MeatampPotatoesMan

Meat - you have been killing Hendry for overpaying. Wanna dish on Riccardi now? Almost 10 a year for 5 years, my good man. 8-[ Actually, I think this is an ok deal. Ryan is 29 (30 next season). His WHIP, K/BB, K/9 are outstanding. Eyre and Howry (i like howry) are nowhere close, of course they aren't paid close to 9.4M/year either (combined 7.7M/year). Riccardi is like Hendry right now - they both had around $30M to spend at the start of the offseason. Hendry spent about 8M/year for 3 years on veteran pen arms that aren't likely to be worth the money for the life of their contracts. Riccardi overspent on a dominant younger pen arm for 5 years. Ryan won't earn his money the last one or two years of his contract, but he'll be great in the first 3. I don't love either move, but Riccardi is dealing with bringing premiere talent to a losing franchise, so it is expected that he will have to overpay. Riccardi's first step as GM was to bring in talent no one ever heard of on the cheap. Now that he has his cheap base he can spend on the big FA or two (the owner planned to open his pocket book if Riccardi showed him the necessary results, which he did). Trading away prospects for top players would undermine what he did in the first place. You will overpay in free agency. Hendry just does it with the wrong players.

Well, I guess they had to pay more b/c it is Toronto. I think they had $30M to spend this offseason. Giles and Burnett are still possibilities. It's only $9.4M per year. :lol: The years is what surprised me, although he is a very good pitcher. I'd rather have him at 47M/5 than eyre and howry at a combined 23M/3 (7.67M/year), but that dream is gone.

$47M / 5 years. :shock: holy shnikes!

because our organization steers clear of guys who get on base, as a rule. hendry won't sign him because we might win with him, which would make his previous philosophy look worthless. GM's like hendry don't all of the sudden change their "conventional" ways for ways that are proven better, they just go out after guys who "can catch the ball", pitch one inning of relief, bunt, and/or steal bases and call it a day. if we make any trades, they won't be for abreu, who actually steals bases well. Seriously though, how do they not see him as "toolsy"? He's kinda fast, right? Good at defense. I just don't get it. He can't field. He does have at least 3 of the 5 tools, with decent speed (possibly being 4), although I don't think that is enough to qualify him as "speedy."

Ironic isn't it? Do you think if Nomar was more 'motivated' he could have avoided such an injury? And here we are two years after the trade, counting on Murton and watching backwards Ramon take 55 out of town. Nomar is one of the most fit players in the game, following a ridiculous off-season training regimen. SI did a story about it a ways back when he was with Boston. Laziness or lack of conditioning isn't what caused Nomar's injuries. He could be overtraining.

What if Hendry traded for Abreu or Dunn? Still be pissed? Giles costs us $ and the other options costs us prospects and $. For me it would depend on the deal. <<< Dunn fan.

Maybe they haven't. Would you rather play for Toronto @ 5/50 or St. Louis @ 4/40? Toronto @ 5/50 - I'm a friggen geedy S.O.B :lol: "Hey, man, I'm just trying to feed the kids and keep a roof over their heads!" Do you know how much insurance is on a Ferrari, mother%$#*er?!! (from The Replacements) :wink:

Sorry, I don't pay enough attention to financial detail to remember if Neifi gets 2.5 or 3M. I just really don't care. He's the backup infielder. Meh. is he? i don't remember Hendry saying that.

I think it's absurd to say Maddux is no more than a 5th starter. Have you actually looked at his numbers from last year? There pretty decent. I would be willing to bet that a fair amount of teams would take a 1.2 WHIP and a 4.2 ERA from their 3rd starter. In my opionion Maddux is a very good 4th starter. Maddux's numbers indicate he is a back-of-the-rotation innings eater. An ERA in the mid 4's is not good. I would have been so pleased to have had his option not vest, but oh well. Also, minor point to the earlier post: Unless Williams is traded, there's no way on earth Rusch can beat him out for the 5th starter's spot. If Williams does beat out Rusch, then what do you do with Rusch? He stinks out of the bullpen and his $3m year would be a waste. I don't think Rusch deserves to be in the rotation, just that he may be put there as the bp spots are limited now. He can't be traded until June, right? The odds are Wood spends significant time on the DL and Willliams and Rusch both get spots in the rotation.

I think it's absurd to say Maddux is no more than a 5th starter. Have you actually looked at his numbers from last year? There pretty decent. I would be willing to bet that a fair amount of teams would take a 1.2 WHIP and a 4.2 ERA from their 3rd starter. In my opionion Maddux is a very good 4th starter. We have 3 aces when healthy (prior/wood/zambrano). I'm saying Maddux shouldn't be anything more than a fifth start on this team. It's a huge dropoff between 1-3 and 4-5 in our rotation. Push Maddux back to the 5th spot and you'll have an above average 5th starter. Maddux is also getting worse every year. He may have been a 4 last year, but the odds are against him putting up similar or better numbers next year.

League minimum? I know at the least the Rockies and Royals wanted to sign Neifi to a 2 year deal to be a starter before we signed him for 2/5. That should tell you about the quality of player he is. I'm glad we stole him away. :D

I'm sorry, but the Howry and Eyre signings makes bringing Rusch back a premium all the more frustrating. I can live with overpaying on the bullpen. It's a hard thing to figure out and I can't totally bag on Hendry for just throwing money at it and hoping it gets better. At least he did something. I think that money could have been put to better use, but whatever. This move almost certainly moves Rusch into the rotation. Prior/Zambrano/Wood/Maddux/Rusch Maddux is nothing more than a 5th starter nowadays. We're basing a team on pitching that has 2 5th starters in our rotation? Awesome. I guess that balances out having 3 aces (when healthy). This is baffling to me.

OPS is pretty primitive, but it's better than BA and RBI.

Have you seen hendry lately? He'll be eating for a while. And let him continue, I really dont want Pierre. Abreu Please. hahaha, so mean. :lol:

He spent what...2 seasons in the Cubs system and MAYBE half a season in the Marlins system. So I don't give credit that the Marlins system developed him, I give credit to the scouts who saw "something" in him and wanted him included in the Clement deal. Agree. Blasko, Hagerty, Sisco, Christensen etc have tremendously disappointed me, but more importantly the Cubs organization. Which is why I am hoping that they DON'T rush, or quick to trade guys like Pawelek, Johnson, Harvey, Pie, Dopirak, and Eric Patterson. If the deal make sense then sure, but seeing as these are really the ONLY prospects to keep an eye on in the Cubs system, I would rather hold onto them instead of giving them away. You're right about the signing bonuses (a difference of about 2 million dollars), but that doesn't change the fact that Prior just fell into our lap (or Mauer, or Teixeira depending on who we took). The success of that "product of the system" was a result of us losing and getting a good pick that we really would have had to screw up to come away with nothing (like most our first rounders). Willis pitched 28 innings in Rookie ball, and 93.0 the next year in A ball for the Cubs' org. for a total of 121 IP for the Cubs. He threw 193 IP in the next 1 and a half seasons for the Marlins (not maybe 1/2 a season). I don't see how the cubs developed him. If you look at his numbers, there was a fairly substantial improvement after he switched organizations. I think it is a little suspect to give credit for that success to the Cubs and not the Marlins.

? If a team has consistently failed and the team has similar characteristics year after year and yet continues to fail, how could the characteristics not factor into causing the failure? You need to link the failure with the characteristic, not imply that the characteristic caused the failure just b/c the characteristic was present at the time of the failure. Do you not see how this logically must be the case? the cubs had blue in their uniform during each of those failures. does that mean that if we change uniform colors that we will all of a sudden succeed? i realize this is ridiculous, but it follows the same criteria of the argument that the dependence on the long ball caused our failures - being present at the time of the failure. we also depended on the long ball during our "success" in 2003 and 2004 (where we just missed the playoffs).

There are two main components to a team - Offense and defense. Wood only had 140 IP in 2004. Prior had 118 IP. I humbly submit that the lack of innings from 2 of our best 3 pitchers had more to do with not making the playoffs than the offense (considering we missed the WC by 3 games). We barely missed the playoffs with a meltdown at the end and a lack of innings from Prior and Wood. The offense was good enough. (top half of NL). I don't see the connection between the long ball and failing to make the playoffs. There are many similarities we can take from all of our failed years. That doesn't mean they are necessarily the cause of failure, even though they were present at the time.

We don't deserve a whole lot of credit for drafting Prior. That year it was either Prior or Mauer depending on who Minnesota selected with the first pick. Everyone else in that draft was widely considered to be a notch or three below them. The choices were obvious and the only reason the Cubs got Prior is they liked to lose a lot in 2000. Prior just went through the paces in our minor league system b/c people said he had to, not because he needed polishing. 51 IP in our minor league system must have made all the difference. :lol: We did a great job with Zambrano. Willis was as much, if not more a product of the Marlins' system than ours. Our farm system is actually really pathetic considering how many seasons we've spent losing (and getting the resulting high draft picks).

There is concrete evidence of their market value - it's what Hendery just paid them. That would be true if it was an efficient market, which it is not. How do I know it isn't efficient? If it was, records would directly reflect payroll. A contract’s value changes over its lifetime due to player performance and market conditions. As more information (i.e. player performance and market changes) emerges the contract value adjusts accordingly. Meaning what Hendry paid for Howry/Eyre is their current value. I’m not saying the market is completely efficient but it’s prolly more so then you think. Doesn't that assume perfect competency on every GM's part? Is Cristian Guzman's contract his current value? I think his argument is that Guzman's contract was his value at the time he signed it, not at a latter date. *not trying to argue for him, but that was my understanding of it.

There is concrete evidence of their market value - it's what Hendery just paid them. That would be true if it was an efficient market, which it is not. How do I know it isn't efficient? If it was, records would directly reflect payroll. A contract’s value changes over its lifetime due to player performance and market conditions. As more information (i.e. player performance and market changes) emerges the contract value adjusts accordingly. Meaning what Hendry paid for Howry/Eyre is their current value. I’m not saying the market is completely efficient but it’s prolly more so then you think. I agree with the bolded part of your statement, but that doesn't imply that Hendry paid howry/eyre their current market value. To pay howry/eyre at their current value, their value would have to be accurately assessed (a subjective process based on incomplete market information), which is characteristic problem when dealing with non-unique commodities. Incomplete market information and subjective value analysis is what leads to overpaying. If the market was efficient, OBP wouldn't have been a cheap commodity several years ago. Beane wouldn't have been able to field a playoff team with $40M. All he did was exploit a market inefficiency. The OBP market has become more efficient, but Beane still fields a winning team with a smaller budget than the other teams in his division. That means there must be many such market inefficiencies out there besides OBP.

There is concrete evidence of their market value - it's what Hendery just paid them. That would be true if it was an efficient market, which it is not. How do I know it isn't efficient? If it was, records would directly reflect payroll.

I'd rather have Dunn if we're going to give up several of our top prospects. If we do get Abreu, I won't cry, but I do have my preferences. I think we can be reasonably assured that Hendry won't get taken in a trade.

Florida is getting a better deal than people believe. Beckett is falling apart. 200-400 more IP and he'll be like Wood. :(

Would living by the long ball be so bad if you had decent OBP on your team? The A's are proof that station to station baseball wins games. Sit and wait for the 3 run jack. Are you implying that small ball produces more offense? As far as 2004 goes, I'd put failing to make the playoffs on Hawkins, Dusty, and the choke artists down the stretch. 2005's disaster wasn't a result of living and dying by the long ball. you can blame it on a lot of things like lack of OBP, injuries, Dusty, a shaky pen,... can you give me some examples of how living and dying by the long ball hurt us?did Cincy live and die by the long ball last year? how effective was their offense? Yes, I can: 2004 and 2005...and 1998...and wait I'll think of a few more... This franchise, for whatever reason, has always been fascinated by the longball to the exclusion of more important things. This convo began by my pointing out that Posednik does not suck. To say that he does is a gross overstatement. Dude, don't just throw out something without backing it up. You don't even qualify your statements. It's strange to me that i specifically disagreed with two of those examples (2005 and 2004) in the post you replied to. Your argument goes something like this... I believe X. I can prove it b/c I believe X. Please, show me how Pods doesn't suck. Where are the examples showing your statement is true? I think I'm the only one who had anything remotely flattering to say about him (OBP in terms of AL CFers) with evidence.

You got it right in that specific statement, stick with that. They should be used as a compliment; denying that Podsednik was nothing short of a critical part of a World Series team is pretty crazy IMHO. it wouldn't be so crazy if anyone could justify that characterization of Podsednik's '05 contributions. reasoning that a team was successful and therefore implies that Podsednik was a critical component isn't logical.