Elrhino

Giving up exendible or inferior talent to obtain superior talent isn't a waste. If you're so optimistic as to conclude decisively that Prior coming back is not a matter of if, but when, then Guzman is going to waste away with this franchise. A swap of Cedano for Tejada at SS is a no brainer. Its not just about this year, its down the road as well. The Cubs are going to need to add bats in the lineup this offseason, and they're going to have to pay a premium price to do it. Its just a fact. They shouldn't back themselves into a corner thinking they can only accomplish that in the months of December - February. That's how you find yourself deciding between Jacque Jones and Preston Wilson. I'm happy with what Cedano has provided so far ... which gives all the more incentive to sell high, because he does not project to be that great of a player.

Baseball's best statisticians claim they can account for 60%

This brings up a question I have .... In a game earlier this season, I can't remember the exact one ... Pierre led off the game bunting for a single. Walker makes a quick out without advancing Pierre. DLee comes up to bat and quickly gets behind 1-2 in the count. The pitcher starts throwing over to first every other pitch to hold Pierre on, knowing that Pierre is expecting a breaking ball on a 1-2 count. Result? DLee comes back from a 1-2 count for a walk, with the pitcher obviously distracted by Pierre. The result of the walk leaves Pierre at 2nd, Lee at 1st with Barret up (Aram was out) with 1 out .... Pierre steals third the very next pitch off a great jump (which advances Lee to 2nd), and the catcher makes an errant, rushed throw to third. As the ball trickles into the outfield, Pierre easily trots in home and Lee advances to 3rd with 1 out. Lee later scored on a lazy Barret sac fly. In essence, Pierre "manufactured" TWO runs in that inning ... both his and Lee's. I would like to know if there is a stat out there that would accredit Pierre in any way for Lee's. If not, then there really is a lot of weight to the fact that our current stats do not entirely take into account or reflect the impact of speed on the game.

Why would Clemens come to the Cubs? The line of teams willing to give him anything he wants for his services forms to the left behind Houston, New York and Boston.

I think he's going back home to be a Texas Ranger next year. They both need each other.

I think Z's emotions have gotten the better of him several times and caused him to turn small incidents into big innings. I recognize how good Z has been, but he can be better. I want him to hit his ceiling, and I think that's his last hurdle.

You don't know much about Mantle.

Is Mickey Mantle known as the guy who drank til his liver blew up? Or is it perhaps possible that he meant more to some people than just another alcoholic and womanizer jock?

Maybe its just "good ole day syndrome" but as a 30 year old, I'm starting to look back with a new appreciation towards the baseball players I grew up with when I was a young kid playing little league and high school ball. I think the baseball historians are going to look back at the pre steroid late-80's and early 90's as a very good age for baseball in the character of the players and the way they played the game. Kirby. Sandberg. Larkin. Ripken. Orel. Mattingly. Ozzie. Molitor. Joe Carter. Yount. Winfield. Brett. Gwyen. We had our Rickey's and Dwights and Strawberrys too, but by and large the era produced a rather likable group of stars. Yeah, I know, some of these guys were overrated and overhyped by the media ... every generation has had them, but they weren't a bad group of guys to be the face of the sport.

Cuban was on Dallas Sports Radio earlier this week, and he commented that he has hired an entire team of statiscians to help him track and develop data that isn't readily used in the NBA. For example, everyone uses 3 pt. % as a barometer of how well a team shots the 3 pt. shot. Cuban took it one step further and broke down the 3 pt. shot into specific zones ... the corner 3 pt. shot, the angle 3 pt. shot and the straight away 3 pt. shot. They broke down San Antonio's 3 point % and noticed that while San Antonio is a pretty good 3 point shooting team based on overall 3 pt. %, they are significantly much poorer at shooting from the angle. So the Mavs incorporated it into their gameplan the last time they played the Spurs, and guarded the straight away 3 pointers closely at the expense of letting the Spurs have the angle 3 pointer. I looked up the box score from the last time the Mavs and Spurs faced off, and sure enough the Spurs shot significantly worse on their 3 pt. shots that night than they have for the season.

I always remember Murray broadcasting the first night game at Wrigley Field. Morgana The Kissing Bandit ran onto the field to kiss Sandberg, and as security was leading her out Murray quipped "He lost her in the lights."

Cuban wanted to buy the Pirates, as he's been a lifelong Pirate fan. He backed out and jokingly (or perhaps not so jokingly) claims his wife threatened divorce if he bought another professional sports franchise. Maybe if the Mavs won an NBA title and he would move on to another vanity project, but other than that I don't see him owning an MLB franchise. I would love to see it though. He's supposedly a huge data geek. I could see Cuban being a huge sabermetrics believer, and would put in upper management to reflect it.

Even the guy who writes for Maxim knows how bad Neifi and Jacques are, yet its lost on Dusty and Hendry.

I accept the fact that this was a dry free agent crop, but the problem is that this isn't just an offseason problem. The outfield has been horrendous for the past 24 months. The bullpen has been horrendous for the past 24 months. This has been a boat rowing in circles for the past 2 years, and it doesn't like like its about to right itself any time soon.

So, how much is Prior going to be asking for in 2008? $18/season? 20?

And they would/should have valid concern.

The only place I see Wood accepting a trade is to the Rangers, so he can go back home to Arlington.

At this point we just have to slap together whatever short term/cheap RF we can and PRAY that the Phillies flop so badly out of the gate that they try to get Abreu's $13 million off the books before the trading deadline. Corey and Hildago platoon would be hilarious. Combine Corey's .254 OBP with Hildago's .289 ... those bases would not get clogged. They would be squeeky clean.

Corey can take the all the instruction in the world, it still wont change the fact that he's just not a natural baseball player. He's the classic toolsy athletic player who doesn't have any natural feel for the game. There have been thousands of these guys that have gone through the MLB through the years, and there will be thousands more. The only difference is that instead of calling them the next Odibe McDowell, we'll call them the next Corey Patterson. And this wasn't just one bad year, he's had these problems since day 1. He's always been a highly rated prospect more due to his tools than his production, dating all the way back to the minors. They are the epitome of what the Sabermetrics disciples are supposed disciplined and objective enough to discern, yet somehow when its your prospect on your team people even the most skeptical get star-struck by what could be. Let's face it, I don't care how atheltically gifted he is, if Hendry were to trade even the most throwaway pieces for a player on another team with Corey's numbers and salary and gave him a spot on the roster (much less dibs on the corner outfield spot) we would all be flipping out. The server would blow into tiny smithereens. Its because he came through the Cubs minor leagues and we've been tracking him for the last 5 years and reading all of his articles and dreaming about what could be that we have invested too much in him emotionally to face reality. With this many AB's in this bad of numbers ... if Corey were to turn his career around it would be the anamoly of all anamolies.

Unfortunately, I think it will be Preston Wilson. Talk about underappreciated, what I wouldn't have to get Moises Alou production out of our RF this year.

Marquis had a .326 OBP and .786 OPS last year at the plate. Corey had .254 OBP and a .602 OPS. But I'm not as down on Corey as some of the Corey-bashers are. I think with an offseason to clear his head he could fully become a Jason Marquis caliber hitter.

If 2/3 of our starting OF next year consists of Murton and CP, lordy will we ever massively suck.

If the Rangers offered Blalock and Danks, as reported in Dallas, I think that was the much better deal for the Marlins.

Knowing the Rangers they'd settle for Wainwright or Hawksworth, instead. If that's the case, why haven't we offered Hill and Corey?

Confirm.