Rob

But... but... the intangibles!

It really depends on who you talk to. Wilken had Samardzija as the #1 overall talent in the draft. Some people don't see him as more than a good setup man down the road. At this point, I'd venture to say that he can't rank with Veal or Hill until people see how he adjusts to playing baseball full-time.

Horrible is a pretty strong word. I typically try to reserve it for the people who perform below replacement level. Tomas Perez has been horrible the last two seasons. Cesar Izturis was horrible for us last season. Juan Pierre is pretty damn bad...a situation only exacerbated by the role he was cast in... but he doesn't quite fall under my umbrella of "horrible."

It'd take more than that, as I'm sure the Angels would probably offer Ervin Santana and Brandon Wood. Hill, Veal, Gallagher, and Pie might get the conversation started.

He is overrated I dont think he sucks. I know he isnt ideal, but I mean honestly Pierre and Soriano would be spectacular. Thats why I wanted Lofton in the offseason. Nobody and Pierre could add up to spectacular. Not even ARod and Pierre, or Pujols and Pierre. He's really not that bad, seriously! I know he doesnt put up like spectacular numbers, but hes a pretty decent leadoff hitter how can you make a statement like that. Those are the two best players in baseball. The thing is, he hasn't been a pretty decent leadoff hitter since 2004. Besides, as someone else mentioned, leadoff isn't a position. Your best bet is to try to maximize production out of each position on the field without handicapping yourself too much defensively and build the lineup from there. The one issue with that method is that you have players like Soriano who request to bat leadoff and not giving them that spot might cause them to sign elsewhere. But I'd rather have that then try to sign someone just for the sake of batting leadoff. Yes, it would be great if the Cubs had a leadoff hitter that could get on base 40% of the time and steal 50+ bases without getting caught often, but those players are rare. On top of that, you have to hope he plays a position where you have a need. Ok I agree with what you said. I understand he has been bad, but he doesn't suck even with the last two bad years. Does Pierre actively hurt you compared to using a classic quadruple A CF? Probably not. However, the cost of acquiring Pierre was certainly far too high. He was worth Mitre alone, but the second we threw in Nolasco and Pinto, it was a doomed transaction, even without taking into account his monetary cost. Then we batted him at the top of the order, where his inability to get on base or hit for any power at all was amplified... especially on a team where we couldn't afford to hide his meager bat. To think, we could have had Beltran after 2004... We would have had a legitimate superstar player and Nolasco and Pinto to boot. That's a big part of the disdain for Pierre. His actual contribution to the team was mediocre at best... and we payed too much for it after missing out on a prize free agent. Pierre is symptom of the problem that is Jim Hendry.

Bernie's arm makes Pierre's look like a Howitzer.

Marmol didn't qualify as a prospect but Mateo did? He must have just barely not qualified. Cutoff is 50 IP, IIRC. Mateo had 45.7. Marmol had 77.0.

I wish Troy O' Leary was just our AAA roster filler rather than our 4th OF. And does that seem crazy to anyone else, that in a bench guy teams wouldn't want OBP as one of their primary skills? Not really. With the emphasis being placed on larger and larger pitching staffs, the era of the "specialized" bench player seems to have died. Teams are now looking for more flexibility and a broader range of "skill" out of the guys on the bench than they are looking for people that do one or two things well. In other words, Bobby Hill can only really play second, and Hendry probably sees carrying him as handicapping Lou's ability to effectively use the pieces on his roster... rather than valuing him for the one thing he is good at.

That's odd, cause PECOTA has his IsoP gradually increasing throughout their five year forecast to a .174 mark in his age 24 season. I'd imagine it would continue to show a nice rise in his next few years after that if they'd show those numbers to us.

Much as I had to admit it, it's a pretty good business move by MLB. Really, the people who don't get to watch the extra innings package now are the die-hard fans... the sort who might get mlb.tv anyways. Those few that miss out are still going to be baseball fans, though... and the very few they do lose will be more than made up by the huge paycheck from DirecTV coming their way. With even decent investment of a portion of what they make with this deal, it'll more than pay for itself short and long term.

Thanks for the scoop! Disappointing, though. I would have liked to see him get at least a token chance at the 25th man.

You'd still get a crap signal. MLB sends the games out in a tiny little resolution, one so small that it looks bad enlarging it on my own laptop monitor.

At worst, he's still better than Neifi or Tomas Perez.

Just to stimulate debate, here are a few quick and dirty numbers from the PECOTA projections for Sheets and Santana. Santana: 90th Percentile - 226.3 IP, 177 H, 243 SO, 41 BB, 0.97 WHIP, 2.16 ERA Weighted Mean - 218.7 IP, 187 H, 218 SO, 50 BB, 1.08 WHIP, 2.97 ERA 10th Percentile - 185.7 IP, 175 H, 168 SO, 54 B, 1.23 WHIP, 3.96 ERA Sheets: 90th Percentile - 196 IP, 163 H, 197 SO, 27 BB, 0.97 WHIP, 2.59 ERA Weighted Mean - 180.7 IP, 162 H, 172 SO, 30 BB, 1.06 WHIP, 3.29 ERA 10th Percentile - 136.7 IP, 135 H, 120 SO, 28 BB, 1.19 WHIP, 4.25 ERA

I think there are two kinds of closers: Good ones and guys who have good seasons. Good ones are guys like Rivera, Gagne, Smoltz (also an outstanding starter), Wagner... Guys who have good "seasons" are guys like Dempster, Kolb, Tim Worrell (Giants). The trick is realizing when you have a good pitcher and when you have caught lightning in a bottle. I still think Dempster will be a good closer. Not great, but good. Only if he manages to never face a left-handed batter for the rest of his career. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/splits?playerId=3845 Left-handed batters average about 200 points better in OPS against Dempster than right-handed batters. Dempster should be used when the opposing team has 3 RH batters coming up. He'd be perfect against the Cubs, for example. Sometimes that's a mental thing for a pitcher. It may not be in this case but it goes with being too careful and then falling behind in the count. I'm curious on his strike/ball ratio righty/lefty wise. I guess it's possible that not getting out lefties is a mental thing, but it's been a constant problem for half a decade. My guess is that he needs to add a pitch that's effective against lefties, so the cause of his problems is stuff. Either way, though, the Cubs shouldn't be sending him out against left-handed batters. I'd like to think that having Ohman, Eyre, and Cotts means that the powers that be recognize that Dempster should be used as a ROOGY and pulled against lefties, but I doubt it. Possible. I have a lot more faith in Lou when it comes to using the pen correctly than I ever did Dusty. How much of that is based on your actual observations of Lou, and how much of it is based on the fact that Lou isn't Dusty?

He's actually the opposite of Neifi. Well, they both can't hit but I thought Hill was a pretty good OBP guy that could steal some bases. Not really. Hill has 6 career SB's, they all came with the Cubs. He hasn't had a SB since leaving Chicago. Also, his OBP is ok, but does it really matter if your OPS is below .700? He has had one year with an OPS above .700. That was with, you guessed it, the Cubs. It was .701. Again, he's Neifi without the defense. While OPS is a decent indicator of overall performance, many of the top sabermetric minds have determined that the OBP part of that equation is severely underrepresented. I have seen systems that use 1.8*OBP + Slug and even 3*OBP + Slug. Again, OPS isn't bad for eyeballing a guy... but it is certainly possible to be useful with a sub .700 OPS. Hell, a guy could be so proficient in fouling off pitches that he draws a walk six or seven out of every ten times he gets to the plate and still be very useful even if he grounds out weakly to the pitcher every single plate appearance he doesn't draw a walk.

If Marmol is available, I'm sure it'd be him.

I think I would prefer ARods next 5 yrs to Z's, but that is just me. I think it is more likely that Z will break down and not be worth the money he is likely to command. I agree, especially if the other pitchers do well. Same here. Nobody should be "untouchable" on this team right now. Carlos Zambrano is an "untouchable" in my books. Just like how Johan Santana should be considered an "untouchable". You dont trade a staff ace. So if you were Terry Ryan, and got offered Travis Hafner, Grady Sizemore, Jhonny Peralta, and Adam Miller for Santana, you wouldn't do it? Declaring anybody untouchable is just bad business. If you can get more value in a trade, you make the trade. It's that simple. To say you wont make the trade because a player is "untouchable" for some archaic reason is asinine.

What will happen? LF - Floyd CF - Soriano RF - Jones Murton getting in against lefties and the occassional spot start for Floyd or Jones (Floyd in right on those days). Most productive usage for this season? LF - Floyd/Murton platoon CF - Soriano RF - Jones/DeRosa platoon Pie called up when ready, Soriano moves to RF, Jones dealt... DeRosa takes over SS because Eric Patterson is the 2nd baseman. Most productive with an eye on the future? LF - Murton CF - Pie RF - Soriano Floyd gets AB's versus tough righties and is a big bat off the bench. Jones nets us a B- level pitching prospect, and DeRosa and Izturis fight to the death, each being slayed by the other at a simultaneous moment... violating the "fight to the death" clauses in their contracts and letting us get by with not paying the rest of their contracts. ARod feels bad for the city of Chicago and demands a trade post-haste.

Almost. Kerry did have a nice year, but only threw 176 innings. Miller threw 212. If the Big Unit and Curt Schilling hadn't gone loco that season, Miller would have been just as deserving as anyone else.

Hopefully at the expense of Lilly. Zambrano Hill Prior Veal Gallagher would be an insane rotation.

When was Miller a Cy Young candidate? I'd have to say 2001 was a pretty good year.

2007 AL central champions. People (including myself) have been saying that the last couple years. I'm starting to wonder if it will ever ring true. Though I don't think you can ever count a team with Travis Hafner, Grady Sizemore, and Victor Martinez out of it before the season even begins.

What about those of us who took him in the 14th round? I'm sorry... I still love the fact I pulled that off, though.

I'd agree to the fact that Prior's health is intergral to our chances (yet again), but I'd also like to point out that we are rather heavily relying on Hill to perform like he did after his last callup.