sneakypower

Those two should probably trade defensive positions.

The thought of Derosa as a starting RF for this team makes me nauseous. Displacing Pie to do so would surely make me heave.

So is this serious or "over-the-top-conceit-aren't-I-hysterical?"

i wasn't arguing with you in that post. my comment didn't quote you, didn't follow yours, didn't mention you by name. i merely threw their projections into the discussion, despite my skepticism of Hill's line, which i explained. all of my opinions are objective. what you're saying makes for a stupid argument. "he's a good baseball player for reason A, B & C" "that guy sucks." "oh, i guess i overlooked something. better go see where i'm wrong." "my work here is done." that's lazy and presumptuous.

Or perhaps your comment was much too vague.

Tell that to Chris Capuano.

Bedard is better at inducing groundballs, but then again practically everybody in baseball is. For what it's worth, Bill James projects Hill to have a 3.50 ERA next year, but he's always creamed himself over Hill. 3.70 for Bedard. Having superlative OF defense of Sori, Pie and Fuku would help, especially if he is lucky with his HR/FB rate, but I don't see him with a 3.50 ERA. He was only under 3.95 in one month last year.

Izturis' name was noticeably omitted.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/9E04A758BD1CF235862573AC0018F0A8?OpenDocument Let's hope they do. They'll win 75 games instead of just 70, and have an even more bleak future. Mozeliak is oblivious.

I've liked Baseball Between the Numbers so far, but some of the chapters are a bit of a stretch.

This is more of a list of trades that were big deals at the time, rather than teams ripped off the worst. Otherwise, the list would be filled with trades like the Drese/Diaz for Hafner, Eaton/Otsuka for Young/Gonzalez, Hill/Bruback/Hernandez for Ramirez/Lofton deals. AJ Pierzynski, the biggest name involved in that trade, wasn't exactly a star at the time of the trade.

Could have been another HS hitter we failed to develop into a useful player.

I'm guessing that it's common knowledge amongst the GMs that Tejada's been a juicer and don't want to be associated with the bad pub when that fact comes out, Angelos included. It would make more sense that "they are dying to get rid of that guy", a Burke/Everett/pitcher deal is actually being considered, and that Hendry and other GMs are using the salary excuse. Salary is a red herring, nobody would consider Tejada's salary prohibitive while Jose Guillen gets signed for the same money.

Nice reasoning. I guess this argument is over. im pretty sure its the perfect logical connection. if you assert that a guy sucks and your reasoning for saying he sucks is that he sucks and he in fact does suck, then it's not circular reasoning. it's simply stating the facts. Sickels ranked Pie 22nd in his preseason prospect rankings, and Maybin 16th. Not exactly a different universe. Perhaps he's not privy to the "facts". oooooh SICKELS OMG I AM CONVINCED NOW he pulled the sickels card out on me. lol. Sickels gives reasons for his opinions. Are you always excessively obnoxious?

I like Guillen. He would be a good upgrade offensively. I don't know how his defense is at SS, I know he's had some injury issues. Not good at all. A move to 1B was necessitated by poor defense and various recurring injuries and ailments. He might be able to handle 3B better, but that doesn't help us out much.

Nice reasoning. I guess this argument is over. im pretty sure its the perfect logical connection. if you assert that a guy sucks and your reasoning for saying he sucks is that he sucks and he in fact does suck, then it's not circular reasoning. it's simply stating the facts. Sickels ranked Pie 22nd in his preseason prospect rankings, and Maybin 16th. Not exactly a different universe. Perhaps he's not privy to the "facts".

Nice reasoning. I guess this argument is over.

I'd love to hear a reason for this. Nearly identical numbers at the same stages of the minors, similarly outlandish comparisons from scouts, comparable skill-sets.

Kerry Robinson couldn't even slug .400 in AAA at age 26. irrelevant to your initial point son One can also say that Maybin is a Kerry Robinson at worst, I guess, and he's getting traded for far better return than Greene. You didn't really make much of an argument. Son? Give me a break.

Wasn't Bradley a Type A free agent?

Kerry Robinson couldn't even slug .400 in AAA at age 26.

sorry, im trying not to be the oakland a's in the playoffs, but its hard. Indulge me. We like Ronny, despite his extensive failures at the major league level, because he's fared pretty well at the AAA level, but hate Pie, with no reasonable MLB sample to draw from, and who obliterated AAA pitching? Khalil Greene is alright I guess, he'd be worth pursuing as a speculative transaction in case his road splits are more indicative of what he'd provide to the team, but I'm not going to trade my best prospect, at worst a GG CF in the making, to find out. Prior- sure, I'll give it a try.

No, not at all. But when you say "at this point", you bring up a good point. The Cubs are in the position they are in at this point, because of how badly Hendry has screwed up in the past. So even a couple good moves wouldn't be enough to offset the big picture mess that has been the Hendry era. What is "The position they are in"? The team that finished the regular season 55-38 in their last 91 games, one of the best teams in baseball during that stretch? Despite underperforming from the three offensive stars, and disappointing season from the #1 starter. We'll play out next season with a significant upgrade at catcher, and likely upgrades in the CF & RF, all the while losing very little production elsewhere. I guess I don't share the dire outlook that others do. Trade Pie for Greene Oooof. Are we really that down on Pie that we want to ship him out of town for crap like Khalil Greene??

Admittedly, I don't have much to go on for Fuku other than the reports I've read and a few scattered video clips, but all indications he'd be a monumental upgrade over Murton, who's a butcher in RF. “Fukudome is one of the better athletes playing in Japan. He is capable of playing center field and right field...20–30 HR, 80–100 RBI and 10 SB.” - Scout Mike Pagliarulo "He plays very hard; he’ll be strong defensively in right field, where he has a great arm, very similar to Ichiro" - MLB team official Replacing one of the worst defensive RFs in the league with a terrific fielder (trusting the reports) will have a profound effect, especially at Wrigley, one of the tougher RFs to play in the game, and would be a huge benefit for Lilly and Hill's flyball tendencies. Roberts would be an upgrade defensively, but 2B is too unimportant defensively and the gap in talent too marginal to mention. However, the speed difference between the two is about as stark a contrast as you can get. Having Roberts on base instead of Derosa would factor into play different pitches the following hitters will be seeing, as well as easier RBI opportunities when he steals bases and takes the extra base. There's no easily quantifiable area where the replacement of Derosa and Murton with Roberts and Fukudome, but factoring the vastly improved RF defense, significant speed upgrade at 2nd, in addition to half a dozen other smaller but not insignificant factors (reliable production, added speed and power in RF, improved bench, added LH balance to order, we'd be a significantly improved team with the addition of Roberts and Fukudome. Leave it to the guy with the caveman avatar to talk about speediness and lineup balance. I can't say I didn't expect a response like this.

Neither would be a marginal upgrade. The discrepancy in defense, speed, and added lineup balance would be a significant difference for the team. It shouldn't be hard for Fuku to outslug the .430-.440 Murton is good for. They're both significant upgrades over the incumbent players mentioned. I can't believe I'd need to say this, but speed shows up in many more areas than SB.