badnews

Cubs slapped around Campillo pretty good.

Adam Dunn has to get more money than Carlos Lee did, I'm pretty sure. I'm just curious, how come when it comes to the strikeout question, people always dump on Dunn so much more often than Ryan Howard? Also, of course, how the hell did the Dodgers not block this?

Good move for the Red Sox. Watching Buchholz pitch is painful. Plus every year it seems like they need about 9 starting pitchers to get through the year, this should help. I didn't agree with what they did with Masterson though.

Makes up for the fact that they were quite lucky last season. This is no different than last year. Hudson pretty much missed the end of last season and the playoffs, too. yeah, but last year they had Mr. career year Byrnes I still find it hilarious that they gave away Carlos Quentin so they could extend Byrnes. Whoops. Don't feel too bad, they did steal Chris Young away from CWS.... Plus the prospect they got from CWS for Carlos Quentin (Chris Carter) was packaged to Oakland in the Dan Haren trade. So there's no whoops....it worked out very well for the D'backs. I strongly disagree with your post. You can't do that. You have to judge every trade on its own merits. Furthermore, the Diamondbacks gave up Javier Vazquez who is legitimately a fine pitcher at a decent price. Why did the White Sox get ripped off because they actually had to give something up to get him? I think people are overrating Chris Young a little. Sure he has potential to do better things than he is doing but so far he's not. A .763 OPS last year and a .713 OPS this year, his offensive game is like Rickie Weeks's - dirt low batting average, good Isolated Discipline, fair enough power, but the batting average keeps everything down. Plus the fact that that prospect was the 6th guy in a 6 man deal doesn't make him more valuable. I hardly think the deal wouldn't have gotten done without him or anything. Carlos Quentin has a friggin' .952 OPS and 32 friggin' home runs. And they got a nothing prospect for him, really. They were trying to get Teixeira later, who isn't even as good as Quentin. That's a definite "whoops, my bad." I don't see how you can spin it any other way. If the Giants happen to rip off the Twins in a trade somewhere down the road it doesn't mean the Pierzynski trade wasn't a sack of crap.

I didn't say he was average, I could see where you might think that, but I said he was on the cusp of between a #2/#3 starter, and that's above average when you take all the pitchers in baseball. But I don't agree with you. You are going the old school route, like "Wins are great, who cares about ERA." He's been lucky and he's not even close to as good as he was billed before he came over. Not even remotely close. Look at FIP-ERA: Saunders - 1.52 Matsuzaka - 1.32 Floyd - 1.32 Duchsherer - 1.11 Wakefield - 1.10 Galarraga - 1.10 Perez, Oliver - 1.02 Lannan - 0.99 So his numbers aren't indicative of how he's pitched. To say otherwise is to engage in a Joe Morgan like whitewashing.

Since when does a bloated WHIP with a better ERA mean nothing? What does OPS against have to do with it when it's clear he's been lucky? Riuss Ortiz had a .657 OPS against in 2003. He walked 100 guys like every year and had a huge WHIP. Like 2001-2003 when his smoke and mirrors act was at its finest, what was it then?

Bronson Arroyo probably posted a 1.33 WHIP at some point with the Red Sox. Whooo hoooo. Look at his FIP. AL East FIP: Halladay 3.01 Beckett 3.38 Mussina 3.61 Sonnanstine 3.61 Burnett 3.65 Lester 3.68 Shields 3.71 Garza 4.17 Guthrie 4.21 Matsuzaka 4.22 And he was supposed to be the best pitcher on the planet. The hype was unreal. Now $100 million posting fee for Darvish? Oh I will laugh.

That's like saying "I'll take Russ Ortiz's numbers way back when he winning games." The numbers are there but they don't add up at all. He's not an ace, I think it's questionable if he's even a #2 pitcher, he might be a #3 pitcher the way he goes less than 6 innings as much as he does.

I don't think Matsuzaka is that good. He was supposed to be the best pitcher on the planet, he was supposed to have 8 pitches he could throw for strikes at any time. He was supposed to throw unhittable gyroballs and shotays or whatever you like, etc. He was a 4.40 ERA pitcher last year, he's a 1.33 WHIP guy this year, who walks way too many hitters and doesn't go deep into games nearly enough. I don't think he's particularly good. His FIP is 4.22. I don't see him having any kind of power jump like Matsui, his swing isn't tailored for it and he's more of a hitter like Iwamura than Matsui.

Did you just come in here to find my post to rip? Come on. I get frustrated with this board because it's like there's this secret junta devoted to propping Fukudome up. I have never seen anything like it on here. Usually objective and insightful analysis is the name of the game on this board. But when it comes to Fukudome a number of posters turn forget into analysis and just dish out stale platitudes. So I apologize if I offended you or the other poster. But that's just me: when people make excuses for Fukudome not performing and pretend like it's going to change in any significant way (for example I'm trying to judge if he's more of a .740 OPS guy in the long haul or a .770 OPS guy but the difference isn't big enough regardless) then I am going to get frustrated. Maybe you don't remember, anyone who questioned Fukudome's greatness earlier in the year got ganged up on here.

For the love of... I have never seen this board put on blinders the way it has with Fukudome. He's not "just in a slump." HE'S JUST NOT THAT GOOD. This is insane, it's like last year when the casual fan message boards wouldn't accept anything bad about Theriot. I'm sick of the excuses. Will someone please just give a date when you guys will FINALLY stop using the "Blah blah blah new country blah blah slump blah blah blah he'll figure it out" stuff, because I've heard it long enough and I'm sick of that crutch. Look, it's simple. He's like Akinori Iwamura. Neither are good producers. That's the end of it. The Cubs made a bad decision but I don't blame them, it seems like Japanese players have been overhyped ever since Ichiro. I feel sorry for the team that pays a $100 million posting fee for Darvish. Get Kosuke the hell out of the #2 spot. #7.

Who can tell. For every 1 Ryan Ludwick there's like 20 Ryan Shealys, Paul McAnultys, Justin Leones, etc.

Cute. A blister, now the back. Next update: "I was trying to compensate for my bad back while pitching and as a result developed cervical cancer."

Not making it easy to dismiss, is he?

I remember when Cards fans made a big deal out of Johnny Rodriguez because he had four good games or something.

I don't think Pie has much trade value at all. Think about what you'd want to give up for somebody like Jeremy Reed in 2006, that's pretty much where Pie is it seems. Heck, Carlos Quentin was a better prospect than Pie ever has been and Quentin fetched very little relatively in that trade.

Kendrick is kind of an odd one. I had thought he would follow the mold of Placido Polanco in 2005 and 2007, a guy who makes crazy contact and hits for crazy average but he doesn't make as much contact as I thought but still hits for crazy average. Throw out the Polanco/Pedroia comps I guess, he's his own beast.

I want an iron-clad guarantee on the Mesa starters for once. Say "The Mesa starters are (blank) and you can take that to the damn bank."

The Astros bumbled away Abreu too if I remember correctly. Apparently though, none of this is as bad as Brock. You'd think it was Babe Ruth all over again.

I actually don't expect much at this point from the rest of Lee's tenure as a Cub. Look at his power numbers away from Wrigley 2007-2008. Not good. The problem is, I've always been predisposed to shortchange 1st base. It's not a position that I think is a good idea to pay a ton of money for considering the *relative* ease of bargain shopping and getting above average production there. Another poster here said Teixeira was in line for a 7/150 contract and I agree that sounds about right. It doesn't seem like a wise use of resources. That kind of money I usually think should be spent on premium defensive positions. Plus, I think the importance of Teixeira's defense is overstated. He'd almost be a better value if he was a butcher at first base you'd have to think, because his defense is somewhat overrated, you get the feeling he's getting an extra $4-5 million a year just because of that "Gold Glove" tag. Now, I haven't crunched the numbers, so let me ask those who are inclined to do so. If Teixeira gets a 7/150 contract and Adam Dunn gets a 6/100 contract, would it be smarter to get Dunn for that price, put him at 1st base, and accept the fact that a little less offense and a drop in defense is worth saving that $50 million? I'm not saying it is. I'm asking if it would be. I wonder if Dunn will even get 6 years, it seems like the guy does not generate the excitement commensurate to his production.

I don't understand the cult of Lou Brock. It's supposed to be this deep wound for Cubs fans but I don't really care about it. Does Houston castigate themselves daily for not hanging on to Kenny Lofton?

He's #1 in ESPN News coverage though, and according to them that's a legitimate statistic. I don't remember them campaigning for Pedro to win the AL Cy Young Award in 2003 over Halladay if innings pitched doesn't matter to them to all. After that conversation on ESPN, Chamberlain left his start with some kind of shoulder problem, so now they're faced with the problem as to how to give us insignificant updates on his status if he's out for a while while still devoting 98% of their coverage to pictures of Brett Favre's airplane.

Have they hit an all-time low? I don't know who the [expletive] was, I had it on as background noise while I was working, my mistake, and this anchor was badgering Steve Phillips about how Joba Chamberlain should be the Cy frontrunner and he seemed legitimately stunned when Phillips didn't back him up. Phillips basically said Chamberlain wouldn't get enough innings to qualify since you need to do something exceptional as a closer all season and have all the starters to fall flat to win usually. Then the ESPN anchor said something like "Yeah, but Chamberlain's ERA is a run better than anyone else's, doesn't that make up for the fewer innings?" And Steve Phillips said no, and that Cliff Lee had a good track on the AL Cy Young Award and his ERA was nearly as good in double the innings and the guy gave some phony ass laugh and said "Hey, throw me a line here, I'm dying!" And I wondering, why the hell do I put this crap on in the first place?

Or maybe I'm just a person with different opinions from yours. This is what I regard as unnecessary and tiresome on message boards. Go through my post history, I don't take potshots like this at people. I don't understand why people can't disagree without bringing some personal attack into the equation. I can't just have opinions about baseball you don't care for, it has to way beyond that.

I think he was just making a little good fun out of the irony of the post and your name, not you individually... Nope, he was talking about badnews hasn't a good thing to say about a Cubs prospect since Pat Cline. Not true. I was a big proponent of Gallagher being too valuable to throw in there with 3 or 4 other guys. I had a lot of good things to say about Gallagher. Heck, I asked why couldn't he be the next Fausto Carmona.