Rob

It's not that hard to explain. LD% - 20.6 BABIP - .255

It's not. I just like watching a stats guy defend someone with a negative VORP that is being paid 5 million+ It's not that hard. Everything that made him a good risk before this season is still there... it's just somewhat less likely to manifest after last year.

I kinda like Stephen Drew for next year.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a 280/350/330 line put him somewhere pretty close to replacement level? For a SS? That seems high.

Keep trying to console yourself. It's not going to change the fact that he's probably going to be the best shortstop in the division immediately, if not the entire league. Now that's probably an overstatement. Busch 3 isn't the death sentence for extreme flyball hitters that petco is, but it doesn't seem that far behind.

And lets remember, MVPs, All Stars, Gold Gloves... all these "honors" mean jack squat, as rarely as the writers and fans get stuff right.

Lee is not going to waive his NT to a team that might contend... If he moves, it'll be to a team that's certainly contending next season. I'm just as likely to play 1B for the Giants next season as he is.

Raines has 63 points of OBP on Dawson. Dawson has 57 points of slugging on Raines. But since we know OBP > SLUG, that works out easily in Raines' favor. Add in that he stole an extra 497 bases while only getting caught an additional 37 times... Yeah, Dawson probably has a defensive edge early in his career, but his knees were so shot at the end of his career his overall defensive value was right around league average... same as Raines.

The extra 750 walks probably has something to do with it.

Do me a favor and look up Jeter's numbers and compare them to any other SS in the HOF. Based on stats alone Bill James has his chances of getting in the HOF at greater than 100% (as only James can). Jeter is a first ballot HOFer. Mattingly is borderline but defiantly should get consideration. He's the Mark Grace of the 1980s. FYI, the Bill James metrics used for HoF evaluations are meant to measure whether they are likely to get voted in... not whether they are worthy of it. Maybe so, but James has him ranked as the 53 best offensive player of all time. Oh, I'm not arguing his worth. He's probably already HoF worthy.

Do me a favor and look up Jeter's numbers and compare them to any other SS in the HOF. Based on stats alone Bill James has his chances of getting in the HOF at greater than 100% (as only James can). Jeter is a first ballot HOFer. Mattingly is borderline but defiantly should get consideration. He's the Mark Grace of the 1980s. FYI, the Bill James metrics used for HoF evaluations are meant to measure whether they are likely to get voted in... not whether they are worthy of it.

He's got a higher WARP3 than Jim Rice... then again, who doesn't? lol, awesome No, seriously. Career WARP3 values Rickey Henderson - 189.8 Bert Blyleven - 147.7 Tim Raines - 131.1 Alan Trammell - 127.1 Mark McGwire - 109.8 Andre Dawson - 107.5 Tommy John - 103.8 Harold Baines - 98.6 David Cone - 94.2 Matt Williams - 91.2 Jay Bell - 88.8 Dale Murphy - 86.4 Mark Grace - 86.2 Lee Smith - 85.5 Jack Morris - 85.0 Dave Parker - 84.6 Don Mattingly - 84.3 Jim Rice - 80.2 Greg Vaughn - 65.3 Ron Gant - 62.9 Mo Vaughn - 61.2 Jesse Orosco - 60.9 Dan Plesac - 52.5 Obviously, there are arguments for peak vs. longevity and all that... but Jim Rice belongs nowhere near a HoF conversation.

He wasn't my favorite, but he seems like a genuinely good guy. I wish him the best of luck.

He's got a higher WARP3 than Jim Rice... then again, who doesn't?

We claimed Brad Snyder off waivers... doesn't that count for something?

Here's my personal list... (based on absolutely nothing) 1. Josh Vitters 2. Jeff Samardzija 3. Hak-ju Lee 4. Andrew Cashner 5. Wellington Castillo 6. Jay Jackson 7. Dae-Eun Rhee 8. Ryan Flaherty 9. Micah Hoffpauir 10. Tyler Colvin 11. Chris Carpenter 12. Junior Lake 13. Aaron Schafer 14. Starlin Castro 15. Dan McDaniel 16. Brandon Guyer 17. Matt Cerda 18. Esmalin Caridad 19. Donald Veal 20. Larry Suarez 21. Tony Thomas 22. Mitch Atkins 23. Marwin Gonzalez 24. Drew Rundle 25. Hung-Wen Chen 26. Dylan Johnston 27. Alex Maestri 28. Jovan Rosa 29. Marquez Smith 30. Roberto Hernandez Other guys I'm keeping my eye on - Chris Huseby, Kyler Burke

I remember Vlad only getting 5/70 guaranteed because he hit the market at the wrong time. Most other years he woulda been a 100 mil+ guy.

I misspoke. Gregg is likely to be a Type A regardless... but that is much less likely to be an issue for other teams if he has a "proven closer" tag attached in FA. Middle relievers aren't generally worth giving up extra draft picks for... some GMs feel that closer are, however.

So, this leads me to two possible conclusions about why Hendry declined arbitration. 1) He thinks he can re-sign Wood. 2) Teams are declining arbitration in order to keep their budgets down, as more draft picks require more money to be spent and someone accepting arbitration could result in the team paying more money than expected. Does anyone know about this rule change, by the way? It was a minor tweak in the most recent CBA. It used to be that declining to offer a player arbitration meant that they couldn't resign with their original team until May 1st (IIRC). Negotiations were essentially limited to a month after the season if you wanted to keep a player who was becoming a FA. They did away with that part of it... So yeah, we can still negotiate with Wood. But if we were really intending to do that, we would have offered him arbitration. That's not to say that we wont negotiate with Wood... but something drastic would have to happen, like Woody deciding he wants to play here for free, or Marmol shooting himself in the leg, Plaxico Burress style.

Henderson McGwire Raines Blyleven Trammell Those five unequivocally deserve to get in. I go back and forth on Dawson... he's right on the edge. Grace is a half step behind, and probably deserves an inner circle spot in the Hall of Very Good. Lee Smith shouldn't get into the HoF without paying for admission.

Taking contract details into account, I'd definitely rather have (in no particular order): Hanley Ramirez Jose Reyes Jimmy Rollins Alexei Ramirez Jhonny Peralta Yunel Escobar JJ Hardy Rafael Furcal Stephen Drew Troy Tulowitzki Jed Lowrie Brandon Wood And if we took out contract considerations, we could add to the list: Derek Jeter Michael Young Miguel Tejada Khalil Greene And then there's quite a few people that Theriot would be in a close group with... including Ronny Cedeno (whom I still believe is the better player of the two)

I still don't understand this board's fascination with guys like Dunn, Ibanez and Abreu in RF. For the price, I'd rather run Pie out in CF and Fukudome out in RF. I love offense as much as the next guy, but the available guys to "play" RF are absolute butchers out there... consistently among the most terrible fielders in the game. Pie ranks as one of the top defensive CF... the difference between him and those guys actually should get pretty close to covering for the bat, at a mere fraction of the price.

I understand the decision to let Woody walk... the argument that spending that kind of money on a closer is an incorrect allocation of limited resources is probably a valid one, sentimentality aside. Forgoing the potential compensatory draft picks is a mistake on Hendry's fault, though... and just one of many mistakes he's made this offseason. Dempster's contract was a HUGE gamble, and we probably would have been better served to just let him walk and pocket the draft picks. And the budget room he's sucking up is apparently pretty important too. And the handling of the Ceda/Gregg/Marmol thing has been pretty ridiculous too. The trade would actually make a bit of sense if the plan was for the Cubs to use Gregg as the closer so he's a Type A after this season, and then let him walk and pocket a couple high draft picks. It'd be trading Ceda and a few mil for a couple high draft picks, essentially. If we'd become less enamored with Ceda, that's certainly defensible. But no... we trade Ceda for a guy who is no sure bet to be any better than him this year, to say nothing of the price difference (which certainly comes into play). And then to top it off, Lou pretty much names Marmol his closer which means we'll be getting nothing for Gregg after this season, barring something unexpected. That'll jack up Marmol's price in arby even higher, too. It's no wonder our farm system is quickly becoming a laughing stock... Hendry is completely bungling the process of infusing the system with high level talent.

Absurd.

unless he has figured out how to throw strikes consistently, i don't know how you can be so sure about that. You don't need control to be a LOOGY... just a slider.