Sammy Sofa

So it's a bad contract by your standards, not by what-MLB-closers-get-paid standards. Got it. You can perhaps guess which one matters more when one GM calls up another GM to discuss a trade. Yes, there are lots of bad contract that are routinely given out around baseball out of desperation or an ungodly amount of money to spend (great job pointing out R. Soriano getting paid by THE [expletive] YANKEES as some kind of model). It doesn't mean it's a good idea for the Cubs to follow suit. I don't know why you're not getting this. And TT, Marmol is being paid $7 million next year and just shy of $10 million the next. He's barely worth the the $3.2 million he's making this year. He was worth over $12 million last year and $7 million in 2007, both of which are the closest he's come to matching or exceeding what he's going to be paid over the next 2 years. What are the odds he's going to be worth what he's getting with his massively backloaded contract? Especially coupled with his injury risk?

Finding relievers as productive and consistent as Marmol is not as easy as finding a reliever that can close games. For the rest of his deal he'd have to pitch worse than he ever has as a reliever, which is 5 years running now, in order not to be worth his money. That's not a bad contract. Disagree. I think nearly any reliever getting big money is a bad contract. I will not bend on this.

I agree with you on that. The issue is that it's a stupid move that the Cubs shouldn't be making but keep making. DON'T SIGN RELIEVERS TO BIG CONTRACTS.

No, he does have a bad contract, and he's certainly not a "lights out closer." Just because that's what he could have gotten elsewhere doesn't mean the Cubs should have given it to him. Very, very rarely do relievers/closers deserve contracts like that, and especially not ones who are as wild and as much of an injury risk as Marmol. The best bet is to just cycle through cheap/internal options when necessary and use the money to help make your team better in more important areas.

I'm pretty sure the main things Pujols and Fielder are going to be concerned about is whether or not a team can offer them the money and years that they want. I really, really doubt they give a [expletive] whether Mike Quade has been fired or not.

I still don't understand why poker/gambling is illegal sometimes.

Ugh, gross. But I'm still confused since I thought Hendry was already on the payroll through next year.

Wait, now I'm confused. What does that have to do with extending Hendry? Isn't Hendry already under contract through next year if he's not fired?

Tim, explain yourself. Why would you be calling for the extension of Jim Hendry in April of 2011?

Freaks, apparently. It's still ridiculous to call out "supporters" when anyone calling for Hendry to be extended is little more than the types of trolls that constantly show up here complaining about lazy ballplayers and are just meatballs. In short, they're not worth a damn.

That's a stretch. That's one guy. You're going to struggle to find many people here that don't want Hendry fired. Claiming that there are "supporters" or "apologists" all over is just wrong.

I have little doubt that Hendry is overprotective on certain players, but it's one of those circumstances where he's sometimes right in spite of himself. Guys like Baker and Marshall ARE almost certainly more valuable to the Cubs than what would have been offered for them. Marmol likely wouldn't have netted much because of his bad contract and bad year. Byrd could have gotten a decent return this year, but he is someone the Cubs need next year, plus they still have another opportunity to move him if things go south before the deadline next year. The mundane reality is somewhere in the middle between "Hendry is inexplicably holding on to guys" and "teams really wanted some of the Cubs players."

Will they? Look at the months he got the most PA last year: June: 75 - 18 hits, 8 of them for extra bases (bad month overall) July: 106 - 24 hits, 12 of them for extra bases (good month overall) August: 85 - 17 hits, 6 of them for extra bases (terrible month overall) Complete with horrendous k/bb ratios. Now, sure, the latter is one area where he can still show he has improved because his relatively limited sample size is in his favor in that regard, and it would go a long way to making me feel better...but I really, really doubt it since his approach seemingly hasn't changed much, if at all, at the plate. He's just still trying to clobber every single thing out of the park. If he truly has figured out how to take a walk, hey, great, you might have a lesser Adam Dunn on your hands. We'll see if he has.

Sure, but it's not like the 4th OF doesn't get plenty of PA. No, he's not starting, but if a guy has talent it's going to show through even in a semi-regular capacity. Colvin did the exact opposite and looked about as bad as an MLB player can be. Then he went to the minors and, outside of a relatively brief blip, sucked some more. If he had shown he was capable of doing ANYTHING this year he would have gotten more than enough playing time, but he didn't. Again, no one is saying that Colvin SHOULD have gotten more opportunity. But 100 PA's, even though they were horrendous, just isn't much to go on when he put up a 111 OPS+ in 400 PA's last year. Not only that, but also because the peripherals aren't nearly as horrendous as his batting line. More than half his hits on the season have gone for extra bases. His overall BB/K ratio is the same as last season (less walks but less strikeouts as well). He clearly still has power capability with both the fact that his home runs have traveled really far, and he's hit at least 2 balls off the wall in addition to his 3 home runs so far. The jury is still out on Colvin right now. Well, no, that's just reinforcing what many were saying last year about how his performance was largely propped up by an unsustainable power display. On the one hand it's impressive when 71% of your hits for the first month of the season are for extra bases. It's worrisome when that means you only had 7 hits total in 57 PA. And yeah, he walked 6 times vs. 13 k's in that month as well. But then in June, the month with the next most PA, he gave us a smaller repeat of April, with only 3 hits in 34 PA and 1 of them being a double, coupled with 2 walks and 7 k's. How is Colvin showing that he has anything except flashes of power? That seems to be literally the only thing he has going for him. I guess I just wish I didn't see the one-dimensional player I seem to be seeing.

I respectfully disagree. Sure, it would be one thing if he was just having a bad start...but then there was the start actually had. I don't even know what to call it, it was that bad. And then he sucked in the minors. And as impressive (though mostly unsustainable) as he looked at times last year he had long stretches where he was awful then, too. It would be nice if last night was an indicator that he'll rebound and could be an option for something like a platoon role with Soriano or as the 4th OF...but I doubt it. Last night's game was the perfect microcosm of Tyler Colvin. He can look like a beast, but he was struggling to take a pitch and swinging at garbage left and right. Tiny, tiny sample size, but I have a feeling we already know what he is.

Well, he hasn't gotten the chance to prove himself this year, and when he had the chance last year he did prove himself. Not that it's Quade's fault Colvin hasn't had that opportunity, but the fact remains he's had little chance to show his stuff this year. He sucked from day one this year, like over the top sucking. Right, I'm not saying he deserved time in an OF that included Soriano/Byrd/Fukudome. Len's point is that he hasn't gotten a true opportunity to see if his success is for real, which is true. Most of that reason is he didn't earn any PT and there were 3 other OFs. Sure, but it's not like the 4th OF doesn't get plenty of PA. No, he's not starting, but if a guy has talent it's going to show through even in a semi-regular capacity. Colvin did the exact opposite and looked about as bad as an MLB player can be. Then he went to the minors and, outside of a relatively brief blip, sucked some more. If he had shown he was capable of doing ANYTHING this year he would have gotten more than enough playing time, but he didn't.

Maybe...but I doubt it. I still think it was a case of other teams trying to buy low on an expensive guy having a bad year. Mike Adams, by contrast, is a relatively cheap guy having a great year.

Why is that? I think it's probably the case where Hendry overvalues him based on his "ability" to rack up saves. Given the unnecessary longterm extension last year I'd bet he just has little to no interest in listening to any offer. Which is why I don't think for a second the Cubs offered or were willing to accept any deal that had them picking up the tab. If that's the case then there's no way they were being offered anything but junk for a $17 million dollar closer having a bad year and with an arm in danger of falling off any time he takes the mound.

I used to think this, but I find that harder to believe considering what the Padres got for Mike Adams. And if Hendry was indeed offering to eat salary and still getting offered nothing, that's fine. But reports seem to suggest that he was basically ignoring calls on his players in a quest to give himself hope for next season, and that's a bit more concerning. There were no reports that the Cubs were willing to eat Marmol's contract; simply that there teams interested in acquiring (no doubt hoping they smelled blood in the water and he could be had for garbage). Whatever team picked him up would be paying him approx. $17 million dollars. Mike Adams is probably going to end up costing around $4 million.

There absolutely is a whole hell of a lot wrong with that. He's talking about given the current circumstances. Unless you think there's a clear path to being a 90 win team next year. Well, gooney had to delete the rest of the post to remove the context so he could find something to argue about.

Yes, I get it, and it's largely a moot point. There's not much to learn about Tyler Colvin. He's not very good at baseball. He might be serviceable if the Cubs cobble together some kind of monstrous Frankenstein platoon in LF, but God help us if he's starting in RF next year.

I'm not sure how the heck anybody can possibly think of a scenario in which we can go into 2012 knowing that Colvin is the guy. But at least if he hits well in the next 300AB's you'll have a better feel. He had fewer than 100AB's this season before he was sent down. I don't think he's the guy but Cubs management seems to think so. I want him to sink or swim and make the decision perfectly clear heading into 2012. How will these AB's make the decision "perfectly clear?"

Well, he hasn't gotten the chance to prove himself this year, and when he had the chance last year he did prove himself. Not that it's Quade's fault Colvin hasn't had that opportunity, but the fact remains he's had little chance to show his stuff this year. He sucked from day one this year, like over the top sucking. Yeah, no kidding. It's not like he was a few games from righting the ship or something.

Right. I'd have zero problem trading Marmol for a good return, but I highly doubt the Cubs were offered anything that made trading him worth it.

The Cubs can have a hugely successful season next year even if it means they "only" get back to .500 and don't make the playoffs