Sammy Sofa

My prediction is about to come true.

Soto's gonna win it.

Insanity?

I think he threw just over 40.

. Cubs are gonna pound him around like they did Halladay.

Colitis. The Cubs have a history of making trades for the sake of making trades. This was one. I don't know if the two losers the Cubs got are doing anything at this point. As for colitis, anyone who knows someone who's suffered from it knows they are some of the toughest people you'll find. Treatment for some people is on the level of cancer patients short of chemotherapy. I'm not surprised Pagan is successful in MLB now that his doctors found him the right treatment. This is a good case of why the Cubs suck at a lot of things involving winning baseball games. They do not do enough before they make a move. They just make moves. This wasn't a trade just to make a trade. He was traded because there was the opinion (from the Cubs' medical staff and Pagan's doctors) that there was a good chance he'd miss much of 2008, and he had already lost a ton of weight and strength (as his paltry 2008 slugging shows). It's great that he's rebounded, but he really didn't have a role on the 2008 club with the way his health had gone.

Especially if the singles guy is hitting in front of the HR guy.

The most commonly proposed scenario is Castro at 2nd and Lee at SS.

Oh, right. I guess I just wasn't expecting a team to be actively seeking him.

Wait, why seek to trade Fontenot?

The idea behind trading Byrd would be to start either Colvin or Kosuke in CF. It's not either's best position, obviously, but it would fulfill the desire to get Colvin full playing time and relieving the OF jam a bit. But also creates the problem of having a much worse OF.

It bears repeating: http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f19/TheMojoPin/hope-1.png

Colvin needs to have this beaten into him then.

If they're going to trade what few valuable young players they have it might as well be for Prince instead of Dunn. They'd be getting a much better return. fielder is younger, better and hasn't reached UFA yet, plus he's regarded as part of the brewers' core. the asking price for him is obviously going to be higher than it is for dunn. You're missing the point: we don't know what was being asked for with Dunn and the White Sox ultimately have a very limited group of truly good young players that a team would want. Dunn's asking price could be too high in the terms of the Nats expecting to get a Fielder-like haul for him. It's likely that both teams are expecting to essentially have their pick of those few quality young players the Sox have, hence my point that it would be better to go with Prince as opposed to Dunn if that's what they're going to have to do either way.

But guessing at his longevity is key to evaluating him since he's a reliever. You can't simply focus on what he's doing right now. He's ultimately only exceptional if he somehow manages to have a longer than usual career for a pitcher of his ilk, which would be very unusual.

Shhhhh, don't interrupt WSR. He's about to jump.

I didn't say he was worthless; you're completely making that up. I said I value someone who has a ceiling higher than being a reliever and has a good shot of getting near or hitting that ceiling than someone who is going to be anything more than a closer, and probably not even that for very long. Your sense of "equivalent value" is skewed because you keep declaring him to be "exceptional" and comparing him to guys who have had abnormal longevity as closers that Marmol almost certainly can only dream of having. The bottom line is that he's a gigantic injury risk and most closers aren't effective for more than a few years. Selling high would be very smart, and it wouldn't require getting back an "exceptional" prospect for it to be a very smart move.

Christ, Colvin leading off again?

Right. I'm not saying the Cubs need to move him, but they should definitely be listening if people are offering.

Eh, honestly, I was expecting a more impressive list. It's not bad, but they're all easily countered with a list of players they've held on to under him for WAY too long, some of which are still on the team right now.

Which guys has he moved at their peak value?

well we will have agree to disagree; i think the cubs bullpen is lousy and has only about 3 guys who have major league ability. when you say he will be much more useful in a trade than if the cubs kept him, you're assuming that they get a prospect or multiple prospects who turn into good players for the big club. that can work out but sometimes it does not, even if it looks like the team got good value for their star (c.c. sabathia trade being a recent example). i guess i don't really trust the cubs to not screw up a trade like that. Trading for prospects is always a gamble. Expecting Marmol to remain effective is a gamble. I prefer my chances with the trade.

Well, no. If a pitcher is young, affordable and outstanding they can easily net you at least one decent player who has a ceiling above being a reliever that's a gain right there that I'd be very happy with. I'm not expecting a huge haul; just one or two good prospects. Because he's a huge injury risk, he's not affordable for much longer and he's never going to do anything beyond pitching out of the bullpen. I don't want him traded just to be traded. Nobody thinks that's a good contract, but it's one that can be worked around. For the time being he's an incredibly useful player and it's stupid to talk about him as if he's this burden holding the team back.

This. Very few people are actually defending him.

The bullpen really isn't all that "lousy" at all, and rarely should it be any kind of a priority when a team needs this much work since it's relatively easy to construct a serviceable bullpen. The bullpen is not going to make or break the Cubs next year, and it's just going to be another year of extreme wear and tear on the arm. It's pretty incredible that they've gotten this much productive use out of him thus far, so they should definitely be listening to what other teams are offering for him, if they are inquiring. Teams in the hunt are always looking to overpay for bullpen help, and someone like Marmol would net an even better return. how is the bullpen not lousy? they have an ERA of 4.39, which is 23rd in the league, and in reality they've probably been even worse (they've allowed 28 unearned runs). the pitchers not named marmol have an ERA of 4.70 and a RA of 5.80. they're 19th in WHIP (1.43) even with marmol. you can say that you want to trade him while admitting that the bullpen is bad. The bullpen numbers are dragged down by the terrible start too many of the relievers got off to coupled with Lou's inability to manage any kind of bullpen (ie-insisting on using certain pitchers well passed it being obvious that they're terrible). It's not an ideal bullpen, but it's mostly serviceable. Bullpens usually need to be tweaked every year anyway, so whatever. Marmol being there doesn't change that, and he's not making or breaking the team while also having tremendous value for teams that actually are in the mix. He's just going to get more expensive and he's a huge injury risk. Why cling to him unnecessarily when trading him can actually be much more useful to the team in the long run than him actually pitching for them?