MPrior

Maybe it's just the wording but could this deal be 2/11? I thought that same thing, and it terrified me. TERRIFIED.

fyi, he signed a 2 yr. deal with a 3rd yr. option. $ has not been confirmed yet. yeah, it's even worse than a 3 year deal. it's a 2 year deal with a PLAYER option for the third. Can you please post the link where it says player option? It's been posted already. Cubs.com, I think. Link

Well consarn it! I was looking forward to reading that post - I thought something good was (maybe) in the works. I reckon that was pretty stupid of me, I guess. P.S.: No, I don't know why I decided to southernize my post.

The phrase "incapable wielder of toothpicks" makes me laugh. As does every use of the word "iNeiffable." Also, Scott Eyre is okay (not much more than that, though). 3 yrs and 11 Million are not really okay. However, I choose to camp myself in the reserve judgment crowd (well, not entirely, because I disagree with a lot of what I've heard from those same people). This is more because my sanity depends upon it than it is because I think there is any reasonable way to explain what Jim Hendry's been doing. I guess what I'm getting at is that so far, this offseason is iNeiffable to me. Ha ha.

This made me laugh. Secondly, the Hawkins and Remlinger signings were good signings. I have no problem saying that it's Dusty's fault that they're not producing effectively in our bullpen right now. Both of them were repeatedly and horribly misused, which resulted in their respective implosions. That said, I'm not that big on Howry - I credit a post Diffusion made for this; he pointed out that Howry's great year last year was very possibly due to an unusually "lucky" BABIP against (and, as he's not really a strikeout pitcher, this matters quite a bit). He wouldn't be a bad signing, but I think there are better options out there.

I know this was a few pages ago, but I just had to say something. Yes, it looks like Walker will be traded. But it's completely ludicrous to resign ourselves to getting bad value back for him just because he's going to be traded. He's probably our biggest trading chip as it is, so let's get something good for him, if indeed we are gonna trade him.

Oh my God ... :wall: The organization has totally fallen in love with Neifi. As long as he plays good defense I can't see him being cut or traded, even if his hitting regresses to his KC numbers. It's terrifying to realize that Neifi could REGRESS... :shock: (that's my first use of a smiley, ever. Just thought I ought to somehow document this historic occasion)

You forgot about Michaels. And Abreu is bad enough in RF that CF would probably not really work.

There are so many things I want to respond to that I can't even begin to quote them all. So I'll try and briefly say what I have to say: 1. Someone said that they don't want to pass on Furcal just for the possibility of getting Giles. Well, I don't think anyone's suggesting that that's what we should do. What people ARE suggesting, however, is that, at the start of the offseason, rather than pursuing Furcal, it would have been wise to sign Nomar (for various reasons), which would allow us to go hard after Giles. Also - going after Giles does not preclude us from signing Furcal. So we wouldn't have to "pass" on him to do so. 2. As far as reasons for signing Nomar, I actually think that there were plenty of good reasons to do so: 1, his injury this year was kind of a fluke accident. He's highly unlikely to have a comparable injury. Injuries, yes. Missing 2/3 of the season? Probably not. 2, he would be very very cheap, for a number of reasons: he's a perceived injury risk, so his value is at an all-time low; and secondly, he badly wanted to come back to Chicago - he's building a house there, and by all accounts, really enjoyed his time with the team. He would have wound up costing much much less than Furcal (even if his incentives kicked in, probably), and for only one year. 3, when healthy, he FAR outproduces Furcal. 4, he would probably have to be spelled a couple times just to keep him fresh. This would give Cedeno more playing time, which is something we want and he needs. It would also allow us to ascertain whether he'd be a feasible option to start at SS for us in the future. 3. Cedeno at 2B is significantly less valuable to us than Cedeno at SS - Bob's Keeper made this point well, so I won't go any further. 4. Giles is, without doubt, the single best FA acquisition we can make this offseason. He improves the team in a way that no other FA can (except maybe Roger Clemens - ha), and WE CAN AFFORD IT. 5. Giles' production shouldn't decline too heavily over the next 3-4 years, for two reasons: one, his plate discipline isn't something that will decline with age; two, getting out of Petco should actually increase his power production, so in 3-4 years we might be seeing something just a little below his current numbers at Wrigley. 6. The need for a leadoff hitter can fairly easily be addressed elsewhere (Walker works, trading for Pierre, signing Kenny Lofton, trading for Jason Michaels, trading for Luis Castillo, etc., etc.) Okay. I'm done. Sorry for the long post.

Rich Hill better be the lefthanded Carlos Zambrano if JH honestly feels that way. I'm not JH, so I have no idea what he was actually thinking, but just because he said it doesn't necessarily mean he meant it. If GMs were completely frank all the time, it wouldn't be baseball. It's also worth pointing out that he said this around the trade deadline, when Hill's value was at its highest, as his weaknesses hadn't been exposed on the MLB level just yet. I don't think Hendry values Hill quite as highly as he used to - but I imagine he'd still be hard to pry off of his hands.

Just a point of clarification: Hendry did not walk away from a Dunn for Hill deal. There was no such proposed deal. He only said, when asked about his position on Rich Hill, that he wouldn't do a Hill for Dunn trade straight up. That's all.

what? you're not changing arm speed or delivery from your fastball if you're doing it right. it's the resistance the ball sees that slows the ball down, not arm speed. the forces on the arm should be the same. 12 year olds learn this pitch. it should be the second pitch you learn (after the fastball). How many pitchers in MLB have a really effective changeup? It is an easy pitch to learn to throw. It is hard to learn to be deceptive enough with it to be effective. effective? more than a few. it's not supposed to be a strike out pitch. you throw changeups on counts where the hitter is looking for a fastball (3-1, 2-1, 2-0, 1-0). it's there to keep hitters honest on the fastball. plenty of pitchers (just about all quality starters) have "average" changeups and that's all you need. my guess is hill knows how to throw the changeup. how can you get to that level and not? it's either not very good or he doesn't believe in using it for whatever reason. His fastball/curveball repertoire has certainly been good enough to dominate (his K/9 has always been ridiculous), so why would he use the changeup? it's his command of the curveball that's hampered his progress, not the lack of another pitch. we need to do a Q&A with Rich Hill. I gots me some questions. :lol: When pitchers explain why they are hesitant to throw the changeup, it's usually because they have trouble controlling it - which makes sense, as it sits further back in your hand than most other pitches, and you can't use your fingertips for pinpoint control. This is why it's particularly difficult to throw it in fastball counts, unless you have very good command of it. Secondly, a poorly thrown changeup that's left over the heart of the plate is like tee ball for most major league hitters. So control and deception are even more important. And some pitchers do use changeups as strikeout pitches - and very effectively. Johan Santana's changeup is pretty sick. Gagne and Pedro have also used them effectively.

Wilkerson would be great in Center. For one, it's mostly his range that's suspect, right? Well, Wrigley's small outfield would help that quite a bit; it'd definitely be an improvement over RFK. And I would LOVE an outfield of Murton, Wilkerson, Giles. None of them are great defenders, but they're not butchers by any means. And lastly, I don't know if the intention of this thread has changed a bit, but the original idea was to come up with our own ideas for what we'd do at each position. And we've already decided to keep Nomar and Walker, I think. So this decision should be made with that in mind - as opposed to speculation about Furcal and all that.

Sure, overall production is much more important than whether you're right- or left-handed. But if overall production is more or less equal, it's definitely in our interest to get a lefty over a righty.

You make some good points. However, I take issue with a few of them. First off, BbB was not saying that taking walks was the only metric with which to measure a team's offensive success; he was merely pointing out that the Cubs, who were near tops in nearly every other offensive category, but dead last in walks, didn't score a lot of runs. In other words, the Cubs as a team obviously undervalue the walk, and it's the most glaring problem with our offense - and is probably a big part of the reason we didn't score so many runs. So your point about the Padres and Dodgers taking a lot of walks and scoring fewer runs is not really pertinent, as the Padres and Dodgers weren't in the top of most other offensive categories. Secondly, with respect to Neifi, you said: "But is that one more walk a week more valuable then the hit or two he takes away a week over a lesser defensive player?" As far as I can tell, there is no way you can make the claim that he would take away a hit or two a week more than a lesser defensive SS would. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not even close to that. Lastly, you close your post with "Yes OBP is important, but it’s not the only thing. Pitching, defense, and slugging are equally important." Here's my take. Pitching is MORE important than OBP alone, as Pitching represents nearly all of your ability to prevent runs, while OBP is only one facet of your ability to score runs (albeit a very important one). Defense isn't even close. I have yet to hear a convincing argument that good defense is anywhere near as important as OBP; the runs you score with a high OBP almost always will far outstrip any runs you fail to prevent with an average-to-below average defense. Slugging is not as important as OBP, although I'll be the first to admit that it's close.

In order of preference: Bradley, Michaels (close second, though; it depends mostly on what it would take to get him vs. what it would take to get Bradley), Lofton, Pierre. The more I think about it, the more I move towards Michaels, actually. Even if it takes more to get him, I might rather have him than Bradley. I don't care too much about the "clubhouse cancer" thing, but the production out of Michaels and Bradley should be similar (Michaels should put up a higher OBP, while Bradley's got more pop), and if that's the case, I'd rather take the guy who's not a nutjob. Secondly, he would fill in nicely as our leadoff hitter with his career .380 OBP (since we opted for Nomar at Short, right?).

He doesn't list his source and I don't know how reliable his information is, but I thought I'd throw it out there. His source is the North County Times, a paper in San Diego: Link It's an article written by Brian Hiro, and he writes, "Bick [Giles' agent] has also been contacted by the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs, among others."

First off, I'm not terribly high on Pie either, and think that he could be traded, if the price was right. But there is no way, under any circumstances, that I would trade Pie for Pierre. Pierre is overrated. And even if he were as good as everyone in the media seems to think (which he's not), he would not be worth Pie. With Dunn, now you're talking. Depending on the rest of the deal, I could be convinced (although I bet he could be had for the right pitching package, not another outfielder).

This is me being a nitpicking loser nerd: "InNeiffable" is a substitution for "ineffable," not "inevitable." "Ineffable" means (because it is a very uncommonly used word) "ununderstandable;" not in the sense that someone speaking gibberish is incomprehensible, but in the sense that the will of God (according to the Bible and those that believe in it) cannot be understood by humans. Now go back and read the BP person's thing. It's much funnier this way.

I know I'm a little late on this one, but the use of the word "inNeiffably" is brilliant, and should become part of our daily vocabulary. For example, "Jim Hendry's recent signings can point to no other fact than, just like the man upstairs, Hendry's will is inNeiffable." Brilliant.

Yeah, ditto. There's no way Beane wants Maddux. The only reason he'd be shopping Zito is so he can free up some money using cheaper (but still effective) alternatives.

I'm pretty sure that's all I heard - was that Baker wanted a veteran arm or two in the pen. Frankly, I really think Hendry ought to do this for him. Not that I'm a supporter of Dusty's veteran love, but if Hendry can do anything to get Dusty to trust his bullpen a bit more, our starters arms might not all fall off by the end of the season.

Here's my favorite part: "If you don't have the courage to approach people in this way, I recommend a stiff drink or a lifetime of crippling mental illness."

That's a reasonable point. Do you want a guy who helps you score 10 runs in May, but only 2 in August, or do you want a guy who helps you score about 5 runs, consistently? This is an extremely weak point, actually. The flipside of it is equally true - I'm too lazy to do it, but if you look up the pre-all star break stats, I'm sure it will favor Lee just as much (in fact, moreso) as these favor Pujols. So Lee was significantly outperforming Pujols for the first 3/5 of the season, and Pujols outperformed Lee for the last 2/5 of the season. What's the big deal?

I collected baseball cards a lot as a kid, and so, growing up in North Carolina (hence the Tar Heel love) without cable, the teams I liked were based primarily on which players I liked. Among my favorites were Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, Mark Grace, and Rick Sutcliffe. So I became a Cubs fan. At the time, though, I was also rooting for the Mets (my uncle, who was a big role model, was a lifelong Met fan), the Red Sox (I was born in Boston and my parents were fans) and to a lesser degree, the Braves, just cause they're the only team in the Southeast. About the time the strike came along, though, I lost interest, and my collection sat in a dark corner of my closet. Then I went to Northwestern for college, and being in the presence of Wrigley field and the Cubs - not to mention the 2003 season - not only reinvigorated my love for the Cubs, but also for baseball as a whole. Since I have become pretty diehard.