jmajew

First off I just want to say this has been a very ineresting debate. People who said the White Sox just got lucky last year because there pitching was great, I believe are wrong. The White Sox went into last season wanting to win with pitching and defense. By trading Carlos Lee they were able to greatly upgrade their defense by added Pods, Dye, and Iguchi. IMO, that is why their pitching got so much better. Pods is a very good defensive LF, Dye is a very good defensive RF, and Iguchi is much better than Willie Harris at second. The White Sox upgraded their defense drastically last year causing there team defense to get get better. If someone coudl find the Team BABIP for their pitchers for the past three years I bet that last year it was much better, because of the defensive improvements. (I don't know where to find that stat) That was Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen's strategy for last season and it worked, give them credit. They designed the team to win a certain way and they did, Bravo.

Murton has a good chance to produce enough to justify his spot in LF. Cedeno has a good chance to produce enough to justifty his position at SS. Corey has almost no chance to produce enough to justify his spot in RF. I'm fine with keeping Corey, as a 4th OF (giving Murton and Pierre the occasional day off). But the lineup you listed is so incredibly weak and completely unjustified given a $100 million payroll. I don't think any other availbe Free Agents justify a spot in RF either. Of all the players left for RF I feel Patterson has the most potential. None of those other guys will put us over the top, but if Patterson somehow reverts back to his 2003 form he could put us over the top, and if he goes back to his 2004 form he is just as good any of the other guys we could sign. I'd prefer us to trade for a big bat but at this rate it seems like Hendry is just going to sign one of Jones, Encarnacion, or Sanders. Those guys just don't do it for me.

That makes no sense. One the Sox are pretty young. Two he still has a young good pitchign staff. Three if he needs to he can trade one of his 6 starting pitchers Garland, Buerhle, Garcia, McCArthy,Contreras, and Vazguez. Plus they also have another 5 years to gather new prospects. Give credit where credit is do. Kenny Williams is doing a heck of a job for this White Sox team. As of now I wish he was the Cubs GM. I will always hate the Sox with a passion but I respect what Kenny is doing.

By no means am I a big Corey fan like a lot of people on this board are, but... why would KPat in RF be a "horrible" idea? Assuming we land Tejada (I know, big assumption) I'd be completely fine with Corey batting 8th for the Cubs next year. At his best Corey would be an average right fielder offensively. His defensive strength is his range, not his arm, which means that he would be wasted/ineffective defensively in RF. Most of all though, Corey in RF is an absolute failure to get production from a corner OF spot. If you go into next season with Cedeno, Murton, AND Patterson in your lineup, you're just asking for trouble, and it doesn't really matter all that much if you get Tejada, you've still got about half your lineup that has a very real chance of falling completely on its face. I think the question at hand is are the other options that much better than Corey? Will they get us into the playoffs? I think the answer is no, it would not be a big enough upgrade. So why not give Corey the chance to prove himself? If that is the question at hand then I think the answer has something to do with trading Derrek for a boatload of prospects/young guys who can help down the road. The reality is that most people including Jim Hendry have some aspirations of winning something this year and when the question is "what can we do to win this year?" then Corey Patterson in RF better have nothing to do with the answer. If we are looking at Jacque Jones for RF I do'nt think he will help us win. You know exactly what he will give you next year and with him we still would not make the playoffs imo. If we give Corey a shot and he reaches his potential we could make the playoffs. If he goes back to his 2004 form he is still as good as Jones. Don't get me wrong if we can get Abreu, Floyd, Dunn or Wilkerson get rid of Patterson I'm fan with that. I was just saying compared to the options I had listed that I thought he would be the best because he has the highest potential.

By no means am I a big Corey fan like a lot of people on this board are, but... why would KPat in RF be a "horrible" idea? Assuming we land Tejada (I know, big assumption) I'd be completely fine with Corey batting 8th for the Cubs next year. At his best Corey would be an average right fielder offensively. His defensive strength is his range, not his arm, which means that he would be wasted/ineffective defensively in RF. Most of all though, Corey in RF is an absolute failure to get production from a corner OF spot. If you go into next season with Cedeno, Murton, AND Patterson in your lineup, you're just asking for trouble, and it doesn't really matter all that much if you get Tejada, you've still got about half your lineup that has a very real chance of falling completely on its face. I think the question at hand is are the other options that much better than Corey? Will they get us into the playoffs? I think the answer is no, it would not be a big enough upgrade. So why not give Corey the chance to prove himself?

I think if I did the math right Corey's BABIP last year was 291 the previoius two years they were 362 and 388. So I think Corey was just affected by bad luck. So you know how i figured it out: Hits divided by (ABs minus Ks). I wasn't able to find the Stats on the internet. So if i did this right I believe this would indicate Corey just had a lot of bad luck last year.

I was looking at some stats and I began to think that maybe keeping Corey next year would be the best option we have left. The way I see it is we have 5 options for RF next year: Patterson, Encarnacion, Huff, Jones, and Sanders. I was thinking to myself which one is the biggest risk reward. The answer I came up with was Corey Patterson. I believe Corey will bounce back next year to atleast his 2004 numbers. If he does that he is just as good as all of the other options. Here are the other players career averages: BA/OBP/OPS Jones 279/327/782 Encarnacion 268/316/756 Huff 288/342/820 (numbers have dropped dratically past 2 years) Sanders 267/344/835 (hes old an injury risk) 2004 Patterson 266/320/772 I know people are going to say that there is no chance Patterson will bounce back, I believe he will and I am going to show you an example of a player who had a terrible year when he was young and then bounced back the following year, he was also 26 when he had his down year. 209/309/713 following year 257/365/820. This player was Pat Burrell. So it is possible that Corey will bounce back. Corey will make I believe around 3.5 million next year after arbitration. The rest of the players on this list will make atleast 5 mil and some may go as high as 7. I guess i just believe that we will get more out of money if we give Corey another shot. If he goes back to his old self he is just as good at the other 4 players and he will cost us half the money. I don't see any of those remaining players being big difference maker on our team next year so I do not see why not give Corey one last shot. Let him bat 7 or 8 to start the year, if he plays well you can move him upin the order. So I say we start off the year with a lineup of Pierre, Walker, Lee, Ramirez, Barrett, Murton, Patterson, Cedeno. If Patterson plays bad for the first month or so you work on making a trade but if he plays good we solved our problem. I'd still much rather see someone like Abreu or Dunn out in RF but if we can't get them I say keep Corey, the other guys probably won't be all that much better and will cost us twice as much. I just wanted to start a thread on this because I found it interesting that all these guys career numbers aren't much better than Corey's 2004 season.

In all honesty, this may be the best idea for the Cubs. This way we don't have to pay 7 million a year for someone like Jones who isn't much better, imo. If Patterson plays well that is great and if he plays poorly and we are in the playoff race come June we can make a trade for a new RF. Patterson could possibly be the biggest risk/reward player left out there. If he can go back to his 2004 form he is just as good as Jones and if somehow he goes back to his 2003 form he is better than Jones. As of now i am not opposed to this idea, I actually think it may be the best option we have left.

People apply this tag way to easily and that is the problem. I differentiate for that specific reason. I don't feel it is fair to call someone injury prone when they have had 3 injury plagued years. Did you call Sosa injury prone when he missed all those games in 2003 and 2004? I just want to get this straight...do you think that Kerry Woods injury problems are different then Nomars? one has the same problem every year and the other has a different injury whenever he gets hurt. I understand both affect the team but which kind of injury risk would you as a GM rather take a risk on...someone who has a chronically bad shoulder or someone who breaks a wrist getting hit by a ball, who hurts his achilles, or tears his groin running out of the box?

I don't know how there can even be a debate on this. Obviously, you would take Clemens. I bet if Clemens were to pitch five years from now he would still be better than Burnett and he'd be 48 years old.

Isn't he pretty lousy defensively? Like really lousy? Yeah, I thought that was why he was moved to 1b. I wonder if he is any worse than Aubrey Huff defensively.

Ethier probably would've entered the season ranked as one of Oakland's top 2 or 3 prospects, no? Maybe just behind Daric Barton. He's not just some scrub. I can't see how this trade tells us anything about the Pierre deal. And it baffles me that anyone thinks we could have dealt for Bradley and thereby filled a hole in right field. His rates are nice, but he only plays half-seasons. He was just one of many lousy RF options, and now he's off the board. Eh. Bradley was not the solution in RF, but he was the best option we had, imo. Bradley has only played more than 101 games in 1 out of 6 seasons. I think that is a very problematic stat. I don't know the nature of the injuries but that does kind of scare me. If Hendry was scared of Nomar's injury problems it would be my bet that Bradley was not Hendry's top option for RF.

If we get Miggy I don't think we will need to trade for Floyd. I'd be more than happy to sign Juan Encarnacion to play Right. Plus if we trade for Floyd there is no doubt in my mind we would have to give up Todd Walker. I'd hate to see Walker go, he is the perfect number 2 hitter. In all honesty, I wonder if Hendry has offered that up already. It actually seems to make sense for both teams.

I think it is a pretty common belief that tearing your groin running out of the batters box is a fluke injury. If that is true, what injury is not considered a fluke injury? He got injured doing baseball things. If Kerry Wood throws a pitch and tears a ligament in his shoulder how is it any less of a fluke? Because it has happened before? Then is the first time it happened a fluke? Kerry Wood has had shoulder problems a few years in a row. It has been the same part of his body. When Kerry Wood injured his shoulder the first time was it a fluke? That's all I'm saying. Even more the reason to consider him an injury prone risk that he has injured multiple parts of his body during his career, leaving him at a huge risk of reinjuring something over the course of a year. In my opinion there is a difference between injury prone and Chronically injured. In my humble opinion an injury prone player has a bunch of fluke injuries, it is just bad luck. When someone chronically injures the same part of his body, like wood and Griffey I would worry more. I believe that an injury prone player is more likely to end up being healthy than a Chronically injured player, if the injury prone player has any luck at all. IMO a shoulder injury for a pitcher is really never a fluke because they put so much stress on it by throwing so many pitches. I think it is inevitable that a pitcher will hurt is shoulder at some point in his career. With Wood his shoulder is always hurt.

If you are talking about making the same mistake of taking a risk on an injury prone player why has everyone on this site been talking about Milton Bradley being a savior for the Cubs. (i know he was just traded to the As) He has only played more than 101 games in his career once. So i dont' see how he would have been much of a different risk than Nomar. But I understand what you are saying about the Hendry not wanting to taking a chance on Nomar but I think the same should have gone for Bradley.

I think it is a pretty common belief that tearing your groin running out of the batters box is a fluke injury. If that is true, what injury is not considered a fluke injury? He got injured doing baseball things. If Kerry Wood throws a pitch and tears a ligament in his shoulder how is it any less of a fluke? Because it has happened before? Then is the first time it happened a fluke? Kerry Wood has had shoulder problems a few years in a row. It has been the same part of his body. With Nomar he has broken his wrist, had achilles problems, and torn his groin. None of those are related to one another. I know this is off topic but I"m going to use Rex Grossman as another example of a player who has had a bunch of fluke injuries in a row. IN 2003 he broke his finger, he could have played through it but management didn't want him to. In 2004 he tore his ACL, and this year he broke his ankle. I consider all of those fluke injuries. Chad Pennington on the other hand has had a chronic injury, his throwing shoulder, thus making one to believe it will never be healthy. Football is on my mind now so i'm just using those kinds of examples. If you want a baseball injury Ken Griffey Jr. has had a chronic injury. He has hurt his hamstring like the past 5 years in a row. I hope you see where I am going with this.

I think it is a pretty common belief that tearing your groin running out of the batters box is a fluke injury. CPatt...If the Cubs offered Nomar a deal of gauranteed 5 mil with 7 million in incentives you don't think he would have taken that over the gauranteed 9 mil? If he truly believes he is healthy I think he would have taken it. I know this is all speculation and we can't do anything about it. I just think we have no good options left for Right and I feel like we didn't give Nomar enough look at Right. I'm just talking out of frustration.

I would not say it is logical. Nomar's groin tear last year was a freak injury. When he came back he was playing like his old self. Granted I don't think he can handle playing short more than three times a week but he still would have been a good fit for this Cubs team. Hendry should never have closed down all possibilities with Nomar. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2223720 There is no doubt he would have been solid in the Outfield this year for the Cubs. His OPS after he returned from his injury was right around .900. That is better than anything we would have been able to get in the free agent market. I think Hendry dropped the ball on this one. It seems to me that he was focusing on one thing all offseason, a leadoff hitter. I am upset about this because I think by not giving Nomar arbitration we took away a very good option for this team. Hendry made a mistake and burnt all bridges with Nomar when he told him he needed to find a better fit. Now we are looking at Jacque Jones, Juan Encarnacion, and if we are lucky Reggie Sanders in Right. The Cubs could have resigned Nomar played him at once every once in a while but most of the time play him in right. If he stayed healthy for the first half of the season we coudl have traded for a new rightfielder and moved Nomar back to short if the offense needed a boost. A lineup with Nomar and Pierre would have looked pretty good to me. Pierre Walker Lee Ramirez Nomar Barrett Murton Cedeno The logic to me would have been to keep all options open. I don't think Hendry did this. Hendry either had to sign Nomar by December 7th, which wasn't going to happen, or offer him arbitration. Nomar would almost be guaranteed to accept since he wouldn't get an offer where he was virtually guaranteed his salary from last year anywhere else. Another year of Nomar at the same price, when it's unclear whether or not he's capable of SS, is not the gamble I would take last week. It's a logical decision on Hendry's part. To sign Nomar to play short would have been illogical. I believe it would have been logical to sign him to play RF, especially since there were no quality players out there to sign. Nomar at 9 mil for RF or Jacque Jones out there for 7 mil? I'd take the flier on Nomar because he has much more potential than Jones. Out of curiousity if you offer someone arbitration can't you still sign him to a contract before the hearing?

I think last year Nomar was a bigger risk than this year. Last year when we resigned him he was coming off a cronic injury. Last year was just one fluke injury, which required a long recovery time because of surgery. I think the concern over Nomar's achilles is now gone.

I would not say it is logical. Nomar's groin tear last year was a freak injury. When he came back he was playing like his old self. Granted I don't think he can handle playing short more than three times a week but he still would have been a good fit for this Cubs team. Hendry should never have closed down all possibilities with Nomar. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2223720 There is no doubt he would have been solid in the Outfield this year for the Cubs. His OPS after he returned from his injury was right around .900. That is better than anything we would have been able to get in the free agent market. I think Hendry dropped the ball on this one. It seems to me that he was focusing on one thing all offseason, a leadoff hitter. I am upset about this because I think by not giving Nomar arbitration we took away a very good option for this team. Hendry made a mistake and burnt all bridges with Nomar when he told him he needed to find a better fit. Now we are looking at Jacque Jones, Juan Encarnacion, and if we are lucky Reggie Sanders in Right. The Cubs could have resigned Nomar played him at short every once in a while but most of the time play him in right. If he stayed healthy for the first half of the season we coudl have traded for a new rightfielder and moved Nomar back to short if the offense needed a boost. A lineup with Nomar and Pierre would have looked pretty good to me. Pierre Walker Lee Ramirez Nomar Barrett Murton Cedeno The logic to me would have been to keep all options open. I don't think Hendry did this.

I would honestly say Patterson for Wright or Pavano is a possibility. I'd be willing to take a flier on Wright if the Yanks are willing to pick up some of his contract. He has next year gaurenteed with a 4 mil dollar buy out for 2007.

We're overpaying in both deals. I wouldn't trade Aram striaght up for Tejada

RF Ichiro SS Jeter 3b Arod LF Bonds 1b Pujols CF Beltran 2b Castillo C Bengie Molina Rotation Halladay Santanna Zambrano Carpenter Oswalt Setup Tom Gordon Closer Rivera

We can't sign Nomar until May 1st. He'll have a job by then, so that is no longer an option. Had it been one, I would have to really think about that deal. I don't think I trade Aramis for Miggy. Ramirez is younger and provides more offensive punch than Tejada does. There also aren't any thirdbasemen available that equal things out. Now if a package were created that included Ramirez for Miggy with other players involved, I might have to look at the deal to reconsider, but Ramirez for Tejada as one for one, I'd pass. I posted in a separate thread when i first joined this site that I would have been willing to trade Aram for Manny straight up if the Red Sox were willing to pay 7 mil a year of Manny's deal. Then I would have signed Nomar to play third. Everyone blasted me on this site, saying I was an idiot for even mentioning it. I just don't see how Tejada and Mora would be any better than Nomar and Manny. So the only way I would trade for Tejada is if we trade prospects. You can't forget Mora is 33 years old and his numbers already began to slide last year. Wouldn't this lineup have looked great. Pierre, Walker, Lee, Ramirez, Nomar, Barrett, Murton, Cedeno? http://www.northsidebaseball.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=26375

Yeah. He's talking about the Tejada thing right now. Sounds like the Cubs have very serious interest. He also said if the Orioles think about trading Tejada things would go very quickly. So if the O's GM is smart, he'll start by asking for Prior, Z or ARam. Hendry will say no, so then the O's GM has to look at Leo Mazzone and his PC, and think that it would be smart to build around pitching first. So we can offer Hill, Williams, a reliever, and a position player prospect (probably Cedeno). Would that be enough? This is a scenario that having Pinto or Nolasco could really help. Levine was speculating Hill, Williams, Cedeno, and maybe Patterson would do it. I think that's all he said. He might have said another prospect too. I forget. If we pick up some salary, that might do it, but I think they'd want Pie. If Pie was the dealbreaker/maker, would you sub him for Corey? I would sub in Pie in a heartbeat. Since we got Pierre, Pie has become a bit more expendable in my mind. Assuming we then sign Pierre to a 4 year deal we will have 4 more years to draft and develop Pierre's replacement.