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Unless by "share" we're talking 90/10 in favor of Murton, this is a terrible idea. "Floyd and Matt Murton would share left"

Is this league really going to be around next year? It seems like we already have a few teams that have given up.

That's my line of thinking. Look at Deon Sanders as an example. Exactly, the only question for Jeff would be whether he could stay in football shape. It's not like he'll suddenly forget how to run a route and catch a ball. I can't really blame him. You get a guaranteed contract and a shot at being a great baseball pitcher (and not have to get drilled by DBs going over the middle). If it doesn't work out or he ruins his elbow, he can still try football. It might not work out either, but at least he'll have $8m.

I like the Tigers, but I hope Neifi plays great in ST just so they don't trade him back to us.

Big No to Figgins. I don't see the point with Thames. If Soriano will play CF, I'd be ok with Thames in RF. But otherwise, no.

That's just sad. Don't forget Ted Lilly. Pays to stay healthy I guess... Or have been a free agent. Health is more important. You think Lilly would have gotten a bigger deal than Prior if Prior were a FA this year? Even with his injury history, I think Prior would have made more.

I don't mind picking up Clark, I guess. But I'm not convinced that a Jones/Murton platoon would be better than Murton in LF all by himself with Jones and Clark platooning in CF. Last year, Jones was really good against RHP, but Murton wasn't exactly bad. And their OBP against RHP were nearly identical. I'd much prefer to put Murton in the 2-hole against all pitchers and either platoon Jones with someone in CF (Clark?) or trade Jones after what will likely be his best year for the remainder of his contract, and put someone else out in CF by himself. Murton put up an OBP of nearly .360 against RHP last year (OPS of .782) and an overall OBP of .365. Plus he turns 26 at the end of the 2007 season and is thus likely to improve with more playing time. Why would we platoon that with Jones and let Clark (and his .338 OBP) play full time?

i guess we're even with last year's trade then :P edit: okay, this sucks: I'd feel bad for you, but I'm the guy that traded him Dirk and Okur for Ray Allen (who then missed a month) and Lewis (who is out 2-3 months). I'm convinced he puts a curse on the guys he trades away. :wink:

Just knowing that people are talking about him (good or bad) might lift his spirits.

I wouldn't consider all of those things "highlights."

I fully support Raines for HOF as well. I think people in that era generally are underappreciated (including Raines, Trammell, and Dawson). Dawson made a lot of outs in his career-no doubt. But in his prime, he made fewer outs and created a ton of runs too. Even his production / out in his prime years wasn't equivalent to others of his era. I don't really follow what you mean by production/out, so it is difficult to debate that with you.

I fully support Raines for HOF as well. I think people in that era generally are underappreciated (including Raines, Trammell, and Dawson). Dawson made a lot of outs in his career-no doubt. But in his prime, he made fewer outs and created a ton of runs too.

FWIW BP weighs in on his defense: Link I don't know how exactly they calculated that, but at least for his years in RF, using career numbers (which would include about 3.5 years worth of games when he was 35+ and had no knees) again doesn't seem like the best way to judge his defense. Even assuming defense statistics accurately measure defense, I'd like to know how good he was the 2 years he won GG in RF. Besides, it's not like he's an Ozzie Smith. We're not talking about a below-average offensive player trying to get in almost entirely on defensive merit. Maybe he was a great defender for 10 years, maybe he was great sometimes and good other times. But I think supporters are saying that you combine good/great defense with his great hitting and he is Hall-worthy. I guess we perceive his value differently, to me he's an average defender and a very good hitter. I certainly respect your opinion. He was an exciting player to watch. Maybe you're right about his defense. I don't put much weight into defensive metrics b/c I'm just not yet convinced that they're accurate. I thought he was great defensively (I admit to some bias) and he won a lot of GG. Does everyone deserve their GG? Not at all, the voting is terrible. But I think he was at least good defensively. At the very least, his defense in the 80s shouldn't take away from his credentials. How much it improves them is something about which reasonable people can disagree.

Those are arbitrary dates. Besides OPS obscures his biggest problem - OBP. Only twice in his career he was in the top 10 of VORP (81 and 83). He was a very good player but not elite. Arbitrary? No. I choose his prime years. He played 20 years. I think it's fair to look at his prime (it's not like I'm picking 2/3 years). For the 10 or so-year stretch that was Dawson's prime, he was one of the top hitters in the NL. It happens that his prime was about 1980-1990. I didn't pick those years b/c it was easy, I looked at his stats and estimated that it was his prime (also his age 25-35 years, which makes sense, I think). Yes, his biggest problem, other than knees, was OBP. His career OBP was bad. But again, if you're looking at a guy who played 21 seasons, I don't think it's fair to look at a career percentage stat. In his prime (1980-1990) he had 3 bad OBP years (around .300 - also happened to be the years when he missed quite a few games) and a few ok ones and 3-4 good ones (.350 +). He was never the greatest at getting on base, but he wasn't always bad either. It's odd b/c his OBP, even in his prime, swung from .300 one year to .350+ the next. In those 7-8 years when his OBP was .330 or higher, he was great.

FWIW BP weighs in on his defense: Link I don't know how exactly they calculated that, but at least for his years in RF, using career numbers (which would include about 3.5 years worth of games when he was 35+ and had no knees) again doesn't seem like the best way to judge his defense. Even assuming defense statistics accurately measure defense, I'd like to know how good he was the 2 years he won GG in RF. Besides, it's not like he's an Ozzie Smith. We're not talking about a below-average offensive player trying to get in almost entirely on defensive merit. Maybe he was a great defender for 10 years, maybe he was great sometimes and good other times. But I think supporters are saying that you combine good/great defense with his great hitting and he is Hall-worthy.

This is exactly my point. I don't think it's a matter of people exaggerating his stats, I think it's a matter of perspective. I just spent a few minutes on baseballreference. In his 10 or so prime years, Dawson was in the top 10 in the NL in OPS 6 times (I don't know where his OPS fell in the other years). So you look and say "his OPS was X - that's not great." Well, in his era, an OPS in the .850-.900 range frequently was top 10 in the NL. If you limit it to OFs (take away Jack Clark, Will Clark, Schmidt), he was even better, relative to his peers. If you want to judge every player based on today's standards, no one from the late 70s through early 90s is getting in. Whether it was just a down period for offensive stats or it was lack of steroids or whatever, I don't know. In the late 90s, there were frequently 4 or 5 guys in the NL with an OPS over 1.000. Does that mean if you never had an OPS of 1.000 in the 80s you weren't dominant? And this isn't a Jim Rice argument. I've only seen one poster here argue fear as a reason Dawson should get in. People arguing for him are saying Dawson was elite during his time. People arguing against him seem to be saying his stats don't add up. By today's standards, maybe not, but compared to other hitters in his time, I think Dawson's in. Your defense certainly doesn't defend the notion that he was elite during his time. It says he was really good for a few years but never elite. Really? I might have missed someone, but by my rough count, from 80-90 only 1 guy was in the top 10 in OPS in the NL more times than Dawson (Schmidt). Dawson was not the best hitter during his prime (if we assume 80-90 was his prime, which I think is true). Is finishing in the top 10 in OPS more times than all but 1 player during your prime "elite"? I think you could make the argument that it is. Roll in defense and base-running and he was one of the best players in the NL during his best 10 years.

This is exactly my point. I don't think it's a matter of people exaggerating his stats, I think it's a matter of perspective. I just spent a few minutes on baseballreference. In his 10 or so prime years, Dawson was in the top 10 in the NL in OPS 6 times (I don't know where his OPS fell in the other years). So you look and say "his OPS was X - that's not great." Well, in his era, an OPS in the .850-.900 range frequently was top 10 in the NL. If you limit it to OFs (take away Jack Clark, Will Clark, Schmidt), he was even better, relative to his peers. If you want to judge every player based on today's standards, no one from the late 70s through early 90s is getting in. Whether it was just a down period for offensive stats or it was lack of steroids or whatever, I don't know. In the late 90s, there were frequently 4 or 5 guys in the NL with an OPS over 1.000. Does that mean if you never had an OPS of 1.000 in the 80s you weren't dominant? And this isn't a Jim Rice argument. I've only seen one poster here argue fear as a reason Dawson should get in. People arguing for him are saying Dawson was elite during his time. People arguing against him seem to be saying his stats don't add up. By today's standards, maybe not, but compared to other hitters in his time, I think Dawson's in.

13 RBI's, besides Boggs hit near the top of the lineup. Boggs had 716 more runs. That wasn't a really fair comparison. but, but...but Boggs had 3000 more AB's! We can play this game all day long but it won't get us anywhere. Dawson is a HOF'er just as much as Boggs or Ozzie Smith. Smith, yeah. But Boggs certainly belongs in the Hall and Dawson doesn't. And Dawson was my favorite Cub growing up. Please don't take this the wrong way, but you were, what, 4 when Dawson won the MVP. After seeing some of the posts, it looks like the people about 30 and older are on 1 side and the lower-20s group (except for the Cardinals fan, but their opinions don't really count :wink:) are on the other. OBP was never Dawson's strength, but during his prime, his OBP was frequently in the .340-350 range. I don't think the "feared hitter" arguments carry much weight, but Dawson was a great player for a lot of years. One of the best OFs of his era. I just have to think that he's going to be hurt b/c he played from the late-70s to early-90s for some really bad teams. So his numbers aren't as good when compared to the .900+ OPS's that so many players put in in the late-90s through now and he doesn't have a ring or a lot of playoff game performances. Bottom line - I think he should be in, but won't be surprised if he never makes it. And that doesn't bother me as much anymore. The older I get, the more I realize how terrible people are at voting, especially in sport (whether it be awards, CFB polls, whatever). I'll always remember watching Dawson patrol RF, seeing him unleash the gun on runners trying to advance, watching him hit lasers all over the field. I don't need a plaque.

When a guy plays 21 seasons, I'm not sure using career percentages is the best method of evaluation. He was productive for nearly all of those 21 seasons, but Dawson's best years were about 1980-1990 (ages 25-35). Even in that stretch, he had about 4 great years in Montreal, 2-3 average ones, and then about 4 more great ones in Chicago. If someone ran his averages from that stretch, I think it would be a better evaluation of how great a player he was. His other 10 or so seasons weren't "bad" but they were his very early and very late years. Maybe his OBP/SLG/OPS isn't any better for those 10-11 prime years, but just looking at the numbers, it seems like the average of his prime is significantly better (though those 2-3 years where he missed 20 or some games each year in Montreal drag him down a bit). I think that's a better way to evaluate his Hall-worthiness.

One writer is for and one is against. That's their thing. I could go either way on Hawk. He was one of my favorite all time players. I think you could make a very good argument that he's hall-worthy, but he's not a slam dunk HOF'r in my mind.

Bad, but with all the injured stars this year, it's probably not as bad as it could be. By March, every player in the league may have missed 2 weeks or more.

Yeah, just get Gasol and Allen back and lose Lewis and Melo. On the other hand - have 5 Cs if anyone is interested in a deal (esp for a PG, SG, or SF).

No one should be Moore willing to take a Riske than the Royals.

Again, I have no personal knowledge of this, but according to ESPN he played only 105 games in '05, 107 in '02, 102 in '01, 91 in '00. Maybe that's all due to being considered a part time player, but he's missed a lot of games for one reason or another. He's got a solid OBP. But he's also 35 and likely to decline. I would have rather thrown Theriot out there playing 2nd and hitting 2nd, but JH has never really taken my advice, surprisingly.

I like the .360+ career OBP for the 2-hole, but he's missed a lot of games in his career. I haven't really followed him, but if he's a 35-year-old with an injury history, I can understand not wanting to count on him as a starting 2nd basemen/#2 hitter (not that I want DeRosa in either of those spots, either). Besides, we already have an inexpensive option that would be perfect for the #2 spot (Murton).