Rob

I doubt I'd ever stop laughing if you guys traded away the farm for Bedard.

That's what I'd like to see. Cleveland wants Jason Bay really bad and they haven't made an offer yet that Pittsburgh would be satisfied with. A 3 way deal that sends Bay to Cleveland, Peralta to the Cubs and major league ready players go to Pittsburgh would make a lot of sense, IMO. Cleveland has Cabrera to step in and play SS. Cubs could use a SS. Pittsburgh wants players that will, well, I've never really understood what Pittsburgh wants, so I'll just say a package of players. :D I totally agree with that deal, even if the Cubs don't make the Roberts deal. In fact, I would drop the Roberts' deal and send those players (Gallagher, Murton, Patterson) to the Pirates in this 3-way instead. SS is the position the Cubs most need to upgrade. It would be great to expand the deal to include Jason Michaels (maybe send Cleveland Marquis/Dempster or a young player), who can play all 3 OF positions and would be a RH bat off the bench. How About: Pirates get: Gallagher, Murton, Patterson, Theriot Indians get: Bay, Dempster/Marquis Cubs get: Peralta, Marte Soriano LF DeRosa 2B DLee 1B ARam 3B Fukudome RF Peralta SS Soto C Pie CF Bench: Michaels, Cedeno, Ward, Blanco, ????? =D> =D> =D> Just a few things here... 1. Did you want Marte or Michaels? Cause you put Marte in the actual trade proposal instead. Cause depending on if that's Damaso Marte or Andy Marte, that could change things quite a bit. 2. Any way you want to cut it, the Pirates would not be getting enough for Bay. 3. DeRosa shouldn't be batting #2. If we have to go with a semi-typical lineup (i.e. Lee not batting 2nd), Fukudome is our best option there.

Blanton's a decent #3, but he's not worth what it would take to get him. Pass.

The only big difference is that if it doesn't get done today, it probably wont get done til after the holidays.

Theriot is easily the worst of our available options there (Cedeno and DeRosa being the others). If, for whatever reasons, Cedeno and DeRosa are not going to be given every single opportunity to take over the starting SS role, then we absolutely need to acquire a real SS. If Lou is going to allow Cedeno and DeRosa a real chance to take over at SS, I feel just fine going into the season. And as far as pitchers are concerned, the only way to go right now is Bartolo Colon. Two years, club option for a third, and incentives based on weight and innings pitched. He's got the upside, and he's not about to bankrupt our system of propects like Blanton or somebody would do.

Yeah, I wouldn't part with Marmol for Nathan. We might get a small marginal upgrade for one year, but it would cost us millions of dollars and 4 or 5 more years of work from Marmol. If we pulled the trigger on that trade, Hendry would be in the Bavasi class of GMs.

At almost the same cost as Fukudome of 12 million a season its not going to be too hard for him to fail. The more home games he pitches the better off he will be. Can't do much worse than Kei Igawa. Kei Igawa makes 4 Million per. If he is anywhere close to Kei Igawa's number he is a SPECTACULAR failure at 12! I also do not think he will do well. You can't ignore that posting fee, even if you are a Yankee fan.

Just passing along. We've been hearing this for 2 weeks. To be fair, since then we've seen the Tejada trade, the Haren trade, and now the Kuroda signing. Haren and Kuroda were seemingly dictating the terms of the Bedard trade... and since he's now expected to move quick, and since Tejada is gone already, we should see something pretty quick after the Bedard deal.

Make a case for him being in the HOF. I just don't see it. 129.4 career WARP3 Wow. That is really good. That's quite a bit better than just "really good."

Make a case for him being in the HOF. I just don't see it. 129.4 career WARP3 His numbers don't look as good simply because the 1980's don't have the same sort of inflated offensive numbers, but rest assured, he was well above average with the bat and pretty amazing with the glove.

I'm just having trouble keeping up with who is joking and who isn't.

Rumor has it, this probably makes Rasmus the starting CF. Considering that even if he performs as well as he can, they wont be contending this year, this is great news. I love that they're starting the arbitration clock on him.

I don't think it's possible to get both Bedard and Roberts without giving up Hill. Just gonna work down the list of our most valuable young trade chips, starting after Hill... Pie Marmol Soto Gallagher Colvin Ceda Veal Hart Cedeno EPatt Wuertz Marshall Then we start getting to lower-minors guys like Huseby, Suarez, Hernandez... the kind of guys we wont get much value for, simply because they're so far out. If we were to cut Soto out of that list, and give them everybody from Cedeno up, we might be able to get both Roberts and Bedard... but we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot as far as trying to acquire a CF via trade to replace Pie.

Line Drive percentage. Is that a real stat? Yeah. It's right in there with ground ball percentage and fly ball percentage... which a lot of people look at.

Sean Marshall pitched 125 MLB innings at the age of 23... not 26.

The follow people will have their salaries escalate between the 2008 and 2009 season. Zambrano (2.75 mil) Aramis (1.65 mil) Soriano (3 mil) Lilly (5 mil) Marquis (3.5 mil) DeRosa (.75 mil) And Wuertz should hit arbi in that time, so he'll cost an extra half mil or so too.

I'm not sure if the extension has to be done before 2011 or not, but it's a fairly typical clause for japanese players coming over. It's how they avoid being under club control after their initial contract has run out. Not many veteran players from there would be too happy coming over if they had to sign a six year contract... and not many teams would like to risk that many years on imports.

Burke, Qualls, and Guitierrez... one of the two remaining pitching prospects in the system. Houston now... 2B - Matsui CF - Bourn SS - Tejada 1B - Berkman LF - Lee RF - Pence C - Towles 3B - Wiggington SP1 - Oswalt SP2 - Rodriguez SP3 - Backe SP4 - Williams SP5 - Paulino And the only bench players they have of note are Ausmus, Loretta, and Blum... and the only bullpen guys of note are Valverde and Brocail. The only chance they have of competing is if everybody stays completely healthy, and that rotation really surprises... Honestly, they would have been better off just putting Guitierrez in the rotation than trading for a "proven closer." This isn't a steal at all.

If Hendry gets Roberts for a package that looks something like Gallagher, Murton, and another pitching prospect, our team is gonna shake out something like this... (assuming Dempster bombs out of the SP role fairly quickly) LF - Soriano 2B - Roberts 1B - Lee 3B - Ramirez RF - Fukudome C - Soto CF - Pie SS - Theriot Bench: C - Blanco 1B/LF/RF - Ward 1B/2B/3B/RF - DeRosa SS - Cedeno OF - Pagan/Fuld (probably Pagan if healthy) SP1 - Z SP2 - Lilly SP3 - Hill SP4 - Marquis SP5 - Marshall Bullpen: Wood Marmol Howry Wuertz Dempster Lahey Eyre Cotts Marshall still has options, so picking up another starter wouldn't hurt anything... and if by chance Cedeno is included in a Roberts trade, we definately need to acquire a new SS, at least for the bench. And there certainly wont be enough room to add in any big bats to the bench.

The difference is that they've got most of their team filled out with cheap, homegrown guys... Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, Braun, and Hart are all making league-minimum, IIRC. Not that spending money on the bullpen is a great investment, but they can afford to blow a bit of their cash on it since they aren't paying like we are for position players. Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, and Fukudome, Z, and Lilly alone is gonna cost us more than their entire team, most likely.

I would rather keep Murton than Pie, too. However, we could find a lot better value for Pie/Gallagher that Brian freaking Roberts. For instance, Pie/Gallagher would be a real nice start on a Khalil Greene trade.

I get the distinct impression Hendry and Lou have no intention of moving Fukudome to CF. And we wont ever move Soriano again.

Leadoff hitter is up there too.

John Kruk

He's also the only one of their insiders thinking Pie would be in a deal.