Rob

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.

I don't sew why he would be any worse than Jones was in right. Jones may be able to get to the ball quicker, but he cant throw it into the infield to save his life. Manny may not get to the ball as fast but he has a cannon. So its a trade off, in my opinion. Manny has a horrible throwing arm. I disagree. Everyone who plays LF in Boston looks like they have a strong arm. Ramirez is awful when he throws the ball. Not only does he have a poor throwing arm, but he is not even accurate with his throws. His arm looked strong enough when he was playing RF in Cleveland.

Again, all the data I've got right now is 2005 and back, but... 2005: (Name and Total Baserunning Runs) Chone Figgins - 8.29 Jose Reyes - 6.81 Juan Pierre - 6.52 Alfonso Soriano - 5.86 Jason Bay - 5.63 Marcus Giles - 5.49 Johnny Damon - 5.20 Carlos Beltran - 5.07 Rafael Furcal - 4.90 Ichiro Suzuki - 4.61 Remember though, that 4.92 of Soriano's 5.86 total came from EqSBR... a figure that has most certainly dropped from 2005 (30 SB, 2 CS vs 41 SB 17 CS)

Your point that they're relatively similar at the plate in terms of overall rate of production is a point well made, though arguments could probably be made with reasonable conviction that Soriano's maturing as a hitter, and that there's possibly something to be read into his well-stated preference for leading off and the almost too big to be entirely co-incidence career split that his numbers accordingly exhibit (batting first -- .291/.340/.544 in 2227 PA, anywhere else -- .267/.309/.473 in 1991 PA). All the same, there is absolutely no reason to disregard Soriano's athleticism and footspeed with such abandon. They are, in isolation, both assets. Assets reflected in many more things on the baseball field than those encompassed by your crude SB/CS calculation. Even if you limit yourself to looking at just baserunning, even there SB/CS is inadequate, for it doesn't take into account going from first to third on a single, scoring from first on a double, scoring from third on a groundball out or a sacrifice fly, beating out the double play, or any of the other small nuances that there are to baserunning, almost all of them intrinsically linked to two things - the right instincts, and, when it all comes down to it, the tag's been made and the umpire's made his ruling, footspeed. Why limit yourself though to looking merely at baserunning? Altheticism and footspeed have sure impacts upon Soriano's ability to play defence as well. Again, in conjunction with the right instincts, the ability to read the ball off the bat, good reactions, everything else necessary to play the outfield, altheticism and footspeed have their role to play. Soriano's footspeed, all else equal, will enable him to cover more ground, his altheticism will seemingly inevitably see him laying out for spectacular catches that others mightn't attempt, his cannon for an arm will add an out or two here and there on defence, and all these small incidences come with positive run values attached, that, over the course of a full season, are equivalent of an extra few points of EqA or OPS or OPS+ or whatever other catch-all offensive metric you prefer, to the plausible extent that when you're comparing him to a Carlos Lee, statements such as "when they are standing at the plate they are pretty much unrecognizable from each other", when talking about reality, are no longer true. Why limit yourself though to looking at performance just in terms of ratios? Altheticism arguably may have it be the case that Soriano's a whole lot less likely to get injured than a Carlos Lee as they enter their thirties. And it will almost certainly have it be the case that Soriano's a whole lot better a bet to age well and to retain his performance level and keep putting up all those ratios you were talking about before. Just because these things are difficult to quantify, to express in some sort of easy numerical catch-all measure, doesn't mean you should pay them such scant attention. Like you, I'm guessing, absolutely nothing annoys me more than a general manager that ignores years upon years of telling at the plate numbers just because a player "has wheels". It's much more important that a player can hit. But being athletic, able to run and play defence, still has some value, albeit significantly less. So when a player can hit, that he's also athletic is an added bonus. Maybe it's not worth paying up for, but it's not something that can be dismissed with a crude mention of SB/CS. I posted this in the Brad Hawpe thread. I thought it might be pertinent to your argument that Soriano is a good baserunner. That's the truth. I can't find his baserunning totals for 2006, but his 2005 totals are as follows. EqGAR (Ground Advancement Runs) is -0.08 EqAAR (Air Advancement Runs) is -0.07 EqSBR (Stolen Base Runs) is 4.92 EqHAR (Hit Advancement Runs) is 1.10 He's a little below average advancing on outs on the ground or in the air. He was an exceptional basestealer in 2005. And he's worth about an extra run per season when he gets an opportunity to advance on a hit. That was 2005. I don't have the numbers for 2006 handy, but his stolen base rate dropped off significantly (30 SB 2 CS in 2005, 41 SB 17 CS in 2006). That drop brings his SB% to right around the breakeven point. You drop his EqSBR to 0.00, and he's worth approximately one run all season long on the basepaths compared to your league average joe. And that's assuming his sudden loss of a step didn't affect any other aspect of his running game. Obviously, he's probably at stealing bases than he showed in 2006, but for a 30 year old to regain career-year form is something I sincerely doubt will happen. Figure he settles in around 2.50 runs per season for the next few when attempting to steal. Figure he keeps everything else the same. 3-4 runs per season after taking all the times he was successful and all the times he failed into consideration, compared to what you'd expect by looking at the rest of the league. 3-4 runs isn't insignificant, but I always fume a little bit when people try to tell me Soriano is worth a ton on the basepath. He quite simply is not.

Stop being so damn pessimistic.

Jeremy Brown was indeed scouted by the A's. The scouts didn't like him that much, but they sure did scout him. "We're not selling blue jeans here."

Tip o' the hat to the D'Backs. Estrada is greatly overrated and is nothing more than a singles hitter with no speed and a weak glove.

Those statistics aren't very important at all, especially RBI and R which are almost completely worthless. SB has some value, but Soriano gets himself out on the bases so much that he doesn't exactly provide a ton of value with his baserunning. How the hell are RBI and R almost completely worthless? Is VORP, Isod, Ipod, Ihop, PMS better ways to judge a player? :lol: RBI and R aren't completely worthless. They're great ways to look at team production. They aren't very good when trying to isolate individual performances, though. Think about it. If Carlos Lee were the #8 hitter for the Marlins, he probably wouldn't have had 100 RBI. DLee lost the MVP in 2005 because of RBIs... Corey Patterson and Neifi Perez weren't on base to be knocked in very often, so DLee just couldn't hit them in. That doesn't mean he had any less amazing of a season, though. I will grant you, RBI and R can tell you something about a player. Mostly, they just tell you where in the order he batted, but sometimes they can do a bit more. It's readily apparent that Sammy Sosa had a hell of a season when he knocked in 160 guys. But was it better than Hal Trotsky in 1936 when he knocked in 162? Was it better than Ted Williams in 1949 when he knocked in 159? RBI just doesn't do a very good job of isolating the individual from the team, and subsequently can only inform us of very broad things... 100 RBI usually means middle of the order. 100 R usually means the top. Obviously, it tells us something about the health of the player involved. And unusually large or small numbers can tell us it was a very good or very bad season... but not any more. Team dependant stats, such as R and RBI are only telling at the margins... and that is simply not worth much when trying to evaluate a player.

I doubt a NRI contract would get it done... but I'd be willing to go one million for one year... probably not any more. Truth be told, though... if we are talking about 4th OF guys, I'm happy with Cliff Floyd (whom it looks like we are going to sign). And Pagan is fine for a 5th OF. Pagan can cover center and has the ability to be our pinch-runner. If Wilkerson could play a little 3rd, I'd be willing to use him as the CI bench guy a la Russell Branyan. Unfortunately though, that isn't the case... and it doesn't look like he'd be of much use to this team as it is likely to be constructed on opening day.