Rob

Relievers don't have all that much control over their triple slash stats. Look at Brad Lidge... his peripherals stayed pretty constant, but luck has made his numbers jump all over the place. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/stats/players/index.php?lastName=lidge

Urge to kill... rising...

Fair enough.

I didn't think GB rate took that many innings to stabilize, generally.

I'd feel a more comfortable if I could figure out whether Gregg is a groundball guy or a flyball guy, but his tendencies jump all over the place. GB% 2004 - 42.5% 2005 - 48.0% 2006 - 35.7% 2007 - 29.0% 2008 - 44.8%

Kevin Gregg nets us draft picks if he closes for us and closes well. Carlos Marmol can be more effective for us if he isn't closing. That's as far as I need to think about it.

I'd imagine he splits the difference pretty well. The numbers last year looked kinda flukey, but he did lose a tick off his fastball and his slider isn't good enough to cover that up. FLUKEY?!? Every other ball he threw ended up on waveland. Exactly. Pitched Ball Data FB 2006 - 82.8% (92.8 mph) 2007 - 86.2% (92.3 mph) 2008 - 74.8% (91.2 mph) SL 2006 - 14.7% (84.2 mph) 2007 - 9.7% (84.4 mph) 2008 - 23.1% (83.3 mph) Batted Ball Data K/9 2006 - 8.8 2007 - 8.3 2008 - 7.4 BB/9 2006 - 2.1 2007 - 2.2 2008 - 1.6 LD% 2006 - 18.0% 2007 - 19.7% 2008 - 17.9% GB% 2006 - 37.8% 2007 - 32.4% 2008 - 34.9% IF/F 2006 - 13.5% 2007 - 14.0% 2008 - 11.7% HR/F 2006 - 9.1% 2007 - 8.0% 2008 - 12.3% DER 2006 - .712 2007 - .711 2008 - .656 Here's the conclusions we can draw pretty safely. 1.) He lost a tick off his fastball, and that probably accounts for the slightly reduced strikeout rate. 2.) The defense behind him fielded 8% fewer of the balls put in play behind him than they usually did. 3.) He threw the slider way more than he had in the past. There's not really anything to account for that dramatic difference in his HF/F numbers though. You're pretty likely to see a regression there. Maybe not all the way, but it wont stay that high as long as the rest of his numbers are pretty stable.

Also important to note... Gregg needs to be our closer to potentially net us 2 draft picks. Sure he may still qualify as a Type A if he doesn't close, but no other team will be willing to sign a non-closing reliever that will cost them a first or second round draft pick.

They're non-tendering Wuertz.

That doesn't sound like Jim Hendry at all.

We just traded one of our top prospects for somebody who's no better or worse than Michael Wuertz.

He's a minor league free agent as of Nov. 6th, along with the rest of this crew. Chicago Cubs (15) RHP: Mike Burns (AAA), Hector Carrasco (AAA), Adam Harben (AAA), Billy Petrick (AAA) LHP: Carmen Pignatiello (AAA), Jason Stanford (AAA) 1B: Matt Craig (AAA) 2B: Robinson Chirinos (Hi A), Bobby Scales (AAA) SS: Andres Blanco (AAA), Luis Figueroa (AAA) OF: Doug Deeds (AA), Jason Dubois (AAA), Josh Kroeger (AAA), Andres Torres (AAA) The only ones I'm likely to miss at all are Petrick, Pignatiello, Craig, and Kroeger... though I might miss Harben and Dubois just because I had such high hopes for them.

:confused:

You're a brave, brave man sticking your neck out on the line like this, Raisin.

So now that Raisin is vouching for Donnie, we get to blame him if this falls through, right?

I'd imagine he splits the difference pretty well. The numbers last year looked kinda flukey, but he did lose a tick off his fastball and his slider isn't good enough to cover that up.

Am I the source?

I'm just happy he's not a Card.

I'm really sick of seeing this logic(and the usual accompiniment of IT'S BEEN 100 YEARS GO FOR IT ALL NOW) as if there is no limit to the amount of young players you should give up to try for it all in one season. Let's say we give up all of our best tradeable assets for Peavy. Then Soto goes down and we need a stopgap to catch the rest of the way. What are we gonna give up for that rental? James Adduci? Every player in a system has some sort of value attached to them. Every time one is given up there is an opportunity cost at stake as to what else that player could acquire now, what they could acquire later, what they could contribute now, and what they could contribute later. Throwing the kitchen sink at a team because we've got a chance at it all is a good way to guarantee that you have only a few chances to win it all. - Pie is obviously no longer apart of this team's future plans. - Hill is obviously no longer the pitcher he once was and has already been rumored to be used in this potential deal - Marshall would be replaced with Peavy, advantage Cubs - Cedeno is battling it out with Theriot, and in all likelihood will probably be a bench player next year if Theriot is around - Ceda would be a useful piece for the Cubs in the future, but would his loss outweigh the gain of Peavy? - If Theriot goes, Cedeno probably stays and hopefully he doesn't crap it up like the last time he was given the starting job - Vitters, I would like to keep, but when will he be ready? 3 years from now? 4 years? It's still very early to determine whether or not he'll be a bust or a great signing. You're not understanding. Just because those guys mught not fit into the team's plans doesn't mean they don't have value. You only have so many pieces top use for trades and you want to blow them all. The idea is that trading some players now allows us to let Dempster and Wood walk. If they walk, we get 4 top picks and our farm system might not be any worse for the wear...

If this is the way it is, I'm all about Hermida. I'd much rather have him than Abreu or Dunn, given ages, contracts, and defense.

Maybe, mostly for his arm, but it's close. That friggin hop just annoys the crap out of me. Abreu's arm is worse, and he's even more scared of the wall than Soriano is. By the way, don't most defensive metrics have Soriano as a better than average LF?

I was never a huge fan, but it's nice to see a team taking him seriously and giving him a shot. Best of luck to him.

Buh bye Pie... ](*,)

What did he have, 5 or 6 no hitters? 7 no-no's. Forgot to add that. When you think of Nolan Ryan you think of one of the most dominating pitchers of all time, and it's a shock to see that he's never had a Cy Young award. He could certainly be dominant, but he also had 292 losses and 2,795 walks in his career. He finished most seasons right around .500. That's hardly his fault. In 1987 he went 8-16 despite the fact that his ERA was 2.76... which was good enough to make him the league leader.

Who hits well in the clutch season after season. Uh I dunno... Manny? He's Mr. Postseason. Manny's career postseason line is .286/.399/.550, which is very good... but it's not as good as his career line of .314/.411/.593.