Tracer Bullet

The game was in Cincinnati. Then why did he leave Harang standing in the rain in New York? Huh. That is strange.

Y! has fixed each of my leagues now.

All 3 of my Y! leagues (2 private, 1 public) don't have last night's stats up yet. I'm hoping it's fixed today.

Personally I'm inclined to agree that it's a wash. But I'm not above citing the numbers just to stop the stupid argument dead in its tracks. No [expletive]. Arguing about guys that may have had some value when turf was the norm. The '85 Cardinals couldn't compete nowadays, kids. The [expletive] Astros don't even play on turf, and they invented it. I'd like to see what their individual obp were. Based on fuzzy memories it seems like they got on base a lot and scored lots of runs. http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/STL/1985.shtml ETA - mostly very good, but man did Pendleton suck. Oh - and Coleman swiped 110/135 bases. wow.

He was bad for us for half a season and had a bad spring. But he had some success in Oakland. I'm still surprised we couldn't trade him for something. It's not like his salary would make a trade impossible. Hendry was saying during the game on Saturday that he was shocked this spring when getting calls about his relievers how most teams in the league couldn't even take on 1 million dollars in salary. He couldn't believe that they didn't save a little flexibility at the 11th hour to add somebody. I'm pretty sure he was implying about his efforts to try to trade Gaudin and that the contract was just making that almost impossible. So you take on all but $400k and get back a ptbnl (or maybe a marginal prospect).

He was bad for us for half a season and had a bad spring. But he had some success in Oakland. I'm still surprised we couldn't trade him for something. It's not like his salary would make a trade impossible.

Same here :( OK people: 1) If this was a trade, it would be in transactions. 2) If we were trading Miles, then how would he not still be a frequent flyer? A - people put threads in the wrong forums all the time, so that's meaningless B - the title could be a cute way of saying Miles wasn't going to be flying with the team anymore C - my post was primarily sarcasm

I was hoping we had traded Aaron Miles. Color me disappointed.

You have some good players, no doubt. But your starting pitching is bad and you have a few duds on offense. The good thing about a 10-team league is there is certain to be help in FA somewhere. I'd immediately drop Swisher, Butler, and Cust. Even if Butler ends up breaking out, you can pick him up. I'd probably drop Hermida in a 10-team league too, until he shows signs of breaking out. I'd look for a 1B to start as a CI (doubt there's a 3B out there - shallow year), an OF to back up or play over Young, and the best 1-2 other guys available. Reports seem to say the Rangers are high on Salty again, so he might be fine at C. But there should be some worthwhile guys out there. I'd try to target an OF or 2 that will get you some steals. You might want to add a SP, but you're not likely to win the W and K categories, so maybe you should just stick with a shallow pitching staff and shoot for SV, ERA, and WHIP (CG are going to be a 0-0 tie most weeks, I'd guess). In a 10-team league, guys like Crisp (who's probably leading off for KC), Adam Jones, and Rickie Weeks might be worth a look. Helton seems to be a popular sleeper. Someone like LaRoche could be a good pickup. Connor Jackson, if for some reason he wasn't drafted. Some people think Konerko could bounce back.

I hope everyone realizes that my jabs at Jake yesterday were an AFD joke. Though I do miss the Nate shades. And good luck Donnie.

"wins" is accurate, but I think the Tigers were 1 more pitching injury from giving Cro Magnon a look. The Tigers rotation is in shambles. As long as (a) he doesn't get shelled and lose his mind and (b) they keep his IPs in check, I don't see a problem with it. Isn't Bonderman supposed to be back in the first half of the season? If so, Porcello goes to AAA or the pen.

Nice article, Bruce. Theriot's never been my favorite player. But I don't have anything personal against him. This, though. Wow. "That stuff is so subjective," he said. "It's so hard to grade a guy defensively, and there's really only one way to do it, and it's errors."

might as well keep all this in one spot. viewtopic.php?f=6&t=53466

Don't apologize to me, I'll be fine. But I'm not giving in just yet. I realize this is a crude estimate, but just going off of ESPN's projections for 2009 (I know, far, far from perfect, but), my starters' projected totals are higher than his in R, HR, and RBI (he cleans up in SBs, probably OPS too). I'm not hanging my hat on ESPN projections and the variances from week to week can be great. But I don't think the rest of us should throw in the towel just yet. Soto Tex Kinsler Davis Tulo Peralta Votto Kemp Rios J Upton Bruce Cruz Crisp Peavy Billingsley Wainwright Baker Lilly Kuroda Volquez Lyon Ziegler Hoffman (will be on DL shortly) ETA - forgot Hermida and Andrus on the bench

First, that's not a terribly deep league. 26 roster spots and 10 teams is only 260 players. Most ESPN leagues are 25 spots and 10 teams (250). Y! leagues tend to be 21 spots and somewhere between 10 and 14 teams (210-300). Given that, your team looks weak. 2 of your 3 starters missed a significant portion of the last 2 years with injuries. And you're relying on a lot of shaky players on offense. I like some of them as sleepers, but your team is full of those guys. Is this actually a 20 team league and your post has a typo?

The shine on Dave Dombrowski and Jimmy Leyland has faded a fair amount in the last couple seasons, eh?

that auction league is the nsbb/grb league. It was clearly the first auction for most of us. But Truff spent about half his budget on those 4 guys.

I'm not remembering how we acquired Bellhorn, but I don't think it was for 3 prospects, at least 2 of which have had some success in the majors for Florida (Mitre may be nothing, but he was roughly league average for a year in '07). For whatever success JP has had in the majors, he had 700 pretty brutal ABs for us. Yeah, the prospect we gave up for Bellhorn never made it to the majors. And Bellhorn wasn't a slap hitter with a low OBP like Pierre. ~ league average = low? ricky nolasco would have been traded for crap the likes of Garrett Olson or Andy Pratt long before he ever developed, had we kept him. I'm not sure if this is directed at me, but I assume so. Mitre's ERA+ (disclaimers, whatever) was 93 in '07. Seems "roughly league average" to me. And I don't really want to re-open the huge discussion this place had about the value of the 3 prospects given up for Pierre. The thread is back there somewhere if you want to find it. They had some value at the time. Some of us thought they were worth more than JP (some of us thought 2 or even 1 of them > JP). Others disagreed. But the fact that Nolasco was good last year, even if it was years after the trade, makes it seem worse to many fans, I imagine (btw - someone here - I want to say TT - was really high on 1 of these 3 and I want to say it was Nolasco; there were probably others, but I seem to recall TT really pushing Nolasco back in the day).

I'm not remembering how we acquired Bellhorn, but I don't think it was for 3 prospects, at least 2 of which have had some success in the majors for Florida (Mitre may be nothing, but he was roughly league average for a year in '07). For whatever success JP has had in the majors, he had 700 pretty brutal ABs for us.

Bruce says Hoff and Gathright have made the team, barring a trade. http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/1715

It's silly to think he might regress? So it's silly to be anything other than absolutely certain that he'll at least match his numbers from last year? Am I reading that correctly? youre reading it literally. what i meant, and i guess i couldve been more clear, was that it's silly to operate on the assumption that he could be worse (not that you were). when talking about predicting the success of the 2009 cubs, i think it's pretty safe to assume that your 26 year old second year catcher is going to improve on his rookie campaign. I think it would be rather irresponsible to operate on the assumption that your rookie of the year couldn't take a step back in year 2. Exactly. Of all the people who have come up and been productive in their first year (esp to the degree that Soto was last season), I imagine many continue to improve, many stay roughly the same, and many regress (slightly or worse). I have no idea what the percentages are and frankly don't care. But it's certainly reasonable to think Soto could regress to some degree in '09.

It's silly to think he might regress? So it's silly to be anything other than absolutely certain that he'll at least match his numbers from last year? Am I reading that correctly?

I wouldn't give up Soto to take a flyer on a pitcher with elbow problems. But I like the scenario you suggest. I'd definitely shop Soto to improve at 1B and/or 2B.

Yep because we were getting above average quality Major League production at 2B, C, CF. For at least two of those positions, the jury is still out on how they will perform. Plus although Lee wasn't giving us adequate offensive production, he still gives us presumably much better defense at first than Hoff would. Neither Fontenot, Soto, nor Johnson have shown us any indication that they wont be able to produce this season. You don't think there's a reasonable chance that Fontenot and Fukudome/Johnson don't match the production we got from 2B and CF last year? Not to mention the possibility that Soto regresses a bit this year. The point is Lee's health isn't the determining factor. He was healthy, and sucked last year. If he's unhealthy, and doesn't play as much, that's not going to be the difference between the Cubs succeeding and the Cubs struggling. Other positions are far more important. Well, I wasn't really addressing that point. I was speaking to WSR's statement that implied we should seem the same level of production from C, 2B, and CF as we did in '08.

Yep because we were getting above average quality Major League production at 2B, C, CF. For at least two of those positions, the jury is still out on how they will perform. Plus although Lee wasn't giving us adequate offensive production, he still gives us presumably much better defense at first than Hoff would. Neither Fontenot, Soto, nor Johnson have shown us any indication that they wont be able to produce this season. You don't think there's a reasonable chance that Fontenot and Fukudome/Johnson don't match the production we got from 2B and CF last year? Not to mention the possibility that Soto regresses a bit this year.