davearm

It's important because it determines who controls their own destiny. Exactly. If you trail in the loss column, you can't make the playoffs without outside help, no matter what you do. We can debate whether or not this is important in baseball, since most everyone assumes the Brewers will lose at least a few more times, but it's pretty apparent why folks talk about it.

Well said. If the A's get their money's worth on Blevins, then hooray for them. The Cubs definitely are getting their money's worth on Kendall. Say what you will about the guy, but if Kendall hadn't filled the offensive sinkhole at C, then the Cubs are almost certainly looking up at the Brewers right now.

I wouldn't assume that making 30 or so starts is harder on a guy's arm than making 70 or so relief appearances. In fact the exact opposite may be true. John Smoltz felt that way.

I don't necessarily disagree, but why? And do the reasons for that apply to Marmol? Because having two dominant pitches outwieghs having 3 lackluster pitches? To help the Cubs by making this transition he'd need to be close to a 100 ERA+ pitcher. If his ERAs under 4.50 hed provide more value as a starter. (roughly speaking i havent run the numbers to be precise). that allows Hill to be expendable, or Marshall to get a real shortstop. Who ever said a guy with 3 lackluster pitches would make a good starter?

What does everyone think of Josh Kroeger these days? I thought he was one of the more intriguing prospect the Cubs had in the upper minors for much of the year. Will he get a shot at being an everyday RF in the bigleagues someplace next year? Will the Cubbies find a role for him, or give him a chance to win their RF job? Does he have any trade value? Or is he simply headed for minor league free agency again?

The 30 run upgrade is immaterial. You should've just said, "I have my doubts that the Cubs can spend 13 million dollars this off season," and left it at that. Therefore if a 30 run upgrade is out there to be had, then they're going to have to get creative freeing up several existing commitments first. This leads directly into the discussion of which guys we could foist off on Baltimore in the deal -- you know, the one you said "isnt all that important."

LOL. I guess the last ditch Hail Mary is to try and play this off as a reading comprehension problem. First you said, Then you continued with, Then you reinforced that nonsensical opinion with, If you'd pull your head out of the sand, you might just come to realize that adding 13M to the budget isn't the only viable option here. I'm not holding my breath, of course.

it obviously is that simple. You either can or you cant...it isnt very complicated to grasp that. I guess its hard for you to realize that you can either spend the 13 million or not. Theres no middle ground. You can't sort of spend it. If theres 13 mil to spend you make the deal. if there isnt you dont. its pretty damn simple.[/b] You can't seriously be this dense. We can pretty confidently say the Cubs do not have an extra $13M a year lying around. Apparently you believe the issue dies right there. But the real issues is, can the Cubs find a way to shed enough of their existing commitments to take on a new commitment to Tejada. It's not a question of if they'll spend the money, but how. Resource Allocation 101. It's pretty damn simple.

You're grossly oversimplifying the situation by asserting that either the Cubs can afford Tejada's salary or they can't. All or nothing. Black or white. Meanwhile you're missing 13M shades of gray. The people that are trying to find ways to partially offset salary get it. They understand that even if the Cubs don't have $13M to spend, the discussion is *not* pointless. They grasp that the discussion then turns to how much they *can* spend, and how to get to that number.

In what is alternate universe is budget meaningless? Budget is tantamount, and especially so in light of the ownership issues. The Cubs might not be able to absorb Tejada's $13M, but $5M or whatever might just be manageable. And that is precisely why the folks that are focusing on ways to balance salaries with the likes of Jacque Jones and Scott Eyre are on the right track here. A Tejada trade has to make sense from a baseball perspective *and* a financial perspective. You're focusing only at the former, and ignoring the latter. And it amazes me that you can't see the potential value (emphasis on potential) of Felix Pie, after witnessing the impact highly-ranked prospects like Braun and Pence have had for our rivals this year. It's totally plausible that Pie for Tejada looks terrible 2 months into 2008, if Pie hits the ground running and Tejada continues to slide. Not that the Hendry bashers need more ammo.

You gonna pick up that extra $30M out of your own checking account? If not then kindly refrain from making ignorant and completely uninformed comments about the Cubs' payroll situation. You don't know what the budget is going to be next year, and neither does anyone else here. One thing we do know is that there aren't any significant contracts coming off of the books this offseason, or any time soon, making Tejada's contract a potentially major sticking point.

Wouldn't it be something if Selig and co. tried to ram a lowball bid from Canning down the Trib's throat, but Canning couldn't get approved by the owners? I know this sounds totally ridiculous and completely implausible, but these guys have their own franchise values to be concerned about. At some point enough of them might rebel against Selig strongarming a club's ownership into taking less than market value on a sale. You can be sure the thought will occur, "if the Trib has to take $650M when the Cubs are really worth $900M or $1B, what does that do to the value of *my* franchise?"

THT: Evaluating the Evaluators Well, we do. MMP affects different hitters differently. Park effects have to be much more granular than just looking at a run-scoring environment if you want to look at ability, i.e., what a player would do in a neutral context. I think this was basically said, but if you want to look at how valuable Biggio has been, you have to see how much his offensive contribution is worth at Minute Maid Funhouse. If the ultimate and obvious goal in MLB is wins, then you need to look at how how much a run means to a win at a certain ballpark. It depends whether you want to target a player's ability or how valuable he's been. This is the difference between a projection, and something like VORP. Do you want to look backwards, or forwards? At least, that's how I understand it. And being a weak stat-head at best, I'm sure Meph will correct me if need be. What I want to do is have a basis for an apples-to-apples, park-independent comparison of Player A to Player B. So if I say, for example, "Todd Helton is a better hitter than Carlos Delgado, " and you respond by saying, "well yeah, look at the park Helton hits in," where do we go from there?

The current state of the art in defensive metrics revolves around a few competing methods for analyzing play-by-play data. This is guys actually sitting in front of monitors watching replays of every batted ball from every game for the entire MLB season, and, using their judgement coupled with standardized guidelines, scoring fielders based on whether a given type of batted ball could or could not have been successfully fielded by an average player at a given position, and whether the ball in question actually was or was not successfully fielded by the player being evaluated. The end result of such an exhaustive endeavor can be quite detailed. A particular SS may be shown to be very good going into the hole, only average going up the middle, poor on slowly-hit barehanded chances, terrific on popups toward the OF, etc. etc. Popular thinking these days is that basically any defensive metric that isn't rooted in PBP data is obsolete and marginally valuable. And now I'll stand aside as these thoughts are mercilessly shredded by the resident expert(s).

If I'm understanding you correctly, the park adjustments you're describing do not lend themselves to the sort of apples-to-apples player comparison that you'd want and expect them to. What you're telling us is that park-adjusting Travis Hafner's numbers tells us how much better he was at Jacob's Field than the average hitter would've been at Jacob's Field. Well, how good would Derrek Lee have been at Jacob's Field? Or Ryan Howard, or Prince Fielder, or David Eckstein? Park adjusting each of those other guys' numbers in the manner you describe gives us no clue. All we know is how good each guy was, relative to the average hitter, at his own home park. We don't get any sense of how good a certain guy would've been at some specific other park. In order to compare Hafner to Lee to Howard to Fielder to Eckstein while neutralizing park effects, we'd want to know how each guy's production would translate in a neutral/average hitting environment (the adjustment you state is *not* being made), no? I guess the bottom line is this: who cares how Biggio produced at MMP, compared to the average hitter, if we have no sense of how the majority of players in MLB would've produced at MMP? What I really need to know is how good Biggio would've been if you took away the advantages and disadvantages particular to MMP. If I do the same for everyone else in baseball, only then will I have a proper basis for comparing Biggio to everyone/anyone else.

Probably because Pena was horrible in a part-time role in BOS.

Best definition yet. Zambrano may give you the best chance of any Cub starter for an epic 1-hit CG, but he also gives you the best chance of being down 7 by the end of the 2nd. I'll take Lilly and the near certainty of being in the game throughout.

AMEN. It's great that the guy's getting a few hits now, but he was killing the Cubs with his anemic bat the whole time he was here. Hendry should be applauded for correcting the problem as quickly as he did.

Well if you're out looking for a point, you can stop looking now because there is none. Booing is a raw, emotional response stoked by the heat of the moment, not a rational, pragmatic one that's been reflected upon at length. For better or worse, fans at the ballpark are emotionally invested in the Cubs, and the outcome of the game, and one way or another that emotion is going to bust through. Ideally it will take the form of clapping, cheering, high-fiving, and fist pumping because the players are performing well, the team is winning, and the fans are ecstatic. The alternative is what you saw yesterday. That doesn't make booing good or right, but it does make it at least understandable.

Unless Henry Blanco can be dumped (and assuming Hendry would even want to), Kendall and Soto seem to be an either/or proposition.

I hope Coats is in the lineup every time we play the Reds.

LOL... a nice strong dose of hypocrisy from the self-righteous one. except he's not using r and rbi in the post you're quoting. he's not even talking about offensive production. nice try though. As measures of pitching production, W-L and ERA are as bad or even worse than R and RBI are of offensive production. It's rather sad that you needed to have that explained to you.

LOL... a nice strong dose of hypocrisy from the self-righteous one.

This is something I've just never understood. I'm a bid dude - Prince Fielder Big - and played the OF/IF corners all my ball-playing life (through HS). I can move well, but just can't slide well. Never have. My slides have always resembled a jack-knife pool dive. Whatever the reason, I just could never do it. Just like Shaq can't shoot FT's. Why does the 2B/SS have the "right" to throw it through your teeth? Why does he "own" the airspace between the second and first base bags? There is no rule that instructs or suggest slides. It's stupid not to, as it gives the runner an advantage, but if I don't slide, I'm doing nothing wrong. Why should I take it in the teeth, Vance. It's a pretty arrogant point of view, and go ahead and hit me once. I've only got, what 6-8 front teeth you can knock out. If any middle infielder does that, I can kick his ass out every singe time I run into you at 2B. And I won't even bother sliding. I'll just plain Albert Belle his ass. Once one throw hits me, I've got nothing to lose. That 2B has his life and posterity. :twisted: The 2b/ss has every right to throw the ball to 1B. You have every right to be in the baseline (although this part gets hazy once you've been put out). But the reality of the situation is that you bear the risk of being drilled in the mug as you and the 2b/ss go about exercising your respective rights. Whether or not to expose yourself to that risk is your choice. But if you choose to do so, just don't be mad at the other guy if/when the inevitable occurs.

Phillips just needs to throw the ball and not worry about the runner. If the throw hits him, it hits him. Either way there should be no hard feelings. Each guy's just doing his job.