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Plus, I'm not sure what he's talking about as far as Sammy being rated ahead of Ichiro. Davenport's fielding stats have Ichiro as the better RF in 2004. According to Davenport's metric, Sammy only had two seasons after 1998 in which he wasn't below average in RF, and 2004 was one of those seasons, but he didn't rate as high as Ichiro. As for the human element, the stats in Dewan's Fielding Bible involve watching every batted ball from 2003-2005. The stats derived from that observation rank Neifi slightly higher than Izturis. Those who don't want to believe can come up with every reason they want to about how Neifi can't be as good as Izturis, but someone who watched every play each guy made disagrees. Really, I don't care if Neifi is better than Izturis or not. The fact that we can even have a conversation about Neifi vs. Izturis means Hendry made a very bad trade.

Absolutely. Neifi is a better defender than Izturis. Cesar's 2005 fielding rate: 108 His career fielding rate: 101 http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/izturce01.shtml Neifi's 2005 fielding rate: 115 His career fielding rate: 111 http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/perezne01.shtml By PMR, Neifi is shown to have been much better in 2005: http://anaheimangelsblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/pmr-redux-shortstops-update-david.html Just because some Dodgers fans (who probably watch as many Cubs games as I watch Dodgers games) think he's the best fielder in baseball doesn't mean it's true. And Dewan's method of rating middle infielders is pretty flawless, by the way.

John Dewan, author of The Fielding Bible, ranks Izturis #8 on his top ten shortstops list. Neifi's #6. Every other defensive metric I've seen indicates Neifi is a better shortstop. No offense intended, but I trust them more than your eyes.

But it would still be a bad trade. Neifi Perez, who is already signed through 2007, is a better defensive shortstop than Izturis. His career fielding rate is 111, better than Izturis's best season. If Ronny's defense at SS weren't acceptable, Neifi could be inserted at SS. Izturis is redundant, and it's offensive that Trib sportswriters are trying to sell him like he's the second coming of Ozzie Smith.[/b]

It might get old, but it's pretty hard to find an informed observer who approves of the way Baker handles pitchers, especially young pitchers.

BP doesn't have a stance on Izturis. Christina Karhl does. She writes for BP. Gee, thanks for the clarification. So what makes the author of the article an authority on who should and should not be an everyday SS? Her unqualified stance makes her opinion look myopic. BP still put her article on their website so it reflects poorly on them, too. The points I made still stand. Whether it is BP or Christina Karhl doesn't matter. Defense at the SS position still went unquantified and Karhl's claim that Izturis "shouldn't be an everyday player" is inaccurate which you agree with in your quoted statement below. Then why bother making the claim that Izturis is not an everyday SS? Also, how do you or Ms. Karhl know exactly what the line-up of the Chicago Cubs will be while Cesar Izturis is on the team? Your response doesn't make any sense. If what this uproarious 80-page thread is all about is that neither Izturis nor Cedeno are great offensive middle infielders, I readily agree. They, by themselves, will not score a lot of runs. I was simply pointing out that there are many different writers at BP, and they don't always agree. And you ought to read the entire thread. Izturis may have value, but he won't contribute much to the Cubs. Believe it or not, the Cubs already have one of the better defenses in baseball. They're currently ranked #6 in defensive efficiency, and they've been as high as #4 in the recent past. They don't need more players who can catch the ball. They need more players who can get on base and drive in runs. Izturis fixes a problem that doesn't exist.

people have been saying this about Barrett for years it seems. I think I finally have to agree, but that doesn't change the fact that he will be one of the top offensive catchers in all of baseball again next year. Certainly. But Hendry will need to plan to compensate for whatever decline should be expected in his numbers next season.

You're probably right, but the phrase, "if they can resign Pierre" made me think he was going for (a).

Our LF OPS is 18th in MLB. Our CF OPS is 22nd in MLB. Our RF OPS is 14th in MLB. Our middle infield next year will likely be the worst offensive double play combo in baseball. Aramis might opt out of his contract and leave the team. Barrett is unlikely to put up the numbers he's put up this year. Since our OF has not been very good this year, and the infield won't make up for deficiencies next year, I wouldn't say our OF is set.

This year will be his career year. Next year will look more like 2005 than 2006. and you're basing this on....? He's 28 years old, and his #1 comp in PECOTA (with a very high score) is Joe Randa. His BABIP is quite high, indicating that he won't keep hitting for such a high average, but to be fair, his line drive percentage is very good, so it's not like he's just hitting seeing eye grounders. I'd love to see him do well, and it's possible that he's just a late bloomer, but if I had to bet, I'd bet against it.

Can who still play LF? Teixeira? He's a 1B. I don't recall him ever playing LF. He's played a few games in LF and RF in the majors.

Welcome! It's too early to tell if Cedeno has figured anything out. Considering he was only projected as a .267/.313/.378 hitter for 2006, expectations for him for already low, and he hasn't met those expectations thus far. PECOTA doesn't expect him to be an above average offensive player until the year 2010. I want him to do well, but I'm not optomistic about him at all.

Maybe he has some kind of weird fetish. While I was in London, I found out that there are people who are irresistably attracted to amputees. Perhaps Hendry envisions himself as the Florence Nightingale of GM's?

It looks like the Cubs did not claim him. Will Carroll, in today's Under the Knife column, mentions that he was told the Astros had the prevailing claim.

He had Tommy John surgery and apparantly has a degenerative arthritic elbow or something like that. And he had elbow-related setbacks during rehab, and a lot of baseball people thought the Dodgers should move Izturis to second so he could make shorter throws to avoid further damage to the elbow. Other than that, he's fine.

Absolutely conditioning is part of the equation. Guys like Livan Hernandez, Zambrano, and Sabathia appear to be outliers, though. I can't agree with the last sentence, though. Pitching while fatigued is never a wise thing. As in your example, it may (and does) take Z more pitches to get to that point than Marshall, but once he is there, he should be removed. There have been several games this year when Baker has allowed Z to continue to pitch when he clearly had lost his mechanics and was laboring to get the ball over the plate. That's just foolish. The facts back this up. Hitters (except those managed by Dusty Baker, who's still living in the 60's), are seeing more pitches per plate appearance, and, on average, more hitters are receiving plate appearances per inning than in the past. While pitchers might have thrown more innings in the past, they were generally throwing fewer pitches per inning (and per outing, perhaps).

BP doesn't have a stance on Izturis. Christina Karhl does. She writes for BP. There are teams for which Izturis as an everyday shortstop might be an asset, teams that have hitting at the other positions. The Cubs are not one of those teams. Karhl is correct.

What he said. Plus, it's not innings that are the problem, it's number of pitches per appearance. Number of pitches doesn't hurt anyone; number of pitches thrown while fatigued is the problem - these are the pitches for which the pitcher alters his mechanics to get the ball to the plate, and these are the pitches that can cause injury. A guy at BP did a nice three-part series on this in 2002. His research showed four-man rotations actually had slightly fewer injuries than five-man rotations. The difference was so small that it's probably negligible, but the point is that four-man rotations don't put pitchers at additional risk for injury. In a four-man rotation, it would be very important to limit pitches, but a 4-man rotation does give the potential for many more innings without a greater probability of injury. So, again, to sum it up: it's not the innings, it's not the number of pitches, it's the number of pitches thrown while fatigued.

Bad call. But Jim Tracy has roughly the same managing skills as Dusty, and is just as stubborn, so I don't feel bad for him at all.

Ray King refused to sign my cheeseburger.

Did he just call himself a "Republican faggot?" Good thing no one is watching.

Pitchers need to have clearly defined roles or they don't know what to do and they ball up in the fetal position. Edit: One more reason to hate Tony Larussa.

I wouldn't mind a Pagan/Jones platoon in center, or a Murton/Jones platoon at a corner. Heck, as long as the OF doesn't involve Juan Pierre, we're going in the right direction. First: Seeing as Pagan is a switch-hitter why couldn't he be a platoon partner for BOTH Murton and Jones? Pagan doesn't have enough at-bats to know whether his splits are representative or not, but he's pretty awful against lefties, so I ought to retract my suggestion that he platoon with Jones - at least, the team shouldn't go into the next season expecting Pagan to hit lefties. Should be back or will be back? Someone should sit down with Hendry and go over the psychological unsoundness of continuing to invest in past bad decisions in an attempt to justify them or turn them around.

I do believe he played center in the minors, although most reference sites list his position simply as "OF." Of course, there are some here who would say trying him in CF would be a disaster since he's a corner OF now and corner OF's can't play CF...