Mephistopheles

?????????

oh please stop having blind faith. your a cubs fan.

lol catcher is a defensive position. c'mon i thought we all graduated from that school of thought

won't happen. clements got a good enough bat to DH if he can't catch. he may have the most raw power of any catcher on the planet. majors, minors or amateurs.

Buccholz+ for Oswalt. It's a win-win move for both organizations. The Astros aren't going anywhere for awhile and the Red Sox don't want to wait for Buccholz to produce at the ML level.

no duh.

No it's not difficult. I just don't care enough to read everything.

yeah here's another hole we have to fix and probably won't. With the way Ryan Doumit is hitting, I would expect that Ronny Paulino could be had pretty easilly. He's not hitting great but he has some offensive upside. Eric Munson is another decent option, I guess. Of course one of Salty and McCann would be lovely.

i musta missed it. or it was in a part of a post i didnt read. it was me vs like 3 guys at one time.

depends on your assessment of Marmol. I've thought for at least a year now that Marmol's repertoire was better suited for the bullpen, so I'd have put him there coming into this year. The alternates for the rotation would've been (for me) Guzman and Gallagher. the cubs minor league system could have produced an era near five. marquis will probably be close to that. well he'll have to put up a second-half ERA above six for that forecast to pan out and thats not all that unlikely. hes not very good as you know ;)

depends on your assessment of Marmol. I've thought for at least a year now that Marmol's repertoire was better suited for the bullpen, so I'd have put him there coming into this year. The alternates for the rotation would've been (for me) Guzman and Gallagher. the cubs minor league system could have produced an era near five. marquis will probably be close to that. time will tell. point is, marquis had a stellar april. A great may, and a bad june. I think tommorow's start will tell us alot . one start will never tell us a lot. he wasnt great in may.

depends on your assessment of Marmol. I've thought for at least a year now that Marmol's repertoire was better suited for the bullpen, so I'd have put him there coming into this year. The alternates for the rotation would've been (for me) Guzman and Gallagher. the cubs minor league system could have produced an era near five. marquis will probably be close to that.

marquis is a signing that should not have been made. hes not really an upgrade over say marmol in the rotation.

well your kind of being narrow in that assumption. Derosa wasn't simply a value at the time for his offense at 2B, he was also valuable for being able to backup at multiple positions, and do it well I might add. yeah and those few outings don't amount to much. not even close to 20 runs. no where close. few outings? in his career, derosa has had the following experience Total as 1B 41.0 IP Total as 2B 1204.0 IP Total as 3B 1312.1 IP Total as SS 829.2 IP Total as LF 79.0 IP Total as RF 787.2 IP i was talking about in one individual season

Yes! I was waiting for someone to say that. I agree that it is there. Now if he misses exactly half the season and the other half we let Theriot play. Using just projected EqA. RART (Runs Above Ryan Theriot) 42.7 470 out season by Durham 34.2 235 outs by Durham + 235 outs by Theriot 8.3 470 out season by DeRosa Of course there is defense.

well your kind of being narrow in that assumption. Derosa wasn't simply a value at the time for his offense at 2B, he was also valuable for being able to backup at multiple positions, and do it well I might add. i agree. he made aramis' injury earlier this year palatable. in fact he's probably better than aramis is at that mosition defensively. theriot filled in at third and looked like dog poop. we would of had an issue at the hot corner if not for mark aramis missed 15 games. the run value of his versatility there over say scott moore isn't going to be that high.

key words in that post... also "expected difference" probably assumed DeRosa will fall back to career norms, and I think that scouting at least help diagnose whether or not that is likely to happen[/b] yes scouting....the only business in the world where there's no accountability..no offense UK.

well your kind of being narrow in that assumption. Derosa wasn't simply a value at the time for his offense at 2B, he was also valuable for being able to backup at multiple positions, and do it well I might add. yeah and those few outings don't amount to much. not even close to 20 runs. no where close.

In the vast majority of circumstances, "protection" has been shown to have an effect small enough that it doesn't show through the noise. and durhams pre and post giants stats are identical. his results were exactly the same. durham actually spent most of 2006 protecting bonds.

The only issue that hasnt been brought into this but I can't let go is who knows if Durham even wanted to come here? He may love SF and wanted to stay there. Maybe Hendry was interested and Durham said "thanks but no thanks." If that is the case, obviously hypothetical, DeRosa might have been his best option. ill agree with that but with a lot of durhams value being hidden in walks. im not sure its a good assumption. sure hendry could have tried and was rejected. if thats the case then theres little wrong with the signing.

for what it's worth i also said it wasn't bad. i said it was useless and overkill. if we're going to upgrade spend the extra few million and do it right. the expected difference between theriot and derosa was about 10 runs. the expected difference between derosa and durham was about 20 runs. the upgrade from derosa to durham wasnt expensive. ss was the big glaring hole and we did nothing to close it. not one damn thing.

thanks for putting in cubspeak but, at the same time, all that other stuff is rather flukish. if derosa continues to outperform durham for the entire season, then i think you have to give some credit to hendry for preferring derosa to durham. i dont think so. because if durham plays like he normally does the rest of the year and derosa plays like his career avg the rest of the year, derosa will barely outperform him. Durham is having the worst year of his career and has the lowest obp since his rookie season. We can all agree that DeRosa has exceeded expectations this year. DeRosa's numbers are the expected numbers for Durham. If Durham crashes and burns next year again, then Ill say good job hendry. This really isnt that big of a difference. DeRosa wasnt too expensive like Soriano. It just probably wasnt the best move. i think the durham versus derosa decision is a closer one than you're making it out to be. for one, durham is three years older than derosa. also, while it's true derosa was coming off a career year, it was his first season of full-time play, and i suppose it's possible that something clicked for him...and it's not like the extra ab's exposed him or anything. i mean, i would have preferred durham too, but it's not like hendry opted for a 39 year old derosa over a 26 year old chase utley or some other indefensible decision. i didnt say it was that big of a difference, just 20 runs or so

Durham is three years older, and more likely to decline, plus he was coming off a career-type year. And regardless of that, there was a big money difference (more than $3M per) between their price tags. no he wasnt more likely to decline. thats the whole point. a lot of durhams value was in his ability to draw 70 walks a full season. walk rates dont slip as much as other things do in a career. his walk rate hasnt faltered at all this season. As bad as Durhams has been this season, hes a league average hitter and has down as well as the expected level of production from derosa. THATS WHEN HE BOTTOMS OUT! DeRosa's career crap line pointed to a lower expected production level.

Obviously not, or he would be performing this year. probabilistic outcomes. so weighing the probability that a Derosa having good year vs. Durham having a good year is not a skill, but a crapshoot? give me a break. lucky you aren't the gm or we'd have the awesome tandem of lugo and durham maning the Middle Infield! Yeah, what our arrogant friend doesn't understand is that it's not all about projected numbers. Yeah, PECOTA is a nice tool, but if a player has really made a breakthrough due to a change in his approach at the plate, the PECOTA numbers are going to be biased w.r.t. his previous performance. Ray Durham has suddently gotten old, and Marcus Giles is off steroids now. That's why scouting is also a part of the game. you dont need pecota to see durhams career norms were derosa's career year. i cant believe some of you are saying derosa was the right signing.

thanks for putting in cubspeak but, at the same time, all that other stuff is rather flukish. if derosa continues to outperform durham for the entire season, then i think you have to give some credit to hendry for preferring derosa to durham. i dont think so. because if durham plays like he normally does the rest of the year and derosa plays like his career avg the rest of the year, derosa will barely outperform him. Durham is having the worst year of his career and has the lowest obp since his rookie season. We can all agree that DeRosa has exceeded expectations this year. DeRosa's numbers are the expected numbers for Durham. If Durham crashes and burns next year again, then Ill say good job hendry. This really isnt that big of a difference. DeRosa wasnt too expensive like Soriano. It just probably wasnt the best move.