Sarcastic

Because when Soriano steals a bag, it's really hurting our offense! :roll: That's as silly a response as "Because when Soriano strikes out, it's really helping out offense! :roll: " Neither of these statements have anything to do with what he posted. try harder. He obviously didn't understand what I meant by that. I subscribe to the feeling having a nagging threat on the bases clogs a pitchers mind. If you or he do not agree with that, please don't mock with your holier than though attitute and talk to posters like they are dumb just because they beleive something other than what you THINK you know is true. That bolded part is very true. Check the links to a study on this earlier in the thread. Some pitchers may be distracted, but the difference isn't very significant.

Possibly. How much much damage does his 2B defence do? I'd imagine it would have to be fairly bad to offset the difference in average production from 2B to LF.

It was sarcasm, with a hidden point. You know if you take out their footspeed, Carlos Lee has a career 835 OPS, so does Soriano. Lee's career EqA is .284, and Soriano's is .287*. Carlos Lee's OPS+ is 113 and Soriano's is 115. They both hit 30 or so homers a year, give or take a couple. So in reality when they are standing at the plate they are pretty much unrecognizable from each other. We intend on playing Soriano in RF, so there's no reason to add value to Soriano playing a more demanding position such as center or second. So in reality the only difference is Soriano's SB speed and CS outs. So we decided to give more money to Soriano for more years when he is six months older all basically because well he can run. So yeah, it's definitely something that you know I decided to just bitch and moan for no reason when in fact i have every reason to speak my mind in this way. It's a pity you didn't read into it like that and thought it was just thoughtless bantering. I guess I am not the thoughtless one... *EqA does involve SB/CS, so dock Soriano down a point or so if you take off the speed factor. That's more like it. I have to say though, I disagree with one main point that you made. Soriano retains some of the value of being able to play a defensive position, as he can move back if he has the chance. That gives a bit of extra flexibility, and would be useful, if the Cubs management was smart enough to use it in the coming offseasons. I'll agree with you that the difference between Lee and Soriano is not that substantial if Soriano is not playing CF or 2B, though.

I don't get this. If we are just going to throw around thoughtless insults that have no bearing on the discussion, let's just not post. I think this thread has enough pointless sarcasm by now. lol i get it the sarcasm guy doesnt like sarcasm brilliant Actually, I wasn't joking. This is getting a bit too juvenile. oh god stop youre killing me lololol Maybe you should be Sarcastic. When was the last time you wrote a post that had to do with baseball? Take it to the social forum.

I don't get this. If we are just going to throw around thoughtless insults that have no bearing on the discussion, let's just not post. I think this thread has enough pointless sarcasm by now. lol i get it the sarcasm guy doesnt like sarcasm brilliant Actually, I wasn't joking. This is getting a bit too juvenile.

I don't get this. If we are just going to throw around thoughtless insults that have no bearing on the discussion, let's just not post. I think this thread has enough pointless sarcasm by now.

But him stealing a bag isn't going to make up for him getting caught. The Cubs are and still are going to be a team who are out-[expletive]. They'll get them in bunches and REALLY need to conserve them. On the averages, a SB is worth .195 runs and a caught stealing is worth -.456 runs. Plug in his stuff last season and his stolen bases netted a whole .24 runs. Throw on top of that the Cubs higher than league average run environment (which makes each CS hurt them more and each SB help them less) and all of a sudden you have a guy whose running hurts us. And we decided to pay for it. As SBA goes up, SB% goes down usually. So again, choose your spots and it's a useful tool, but to pay big bucks for it is just stupid. Speed + Power = expensive. It's better to buy them seperately, that is by the power guy to play the position. Then buy the speed guy for your bench (and you can find a lot of them like say Joey Gathright or even Angel Pagan for that matter). The only time a SB is a useful tool is late in a close game after oh the 7th inning give or take, so there's no need to waste money on a tool that is useless most of the time. I disagree with the idea that Soriano's base running is going to hurt the Cubs. Over his career, he has stolen 210 bases, and been caught 60 times, yielding a decent 77.8% success rate. In the three years prior to last year, he had SB% of 93.8%, 78.3%, and 81.4%. I'd say that if the coaches reign him in (don't give him the green light every time he gets on base) his speed should be a somewhat valuable tool. Even if he is allowed to steal at will and racks up the CS, it will only cost the team a few runs at most, which is a small amount in comparison to the improvement in overall production he will represent compared to Pierre. Of course, his speed isn't his real value. To say the Cubs signed him because he is fast, or that that is his only or primary skill is untrue. His real value, and one that is definitely worth paying for, is his ability to slug from traditionally defensive positions. That is why he is getting the largest contract this offseason, not his speed. Further, I'd say his speed doesn't make much of a difference as to whether or not his signing was good.

Correct. This is actually exactly why Soriano is more valuable than Lee; he can put up similar offensive numbers at more defensive positions like 2B or CF. That's why it was so baffling to me that they wanted to move him to RF. He really has a lot less value there, though I guess in the future they may be able to move him.

another quick rule of thumb Anytime you take what a baseball GM or any high ranking corporate official says to a reporter as truth as to what he is thinking, you are the one that is dumb. I might not have said it that way, but this is definitely true. The only real evidence as to what a GM's philosophy is is the team he puts on the field. There's plenty of evidence of Hendry screwing up there without going to quotes.

This is a misrepresentation. The Cubs may have helped to set the market to a certain extent, but to say the Cubs set the market is to ignore the obvious trends of money in baseball that have been going on for decades. Soriano was not the first top FA to be overpaid, and he won't be the last. Every year, more and more players are receiving larger contracts, and every year, people moan and groan about how ridiculous the contracts are. Then once the contracts are up, the players still seem overpaid, but it isn't quite so over the top. More importantly, baseball goes on and teams do not crash and burn. We just have to accept that this is the new market. Players are going to be paid more and more, and it isn't about to stop anytime soon. Soriano is being overpaid for his production, but who is to say what he would have signed for if the Cubs hadn't made the offer, especially if some other teams had gotten into a bidding war over him? The important thing is that the Cubs got a good player without giving up any talent for him. There were somewhat more effecient ways to spend the money, but no top FA will end up underpaid. It is better that the Cubs overpay than that they not pay at all.

They eye roll smiley doesnt work as well when you are mocking somewhat solid points. Its not Soriano who set the market, heck he was asking for Beltran money, Hendry gave him MORE than he was asking for. And although we do not know for sure we can assume that no other GM was willing to come anywhere near what Hendry offered. 1)The signing happened so early in the offseason. 2)The signing materialized so quickly. Soriano's agent isn't dumb, he and Hendry talked Saturday. He then took the offer the cubs had on the table and shopped in around to others teams that were interested. He was met with a resounding "Hell NO", and then quickly accepted Sunday morning. If he was even met with an apprehensive "maybe", it wouldn't have materialized so quickly. By this definition of overpaying, every FA who does not give a hometown discount is overpayed. The nature of the free agent market is such that in order to sign a player, a team must be willing to offer more money than any other team. I don't think it is reasonable to say that no other team would have bid anything near that if given the chance, especially if the contest became a drawn out bidding war. All FAs are going to be overpayed. That is pretty much the nature of the market. The thing is, good players are a rare commodity, and being able to get them without giving up talent is a valuable exchange. For a large market team, signing overpayed free agents is better than signing no free agents or signing marginal free agents.

Lugo is a much larger upgrade over Izturis than guys like Meche, Batista, and Marquis would be over Guzman/Marshall/Mateo/Marmol. Why wouldn't we want to spend the money where it would help us most? Yes but the dumb butts (JH and Mcdunnough) want him for CF as far as we've all heard. And he's gonna cost 4 years $32 million. Do you really want to give THAT much to Lugo? If the Cubs are to spend that type of money over 3-4 years I'd rather they got an impact pitcher that could really boister the pitching staff. Like Schmidt or Westbrook (yes I know he must sign an extension) is westbrook really an impact pitcher? He is when he is replacing a AA pitcher, which is basically what he will be doing for the Cubs. He is no ace, though.

We've only improved at one of the outfield spots. Jones is still Jones(and '07 Jones is likely to be worse than '06 Jones) even if he moves to a different position. Also, DeRosa is far from a guarantee to be an upgrade over our 2B production in '06(.274/.326/.411/.737). Nope. 1B = Lee > no Lee RF = Soriano > Jones CF = Jones > Pierre 2B = Derosa > Neifi, Bynum, Walker, Cedeno P = Have already said they are getting 2 more pitchers. And the off-season is not even HALF over yet. I mean my gosh people. Jim is STILL going to go out and get some pitchers, he might even replace Izturis with Lugo. For heavens sake admit we are better and we're not even done yet! We've significantly upgraded 1 OF spot, and assuming Lee is healthy, 1 IF spot. Assuming DeRosa's new approach will lead to similar production, our 2B spot was pretty much a lateral move (vs Walker). 3B and SS will be about the same, and I'm inclined to think Murton will be a little more productive. However, I am not counting on Barrett to reproduce his numbers, and I wouldn't be surprised if Jones's numbers slipped a little too. I'd disagree on 2B. If DeRosa did in fact put up similar production to 2006, which he may well not, he would be a substantial upgrade over 2006 Walker. 2006 Walker (w/ Cubs): .277/.352/.390 2006 DeRosa: /.296/.357/.456 That isn't even counting the fact that Walker played a lot of 1B and 2B was mostly manned by the even more pathetic combination of Cedeno and Neifi, with a hot Theriot bringing in the last handful of ABs. I'd bet that even if DeRosa regresses, which he probably will, he will still beat the production the Cubs got from 2B last year by a decent margin. The Cubs obviously aren't a 100 win team right now, but if the rest of the offseason goes well, they will be able to contend. The key is that there are probably more moves to be made. I think that they'll still have to hope that their key players (Lee, Prior) can contribute, but if they can,the Cubs will have a good shot. EDIT: Here's a more in depth analysis of who the Cubs had playing 2B last year. It really was a strange collection. This is a list of the players who played 2B for the Cubs in 2006, how many games they played there, and what their stats where as Cubs in 2006 (from ESPN's list). Todd Walker: 41 games (.277/.352/.390) Neifi Perez: 33 games (.254/.266/.343) Ryan Theriot: 30 games (.328/.412/.522) Jerry Hairston Jr.: 18 games (.207/.253/.244) Ronny Cedeno: 14 games (.245/.271/.339) Freddie Bynum: 14 games (.257/.308/.456) Tony Womack: 12 games (.280/.333/.360) Aside from Theriot's 30 games, this is a pretty bad collection, ranging from mediocre to awful. I think that DeRosa has a shot at beating this collective pile of crud.

I don't think that this is a preparation for selling the team. Unless the buyer is willing to maintain the payroll, adding these liabilities would hurt the team's value. Nothing kills fan interest more than a sudden slash of the payroll and a fire sale of all the well known players, which is what would have to happen if new buyers weren't interested in having such a large payroll from the start.

Yeah, posting after midnight on weekends should definitely be banned.

It's passed the Matsuzaka thread. I actually meant the hits for the day. Hits, posts, whatever. The important thing is that I don't look like I wasn't paying attention to the discussion. :x

It has passed the Matsuzaka thread.

Sign Meche/Lilly. Trade Jones's contract. Sign Drew. I don't think it's that impossible. Who knows, the payroll maybe be bigger than the 115-120 that we've been hearing. if that's it the rotation is horrible at worst and very average at best, definately not a world series champion. I don't think Z, Hill, Meche, Lilly/Westbrook, Prior/Miller with Marshall and Marmol possibly in there too is a horrible pitching staff. as much as i'd like hill to succeed and think he will eventually, it's not a good idea to have him slated in the three spot after the ups and downs he's had. prior/miller can't be counted on exactly and even if you replace an injured prior/miller with marmol or marshall it's not that great. the point being, there is a not so fine line between average and great. 2003 rotation was great, 2006 rotation was below average. i really think the cubs need to sign a schmidt or trade for something close to that to ensure anything pitching wise. Or maybe we will catch a break and the real Mark Prior will show up again. Doubt we're that lucky. Maybe not, but I think that Mark Prior having a comeback is the team's best hope for being contenders in 2007. Unless Hendry has a lot more money to build with than we thought, there is no way he can turn the team around that fast without some good luck, and the biggest lucky break we could get is having our injured #5 pitcher regain ace status. Without that, the team may be competitive, but they'll still be a long shot.

Wow, Sullivan really got the scoop on that one.

Rule #1 for the people new to following baseball transactions: Never believe blogs, message boards, or sports journalists (with the occasional exception for the last category).

Despite my sn, it is hard for me to unravel the sarcasm here. I know Brian is being sarcastic, but is everyone who is ridiculing him joking around too? EDIT: Brian beat me to revealing he was joking.

If years 7 and 8 are in fact options, and the NTC is dropped later on, then the cntract isn't so bad. However, those factors are negated by moving Soriano to RF. Soriano is a good ballplayer. He would make a good 2B or CF offensively. But RF? Even in his career year, he wouldn't make a truly exceptional corner outfielder, which is what we are paying him to be. I'd be much happier with the deal if Soriano played CF and we got cheaper and better replacement production from RF.

I know people here (including me) generally put more faith in you than in other news writers, but other articles I've seen say that Soriano will play CF. Of course, they could just be guessing. How sure are you that RF is the plan for Soriano?

I don't understand this. Unless Hendry believes that Soriano will produce something closer to 2006 than to his career numbers, and that seems unlikely, Soriano has very little value as a RF. His career numbers look good from CF, but nothing special from CF. There's no way a RF should get that contract to put up Soriano's numbers.

What players has Hendry traded away for clubhouse reasons? Maybe you could make an argument for Farnsworth. Some would say Sosa, but I don't agree with that. I think it is more likely that Hendry didn't want the contract of a rapidly declining slugger (though he ended up paying a lot of it anyway). Hendry isn't going to deal Barrett just because he decked A.J.