Rob

I don't really either, except for the handful of guys I like to think of as "clean". Finding out John Smoltz, DLee, and Griffey were juicing would be a heartbreaker.

Just because that's the average market price doesn't make it a good idea. The idea is to go cheap at certain spots by using young guys so that you can spend the extra cash on real difference makers. Suppan is not likely to be one of those.

Could it be the best rotation in the NL Central? Almost certainly... unless Mark Prior is ressurected, Zambrano's arm stays on, Hill pitches like he did the last few starts of last season, and Marquis and Lilly regain their 2004 forms.

Because he's a solid, durable pitcher. And he's getting the same deal as Lilly, when he's a way better pitcher than Lilly. Please make some attempt to quantify that statement. You're almost guaranteed to get over 190 IP, if not 200, while you'll be lucky to get 170 out of Lilly. Over the past four years Suppan has posted a better average WHIP and average ERA. Lilly has a much higher HR/9 ratio, and a much higher FB% than Suppan. Those two things combined in Wrigley could spell disaster for Lilly. Neither are ace pitchers, but with Suppan you know what you are going to get, and if I had my choice between the two for the same contract, it wouldn't even be a debate for me. Once again I feel compelled to point out as other posters have that Suppan would be lucky to post better ERAs or WHIPs than Lilly were he pitching in the AL East. His limited time as a member of the Red Sox attests to this fact, as well as to the fact that Suppan will only be as good as the defense behind him. If were are to force our hands as to who our eight position players will be for the next few years, Suppan and his ERA and WHIP would be more predictable than Lilly, true. As the the fact of the business is that people come and go though, we have a better idea of what we will get from Lilly over the next four years than we would have gotten from Suppan, IP aside. In that vein, the Brewers do make much more sense for a man of his pitching methodology. Their recent influx of young players does lend itself to a relatively stable young team for the coming years... much moreso than the Cubs and their flirtations with replacing every young person in the lineup on shorter term deals (DeRosa, Floyd, Izturis[yes, I know he's still young..the point still stands]) This is not meant as a compliment to Lilly though, by any means. Even if everything breaks as well as it could for Lilly, he's going to have a beast of a time justifying his contract. I'm just trying to point out that this sort of deal for this sort of pitcher would be a horrible idea for the Cubs... even moreso than Lilly's.

Because he's a solid, durable pitcher. And he's getting the same deal as Lilly, when he's a way better pitcher than Lilly. I see the argument for calling him durable, but he isn't really much of a pitcher.in the current sense of the word. He doesn't really do anything to help or hurt his own chances on the field. He doesn't strike out anybody. His walk rate is a bit better than league average. His HR rate is respectable but not amazing. Perhaps more than anybody else in the league, he's only as good as the defense behind him. But with him being a bit of a groundball pitcher, I would not want to see how he does when Hardy goes down again and his middle infield is Hall and Weeks. (I still don't see Counsell getting extended playing time at SS if/when Hardy goes down...) At any rate, that Brewers defense isn't awe-inspiring.

Why?

As would I, but in terms of everyday firstbasemen of this era, his overall value is closer to Grace's than anybody else I could think of whilst still in my drunken stupor.... though you'd have to throw out a handful of seasons where he's been amazing to buy into the comparison.

Didn't Gary Carter and Mazeroski play defense? A defensive 1B with little power will never make the HOF. Unfortunately, certain positions (2B, SS, etc.) are considered defensive positions whereas other positions (1B, OF, etc.) are not only considered offensive positions, but offensive with power positions. Unless you are someone like Tony Gwynn with 3000+ hits, you need to show some muscle. So if 3,000 hits is the absolute mandate for automatic introduction then why is Mazeroski of 2,016 hits, a good 300 its fewer then Grace, and Mark played 1 few yr then Maz? Or Gary Carter of 2092 hits same reason with Maz? So what I am saying is Mark Grace was as great of a defensive 1B, as Maz was as a 2B, and Gary Carter as a C, and Grace was a significantly better offensive player then both, and yet Maz/Carter are considered HOFers, and yet Grace isn't considered a HOF? My guess is both Maz and Carter and Joe Morgan............you fill in the blank. I don't get why you seem to think Carter isn't a HOF catcher. WARP3 has Grace's best season coming in 1993, when he posted a total of 8.8. He also posted an 8.7 in 1992 and an 8.1 in 1989. But he didn't go over 8 again. From 1977 through 1986, Carter's WARP3 scores came in at... 8.4, 8.7, 8.8, 9.9, 7.6, 11.9, 9.5, 9.8, 10.3, 8.4 That's as good of a stretch as your are going to see. I don't pretend to know what WARP is, nor do I care about it. All I know is from prolly 1990 to his retirement, Grace was widely considered the 2nd most dangerous hitter----especially in the clutch---behind Tony Gywnn. There were times which teams would rather pitch to Sosa, then they would Grace, to which the Cubs had to often switch Grace from 3 slot to 4th slot. To me that has as much of an impact on the game, as a 500 ft homerun. IMO, if Carter is a HOFer, then Gracie is a HOFer, WARP be damned. Essentially the jist of my argument was that after adjusting for league context and positional scarcity, Carter (after adjusting for his fantastic defense) was more valuable along the lines of Banks than of Grace (even after adjusting for his own defensive excellence). That is not meant to disparage the merits of Grace as a HOF worthy candidate, but rather to fully endorse the accomplishments of Carter. Grace has been hurt by the change in league context, as his value might be approximating a man like Carlos Delgado (who might be garnering HOF consideration of his own) in any given season. However, Carter was hurt perhaps as much as any other, and his defense amongst the all-time greats behind the plate. Carter is a sure-fire hall of famer. Behind Bench, Berra, Campy, and Cochrane, he ranks in easily on the second-tier of the best of the best. Behind Gehrig and Foxx, Grace has a harder time trying to fit in with the Bagwell, Thomas, Murray, McGwire, Greenberg, Killebrew, McCovey, and Mize group.

Zito at U.S. Cellular (or whatever it's called now) would be absolutely disgusting. While the idea of him pitching at Wrigley or in Arlington was bad enough, I'd venture to say Zito on the south side would be fantastic... though only for Cubs fans.

Didn't Gary Carter and Mazeroski play defense? A defensive 1B with little power will never make the HOF. Unfortunately, certain positions (2B, SS, etc.) are considered defensive positions whereas other positions (1B, OF, etc.) are not only considered offensive positions, but offensive with power positions. Unless you are someone like Tony Gwynn with 3000+ hits, you need to show some muscle. So if 3,000 hits is the absolute mandate for automatic introduction then why is Mazeroski of 2,016 hits, a good 300 its fewer then Grace, and Mark played 1 few yr then Maz? Or Gary Carter of 2092 hits same reason with Maz? So what I am saying is Mark Grace was as great of a defensive 1B, as Maz was as a 2B, and Gary Carter as a C, and Grace was a significantly better offensive player then both, and yet Maz/Carter are considered HOFers, and yet Grace isn't considered a HOF? My guess is both Maz and Carter and Joe Morgan............you fill in the blank. I don't get why you seem to think Carter isn't a HOF catcher. WARP3 has Grace's best season coming in 1993, when he posted a total of 8.8. He also posted an 8.7 in 1992 and an 8.1 in 1989. But he didn't go over 8 again. From 1977 through 1986, Carter's WARP3 scores came in at... 8.4, 8.7, 8.8, 9.9, 7.6, 11.9, 9.5, 9.8, 10.3, 8.4 That's as good of a stretch as your are going to see.

WARP3 does, yes.

Didn't Gary Carter and Mazeroski play defense? Mazeroski is an all-time great defender. For their careers, Carter and Grace were worth about the same compared to league average at their positions... granted that catcher is a whole different beast than first base, though. I guess what I'm tyring to say is that Grace was no slouch with the glove either. Some interesting WARP3 scores for Cubs players... Anson - 159.5 Banks - 127.4 Jenkins - 124.2 Williams - 117.0 Santo - 116.7 Ryno - 112.9 Dawson - 109.5 Hartnett - 109.3 Sosa - 102.9 Grace - 96.5 Tinker - 78.0 Three-Finger Brown - 70.5 Evers - 68.3 Cavarretta - 65.1 Chance - 62.2 Hack Wilson - 60.4 Hippo Vaughn - 59.1 Grace is a lot closer to HOF worthy than people realize.

Just based off who's in the org right now? Alan Trammel and Ryne Sandberg.

Replacing cedeno with Izturis is at best a lateral move. I would say at worst it's a lateral move-there will likely be a small upgrade offensively (probably around 30-40 points of OPS, with 25-30 points of that coming from OBP) and a decent upgrade defensively. The contract is a different story, but Izturis's 2007 is probably going to be a lateral move at its worst from Cedeno's 2006 campaign. It may be an upgrade over what we got from Cedeno last year, but I hardly imagine Izturis will provide four million dollars worth of upgrades over what Cedeno is capable of this coming year.

To make such a proclamation is a bit premature, I would think. I would agree with you that DeRosa is better with the glove than Walker, and better with the bat than Neifi. But to state that this makes him "better by far" than those two is a logical fallacy. If I were to state to you that DeRosa were considerably worse with the bat than Walker, and considerably worse with the glove than Neifi, would that be enough to say he'd be "worse by far?" For my money, I would have rather retained Walker over DeRosa any day of the week... though I will do my best to give DeRosa a chance to prove last year wasn't so far above his head as I believe it to be.

Honestly, I'm surprised the Tigers are still using him as a SS. There were rumblings they wouldn't bring Casey back so that they could move Guillen to 1B... False obviously, but typically where there's smoke, there's fire. That being said, his bat more than makes up for his glove. I'd love to bring him in. He's certainly a much better fit on a major league roster than Izturis.

It begins...

We would have a lot fewer question marks right now if it weren't for Dusty's perpetual veterosexuality. I feel pretty good about Hill, but I still feel a slight twinge of doubt that wouldn't be there if they had just played the kid from jump. Did you see how he pitched in spring training last year? There were at least 5 others who were better. When Rusch absolutely sucked in April, they brought Hill up to pitch on May 4th and he sucked even worse. They ran him out there for 4 consecutive starts and each time, Hill did not pitch well. If Dusty had continued to run him out there and Hill continued to put up an ERA over 9, not only would fans say that Dusty isn't trying to win, but they would attack him for ruining a very promising pitching prospect with a somewhat fragile psyche by continuing to let him fail over and over again thus proving to Rich that he doesn't have what it takes to perform in the big leagues. No, Dusty and Jim did the right thing. They protected their prized prospect and sent him down to AAA where he had been redefining the word domination for the past year to get his confidence back and work on what was apparently having him fail at the big league level which was spotting the fastball. Apparently, once he improved his control with his fastball and was consistent with it, he was called back up. That took about 7 weeks in AAA to do. In his first start after being called back up, Hill failed. Did Dusty sit him? No. Just like in May, he gave him another shot. This time Hill did not fail. And Rich never looked back. In Hill's case, the results speak for themselves. He was handled right. that's such crap. just because he ended up doing well, it was because he got sent down? he was the same pitcher in AAA in '05, early '06 and his second stint there in '06. the reason he pitched better in the second half of the year was because he got some innings under his belt -- not because jim hendry handled the situation with a skilled hand. people need to quit giving hendry/baker credit for hill's success. he succeeded in spite of those fools, not because of them. So let me see if I understand your thought process here, when Cubs fail to perform well its Baker's and Hendry's fault which proves that they are fools thus when some Cubs succeed they couldn't possibly have anything to do with it. Thats a pretty hollow argument. And the incivility with which you presented your response gives me a clue as to how open you are to seeing evidence that flys in the face of your position. I've already dismantled your position on how obviously Hendry favored Rusch over Hill and you never responded to that, so I won't bother presenting a counter argument here. Actually, it's a pretty logical argument. If I tried to coach Tiger Woods on golfing (which I know nothing about) and he had to pay attention to what I said, it'd be pretty easy to screw him up. If I just left him alone and let him play, I wouldn't really be helping him... I just wouldn't be handicapping him anymore. If you really wanted to give me credit for finally knowing when to shut my mouth, you could... but it'd be a huge stretch to credit me with the success.

Jae Kuk Ryu is still listed as wearing No. 20. Subject to change at any time, certainly, but No. 20 Ryu and No. 17 Pie is what the roster says at present. Yeah, I saw that too. Pie shouldn't be #17, that was only good for Gracie. (Bobby Hill sucked in it.) I believe he wears #22? in the minors, but in the winter leagues he wore #20 from pictures I've seen. In his time in the minors, he's worn #15 and #20. The Cubs better retire Sammy's number!! The Cubs should retire #21 before #31. Unless the 31 is Jenkins, I agree 100%. Maddux shouldn't have his number retired by the Cubs. A certain Mr. Jenkins would like to have your support for #31 being retired.

Wanting Campusano back much?

I usually go with VORP and VORPr. Taveras 5.1 VORP, 0.038 VORPr Wilkerson -5.3 VORP, -0.063 VORPr Taveras was better than Wilkerson last year, I see no doubt about that. The question is whether Taveras will be better than Wilkerson again next year, a question which I am inclined to say "no" to. Taveras used to have a very high walk rate in the minors. 2002, .120 IsoD 2003, .100 IsoD 2004, .067 IsoD Obviously, pitchers are challenging him more now that they realize he can barely jack the ball out of the infield when they hang a curve, but he does stll have some potential to recover some of that patience. I'd give up a package like Mateo and Harben for Tavares, but I wouldn't give up anything of real value... and I certainly wouldn't plan on keeping Tavares around once Pie becomes ready.

I find myself wondering the same thing when I look at this thread. Any interesting news to leak to us today?

He's one of the very top first basemen to ever play the game. If he doesn't get in, it'll be another black eye for the validity of the HoF in the vein of the Santo and Blyleven gaffes.

I'm not the biggest Izturis fan, but if you look at him at 26 he compares similar to Omar Vizquel when he was that age. Vizquel had similar type numbers and eventually developed into a solid hitter. If you get the chance look at their stats from early in their careers. Lets see if Izturis will develop more, he is still young. Hopefully he will be one of Gerald Perry's new projects. Working on OBP. Vizquel Age, IsoD 22, .053 23, .052 24, .072 25, .046 26, .064 Izturis Age, IsoD 21, .010 22, .021 23, .031 24, .042 25, .045 26, .050 Izturis is apparently getting more patient, but his best season is still only .004 better than Vizquel's worst through age 26. And even at that, Vizquel has been well below average with the bat most seasons...we are talking about a guy whose career OPS is .702 (measurably worse than Pierre was last year, and nobody thought he qualified as much of a hitter)

To everybody who is arguing against a four man rotation on the basis of daily routines being important, You do realize that pitchers are asked to adjust their routines much more drastically quite often, right? Hell, we're in the middle of moving Wood from the rotation to the bullpen... he's going to completely change his routine.. We send young kids down from the major league pen and have them start at AAA constantly. How about the swingman role? He doesn't get to have a routine all year. Now mind you, I'm not trying to argue that the routines are unimportant. They certainly are important. But if Rothschild were really half the pitching coach he's supposed to be, he should be able to come up with routines to help guys get through 4 man rotations. And I'm all for setting up a 4 man, tandem rotation. It would free up a slot or two on the bench that would otherwise go to somebody like Novoa.