mg420

i would MUCH rather have cedeno at ss than renteria. hopefully so would hendry.

i hope he's wrong. i'll take floyd or wilkerson over bradley any day.

they already have maybury who fits that description.

i would say they are wrong as the "baseball insiders" quite often are. hendry really seems to like murton and looking at his performance last year he is almost sure to be penciled in as the starting left fielder. it doesnt hurt that he is the only player left from the nomar trade and that hendry reportedly insisted on him being included for the deal to go down.

it might have something to do with his 34 hr's, 98 rbi & .863 ops last year (not to mention that he hits left handed & is a local guy).

I agree with everything you said. I wouldn't mind getting Vazquez either. I know AZ knows they have a very good young player, but they are being mentioned in the deal for Ramirez. I think it would be easier to dovetail into that deal than just approach AZ straight up. They must be getting something out of that deal. Maybe we could even dove-tail it with BOS and say, "Look, you owe us a player to be named for Van Buren. AZ wants this player out of your system as well as this player from ours. If you will give them that we will give you this and then offer you YOUR PICK of players to fulfill the Van Buren trade. We will then dutifully say that "We are excited to get 'Joe Schmo' and look forward to what he can contribute to our organization as we look forward to the future. Then explain the virtues of having a 28-year-old with our Rookie league team in Boise to provide 'veteran leadership' and extol his .240/.251/.300 stat line as a possible 'bat boy' of the future" Another tack is, do they have a "problem contract" that we can take off their hands? Remember, CHC has money and some decent prospects. While Chad Tracy may be the extreme and not realistic, is there another player similar to him that has good (not great) ability and wouldn't be too expensive, especially if we can throw some money into the deal, rather than being behind the curve and be among the dozens of suitors for mediocre talent (like Pierre) or high priced (like Abreu)? i would much rather keep williams as a starter than trade for vazquez. tracy would be great in rf but is he available? it was rumored a few weeks ago that az might trade him but i dont see them doing so. hes too good, young & cheap.

the bullpen is pretty much set. they might trade either novoa or wuretz in a deal for a cf or rf guy and who knows if they will go with a 6 man or 7 man pen. it looks like ohman, eyre, williamson, novoa/wuretz, howry & dempster at the moment. i think williams will either be traded or will be a starter.

other than strengthen their bullpen quite a bit with howry & eyre? besides, the season doesnt start in January. look at the authors track record when it comes to baseball commentary and i dont think the term "accurate" will come to mind. if the cubs would have out bid the dodgers he would have blasted them for paying 13 mil a year for a .280 hitting shortstop. imo he should be delivering newspapers not writting articles in them.

this is what happens when they hire guys to sell papers instead of give unbiased opinions & intelligently discuss baseball.

and if the cubs go on to have a good year & win the division or wild card with cedeno & murton, this guy will be on the cubs bandwagon. these writers have very short memories when it comes to their predictions and no accountability. i guarentee that the man knows nothing about cedeno or murton but he blows on the cubs for planning on starting them. what a major hack this loser is.

dwight gooden did pretty well in his prime throwing just a fb & a curve. if a pitcher has good control & changes speeds on the 2 pitches it can work. hill doesnt have the control or the speed changes to this point.

Why not just keep Dunn? My guess would be that the Reds might not be so keen on trading Dunn within the Division (short of fleecing the Cubs for him) but they might be up for a three way deal where he goes elsewhere. Dunn would be an outstanding pickup for the Cubs if they could swing it. That's better than Abreu in my book because of the age difference. except dunn can't field and has no speed.

I don't think the Cubs are in a position where they can justify a no trade list of prospects. None of their prospects is good enough to justify holding back in a trade for a top notch player like Abreu. I completely, utterly, and in all other ways agree. thats great but since it seems that the one who makes the decisions has a different idea, hill and murton are most likely not going to be traded for anyone. time will tell if this is a good decision or not. if hill can live up to his potential, he will be worth more than a few years of abreu.

that trade just moves the hole in the of from right to left. not very productive imo. I think that Leftfield is easier to fill than Rightfield. perhaps but murton will not be traded imo. he's too young & talented to give away. i would rather keep murton & see floyd or wilkerson in rf than trade murton from abreu. i also have heard that murton is on the no trade list along with hill which is a good thing imo.

that trade just moves the hole in the of from right to left. not very productive imo.

SCORE! Pierre- Ack Lugo- Leadoff? I guess. Wilkerson- YES Gathright- Ack No Damon- yay Why are people so down on Gathright? I admit that about the only thing I've heard about him is how fast he is and that he has no power. But looking at his minor league numbers, he gets on base at a decent rate. 2003- At age 21 he put up a .324/.406/.359 line in A ball. In 85 AB's in AA he put up a .376/.419/.388 line. 2004- In 32 games in AA he hit .341/.399/.397. In 236 AB's in AAA (age 22) he hit .326/.384/.373. He hit .250/.316/.250 in the bigs. 2005 (age 23)- In 226 AAA AB's he hit .305/.388/.407. In 203 ML AB's he hit .276/.316/.340. Obviously he hasn't done real well at the major league level, but he's had some pretty good success as a leadoff man in the minors. He's 191/247 in career stolen bases, good for a 77% success rate. If he had produced those numbers in the minors in our organization I think people would be a little more excited about him. i like him myself. he reminds me of a young pierre. wouldnt mind seeing him platoon with jhjr in cf.

How exactly do you know this? Is it that hard for you to accept that maybe, just maybe, Giles didn't want to play for Chicago? It's very hard for me to accept that Hendry apparantly didn't even try to talk him into the move, like other GMs have done with players who used to be against playing for that team. Like I asked before, How exactly do you know this? Well, we didn't get Giles, so that alone says he didn't do enough. But no, I don't know this as fact. None of this crap we talk about is known as fact. But any reasonable person who has read up on the situation would have to come to the conclusion that Hendry didn't really try hard to get Giles. If you disagree with that statement, or the statement that he did try really hard to get Furcal, than go right ahead and say it. But don't ask me to prove every statement, or else make sure you do that to every other poster who makes an educated assumption based on several reports by many baseball media outlets. maybe he didnt try "hard enough" because he knew giles wanted to stay in san deigo. that is as valid of an argument as hendry not offering enough to get giles.

how do you know what they will get for pierre? so far there are only rumors as to what he will cost and the rumors this year have been totally bogus to this point. Because of market perception and supply and demand. A whole lot of folks need a CF and there are only a few names really being tossed around (Damon, Pierre, Lofton, Bradley, Finley). Of the names being tossed around, Pierre probably is perceived as the best alternative behind Damon (except of course the by the Beananites). Therefore, like Stark mentions, it is entirely possible the Marlins will sit back and let teams outbid each other and overpay in the end, which they did not do with Delgado, Castillo, La Duca, etc. [edit - Goony I wasn't trying to repeat your observations or steal your thunder. Your post wasn't there when I started my reply.] until something happens its all conjecture. if someone would have posted what the marlins would get for castillo or the mets for delgado 2 weeks ago they would have been laughed off the board. its a nice theory but trade theories tend to often wrong.

how do you know what they will get for pierre? so far there are only rumors as to what he will cost and the rumors this year have been totally bogus to this point.

He is by far my favorite ex-Cub that is still playing and in my top 10 all-time. I have a huge man crush on Bill Mueller. he's one of my favorites too. no man crush (not that there's anything wrong with that...) but i would love to see his bat and glove at 2b the next year or 2 until epat is ready (simlar to pierre in cf until pie is ready). your avatar is a different story though pedro as far as crushes go.

any talk of mueller coming back to play 2b for the cubs if/when they trade walker?

What is a "true" leadoff hitter. Paint a picture for me. Give me some numbers to work with. the classic lead off guy has a good obp (.350+) & can steal bases (30+) and has some speed. that seems to be the kind of guy the cubs are looking for to lead off imo.

That would be acceptable production for RF, but it's not close to a guarantee, and wouldn't even be top notch. Wilkerson, if anything, is likely to be in the low to mid 800s in OPS next year, very solid for a CF. Couple that with Abreu in RF and suddenly you've got a very good offense, with good production in the OF as a whole. I agree, but everything I have heard is that the Phillies want a front end SP, the Cubs aren't going to give them Prior or Z. I would trade Patterson to the Nats for Wilkerson, and throw Williams, Hill, Pinto and spare parts at the Reds for Dunn. i have also heard that perhaps the phillies dont want as much as people think for abreu. even if they do, if they dont get any bites initially, perhaps they will lower their price in the hill, williams pinto range. i would rather have abreu than dunn anyway. abreu can run and has a pretty good glove as opposed to dunn.

That would be acceptable production for RF, but it's not close to a guarantee, and wouldn't even be top notch. Wilkerson, if anything, is likely to be in the low to mid 800s in OPS next year, very solid for a CF. Couple that with Abreu in RF and suddenly you've got a very good offense, with good production in the OF as a whole. but still no true leadoff hitter. i think that cf will be the leadoff guy (pierre most likely) and rf will be abreu, wilkerson, floyd, etc. i cant see the cubs using wilkerson to leadoff as henry seems to really want a speed guy at the top of the lineup.

i wouldnt consider a .875+ ops as being moderate to low production. if he's healthy, wilkerson can be a 30+ hr, .375+ obp .500+ slg right fielder. he also good defensively & has a very good arm. i would like to see abreu in rf but if not, either wilkerson or floyd would be a good fit.