Mephistopheles

Sean Marshall has Chuck Finley on his you know...

2006: Corey Patterson, others i don't recall and i can't find the xls anywhere 2007: Brandon Moss, Claudell Washington, Gus Bell, Grady Sizemore 2008: David Green, Junior Felix, Gary Geiger, Bobby Tolan 2009: Jose Moreno, Mike Davis, Carlos Beltran, Pedro Valdes

Two things. 1.) We shouldn't have been in this situation in the first place (ie don't trade Ceda for Gregg). 2.) You keep Guzman. Wuertz is replaceable, fairly easily. So is Guzman if we keep him in a relief role. But with our five spot in the rotation being a combination of Sean Marshall and Aaron Heilman coupled with the fact that we have no starting pitching prospects in our system worth drek it's not completely out of the realm of possibility for Angel Guzman to end up with the most starts of the three. I really hope Angel gets a fair shake at getting the five slot. Lord knows if he's healthy he's the best man for the job.

C'mon Miguel. You're kidding yourself here. First of all, we'd be worse if we didn't make a single move, if only for the fact that we will be expected regress in quite a few areas next season. We weren't a 97 win team heading into the offseason and we certainly aren't one heading out of the offseason. Let's look branch by branch. 1.) Kevin Gregg to Kerry Wood This is a pretty poor downgrade. We go from one of the top ten relievers in the game, who's a good health guy at this point (shove it naysayers you're wrong) and go from a guy, who if we stretched it, would barely qualify among that top fifty relievers in the game. You could make a case for him being outside the top 100 if you wanted to. In the greater scheme of things, it probably costs a few runs in high leverage situations, thanks to Gregg being in the game in the seventh and eighth with a tough jam instead of Carlos Marmol. 2.) DeRosa and Edmonds to Miles and Bradley Well if you throw defense out the window, I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that we're any better. Mark DeRosa was very very very very very productive last season and Aaron Miles is Neifi Perez without the defense. Sure Bradley's better than Edmonds, except for the fact that Bradley's probably going to get hurt and Edmonds (and the Cubs CFers in general) produced top five centerfield numbers for the Cubs last season. We got a TON of production out of center field last year. The way I see it, Fukudome goes to center, and we still get Fukudome. So we're replacing our CF production with Milton Bradley, and giving Bradley just 500 PAs instead of 650 is a wash. Signing Bradley only let's us keep the offensive production we got in center last year - not improve on it. Our overall team defense might improve in the outfield, as Edmonds was a tree in center, but so is Bradley. I am really seeing these moves as lateral at best and more expensive. I think any improvement we're going to get is going to be from resurgent Derrek Lee and Kosuke Fukudome campaigns, as both players (especially KF) played well below their potential in 2008. 3.) Marquis to Heilman There's no improvement here. We're the same. Marquis and Heilman are interchangeable and this is another lateral move, albeit a cheaper-ish one cash wise. Heilman may end up with a slightly better RA, but the difference is made up in Marquis' elite SP bat, similar to Fat Z. 4.) Harden It's Harden, not Hardin. He's already hurt, to expect more than we got last year is foolish. 5.) Gaudin blows. Shark is good unless he remembers that he doesn't get whiffs. Guzman's an unknown at this point. I do think there's a chance he's the number five by May in the current setup.

Hendry probably could have had his pick of the litter 3 years ago. You can't really crucify Hendry on this guys. Had he traded them then and they became good, you'd crucify him. He took a gamble that many people would have been willing to take (on Pie and Rich). Rich Hill was outstanding for a year and half and looked poised to break out last season. Michael Wuertz and Ronny Cedeno never had much value to begin with so it's irrelevant.

From the fun projection bag. ZiPS is generally one of the higher regression based projection systems among pitchers. It has him at a 2.37 ERA and a 12.9 K/9. That rate has been surpassed twice in major league history by a starting pitcher for a season. Period. '99 Pedro and '01 Unit. In fact, only three pitchers have ever had seasons within 1.0 K/9 of that rate, those two and KW's rookie season.

C'mon Abuck, you're smarter than that.

It doesn't matter. We still have Michael Wuertz on our roster, only his name is Kevin Gregg.

no.

Thats about what he's hit over his last 800 PAs since he took 2006 off due to injury.

.311/.395/.544 - Matt Wieters .302/.365/.500 - Jody Gerut (in PECTO!) .278/.386/.486 - Elijah Dukes All three with EqA's over .300.

hasn't pecota been projecting zambrano to have an ERA over 4.00 for years now? i guess they were pretty close the last couple of years. they've got zambrano, dempster and lilly (and marshall too) in the low 4's, which would make for a fine rotation. pecota HATES samardzija but it probably has no idea what the hell to do with him. Well remember, PECOTA is the middle of the projection bell curve. Given some variance, we'd expect at least one of the four to be under 4 with near certainty. Last year they had Zambrano at 3.81 and in 2007 they had him at 3.84. This is the first year since 2002 that PECOTA has had him over a 4.00 ERA, I believe.

Marshall will be the number five in the end.

Josh Vitters' top comps: Craig Repoz, Eddie Williams, Mark Lewis, Kelly Gruber What a list! Let's track the PECOTA projections for one Felix Pie over the last three years 2007 .288/.342/.480 2008 .291/.344/.479 2009 .271/.329/.435 Damn. We are projected to have one starter with an ERA under 4.00, Rich Harden.

You don't get it. I never said he was one overall. Jesus christ. Besides minor league success rate doesn't map to major league success rate with any usefulness with respect to guys who steal often. 90% of stealing bases is knowing when to go and when not to go. In the minors guys are given the green light the entire time so they can learn things like that. He stole frequently in the minors and didn't always run in opportune times for success. It's an acquired art. Not to mention advanced scouting reports on pitchers' moves, slidesteps, delivery time and catchers' pop times simply don't exist in the minors to the extent they do in the majors. He's not the fastest base runner, but he's one of the smartest, so stuff like this is crucial to him getting thrown out or not.

I didn't write it off. Read the quote I said it was notable...meaning it MEANS something. Why don't you stop fishing for ways to crucify me and read my damn posts.

To put the #s into perspective, the 41/47 rate he had the first two years would be the second best among players with at least 45 SBAs since 1950 - second only to Carlos Beltran. His 55/67 rate outside those six weeks would still place him in the top 20. That's the top 0.1% and 2% of all base stealers. respectively. In fact if you want to throw in the six weeks as well, which had nothing to do with my comment, he's still in the top 10% of all base stealers.

i know i couldn't be referring to his career 55-12 mark outside that timeframe or the 87% success rate he had the first two years in his career.

i was talking about for his career.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/#pecota_wms Maybe I should re-up my subscription...

al leiter had a pretty damn good run of things from the mid to late 90s

warp is brar, frar and prar more or less.

pie and hills value isnt nearly as high as it was last offseason. you cant fault hendry here guys

i find it entertaining

what if i told you that it was pujols' idea to get khalil greene? but it wasn't.