goonys evil twin

The problem I have with including Williams in some of these deals now is the Cubs are not well off in the starting pitching department. While they used to have the ability to trade from that strength, they've gotten rid of at least 2 fallback options for the starting staff already. Right now Williams is the 4th best starting option on the team. Get rid of him, and Hill takes that spot, but the Cubs probably give it to Rusch. I don't want Rusch in the 5th hole, let alone the 4th. After trading Jerome they'd be stuck with Rusch, possibly for an entire season. And we've seen this organization stick with a terrible starter for an entire season even when better options were available. After a series of trades, there might not be any better options.

I'm not sure he'll come cheaper after he proves he's healthy. But I have no problem waiting. Vidro would be fallback option, not something to go hard after today.

Again, melodramatic. Terrible? It would be terrible if they gave up a lot and picked up the entire contract. But if done right, it could be a decent risk. From 99-03 he played a lot and was very good, among the best at his position. Like Floyd or Bradley he's probably not going to give you 500+ PA in 2006, and he probably won't hit at his peak either. But at 31, I have to believe he's perfectly capable of putting up numbers between his 2005 (.275/.339/.424) and his career average (.302/.364/.467), especially if you get him out of DC, where he was their freaking 3 hitter for some time. Give Vidro 400 PA and Hairston the rest, and you stand a chance of justifying the inevitable trade of Walker for a RF.

I don't buy that at all. When role players with limited skill sets play too often, their flaws are exposed and they look bad. Todd in 05 wasn't that much worse than Todd in 03, or 95-98. Give him 200 at bats over the course of a full season (as opposed to 2 months), and I think he's capable of getting reasonably close to his career line of .275 .332 .440. Guys have down years in their 30s like Todd had all the time, and often bounce back to a reasonable level.

I want Brownlie in the freaking pen. He has not been a very effective starter, and I don't see it happening in the future.

At least the 'Wood's salary is too high for a closer' argument doesn't hold much weight anymore :). That's for sure. But then again, the argument that he can't be a great starter and has to be moved to closer doesn't hold much weight either.

But if Hendry is heckbent on trading Walker Vidro would be a decent choice if: -Vidro is healthy -The Nats picked up some cash Will MLB ownership do that? I doubt it. They "agreed" to take on Soriano's ridiculous contract. It's either pay all of Vidro's deal or pay some. With Andy's influence within the MLB leadership (he was brought in on almost every major decision, reportedly, with the CBA), I wouldn't dismiss the possibility. Although it shouldn't be a priority for the Cubs right now.

I'm probably several pages late on this, but it's pretty interesting that Stockstill just went to Baltimore's front office. If it's true that guys often have a personal bias over the kids they drafted, there could be something to this. Of course, he also probably knows all the faults of Cubs prospects and wouldn't be fooled. Anyway, I'm not going to let go of this dream just yet.

And if you get Vidro, Neifi is still the fallback. I can't understand why you would want to guarantee failure instead of taking a chance for success with failure still as the fallback option.

I think you are going way overboard here. Vidro is an enormous risk, but at least he brings along with him the chance for very good production. With Neifi you are guaranteed crap. And Neifi would always be the fallback if Vidro did indeed fail. Trading Corey for him would be a risk, but nothing close to a guaranteed failure or dumb. I would rather take the chance of getting something out there than guarantee absolute failure, which is what Neifi does.

I don't know what to make of this story. Certainly Baltimore can still just hold onto Tejada and try to make the best of their bad situation. However, Angelos is not a win at all costs guy. He was upset with the DC move because of a potential loss of cash, not a loss of fans. MLB already appeased the greedy slimeball with guaranteed cash from any potential loss of attendance to Washington. I could easily see Angelos taking advantage of this situation to simply pocket more money, by not spending it on an unhappy player. Certainly he couldn't be blamed for trading a guy who wants to be traded. Given their situation, he could easily spin this as good for the team in the long haul. They aren't going to compete in 2006. I'd send them Walker, Patterson, Cedeno, Guzman and 2 more arms for Tejada, even if they don't eat some cash. If they insist on Pie, I probably give him up. If they want Hill, Harvey or Dopirak, I would probably throw in any of them. The trio of Ramirez, Lee and Tejada allows you to withstand less than stellar production in the OF. Basically, Miggy gives you what Nomar never had a chance of giving you. I'd then have no problem settling on one of the lesser right fielders for a reasonable contract.

I have no doubt they aren't done, acquisition wise. They will get more help, I'm guessing at least 2 more bats. The question is if those bats will be any good, because if they are not, the 2006 season will be done.

Generally I would agree completely. Given a decent lineup, I would really like to go with Murton, whether he puts up a pedestrian .265/.325/.415, a solid .285/.350/.450, or an outstanding .321/.386/.521. In that scenario, the only reason I'd sit him is if he looked completely lost for an extended time, and there was somebody worth starting in front of him. Unfortunately, the Cubs lineup doesn't even resemble decent right now. They have no RF, and the prospects for finding a good RF aren't looking good. Odds are they settle on a platoon guy like Mench, or a mediocre "proven veteran" like Jones/Encarnacion/Wilson. Assuming a Walker trade, that would pretty much guarantee crap production out of 2B and RF, weak to mediocre production out of CF, and at least a risk for mediocre or worse production at SS and LF. You'd only have three reliable positions, C, 1B and 3B, with C having a lot of downside itself, 1B in prime position for at least a partial decline from last year, and 3B being an enormous injury risk. That isn't a lineup worthy of a $100 million payroll. And with the rotation so full of holes, that's a team that could easily be worse than the 2005 train wreck. Frankly, that's unacceptable to me. And with all those other worries on the team, I feel they have to get more guaranteed production out of LF. You can't catch the ball to the world series, at some point you have to score runs. And with the $100m payroll, there is no justification for going into the season with so many questionable lineup positions.

Speed is fine, but he cant steal to save his life, he gets caught 25% of the time. 75% is a very solid percentage. To say he can't steal to save his life is absurd. 75% is borderline. Not particularly good, but not terrible. How many guys with over 15 SB attempts have a higher percentage? I think you would find he's in the top 15% or so, I don't know exactly. 75% would be above average for guys that do a bit of running. It's better than many others, but the point is it hurts the team to be caught that often, more than it helps to be successful that often.

I think trying to say that Andy has no right to be involved in contract talks is rather illogical and naive. The Cubs just went through the Sammy thing, Andy was very much involved. Just like Hendry should tell Dusty, I got you this guy to be the starting LF, Andy should get involved. I would be pissed if they came up $500,000 short for 3 years on a really good player like Giles who would fill a big need position, but that's because they would have failed to sign a really good player at a big need position, not because Andy "stuck his nose where it didn't belong." Talk about hyperbole. He's not the president's wife determining tax policy. He's very much involved, and should be. Everybody has different levels of input. The top guy should have final say, and get involved when he things it's necessary, that is why he is the top guy. It's not like he's muddling up every move they try to make. If Hendry was willing to trade Pie, Hill, Guzman and Pawelek for Scott Podsednik because he knew he had to "win now" or lose his job, I'd expect Andy to step in and enforce organizational philosophy.

That's why STL always has been and always will be losers.

He will hit .300/.350/.450. I GUARANTEE it. Murton does not need to be platooned with ANYBODY. In at around 160 AB last year he had an OBP above .380 and 7 HR. I think it is very likely he can hit atleast .350 OBP and produce 20 HR or more. I'll bank my name on this. I think it's possible, but I'm hardly ready to bank the 2006 team's fortunes on it, given all the weaknesses of the rest of the lineup.

I would expect MacPhail to have input on contract structures. Just like his refusal to go to arbitration, or his recent unwillingness to go longterm, it's a organization philosophy issue. My only problem would be if they said "we've already spent $2.5m on Neifi, we can't spend $12.5m total on our shortstop position." But that's more of a Jim hasn't figured out how to efficiently use his payroll yet. Of course, Andy might have realized that if Jim was so screwed up to be thinking about 5/50 for Furcal, maybe he needs to be fired, but he can't fire him in the middle of winter meetings so he simply stepped in and didn't let Jim screw up before he fired him.

C-Varitek 1B-Pujols 2B-Utley 3B-Rodriguez SS-Tejada LF-Cabrera CF-Andruw RF-Vlad Bench - M.Giles, Figgins, Abreu, Jeter, Edmonds, Mauer Rotation - Santana, Pedro, Oswalt, Peavy, Zambrano Bullpen - Nathan, Wagner, Ryan, Lidge, Street, Rivera

Last 5 seasons ERA: 4.81 7.06 6.27 5.90 4.61 Why would you offer him 2 years? Why would you offer him $3.5m? Why would you want him at all? Give him a minor league invite if you insist. He's been awful since his breakthrough with Houston in the 90's. His K/9 fell from over 8 to under 6, consistently under 6. He gives up a ton of longballs and a big OPS against. If I'm going to bitch about Rusch's contract (and I am) then I'd have to bitch about this guy, who is just as bad, if not worse.

I'd send out Christmas cards to people I know celebrate Christmas and holiday cards to the others.

I want to maximize offensive production. If you get a stud RF, you can settle with Murton for a good 600 AB. If you get a second tier RF, you pretty much have to find somebody who can at least platoon with Murton. If you told me he was a guaranteed .300/.350/.450 or more, I'd give him all the AB he could handle. But he's not a guaranteed anything, and since the Cubs have settled for nominal improvements elsewhere, they need bigtime corner OF help.

I think this may happen. Will Carroll thinks the Cubs are close to getting Bradley. Pierre, Bradley, Floyd with Murton in for Pierre against lefties. Someone had suggested this some time ago. I may be reading you wrong, but there's no way the Cubs traded for Pierre to platoon him. I read it that way too, but my understanding is that Floyd/Murton would platoon LF, and Pierre and Bradley would play everyday. If I had the choice, Murton would platoon with both Floyd and Bradley, because neither is a likely 600 PA guy.

So what? I'll answer that. Leadoff wasn't that big of a problem. Yes, the players they chose to put there last year didn't do well, but that could be solved better with somebody other than a 5/50 Furcal. RF has been the biggest hole. SS could be filled adequately with Cedeno. RF has absolutely nobody, and if you spend $10m on Furcal you leave much less money available to improve the actual need positions. I don't like Pierre, but he's much more economical leading off at $4-6m than Furcal. My point was not Furcal vs Pierre. It was that OPS is not a significant stat for a leadoff hitter. OBP, yes. OPS, not so much. OPS favors power hitters over OBP guys, as 30 doubles and 20 homers equates to around 140 walks. Whatever your point is, if you think not spending more on Furcal was such a bad move, I think you're wrong. OPS is significant. The SLG isn't just HR, it's 2B and 3B. And that matters a lot. OPS matters everywhere, just like OBP. The Cubs overemphasized the leadoff spot this year and overpaid because of it. Instead of finding 8 good hitters, they tried to find an ideal guy for one spot, and that cost them. But it cost them a whole lot less because somebody woke up and realized just how insane the contracts were that Furcal was looking for.

How is that flat-out cheap? 5/50 was way too much. 5/47 was too much. What if they were thinking 4/32 to start? They already went to 5 years, which is a lot, and they went from 8 to almost $10m. What if they already had that "it's only $500k-1m more" moment a couple of times. And by the way, it's that much more per year, which adds up. Furcal is not a difference maker. You don't go balls out for a non difference maker. If Vlad Guerrero wants an extra $500k, you budge. If Johan Santana wants $1m more, you do it. If Zambrano, Ramirez, Prior or Lee are trying to squeeze out another several hundred thousand dollars a year, you pretty much have to do it. But Furcal is not in that class, nor is he anywhere near that class.