Exile on Waveland

Yup. Had the nation's longest Sweet 16 streak in 1994 (only four years, but still). Since then, 2002 has been the only Sweet 16.

Why does that matter? You're still paying him the same amount and paying it later is better than paying it sooner. That's not the problem with the deal. The problem with the deal is Aramis isn't likely to be productive enough to justify it. He's being paid on past production and a bounce-back season at age 33. Bounce back? Did I misunderstand his 2011? What did you understand 2011 to be? To me, it was a nice bounce back season after a -1 WAR season (negative!). Do you think that trend is likely to continue into his age 34, 35, and 36 seasons? I'd say the better bet is that last year was one of his last signs of life.

Horsecrap. Say that this June when Ian effing Stewart is batting .212 and we're in 4th place. You're right: neither Stewart nor the Cubs (unless something big happens) are likely to be very good. But I'm not sure Ramirez will be able to run in three years, much less live up to his contract. He's a declining (yes, he had a nice rebound year), injury-prone, 33-year old that's been worth a total of 3.8 WAR the last three years. I remain a big Ramirez fan, but I wouldn't have given him 3/$36.

http://www.hoopsworld.com/indiana-pacers-trade-oj-mayo/ This deal died. Yup. The Pacers are continuing to chase Jamal Crawford. I don't think they necessarily need another shooting guard, but it doesn't sound like he'll cost that much if he comes either. The Pacers have (pretty quietly) made some very good moves the past couple years and now have a rather formidable team. I admit some confusion about why they feel the need to chase Crawford (who I doubt signs) when Mayo was seemingly in the bag.

The defensive metrics should indeed be taken with a grain of salt, but everything we're talking about on the offensive side is theoretical too. No, it's not. His oWAR is theoritical. It's not theoritical that he has a .390 career OBP, or a career .540 slugging, or has hit 28-50-34-46-32-38 home runs (full seasons). Those are facts.

The point is that his overall value as a player is mitigated by other factors that you admit are there but are almost attempting to sweep under the rug. Yes, offense is obviously the most important factor. The others matter too, and these metrics that attempt to measure those contributions say he's costing his team in significant ways. Yes, defense at 1B isn't as important as at other spots... and yet, somehow, Prince is still costing his team a bunch of runs by being bad at it. You want to argue that those metrics are questionable, that's fine. That's a totally different argument. But plenty of smart people think they're at least fairly legitimate. And just about every metric out there suggest that Prince is going to cost you a lot of runs with his poor defense. I think I'll rest my case there. Defensive value is "at least fairly legitimate." Offensive value is entirely legitimate. Until the former reaches the latter, I'll remain dubious and continue to value the latter more.

If one looks at that list, and favors not signing Fielder, it seems to me one resigns the Cubs to small-marketdom. At the same time, he's even more valuable to an AL team because his negatives can be hidden so much more easily. So if Seattle/Texas/whoever values him highly enough to offer him an 8-year deal upwards of $200 million, I wouldn't want the Cubs to match. I would agree with that. He has more long-term value to an AL team than the Cubs.

I had that thought, but it's not like they're cratering his value with bizarre outliers. BIS, Total Zone, UZR, DRS, the Fan's scouting report, and everything I've ever heard about Prince as a defender all agree, he's a poor defender in the neighborhood of -7 runs. Nobody's disagreeing that Fielder is a below average defender, it's the matter of quantifying that I still consider suspect. And what I'm saying is that not only do all the quantitative measures agree to an almost uncanny degree, but even without their presence our best estimate of his defensive value doesn't really move the needle on his value at all. The Fan's Scouting report rated him a 19 out of 100, when the vast majority of 1B rate between 30 and 60. I have a hard time believing he's any better than a -5 defender; there's just no evidence, objective or subjective, to suggest that WAR is overstating his defensive shortcomings. I'm saying I have a hard time quantifying any 1B on a runs or wins level when it comes to defense. It's such an unimportant defensive position, that I really have a hard time caring. Yes. (From what I've read) No one is taking the indefensible position that Fielder doesn't suck on defense. We all know he does. We are just highly dubious that one can say his defense is "worth -5 runs." We know he produces a ton with his bat; his defensive value/worth, while not good, is theoretical.

If one looks at that list, and favors not signing Fielder, it seems to me one resigns the Cubs to small-marketdom.

Stop boiling it down to just his offensive numbers as if his major negatives as a baserunner and fielder don't matter. He's so bad at the latter two that they significantly bring down his value. It's as silly as turning a blind eye to anything else. Like saying a pitcher just wins or something. Yea, he can hit, but it's not like those other negative things he's doing aren't happening. His value is a combined product of all these things. He was worth 2.1 and 2.7 WAR those years, regardless of how good a hitter he still managed to be. First, I'll echo what others have said: I'm very dubious the defensive metrics accurately reflect value, especially relative to offensive metrics which are both more reliable and more tested/analyzed. Fielder is a bad defender, sure. I'm not turning a blind eye to that -- considering it's right there in my post -- I just think it pales in comparison to his offensive value. We're picking nits and that will basically always lead to eschewing overpaying. Second, saying the statistics I posted are similar to wins for pitchers is both disingeniuous and insulting. I didn't boil anything down to one statistic (I listed five, three of which are sabermetrically-inclined). I certainly didn't boil anything down to one inane statistic like pitcher's wins. I noted his poor defense and base-running detracted value, so I don't see how you can argue I "boiled" those away; regardless, even if I did, at most, I boiled Fielder down to his offense. Which is, by far, the most important factor for any position player.

I am sure everyone knows this, but I think we should be clear. Fielder's performance has "fluctuated" but these are his two "down" years: 2008: 276/372/507, 130 OPS+, 34 home runs 2010: 261/401/471, 135 OPS+, 32 home runs (lead the league in walks) I repeat: those are his "bad" years. That is still some very good offensive production. The Cubs really, really need offense -- specifically power -- and we're haggling about base-running and defense. Not that those things don't detract value from Fielder . . . but I feel like Allen Iverson: "base running, man, we're talking about base running." The Cubs better sign some damn good base runners to make up for those 32-50 home runs.

After that? It got messy way before that.

You're right. If Fielder signs elsewhere, Loney wouldn't be terrible compared to some of the other options. Which you should read as: signing Fielder is pretty damn imperative.

Even though that's a pretty fair deal, I still wouldn't have given him that much if I was the Cubs. He's at an age where he's declining, obviously, and I have my suspicions it will not be a kind decline. It makes sense for the Brewers, though, who probably figure they have a window of one more year and had to add some offense one way or another.

Stoke has become probably the toughest road trip outside of the top-6 teams. Not much shame losing there for Spurs. Liverpool dominated at Stoke early this year (20-1 shots on goal) and still lost 1-0. They did, at least, win a Carling Cup game at Stoke a few weeks later.

Yes, I would agree with that. I'm skeptical on that front. I mentioned him because I know others aren't and I've been wrong before.

How do you mean flex their muscles? I think it would be easy to make some knee jerk moves that will really improve the Cubs chances this year. I would rather lay a foundation that improves the Cubs chances every year. Since the playoffs are a crap shot at times, I would prefer that the Cubs make the playoffs as often as possible. I am not against getting Fielder or Darvish or anyone that has talent, but I would be very wary of giving multiple contracts this off season that will turn into big gambles over several years because their appears to be a chance at a chance this year. If the downside of Fielder and Darvish come true, we could easily be in worse shape in 3 yrs than we are now. Flexing their muscles by signing free agents (I'm thinking Fielder, specifically). I'm not sure why every time someone posts that they want to sign free agents, they should also be required to post "to a non-crazy contract." That seems implicit. Of course I don't want Fielder signed to a 10-year, $250-million contract a la Pujols. Of course I don't want knee-jerk moves. I do, however, want moves designed to win this year. That's going to have to entail signing, or trading for, an elite player(s). As Theo said, winning is precious. Winning in the NL Central has just become much, much easier and the Cubs should seize on this precious opportunity. So the Reds are probably the favorite at this point and I think the Cubs are still behind the Cardinals. What would you suggest the Cubs do to get past them, beyond signing Fielder? Maybe Darvish. Maybe Cespedes. Maybe swinging another Garza-type trade. Maybe Jackson, who would help, though he's not as big of a splash. I don't have the blueprint -- people smarter about baseball than me are in charge -- but a blueprint does exist that doesn't have to mortgage the future. What I want is for management to live up to their words about two fronts and the "preciousness" of winning. It's early and I'm not saying they can't or won't. But the Cubs have been handed a great opportunity. I want them to take advantage of that.

How do you mean flex their muscles? I think it would be easy to make some knee jerk moves that will really improve the Cubs chances this year. I would rather lay a foundation that improves the Cubs chances every year. Since the playoffs are a crap shot at times, I would prefer that the Cubs make the playoffs as often as possible. I am not against getting Fielder or Darvish or anyone that has talent, but I would be very wary of giving multiple contracts this off season that will turn into big gambles over several years because their appears to be a chance at a chance this year. If the downside of Fielder and Darvish come true, we could easily be in worse shape in 3 yrs than we are now. Flexing their muscles by signing free agents (I'm thinking Fielder, specifically). I'm not sure why every time someone posts that they want to sign free agents, they should also be required to post "to a non-crazy contract." That seems implicit. Of course I don't want Fielder signed to a 10-year, $250-million contract a la Pujols. Of course I don't want knee-jerk moves. I do, however, want moves designed to win this year. That's going to have to entail signing, or trading for, an elite player(s). As Theo said, winning is precious. Winning in the NL Central has just become much, much easier and the Cubs should seize on this precious opportunity.

The Cardinals just lost one of the greatest players in the history of baseball. The Brewers are (likely) losing one of their two star position players, while the other (may/will be?) suspended for nearly a third of the season. This is when a major market team should strike, flex their muscles, and try to win the division this year. Hopefully that happens.

God Kelvin Sampson was a disaster. Gates and others should be suspended for the year, at least. Frankly, if I was the coach I'd never let them come back.

Without even clicking that link, I'll ask: who won the Big Ten that year? and i remember bobby knight wetting his pants when we got the #1 seed. Ha. That was a really great Illini team. And maybe Knight's best-ever coaching job (and that is saying a lot).

Yeah, IU is getting in, barring a major disaster. They're going to go undefeated non-conference now, that's already 13 wins. Get Iowa twice, Penn St twice, Nebraska, Illinois in Bloomington, and now Minnesota and Purdue look pretty beatable. Get those first 5 conference wins then you're looking at winning 3 more conference games and a B1G tourney game away from a 22 win team. Notre Dame screams "let down game." I'm now pretty worried about that game.

Without even clicking that link, I'll ask: who won the Big Ten that year?

They stormed after beating us last year when we were like 24th in the country. Yeah, props to IU beating #1 but when is the last time Kansas, Duke, UNC, Duke, etc stormed the court? Here are UNC fans after storming the court last year after beating Duke by 14 points: http://louisvillesportsbuzz.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/809417-carolina_fans_storm_the_court_after_their_victory-chapel_hill.jpg Here are Duke fans after storming the court after beating Virginia Tech (4-12 in the ACC) in 2005: http://cdn0.sbnation.com/imported_assets/668702/e5aa3b45-c48b-486d-9af3-1c860d1e1345.jpg Neither of those games involved a big upset of the No. 1 team in the nation and one did not even include a buzzer-beater (the one with the buzzer beater was against Virginia freakin' Tech). And neither set of fans had just watched a combined 28 wins in three years.

Zeller is easily IU's best player. Coming into today, he led IU in points, rebounds, steals, blocks, and field goal percentage. He was second in effective field goal percentage*, second in true shot percentage*, and third in offensive rating*. Plus, he's 6-foot-11. *Excluding players in limited/nearly invisible roles according to Pomeroy (e.g., Austin Etherington and Matt Roth).