Rob

Right after the Soriano signing, I got the impression Hendry went out and got him so early in the offseason in order to attract higher tier free agents like Schmidt.

God, I want Schmidt. If not Schmidt, I'd take Zito if we can get him for 5 years or less. If neither of them, I'd stop shopping for pitchers on the FA market.

There is an inherent danger involved in drawing statistical inferences from limited sample sizes. Case in point...... Cedeno's performace in 2005. I'd imagine you were equally impressed by that limited sample size, too, eh? .300/.356/.375 in 89 PA .328/.412/.522 in 159 PA I sincerely hope nobody was equally impressed by those two lines.

tony gwynn was pretty one dimensional. and homeruns > batting average. so mcgwire's one dimension was more valuable Tony Gwynn could swipe a bag with some of the best of 'em back in his early days. well i'll be damned, he did. that was also in an era when david ortiz would have swiped 15 bases though. Maybe. I still have trouble thinking of Tony Gwynn as a burner though... the guy with deceptive speed who picks good situations, sure. 56 steals in a season? Can't do it.

tony gwynn was pretty one dimensional. and homeruns > batting average. so mcgwire's one dimension was more valuable Tony Gwynn could swipe a bag with some of the best of 'em back in his early days.

Personally, I wouldn't take into account any consideration of steroids versus clean. I'd vote for the best ballplayers. If the league doesn't want to encourage stuff like steroid use, it's up to them to ban these guys from HoF consideration. But when the writers have to choose who they think might have taken roids and who probably didn't... Well, let's just say we wouldn't be allowed to induct anybody for quite some time if anybody our overzealous writers were suspicious of were considered ineligible. Canseco, Giambi, Palmiero, and Bonds... four guys with HoF credentials and concrete evidence they used steroids. Everybody else has to be judged solely on the merits of their baseball career.

So much for Jones being a part of a Westbrook deal... damn. Great signing for the Tribe.

Upon looking at it again, you're probably right. Looks like it was a breaking pitch that I missed. Naw, not a coaches son. He was the equipment manager, then? Talk about crawling into somebody's jock to get what you want...

Can Pujols play 2nd?

Are you crazy, dude? Everybody knows we have to spend money on pitching, even if we aren't going to get anything nearing a decent return from anybody on the market at this point. Nevermind the fact that there are decent hitters on the market that can make a difference and likely deserve their paychecks, we need to throw money at Gil Meche.

If that's the case, then why would the Cubs be pursuing Drew? Or would that make Pie enticing trade bait? Quite simply, we aren't anymore. He was a fallback option to Soriano, and nothing more. We pursued him until we had our man, at which point we had no more use. We may still grab a 4th OF like Floyd. We may sign Lugo to play a season in CF (and keep it warm for Pie) then to move to SS when Izturis's contract expires. But we aren't gonna grab Drew or a guy like Manny unless the price is just too perfect to pass up.

Completely off topic here, but your avatar reminds me of a picture of a friend of mine that played baseball at Purdue. He was a left-handed hitter, and there was a photo of him with a beautiful followthrough on a swing. You could also see the catcher, getting ready to throw the ball back to the pitcher since it was a swing and a miss. We had to crop out the catcher so we could use the picture in the media guide. I only mention it since you're clearly on the followthrough of your swing, but you can still see the ball around your ankles. You should have someone Photoshop it out. :) Or have someone photoshop more in!

Consensus seems to be he might be able to squeek out 1-2 years in CF, but he's gonna end up in RF. And Hendry seems very happy with an outfield of the future of Soriano, Murton, and Pie.

you start jones over soriano? would that make a-sor the most expensive bench player ever? Very silly move. Besides that, why bat DeRosa in the 2 hole? RF - Soriano 1B - Lee CF - Drew LF - ManRam 3B - ARam C - Barrett SS - Lugo 2B - DeRosa The general principle is to get your best hitters the most plate appearances per season. Even at that, this lineup still works within the conventional mold. Speed at the top of the lineup in Soriano and DLee's deceptive speed. Lefty/Righty breakups. Even the catcher batting near the bottom of the order! Plus you have the added benefit of Soriano and Lee getting more PA per season than Lugo and DeRosa... which speaks for itself.

Krivsky has cemented his place at the bottom of the GM totem-pole with guys like Bowden and Coletti.

Good point. *turns on XM*

You mean what the Yanks got for Sheffield? Humberto Sanchez is probably worth more than all of those guys put together.

Yeah, but the signing just today become official.

Upside. Perhaps I'm overly optimistic about his abilities and Gerald Perry... but I don't see a chance in hell that Cedeno could be worse than Izturis with the bat this year. Izturis had a fluke season in 2004, hitting better than anything in his track record shows he had the ability to do... and he still couldn't crack a .700 OPS. Nitpick-Izturis had a .711 in 2004. I really need to decrease the resolution on my monitor. All 8's look like 6's to me unless I'm a half inch from the screen. The point still stands, though. Izturis having a fluke season still leaves him swinging less of a bat than my sister.

For 2006? All I've got is PECOTA... but here goes. Soriano: Weighted Mean: .259/.312/.466 90th Percentile: .287/.343/.534 DeRosa: Weighted Mean: .254/.315/.390 90th Percentile: .284/.350/.443 PECOTA really needs to start adjusting for contract years...

Upside. Perhaps I'm overly optimistic about his abilities and Gerald Perry... but I don't see a chance in hell that Cedeno could be worse than Izturis with the bat this year. Izturis had a fluke season in 2004, hitting better than anything in his track record shows he had the ability to do... and he still couldn't crack a .700 OPS. Cedeno has all the tools and skills necessary to sustain an OPS above 700 if he does the requisite work with Perry this offseason. Judging from the way Cedeno altered his game upon coming up to the show, Perry's "aggressive within the zone" approach, work ethic, and disciplinary style seem to fit perfectly with fixing Cedeno. And mind you, Cedeno was thought of as one of the top gloves in our system until last year and Izturis is injury riddled. There's a great chance Cedeno will bounce back defensively as well. The likely defensive difference isn't nearly great enough to warrant a spot on the roster for Izturis, let alone 4+ million and a starting gig.

Rough guesses? Izturis - .265/.300/.345 plus glove but not plus-plus Cedeno - .270/.310/.375 marginally above average glovework Theriot - .280/.340/.390 below average glovework, but not bad I don't see there being a whole lot of difference value-wise between Izturis and Cedeno right now. I still have a hard time believing Cedeno wont improve greatly upon working with Perry coupled with the fact he's got his rookie shakes out of the way. Izturis probably wont have much of a chance of improvement. Theriot probably has the best chance to blow that projection away, but I'm not too optomistic about his glove. That's not as much of a concern with a staff that gets so many strikeouts and flyballs, though. Looking at skills and future projection, Cedeno has the most upside of the bunch. Theriot is an unknown quantity but has the best bat right now. Izturis is nothing but a glove. Irregardless of what the team's plans for the future are, I trade off Izturis in a package with some other guys to try and get Crisp for CF or Westbrook. Depending on what else we do this offseason, I start either Cedeno or Theriot at SS. If we keep upgrading the offense and can hide what could be another year of developing the bat, I make Cedeno the everday guy as I think he can be more useful 2 years from now than Theriot if given the development time. If we still have a struggling offense with a distinct lack of OBP, I start Theriot and take the minor hit on defense. None of this would stop me from signing a reasonable contract for Lugo or making a trade for ARod or Tejada, though.

In case people have forgotten, I feel a need to remind them. 1998 NY Yankees Shane Spencer 67 AB - 10 HR .373/.411/.910 Yeah, Theriot had twice as many at bats as him this season... but in limited time Spencer put up a Slugging % that was nearly as high as Theriot's season total OPS. In the six years that followed, Spencer posted a slugging percentage of more than half that only once... a .460 effort in limited time. Don't get me wrong, I like Theriot... but he's barely outside the range of how many times Spencer came up to the plate, and Spencer was clearly a one-year wonder. All that being said, I'd take Theriot over Izturis at short any day of the week and twice on sundays. Even with a Spencer-esque collapse, Izturis will make him look like Babe Ruth.

We've got three better options than Izturis sitting on the bench everyday anyways... ridiculous. Cedeno is a better option. Theriot is a better option. Alan Trammell is a better option. (it's only going to be his age 47 season)

Yeah, our defense was well above-average last season by most accounts. Irregardless, defense isn't as important to this team as most of the teams in the league because of the way the club places such an extreme importance on strikeouts. Our defense could be comfortably below-average and it wouldn't make too huge of a difference, considering the opportunities the defense gets.