CardsFanInChiTown

Viva el birdos!

I'm oddly fascinated by the idea of Looper starting. The Cards 07 rotation has a lot of interesting story lines.

Hey Tim, what are nsbb's server specs?

Wade Miller + prospects for a prospect <= prospects for a prospect

I guess they don't like Rich Hill.

I disagree, you pay top end talent. It's the Marquis and Lilly contracts that kill you.

Aren't the Cubs also being greedy with their best player?

I don't think it's just you. He seems to have a real arrogance about him. The way he talks, you'd think he's built an absolute dynasty. Between he and Guillen, it's not hard to dislike that team. Not because they are "rivals" of the Cubs (I don't consider them to be rivals), but because they are both clowns. Williams has been talking like that since he took over the job, it has nothing to do with them winning in '05. Yeah, and he was awful for his first seasons. His moves have looked really good the past couple seasons, but his ego far outweighs his accomplishments. Although I don't care for a lot his moves but he's never had a sub .500 team.

It looks like Rothschild put him on the Glendon Rusch diet.

Who's going to play center - Jones or Soriano?

Lol, I don't even think he'll be of much use either. I mailed out my Mabry autographed jersey number this afternoon (what was i thinking?) BIg ex-cardinal day. Not to pile it on but I read this on another board today and I thought it was funny: That said, if Marquis plays well for the Cubs it will drive Cards fans nuts.

Marquis has a wonderful effect on people.

Man, one big offseason and already y'all are starting to sound like Yankee fans. :wink:

This is the icing on the cake for a very, very productive Cards off-season. The central is ours!

In this market 13m isn't all that risky. FWIW, I like the deal.

Then no one should make it because the players union resisted testing for years. Hey thats a great idea. Or maybe we should just not include the people who sat on national television in front of a grand jury and could not deny using steriods. Someone who even made his supporters doubt him. Hmmmmm You said anyone "even a little involved". What does that exactly mean? Guilty by association is very unfair. How do you know Cal Ripken hasn't used? Where do you draw the line?

Then no one should make it because the players union resisted testing for years.

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.

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. 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.

FWIW BP weighs in on his defense: Link

Ugh, I couldn't stay out of this thread. Brock shouldn't be in the HOF therefore he shouldn't be a baseline for HOF OFers going forward.

Point taken, though how then do you explain the MVP award and two other times in the top 3? To me, that shows that the entire baseball world acknowledged his dominance. Bill James called his 87 MVP selection possibly the worst in the history of MLB baseball. In terms of VORP he ranked 18th for NL players. I'm a bit of a lightening rod so this is my last post in this thread. viva Ozzie Smith! :wink:

13 RBI's, besides Boggs hit near the top of the lineup. Boggs had 716 more runs. That wasn't a really fair comparison.

I'm not going to hijack this thread with Ozzie Smith chat. Like I said, feel free to start a thread about it in Rivalries.

nor should anyone with a career OPS+ of 87. Whose OPS+ does that belong to? Ozzie Smith. Smith should be in the hall, he was a decent hitter for a SS of that era. I think you could make a better case against Lou Brock if you want to slam a Cardinal HOFer. yeah, let's put Omar Vizquel in too. oh, but he lacks the most important element when comparing the two. backflips. Start another thread on this subject if you'd like.