Rob

No Veal, Pie, or Fox? Sorry, I don't buy that they aren't all in the top 10 at their respective positions. I guess that's why I don't pay for BA, though...

Molina is neither good defensively anymore nor anything beyond barely serviceable with the bat. Stay far, far away.

Why would the Reds ever agree to that? Maybe Izturis is open to switching to middle relief?

I'd be surprised if it's not just dip spit. If you don't get that stuff off pronto, it doesn't come off.

Actually, he was the one leading the charge to try and keep the team in the wild card in 2004. Aramis isn't nearly so lazy as the hack-job journalists would have you believe.

What is the general consensus on Matthews? My guess is that he will get a deal too expensive and too long for his skills. Other opinions? I feel about him essentially the same way I felt about Jacque Jones. Yeah, he's an alright player. But he wont be worth the money or years he gets... and he's not the best thing on the market. Gary Matthews should be the type of guy we try to sign to one or two year deal when every other avenue is exhausted before the season. There's better targets to set our eyes on.

A-rod. I'm pretty sure it's all been speculation at this point (particularly, the inclusion of Hill), but it does make some sense, so it's worth considering. Wouldn't the Yankees likely be able to get a better package for ARod from another team? I'm going to go out on a limb and state that Hill and spare parts wont' do it. Hill simply is not a proven top of the rotation SP, and that is what the Yankees will likely demand, IMO. To address the topic presented in this thread, the Cubs would probably pull the trigger on a Hill centered trade for Arod if this were offerred....and then sign 2 FA SPs There aren't really that many teams that can absorb A-Rod's $23 million salary this year. I guarantee that other teams could offer more in terms of players, but their payroll just won't support it. Texas is picking up a sizable chunk of that contract. New York is paying 16 per year, I believe.

All I know is that I've increased my beer budget by 20%

QFT, sans a minor grammar error. However, I'm really not certain if the incident itself is more an indictment of Merker or Dusty. Yeah, Kent shouldn't have called the booth, but Dusty never should have allowed him to be watching the television broadcast instead of the game on the field anyways. Probably a bit of fault to both of them. After those problems, Stone didn't handle himself well either... but the blame falls on the guys down in the dugout, not up in the booth.

I'm worried about Schmidt's arm too... but I'd give him a three year deal before I'd give one to Zito. The A's just ravaged Zito's arm this year.

Have I not been paying attention? When did Carlos Lee become a star? Hell, when did he even become a very good hitter?

Overrated Yeah, probably. But he's still more productive than any of our current outfielders by quite a bit. Hardly a ringing endosement, sure... but take it for what it's worth.

I'd do Zambrano and Pie for ARod, Hughes, and Tabata... though I sincerely doubt the Yankees would bite on that one.

I'm assuming you're using the swear filter to fix this stuff? If so, it's doubly hilarious.

Pin.ella. HA!! Piniella Now that's a "HA!"

He's right here. Remember? :lol: Awww, you're sweet. But your disturbing avatar says otherwise now...

In related news, I kinda miss Dusty Baker now.

I like every word of that, especially the part about Soriano in CF. Prepare to be bombarded by the "Soriano is overrated and sucks" faction. Last year the guy was a bum who didn't get on enough and was going to stink now that he's not in a hitters park and low and behold...40/40. Seriously, what is your problem with posters on this board? Soriano is overrated. But he's still good. Most everybody on this board would be happy with him being here next year, especially when you consider the limited options. And, if he's in CF, all the better. If I recall correctly you were one of the guys saying Soriano sucks last year. A year ago people were saying you can't trade (name a worthless pitching prospect who we've waited for to pan out and still hasn't) for established players who's OBP is below .375 and people were lambasted at the suggestion. And for the record you're usually the only poster I tend to disagree because of your "I'm always right" attitude. So because Soriano exceeded everybody's wildest expectations and the pitchers on our staff didn't come close to their talent, suddenly we were all stupid? If you tell me that before the season you honestly believed Soriano would do anything near what he has done this year, I would be forced to call you a liar. There was nothing in his track record to suggest he'd go from being merely a good or very good player to being a great one... and there's nothing to suggest he's established a new baseline level of performance for himself at the age of 30. (BTW, he got caught stealing 17 times stealing, so his 41 steals mean jack squat. I'll give him credit for hitting the ball well enough to get 46 HR, but he wasn't stealing well enough to get 41 steals... he was simply attempting to steal often enough) I'm not saying anyone is stupid. My point last year was that he's a proven run-producer and difference maker and people (many people) had the nerve to say he wasn't because of ball park factor. I was also told that his because he was in an inferior lineup he wasn't going to hit as well or score as many runs. oops. A proven run-producer and difference maker? Soriano's 2005 is pretty much the same as Murton's 2006, in terms of actual run producing (minus defensive woes). And Murton's 2006 is better than Soriano's 2004. Are you saying that Murton, in his current state, is a true difference maker? The kind of guy that it's smart to trade a good chunk of the farm away for? Cause that's why so many of us were against it last offseason. Soriano simply hadn't shown he was still worth it (until this late career year)

I like every word of that, especially the part about Soriano in CF. Prepare to be bombarded by the "Soriano is overrated and sucks" faction. Last year the guy was a bum who didn't get on enough and was going to stink now that he's not in a hitters park and low and behold...40/40. Seriously, what is your problem with posters on this board? Soriano is overrated. But he's still good. Most everybody on this board would be happy with him being here next year, especially when you consider the limited options. And, if he's in CF, all the better. If I recall correctly you were one of the guys saying Soriano sucks last year. A year ago people were saying you can't trade (name a worthless pitching prospect who we've waited for to pan out and still hasn't) for established players who's OBP is below .375 and people were lambasted at the suggestion. And for the record you're usually the only poster I tend to disagree because of your "I'm always right" attitude. So because Soriano exceeded everybody's wildest expectations and the pitchers on our staff didn't come close to their talent, suddenly we were all stupid? If you tell me that before the season you honestly believed Soriano would do anything near what he has done this year, I would be forced to call you a liar. There was nothing in his track record to suggest he'd go from being merely a good or very good player to being a great one... and there's nothing to suggest he's established a new baseline level of performance for himself at the age of 30. (BTW, he got caught stealing 17 times stealing, so his 41 steals mean jack squat. I'll give him credit for hitting the ball well enough to get 46 HR, but he wasn't stealing well enough to get 41 steals... he was simply attempting to steal often enough)

Incidentally, one of the local liquor store owners just bought a Porsche.

WHAT?! My thoughts as well. Now if it were Marshall, Veal, Jones for Andruw and Hudson...that's a good deal. I'm just trying to make a trade that seems plausible. Don't forget last year the Red Sox traded both Anibal Sanchez and Hanley Ramirez for Josh Beckett and the Red Sox took on Mike Lowell's contract. I think you guys may be a bit unrealistic on what you can obtain. If you switch in Cesar Izturis for Jacque Jones would the trade become more palatable? ONe more thing if you are willing to overpay for guys like Soriano and Lee in free agency why is not acceptable to overpay to get guys through a trade? If you want to build a winner immediately you are going ot have to overpay. but you're trading for a guy who is probably on the back end of productivity in his career, and has an albatross contract that might be the difference between us being able to sign our core players to extensions. Every free agent we can sign is on the backend of his career. Carlos Lee is gonna be 32. Soriano is gonna be 31. Schmidt will be 33. I would rather pay Hudson 30 million over three years than Schmidt 48 million over 4. Matsuzaka

Yeah! David Bell is twenty times the player Aramis will ever be! We can just sign him instead! :roll:

He knows what ERA stands for. But does he recognize that RA+ is more stable than ERA or even ERA+ from year to year?

I guess I can take a stab at this... Re-sign Aramis (5/$65m) and Zambrano (5/$75m) Re-sing Wood (1/$2m) with incentives going up to $5m [we will assume he earns all of it for the sake of the exercise] Jones, Dempster, and Veal to Dodgers for J.D. Drew Izturis, Pie, Aardsma, and Ryu to Toronto for Vernon Wells Prior, Eyre, and Moore to New York for ARod and cash ($4m per year) Sign Craig Wilson (2/$9m) Sign Russell Branyan (1/$1m) Grab Daisuke Matsuzaka (4/$35m) [for the purposes of this exercise, the posting fee would be offset as a marketing cost, as it should be adequately covered by the increased share of the japanese market] Sign Jason Schmidt (4/$50) C - Barrett ($4m) 1B - Lee ($13m) 2B - Theriot ($0.4m) SS - ARod ($12m) 3B - Ramirez ($13m) LF - Murton ($0.4m) CF - Vernon Wells ($5.6m) RF - J.D. Drew ($11m) Bench: 1B/OF/C - Wilson ($4.5m) CI - Branyan ($1m) OF - Pagan ($0.4m) IF - Cedeno ($0.4m) C - Soto ($0.4m) Rotation: SP1 - Zambrano ($15m) SP2 - Matsuzaka ($8.75m) SP3 - Schmidt ($12.5m) SP4 - Hill ($0.4m) SP5 - Guzman ($0.4m) Bullpen: CL - Howry ($4m) SU - Wood ($5m) SU - Wuertz ($0.4m) MRP - Ohman ($1m) MRP - Marmol ($0.4m) LRP - Marshall ($0.4m) Junk time - Novoa ($0.4m) Total: $114.75m I'm not thoroughly sold on this being my best solution; it's just my first thoughts. Also, are those trades too far off the mark?

UGH. Is Bochy any better? Everything I've read about Bochy hasn't been rosey either. Baker is running neck and neck with Sweet Lou. Bochy looks like Earl Weaver compared to those guys.