and Yankees have redefined what is expected of big market teams attempting to embark on a rebuilding process... the turnaround isn't 2-4 seasons anymore... it's maaaaybe one. I'll be real interested to see how our organization responds to the fact that the window is closing quickly on the team as it is currently constructed.

Park factors were never meant to be exact, and most satistics that adjust for park use 3/4/5 year splits. This argument is stupid.

USA Today's salary database. http://content.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/default.aspx I had to extract them one year at a time, but that was no biggie. Thank you. I hope you don't mind, but I took the exercise to its logical conclusion and calculated marginal payroll per marginal win for all 30 teams over that seven year span. (I only subtracted $65 mil from payrolls because the league minimum salary used to be a bit lower) Team mPay/mWin NY Yankees $3,187,708.68 NY Mets $2,653,616.93 Seattle $2,343,271.01 Detroit $2,131,146.89 Boston $2,115,821.57 Chicago Cubs $2,083,748.96 Baltimore $2,032,025.55 LA Dodgers $2,021,127.23 Atlanta $1,812,265.33 LA Angels $1,807,528.36 San Francisco $1,807,362.66 Houston $1,750,671.06 Chicago Sox $1,745,537.21 Philadelphia $1,721,229.02 St. Louis $1,613,370.36 Kansas City $1,612,677.30 Arizona $1,596,952.26 Cincinnati $1,571,711.55 Texas $1,506,534.09 Toronto $1,458,434.86 Washington $1,373,272.30 Colorado $1,361,277.14 San Diego $1,284,717.13 Milwaukee $1,260,474.12 Pittsburgh $1,226,321.84 Cleveland $1,201,639.26 Oakland $1,121,017.22 Minnesota $1,066,697.13 Tampa Bay $791,845.75 Florida $641,255.47 That's just the raw data, and it makes no effort to adjust for the fact that wins are worth much more to a team (and hence worth overpaying market value for) when they're in approximately the area the Cubs are (right on the verge of a playoff spot most years). Edit: I would like to draw everybody's attention to Minnesota, though. #6 in wins over that seven year span, and they manage it while being extremely cost effective.

I'm not suggesting to blow things up. Theriot is a complimentary piece, but is not core to the team in any way. If you can get value for him, I don't think the overall decline in production is that severe going to Blanco, Barney or some other stop gap option whether that is all year or until Castro is ready. I'd expect the difference between Theriot and his likely replacement to be about one win by the all star break, two wins all season. Does that make him a core piece? No. But it could certainly make a difference in a pennant chase should we find ourselves in position to make a run at it. If we're trying to squeeze the most out of our roster this season (as should always be the goal until we find ourselves not worrying about whether or not we make the playoffs), holding onto Theriot for just a bit longer seems like a good idea.

I'm not opposed to trading Theriot, but the timing is still a bit off. This team as constructed can still compete in the NL Central. Now, its obvious that the core is aging and we're getting ready to go through a changing of the guard, so I wouldn't exactly commit multiple years to marginal guys in an attempt to go for it one last time. But we can certainly wait until closer to the deadline to see if our guys cant force the issue on us. And who knows what might be available then? And of course, if our team isn't in contention at that point, I wouldn't be opposed to moving many of our pieces. DLee, Aramis, Lilly and Theriot could reap a small fortune of prospects. But that's then and this is now... and right now, I'm not ready to fold on the 2010 season yet. Starting to dismantle this team early just doesn't seem to be the prudent course of action.

Back to a previous conversation, davearm, where did you find payroll figures for all teams the last 7 years?

I'm sorry, but this is pretty useless. What you would need to do is calculate marginal payroll (actual payroll minus league minimum times 25) over marginal wins (actual wins minus how many games a replacement level team would win [depending on the definition, usually between 30-50 games... probably on the higher side of that now that BP has adjusted their silly idea of replacement level fielding.]). And for what it's worth, the last few studies I've seen done like that had the Cubs in last or next to last.

Five years ago, you could still believe in wins as a stat and simply be considered behind the times. But if you don't have some sort of evidence that you were in a coma, monastary, or frozen Encino Man style, we have to assume that you're choosing to remain ignorant rather than attempt intelligent conversation. Stop wasting our time. Sorry, Rob. But you and your confused ilk have yet to provide any stat that is more important than wins for a starting pitcher, especially one that is paid over $18 million a year. What's more important WHIP? :wink: Other stats have importance but not to the degree of wins. Your expectations seem quite low and indicative of your understanding. I posted this exchange last time you came in here espousing outdated philosophies. Agreed judging pitchers value by season-season wins is going to give you very mixed results on how good a pitcher actually is. However I do think wins can be used, to a point, for judging the value/effectiveness of a pitcher over a whole career. Along with all the other things like whip, era+, k/9, h/9, etc. No, you can't. The assumption that Wins might mean something in the long run is based on the idea that a pitcher is likely to be on an equal number of bad teams and good teams. Careers just aren't long enough to make that assumption, especially considering how long a team has control over a player when they break into the league. There are numerous, better metrics to use in evaluating a player. I'd barely even bother to gloss over wins when trying to judge a player's worth.

Five years ago, you could still believe in wins as a stat and simply be considered behind the times. But if you don't have some sort of evidence that you were in a coma, monastary, or frozen Encino Man style, we have to assume that you're choosing to remain ignorant rather than attempt intelligent conversation. Stop wasting our time.

The Yankees wont offer anything of real worth besides financial relief and a junk piece like Cabrera and there isn't anywhere on the market we could spend that extra money to cover the loss in production. They wont trade Cano. They wont trade Joba. They wont trade Montero. Yeah, on the surface if they offered Hughes and Gardner plus taking on the whole contract, we'd probably be coming out ahead in the deal. But we're right around the tipping point of really competing versus not, and losing that marginal production Zambrano gives us over what those two would provide simply makes any deal not worth it... not unless they're willing to give up more than we'd expect.

good lord, who would take him? Any chance Bavasi can get a job before the season starts? The way our offseason is going, he may very well end up the Cubs GM.

Nyjer Morgan was excellent last season, but I just don't see him as having enough power to keep pitchers honest and keep that walk rate up.

In all honesty, with the way Theriot has reacted compared to the way the rest of the Cubs clubhouse has, I'm starting to wonder if Theriot isn't a pretty big dick.

Illegal behavior is just that. Teammates actually forgive that, also. Heck, Michael Vick kills puppies and he's still playing pro sports. The question is how is anything Milton said or did this year affecting the play of his teammates? No, the question is how would committing a crime affect the play of his teammates? Who ever said that it would?

I'd rather go with Fuld than Colvin for now.

3/17

Sure, if he killed somebody, or raped a chick or something like that I would strongly advise not bringing him back to the team. Why that's not going to make his teammates hit any worse or forget how to catch the ball etc etc so who cares what he does off the field. Right? Personally, I've been pretty consistent in saying that I draw the line at breaking the law. DUIs, wife beating, PED using, etc... Last I checked, being a dick wasn't illegal.

This was an awful deal, there's no doubt about it. Hendry manufactured Bradley's low trade value and refused to just hold onto him. But just so people have a better idea of what they're looking at, here's Silva's xFIP the last few years. 3.94, 4.81, 4.57, 4.64, 5.53 Now nobody is gonna mistake Silva for a decent pitcher; he isn't. But aside from last year, he's been relatively healthy in his career. I wouldn't be surprised to see some Jason Marquis type value out of Silva...

Sorry man, but "we" the fans are not to blame. There were small pockets of idiot fans who contributed to the problem, but I sure as heck didn't participate, and the vast majority of people I saw in Wrigley in the 2 games I attended immediately following that meltdown weren't participating either. Are you really trying to argue semantics? And your vast majority is different from everybody else I've talked to.