goonys evil twin

What are these character knocks on Padilla? I've seen people in here mention it, but I've never read anything else about it.

I don't know about worse than Pierre, but he was bad. Chone won out in OBP by a narrow margin, and won in OPS+ 89-81. He was also much better in 2004.

Well, you could say we got stuck signing Soriano because of missing out on better players like Vlad, Beltran, etc. sure rain on my parade :( sorry, it just started raining here

Well, you could say we got stuck signing Soriano because of missing out on better players like Vlad, Beltran, etc.

Nobody has mentioned it? Try reading some more. It's just a fact of baseball. The peak years are 26-28, some something similar. By the early 30's, the vast majority of players, be they good bad or great, start to decline. At 32, Ramirez probably won't be as good as he was at his peak.

Before the season starts this year we're turning the injuries off. what about suspensions for punching opposing catchers? We're going to hit reset during that game.

I don't think it holds much water at all. I've seen the general studies, I've looked at many specific players. It's uncanny for how many of them their OPS+ reaches its highest between 26-28. Occasionally you'll get one at 30. It's extremely rare to be any later.

The NY media is almost treating that Jets game like a Bears loss.

I still don't understand why you feel that way. If they ink Schmidt and manage to deal for a corner OFer of value, will your opinion change? No. MLB is currently giving birth to a flock of albatrosses. This pattern of giving so-so players superstar contracts based on one great year is going to come to an ugly end. There's no way this level of stupidity can remain unacknowledged for long. As long as the Cubs don't give so-so players superstar contracts, it's not an issue for them. With $115m available this year, blowing up and starting fresh was a bad idea. So you think Soriano will justify his salary in RF for 8 years? I don't. No I don't. But that doesn't justify not getting involved in the market. Every WS winner has players who don't justify their contracts. Jeter hasn't come close to justifying his contract, but the Yankees aren't suffering. If you refuse to sign any player that might not live up to his contract, you will not have a team. That's not how a big market team plays ball. The Mets wouldn't have contended for the NLCS if they didn't had out contracts that won't be "lived up to". Blowing it up and starting over was an option back in the late 90's and early 00's, when the Cubs farm was stacked and the major league roster was barren. That was not an option this year, not with a barren farm and major league roster with as much talent as its ever had. Starting over would just delay the Cubs chances of ever actually winning for at least an additional 5 years over what they already are.

It's an extremely small price to pay. Aramis could still be very productive, but he won't get this money again. If he opted out, it would be because he's tired of Chicago. If he puts up 4 straight 900+ OPS seasons, and the market does not take a serious dip, I bet he could easily get more money by opting out. A 3 year deal at $15m per would not be out of the question.

Absolutely - Hendry needs to ignore his scouts. But at least he has a bit of data to support a slower DECLINE in 3rd basemen... the thing I wonder about peak analysis is what cosideration is given to the fact that so many players are out of the league before they are 30. in other words, do good players peak later than average players? not scientific by any means, but from years of pooring over conventional stats, it seems to me the very good players tend to peak right about where Hendry said they do, average players peak much younger and are out of baseball at ages when the good players are still putting up fantastic stats. It doesn't take very long to go through a list of today's really good players and see the vast majority of them peaked at 26 or 27.

It's an extremely small price to pay.

The sitting on profits arguement doesn't mean much. They don't have a treasure chest of cash they've been holding onto that they'll use for a rainy day. They still have to run this business on an operational basis, spending less than they take in. As long as they can maintain the payroll level, there's no reason why they shouldn't up it this year. If they were planning to slash in 2008, then we're in trouble.

The problem is you are talking about one year.

I still don't understand why you feel that way. If they ink Schmidt and manage to deal for a corner OFer of value, will your opinion change? No. MLB is currently giving birth to a flock of albatrosses. This pattern of giving so-so players superstar contracts based on one great year is going to come to an ugly end. There's no way this level of stupidity can remain unacknowledged for long. As long as the Cubs don't give so-so players superstar contracts, it's not an issue for them. With $115m available this year, blowing up and starting fresh was a bad idea.

By the time it becomes an issue, I might actually prefer he opts out and signs elsewhere. Ramirez's best years will be behind him by then.

I said it before and I'll say it again, I have no problem with this opt-out.

I grew up on 2%, switched to skim in my teen years, and after the initial obviousl difference, I'm perfectly happy with skim.

Carlos Lee will weigh 350 lbs in 6 years. And he will probably still be driving in close to 100 runs by then too. Close to a 100 for a middle of the order mega money guy is crap.

I never would have thought he would have made $10 million in his career a couple seasons ago. If he repeats 2006, they'll be fine. But how likely is that to happen?

I'm fired up because I despise the idea of Counsell being a target. I don't really buy the Lugo/Counsell comps, but I also am not much of a fan of Lugo. He's an upgrade over Izturis, but I don't see much benefit to having him play CF.

The espn radio sportscenter updates keep including lines like "I guess this wasn't good enough" and then they play a clip of Jeter doing something. One time the update guy lead the story about Morneau with "maybe they should write in a rule that number 2 hitters aren't eligible. I think it's hysterical when people get their panties in a bunch of mvp, cy young, hall of fame, ROY etc type awards. They are meaningless. I don't care who wins. But I do like seeing Yankeephiles cry.

He threw an early INT that lead to a TD. The Bears won 10-0 though, so that doesn't make sense.

He's still not addressing the walk, which is the core of his OBP problem. He doesn't respect the walk as an offensive weapon.

It's not that they picked others over him, it's the way they talked about him. Wanting to see more middle ground from him is just plain stupid. He's had plenty of middle ground games in his career. But why wouldn't you want great games. These guys are licking Romo's butt, and they are not crediting Grossman for anything. They flat out said the Bears don't need him to win, so he gets no credit. But the Jets need Pennington to win games for them, so he gets credit for the wins. They keep saying he was bad against the Jets, and don't even acknowledge that he had a great game vs NY.