Rob

Welcome to NSBB, Tiger! Glad to have you aboard. I laughed at this a little harder than I should have. As to Rodrigo Lopez... yeah. Whatever. Minor league deal for a pitcher that's perfectly acceptable AAA depth... why not?

This is a month old and disregards the Blue Jays because they're negotiating with Yu Darvish. Your buddy is a moron.

I am really excited he's gonna try to stick around a while longer. I first took interest in baseball around the age of 4, in 1989. Near as I can tell, amongst active players only he and Omar Vizquel were around that long ago. Vizquel was 22 and in his rookie season. Moyer was 26 and in his 4th season. Other debuts of current old guys: Ivan Rodriguez - 1991 (19 years old) Jim Thome - 1991 (20 years old) Arthur Rhodes - 1991 (22 years old) Tim Wakefield - 1992 (25 years old) Matt Stairs - 1992 (24 years old) Miguel Batista - 1992 (21 years old, threw 2 IP and didn't show up in the majors again until 1996) Manny Ramirez - 1993 (21 years old) Chipper Jones - 1993 (21 years old) Darren Oliver - 1993 (22 years old) Alex Rodriguez - 1994 (18 years old) I only spent about 10 minutes on this list, so I wont guarantee the following tidbit... but I from the looks of it, that's ALL of the players who were around when the union went on strike in 94. (Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Giambi, Damon, Cameron, Counsell, Isringhausen, and Hawkins debuted in 95... also debuting in 95, Juan Castro, who has amassed 2849 plate appearances over 17 big league seasons while posting a .229/.268/.327 career line. He's gotten in multiple games in the majors each year. His longevity is a mystery to us all.) And I think it's pretty likely there are a few guys on that short list who wont log any time in the majors next year... Matt Stairs may already be retired, now that I think about it.

This is mentioned all the time, but does this ever happen? Isn't that what the Indians did with Pomerantz in the Ubaldo trade? Now there's a trade that could look very, very bad for the Indians in a few years time. Wasn't that only like a month or so? I don't ever recall a guy being shelved for six months to be a PTBNL.

I had pretty high hopes for Pawelek for about three weeks.

"I'm not swinging at anything if Soriano doesn't start making a fresh pot of coffee when he finishes the old one."

I think I'm gonna go dig through the old Jermaine Dye thread. That could be fun. Edit: I thought they Dye threads were longer than that. Disappointing. You did make a few funny comments about how you thought he was on pace for an "easy 40-50" HR the year before, though.

Okay. Less than 2% Now explain to me how that isn't his upside. it's his upside insofar as my professional upside is to become a billionaire, i guess; it's so prohibitively unlikely, it's not even worth thinking about for all practical purposes Upside has very little to do with likelihood. Upside = Ceiling = Absolute best case scenario if a player turns all his potential ability into baseball skills. If your definition of upside for a 21 year old SS in AA with amazing tools is " to i guess suppress these problems just enough to sneak their way into the majors for a few seasons"... well, you don't understand what upside is. All he really has to do to have a nice major league career as a league average starter is continue on the path he's on and improve one of his power/speed/fielding/strikeout rate/walk rate. That's not "so prohibitively unlikely it's not even worth thinking about." And so even your own made up definition of upside has you underselling him.

Yeah, that argument has always amused me.

Vlad (.83 BB/K), Hanley (.52) Soriano (.36) still all showed much better command of the strike zone in the minors than Lake (.23) has also, somewhat tangential i guess, but i sort of hate using Sosa as an example for anything, the guy hit .227/.276/.382 in his first three years; if the hope for a player is to give you less than a win of value in three years and get traded for a fading has-been, that's a little grim And if we were arguing that Lake is a better prospect than Vlad, Hanley, or Soriano those data points might be useful to prove he isn't. But nobody is making that argument. You said plate discipline can't really improve, these examples prove otherwise. And I still want an answer for this. Do you really not understand the term? I stated it earlier. Lake has the raw physical tools to hit 20+ HR and swipe 40+ bags while sticking at SS. There's also something like a 2% chance of that happening. that's been done four times in the history of baseball, so i'll certainly take the under on those odds Okay. Less than 2% Now explain to me how that isn't his upside.

Conor Jackson. I don't know that one really counts. He had been an OF through his entire minor league career until they moved him to 1B at AAA just to get him in the lineup. He spent only three seasons primarily as a 1B.

What the hell happened to Walker? He had a very good bat for a utility infielder and I don't remember him being particularly bad on defense. He just kind of dissapeared after a short, forgettable stint with the A's. He was 35 years old and coming off a sub-replacement level season and a below average one. He also had an awful defensive reputation and wanted more than a bench role near the league minimum salary. Pretty much exactly what happened to Jermaine Dye.

Do you really not understand the term? I stated it earlier. Lake has the raw physical tools to hit 20+ HR and swipe 40+ bags while sticking at SS. There's also something like a 2% chance of that happening. that's been done four times in the history of baseball, so i'll certainly take the under on those odds Okay. Less than 2% Now explain to me how that isn't his upside.

Do you propose ignoring potential development by a prospect when determining upside? no, not attainable potential development. a guy can add bulk to his frame and start putting doubles over the wall, but guys don't really ever suddenly start to gain some semblance of strike zone command after nearly 2000 PA of horrible ineptitude Haven't read fangraphs this week? Besides which, it's absolutely not unheard of for guys to boost their walk rates. We've even got a good example on the team right now in Soriano. 4.5 BB% through his first 3500 PA. 7.4% in the 3400 since. Vlad and Sosa always come to mind when I think about notorious free swingers who were surprisingly patient in their primes. Braun keeps improving his BB%. It does happen, however rarely. ETA: Hanley Ramirez, too.

I've seen stuff like this done before for baseball... though for the life of me I can't remember where. It's certainly an interesting idea though.

I can't think of a single 1B to OF conversion that's gone well.

Do you really not understand the term? I stated it earlier. Lake has the raw physical tools to hit 20+ HR and swipe 40+ bags while sticking at SS. There's also something like a 2% chance of that happening. But he has the ability to do things that guys like Ryan Theriot never possessed the physical skills to achieve. That's the upside. Upside is not the same thing as most likely outcome. And nobody has said anything to misrepresent what the most likely outcome for Lake is.

"Huge strides" is probably an exaggeration. Ian Desmond is a pretty good comp for the career path Lake is on right now. Low walks, high strikeouts, poor fielding, but with a bit of pop and some speed. Desmond grades out as a somewhat below average regular, with fWAR totals of 1.3 and 1.4 the last two years. If Lake takes a good step forward in any one of those categories (or numerous small strides), that would make him a league-average starter. He'd still be young, cost-controlled, and have considerable upside beyond that. As long as Lake is making some forward progress it doesn't make much sense to cash in a chip like that just to gamble he might be a closer someday. i get serious indigestion every time i read that Lake and Vitters have "huge upside"; it's so ignorant to overlook their total cluelessness of the strike zone or inability to field their position and hope that's somehow able to drastically change; their upside is to i guess suppress these problems just enough to sneak their way into the majors for a few seasons I don't think you know what upside means. Hint: It's not just the most likely scenario. Also, who overlooked anything? I went into detail about Lake's issues.

The comparison wasn't meant to be exact, just an approximation. A reasonable projection for Lake based on what he's showing right now probably has Lake with a little more power/speed than Desmond... but an inferior fielder and showing a slightly worse plate approach. Those are pretty similarly valuable players. All I was working towards was finding a reasonable estimate for a WAR target. If you're saying that Desmond is going to get the benefit of the doubt because he's more likely to stick at SS, I'll agree with you. If Lake moves to 3B, the Cubs front office likely wont stick with him through a couple below-average seasons while hoping he'll turn it around. If you're saying that Desmond deserves the benefit of the doubt over Lake because he's more likely to stick at SS... that's a little more tricky.

"Huge strides" is probably an exaggeration. Ian Desmond is a pretty good comp for the career path Lake is on right now. Low walks, high strikeouts, poor fielding, but with a bit of pop and some speed. Desmond grades out as a somewhat below average regular, with fWAR totals of 1.3 and 1.4 the last two years. If Lake takes a good step forward in any one of those categories (or numerous small strides), that would make him a league-average starter. He'd still be young, cost-controlled, and have considerable upside beyond that. As long as Lake is making some forward progress it doesn't make much sense to cash in a chip like that just to gamble he might be a closer someday.

His upside is immense. I'd go so far as to say he has the best raw tools in the entire system. The potential is there for 20+ HR and 40+ SB while playing good defense at SS. However, he some major issues. He strikes out too often, doesn't like to take a walk, and routinely makes mental mistakes in the field. CUBZ99 is right. Among those scouts who don't feel like Lake will ever get his approach in line there's a growing sentiment that the Cubs should convert him to the mound. His arm strength grades out at a pure 80 (on the 20-80 scouting scale) and he could potentially be a dominant late inning reliever (or perhaps even a starter). Even those scouts that want him to stay a position player mostly want him to move off SS (mostly due to mental errors)... but where he ends up is an uncertainty even then -- I've seen 3B, 2B, CF, RF, and LF all mentioned. And whether he moves to certain spots might influence whether he decides to bulk up and trade some speed for power. It's fair to say Lake is a bit of a wild card. Aside from the undeniable tools, everything about him is a question mark. I wouldn't expect to see him in Chicago next year though. While he's certainly got the talent to force his way up, he's got more than enough to be working on in the minors.

:lol:

The Yankees aren't a fit. Andruw Jones is cheaper and more effective than Soriano at everything the Yankees might want to use Soriano for.

Yeah, Felix Pie came up in 2007. Aside from that, nice post.

You're looking at the new Head Cheerleader.