goonys evil twin

why is hendry doing this again? The theory is he won't be as bad as he was in the banged up 2006. If he's better than that, it will be a nice combo. If he's as bad as he was last year, I'd hope to heck that Lou limits his playing time.

Please :roll: So, I've looked at this a few hundred times and I still cant figure out what was so disagreeable with the above statement. Wanna help me? I consider the GM's of the past 2 WS champs baseball "guys" They are not going anywhere. There will always be "baseball guys" in power. The statement though, referred to the notion that you no longer have to be a baseball lifer to get such a job.

Pat Burrel: $1M (+1.5 signing) $4M $7M $9.5M $13M $14M http://www.mlb4u.com/profile.php?id=679 That was originally signed pre-free agency though, right? All of those types of deals will look like that.

I just read that. He's really pimping Pie there: And then we just have to just kind of evaluate with Felix Pie, who's a left-handed hitting center fielder who already can play terrific defense in the big leagues. And he's 21 years old. It'll be up to our staff and Lou in spring training to see how ready he is. That would be a breath of fresh air for us, if he could play either by Opening Day or sometime this year. We think he's our center fielder for a long time. We won't be looking to do anything long-term in center field -- we think he's the guy -- but we would like to have some complementary help in the outfield, left-handed, before we're done.

Well sure, but there's no indication he's ready for such production, and he's 1 year from arbitration. There's not much time to benefit from his inexpensiveness.

The problem is that all it takes to qualify as a good baseball guy, is to be a baseball guy for a long time and to believe strongly in conventional wisdom. Everytime I hear about somebody who spends a lot of time in the game but is not yet a GM or manager, inevitably you hear what a good baseball guy he is.

All that being said. I'd prefer it if they didn't have to call him up this April.

Does this add anything to the discussion at all? I'm honestly just curious. It seems OBP was the end all be all last year...now when that stat doesn't support the argument its OPS+, or whatever stat happens to support and/or detract from the player/s in question. I don't think anyone was arguing that if Tavarez was hypothetically brought here that it would be for his prowess to drive in runs, so I was just curious why OPS+ was the measure which was being used to detract from him. I don't care anymore...I may just go back to arguing the relative merits of Freddy Bynum and Craig Counsell from a few weeks back, it seems just about as relevant at this discussion I don't see how OBP doesn't support the argument. He and Pierre had virtually the same OBP last year. It's not sub .300 abysmal, but .333 is not close to good. And when it's accompanied by non-existent SLG, it's awful. Randomly saying "if he keeps improving his OBP by .008 every year he'll eventually be good" is meaningless. OBP is the Cubs biggest need, but Taveras doesn't provide that, certainly not anymore than they got last year. SLG is also a problem. And OPS+ is a nice way to judge more all-around production. It's not the end all, but it's a quick and easy way to weed out the worthless (Taveras-75, Pagan - 76) from the quite useful (Church - 113, Murton - 111) and the fantastic (Cabrera - 141). Furthermore, if the Cubs trade for him, they'd be giving up value, so his ~$500,000 price tag is not the only cost, plus, they've got only 1 year left before arbitraiton, after which he'll start making millions, because crap veterans that get playing time are always going to get overpaid. If you had a solid offense, and Taveras was in your system, and you had a need at his position. It's not an awful idea to give him a spot. But once you start trading for this guy, and paying him more than the minimum, the return on your investment goes negative.

I agree with all of this. Basically everything I was saying above is that the guy has some solid points to his game...it could be interesting...but I'm not out there advocating for it to happen. If you think "let's see if we can be as bad offensively as we were last year" would be interesting, then I guess it is. There's no possible way you could justify Taveras and Pie in the same outfield. Unless of course, you had Cabrera in left, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Tejada and Lee on the infield.

Nothing like the old "he's not the worst guy ever" defense. (I should add that I agree, he's not the worst guy ever, there are definitely worse players) Yes, it is possible to prove Taveras is horrible. It's really easy.

Terrible.

The Cubs do have a "stat guy", his name is Chuck Wasserstrom. I remember reading an article about him and coming away depressed. Analysis didn't seem to be his forte, instead he was the guy responisble for digging out splits (you know, how does so-and-so hit on Tuesdays in day games at Wrigley), or at least that was the impression the article left. I'm certain he is the guy who'd come out with statistical print-outs before games allowing Dusty to justify playing Neifi because he had a lifetime 3-8 batting mark against against pitcher X (Dusty: "That's a .375 batting average!"). Since it has been a couple of years since I read the article, who knows if anyting has changed. The impression I got was not that the Cubs ignore stats, just that they misuse them. That's exactly what I remember. I also think the guy's old job was something in media relations or PR. Needless to say, they aren't employing any Beane disciples or baseball prospectus writers.

Well, I kind of expected that. I wonder how the Bucs' run game is. 'Cuz we now have one gaping, massive hole in the middle of that line. We'll need to blitz to get any pressure up the middle too. The Bucs can't run the ball.

Just because we "aren't looking for power out of him" doesn't mean it's okay to have absolutely none. And he doesnt' have any potential. He is what he is, which isn't good. He's the same player he was in the minors, which is nothing. The last thing the Cubs need to be doing is acquiring guys for their defense, they haven't sucked because of defense. They've sucked because their lineup has sucked and their rotation has sucked. Taveras was worse than Pierre last year. His OBP ticked higher last year, barely, it was just .008. He also had a decline in AVG and SLG. That's not a sign of a guy who's poised to show off his potential. He doesn't produce worth a crap, and the Cubs don't need anymore people who don't produce. This would be a horrible acquisition, as usual.

that's insane. coming to a stadium near you, the next most overrated, overpaid player in baseball. i can't believe that ricciardi would pay him that much money. if his batting average dips to around his career level, you're looking at a 18 million dollar, moderately above average player. He's significantly younger and as productive as Soriano. And there isn't a question about his defense. So, while it's probably overpaying for less than steller production, it's not the most overrated overpaid player in baseball.

Yes, it is god awful. He had a worse year than Juan Pierre. You can count on him being worse than Juan was agains this year. He's crap.

So $5MM and $7MM the first two years isn't bad. A lot like the deferred salary of Soriano. Leaving a lot of space open forthe next 2-3 years to get more people it seems It's only not too bad if they use that space to sign others, and significantly increase the payroll in future years. With all the backloading of deals, I'm not sure the 2007 Cubs payroll will be any higher than $105 million.

Taveras is a career .284 hitter in his first two years in the majors. He did start to show some patients at the plate last year. He hit .278/.333/.338 last year, for an OPS+ of 72 (well below Pierre).

Willy isn't better than Pierre, at all. He's worse. How brilliantly Hendryific would it be if the Cubs ended up with a worse CF than Pierre next year. Not to mention, between Willy, Juan and Corey, they'd have gotten rid of the 2 better options in favor of the worst. Seriously, if Willy plays CF everyday, the only improvement for next year is Soriano over Jones. And while that is a near lock for improvement, it's not a lock to be immensely better. So, once again, we'd be counting on health to make this team better.

It would fit their M.O.

They shouldn't rush Pie. Because, you know, rushing Patterson had such fantastic results. I think the situations have a chance to be quite different. Patterson had less than 1000 pro PA before his first callup. Patterson skipped high A ball. Patterson had only a partial season of AAA under his belt (and it was really bad) - and his numbers regressed as he got promoted. Patterson got the yoyo treatment, both in terms of callup, and usage. He sat the bench a lot as well. And I believe the biggest problem was that when he was drafted, they said "despite the fact that he's a fast CF, he's not a leadoff hitter, he's more of a middle of the order guy", and then they let silly old school managers try to turn him into a slappy leadoff hitter. Felix has well over 2000 pro PA. He's been in rookie ball, low A, high A, AA and AAA (with an extremely brief stop in short season ball). Felix's numbers improved at each level from low A to AA, and his AAA numbers improved as the season went along. Pie has had professional developmental people for 5 years, compared to Corey's 2.5. If the Cubs callup Pie, and hit him 7th everyday this season, with a couple rest days against really tough lefties and/or when he's in a funk, I don't think he will necessarily have teh same fate as Patterson.

I nominate Bruce Miles! Can't afford the paycut. Remember it's the Tribco, and they spent all the money. It's always about the money with you baseball people. :D

Just watching the game, having a Bud.

It'll be platonic.

I promise to play nice.