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Hawpe's doesn't hit LHP very well, so Sosa would be a good choice to platoon in RF. Heck, I'd rather have Sosa platooning in RF with Jacque than see Jacque face Andy Pettite, Mark Mulder, and the good young lefties in Pittsburgh.

Vance, Sledge isn't with the team anymore, and it's possible that Guillen won't be ready for the beginning of the season.

Wasn't that the game where he gave up a grand slam to maybe J.D. Drew? If I remember correctly, the Cubs were down big and came back and won that game. No. JD Drew was a Brave in 2004. That was the game in which Pujols hit 3 home runs. The Cubs were up 8-2 in the 6th. Baker pulled Rusch after Rolen and Edmonds hit singles. I turned to the guy next to me and said, "If he was going to pull Rusch, why didn't he do it before the inning started? And why is he pulling him after he made it through Pujols/Rolen/Edmonds?" And the Cards came back and won the game. And Latroy melted down at the end and went after the umpire. July of 2004.

Perception is probably reality on this one B to B! Regardless of what the numbers and sabermetrics may actually show, there is surely a perception among GMs around the league that from July through October Jose Contreras was the best pitcher in baseball. With all due respect Hoops, The GMs around the league are, for the most part, not stupid. July -Oct. is hardly the way to measure a pitcher. Especially one with Contreras's track record. And then Jermanie Dye? He has been washed up for for a while. PECOTA projects Abreu's VORP in 2006 at 34.3. PECOTA projects Contreras's VORP at 26.5 and Dye's at 7.8. That adds up to exactly 34.3. PECOTA is calling for a decline from Abreu, and they're calling for Conteras and Dye to come back to earth a little. If this deal had taken place before last season, by the way, it would have been a great deal for the Phillies, as last season's production from Dye and Contreras was worth about two more wins that what they got from Abreu. Even with Contreras's less than stellar first half, he would have been the Phillies' best pitcher. This deal does make sense now if the White Sox believe McCarthy is ready to start.

Fielding percentage and range factor are generally considered poor measures of defense. Over his career, Lugo has been slightly above average defensively according to Clay Davenport's Rate Metric. His best season was 2003, in which he had a rate of 110 and was well above average. Note that Neifi's career rate is 109. Neifi is a very good defensive shortstop. Unfortunately, Neifi can't hit. I'd love to have Neifi as a late-innings replacement for Walker, but our manager won't use him that way.

I bought three Phillies tickets for a total of $2 from scalpers last year, and I regularly went to games for half of face value, so it is possible to take advantage of the ticket brokers. For the hard-to-get games, I have a friend who runs a company's IT department. He has access to so many computers that he can have 9000 or so Virtual Waiting Room windows open at once. He gets me bleacher tickets for the games I want (last year in groups of 6), and I repay him by giving him one ticket for each game. It works out to a $30-$40 premium for each game that way, but it's worth it to me, and he deserves some sort of compensation since he has to take the day off to buy tickets for me.

Frank Thomas was actually calling for steroid testing as far back as 2002: http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2002/0529/1388575.html And he was part of the White Sox team in 2003 that tried to intentionally fail their steroid tests in order to bring about permanent steroid testing: http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2003/0311/1521844.html

http://www.spudart.org/blogs/randomthoughts_comments/2819_0_3_0_C/ Last year, all three Red Sox games sold out first, followed by the White Sox series and opening day. Weekend games vs the Cardinals went next. Ryne Sandberg Day (August 28 vs the Marlins) and 70's Night (August 8 vs the Reds) also sold quickly. From then on out, it was weekend games. It's hard to get bleacher seats for any game. Ticket brokers were selling bleachers for a weekday June game vs the Pirates for twice face value last year. The new bleacher seats might help a little, but they'll still be hard to get.

2003 Marlins: 15th in MLB with 333 OBP. Pierre had 65 steals, but he was also caught 20 times. They had 150 SBs as a team. 2005 Sox: They were 24th in baseball last year with a 322 OBP. Podsednik had 59 steals, caught 23 times. Aside from him, they really didn't have a whole lot of speed. I really wish that I had time to get into this now (at work and going into a meeting) - thanks for the stats. I do not agree though that speed is only calculated in stolen bases. Not even sure is there is another category. My entire point of saying what I said is that the Cubs in the past have relied on the home run. Now they are planning on relying on 'small ball' (for lack of a better term). And speed certainly does have influence in that - the manufacturing of runs. Something that the Cubs traditionally at least in the recent past have not been good at. That being said, I hope they are going to try and manufacture runs, because if we go into games hoping to hit the 3-run homer to win, we are in BIG TROUBLE...you must agree with that... :?: The White Sox hit more home runs than the Cubs last year. In fact, they were in the top 5 in baseball. The 05 White Sox won because of pitching, defense, and the home run.

I guess you can look at it that way. I really don't like the Aaron Rowand/Jim Thome trade for the Indians. Yes, Ryan Howard needs to play. But Rowand would have been the fifth-best OF on the Philly roster last season. He might bounce back to his 2004 form and put up better numbers in 06, but the Phillies didn't need him. So they trade Michaels, who had a better year than Rowand last year, for Rhodes. ehh. They probably could have found an AL team to take Thome in exchange for pitching - probably getting them something better than Rhodes.

Even ignoring that, Philly had the most productive outfield in baseball last year. Just because Jeter isn't the best shortstop on the Yankees doesn't mean he's not a good shortstop.

As who promised? Some NSBB folks? Rhodes is a respectable arm that Philly needs. Michaels is a spare bench player. Rhodes, like all relievers, is inconsistant. Michaels is a spare bench player with a .380 career OBP. If the Cubs had a lineup full of "spare bench players," they'd have one of the better offenses in the league. if he was all that great of a player, one would think he would manage to accumulate more than a year and a half's worth of big league ABs before he reached 30. we are talking about the guy who could't win a position over Doug Glanville and Marlon Byrd here. The reason he didn't play full-time last season: he was platooning with Kenny Lofton. In just over 400 plate appearances, Lofton had a VORP of 33, higher than the entire Cubs outfield for 2005. That's right, as a part-time player, Lofton himself provided more offense than did Burnitz, Patterson, Hollandsworth, Dubois, Lawton, Hairston, and Murton. In only 343 plate appearances, Michaels had a VORP of 21.7, a higher number than any Cub outfielder. Burnitz had almost twice as many PA and failed to provide as much offense as Michaels. The fact that Doug Glanville played at all in 2004 is an indictment of Philly's front office and coaching, not Michaels. And Marlon Byrd was very good in 2003. Because of his good 2003, he got way too much playing time in 2004. See Hollandsworth, Todd. I've been seeing this sort of argument on these boards a lot lately, and it just doesn't make sense. Todd Hollandsworth started over Murton, so clearly Holly's a better player? :roll: Neifi Perez started over Cedeno, so clearly Neifi's a better player? :roll:

Keith Ginter? He was hands down the worst 2B in MLB last season. He was even worse than Tony Womack. If each player had played in all 162 games: Player................WARP1 brian roberts 10.1 mark ellis 8.9 Chase Utley 8.6 Marcus Giles 8.3 placido polanco 8.3 Jeff Kent 8.0 luis castillo 8.0 ronnie belliard 7.5 craig counsell 6.6 ryan freel 6.4 orlando hudson 6.4 chone figgins 6.0 jose vidro (2003 season) 5.9 adam kennedy 5.7 mark loretta 5.2 craig biggio 5.2 todd walker 5.2 ray durham 4.9 jose vidro 4.8 robinson cano 4.8 mark grudzielanek 4.7 neifi perez 4.6 jerry hairston (2004 season) 4.3 rickie weeks 4.2 jorge cantu 4.2 jose lopez 4.2 jose vidro (2004 season) 4.1 junior spivey 4.1 tadahito iguchi 4.0 jose castillo 3.8 alfonso soriano 3.8 luis gonzalez 3.5 damion easley 3.5 mark bellhorn 3.1 miguel cairo 2.9 damian jackson 2.9 jerry hairston 2.7 aaron miles 2.6 neifi perez (2004 season) 2.6 nick green 2.5 nick punto 2.5 kaz matsui 2.4 deivi cruz 2.4 jamey carroll 2.2 omar infante 2.0 yuniesky betancourt 1.9 marlon anderson 1.8 bret boone 1.8 ruben gotay 1.5 chris burke 1.2 tony womack 1.1 keith ginter -1.0 WARP takes both offense and defense into account. Everyone on the list above Todd Walker would have helped us win more games last season, and everyone below him would have hurt us. As lots on the board have already said, if we were going to get rid of Walker, we should have gone after Luis Castillo. Neifi Perez should not be an option. He is more likely to play like the Neifi Perez of 2001-2004 than the Neifi Perez of 2005. And even though Neifi had (by his standards) a great season last year, he still would have been a downgrade at 2B. Jerry Hairston's best year - 2004 - was not as good as Walker's 2005. We've got more depth at 2B than most teams, but unless we can get a better player than Walker to play 2B - which is unlikely - we shouldn't trade him.

I'd have to go through my scorecards (yes, I'm so nerdy that I fill out scorecards for every game I go to), but I could have sworn that Dusty had Neifi lay down a sac bunt in the first inning of a game last season. I don't want my #2 hitter sacrificing in the first inning of a game, so I don't care if JH can do that well or not. you see, i like when neifi bunts for some reason. Me too, but that comes from the realization that Neifi is so likely to make an out, at least when he sac bunts it's a productive out. I didn't say I don't like it when Neifi bunts; I said I don't want a #2 hitter sacrificing in the first inning. Neifi shouldn't be a number two hitter. Ever. But at least when Neifi bunts, he'll probably only cost us one out; when Dusty lets him swing, he's a double play waiting to happen. Proof: in 97 opportunities last year, he hit into 22 double plays. That's a 22.7% double play percentage, worst among Cubs position players. Next, at 22.6%: Jose Macias. :(

I'd have to go through my scorecards (yes, I'm so nerdy that I fill out scorecards for every game I go to), but I could have sworn that Dusty had Neifi lay down a sac bunt in the first inning of a game last season. I don't want my #2 hitter sacrificing in the first inning of a game, so I don't care if JH can do that well or not.

We could start with Manny Ramirez. He cleared irrevocable waivers before the 2004 season, and he hasn't been very good since then, has he. :twisted:

I thought the Reds would still have Dunn under control? Dunn's not a FA until after the 07 season.

Exhibit A: Jose Macias

Mabry's 3-year splits against lefties aren't bad, but he was wretched against lefties last year. The fact that Larussa rarely used Mabry against lefties is indicative of Larussa's lack of faith in his ability to hit LHP. I didn't like the Mabry signing when it happened, and now I like it even less because we could have gotten a better player in Branyan for less money.

In the Cubs case, they already have an inferior version of Branyan in John Mabry.

Neifi wasn't very good when he played 2B last year. Walker was actually a better fielder at second according to Clay Davenport's fielding metric. Assuming the starting SS would play all 162 games, and assuming both played at their overall career numbers, Neifi would be good for about 21 runs defensively over Walker. Using last season's numbers, a full season with Walker would have been good for about 29 more runs offensively. Considering offense and defense, Walker at 2nd instead of Neifi might give us 8 more net runs. The rule of thumb is that 10 extra runs is worth a win, so Walker might be worth one more win than Neifi.

There are people who believe Rollins is good. I used to be one of those people who believed Rollins wasn't good, but his VORP was just above Rafael Furcal's last year. Rollins is at least as good if not better than Tejada defensively. If Rollins were the Cubs' starting shortstop last year, we would have won about 4 more games. If Tejada had been playing SS, the Cubs would have won about 6 more games. Trading for Tejada makes a lot more sense for the Cubs than it does for the Phillies. If the Orioles could somehow get Abreu and Rollins, though... :shock:

How long were you in the virtual waiting room? I was lucky enough to buy for five games without spending much time in the VWR.

I don't know that Kennedy has a "real good glove," but he is better defensively than Walker. He would be a pretty drastic offensive downgrade, though. I don't know why the Cubs would do this deal, but then again, I don't know why Walker is third on the 2B depth chart.

Except that Hidalgo hits righties better than lefties. His splits against righties were much better than his splits against lefties last year, and his three-year splits also show he hits better against RHPs. Dusty would be sure to pinch hit him against lefties. He'd misuse him like he misused Remlinger.