badnews

I ask because in the Roberts thread I've seen the support for obtaining him steadily growing. As The Unfrozen Caveman lawyer used to say, this "frightens and confuses me." Much of what I've read on this board this offseason has been about saving money. I've seen the following statements a number of times: "We need to trade Jacque to free up money." "We need to trade Craig Monroe to free up money." "We need to trade Dempster to free up money." "We need to trade Marquis to free up money." Now what's interesting is for the most part, I haven't seen conditional approval of acquiring Payton based on the contingency we dump Marquis on them, but rather, unconditional approval. Considering the embarrassingly large amount of money Payton is due this season, I am wondering two things, 1) How widespread is the support for obtaining Payton, and 2) How does one justify the urgency expressed in dumping salary (to the point where people have suggested eating part of the contracts) just to give it to Payton?

Wow... is there a trade you wouldn't do, I'm curious? This is getting ludicrous. We're getting into insane territory here. Giving up our two best pitching prospects plus an outfielder and a shortstop with some definite upside for Brian Roberts? The White Sox gave up their two best pitching prospects and a nothing guy in Ryan Sweeney and got back Nick Swisher, who won't make any money for the next five years, this is fairly preposterous. I also don't like the equivocating. "Well Gallagher was already in the deal and Veal is a strikeout lefty who has control problems and Murton and Cedeno there's no place for them..." I don't think the Braves, when they were trading Saltalamacchia and the rest for Teixeira said "Hey, we've got no place for these guys, let's just give them away for anyone." Come on here. At the beginning of the offseason people would've thought twice about giving this package for Carl Crawford, now we're falling over ourselves to give this package for Roberts? I'm wondering, what would the price be if Roberts didn't get caught in the steroids business? People are letting their resistance break down. In another two weeks people will be saying "Felix Pie, Sean Gallagher, Geovany Soto, Rich Hill, Carlos Marmol, and a PTBNL who turns out to be Josh Vitters, well, it's a high price but this is BRIAN ROBERTS we're talking about." I also don't like the message this sends - jerk us around for 3 months and then take us for everything we've got after jacking us bad in the Trachsel trade. We're in a cycle of just overpaying horridly through trades that has to stop. I also don't think any prospective throw-ins make this trade any better. Jamie Walker? That just illustrates how low we sold on guys like Ohman, it wouldn't surprise me if Ohman put up better numbers than Walker this year. Sherrill's one excellent year in '07 doesn't mean anything more to me than the various one great years many lefties put up in their career. This just looks awful to me.

Cubs prospect kiss of death. You're basically saying he won't develop. Or his upside is, what, a typical Jacque Jones year? Who cares at this point, I'm fine with trading him too. He's just another product of Hendry's weird man-crushes: He's a "good athlete" with "tools" but has no appreciable skills. He steals bases just well enough for people to overrate their impact. He has strike zone discipline issues but it's okay because he needs a decade to adjust with a wood bat. And I think the worst crock of an explanation given by Hendry was the whole runaround about Colvin being "a winner" because he played on the Clemson team and "a good clutch hitter." Who cares, find someone who can be a real quality major leaguer. The worst was Wilken trying to sell us that he was another Alex Rios. Great, after he sits in our lineup for two years doing nothing we might have something. I'll check back in 2013.

Amazing. People sit up and cheer when when Jim Hendry trades Jacque Jones and Will Ohman to "save money" but they get excited about the idea of taking on Jay "I'm worthless and am set to make $5 million this year" Payton. Honestly, how can people be so gung-ho to get rid of Dempster and Marquis's salary just to take on Payton for $5 million? It makes no sense. Re: Colvin. Colvin's pick was a waste considering who we should've taken. Even trading Colvin doesn't redeem him - what would've Travis Snider, or Chris Marrero's trade value have been? I think everyone on this board made a better first round choice than Hendry did, unless you were one of the Drabekites.

With Soriano being such a questionable clutch hitter, who wants him hitting down in the lineup? Then we get to pay $17 million a year for an .810 OPS guy. In terms of the topic, any resources devoted to obtaining Roberts or Nathan should be directed towards getting a quality #2-3 starting pitcher since we're not upgrading shortstop. Getting another 2b and a closer instead of getting a shortstop and a starting pitcher is just not smart. I don't know why we keep concentrating on the "all sizzle, no steak" roles like closer and leadoff and not improving where we need it the most to win. I also harbor no fantasies about A.J. Burnett coming as cheaply as DeRosa, Dempster, and whoever. That simply doesn't make any sense at all.

I guess you're right. I think that must've been a Rotoworld list or one of Mayo's MLB.com lists. The highest he ever got was #29 on BA's 2004 list.

I don't understand fully how Baseball America works a lot of the time. Guys like Will Inman and Sean Gallagher put up great numbers and they dump on them. But remember when Ervin Santana was the best rated pitching prospect in the minors? His minor league career looks nice, but it doesn't look like a knockout. It doesn't say "Best pitching prospect in baseball" to me. Then there's young shortstops with mediocre numbers they love. Joaquin Arias - why has this guy been gracing their lists forever? "You don't need to put up good numbers, we believe in you." Huh. Alcides Escobar - does this guy have to start to hit at some point? If just being young for your level is enough, why wasn't Asdrubal Cabrera ever as highly touted as Arias and Escobar? And Adam Miller, they love him but that's a lot of inconsistency and other problems. Also, it seems like they went overboard with their Jeremy Sowers love. A sub-1.50 ERA and a 4.99 K/9 looks dodgy even in the minors. How does a guy like that end up so highly rated by them, when a guy like Bobby Livingston wouldn't make a Top 200 prospects list probably? Their love affair with Neil Walker I just don't understand. He was a poor catcher, now he's a 3b, and those hitting numbers look mediocre. How has this guy made three straight Top 100 lists? How did Ryan Sweeney make #55 on the 2007 list? I think they gave too many free passes to the DVD trio as well.

I only see one sucker lined up. As for examples, the Renteria one is one that clearly showed this is a stupid deal. Renteria has produced offense at a greater rate than Roberts the last two years. He plays shortstop, a more important position, shortstop vs. second base is like comparing left field vs. center field, and Renteria wasn't caught lying about using steroids. This is crap. You know damn well if a Cubs player was caught using steroids we'd have to sell him for a quarter of the price. But Roberts, no, it's supposed to be like nothing happened, and our price is so fair, no other GM wants to get in on a deal for this magnificent, magnificent player? No way. Look at what the Twins traded originally to get Luis Castillo. Roberts' package = way more. Second base offense does not come at a premium. If you look at what All-Star 2b have been traded for lately, it's nothing like the Roberts' deals. Why don't we factor in Roberts' 2nd half was more like his career numbers, like people do with Eric Byrnes's 2007? This is stupid. There is no reason to trade more for a lesser player at a lesser position.

I know why - because Hendry is the only one who will pay such a ridiculous price for Roberts.

Using Garciaparra as an example as to why we should give Crisp a free pass for two mediocre years is not a good idea. Garciaparra still sucks. Crisp has showed no signs of coming out of it, Derrek Lee has already done so. This talk reminds me too much of the Aubrey Huff discussions, where people gave him free pass after free pass, saying he would be the guy he was from 2002-04 and yeah, that's clearly not going to happen.

I'd rather get rid of Pie than Gallagher. I'd rather get rid of neither of them than get Roberts. Let's face it, this whole trade is crock. When you look at what other All-Star 2b recently have been traded for it's not this expensive. I want a GM who has the sack to tell other teams to go to hell when they're being asses about the situation, not say "Yeah, I'll let you jerk me around for three months for the privilege of ripping me off, after you wiped the floor with me on the Trachsel trade." There is no more gutless man than Hendry.

Just answer me one question: How much of an upgrade is George Sherrill over Will Ohman? (!?!?!)

I agree, Ceda is rated too highly. He dominated the dead-ball Midwest League, at the Low A level, and he had way too many walks. This makes him more valuable than Gallagher? Give me a break. If we traded him I wouldn't be sad because he seems like our only prospect who may be overrated.

I will not look at ERA or a 1 year split if you never use the phrase "outlier year" to dismiss anything you don't like ever again.

I don't agree with giving him a free pass on his hand for so long. 188 games in CF from 2002-2005, I don't see good defensive numbers, I see below average ones. I see average in 2006. Then crazy good in 2007. I don't buy it. Jacque Jones outproduced Crisp offensively in '07, has around the same salary, and played crazy good center field defense, we had to eat some salary and get crap in return, and Crisp is supposed to fetch all of this in return for the Red Sox? I do not think so. I don't buy he's that good of a center fielder and that WARP3 is propped up by his great defensive numbers.

Dear Mr. Manuel, Ouch.

Pardon. I need an "Idiot's Guide To This Argument." Something about it seems counterintuitive. Petco seems to help all pitchers, regardless of whether it's immediately obvious in the statistics or not, especially with the relievers. If Santana is worse than Peavy, than if he moved to SD/Petco, he should put up worse numbers than Peavy, and if Peavy moved to Minneapolis, he should put up better numbers than Santana. But does anyone think that would really happen? Also, commenting on this will probably get some crap thrown my way, but oh well: Doesn't Jake Peavy strike anyone as a big game choker? Look, I'm not going to throw him off my staff for sure. But doesn't the best pitcher in baseball have to not be looking to become the worst postseason pitcher of his generation? 2005 - gutless performance. 2006 - gutless performance. 2007 - he coughs up 6 runs in 6 innings in the playoff tiebreaker? The best pitcher in baseball should be able to at least pitch respectably in the big games. I'm not saying you have to be superman in the playoffs, or that Peavy is crap, or that I wouldn't pay Vlad Guerrero and Jake Peavy a lot of money to play for the Cubs. I'm not saying I buy one-off postseason heroes like Jeff Suppan and Derek Lowe. I'm saying maybe during the big games your ERA shouldn't increase by 1000%. Speaking of which, what would Josh Beckett's numbers look like in Petco? Fenway really hurts him.

Adam Jones is better than Pie, no question... but I don't think he's leaps and bounds better.

Edit: If someone tells me one truth and five lies I'm not big on trust. Anyway I'm just hoping nothing gets done here. So far all the rumors have been bad ones.

His strikeout rate, K/BB ratio, and the fact that he hasn't shown breakout power like a Chris Young or Adam Jones worries me though. The first two more than the last one. Guys like that always worry me, it's the reason I thought the A's could've done a little better than Carlos Gonzalez in the Haren trade. I don't have much faith in him but would love to be proven wrong. The 7th spot does seem ideal. A lot of questionable rooks have cut their teeth and progressed well from the #7 spot. The pressure's off down there, and you're not right ahead of the pitcher (unless we're doing like the Cardinals last year).

I agree, this board is getting to be a pain in the ass because of all the vacuous, "clever" observations on the Brian Roberts topic. I come here to read baseball posts, not people repeating the same crap that wasn't clever two weeks ago over and over again that's not even baseball related. In short, if you've ever posted in the Brian Roberts topic "Wow, this topic is long!" "This topic is a monster that will eat everything in its path!" "This topic will not die!" "This topic is like a slasher killer that won't die!" "I love this topic!" "This is the BEST. TOPIC. EVER," then you are sheep and I hate you. I hope every topic that goes over 5 pages can be free of these dip**** observations and just focus on the baseball, I wasn't this put out when it was just the original garbage heap topic, but now people need to include it everywhere. I think these are the same people who went around screaming "All Your Base Is Belong To Us" incessantly in 2001. We can tell when topics are long and pointless, nobody needs 50 duplicate idiot posts pointing that out. Sorry if that's rude, but it's juvenile crap like this that's made other message boards off-limits, I'd like not to see it happen here. Anyway, back to BASEBALL, I'm not a fan of putting Pie anywhere near the top of the lineup just to try and mask the fact that he's probably not going to be especially good one way or the other. Batting 7th seems fine for Pie, if you look at Alex Gordon's splits, batting 7th didn't hurt him, Kouzmanoff progressed well at the back of the lineup for San Diego throughout the season, etc.

Raisin, if you have the time/inclination, I'd like to know if Jake Renshaw and Scott Moore ranked with the Orioles and if so, where.

Comments... Greene the last two years has struck out on the road at a rate commensurate with golden boy Brian Roberts in 2007. I don't even remotely liked Xavier Nady. Terrible BB/K ratio, bad K rate overall, not only does he play center field badly, he plays right field badly, in fact he looks almost Willinghamesque anywhere. He had a good half a year last year, after that, pffft. Tim Stauffer... no. "The next Greg Maddux" is now "the next Josh Towers." I like Latos... would've been nice if the Cubs got him instead of Huseby. No chance for Murton though. I'd love for the Cubs to expand the deal for Greene... unlikely because of Hendry's foolishness. It would not surprise me to get back some "blah" guy like Neil Jamison. Wade LeBlanc would be fine given the scenarios likely to unfold. Will Inman would be passable. Just looking over BA's Padres list, I'm wondering why they value Garrison over Inman.

That article seems a little generous. Anyone who didn't know better would think we should be greatly excited about Dopirak, Lansford, Harvey, and Papelbon.

Some people are apparently married to the lie. This is like a Mets fans saying trading Scott Kazmir was good because otherwise they would've never gotten rid of Jim Duquette. Bad logic and bad causality used to justify bad trades.