Tracer Bullet

Howard also has hit a HR in about 36% of his major league flyballs... I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Upton won't be able to do that. I'm also guessing that Upton may have a hard time sustaining his .451 BABIP. I'm not arguing that Upton = Howard. I'm arguing that a lot of strike outs don't necessarily mean much. The BABIP argument is a strong one that I do not debate.

FWIW - Ryan Howard struck out in about 25% of his PAs last year and he was ok.

No, I don't think Lou gets a pass. He's not putting guys in a position to succeed (Izturis never ever ever ever gets to bat 2nd in any lineup ever). He's making knee jerk reactions to things (like Dempster's 1 bad inning, Guzman's cramps) and just generally jerking guys around (in the pen, in the OF, in the lineup generally). I don't think you get the best out of your players when there isn't a relatively set lineup (not just in terms of batting order, but also who's starting and what position, etc) for an extended period of time. Every week, every day, the starters and the order change. Lou said he liked the versatility of the players, but I think he's been using that characteristic as an excuse to continually change guys around to the detriment of the team.

In the way you did it, my vote is yes.

I was never a big fan of Abreu, but I wanted Drew pretty bad. And Drew's power is nowhere to be found, but his OBP is still 100 points higher than his AVG (and that .350 OBP would be an improvement for our OF); Abreu's OBP is not good, but it's also 80 or so points higher than his AVG - these guys haven't lost their plate discipline, which is something our team sorely lacks. But Abreu and Drew also went from the NL to the ALE, which is a huge difference in terms of talent. Abreu got the short end of the stick b/c some of the worst pitchers in the ALE are on his team. But they're facing much better talent than Jones is. So to think Drew or Abreu wouldn't be much better facing the Cards, Pirates, Reds, etc than pitchers in the AL isn't really fair. They might be just as bad on the Cubs as they are in the ALE, but the difference in talent in the leagues is fairly widely accepted, so I think that's a variable you're overlooking. I'd love to trade for Drew (Abreu's a year and a half older, so I'm less interested in him). If he could play CF at all, that .391 career OBP would be a thing of beauty on this team.

Speaking of ridiculous... Seriously, "storied" managers? I suppose it's accurate in that there are a lot of stories about Lou and his temper and Dusty likes to tell a lot of stories about fishing. But we're not talking Earl Weaver over here. Former All-Stars? And that's relevant because... Really - the ASG and voting is a joke, but even if they were perennial all stars, does that mean they'd be good managers (or, more accurately, does it mean they are/were good when they're here)? You want Barry Bonds to come manage this team when he retires b/c he's a player with a great career? Hendry takes a huge part of the blame b/c he constructs this crap. But Dusty and Lou have input into some of those acquisitions and decisions regarding who comes up to the bigs and who gets sent down. And they take these bad players and put them in the lineup in ways that don't make success more likely. They mismanage the pitching staff. So yes, they get some blame too. But that's ok, it's just another chapter in their storied careers.

This is a great summary of my problems with Lou, except for the part about missing Dusty. His mistakes were made much more than once. I would love to have Gonzalez or some other young-blood manager in here. I'm tired of the old guard.

I don't think your NBA analogy holds much water. The Suns struggled without Nash this year. Even if they hadn't, one player can have a huge effect on a 5-man team (especially in basketball where a guy can take over a game for several minutes at a time). In baseball, it's easier to negate one great player on a bad team (like pitching around him). But to your overall point, it still goes back to how you define "value." You're just using a different definition. You seem to be saying that a player is only valuable if his team competes (either by making the playoffs or coming close to it). But that's still saying that a player is only valuable if his teammates are good enough to help the team win. Again - rewarding or not rewarding a player based on things totally out of his control. To use your ARod example. I don't know what the actual numbers are for '03 and I don't want to look them up. But if the Rangers were 25 games out with him on the team. They probably would have been 35-40 games worse w/o him. So ARod's "value" is 10-15 games (someone will likely look this up and point out how wrong I am, but making up numbers will work for my purposes). Is it his fault that the rest of his team combined was only worth 55-60 games? Is he less valuable b/c his teammates sucked? His presence on that team (or not) may not have had an impact on the playoff picture, but that's a different question (to me) than whether ARod was most valuable. If ARod's presence meant 15 more wins for his team and the next best player (Player B) meant 12 wins to his team - ARod was more valuable, even if Player B's team made the playoffs.

I'd take either Kendrick or Upton, depending on your team needs. I wouldn't waste top waiver priority on Cano when you already have Upton and can get Kendrick for nothing.

That's wrong on several levels, but I agree with the last part. If Murton's in a platoon, I'll be upset he isn't playing every day.

I realize there's a sample size issue to begin with, but when you cut it down to 50 PAs/45 ABs, the difference in AVG/OBP, etc is much smaller than the numbers above would indicate. Difference in average is about 5-6 hits, difference in OBP is about 4 hits/walks. I also realize that over the course of the season, the difference b/t .250 and .300 is about a hit a week, but when you're talking 25 weeks, that's a significant difference. When you're talking less than 1 hit per week over roughly 6-8 weeks, it's less significant. Summary: Even for a season MVP, I don't give a great deal of weight to situational stats, but for a first quarter MVP, they're basically worthless.

If Soriano doesn't find his .900+ OPS pretty damn quick, he's going to be the $136m anchor that sinks the damn ship.

This is a valid point - numbers at Wrigley certainly seem to change when the weather warms up and the wind turns. But I generally agree w/ jersey/gooney. I never liked the Soriano deal, but I was hoping we'd at least get a few good/great seasons out of him before it became a nightmare. If his numbers don't bounce back significantly in the near future, this is going to be an 8-year albatross, rather than a 4-5 year one.

Obviously lopsided. Make 'em throw in Hughes if they want the Big Murt. If they'll throw in Hughes, I'd probably add Izturis.

Who is shocked? Well, the "!?" at the end of the thread title made me think mdwilla was surprised. Good point. I've feared Murton has been on the block for a while, and not because the Cubs can't live without him, but because the Cubs motivation for trading Murton, and target for using him as bait, was most likely going to be all wrong. If you put him in a package for Miguel Cabrera, I'd pack his bags and fly the plane. If you give him spotty playing time and his numbers suffer, then try and "shore up the bullpen" by trading him like some extra piece, well, that's just so Cubs like. Exactly. He's not the kind of player you trade for bullpen help. He's a piece to be used in a bigger deal, if you're not going to keep him. That's exactly right. You don't trade him for an Eyre or the equivalent. You use him (and maybe him plus a prospect) to substantially improve the team. He's ideal for many small market teams (he's young, cheap, under control for years, and a solid producer). If you're not going to play him, combine him with one or two of our several young pitching prospects and ship him to a team that has a relatively young star that's about to become too expensive for them.

Murton's my favorite player on this team (and no I don't think he's a superstar). Hopefully they trade him to a team I could become a fan of (i.e. not the Cards or Yankees). That way I could just give up on the Cubs forever and not have to subject myself to this crap for the rest of my life.

Some of that is just over-the-top and totally unnecessary. Why the bold part was included in your message, I don't know. And just to clarify, Derwood posted the ABs of each guy b/c he was asked to do so by another poster. Nothing in his posts indicates that he thought one guy deserved the award b/c he had more ABs (and also - part of the difference in PAs might also be that Sosa played a handful more games, which probably accounted for roughly half of the difference in PAs). Finally, your attitude about other poster's being "stupid" for various reasons (whether contending that the MVP should be based on value to a team, or whether ignoring defense when considering the MVP) is out of line. There's just no need to come riding in on your high horse like that. If you disagree with someone, fine, but there's no need to call anyone that disagrees with you stupid.

how many homeruns and at bats does each player have? Player A had 643 AB's and Player B 509 There was a HR differential less than 5 Unless I'm reading baseball reference wrong, isn't B's OPS+ 217, not 182? yes, thanks. I looked on the wrong line So can you tell me what it was that A did that was more valuable? besides be the key offensive component to a wildcard team? See, I (unlike many) think the MVP is a contextual award. It's not "player of the year". It's "who was the most valuable," which I define as "whose contributions spelled the difference between his team being a success or a failure". By that measure, Player A's offensive contributions played a large part in his team making the playoffs while Player B's, while greater on an individual level, were gained on a, what, 4th place team? Actually, 3rd place. 6.5 behind the Cubs. And didn't we "win" the wildcard in a 1-game playoff with the Giants? So if the Cubs had lost that 1 game, would Sosa have lost the edge b/c his team didn't make the playoffs? And if so, then who gets the nod? Bonds b/c his team would have made the playoffs and he was 3rd in OPS? I'm just taking guesses. 1998 MVP award was decided by that one game for you? I suppose my counter to your argument would be this - if "value" is measured by who means the difference b/t making the playoffs and not (which seems to be your definition of success & failure), if Mac and Sosa switched teams, would either teams record have been different? Would Sosa have been able to carry the Cards to the post-season if Mac was playing 1st for the Cubs that year? My guess is no b/c the Cards had the best player in the league on their team and they couldn't get into the playoffs. So take away the best player and replace him with maybe the 2nd or 3rd best that year and that puts them over the hump? Just seems like strange logic to me. If you want to define MVP as "best player on a playoff team," that's one thing. But I don't like to limit the MVP award to guys who play on 1 of 8 teams that make the playoffs.

As FJM discusses, the Rolen to LA suggestion is pretty dumb. Rolen is expensive and appears to be pretty bad at this point (and with very little power). He's 32 and struggled with injuries. I don't see him providing a lot of pop in LA.

how many homeruns and at bats does each player have? Player A had 643 AB's and Player B 509 There was a HR differential less than 5 Unless I'm reading baseball reference wrong, isn't B's OPS+ 217, not 182? yes, thanks. I looked on the wrong line i got it now. for the record, it's been said a few times on this board that player b was robbed of the mvp that year, and it's an opinion i agree with. Thankfully, Player B does not want to talk about the past...

how many homeruns and at bats does each player have? Player A had 643 AB's and Player B 509 There was a HR differential less than 5 Unless I'm reading baseball reference wrong, isn't B's OPS+ 217, not 182? yes, thanks. I looked on the wrong line So can you tell me what it was that A did that was more valuable?

how many homeruns and at bats does each player have? Player A had 643 AB's and Player B 509 There was a HR differential less than 5 Unless I'm reading baseball reference wrong, isn't B's OPS+ 217, not 182?

how many homeruns and at bats does each player have? Player A had 643 AB's and Player B 509 There was a HR differential less than 5 B also had almost 100 more BBs, so the PA for the two weren't that different.

how many homeruns and at bats does each player have? Player A had 643 AB's and Player B 509 There was a HR differential less than 5 I just found them. How dare you make me support a Cardinal! I stand by my choice. Would you have picked Player A? In terms of "value" to his team, yes. Based on what? BARISP? The dozen or so more RBI? The fact that his team made the playoffs? What did A do that was more valuable to B.

how many homeruns and at bats does each player have? Player A had 643 AB's and Player B 509 There was a HR differential less than 5 I just found them. How dare you make me support a Cardinal! I stand by my choice. Would you have picked Player A?