badnews

In this division anyone's a competitor. Anyway it seems like a lot of fringey guys can have one good season for the Reds recently, like Rich Aurilia and David Ross last year, Scott Hatteberg and Jeff Keppinger this year, Jason LaRue, Joe Randa, and Javier Valentin in 2005... you can't tell that much from half a season with Cincinnati.

3 years, $36 million for a malcontent right fielder who has been on how many teams in how many seasons, with a career .773 OPS, who was one of the worst defensive RFs in baseball last year does not strike me as a nice pick-up.

They sold the pick without any knowledge of who it would be. That disconnect makes a huge difference. I heard they made the pick and then traded the player to the Reds. Talent acknowledged, I'm not sold yet, I'd have the same feeling if you replaced Hamilton with Rick Ankiel.

I know people try and spin such and such a way, but I'm not interested in splitting hairs on the issue. I know nobody does the Cubs any favors, but apparently we have no problem doing favors of division rivals. We enabled the Reds to obtain him. If someone says "They could've cut a deal with another team" I'd say fine, let them do that, can you imagine Boston doing something like this for New York? Of course not.

I like Dempster better than most. I'd rather have him than a guy like Josh Banks or David Purcey. The Jays have a pretty uninteresting farm system though this last draft spiced things up some. I believe guys like Cecil aren't eligible to be traded yet, and Snider is too much to ask back. It looks like they've got a little bit of too-good-for-Dempster talent and a lot of blah.

Why did we do such a lovely favor for a division rival again? I'm iffy on Hamilton, but I think moreso I have this aversion to guys involved in deals where we get burned for some reason. Like Dontrelle Willis and Jon Garland, I've never liked the trade rumors about getting them back. Once we make a colossal mistake I don't think it's a bad idea to just move on and put it behind you. And there's something that seems colossally stupid to me to giving away a guy to a divisional rival and then a year later falling all over yourself to get him.

Often when I look them up though, it seems like groundball hitters have higher LD percentages even when their BABIP is low, on guys you don't think can hit the ball out of the infield. Izturis was pretty high this year, and in 2005. Theriot was at 21%, Mark Loretta and Brandon Inge are up there... I don't think it'll be that high next year and I don't think he can repeat a BABIP that high again, I don't really see a reason to believe why he should be able to do it. His 2005 rate stats with his 2006 steals is what I personally would be more apt to expect from him.

I've been full-on about getting Nick Swisher forever. I think I have posts from last year talking about checking him out. See, when people said 'What's not to like about Crawford" and I didn't really feel like he was an ideal fit - uh, Swisher is pretty much an ideal fit. He's had a 35 HR season playing in Oakland. He's had a 100 walk season. I don't think it's crazy to talk about this guy pulling out a few 1.000 OPS seasons or near it. Plus you know how a lot of the casual fans love a feel good story, earlier in the year he grew out his hair and cut it for cancer patients. Lou wants a lefty he can leave in there against lefties? Swisher. Ha. I think that works. Someone asked if he was defensively bad, the answer is not that clear to me as the metrics point in different directions, somebody had enough faith in him to give him significant time in center field, which may mean nothing, but still, I doubt we'd be crying about his defense. We're talking about good fits? Accepting there is no Brian Giles 1999-2003 or Bobby Abreu 1999-2005, and Jeremy Hermida and Nick Markakis are not available, Swisher is as close to a fantastic fit as we could hope for. I would trade Hill. I think it would be a good deal for both teams, Rich Hill could be put up numbers like Barry Zito in 2003 and 2005 in that park, I think. I couldn't be persuaded to trade Rich Hill with anything else of big value though. I'm more gung-ho about Hill than most, maybe because on another message board I post on he's routinely lumped in with guys like Noah Lowry and Chuck James (who would be toast pitching their home games at Wrigley), I like the way he improved his G/F ratio the second half.

Why is BABIP for hitters silly? You don't say Miguel Cabrera is just lucky of course, but it's maybe a good indication not to buy high on guys like Matt Diaz. Figgins' Isolated Power is usually works out to be around the same regardless... his G/F ratio shot way up so if that trend continues I don't bet on him to have a lot more home runs. His BB/K ratio has stayed the same the past 3 years. His position is, of course, a problem.

Well congrats, you're the first person on the internet to catch that apparently. It certainly isn't very well publicized but what you say fits, though I don't think there were as many Type As left when you said, so that's good for us. It makes the scores inside the A and B grades seem a little pointless though. It's disappointing to hear this but it's a Jason Kendall compensation pick - how much complaining can we do? Anyway thanks for clearing this up and setting the record straight.

Then why has Beane been mentioned in Lastings Milledge trade rumors for years now? Pie and Milledge are somewhat similar players in those respects.

So would I. The price can't be that high. I wouldn't expect 2005 numbers but still.

Soriano should stay at leadoff because it's where he's most productive, not because he's the ideal leadoff man. Also, he gets less productive with men on base than with the bases empty, so this is not the guy I want to count on in the middle of the order. What is there to "get" about that? I also agree he's one of our better producers and it's good to have him getting the most ABs. I could imagine Soriano hitting 4th, posting an .802 OPS, getting 100 RBIs, and setting a record in LOB and people thinking the move was a huge success. Anyway, Chone Figgins has really no chance to replicate last season's success. He posted a BABIP near .400 last year. If you get Figgins you'll probably get the guy from 2005-2006.

I'm trying to figure out why everyone's so high on Nady. "Light years" better than Murton? Here's what I don't like about Nady: - He's got the kind of rotten K/BB ratio that makes you wonder if he was secretly brought up in the Cubs organization. 101 strikeouts in 431 ABs against 23 walks? Ugh. - His name was bandied about in trades during his hot first half, but his lousy second half is more likely what you get from Nady. - On his career, he's a .729 OPS hitter against righties. - He's a really bad defensively outfielder according to the metrics I'm looking at, whatever position he's playing. If he were a Cub we'd probably be trying to get rid of him.

If the price is right? The past three years he's put up OPS+ of 103, 121, 114. His career OPS+ is higher than Hunter's and he has to only be making a small fraction of the cost at his age with his suspension. He's played in pitcher's parks his entire career. Cameron's 25 game suspension could be used to see what Fuld and Patterson can do with some time in the majors. I don't actually have a lot of faith in Pie so if the Cubs got Fukudome and Cameron I'd be fine with it, but that's not going to happen, I'm just interested in how much this suspension will hurt Cameron's value, for $7-8 million I think he'd be a very good buy, however I don't really know what the market will bear in this case. Not a glamorous scenario but I guess I've always been a bigger Cameron fan than the average person. I know the idea will be universally reviled, I guess I'd just like to see why.

He's been pretty keen on staying on the West Coast and there's a market there for him, so...

McCutchen is apparently the new Neil Walker. I never understood why he was graded so highly for not so much for years. Adam Miller... every time I look him up I don't see the elite numbers I expect to see from the write-ups. You know how you look up Jacob McGee and say "Holy Moses, those are sick numbers for that age at that level." Then you look up Adam Miller and say "That's a pretty fantastic K/BB ratio, but I guess I expected more from the man who was dubbed as possessing the world's deadliest slider."

I'm somewhat skeptical. Randy Wolf doesn't impress me, Greg Maddux is okay, Jake Peavy is great, no one knows about Prior, and I could see Chris Young slipping. Chris Young continues to defy but I wonder if he'll keep his opponent BABIP astronomically low for a 3rd year in a row, and keep that flyball to home run ratio that low even for Petco. He's the kind of pitcher I take one year at a time.

I wish we'd just get a real shortstop instead of speculating about turning around non-shortstops like Roberts, DeRosa, Matsui, Fontenot, into shortstops. I don't want to end up with 5 2b when we find out "Oh yeah, this whole Soriano in CF thing isn't working, whoops."

Why are you so against signing him for the bench? As a part time player, he had very very good numbers in '05 (.299/.360/.510) and above average numbers in '06 (.273/.340/.466). One question that I would have but don't know the answer to is, why did he not play in the majors in '07? But looking at his numbers the two years prior to that, I can't see how anyone wouldn't want him sitting on the bench. It just seems like a waste of a roster spot to me. I'm not too big into the pack rat mentality where we try and collect anyone who ever had a good month here and there, especially 1b. A friend of mine who knows the Detroit organization better than I do says he's no kind of outfielder whatsoever, and a righthanded hitting bench 1b who had all of one great month in 2006 and blah the rest of the way? Next we'll be re-acquiring Hee Seop Choi and grabbing Craig Wilson.

Sign him with the major league club? Absolutely not, no chance.

Is Castillo in this league? In one of the box scores I saw a "Castillo, W c." The links to the players weren't working at the time so I couldn't check.

Uh, are you sure that's not right? Because what you wrote doesn't look right from what I'm seeing. Barry Bonds is one of those Type A guys. I'm going to say he doesn't draw a compensation draft pick. Andy Pettitte is either going back to the Yankees or retiring. No pick. The Elias Rankings: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/al/2007-10-31-elias-rankings-complete_N.htm http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/nl/2007-10-31-elias-rankings-complete_N.htm Baseball America's column: http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/askba/265239.html Barrett, Bradley, and Rowand are the only Type As I see left on that list. A-Rod already signed. I don't think we need to worry about Barry Bonds. Even counting Barry and Pettitte, we're talking 5. Where did you come up with the figure "at least six?" I don't understand how Percival gets a pick ahead of Kendall. I've seen it written a number of times that the picks are handed out according to rating. Jason Kendall 68.919 B Troy Percival 60.993 B Kendall's rating is higher than Percival's. Kendall's comp pick would therefore come before Percival's. The remaining free agents with higher ratings than Kendall's are: Luis Gonzalez, Aaron Rowand, Luis Vizcaino, Paul Lo Duca, Milton Bradley, and Michael Barrett. Kendall's pick is right now #35. If all six of those players are offered arbitration and switch teams, Kendall's pick would drop 6 places, to #41. That's the lowest it could go. Carlos Silva 53.968 Andruw Jones 66.742 B Just examples: Carlos Silva brings back no draft picks no matter what, and Andruw Jones is rated lower than Jason Kendall. In any event I've heard the Braves aren't offering him arbitration anyway. But the point is, according to the Elias rankings, none of the guys I'm guessing you think should draw ahead of Kendall will draw ahead except the 6 listed above. If none of them sign the Kendall pick remains at #35. If all of them get arb and sign elsewhere, #41. Hence the #35-41 range. I've seen this posted in a number of places and no one has shown why it's wrong yet. I'd like to think it's true because it's a nice pick. But if someone can prove it wrong, go ahead, so we can figure out what's what.

Brian Schneider's defense has declined from its admirable peak 2002-2005. Paul Lo Garbage had a WARP3 of 3.5 last year, Schneider was 3.5 in 2006 and 3.9 in 2007. He's not a guy I'd be excited to get. And Mets fans will be stunned when next time Minaya calls Bowden about Chad Cordero he asks for David Wright.

Heck, the Twins would be wise to take a lesser package from the Dodgers. It's not going to help them much to give the Red Sox/Yankees the keys to World Series just to get bounced out of the playoffs in the first round if they make it. It seems like a lot of times the Yankees disposed of the Twins in the playoffs handily. If I were them I wouldn't be so quick to hand them the best pitcher in baseball, especially for some kind of high-risk package centered around guys like Melky, Tabata, Horne, and Marquez.