Tracer Bullet

Did espn tweak the video player that starts automatically on their site or did I unwittingly tweak FF? It used to block the video, but now it starts up automatically. I hate that.

I hope he signs with the Nats and when Lee's contract his up, they trade him to us.

There aren't a lot, and Manny isn't one of them anymore, since last year he didn't break that threshold. I'm no math whiz, but didn't he OPS 1.031 in 2008 (combined LA and Bos)?

Hermida would be my top choice, but I really don't think they'd be able to get him. Of the FA's, if Bradley would be more likely to stay healthy, he'd be my first choice, with Dunn being second. I just don't think Bradley is going to stay healthy. I'd bet he misses more games than Soriano did last season. For me it comes down to 150 games of Dunn's D>Bradley on the DL for 60 games. It's still pretty close though. I understand the health concerns, but Bradley greatly outproduced Dunn the last couple years. People talk about Bradley's numbers being skewed by the great hitters park in Texas, but he had solid road numbers. Even before that, he produced great numbers in San Diego after being traded in 2007 and had a good year in Oakland before that, two pitchers parks. And losing Bradley to the DL doesn't hurt the Cubs that much, because then you can play Derosa in RF and Fontenot at 2B, which would be a minimal loss offensively. I might be missing something, but are you saying that the offensive drop-off from Bradley to Fontenot would be minimal?

FF and I can't wait to convince the wife to stop using IE

Welcome to the board. Can you shrink Wake's giant head?

How about some wild theorizing? Hendry thinks he'll still get Peavy (and Bradley), and thinks Pie will be in that deal, so he needed Gathright for pinch running, double switches, etc. Time will tell about getting Peavy, but the acquisition of Gathright certainly means Pie is going somewhere in a trade. Is Pie out of options? Is there really anything in the Cubs' history to suggest they won't send him to AAA if he's not? I could have sworn that more than one reliable poster on this board said Pie was out of options.

ZING! :roll:

He was talking about what to expect out of a player next year, what exactly should he have done? Why do people have such difficulty understanding the context of specific quotes? I made no argument or remark regarding what he should have done. I pointed out the fallacy that the OP had not used guesswork in his point. He, in fact, did use guesswork- regardless of how close to reality those projections tend to be, they are still projections. Hence, they are GUESSES. Educated guesses, sure. But, guesses nonetheless. when you've turned to a semantic argument about whether fairly-well regarded projections are guesswork or not, your argument has lost some steam.

Is there anyway we can end up with Escobar?

what makes that so obvious? oh, and i'd also be remiss if i didn't mention Fuku was roughly 5 runs better than Ibanez on the basepaths last year I'm guessing it's obvious to him because Fukudome didn't just hit some rough patches that held down his numbers, but rather he was a complete piece of crap at the plate for months. I don't get why people are thanking god that Ibanez won't be available. He wasn't ideal, but they are more likely than not getting somebody, and they could do a lot worse. $10m for a 40-year-old Ibanez would have probably been the worst payment per year of any of Hendry's signings, that is until Soriano's 40 (or whatever age he'll be in last year of his contract). When all is said and done, I'm not sure we'll be able to nail down the winner of that award. But for what it's worth, Ibanez turned 36 during this season. A 3 year deal won't pay him a dime when he's 40. Sorry, 39. How dare I round up 1 year.

There's almost never a time when a Princess Bride quote isn't appropriate.

what makes that so obvious? oh, and i'd also be remiss if i didn't mention Fuku was roughly 5 runs better than Ibanez on the basepaths last year I'm guessing it's obvious to him because Fukudome didn't just hit some rough patches that held down his numbers, but rather he was a complete piece of crap at the plate for months. I don't get why people are thanking god that Ibanez won't be available. He wasn't ideal, but they are more likely than not getting somebody, and they could do a lot worse. $10m for a 40-year-old Ibanez would have probably been the worst payment per year of any of Hendry's signings, that is until Soriano's 40 (or whatever age he'll be in last year of his contract).

7 hours too late I don't know what's worse - all the bad jokes or all the people not catching them

No and the Tigers signed Adam Everett.

So this thread jumped some 12 pages in the 8 hours since I last stopped by, but nothing's changed? Crap I hate baseball deals that don't get done immediately.

people are up in arms over non tendering a guy who is 25 years old, cheap, can start or relieve, and has kept his era under 4.5 for the past 3 years gaudin isn't great, but he has good value...... especially to a team with rich harden in their rotation Gaudin doesn't have good value. He is due to earn over $2MM for a reliever that puts up terrible numbers. Many people considered Howry to have a terrible year last year, but Howry's WHIP and K/BB ratio were actually better than Gaudin's career numbers. ] i just showed you why he has good value. he's not just a reliever. he's a reliever who can start. that gives him value. plus, even though his peripherals might look bad, he has shown for 3 straight years that he can keep his era under 4.50 while bouncing between the rotation and bullpen. that always has value, especially when we have at least one guy in our rotation who is basically guaranteed to miss a chunk of start (i already said this, you're just ignoring it and pretending he's just a reliever). you can't make a blanket statement like "his numbers are terrible" when his era has been fine for 3 straight years. plus he's only 25 and should get better To be fair, ERA isn't a great way to judge a pitcher and an even worse way to judge a pitcher who pitches in relief a lot. That said, I think Gaudin does provide a good amount of value and I agree with you that he especially provides value to a team with a SP who is very likely to miss quite a few starts. but WHIP is where we should solely focus attention?

I looked into the eyes of the list of the most overrated bands in rock history and I saw three letters: a D, an M, and a B. You might not like the Pumpkins, but to call them the most overrated ever is ridiculous. Ha -- I'll grant you Dave. I rescind my previous statement. I hate DMB as much as the next guy, but his music helped a lot of college guys got a lot of tail in the mid-late 90s. So he gets a pass despite all his flaws.

the one that was caught with no feet in bounds? the guy's toe landed in bounds, then the heel came down out of bounds. i don't think that should count as a catch, but it was ruled a catch in penn state's 2005 loss to michigan. i have no idea if that's the right call, but i've seen it reviewed and upheld before. i think you might be wrong on the illegal batting penalty too. by the way, you know notre dame is lousy when they need to bitch about the refs (and insinuate that the refs were trying to get a team a win, which is even more mind-boggling) to justify a close win over navy. None of it would've happened if Charlie would quit taking his foot off the gas too early. No one's asking him to be Steve Spurrier, but for chrissake, ten minutes left when you're up by 20, even against a team that can't pass, is NOT appropriate time to be taking the starters out. The refs were abysmal, but it shouldn't have mattered if we didn't have a coach going way too far trying not to embarrass anyone in the few games we're actually in a position to do so. Jeez - he didn't pull all the starters. The whole starting OL was still in the game and Sharpley was just feeding Gray, who was running well. It only looked bad b/c Gray coughed up the ball inside the 5 and then it was one play after another that took it to the wire. He didn't pull the starters until Navy's drive that started with around 5 minutes left and we were still up 20.

You completely got the wrong idea. While that's not the case in this specific example, that has been the case by at least a couple people. Right, but that's why I quoted the entire set of posts - those posts he quoted didn't say that at all.

Braun? Yeah. Pujols? Yeah. Ankiel? Yeah. Guillen? Well. . . if that were the only way to win, I guess so. . . maybe. . . yeah. . . ______________________________________________ Sandberg>Mazeroski>Morgan I love that Woody is the reason we have been losing the past ten years now. Not inept management. Kerry Wood is the big reason we have won a single playoff series the last 100 years. Either you misquoted, or you got the totally wrong idea from those posts. I might have got the wrong idea, but it seems a couple of people have said that we haven't won with Wood so we might as well move on. Which is just crazy. Wood hasn't been the reason we have yet to win it all. You completely got the wrong idea.

You should go see the Nadas on Friday night.

Giambi-.247/.373/.502/.875 32 hr Lee-.291/.361/.462/.823 20 hr As I stated, Im not sure how much of a defensive liability Giambi is, but the offensive numbers are a significant upgrade. In all seriousness, Giambi benefited form the left handed advantage of hitting at Yankee Stadium. He had equal HR output home vs. away, but had an OPS 102 points higher at home than on the road (.929 vs. 827). Here's his scatter plot from Hit Tracker. Clearly he's a pull hitter so he took advantage of the short Yankee stadium RF... http://www.hittrackeronline.com/parks/Giambi_Jason_2008_scatter.jpg How many of those wouldn't be HRs in Wrigley? Doesn't that say that all but very few of his HRs down the line were over 350'?

Today will bring my career record back to an even 2-2.

Hat still in the regular rotation