sonofsamiam

They certainly will. My point was that, even with a "statistical correction", he's a very, very good player. His '04 season was actually his worst since '01; it just doesn't look like it, due to ballpark effects. Plus, I'm of the opinion that he's actually turned the corner, and isn't likely to regress TOO much. His approach at the plate is much better. His strikeouts are way down from previous, he's taking more walks again (though not as many as in '02-'03 -- stupid Cubs philosophy!), and, most important of all, he hasn't had a bad month, which always was a problem in the past. In fact, his worst OPS for a single month this year is July's 1.048. Based on this, while I doubt he'll have another year as good as this, whatever adjustments he's made have helped both his pitch recognition and his consistency. Those things are likely to help him continue at a higher level than as in previous seasons to this one, IMO. Lee may not regress back to his career norms, but I still have my doubts about him being a 1.000 OPS guy in coming years. With all the talent at 1B, it might be better served not to extend Derrek, and even capitalize on his inflated value by trading him. Also, and I'd expect you'd already know this, Derrek's had a great string of luck this year, BABIP-wise. Without his good fortune, Lee's OPS goes down a minimum of 60 points. True, he has had good luck with BABIP. Then again, Pujols has too, and M. Cabrera has had even better luck. You've probably heard of PROPS, which adjusts OPS based on batted ball type (in a way adjusting for the luck inherent in BABIP). Lee does lose a lot of OPS in this regard, but so do a lot of other people. In fact, even with this adjustment, Lee still leads the NL, and is 2nd in all of MLB, only to Manny Ramirez.

They certainly will. My point was that, even with a "statistical correction", he's a very, very good player. His '04 season was actually his worst since '01; it just doesn't look like it, due to ballpark effects. Plus, I'm of the opinion that he's actually turned the corner, and isn't likely to regress TOO much. His approach at the plate is much better. His strikeouts are way down from previous, he's taking more walks again (though not as many as in '02-'03 -- stupid Cubs philosophy!), and, most important of all, he hasn't had a bad month, which always was a problem in the past. In fact, his worst OPS for a single month this year is July's 1.048. Based on this, while I doubt he'll have another year as good as this, whatever adjustments he's made have helped both his pitch recognition and his consistency. Those things are likely to help him continue at a higher level than as in previous seasons to this one, IMO.

I think a 6-year deal would be crazy, and I think they're crazy for just about everyone. But the implication that Lee was just a slightly above-average player before this year isn't really true. I wish I had Win Shares info at the ready now, which bears out this statement, but I don't. Suffice to say that Lee led the '03 Marlins in Win Shares (yes, he had more than Pudge and Pierre and Lowell and Castillo), and that he has had over 20 WS a season for many years straight now. Oh yeah, he's currently leading the MLB. WARP3 is somewhat like Win Shares in measuring overall value. Here are WARP3 stats for premier first basemen over the last 4 years: Lee 2002 07.6 2003 08.5 2004 07.2 2005 11.4 TOTL 34.7 Pujols 2002 08.4 2003 11.8 2004 10.5 2005 09.1 TOTL 39.8 Helton 2002 08.8 2003 12.4 2004 12.2 2005 07.2 TOTL 40.6 Delgado 2002 08.2 2003 08.8 2004 06.9 2005 05.2 TOTL 29.1 Sexson 2002 08.0 2003 09.8 2004 01.2 2005 06.4 TOTL 25.4 Konerko 2002 04.3 2003 01.9 2004 05.7 2005 07.2 TOTL 19.1 Teixeira 2002 DNP 2003 03.7 2004 06.4 2005 07.5 TOTL 17.6 Overbay 2002 -00.2 2003 02.8 2004 07.0 2005 06.1 TOTL 15.7 N. Johnson 2002 02.6 2003 04.3 2004 01.9 2005 06.6 TOTL 15.4 Choi 2002 -00.1 2003 01.5 2004 03.8 2005 02.2 TOTL 07.4 The only guys ahead of Lee over this period cumulatively are Helton and Pujols, and Helton is already on a bit of a downswing. Now some of these guys lost time to injury, but I doubt, looking at the numbers, that they would have overtaken Lee in this metric even given full seasons. I agree that Nick Johnson and Teixiera are excellent young players, but the former is always injured, and the latter plays in something of a bandbox. None of these guys is as good all-around as Lee, though of course Pujols is the best player of the group. What I'm trying to say is that Lee was underrated before this year, and was always valuable. His numbers were always killed by playing in Florida -- he hit nearly twice as many HRs on the road as at home during those years. We should try to lock him in to something, without going too insane.

It was in '03. Of course, he was hitting .298 then.

I read a Nomar quote where he said that the HBP made the back hurt more, but it was already bothering him. I've never been on the Nomar bandwagon, and it seems fairly obvious that this guy's body has become a glass jaw. Has he ever truly been the "every day" shortstop for the Cubs? I certainly wouldn't re-sign him. I thought it was the other way around -- he got hit in the back, and then the back was further tweaked when he leapt for a line drive. Either way, I see what you're saying. However, I think we forget what we have here -- one of the best hitting shortstops in the last 40 years or so. Yes, he's battled injuries since '03. But he just turned 32, and the MLB has had many instances of players who lost significant time to injuries and still came back strong. I just think a cheap contract laden with incentives is worth the risk, presuming Cedeno is his true backup, and not Neifi. Which of course is a totally unrealistic presumption. :cry:

I'm in the camp that says re-sign Nomar for a low base with incentives. The guy was really hitting great until the back thing. Speaking of which -- why has no one made anything of the fact that being hit by Tavarez was what caused the injury? I was sure at the time that it was a purpose pitch. Tavarez comes in, plunks Nomar (and it isn't close), immediately leaves. Of course, TLR could say that he was bringing in King for the lefty match-up, but I felt that was just a built-in excuse at the time. I dunno, maybe I just had the Cardinals, ESPECIALLY Tavarez and LaRussa. Anyone else feel that the HBP may have been intentional?

The sad thing is he's MSNBC's national baseball reporter. He has a nice piece where he argues that Kerry Wood should never be a starter again, because he was so lousy as a starter in the past. And uses his '03 3.20 ERA as part of his evidence. And, of course, Wins. And, of course, that he's not as good as Curt Schilling (despite Schilling only becoming dominant in his thirties).

Fire Joe Morgan has become perhaps my favorite baseball blog. It's not just anti-Morgan (though he gets pilloried with regularity); today's entry is a great deconstruction of perhaps the most infuriating baseball article I've ever read. Anyway, enjoy. Just wanted to write something non-Cubs-oriented. And if this should be in another forum, so be it.

Actually, KC sounds like a good fit. It's a great hitters park, there wouldn't be much pressure to win, and management would love a marquee name to bring in fans. They probably wouldn't pay much for that marquee name, though. I think Sosa will stay in the league to get his 600 HRs, no question, and in fact will likely stick around as long as Mays, et al are still in sight and any team is willing to sign him.

This is sort of my point, though -- was there really "magic" on that '03 team? Or were they fortunate that the Cardinals had injuries and a terrible bullpen, and lucky to be so good in 1-run games? It's been pretty much statistically proven that being able to win 1-run games doesn't tend to repeat over a long period of time. They won 88 in '03, and 89 in '04. That shouldn't be surprising, as the 1-run "luck" evened out and Wood/Prior had injuries. The additions as far as talent evened out those occurrences, and thus we got a similar record. The only problem was the Cardinals were vastly improved and the Astros got super-hot. And yes, Dusty was just as wacky a manager in '03 as he was in '04 and has been this year. My whole issue is the team was built upon an '03 team that was fundamentally flawed in the first place. And it's not surprising that the team was built around the young starting pitchers, because they were far and away the main reason the Cubs even sniffed the postseason that year.

Actually, I'd be willing to bet that Beane's overarching philosophy hasn't changed at all. Moneyball was about making the most with your money by identifying undervalued qualities in players while making personnel decisions. Now that OBP has gone more mainstream (in large part due to Moneyball) and that high-OBP players are likely to make more money, I'm sure Beane has turned his attention elsewhere to maximize his dollar. It's always about staying ahead of the curve.

Some interesting conversation here, though I think soul is using A LOT of hindsight to criticize Hendry. Anyway, there are two general ideas in this thread that I think need to be debunked. First, the Cubs DO NOT have the highest payroll in the NL. See this link: http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/totalpayroll.aspx?year=2005 The Cardinals are spending more, the Braves are spending about the same as the Cubs, and the Astros aren't far behind. (Dunno how Sosa's contract is figured into this, though. Perhaps what they're paying on that is not figured in.) Regardless, it looks like the Mets, Giants, and Phillies are just as disappointing given money spent. Second, and this may be controversial -- the '03 Cubs weren't as good as people make them out to be, and their flirtation with the WS has had a spillover effect into both personnel moves and expectations that may have actually had a negative impact on the team. That team squeaked into the postseason with 88 wins, and had a ridiculously good record in 1-run games. They also had the worst team OBP of any playoff team in something like the past 25 years. Even with good roster moves in '04, it shouldn't have been too surprising that luck evened out. EDIT: Just looked into how they figured the payroll, and Sosa's payment is not included. Still, they're not as far above in spending from other teams as seems to be assumed. (Blame that on the Trib all you want.) I will criticize Hendry and upper management all around for so willingly throwing Sosa under the bus at the end of last year (deserving or not) because of how much it ruined his perceived value. That was a stupid business decision, and was obviously motivated by passion rather than good sense.

THis reminds me of 2001 when everyone thought Juan Cruz was the next Pedro Martinez and Carlos Zambrano should be selling used cars. The point is that when you have a starting pitcher that you think could be great its better to hold on to him even if he struggles early on. How many of the fans that were screaming for Zambrano to be traded "while he still had value" (in other words before he had much value) wisj the Cubs had traded Zambrano? I'm sure someone will bring up Guzman as someone the Cubs held onto for too long but we'll forget about holding on to Guzman too long a lot earlier than we'll stop regretting the Dontrelle Willis trade. The important difference between Hill and Zambrano (and Willis, too) is age. Zambrano is currently younger than Hill. Certainly that is a factor. But Hill is 25 not 35. Randy Johonson didn't figure it out until his late 20s. Also, since Hill is LH he will retain value for his potential longer as MLB teams are seemingly always desparate for LH pitching. First, to clarify, I have not given up on Hill. I think he has definite potential to be a fine starter. However, I would trade him straight-up for Dunn, any day of the week, without thinking about it. That's the point I was trying to make.

My favorite tidbit -- Gary Carter was victimized ... to end the game. On his birthday. I never did like Gary Carter, great as he was.

I believe Guillen was the perpetrator. Sorry. I believe you are wrong. He was indeed the victim 3 times. Though, to be fair, he's listed among the "unsubstantiated possibilities", and I'm pretty sure I remember him being the perpetrator at least once.

Yeah (and I vaguely remember that happening). Not very "smart" ball, now is that?

I agree completely. Is there a single Cubs pitcher that hasn't regressed under Rothschild's tenure? Even Z has taken a step back.

THis reminds me of 2001 when everyone thought Juan Cruz was the next Pedro Martinez and Carlos Zambrano should be selling used cars. The point is that when you have a starting pitcher that you think could be great its better to hold on to him even if he struggles early on. How many of the fans that were screaming for Zambrano to be traded "while he still had value" (in other words before he had much value) wisj the Cubs had traded Zambrano? I'm sure someone will bring up Guzman as someone the Cubs held onto for too long but we'll forget about holding on to Guzman too long a lot earlier than we'll stop regretting the Dontrelle Willis trade. The important difference between Hill and Zambrano (and Willis, too) is age. Zambrano is currently younger than Hill.

For anyone interested, here's a short history of the hidden-ball trick and its perpetrators and victims: http://www.retrosheet.org/hidden.htm Apparently Mike Lowell is the only one to pull it off this century, and he's done it twice!

Right. And I can't believe anyone would want Konerko over Lee. (Just pretend to ignore my avatar.) For the sabermetricians out there, from 2000-2005, Lee absolutely shatters Konerko in WARP2, and beats him handily in Win Shares, as well. While those stats may not be 100% perfect (and no stat is), they quantify all facets of a players game. Lee was an underrated player until this year.

The thing is, Dunn is a whole 5 months older than Hill. I certainly haven't given up on Hill yet, but anyone that wouldn't trade him straight-up for Dunn is either crazy or a fool, whether anyone actually said or implied that or not.

I hope you're right, Raw. When it comes to projecting stats, I basically take a stab in the dark and hope I come out looking like a genius lol. I'm sure someone on this board can do a chart or something very scientific/mathematical that would show numerous reasons why he is or isn't likely to maintain this success. Basically I just see a guy who's always been around .270-.280 who had a GREAT (out of his mind) first half...and then started hitting the wall in the 2nd half, where he is usually a much better hitter. Hopefully he can continue to be a dominant slugger in the NL. I truely hope that...however I am not tremendously confident that he'll keep up the type of season (or all that close to it) he's had this year. Well, his OPS since the break is still just under his career mark, so that makes his terrible slump pretty close to his past norm. I think he'll probably continue to hit around .290-.310 a season for a while. What concerns me more is his recent lack of patience -- maybe he's trying to do too much at the plate? As far as power, I fully expect 35+ homers for a while. Remember, he hit nearly twice as many HRs on the road as at home during his Marlins stint, which obviously seriously affected his power numbers.

That means he's "due", right? :P Wait, I mean :cry: But seriously, all this talk about lack of heart and all these intangible things that allow us to somehow be "personally" angry with players is pretty ridiculous. The fact is, most of the team is just not very good. 2 hitters have carried the team, are probably playing semi-hurt and exhausted, and now that they're (not surprisingly) slumping the rest of the team is worthless. I really don't think the team's poor play is because of "bad character" -- that's just an easy way to vent for a frustrated fan. Now, things like executing, playing well in the field, being patient at the plate, not walking people, not making all sorts of other bonehead plays -- it is extremely frustrating when your team doesn't do these things. But I don't think that makes them heartless, gutless, or bad people.

First, he missed time due to injury. Second, only 56 of his 261 at-bats this year have been with RISP. He's batted .321 with a .482 Slugging in those situations (accounting for 19 of his 27 RBI). 5 of the other RBI came with a man on 1st, where he's batting a darn good .354/.415/.542. So you can't say he's bad in "clutch" situations. The fact is he's had a frankly amazing 155 of those 261 AB with the bases empty. That's probably a good part of the reason why.

I think it's pretty speculative for Stone to say the Red Sox "didn't like" Murton. Perhaps they just did what they felt they needed to do to achieve a short-term goal: finishing a huge deal that put pieces in place that were considered necessary to contend for a World Series. And that short-term goal worked out pretty well. I like Murton for the future because he's so outside the mold of the "typical" Cubs hitter. I could actually see him being sort of Grace-esque in the future at the plate; contact hitter for average, good amount of walks, lots of doubles, power numbers are gravy. Maybe (?) we'll find out some day for sure. You'll probably never know exactly what the Red Sox thought about Murton for sure. He's not Babe Ruth or anything, but he has a nice approach at the plate and he swings at good pitches. I've enjoyed watching him, although it's been in very small samples. I'd like see what Murton can do against right handed pitching. All this talk about Murton being the next Mark Grace is premature. He's mostly facing lefties. With Burnitz really slumping, Baker should give Murton a few more starts in left, with Lawton in right. Burnitz could be out of gas. Just for clarification, I never said Murton was the next Mark Grace. But he has an approach to hitting similar in ways to Grace's, which in itself was quite dissimilar from that of most Cubs of, oh, the last 2 decades. I of course agree that Baker should start Murton more consistently, and should have been starting him ever since Hairston got hurt, and some before then. (You don't know if you've got a Rookie of the Year unless you play a rookie.) But of course we all know this isn't going to happen. I'll give Baker some credit on Murton. He's put him in situations where he's at an advantage. Murton came up from Double A, so you don't want to throw him in the middle of the water right away. People can scoff at this, but Baker was a major league hitter and knows a little something about hitting. The flaw in that logic is that Murton hit left and right handed pitchers in AA with equal success. Given how bad our OF was over the last week, there's no reason for him to have had 3 AB's against PHI and NYM. EXACTLY. At this point, I want a little more proof that Murton has trouble with righties other than Dusty's conventional wisdom. He certainly can't do worse than Macias or Hollandsworth, even against righties, and the experience should do him good.