badnews

Blanton had the lowest home ERA in the AL, interestingly enough. Do the splits of Mike Lowell, Kaz Matsui, Josh Beckett, Carlos Zambrano, or Garrett Atkins mean anything?

But they're not for Khalil Greene? My memory isn't so hot but Oakland A's starters seem to be on the same level as Padres' relievers - they go elsewhere and they're not as good. Oakland is a nice place to pitch... if Blanton went to regular, I don't think that HR-to-fly ratio is staying that low. I'm curious, are the home/road splits for San Diego pitchers irrelevant too? Like the groundball monster Cla Meredith, or the flyball monster Chris Young?

Instead of spending the money on Taguchi, the Cubs should hire a gaggle of young female Japanese "personal assistants" to follow Fukudome around. Also, they should wear Japanese school uniforms and be seen regularly around Wrigley Field. That is all.

I don't know any of the people saying this guy is reliable, and I don't see any volumes of threads that later turned out to be right. That anecdote sounds ridiculous and illogical on so many levels I don't even know where to begin. I suppose it would be funny if we were talking about the actions of 5th graders or something. Did he get Ashton Kutcher to jump out and scream "You got punk'd" and then they all went and hit the gravity bong or something? Just from my experience, whenever I've been over there and seen a lot of confident, authoritative talk, it's turned out to be BS.

Sounds completely logical. But my guy says The 39 Steps are onto him and will stop at nothing!

Magglio had a much better K/BB ratio than Pie did in the minors. Magglio also struck out way less. Like I said elsewhere, it seems like most of the guys who are making it good in the majors are not guys with a 3:1 K/BB ratio and a 22% strikeout ratio in their ABs. Let's take Chris Young of the Diamondbacks - more power, better K/BB ratio, better base stealer. Chris Young strikes out more, who knows, maybe that will limit his potential, but he has other things going for him Pie doesn't. Barry Bonds was better than Pie at just about everything at his age. Beltran, again, better K/BB ratio, a better base stealer, and didn't play much above A+. It may be telling that most of the comparisons we're looking to for Pie are guys who maybe didn't spend much time in the minors or who didn't play above A+ before jumping to the majors so who can tell through the comparisons.

Yeah - I call total BS on that. That doesn't look plausible, it looks like some mark's idea of what they think is plausible. They played it too much with this cloak and dagger nonsense. None of these guys seem legit. I remember when they said Corey Patterson to the Orioles for Chris Britton and Bryan Bass was a done deal. All this talk about "my guys says" and now "Oh wait, no"... I'm glad I didn't read most of this topic.

You can sort of understand the reasoning behind Silva even if you don't agree with it. But I don't understand the Kyle Lohse business. Is someone actually going to give him big money? There is nothing even remotely convincing about Lohse. The Mariners are paying Miguel Batista and Carlos Silva $21 million a year. Fantastic. Now that's money well spent!

I think we definitely need a new shortstop. Are the Pirates truly that attached to Jack Wilson? I'm surprised they wouldn't be interested in selling high on him.

Not exactly, but... Joe Blanton is not an innings eater away from Oakland. He's not any good away from Oakland not just in 2007 but in 2006 either. This guy isn't coming cheap. So why all the fluttery stomachs about Joe Blanton? In 2005 his G/F ratio was 1.15, in 2006 it was 1.16, in 2007 it was 1.58 and all of a sudden he's Brandon Webb? Since when does a 1.58 G/F ratio amaze? Marquis, Kip Wells, Millwood, and Maholm had higher G/F ratios, and Matt Morris was pretty close, you can't just say "groundballer" and everything's fine for guys in this middling area. I don't see a huge spike in K/9 either... 5.19, 4.96, 5.48. Why is it when we see Khalil Greene's away stats, we oooh and aaaah over the majesty, but information about Blanton's away numbers gets buried? Rich Hill averaged more innings per start on the road than Blanton did. The A's are after a pretty hefty package for Blanton and the Mets look desperate enough to cough it up. I don't think going all out to add a pitcher like Blanton is going to be worth the difference to this team. Let this be the Joe Blanton topic!

Alex Escobar and Chad Hermansen were 5 tool outfield prospects too! I don't like Felix Pie because I don't see a lot of success with guys who have a 3:1 K/BB ratio and strike out in 22% of their ABs. For all the talk about his speed his minor league stolen base record is pretty crappy. Even his defense seems overrated, you'd think from all the talk about his arm we were getting someone who would make an immediate impact on the game like Jeff Francoeur did when he racked up like 12 assists in how many games when he came up, the way people talked about Pie's arm I thought when he made throws from the outfield it would have like a comet tail behind the ball. And then when you'd actually see him make those throws when baserunning was actually a factor, I'd sit back, fold my arms, and declare "That wasn't so impressive!" I wanted to see something like when Bo Jackson threw out that runner tagging up from 3rd from the warning track. Now I feel cheated. He also seemed to fall off after a hot start in AAA as well. I don't see why I should be that impressed. I don't know why I should be on board with the "If he can hit .240 and play great defense, he'll be very good for the Cubs" line of thinking either. I mean, hey, Jacque Jones and Corey Patterson played very good center field defense and hit better than that and no one gave a damn. I don't think anyone was that excited when Willy Taveras did better than that and played great center field defense. Or Brady Clark in 2005, or Jeremy Reed, I don't think being a good defensive center fielder and not being able to hit very well has made Luis Matos a sought-after commodity, or Endy Chavez... people make it sound like he'd be the Henry Blanco of center field. The exaggerations about his arm have now made me skeptical about his game-changing defense and I will have to see it to believe it.

I like how you put in there "Meph included" like, "Heh, if you're not sold on that, then there's NO WAY you can't believe it after I include that." Anyway, I don't think acquiring Roberts makes us paper champs. I think it's weird people don't mind giving up Gallagher's #3 potential, but we're falling over ourselves to acquire Joe Blanton, a guy who looks like Josh Towers away from Oakland. I wonder - how come if we get Roberts, Soriano can't leadoff and Roberts can't hit 2nd? Soriano just makes me nervous. I don't like tinkering with him. Dropping him in the lineup could cost production, he's just not well suited to hitting in an RBI spot it seems. It also seems like if we upgraded at shortstop it would outstrip the improvement of going from DeRosa to Roberts. I mean, we were above average in production at 2nd last year, Mark DeRosa was an .848 OPS hitter when he played 2nd, but everywhere else he wasn't so great... we had the worst production out of shortstop as any team in the NL last year, I think our shortstop OPS was like 140 points below the NL average... I don't see the picture as rosily as everyone else.

I don't buy that DeRosa is going to be the shortstop one bit.

The Mariners seem to love middling (or less) pitchers with decent but unexceptional G/F ratios.

I agree, that sounds like a good idea in theory, but I wonder if it would work in reality. I can't think of too many instances where teams have been able to deal away a surplus of hitting talent for pitching prospects. I wonder, for example, if Florida or Baltimore were looking to land an elite pitching prospect if they could by trading Hermida/Markakis. The Delmon Young trade is an example, but not every prospect is Delmon Young. It worked for the Diamondbacks, I just wonder if you can build a philosophy around that. The Devil Rays had been developing hitting talent pretty well but up until this year couldn't get that high level arm. It's certainly not a bad idea, I just wonder if it works that tidily.

Really? I always though Hill's delivery lacked deception for a lefty.

They all throw somewhat similar, I think it's natural to want to avoid that. One of the reasons I don't trust Bedard is that his stuff has never looked like 10+ K/9 stuff to me. Kazmir, yes. Bedard, know. I don't see him throwing 96 or with a wicked Liriano slider, I see him throwing 92-93 with a good curveball. I think we have that. I refuse to believe it until I see it happen again. Heck, I may as well be upfront about my ignorance. Hill and Bedard are two guys that I wonder how they strike out as many guys as they do. You watch guys like Liriano and Kazmir and it's obvious, not so with those two. The past few years I've lumped Bedard in with Capuano. They both seemed somewhat similar in stuff and pitching motion. Obviously there is a difference as they've gone in opposite directions and even before that, the G/F ratios were quite different but if I didn't know their stats I'd think they had about the same success. Anyway that's not meant to convince anyone, I'm just saying from when I watch Bedard it's difficult to embrace him as this badass ace and everything even though everything says he is.

I'd like to see your source on that statement. Just as aside, as someone who's seen protection as an argument misappropriated to prop up ever underachieving bum out there (O! The lament of Eric Chavez fans!) I'd greatly enjoy seeing it rubbished. What kind of protection did Soriano have in 2006? And if there's a guy there's no reason to pitch in the strike zone, it's Soriano. I think he even had a good number of IBBs that year.

Crawford was a significantly better contact hitter than Pie in the minors, he stole bases a lot better, he was built a lot better at Pie's age, this seems like wishcasting to me. If someone said Torii Hunter I'd find that more believable. Although the Twins had to put up with a long bad stretch to get Hunter where he was, I think Pie would be dumped in that time. Vernon Wells struck out a lot less than Pie and had a better BB/K ratio.

I remember the Vlad comparison... poor Vlad. He's really trotted out there a lot.

His stolen base record seems pretty mediocre for a Carl Crawford comparison. Crawford didn't spend much time in the minors so it's hard to compare their minor league records. The same goes for Baldelli. And even at Pie's age Crawford had a significantly more muscular build.

Just to note, I really don't have a lot of faith in Pie, but I wonder, his minor league career doesn't compare well with any recent successful major league outfielders that I can think of, it's usually a case of some combination of the would-be comparable walking more, striking out less, or hitting for more power, but I wonder if there are good comparables I'm not thinking of. Anyway I'm just interested in who people think the comparables are.

For a guy so fast "he jumps over cars" Gathright is a crap basestealer. I don't see what he'd add to the Cubs. DeJesus isn't worth falling all over to get to. I have yet to see any indications at all that the Royals are "selling low" on Greinke, nor do I think Wrigley is a good place for emotionally frail guys like him.

Yeah, there's no way I would do that. If you want to trade Marmol use him to get a shortstop or some position of actual need. I think someone else pointed out that these big time relievers who come to Wrigley from domes always struggle with us. I have no idea if that's true, but they pointed out LaTroy Hawkins from the Twins and Dave Smith from the Astrodome. That could be wrong, I haven't researched it, just what someone else posted. Oh yeah, how old was "Everyday Eddie" before the Twins cut line with him and he crapped out? It reminds me of that Mike and Mike commercial where one of the Mikes says "You went with the wide receiver with the attitude problem?" Nathan is more flash and sizzle than actual helping us win, especially if you subtract Marmol "and others" and then add in his salary. Flame away but if we're trading Marmol I'd rather get a shortstop back then a Joe Nathan.

I don't find reliever FIPs to be anywhere as convincing as for starters. A lot of the time the really good guys have higher FIPs than their ERAs and the crappy ones have lower FIPs. Ryan Dempster always has a lower FIP, Will Ohman had a 3.60 FIP in 2007, J. J. Putz had a 2.81 FIP, Marmol had a 2.62 FIP... I think Gagne only has a certain number of innings in his glass arm before he craps out, he was already going south in his last month with the Rangers. He should start off well enough and fade.