Rob

In no way is this meant as a defense of the Aaron Miles signing. I was just as mortified as the rest of you to learn he'd be getting paid like he is. However, strange things can happen in 170 PA. LD% and BABIP year by year: 2004 - 18.1%, .313 2005 - 23.1%, .312 2006 - 20.1%, .286 2007 - 17.9%, .313 2008 - 21.0%, .342 2009 - 20.0%, .213 It's pretty obvious he ran into ridiculous amount of bad luck. It looks like he missed out on about 16 hits, which is just an absurdly high number for his 170 PA. With neutral luck, his line looks like .277/.312/.370. Is that good? No. But it's in line with reasonable preseason predictions and his career numbers. It's about what I'd expect out of him next season.

Branyan's .297 EqA would have put him behind only DLee and Aramis on the Cubs (at .319 and .303 respectively). It boggles the mind that he can't get consistent playing time anywhere... Yeah, I'm still bitter about how many times we've passed on him as a bench player. He'd have been a perfect fit for our team.

We could be worse is nonsense? Give me a [expletive] break. I guess I'm just more concerned with who IS our GM rather than who ISNT. If Ricketts loves Bill Bavasi or Jim Bowden or Steve Freaking Stone, I couldn't give a [expletive] whether or not Hendry deserves to keep his job (he doesn't). I want the Cubs to be in the best possible situation next year... and there's a very large amount of GM candidates on the market who would be actively taking this team a step backwards. And I think that's a pretty pathetic way of looking at things. They could be a heck of a lot better, and I'd like to see them do so. Hendry epitomizes mediocrity and I don't see why we should stick with that out of fear of failure. Where did I say stick with Hendry? I'm saying if we think we can get a White, Antonetti, Towers, DePodesta, Ng, one of Theo's boys out in Boston, etc... I'm all for firing Hendry. I'm not scared of giving some of those guys their shot. But there's work to be done beforehand. You call up the parent organizations and ask for permission to interview. You put out a feeler to Towers. You don't just fire Hendry and then start doing those things. That's how you end up [expletive] outta luck and find out your best option to replace Hendry is promoting Randy Bush or hiring Jim Bowden.

We could be worse is nonsense? Give me a [expletive] break. I guess I'm just more concerned with who IS our GM rather than who ISNT. If Ricketts loves Bill Bavasi or Jim Bowden or Steve Freaking Stone, I couldn't give a [expletive] whether or not Hendry deserves to keep his job (he doesn't). I want the Cubs to be in the best possible situation next year... and there's a very large amount of GM candidates on the market who would be actively taking this team a step backwards.

In other words, I don't want to make an excuse, but here's an excuse for you, and it's not even valid since the payroll went up during the sale process. The only thing the sale did was slow the rate at which Hendry could increase his throwing of good money after bad. He's the one who tied up all that cash longterm. Don't go whining about the sale and things being more difficult this year. You had a crap ton of financial resources and you blew it. Coletti, Bavasi, and Minaya. No one could possibly want any of those clowns running the team, yet some defend Hendry, who doles out bad contracts just as freely. I haven't seen a single person here defend Hendry in months. On occasion myself or others may point out that firing him may actually make the situation worse if we don't followup correctly, but that's hardly a defense of him.

I'm admittedly not a big statistician (though I like following some of the SABR stats), so 35 runs surrendered defensively just seems like an incredible number to give up. It may be accurate, it just seems really, really high. It's not a real number. It's a number in comparison to the mythical average player. It says he was pretty bad, I don't think it has any worth in quantifying just how bad to an exact degree. Also, UZR sucks and it sucks the worst for outfielders. So in conclusion, I wouldn't put much of anything in using the number for an argument. We all know Dunn is a pretty bad defender, I don't think anyone can tell how bad in relation to most of the league. Oh, this is gonna be interesting... Tell me, oh wise one. What exactly is mythical about average? I can understand having qualms with replacement level, but average? Also, why do you feel UZR sucks. And is there any reason you find it to be especially bad for outfielders (aside from the obvious, less chances = more yearly variation thing)?

He was at -28 runs last year, and that was (mostly) without adjusting to a new ballpark and a new position. Maybe UZR isn't giving him a fair shake, but from the admittedly low number of Nats games I saw (20-25), 35 runs doesn't seem far off the mark.

If somebody wants to get a start on the 2010 thread.... We have the following players under contract for the 2010 season (Signing bonuses prorated): Alfonso Soriano - $19,000,000 Carlos Zambrano - $18,875,000 Aramis Ramirez - $16,750,000 Kosuke Fukudome - $14,000,000 Ryan Demptster - $13,500,000 Derrek Lee - $13,000,000 Ted Lilly - $13,000,000 Milton Bradley - $10,333,333 Jeff Samardzija - $2,000,000 Subtotal - $120,458,333 We are also on the hook for Luis Vizcaino's $500,000 buyout for 2010 and $1,000,000 of Aaron Miles contract. Total - $121,958,333 Edited to reflect the Aaron Miles trade. Still waiting on contract details for Grabow.

Adam Dunn cost the Nats over 35 runs on defense this year (a feat he managed playing mostly LF and 1B) and his net contribution to the team was worth $5.4 million dollars. For anybody who doesn't remember, that's exactly how much Bradley was worth this season.

Just out of curiosity, what is it about Fredi that makes him so appealing to you? Him coming out of the Braves organization (and from coaching under Bobby Cox) had me somewhat interested when we hired Lou, but are you more familiar with him? He's half Bobby Cox - half sabermetrics. He's the guy I originally wanted to hire when we opted to go with Lou instead.

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I guess I also forgot about the time Aramis tried to kill himself by landing on his shoulder awkwardly.

If so, it's likely a significant mistake on the part of our front office. And I see no reason not to continually remind everybody of that. Our #1 best option right now is to keep Milton Bradley. There's no way around it. Using production as a standard, Milton Bradley is the best of all the ugly options. From a public relations perspective, keeping Bradley is the worst option. I can't imagine a new owner, that just invested nearly a billion dollars, wants a nutcase who "goes off" about the city, the fans, the front office, his teammates, umpires, etc. on a daily basis. I think we all agree that it was a mistake for Hendry to sign Bradley in the first place, but the only option appears to be making the best out of a bad situation by trading him. From a public relations perspective, any new owner is going to want a winning ballclub. Guess what the best way to get that is. I'm getting sick and tired of people arguing that there is a good business reason to get rid of Bradley. Given our payroll constraints, there really isn't one that stands up against the all-trumping "he helps us win." Oh, and I absolutely don't agree that it was a mistake to sign Bradley. Am I disappointed with the way it's turned out? Sure. But we can only judge the decision based on the information available at the time. And at that time, of the available options, he was the best bet going forward... You could make an argument for Abreu if you somehow knew he was only gonna get $5 mil, but absolutely nobody knew that. I guess we'll have to disagree about the public relations situation. Since the season was unsuccessful, something has to change (besides firing Joshua). Since Bradley is public enemy #1, he's the obvious choice to go. I still maintain a healthy year by Soriano, Ramirez, Soto, etc. will go a long way to solving the Cubs' woes, but coming back with the same lineup isn't going to excite the fans. I don't think Hendry realized the negative impact that Bradley would have on everyone concerned. Also, I guess there's no way to statistically prove it, but I do think all of the anger and negativity by Bradley will balance out a lot of whatever production he adds on the field. I don't think Hendry realized the positive impact that Bradley would have on everyone concerned. I do think all of the anger and negativity by Bradley added a lot of value in addition to whatever production he added on the field. 's advocate> Both your opinion and the one above have exactly the same amount of validity. Exactly. The. Same. There is nothing, absolutely jack diddly to even suggest that happy ballplayers produce better than pissed off ones.

If he leaves the system, this is a HUGE misstep.

If so, it's likely a significant mistake on the part of our front office. And I see no reason not to continually remind everybody of that. Our #1 best option right now is to keep Milton Bradley. There's no way around it. Using production as a standard, Milton Bradley is the best of all the ugly options. From a public relations perspective, keeping Bradley is the worst option. I can't imagine a new owner, that just invested nearly a billion dollars, wants a nutcase who "goes off" about the city, the fans, the front office, his teammates, umpires, etc. on a daily basis. I think we all agree that it was a mistake for Hendry to sign Bradley in the first place, but the only option appears to be making the best out of a bad situation by trading him. From a public relations perspective, any new owner is going to want a winning ballclub. Guess what the best way to get that is. I'm getting sick and tired of people arguing that there is a good business reason to get rid of Bradley. Given our payroll constraints, there really isn't one that stands up against the all-trumping "he helps us win." Oh, and I absolutely don't agree that it was a mistake to sign Bradley. Am I disappointed with the way it's turned out? Sure. But we can only judge the decision based on the information available at the time. And at that time, of the available options, he was the best bet going forward... You could make an argument for Abreu if you somehow knew he was only gonna get $5 mil, but absolutely nobody knew that.

If so, it's likely a significant mistake on the part of our front office. And I see no reason not to continually remind everybody of that. Our #1 best option right now is to keep Milton Bradley. There's no way around it.

Really? Towers? Best on the market? No. But we aren't guaranteed to be allowed to talk to White, Antonetti, Ng, DePo, and other random people still employed. The catch is simply that Towers is definitely available, and I'd rather have him than Hendry.

Rumor has Tim Wilken up for the GM job in Toronto.

With Towers getting the boot from San Diego, now we can go ahead and fire Hendry. There's a suitable replacement guaranteed to be available.

Okay, now we fire Hendry. Towers would be an amazing replacement.

Hawpe is no worse defensively then the lot the Cubs have trotted out there recently. Sosa (the latter years), Hollandsworth, Grieve, Burnitz, Bradley, etc, etc, etc. The only remotely close to good defensively RF the Cubs have had is now playing CF. Hawpe is pretty clearly worse than all of those guys except maybe Grieve who played roughly 4 innings in RF for us. Perhaps, but consider where he has had to play defensively? In his career he has had to play in some of the games biggest OFers. Not saying it's an excuse, but perhaps playing at a smaller OF can help hide his defensive inability. It's possible it could do him some good. But UZR is already park adjusted. Hawpe is simply far too terrible a defender to justify looking at. In all likelihood, we would be considerably better off having Fuld play every day... if Hawpe isn't a viable alternative to Fuld, I'd have a hard time believing we should move Bradley to make room for him. Let's move on, shall we?

I know you must have seen one of the million posts clarifying that that was never really the proposed deal. The Cubs wanted Tejada and Bedard for Prior. The Orioles wanted Prior and Pie for Tejada.

Hawpe is no worse defensively then the lot the Cubs have trotted out there recently. Sosa (the latter years), Hollandsworth, Grieve, Burnitz, Bradley, etc, etc, etc. The only remotely close to good defensively RF the Cubs have had is now playing CF. Hawpe's UZR/150 the last 3 years: -27.2, -46.6(!!!), -20.0 Bradley's UZR/150 this year: -4.1 I'd show Bradley's numbers in previous seasons (which all rank as slightly above average), but there's a sample size issue. Regardless, Bradley floats right around average defensively... whereas Hawpe has put up some of the most disgusting outfield seasons in recent history. Factoring in their defense this year, Bradley's production was worth $5.4 million. Hawpe was worth $5.6 million, having juuuust pulled ahead in recent days. Let's break this down. Bradley has been injured, vastly underperformed expectations, and was suspended for the last month of the season. And yet his value is nearly indistinguishable from a man who played in 143 games and hit for an OPS of .898. What possible reason is there to give up valuable trade chips for a player who will give us the exact same production we got in a down year from a guy we already have under contract for two years?

Unless we won, in which case he absolutely would have taken credit. Does the loss reflect poorly on him? Absolutely... though how poorly is up for debate. Personally, I see it as a drop in the bucket compared to how badly he's made himself look failing to get his health care through.

Why on god's green earth would we want Brad Hawpe? Milton Bradley was more valuable this season... and he's got a very good chance to recover much of his power stroke next season and widen the gap even further.