Rob

Guys, cut him some slack. People deal with death in different ways. I had about a half dozen terrible jokes go through my head when I heard the news. That's just the way some of us are hardwired to react to these sorts of heavy, awkward situations -- we try to lighten the mood. It was in poor taste and he shouldn't have said anything. I'm sure he realizes that now. Let's not all pile on.

Wow, Logan White is a huge pickup for the Padres. And it sure takes some of the sting out of the Dodgers picking up Friedman.

I seem to recall that we tried to get Byrnes either in addition to or instead of Jed Hoyer. Not entirely sure which (or if the rumors were even true at all).

I'm gonna go with content. The Astros offense isn't anything to write home about, but you can only work with what you're given. Astros wRC+: 2012 - 82 (the year before Mallee took over) 2013 - 85 2014 - 96 That's not a fair comparison at all for a number of reasons, but I just don't care. FWIW, he seemed to help Carter make a big adjustment that turned him into a 2nd half monster.

Fantasy baseball rants good? I've had a standing sidebet with my league nemesis for the last three years in my money league -- $50 to whichever team finishes highest in the regular season. I've won all three years. After his first lost bet, he was going to pay me back at the live draft for our next season. We both got way too trashed and forgot. Oh well. He lost again the second year. Again, the plan was to repay me at the live draft. Well, we all had to cancel the live draft at the last second. I told him to just paypal me the $100. He said he wanted to wait until after the season to do it all at once. He lost again. Now he's decided the amount of the sidebet has gotten funny and is refusing to pay me because he thinks it's all a joke. $150 is enough to pay my power bill for the month, so I'm starting to get a bit peeved about it.

I don't think they've got the payroll space to retain him, but I could be wrong about that. He'd probably need to take a sweetheart deal after winning the world series or something though.

Is this 2008? Use a board style with the profile pic on the right. All the cool kids are doing it.

By BaseRuns, the Cubs should be 71-69 right now. NL Central BaseRuns Projected Standings: Pirates: 74-65 (.530) Cardinals: 71-68 (.508) Cubs: 71-69 (.507) Brewers: 68-71 (.493) Reds: 65-74 (.467) Things are going to be interesting next year.

Well, they can expect better years from Prince Fielder and Shin Soo Choo next year. Andrus is better than he showed too. They should also get some more production from young guys like Profar and Odor next year. On the pitching side of things Holland, Harrison, and Perez have combined to throw just 75.2 IP this year. They should be better there too. That gets them back to below-average. I don't know how they're going to right the ship past that though.

Yeah, that's pretty much it for who jumped out at me too. (Aside from new Boog Powell on Beloit). It wont be as fun as when it was a Cubs affiliate, but I'm still looking forward to tonight.

The money is there, but I think Theo talks the "18-24 month thing" and "when the revenue comes in" stuff to keep expectations in check. If the prospects keep coming and producing and pitchers like Hendricks and Ramirez keep pitching like they have been, there's no reason for Theo to commit to spending a lot this off season. He can afford to patch the holes while he waits to see what develops and what the team really needs. there is no reasonable scenario in which the cubs don't need top-end pitching. Junior Lake and John Baker both covert to starting pitching in the offseason.

Looks like I'm going to head out and catch the Peoria Chiefs vs. Beloit Snappers game tonight. Anybody I should keep a particular eye on for either team?

Much better this way.

For the vast majority of pitchers, I'll look at fWAR when projecting future performance (and evaluating past performance). But there's a handful of pitchers for whom it likely overstates their value. Javier Vazquez was one. Ricky Nolasco is one. Edwin Jackson appears to be another. I'm not sure what it is about those guys, but they almost always seemed incapable of outperforming their fielding independent pitching numbers.

This is pretty awesome.

A lot. 2014 HR per 550 PA: SS Russell - 27.5 (35.7 as a Cub) RF Soler - 32.9 1B Rizzo - 28.3 LF Bryant - 42.1 2B Baez - 31.7 C Schwarber - 34.4 3B Castro - 13.4 CF Alcantara - 14 Obviously some of those minor league numbers will come down significantly at the big league level, but if you ignore context it looks so much cooler.

you are most certainly wrong Then it is a startlingly different era of baseball that we are stepping into. look around, we've been in it for several years now. the decline of ped's and the rising average age of prime free agents has absolutely changed the way front offices should approach free agent acquisitions. you're absolutely right that the sheer level of injuries and rapidly declining performance is uncanny and unpredictable, but only insomuch as how *quickly* those things have happened So won't the game just adjust accordingly based on past practices as opposed to ideal ones? It seems unlikely that you'll be able to snag guys like Castro and especially Rizzo on such team-friendly deals real soon; we'll probably just see prime free agents becoming available at younger ages as their agents and the union talk them out of waiting. And the pitching thing especially just feels more like the fluky timing of a bunch of injuries in close proximity to each other as opposed to an actual trend. You may see the early extensions become less team-friendly, but I think these extensions are here to stay. You seem to be operating under the assumption that the market will react rationally. But a lot of the appeal of these deals for the players has little to do with logic. If you had an opportunity to take a deal that would guarantee the future of you and your family before you even played a game in the majors, that's a huge selling point. A lot of guys are going to look right past the fact they should maybe get paid 15-20% more and take that safety net. And I don't see that changing anytime soon.

I didn't know he was catholic.

I'm trying to think of the last big FA signing that didn't end up providing pretty poor value... Technically it was just an extension, but Jeter's big contract with the Yankees went alright. Beltran kinda [expletive] the bed at the end of his Mets deal but they got what they paid for. The next best outcome may actually be Alfonso Soriano, believe it or not. Beltre Good call. Cabrera and Pujols had pretty good production for their mega-extensions. But those were just arb-eligible deals.

I'm trying to think of the last big FA signing that didn't end up providing pretty poor value... Technically it was just an extension, but Jeter's big contract with the Yankees went alright. Beltran kinda [expletive] the bed at the end of his Mets deal but they got what they paid for. The next best outcome may actually be Alfonso Soriano, believe it or not. What are you limiting big FA to? The sample size for this experiment was all the ~$100M+ deals I could remember off the top of my head.

I'm trying to think of the last big FA signing that didn't end up providing pretty poor value... Technically it was just an extension, but Jeter's big contract with the Yankees went alright. Beltran kinda [expletive] the bed at the end of his Mets deal but they got what they paid for. The next best outcome may actually be Alfonso Soriano, believe it or not.

Valbuena's skill set is precisely the type that doesn't result in inflated paychecks. So I'm not too worried about his escalating salary. I'm not against a Castillo signing. But his Cuban league numbers aren't all that impressive and the scouting reports are contradictory. All I'm saying is that I want to know more about what type of player he is before I get upset that the Cubs are or aren't willing to offer a certain amount. I am moderately interested in seeing how Renteria would try to cycle Castillo, Alcantara, Soler, Bryant, Baez, and Valbuena around in a lineup. But unfortunately there's not an easy platoon option that I see.

I've never really seen us as likely bidders for Castillo. Signing him would push Valbuena to the bench when Bryant comes up. And Castillo is very unlikely to be worth $60M+ more than Valbuena. The only good reason I see to sign Castillo is to make Alcantara available as the centerpiece to a trade this offseason. To that end, I could support it. But since I have very little clue what kind of player Castillo really is, I have no idea what contract he'd have to get in order for me to feel comfortable with that plan more than the alternatives.

I bet you all watch The Big Bang Theory.

Jon Heyman is reporting that the MLB is discussing moving the Montreal Expos to Washington at the end of the 2004 season. Unless they don't.