Jump to content
Can the Cubs recover from yesterday's disaster? Come join our game thread! ×
North Side Baseball

Rob

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    15,267

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    13

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

2026 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by Rob

  1. Rob
    Why? It's not like we booed a good player to the point he had to be traded for an awful pitcher with an awful contract.
  2. Rob
    I sure hope the idiots who spent all of last season booing Bradley and exacerbating the issue are happy with this move. Not that moving Bradley was in any way the right move, but I honest to god would have just cut him and ate the money owed before I let Carlos Silva pitch an inning for us.
  3. Rob
    The DH rule does take some strategy out of the game, and I'd prefer if it is never adopted in the NL. However, the quality of play absolutely goes up when pitchers aren't hitting, and guys who can really hit but cant field have a way to play the game. Not to mention DH's get paid like starters, and the pitchers don't get paid half their salary because they aren't hitting, so the Union will never ever allow the DH to be removed without some major concession which are likely to change the game just as much. It's here to stay. Deal.
  4. Rob
    Isn't Wrigley on the National Registry of Historic Places or something? As such, you cannot tear it down. The footprint of Wrigley is too small for a modern park anyways. The Marquee and the Scoreboard are protected, I'm not sure that anything else is.
  5. Rob
    I still think it's silly to focus on leadoff as though it were a position, but Crawford would be somebody worth going after in the offseason. He's two years older than Ellsbury, but is pretty much better across the board and would only cost money.
  6. Rob
    Ellsbury's baserunning was worth about 5.6 runs last year, total. 7.5 runs year before last. His total offensive contributions (batting and baserunning) are in Kosuke territory, given about the same amount of PA. And last year at least, UZR had him as one of the worst defensive CF in baseball (along with Kosuke, Fowler, and Wells) How many of our top prospects would you give up for another Kosuke? But, wouldn't you expect Ellsbury to still get better, given his age? Add in his cost factor and I think he'd be a very welcome addition, especially given our payroll situation. That said, I don't see us going after him, nor San Diego wanting to part with him, IF they even acquire him. He's 26, so he's just entering his prime. Still, his swing and body aren't exactly conducive to adding a bunch of power and from what I've seen, it seems the big green monster is responsible for a nice chunk of his doubles power already. So do I see him getting better? No, not significantly. Ellsbury is a nice little player, I'm not trying to deny him that. However, the marginal value that he provides over somebody like Fuld simply isn't worth the cost in prospects it would take to acquire him. In all likelihood the Cubs would be best served to hold onto those trade chips and wait til midseason to see if a better player doesn't become available.
  7. Rob
    Ellsbury's baserunning was worth about 5.6 runs last year, total. 7.5 runs year before last. His total offensive contributions (batting and baserunning) are in Kosuke territory, given about the same amount of PA. And last year at least, UZR had him as one of the worst defensive CF in baseball (along with Kosuke, Fowler, and Wells) How many of our top prospects would you give up for another Kosuke?
  8. Rob
    Jury's still out on Ellsbury's defense. UZR and PMR agree he was pretty good in 2008, and UZR has him as poor this past year. The Fan's Scouting Report rates him at least average the last two years. Anyone know how +/- sees him? Even if he's not a plus defender, he still has plenty of value. A .750-.775 OPS with 60 steals at a great percentage is plenty valuable, and if his defense is average then he's nearly a 4 win player going forward. Most of his defensive value in 2008 came from the fact that he was primarily playing the corner OF spots, not CF.
  9. Rob
    Is he really that much better than Fuld that you'd consider giving up much for him?
  10. Rob
    Lackey is an excellent #2 who has still eaten a lot of innings even when he's been injured the last two seasons.
  11. Rob
    Byrd would probably be a tick above average with the bat playing for us, and perhaps a tick below average defensively (although that's harder to determine with his limited playing time and numbers being all over the place). Any way you want to cut it, he should be pretty close to average.
  12. Rob
    That's all sorts of backwards... Blue Jays trade Taylor to the A's for Wallace Wow... my brain went all farty.
  13. Rob
    He might be worth it, but it's hard to say. He's really sucked in most of his recent years and that was during what should have been his peak. He's already 32 and will be 34 by the end of the deal. He has no upside, but his he could have a really low downside. Short deals with little financial commitment cant have a really low downside. If he pulls a hamstring, cut him. That four million a season isn't going to break the White Sox payroll. It may require KW to get a bit creative and backload a contract, but it shouldn't impact them in any real direct fashion. Again, not saying the move was a good one. Just saying that it wasn't bad enough to justify some of the responses I've seen so far. Sure if they cut him that solves the problem, but I disagree that 2/8 can't have really low downside. First off, it's real money that eats into the budget, and second, managers have a bad habit of letting certain types of really bad players keep playing despite being awful. If he gets a lot of playing time and plays as poorly as he is capable, that could really hurt his team. That's the downside of the manager, not the player.
  14. Rob
    He might be worth it, but it's hard to say. He's really sucked in most of his recent years and that was during what should have been his peak. He's already 32 and will be 34 by the end of the deal. He has no upside, but his he could have a really low downside. Short deals with little financial commitment cant have a really low downside. If he pulls a hamstring, cut him. That four million a season isn't going to break the White Sox payroll. It may require KW to get a bit creative and backload a contract, but it shouldn't impact them in any real direct fashion. Again, not saying the move was a good one. Just saying that it wasn't bad enough to justify some of the responses I've seen so far.
  15. Rob
    Let me guess... because you heard Rob say that earlier in this thread? In fact I believe those were his exact words. Hey now, I fully support anybody who is willing to buy into my opinions and spit them back out verbatim at others. It saves me the effort of having to type them up more often.
  16. Rob
    Pierre is probably worth what the White Sox will be paying him over the next two seasons. That's not to say acquiring him was a particularly inspired move, as they'd have been better served to grab somebody with upside... but still, he's likely to be worth three or four mil.
  17. Rob
    Don't forget that the M's are trading Taylor to the Blue Jays for Wallace.
  18. Rob
    Adding to that... Harden was our best pitcher last year. However, he didn't get anywhere near the best results. Replacing his production from last season shouldn't be so terribly difficult. Likewise for Bradley. Provided we don't make any more moves (aside from Bradley for a PTBNL), I'd expect us to win about as many games as we did last season despite replacing Bradley with Fuld and Harden with Gorzelanny/Marshall/Samardzija/Diamond. Seeing what's on the market at this point, I'd start to seriously consider standing pat. We do have prospects close to the majors and the necessary trade chips to make a bigger splash at the deadline, similar to how the Cards started off last season. Can someone help me to understand where this "Harden was our best pitcher last year" thought process is coming from? xFIP Based on his peripherals, you'd have expected him to have had the best results. He had some bad luck and a very flukey HR/FB rate.
  19. Rob
    No offense taken, I didn't cite a source... though I would think I'm quickly approaching the territory where people should start trusting my statements at face value. He's taken a few opportunities to rip into intelligent thought ever since the 1995 biography Second to Home. I'd cite passages for you, but I left the book at my parents house. Normally I'd give the man the benefit of the doubt when a book was written 14 years ago and assume he might have gotten smarter. But his HoF induction speech, Yahoo articles, etc... seem to paint a pretty clear picture that he still doesn't buy into analytical baseball. He's still about playing the game "the right way," which includes bunting like there's no tomorrow. Oh, and except for last season where he managed at AA, he'd had a DH in the previous two years. Those bunting numbers would likely have been higher if he had the pitcher batting.
  20. Rob
    Adding to that... Harden was our best pitcher last year. However, he didn't get anywhere near the best results. Replacing his production from last season shouldn't be so terribly difficult. Likewise for Bradley. Provided we don't make any more moves (aside from Bradley for a PTBNL), I'd expect us to win about as many games as we did last season despite replacing Bradley with Fuld and Harden with Gorzelanny/Marshall/Samardzija/Diamond. Seeing what's on the market at this point, I'd start to seriously consider standing pat. We do have prospects close to the majors and the necessary trade chips to make a bigger splash at the deadline, similar to how the Cards started off last season.
  21. Rob
    I was thinking John Rocker or Jose Canseco, personally.
  22. Rob
    The trick is you'd have to have somebody whom the public despises more than Bradley. Otherwise, you're just rallying them against Bradley again.
  23. Rob
    Rebounds from Soriano and Soto alone could be enough to get us into the playoffs, and that's to say nothing of potential contributions from some young guys we have reaching the upper minors like Castro, Cashner, Gaub, Jay Jackson, etc...
  24. Rob
    Not a good deal, not a bad deal. Provided he doesn't completely fall off a cliff, he should provide a bit more value that what they're paying him.
  25. Rob
    Also, 2 year for 15.5 mil is an absolute steal for Cameron.
×
×
  • Create New...