craig

i could also look like z hill meche/iwaga westbrook/lilly miller although he's not a lock to have a great year in the pen, i think it's much more likely that he does as opposed to being an effective starter. I agree with both of these posts. Most likely Cotts is not going to be in the rotation. Hopefully that will be because somebody from the wildcard pool emerges as satisfactory for the #5 spot. Whether that be Prior, or Miller, or Marshall, or Guzman, or whomever. But, I think it would be awfully risky to go into the season with Z+Hill + two other pickups, and assume Prior/Miller/kids can satisfactorily staff the 5th spot. What if nobody does emerge, as is hopefully not probable but certainly possible? Or, what happens the minute Z has a bad back, or Hill or one of the other pickups has an oblique strain or whatever? The miscellaneous pool might need to cover not only #5 but also one of the 1-4 spots for some period of time. Cotts adds some additional option that Aardsma, who is strictly a short/late guy, does not. Again, hopefully there would be no need to even think about it, because not only one but 2 or 3 of the miscellaneous pool are doing well. Plus, the Cubs are sold on having two lefties, and whatever posters might say, Rapada and Pigs are not in the picture for this year. But, Ohman is cheap, interesting, and under club control for years. Some really jazzy peripherals. He's got real trade value, I'd think. Hendry's not dealing him if it leaves him with Pigs as his 2nd lefty. But, now Ohman can be involved in a trade. And I think he could be a significant chip, more so than Aardsma could have been. I'm not suggesting that Ohman is going to get you Jason Jennings or something like that. But Ohman plus some other prospects and maybe you can getg somewhere. I also think having Cotts perceived as a possible depth option might reduce Hendry's urgency to sign an overpriced FA to that role. He might have been so concerned about the wildcard pool that he'd spend zillions not only on Padilla and Lilly but also on Marquis, or something like that. Perhaps acquiring Cotts might eliminate the urgency to pick up that 3rd free agent, and save a bundle of dollars that can be profitably spent elsewhere.

I'm not very enthused about Westbrook. So I can't give the strong endorsement or the real enthusiasm. But, I'd like to have him, because I think he's above average, somewhat, and is likely to remain so. With the Padilla/Lilly/Meche/Marquis FA's the Cubs are talking about, there is less likelihood of being even average. Westbrook has been better than average in two of the last three years, using *ERA+. Dominant, no. But by keeping HR's and walks managable, he's probably a pretty consistent innings eater. I think there is value in that. As a groundball guy, I think the Cub infield would convert some of the hits that get by Peralta etc. in Cleveland into outs. (I expect that Izturis and Lee could both be excellent defensively, and DeRosa OK...). So I think his WHIP would be a little lower. I also think that he could be a non-dominant guy who might win a lot of games if the Cubs do get Soriano and put him in center. I think a Soriano, Murton, Jones, Aram, Lee, Barrett lineup could be quite strong offensively and score a lot of runs. And I think with a little bullpen luck, there's a chance the pen will be pretty good too. (Not certain, obviously...) For a team with a good offense and a good infield defense and a good bullpen, a non-dominant groundball pitcher who doesn't walk a lot and doesn't allow many HR's can throw a lot of forgettable 6IP/3R, 7IP/3R, 6IP/2R type games. Not at all dominant. But the kind of "quality start" that while it excides nobody, enables the team to win pretty often if it has a good offense and a good bullpen.

Thing is, Bruno, since they rushed Dopirak onto the roster last winter (for reasons I didn't understand, since I didn't think anybody would touch him then after the horrible season he had at Daytona...), a team could snag him and would *NOT* need to put him on the 25-manroster. If the Cubs deroster him, anybody can pick him up for their *40 man* roster, not for their *25 man* roster. And just keep him in AA where he belongs anyway. However, if you don't bother to protect Rapada or Fox or one of the new eligibles, then a team *would* need to keep him on 25-man or offer him back. So, all things being equal, if you're going to have somebody available, it's preferable to have it be somebody who they'd need to put on their 25-man. For example, if Fox were 40-man available, I think somebody might take him, and figure that 2-3 years out maybe he'll develop into a passable catcher. But the odds that somebody will be excited enough about him to waste a 25-man spot for a full year for a guy who nobody would want to let catch in a big-league game they wanted to win, and who isn't exactly Mike Piazza offensively, those odds are remotely small.

Rapada, Fox, Pigs, McGehee, Holdzkom, Wells, Cherry, Campy are 8 guys who might perhaps be considered for rostering. Coats, Dopey, Harben, Negron, O'Malley, and Reyes are six who might be candidates for derostering in order to make space. Seems to me any of those six could be exposed without much pain. That's a pool of 14 names total. Not sure which I'd value the most or which I'd mind losing the most. I suppose Dopirak is the biggest name, and would be the name most embarrassing to expose. IN any case, I don't think there's likely to be a lot of pain with whomever is exposed. Or, much likelihood of being taken, whether from the 8 who would need protection or from those six who might possibly be deprotected,

This is jumping into a 2-week old discussion, but I'd never read it then and found it interesting now. The discussion, I think, dealt with Marshall mostly, and Hill. Should he be given a spot? How do you balance some good games versus some not-so-good games? Who fills the "other" spot if we add only one outside starter? My views (obviously!): 1. Hill/Marshall. Yes, I view Hill as a rotation lock. His body of work last season was good enough, and his minor-league stuff has also been excellent. He had some goods and bads, but more goods, and more goods toward the end. So, using "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately", he's definitely in the rotation. What he does there, that's less of a lock. he could be very, very good. I wouldn't be shocked if he pitched a lot of deep games and ended up with an ERA of 3.80 or less. But, I wouldn't be shocked if he mixes some bads with goods next year too, and has some good's that don't end up all that good because of the HR's allowed. I'm pretty optimistic, and think he's a rotation lock to start with, but how good he is, well, he'll have to show that. Every pitcher mixes some good games with some poor games. What ratio he actually shows next year will determine his ERA. 2. marshall: I definitely do *not* think he should be written in as an April rotation lock. His collective season was pretty poor, and as noted he wasnt looking too hot before the injury, so to dismiss it all as injury-related, I don't think that's accurate. His ratio of goods to bads wasn't good enough, last year. But, that doesn't mean it might not be this year, if he improves his curveball and his fastball control. The one stat that really bothered me for Marshall was his horrendous HR-allowed profile. 20HR/125 innings, that's really bad. Especially for a low/modest K-pitcher who's supposed to be a groundball-keep-it-down guy. I think if he could keep the ball down more consistently and keep the ball in the park, his results could improve quite sharply. Do I assume he'll be a lot better? No. But he'd be one of several candidates that I'd have in my "see who looks best" pool. Of Marshall, Marmol, Guzman, and Mateo, I'd probably think Marshall has a better chance of being consistently competent next year than the others. Even if Guzman's and Marmol's upsides are higher. 3. If we add one rotation pitcher: Unless Hendry has gotten way better news on Prior than the scant news reports indicate, I think it is totally implausible that hendry will add only one rotation starter. I think it's a lock that he'll add two, or at least try really hard. I do *not* expect the lesser of those two to be very good. More from somewhere in the Tedd Lilly/Jon Lieber/Miguel Batista/pre-2006-Glendon Rusch pool of candidates. Little chance to be more than average, and real chance to be well below. 4. What I expect: The first three will be Zambrano, pitcher-to-be-acquired, and Hill. The back two will be the mediocre pitcher to be acquired, and whoever wins the open spot from the internal pool. The internal pool for the open spot: Prior, Wade Miller, Marshall, Guzman, Marmol, and Mateo. It's well possible that you won't get one average starter out of the open-spot-pool. But there's at least a reasonable chance that somebody from that pool will emerge. Hard to guess which. Will Prior surprise us and show up healthy? Will Miller show up with and extra 3-4 mph? will Guzman's control be a lot more consistent, and might he show up with either a sinker or a breaking pitcher that he didn't throw with any success last year? Will Marshall be healthy, able to keep the ball down/sinking more consistently, and perhaps have his curveball more consistent for some reason? Will Mateo's slider be a little more effective? Will Marmol have enough more control to put his stuff to good use? None of them is in itself probable, and I can't know now which will turn out if any. But there is a large enough pool of guys who don't need to improve that much to be good, so that I think it's a fair gamble to hope that at least one of them does, enough to cover one rotation spot. If you're lucky, two of them will, and you wouldn't even need the rotation-filler starter. But, I sure wouldn't count on that now. Unless I had a lot more good-news-on-Prior than is available to me now.

Wells makes a lot of sense for the Cubs. He's a really, really good CF both defensively and offensively. The cubs have money and can pay. Wilken drafted wells, loves wells, and he's the best player he's ever drafted, probably. But, the Cubs make no sense to Toronto, I don't think. Toronto has a chance to contend, now, a better chance than we do. They've spent a lot recently. They don't want to trade Wells for minor leaguers , and our pool isn't that great in the first place. Other than relief pitchers and iffy young rotation prospects, what besides minor-leaguers do we have to offer? Barrett? We don't want to trade him. And if Toronto was shopping Wells due to impending free agency, why on earth would they want to take on an impending free agent? It's nice to think we'd like Wells, and we'll make an offer. It's hard to imagine constructing an offer that Toronto would take seriously. I like Wells a lot. He's been consistent around .200 IsoP and .050 IsoD, and has normally been up near 30 HR's. At this point in his career, I'd expect him to be consistently above .800 OPS, I'd probably anticipate .850 being more normal, and figure he's got a chance if he improves or if this past was no fluke to push .900 OPS at times. That's pretty good output for a good-fielding CF. He is now basically what Pie might dream of becoming, although it's doubtful that Pie's HR's will be as high, his K's as modest, or his batting average quite as high. Even if Pie reaches that someday (which I hope), it's going to take quite a while. Most likely even in his prime, Pie won't match Wells's better seasons. I would trade Pie for Wells straight up in a second, even with Wells contract and impending free agency.

I'm not a Hendry apologist by any means. But, I think some of the alleged goals would make a ton of sense. Soriano for CF and Schmidt for rotation as the two big-time signings, and then pursue Kuroda (sp?) as the lesser guy. Soriano in center would elevate the team HR output by about 35 relative to Pierre. Schmidt isn't young, has had injuries, and isn't the superstar he was a few years ago. But he still wasn't much worse than Zambrano last year, and might still be capaable of 3.5-type ERA if things worked. If healthy, Z-Schmidt might provide a very nice 1-2 punch. If things worked out, Hill and Kuroda as 3-4, and then take your chances with Prior/Marshall/Miller/Guzman/Mateo/Marmol at 5. It might turn out bad. But you might easily end up with a really good rotation, and in the odd event that Prior ended up being useful, you might have a super rotation. The other thing I can imagine with a Soriano signing would be that he could play center for a while, but wouldn't need to stay there forever. Unlike Jones or Murton, he has a right-fielder's arm. Play him in center for this year and next, bring up Pie as a 4th outfielder next year, and then if Pie is progressing Pie can move into center between Soriano and Murton, once Jacque is gone. The Schmidt/Soriano/Fukoda plan might easily be a fiasco. Soriano stinks in center, Schmidt has bum arm and is no better than Maddux, etc.. But to me it seems like an ambitious, creative, and potentially hugely effective plan. Hendry is much reviled for last winter too. But I think the original plan, sign Furcal and fix the bullpen, that was a good plan too. And he came very close to landing Furcal. Making Furcal first target made tons of sense. The only problem was that Hendry wasn't able to make it happen. But in terms of a plan, in retrospect I think it was a good one. Soriano/Schmidt/Fukoda is even less likely to be actualized, probably. But I think it's a pretty intriguing plan.

Don't the decent mocks usually include underclassmen who are good enough to compete for 1st round? So that mocks with Sam late 1st or early 2nd are already assuming these guys are in the draft?

I wouldn't be surprised if his baseball situation might not depress his draft position a bit, even if not necessarily his likelihood of getting good money or actually committing to football. But while Hendry was fine with no commitment, I'm not sure how many NFL teams would be as cool with a guy who isn't necessarily totally committed. Or, might not attend some of the many non-mandatory-but-still-expected camps. If I had two kids on my draft board who were pretty close, I might opt for the guy who I knew was going to be committed to football and would be certain to attend every non-mandatory camp that he could in order to prepare himself for rookie season.

Thanks for the notes. Clevenger and McGehee at catcher? That's interesting. Disappointing, in a sense, if it reflects that Clevenger looked bad at 2B. As a college SS, I'd hoped he'd be fine at 2B. I was pretty interested in clevenger as a good-hitting, good-OBP 2B. But if his defense there is poor, real problem. He knows how to hit the ball and he has good plate discipline/OBP potential, even though his power looks negligible. As a catcher, his bat could look pretty good. Very good. So, would be really cool if he could make the switch. Of course, I've thought that about a lot of other prospects, none of whom have ever made the switch successfully. I think McGehee with around 40 games at catcher maybe (??) got more actual game catching action than any other catcher-convert I can remember. Well, I guess there is always a first. Maybe Clev will be that first. Odd that McGehee would be fiddling around at C again, after trying and dropping it before. Wonder if that's at his request or the Cubs? Perhaps he realizes that he's not quite going to make it at 3B, and that if he could make it at catcher, his bat would be good enough for majors? More likely it's an attempt to refresh enough to maybe get a spring training invite. Or to pad the resume. Teams almost never use 3rd catcher/emergency catcher. But managers often like to have them. If McGehee can sell that, it might help break a tie and help him crack a big-league roster some day as some team's 25th man. When sifting between end-of-bench candidates, a manager might well prefer the guy that had the emergency catcher tag.

I just looked around some recently updated mock drafts for 2007, and Samardizja is going between 20 and 30 in the 3-4 I've looked in. No higher than 20, and he's always been in the first round. Of course, that could still change a great deal-and his baseball chances could impact his football stock substantially. He hasn't raised his draft status this year, but he hasn't hurt it significantly either. Thanks, Colt. Given how much easier it is to slip down in the draft then to move up from how high he was projected back in June, that sounds like somewhat bad news for the Cubs that he's still consensus first round.

Re Samardizja, given that the college football season is well along, how does Sam's draft status look? Has he confirmed that he's solid first round stuff? Or has he slipped or been passed by rising speedy underclassmen so that he might slip out of the first round or lower? Or, in simpler terms, has his chance of concentrating on baseball gone up or down or stayed about as fringey as it was?

Low-K is one thing. Fuld, Izturis, Pierre, those are real low-K players, guys who can K at 10% or less. High-K is another. It took a late rush by Patterson to get his K-rate down towards 19%, and for first 1.5 years, he was well over 20%. Something in the 13-15% range, that's more intermediate. If Eric isn't cut out to be able to get his K-rate down towards the 13-15% range, then he's presumably not cut out to be a big-league starter. Because from what I've heard, he's not cut out to be a 20-HR type hitter. If you're whiffing 20% of your AB and HR's only 2% of your AB (per 500 AB, 100 K and 10 HR), you're not going to be much of an offensive value. Then you're looking at maybe a .250-.265 type batting average. Even with a solid IsoD, that's not going to make it happen for him. I don't think it's real complicated. He's gotta either hit a bunch of HR's, get the K's to a reasonable level in or below the mid teens % rather than 20% area, or evolve into a gold-glove type fielder. But I don't think either his defense, his HR power, or his IsoD project to make him a big value if he's hitting .260. Hitting .280-.290 won't be easy unless he either pushes 20 HR's or gets his K-rate down to a manageable level.

Cali, doesn't the Rule 5 clock depend on when you play, rather than when you are drafted? In Fuld's case, he may have been drafted in 2004, but his first season was 2005. Wrigley, in terms of protection, my peferences depend heaviliy on health. Obviously Cherry's status depends on his health, and ditto for Campusano. But I'd rank my first 7 like this: 1. Holdzkom 2. Edward Campusano 3. Rocky Cherry 4. Clay Rapada 5. Jake Fox 6. Randy Wells 7. Billy Petrick Campusano and Cherry, depends heavily on their health status. If both are expected to be 100% in spring and uncompromised by injury, a lefty who throws with Campy's stuff and velocity has a chance to be a solid situational reliever. And a guy who throws as hard as cherry supposedly did, and has some control, those guys have a chance to be big-leaguers. Wells obviously is a finesse guy, not as much arm. If I thought Fox could catch defensively, I'd like him better.

Nice to see Patterson hitting well, and getting some doubles. I've never been on the Eric Patterson bandwagon. At Peoria I thought he struck out too much without enough HR's to sustain his average at higher levels. And in my experience often guys walk less when they are facing better pitchers or are struggling with K's or batting average, so I feared that his walk rate as well as his average would slip. I also feared that his SB--virtue at Peoria would not be sustainable at higher levels. Some of those fears were realized at WTenn: his average slipped as expected, and his K-rate remained high. But late in the season, his K-rate really dropped. And did so without coming at the expense of either walks or power. Now he's sustaining that reduced K-rate thus far in AFL, small sample size and tough-on-breaking-balls as it may be. His walk rate has held up well. His SB-success has actually improved, at least in terms of efficiency. If in fact he's able to sustain a drastically reduced K rate, without in any way compromising his power or BABIP or IsoD in the process, then he's got a chance to be a pretty good offensive player. With a 13% K-rate, 10HR/500 AB, and a .310 BABIP, I'd be looking at a .284/.349-OBP guy. With a .150 IsoP, we're up around .780 in OPS. If he was a good basestealer and went 35SB/13CS, his SB/CS adjusted OPS could be around .800. That could be pretty good for a 2B.

Has Eric made a batch of errors in front of the AFL scouts? That's probably not a great thing for boosting trade value. I see Moore and Eric as similar type players. Decent prospects, have a chance to be decent major league players if they improve. But both will need to improve more than is typical for guys their age for that to happen. I'd definitely not like for Moore to be on the big-league bench. He's got a chance to be a useful player, but he's not going to have a chance to improve as needed while sitting on the bench. He needs to see lots of AAA brreaking balls. Plus, not only would a big-league season stifle his possible development, but it would also stifle his possible trade value. If he goes to Iowa, hits .290 with 28 HR's and a .375 OBP and a .915 OPS and solid defense, you've got a guy who might make a very substantial trade chip. But if he gets 60 spotty big-league AB's, and probably struggles in them besides, I don't think a GM could convince himself, his ownership, his manager, or his fans that trading for Moore was a serious pickup for his team. Plus, if Moore goes to Iowa and fails, we'll know he's not good. If he goes to Iowa and excells, we'll know he's got value. But if he goes to Cubs and fails, we won't know much of anything. A year at Iowa would have more diagnostic value as well as developmental value.

I think it's a mistake to blame Hendry's mistakes on Baker. I think any decent GM at least "consults" with his manager, and allows his manager to have some input or at least to express whatever input he may have. Then it's the GM's job to decide whether that input is helpful or should change a direction. If anything, I think Dusty might have had more influence in terms of fringe guys. "Ramon Martinez was a nice bench player for me. I think he'd do fine." "Eyre, I think he's got the stuff, he'd help us." I'm certain that Dusty has no impact on Asian involvement. The early Asian stuff was scouting minor-leaguers. Dusty is no more likely to call shots on an amateur scout in Korea than he is to call shots on an amateur scout in Idaho. The alleged new involvement in Asia is totally different, that's going after mature players, not prospects, and is obviously the result of the problematic market for big-league pitchers in the US and in the depleted Cub farm system.

goony, I think you and I are pretty much on the same page with Marshall. He's a good prospect. Absolutely we aren't "giving up" on him. But there's no reason to "lock" him into the rotation, or to assume that he'll be an excellent and reliable pitcher this year. He might be. He might not be. If he is, great, and lets take advantage of it. If he isn't, don't have the season go down the sink because you were depending on Marshall. I guess I think Marshall, Marmol, Mateo, Aardsma, Guzman, Prior, Miller, Wood, Dempster, I see things in common with many of them. Any of them might be pretty useful. Any of them might be very ineffective. Prior might get healthy and be pretty good. Wood might show up surprisingly healthy and able to contribute to the bullpen. Aardsma might be throwing well and have improved control and be an excellent reliever. Marshall might show up healthy, his curve might be more consistent, and he might be very solid. Guzman might rediscover his sinker, improve the command of his breaking ball, and have overall improved command accross the board, and might be a pretty useful guy. Dempster might pitch like 2005 again and be a very satisfactory closer. Marmol might improve his consistency and command, decrease his walks and his HR-allowed, and be quite a useable starter or reliever. Mateo can throw his fastball for strikes. Perhaps he'll jazz up his slider and be a pretty decent pitcher. Maybe with a little more time Miller will have a stronger arm, be hitting low 90's without effort, and with more time behind and a more comfortable arm he'll be able to throw strikes more easily, and be a pretty decent pitcher. Any of those are possible. I'm not writing off any of those guys. But none are locks, and none should be assumed. Sure, let Dempster have first crack at closing. But be ready to pull the plug, and fast, if his control is as problematic. I sure wouldn't expect or count on any of Prior, Wood, Miller, Guzman, Marshall, Marmol, or Mateo to be both healthy and good next year. But a couple of them might be. I hope so.

I like Marshall as a pitching prospect. I think he's got a shot to be pretty good. But, he's got lots of options left. And he's been injured for each of the last three seasons. He was bad, very bad, post-DL. Maybe he was rushed back before he was physically ready. Or, maybe not. He was also quite poor for a while prior to his DL. I think it's possible that he'll be 100% healthy. And that being a year older and wiser, that he'll be better then he was, and will be a very sturdy starter. But, it's also possible that he won't be healthy. Or that his problems pre-injury and post-injury were not flukes caused by health problems, but were just where an unimproved Marshall is at. We don't know. So, IMO, we shouldn't assume anything. If he's healthier and better and worthy, great. If he isn't healthy or isn't any better even if he is healthy, not so great. I think the default should be that he needs to prove himself again, rather than assuming that everything will be fine. If it works out that he has to prove himself at Iowa for a while, that's fine. One other factor for him: Goony mentioned a "horrible WHIP". But one of the other problems he had was giving up so many HR''s, which I don't think is going to work for him. I think he'll kind of need to profile as an anti-HR guy if he's going to have a big career. I think it's well possible that if healthy, and given time, that he'll be able to be more consistent as a groundball, anti-HR guy. And with health and experience that his curverball will get somewhat more consistent, and his control/walks will improve. He might be a good one. But it's not for sure, it may not be the case next spring even if it might be eventually, and it's not likely to happen if he isn't pretty healthy.

Thanks super much, raisin. Lots of positivity. Helpful to remember that it's Fleita, the Hypemaster supreme. 1. What do we know about Roquet? What position did he play? He pitched two college seasons, and is already 24. Ihadn't realized that he was a position convert, or that he has a "big arm". I'll pay more attention to him now. 2. Some familiar stories. Last winter, we were also hearing that Grant Johnson had made progress, updated his slider, yada yada. Did we get any "stuff" reports on him this past year? He was drafted for his velocity, of course; but my understanding was that he's been pretty much a soft-tosser. Is that right? And, I know he missed some time this year. Was this arm trouble, or a different injury? And if arm, was it related to his other miscellaneous health problems of the past? 3. The Harvey talk is also very familiar, right out of Fleita's standard script for Luis Montanez. 4. The talk about swinging at strikes, that is not that familiar. Hopefully they are trying. 5. I'm very pleased that they've moved Camp to 2nd. For a little batting-average/OBP/no-power dude, 2B is a place where an OBP can make a big-league job. But CF is usually reserved for super-athletes. Camp and Clevenger could provide a couple of guys who for 2B who don't strike out at all and have pretty good plate discipline, but no power. 6. I also liked the positive note about Lansford. I think he's a pretty interesting prospect. Hopefully one of the things he showed with the bat that he hadn't before was some power. 7. Positivity about Colvin is always good to here.

I agree, it would seem Holdzkom is pitching his way onto the 40-man. Nice.

I don't see any of the Pierre comments as suggesting that Pierre dislikes Cubs or that Hendry doesn't want him back. I clearly don't see a commitment from Hendry to resign him. To me it looks like a conditional interest. Hendry is interested in Pierre, but it depends on the price. Pierre would consider coming back. But he needs to explore free agency first. If the price Hendry is willing to pay is as good as the market will offer, he may well take it later. But no point in signing a deal, when there's a chance that there will be a lot more money available in free agency. I'm not sure either side knows what free agency will offer Pierre. So until Pierre scopes the market, it doesn't make sense for him to sign what might be well-below-market offer. Nor for Hendry to assume anything. Often players (and agents) have inflated expectations, and the market teaches them otherwise. (I recall Gutierrez and Dunston both declining Cub offers, only to end up settlng for offers that were barely half as large on the market.) It is possible, of course, that Hendry does have a better feel for the market, and he's pretty sure what he'd be willing to pay Pierre, in either length or per-year dollars, is unlikely to be competitive. That's entirely possible. I do think it may be length as much or more than per-year dollars that's at issue. Pierre may be able to get a long-term deal, at least 3 and perhaps even 4 years guaranteed. But if Hendry is committed to keeping Pie and believes he's going to be good, it's possible that it's length more than anything that Hendry doesn't want to do with Pierre.

The concept of Soriano in center is really intriguing. Offensively, it would do a lot. Would boost the CF OPS by 200-300 points. Would add an extra 40 HR's. Guess what: HR's are a really efficient way to score rune! He also compares favorably to Pierre OBP-wise. Soriano was .355 this year with 67 walks, thats a lot. And his career IsoD is around 45. So I think he's safer to OBP >.325 than is true for Pierre. Soriano also has a very strong arm. After Pierre, Murton, and Jones, none of whom could throw at all, putting Soriano in between Murton and Jones would force baserunners to at least pay attention before deciding they can freely take the extra base. Soriano may be fast, but I don't think he was very good in left, based on friends who saw him play. Experience may help, and CF is perhaps the easiest. But if you signed him for center and he was poor there, you could have a really, really bad defensive outfield. So be it, those are the chances you gotta take! I think Soriano in center might also work well with Pie coming along. If Pie continues to progress well, he could spend this year improving at Iowa; next year s a 4th outfielder, and 3 years from now Jones' contract will be up and Pie could replace him. Perhaps by taking center and Soriano moving to right. Or, perhaps in 2008 one could imagine Pie taking center, Soriano moving to right, and either Jones being traded or Jones being a 4th OF or semi-platoon with Murton. One of the other factors with Soriano is where you'd hit him. He's mostly led off and he likes leading off. It would be kind of exciting to have a leadoff hitter with a .350-OBP and a .900-OPS leading off. Given that Izturis/Theriot/Cedeno don't have much power, retaining Pierre in center would put us really at a power disadvantage. I think they kind of need to get some HR's either in center or at 2nd. But if you got Soriano for center, and a Jones platoon for right, you could put together some pretty interesting lineups. Soriano-Theriot-Lee-Aram-Murton-Barrett-Jones-Izturis-pitcher? Were Soriano to replicate (or come close) to his .367 OBP, you could have a very strong OBP-lineup 1-6. And you could have a lot of HR's 1, 3-7. Makes too much sense to actually happen.

That's pretty encouraging. If he can sustain that, it would appear that his past surgery and arm trouble is no longer bothering him. INcluding whatever it was that DL'd him early this year. He had no problem with the adjustment to AA. ERA below 2 there. To me the big surprise for Holdzkom this year has been that he's kept his walks down to a reasonable number. Eaerly in his career he was a big-time walkaholic. 94 + good slider + decent control could equal a major-league career in 7th inning relief? Or, could also equal a 40-man roster spot.

Well, maybe his defense problem are overplayed. He may not be the worst outfielder in the last 50 years. But he's certainly one of the poorest ones right now, and his defense needs to be factored. If he defense is worth, say, 40 OPS points against, then 855 - 40 makes him an 815 OPS value. Jones (if platooned) is around that. Murton is already an .800-type OPS guy, and I think may still get better. We've already got two left fielders. I don't see adding Dunn as a 3rd leftfielder makes great sense. I'm not sure that the cost difference between Murton and Dunn is worth the performance advangtage, if any, that you'd get by upgrading from Murton to Dunn. I've liked Dunn in past. But at present, I don't think he makes sense for us. I also think he'd fit better in the AL, where he could DH. And where if he was batting 6th or 7th, his OBP value wouldn't be partially wasted by having a pitcher batting a coupe of spots behind him.