Rob

Yeah, but how often do you think a signing is a good one? Rarely, IIRC. Unless I'm forgetting somebody, I've thought 37.5% of our signings this season were very good. Aramis Wood Miller So let's cover the rest. Soriano - Not a bad player, but nobody will debate the money and years are horrible. Blanco - Redundant. Soto could do almost the exact same thing at a mere portion of the cost. This isn't a horrible signing, as we can absorb the money without taking a real hit... but it's certainly not a good one. DeRosa - Not too horrible on the money or years, but for that kind of money I would have expected a real upgrade over Theriot. DeRosa is nearly as unlikely to repeat his numbers from last season as Theriot is. Again, not a bad signing, but certainly not a good one once you figure who else was available on the FA market. Lilly - This is the kind of signing that should be made to help push a team over the hump, not in a last ditch attempt to bring them up to a competitive level. He's an oft-injured guy with a high strikeout rate, high walk rate, and flyball tendencies... the exact sort of guy that hasn't gotten our pitching staff anywhere in the last few seasons. While the talent itself isn't too bad, the money and years are horrible... even if that is what the market dictated he would go for. Ward - He's coming off a career year at age 31 where he hit .308/.380/.546. Yeah, that's a great line. Let's see what he did in the year before that. .260/.318/.405 That kind of line is simply not acceptible, especially if DLee goes down again. The scary thing? That's essentially Ward's career line, minus about 40 points of slugging. So which is more likely, that he'll hit like he did in 2005, or that in 2006 at the age of 31 he suddenly established a new career baseline for himself? I'm inclined to believe his performance isn't going to look much like 2006 did. There's simply better options out there. Is it a bad signing? No. But it's not a good one, either. I don't irrationally hate all the Cubs signings. The only one I'm real peeved about is the Lilly one, and I've loved a good chunk of them. So don't act as if I'm going to hate everything that comes my way, regardless of whether there's a good reason behind it.

Am I the only one completely dumbfounded as to how people can think this is a good signing? I will grant that it's not a horrible one for money or years, but Ward just isn't much of a performer with the exception of last season. He's got to hit for a very high BA to have much offensive value.

If he wasn't talking about Ward, he's talking about Floyd.

The odds of him putting up numbers like he did last season are very small, and the cost of acquiring him would be very high. He put those numbers up in half a season. How could he not match them again? You could argue that he could nearly double them in a complete season, could you not??? Sorry, I look at rate stats. I have a hard time believing he's going to sustain a .533 slugging percentage. That's a .097 jump from the season before, which is pretty huge for a CF. Although, he's getting significantly worse covering CF, so maybe he's packed on the muscle... I'm not sure. He'll get better than he was in 05, I'm fairly certain. I just don't believe his jump last season was indicative of a real progression, and I'd rather not pay an outrageous price for him based on that. I'm not a Baldelli hater, by any means. I think he's a solid player... I just don't think he's as good as advertised... which means he wont be worth the cost.

The odds of him putting up numbers like he did last season are very small, and the cost of acquiring him would be very high.

This team is not going to win the WS barring some sort of miracle. Guys like Jennings, Westbrook, and Marquis are not going to change the odds enough to justify their costs. If you can't acquire a real impact pitcher like Peavy, it makes no sense to block the kids. I'd rather see what we can get from guys like Guzman and Marmol so we know what our needs will be in 08.

Young guys apparently can't play baseball.

Good or bad, Hendry takes his job seriously. :shock: :shock: I think you should Rethink your sig for now. This signing isn't quite enough to make him worse than Isiah, but he's inching closer and closer. I think he means Hendry is not bad enough to be compared with Isiah. You have to show him some respect for his work ethic. If working hard just allows him to screw things up faster, I'd rather not pretend to appreciate it.

Good or bad, Hendry takes his job seriously. :shock: :shock: I think you should Rethink your sig for now. This signing isn't quite enough to make him worse than Isiah, but he's inching closer and closer.

Why would we bring in a guy like Jones who has to hit .280 to be even remotely useful? It's a bad signing if it's not a NRI.

Gross.

I honestly think I might be happier about this than the Aramis signing, and that scares me.

Pleeeeease let Rosenthal be hacking away.

Quit ordering them and switch to a real drink. Touchee Speaking of which, I am out of liquor. The winter meetings are always hard on me.

Watching sombody write Meche into the #2 spot in the rotation made me vomit in my mouth a little bit. Meche is a decent #5 or a bad #4. He's not a #2 and never will be. Why do you say that? Nothing in his record indicates a certain predisposition to being the recipient of miracles?

That is one of the single dumbest trades I've seen in a while. It's up there with Kearns/Lopez

Interesting... Yesterday on ESPNews, Tim Kurkjian didn't think there was any possibility that Bonds would play somewhere other than SF. I don't think there is either. But the cosmos has been messing with my brain lately.

Watching sombody write Meche into the #2 spot in the rotation made me vomit in my mouth a little bit. Meche is a decent #5 or a bad #4. He's not a #2 and never will be.

Seems the Yankees are just trying to get Petitte to hurry up.

Interesting...

But is he healthy? Yeah, a down year like that is enough to at least throw the maybe in there. It can't just be ignored. His peripherals are largely intact. I'm not worried about his performance.

Rumors earlier this offseason had the Mets turning down a Milledge for John Patterson deal. Pie, Marshall, and Marmol for Patterson and Church?

That's the problem, everybody just assumes that we could get as much from "the kids" as we would from someone like Lilly. Hill panned out, but who else was there? Well, let's go through last year's options: Marshall: Oft-injured, 5.59 ERA in 2006 Guzman: Oft-injured, 7.39 ERA (with Cubs) in 2006 Mateo: 5.32 ERA Marmol: Had to go on DL, 6.08 ERA If you think you can rely on those guys to do as well or even nearly as well as Lilly/Meche, you're really grasping at straws. Prior and Miller are also in the mix, but Prior will get hurt, and Miller has questions about his durability and stuff. If you go into next year with Zambrano, Hill, and three of the options listed above, you're accepting that the Cubs will be a lousy team again. That's fine, but don't delude yourself into thinking that this team would be in the playoff hunt. ... and you think Lilly and Meche are going to lead us to the promise land? ROFL I think out of those 4 guys you mentioned and Prior/Miller you get at least the production that Lilly/Meche +whoever would give you and probably better production. fine, but stats don't support this at all The stats also don't show Lilly or Meche being of much value to the team... let alone ten mil each. I'd rather roll the dice on the kids next season, seeing as how we're not a WS-caliber team even with Lilly and Meche. At least then we'd have a real idea of whether or not any of these prospects are going to pan out. If not, then we can grab some of the better starters on the FA market next year. It's not as if guys as talented as Lilly and Meche don't come along every year.

Or sign Bonds and Church and have a loaded offense. Still need pitching. And if they sign Meche and Lilly, they'll still need pitching. If those are the only legitimate choices (at the prices being mentioned), I go with the kids and stack the offense. What did "going with the Kids" get us last year? About as far as going with guys like Meche will get us in 07. I agree with the Meche part, but I like taking the chance with Lilly. Then you can always try to pry away another starter via trades. Lilly and Jennings even wouldn't be enough to make this a WS caliber team. That's an average rotation and an average offense. That makes us a possible contender for a wildcard, if things break right. I think we're in the same position the Mets were in after their spending spree pre 05. We're still a year off. The guys on the market just aren't going to be enough to change that.

Ewww