VanceJergins

Hendry....phone....now. :roll: I move to ban roll eyes. Well. I don't mind them. I just don't understand why they're being used here. :roll:

Hendry....phone....now. :roll: You got me there.

Rotoworld: Hendry....phone....now.

It's only fair? Says who? The reason for discarding the worst month is not b/c it is the worst month. It is b/c it was his first month in the bigs. All I'm doing is ignoring his initial ML action, not throwing out months based on performance. When we talk about Murton do we throw out his one horrible month and his best month when thinking about the numbers he puts up next season? Nope. People tend to look at his 2nd half or just flat out ignore his horrible June as he was "making adjustments" or "Dusty forced free swinging on him." Funny how Murton gets that break from a lot of NSBB posters, but Pagan does not. Murton ended up at .297/ .365/ .444/ .809. Those are good final stats, Pagans were not.

Can you trade for a guy who was just tendered? Wilkerson might be available on the relative cheap. Would you do one of Marshall / Marmol / Mateo straight-up for Wilk? Wilkerson is a FA now. He can be signed by any team. You don't have to trade to get him now. Hopefully Hendry is looking into signing him. If he's healthy coming off of shoulder surgery, he could be a great addition to this team. Tendered means he's not a FA. Players that were non-tendered are FA's......right?

Other than the reason DeRosa came to Chicago was to start at 2B. When a 28-year-old .285/.361/.448 career good defensive second baseman comes on the market, you make sure you revise any plans you may once have had for Mark DeRosa-types. Alternatively, you could do yourself a favour and have made better plans for Mark DeRosa-types in the first place, plans not involving a starting job and a three year commitment. Hendry would have to go back on his word to make that happen. DeRosa came to start at 2B. It's not as simple as just making a decision based on numbers. Hendry would kill his relations with DeRosa, DeRosa's agent, and harm his image with future potential FAs. I wouldn't have locked in on DeRosa with Giles on the market (which was rumored at the beginning of the offseason). Unfortunately the decision has been made. There is no going back. Maybe if Hendry sat down with him and said, "Hey...listen....Giles is better than you...but you're better than Izturis....how's SS sound?", it would all work out.

We could get Giles, Infante, and Wilkerson off the scrapheap and our offseason could be complete.

Heck Manny Rameriz always wants to be traded and he does just fine in Boston. Let Jones stew for awhile and if the Cubs can't move him, tough. Did you really just compare Manny and Jacque? Its one thing to keep a sulking/unhappy guy with a career 1.100 OPS, its another to keep an unhappy Jacque Jones. Exactly, and there's no way Church or Gross would cost that much. At most it would be something like Marshall or Marmol and a B prospect, which is very expendable.

Seriously, if we can't get Church, I don't want Jones leaving town. If he could put up a plus .800 OPS again, I think we'd all be more than happy. 06 was only the 2nd time he's put up a +.800 OPS in his career.

I'd like Church, Gabe Gross, or possibly Wilkerson

Before 06 he put up OPS's of: 05: .756 04: .872 03: .844 02: .839 Compare that to Jones 05: .757 04: .742 03: .797 02: .852 I think if we cant get Church, Wilkerson is worth a gamble if we can also get a decent backup plan.

Along those lines.... Matthew Pouliot at Rotoworld: EDIT: Thats from the article "Potential Non-Tenders" discussing the possibility of him being non-tendered. How much of a risk would it be to sing Wilkerson for CF? His power increase last year with 15 HR in 320 AB's despite still being injured, but his AVG and OBP were awful. If healthy he could be very good for our lineup, but that may be a big if.

Oh my goodness. At first glance I thought that said Jose Macias and I about crapped a brick. I thought the wonder twins were going to be reunited.

We should get Church and Wilkerson and let them battle it out.

Because they are commodities with value that should not just be given away. The older they get, the less value they have.

There hasnt been much to keep track of. They've lost guys like Aurilia, but thats about it. Their pitching staff had a few career years last year and they still ended up under .500. And with Griffey on the steady decline, I'm not ready to take them seriously.

I completely agree. Boras is an idiot for thinking a non-FA who has never pitched in the MLB should get $15 million. $8 million is more than fair considering the circumstances. Boras isn't an idiot yet. He will be if he lets that offer get in the way of signing his client to the Sox. Heck, if he does get Boston to agree to the 15-per deal, he's a genius, right, (even if a smarmy one)? Yeah, thats true. I agree that he's only an idiot if he refuses to drop his $15 m demand. If he refuses to accept anything less than 10m, I'd still say he's an idiot.

I agree. To be honest, I'd give up as much as Marmol, Marshall, and Eyre just because I doubt Hendry would get anything useful out of those guys anyway.

I completely agree. Boras is an idiot for thinking a non-FA who has never pitched in the MLB should get $15 million. $8 million is more than fair considering the circumstances.

You honestly think, as it stands now (thats for wolf :wink: ) the Cubs are a 3rd place team? Yup, if that. The Cubs have done very little to address the glaring weaknesses that made them fail in 2006 (and 2005) including OBP and starting pitching in general. Neifi Perez - .266 OBP, 236 AB's with the Cubs Juan Pierre - .330 OBP, 699 AB's with the Cubs John Mabry - .283 OBP, 210 AB's with the Cubs Ronny Cedeno - .271 OBP, 534 AB's with the Cubs along with a hoarde of other players that saw significant starting in the cubs lineup, that shouldnt see any this coming year. Replace with Izturis - Career .295 OBP Soriano - Career .325 OBP Ward - Career .314 OBP DeRosa - Career .331 OBP League average OBP is around .330. I don't see how we got better OBP wise other then getting Lee's bat back in the lineup... Aside from Murton being very likely to improve his already good numbers, Soriano, Ward, and DeRosa all did significantly better last year, and its reasonable to assume at least of couple of them will be a little above career average...and even if not, thats still a decent improvement (+.03 for Izturis, -.005 for Soriano, +.03 for Ward, +.06 for DeRosa; extra .115 total) - especially considering the increased power.

You honestly think, as it stands now (thats for wolf :wink: ) the Cubs are a 3rd place team? Yup, if that. The Cubs have done very little to address the glaring weaknesses that made them fail in 2006 (and 2005) including OBP and starting pitching in general. if i read this i would think that the cubs havent signed anyone good, thankfully i know better Lilly and Marquis may not be Zambrano and Prior at their bests but they are better than running around the Minor League pitcher of the week out there. If the starting lineup stays healthy they will score a lot and get on base a lot especially when you dont have a [expletive] in the manager position saying walks only clog the bases How are they going to get on base a lot more? I don't see it Lilly and Marquis are not great pitchers. Lilly is ok, but a number 3-4 starter at best. We would have been better off signing Zito or Schmidt for $15-20 million and then using Marmol/marshall/guzman/prior out there for the last spot. Feel free to call me out in the season if I'm wrong, but I just don't see it and I am not going to get burned thinking the Cubs are better then they really are when the numbers don't say it. Also, I dont think Zito is $6-7 million better than Lilly, and I think we would have had to pay Schmidt a lot to play here instead of on the west coast.

You honestly think, as it stands now (thats for wolf :wink: ) the Cubs are a 3rd place team? Yup, if that. The Cubs have done very little to address the glaring weaknesses that made them fail in 2006 (and 2005) including OBP and starting pitching in general. if i read this i would think that the cubs havent signed anyone good, thankfully i know better Lilly and Marquis may not be Zambrano and Prior at their bests but they are better than running around the Minor League pitcher of the week out there. If the starting lineup stays healthy they will score a lot and get on base a lot especially when you dont have a [expletive] in the manager position saying walks only clog the bases How are they going to get on base a lot more? I don't see it Lilly and Marquis are not great pitchers. Lilly is ok, but a number 3-4 starter at best. We would have been better off signing Zito or Schmidt for $15-20 million and then using Marmol/marshall/guzman/prior out there for the last spot. Feel free to call me out in the season if I'm wrong, but I just don't see it and I am not going to get burned thinking the Cubs are better then they really are when the numbers don't say it. I'm not saying the Cubs havent made some bad decisions, but I just dont see how you can say they're worse off than the Brewers and Cardinals right now. Zambrano Hill Lilly Marquis Prior/Miller/Marshall is better off and less of a question mark than Carpenter Wells Reyes Wainwright ??? As far as offense goes, the Cubs have Lee, Ramirez, and Soriano that are complemented by an improving Murton, and a solid Barrett. The Cardinals have Pujols, a huge injury risk in Rolen, and a rapidly declining Edmonds that are complemented by a decent Encarnacion, and a question mark in Duncan. In my opinion, the Cubs are clearly the better team.

You honestly think, as it stands now (thats for wolf :wink: ) the Cubs are a 3rd place team?

Do you know if Walt is actively trying to upgrade any position players, or are they just focusing on pitching now?

A little pessamistic aren't we? I think he is stating the facts. Lilly + Marquis = 17+ Million. Why not just overpay for Zito with that $$$? Zambrano + Zito is a pretty good 1-2 punch. Zito just isn't that good. Lilly and Marquis will win more games together than Zito will. That's why overpaying with a 6 year deal is nonsense. Even the Mets won't do that. Yeah, but will they win more games that Zito and Marshall or Guzman would have? I think they might, but you cant just say more than Zito without someone to replace Marquis as well.