USSoccer

Perhaps Cedeno is still working on his switch to 2nd base? Taking grounders or what ever. I'm trying here guys... Pretty inexcusable. That's easily the worst offensive middle IF in baseball.

At the risk of sounding like Brodie Bruce, if you're not going to pay attention to the conversation, don't join in. Don't worry. You sound NOTHING like Brodie Bruce. And I'd just like to know where this "good defense" is coming from. Ramirez has been pretty good at third. Cedeno is inconsistent. Where's this run-saving defense coming from? Isn't that what the discussion was about? The effect of good defense on pitching? All I wanna know is why you consider the Cubs defense to be good and, therefore, able to save the Cub pitchers tons of runs. I realize, the subject is debatable. But, I've watched MANY Cubs games this year and haven't walked away from any of them thinking that the Cubs had a bunch of defensive studs. You, obviously, see things differently. Given that defensive ability is almost completely subjective, why build a big part of your team around something you can't even quantify?

I just can't figure out why someone didn't ask Hendry why he ate Maddux's contract if he was going to do the Dodgers the favor of taking Izturis' awful deal off their hands.

Crede is more then just good. He's one of the best 3rd basemen in the league. Uribe and Iguchi are more then just okay up the middle. They are one of the best up the middle combos in the league. Roward is a very good CF and Dye is Good at right. AJ is a above average catcher and PK at first has vastly improved his D the last couple of years. I completely disagree with your opinions on Iguchi, AJP and especially Konerko. Konerko is bloody terrible at 1B. And you didn't bother to refute my assesment of why they won the World Series. Defense had much less to do with it than the average fan thinks.

Tell that to the White Sox who won a WS on Pitching and Defense. Their team BA was .262 with a .322 OBP and yet they managed to win a WS. they hit a crapload of homers. True..but they had 200 HR to our 194. They had a .262 AVG with a .322 OPB while we had a .270 AVG with a .324 OBP. So what was the difference between the two teams offensively? The difference must be in the clutch hitting because defense means very, very, very little. Yeah, that or exceptional pitching. I'll go with the pitching myself. You don't think that the defense had anything to do with that? Where exactly were the White Sox great defensively? Podsednik was terrible in LF. Roward is good, Dye is good. Crede is good. Uribe is okay, Iguchi is okay, and Konerko is a statue. Pierzinski is okay. You had 3 plus defenders on that team. They didn't exactly have Ozzie Smith and Ryne Sandberg in the middle IF defensively. The reason they were champs is because they played in a weak division and built up an insurmountable lead that Cleveland couldn't make up despite a second half tear. They got career pitching performances out of Garland and Buehrle, Politte and Hermanson (before he got hurt), and had Jenks come in and be lights out. In the playoffs, their starters were unhittable. Their defense probably had about 15% to do with their title. In 2004 Garciaparra was god-awful at SS and the went out and got a defensive upgrade in Cabrera. Still, their starting lineup featured 3 guys in Bellhorn, Ramirez and Nixon who might as well play 16 inch softball-they're terrible defenders. Varitek isn't a great defensive C. Mueller is decent at 3B but not great, and Damon isn't a great defensive CF. THEY won because they had 2 amazing offensive players surrounded by a supporting cast who could get on base, and had 2 really good starters and a good bullpen. Not because Doug Eyechart and Orlando Cabrera were plus defenders, but because they outscored people.

It's a very big leap. How many plays did Cedeno botch up this year? He's got 16 errors in 98 games this year. Izturis is superior to Cedeno at SS. I think Cedeno will fit well at the 2b position. Again lets just let the season play out... Then why not just let Neifi be the starting SS? Where's the need for Izturis when Neifi is under contract for 2007? Again, Izturis upside is greater then Neifi Perez with better range. It's worth the gamble. Calling his upside greater than Neifi with better range is pretty crappy. He'll probably end up like Christian Guzman (his other PECOTA comp along with Vizquel).

It's a very big leap. How many plays did Cedeno botch up this year? He's got 16 errors in 98 games this year. Izturis is superior to Cedeno at SS. I think Cedeno will fit well at the 2b position. Again lets just let the season play out... So in your mind if Izturis had played SS instead of Cedeno this season, we'd have how many more wins? Defense means very, very, very little in baseball. Pitching and hitting. That's what wins, in that order. If you have strikeout pitchers, your defense matters little. We have Z and Prior. If you have flyball pitchers, your infield defense doesn't have as much impact on the game as people think. Prior, Marshall, Rusch (ha), Wood, and Hill are all flyball pitchers. Want a FA pitcher? Zito and Schmidt are flyball and strikeout pitchers, not sinkerballers. If we had Derek Lowe, Matt Clement and Brandon Webb on our staff, I'd care more about middle IF defense. Izturis is a better SS at this point, but it's not enough of a difference overall for the team for me to care about it.

Trouble is, Barrett's peripheral numbers indicated room for improvement. Izturis' do not. And as far as his defense goes, until we have a sinkerballer on our staff, defense at SS means relatively little. Going from Cedeno to Izturis isn't that big a leap. He's not going to save us "1 run a game".

And it's not suprising for them to be seduced by his 2004 season and 2 Gold Gloves. But mostly because they are all idiots.

This trade was absolute, itchy pants. It somehow made us worse for the next 3 years. I would have been happier with the Dodger system version of Augie Ojeda.

First off, We ate the remaining $2m on Maddux's 2006 contract, AND assumed all of Izturis' contract, meaning we lost a signifigant amount of money for 2006 thru 2008. We didn't save anything, we don't have more money to spend, we have less. We have about $1m less for the rest of this season, $4.5 less next season, and $5m less in 2007, and for that $10m in salary we're getting a player who has a degenerative arthritic condition and who can't crack a .300 OBP. Secondly, Hendry overvalues speed and defense. He probably thought that getting a ML player who's won a "Gold Glove" would play better than trading Maddux for a ouple of prospects that the average fan wouldn't know. Finally, having 2 sub .300 OBP guys in an NL lineup will ALWAYS hurt you. ALWAYS.

During tonight's broadcast, Hendry was talking about moving Ronny Cedeno to 2B, and he discussed the how they worked Ronny out at 2B over the winter. He cited the pursuit of Furcal and the "trade talks for Tejada" as reasons for this. I found that interesting, because I cannot recall Hendry ever publicly admitting he had discussions regarding Tejada.

Don't forget squandering the depth that we once had in our system, retaining the wrong players and holding onto others long after their values peaked.

Cedeno has stuggled this season defensively, but every Dodger fan I've talked to says that Izturis is amazing defensively. There have been multiple people say that he is comparable to Visquel with the glove. If only he would be with the bat, the Cubs might have something. I too am waiting to see what happens in the off-season. I don't think the Cubs can afford to have a middle infield of Izturis and Cedeno without greatly improving their outfield production and retaining Ramirez's services. They will also likely need to sign a really good starter as well. That's a lot to expect Hendry to do given his past two off seasons. We'll see. That's the problem. We have so much money tied up in redundant, beyond mediocre crap that it will prevent Hendry from having enough payroll flexibility to ensure Ramirez stays, AND pursue a OF and SP.

And those 3 roles could easily have been filled by Theriot, Fontenot and Williams with little risk of production drop off, at a tenth of the cost.

Cedeno has stuggled this season defensively, but every Dodger fan I've talked to says that Izturis is amazing defensively. There have been multiple people say that he is comparable to Visquel with the glove. Again, it's nice that he can field his position, but I'm not going to get excited to see him scoop up groundballs while we lose games 4-1 because our offense is pathetic.

I'm not asking for more. I'm asking for something less destructive to the team than Izturis, his pathetic production and his contract. Seriously, no one is complaining we didn't get enough. We're complaining that what we got is one of the worst possible outcomes there is. The only way Hendry could have screwed it up even more is if he'd taken Gagne back with Izturis.

I now absolutely believe Barrett will be traded in the off-season. He's no great shakes defensively and the direction the Cubs are moving does not seem likely to deviate. I absolutely beleive you don't absolutely beleive that. With a MI of cedeno/izturis players like Barret, Lee, and Ramirez will be sorely needed. I now beleive JH will go after Carlos Lee and a SP in the offseason. . And thanks to contracts like Perez's, Rusch's and now Izturis's, we won't be able to pony up the necessary cash to compete in a bidding war during a very, very weak FA market. We'll be incredibly fortunate to retain and extend Ramirez.

The problem is that his salary will make it that much more difficult to improve offensively.

Didn't see this posted, but I haven't read all 55 pages of posts. This comment makes this deal even worse. Hendry could have had a package of high level prospects, but took Izturis? ](*,) Hahahahah, I would have taken any one player in the dodgers system, regardless of age/level/ability over Izturis. How can Hendry be such an f-up? Quoted For Truth. At least an organizational filler type prospect would have been inexpensive.

Didn't see this posted, but I haven't read all 55 pages of posts. This comment makes this deal even worse. Hendry could have had a package of high level prospects, but took Izturis? ](*,) The case for firing him immediately keeps getting stronger and stronger.

I want to die. I want to die alongside him.

Getting nothing back would literally have been better. Thats a joke. I rather get something, rather than nothing for him. Not if the something required a contract worse than Neifi's for Neifi-like performance. We wasted-WASTED money. $4m next season that I'm sure will either cost us Aramis if he opts out, or keep us from aquiring something actually useful to the team.

That just shows how bad NL SS are.

Getting nothing back would literally have been better.