badnews

But then Jeter shouldn't have been the AL MVP when people thought he should've won it instead of Morneau.

I don't see it as a poor comparison because often enough promotions aren't based so much on need. The Dodgers have seemed to be aggressive promoters whether they're doing well or not. I don't think it's so uncommon for high school hitters drafted so high to skip levels.

I don't think anyone on the Rockies with the heavy home/road splits should be a slam dunk for MVP. I like Rollins' positional value better. I don't like the Coors advantage so I'm happy to see Holliday "screwed." If we're complaining about non-playoff MVPs, how about Derrek Lee losing to Pujols in 2005. Terrific.

Do you really think so? I don't know how fast Vitters will move, but if you look at top high school hitters drafted it seems like most of them move fairly quick, especially guys touted as much as Vitters. Vitters is as touted as Chris Marrero was. Marrero was drafted at the same age as Vitters. Marrero has already logged significant time in Advanced A.

2. As far as I've known, win shares aren't park adjusted. I don't think even park-adjusting accounts for the home team's offensive advantage in Coors Field. The problem is, you're still dealing with Coors inflated numbers. Try looking at Jeromy Burnitz's win shares in 2004. 3. So what does that mean? We're going to be spending $8 million a year on kind of a mediocre middle infield platoon to get Matsui... I'm not even sure... better defense against righthanded pitching? I'm not understanding. Also, does it mean for the next 20 years we should hold up DeRosa as reason to sign any middle infielder, like people did with Glendon Rusch's one good year before falling apart again? DeRosa at least showed he could hit away from Arlington when he was with the Rangers. I just don't understand. You didn't say Matsui hits better against righties than DeRosa. You said, including his Coors-inflated numbers, he hits as well as. So for all intents and purposes, he hits worse. 4. Podsednik just got DFAed for that matter too. I don't see how it matters. 5. I don't think I ever recall Lou valuing lefty-righty so much he'd clog up the roster to make this ludicrous platoon of mediocrity we're talking about, much less commit 3 years to a guy to do it. 6. Has he suffered a head injury recently? If the Cubs had an unlimited payroll and a 50 man active roster maybe these kinds of dubious, even-if-they-work-out nickel-and-dime "improvements" would make sense. But they don't otherwise. 7. This is a reason to use up another roster spot and devote more money to mediocre or bad players? Is there any reason for Infante at all under these scenarios?

They pretty much called them up out of desperation though. Sam Fuld moved along agonizingly slow, considering Blevins was a lefty reliever with high K numbers, he got moved along pretty slowly. How many guys have gotten skipped from Boise to Daytona? For a guy as old as Jeremy Papelbon is, look at how slow he's moving, when is his major league ETA, 2013? Maestri is not zooming along either, I'm surprised he was left in dead-ball Peoria so long. It seems like lately they have been moving guys along a little faster. But I wouldn't be surprised to see Donaldson and Thomas at Peoria. On Vitters, it seems like most high schooler drafted that high skip short season, or guys drafted even lower. Two of my favorite picks for the Cubs with their 1st choice in 2006 were Travis Snider and Hank Conger, now am I mistaken, or did neither of them bum around short season? I wonder why other teams' high pick high school hitters can skip short season and not hit a brick wall.

I don't much care for sappy Kerry Wood nostalgia. I can envision Wood in another uniform easily. I'm surprised there are so many warm and fuzzy feelings for Wood anyway. He makes it sound like he's the best friend to the organization, but for a guy who collected fat checks for doing nothing for a long time, he's not giving this team much of a discount, is he? How much more could Curt Schilling or Mike Lowell have made on the FA market? If Wood has no loyalty to the Cubs, why should anyone else feel anything about him? I get annoyed because people look their heads, their objectivity, and their perspective when talking about Kerry Wood. There's no reason he shouldn't stay healthy? For that matter there's no reason he should stay healthy. He'd make more money on the free agent market as a closer? Okay. Where is there any indication he'd be a good closer or stay healthy, besides wishful thinking? If he's so filthy, why has righthanded hitting pounded him silly the past two years? Not a big enough sample size? Exactly. He hasn't shone as a reliever. Furthermore, why is he demanding more money from the Cubs than other rehab late inning relief arms have, like Dotel or Percival? 0 career saves, but yeah, that B.J. Ryan contract is just out there waiting for him. There's no reason to be nostalgic about Wood. There's no reason to exaggerate the likelihood of what he'll do or overemphasize what he could do. Citing garbage money is not a viable defense. Hey, Soriano is making way less a year than Darren Dreifort and Mo Vaughn did together, excellent contract. What I find odd about most Cubs fans is that just mentioning Mark Prior gets them red in the face, but if Kerry Wood were to come over to their house, sleep with their daughter, eat all the food in their refrigerator, and then take a crap in their bed, they'd thank him for the pleasure of his company and tell him to please come again. I call it "Battered Cub Fan Syndrome" or BCFS. I'm currently working out a full definition for inclusion in DSM-V.

Are all of these guys really going to be promoted so quickly? The Cubs have been one of the slower promoting organizations in baseball, although better than the Astros-molasses.

2007 Bases empty - .318/.937 RISP - .258/.827 2006 .278/.883 .231/.873 2005: .292/.887 .235/.733 2004: .265/.788 .253/.705 2003: .305/.918 .259/.777 That's a pretty heavy split, all things considered. For his career, he's .290/.868 with the bases empty, .269/.803 with runners on, .252/.769, .230/.743 with RISP/2 outs, and .276/.727 with the bases loaded. You don't often see a straight descending OPS as the stake are ratcheted up for a player. Also, up until the bases loaded, you see a straight batting average decline. That's not very common either.

As far as offense goes, Hunter is like the poor man's Soriano. A lot of strikeouts, few walks, so forth. Hunter isn't as crappy a clutch hitter as Soriano, but still, that's a nice barrier to break - the first team to give $15 million a year to a hitter with a career OPS under .800. He's also a poor basestealer and probably the most consistently overrated player defensively at his position since Bret Boone.

A ringing endorsement!

I liked Guillen and Peralta's seasons better; but as for Cabrera as a player it doesn't tell us anything. His fielding has been up, down, and average, and in 2006 his clutch numbers were as bad as 2007's were good.

I think people tend to overrate the revenue some of these Japanese players bring in to their American teams. Do we really think the entire nation of Japan has been fervently following Kaz Matsui's every move since he got here? Maybe not so much in this topic, but in other places people act like if you get a Japanese player every citizen of Japan sends your organization a check for $50,000.

Hey that's great, we give the Reds Josh Hamilton for nothing (this has been argued, and I don't care - GMs should not be in the business of doing favors for divisional rivals) and now we can trade a fortune to acquire him. This sounds like the workings of a competent organization.

I wouldn't be surprised if BA had Gallagher ahead of Veal and Samardzija.

Ugh. What really disappoints me is people saying "If this move gets us Fukudome, I'm all for it." Come on. Maybe you take on a stiff for a year to lure in a top guy, but to grab Matsui for 3 years just say you can pay Fukudome, what is it up to now, 4/56 and rising? that makes no sense to me. This reads to me almost as nonsensically as "We've got to sign Nick Punto to a 2 year deal so we can lure Carlos Silva here with a 4/44 contract!"

If the Orioles turned down all three of those players, they'd be insane. If the Dodgers are willing to deal those guys, the Cubs should get involved. Not that anything is going to happen. Just kick the tires. It's not like Ned Coletti is incapable of making a mistake. I'm not that big on Ethier, especially to the point of helping other teams in the league make themselves into beasts.

The Rays' farm system looks pretty good. LAA has maybe lost a tick, still nice enough though. The once thought of as a lock infield of the future, Kotchman/Morales, Kendrick, Aybar/Wood, McPherson and Mathis isn't where you thought they'd be, except for maybe Kendrick. The Dodgers have had their share of disappointments (According to what was written in 2003, Edwin Jackson was supposed to have a won a Cy Young by now, Joel Guzman an MVP), but they just keep stacking them up out there and for every disappointment there's a stud waiting to replace him, to say nothing of guys like Martin, Billingsley, Broxton, etc. Every year I think the Dodgers will win the NL West but they usually disappoint. Eventually Kershaw and Billingsley will solidify that rotation, they'll finally give LaRoche, Kemp, and Loney the playing time they deserve, and a back end of the bullpen of Saito, Broxton, and Meloan looks scary... right? Josh Byrnes has been a great GM for the Diamondbacks. How many bad moves does he make? I can't think of one.

Pardon. It's kind of a letdown when we go through a topic like this and no one has a dissenting opinion on something that looks pretty iffy to me. I don't much care for Carlos Gonzalez. Why have we just accepted at face value that he is a fantastic prospect? Maybe it's me. I don't like high strikeout/low walks "toolsy" outfielders as much as most people. Lancaster and Tucson are pretty hitterific, especially Lancaster. His numbers in Double A don't jump out at me. He's struck out over 23% of his ABs since High A. His stolen base record is not anything to write home about. He's got the deadly 3:1 K/BB ratio. We've got Pie, if we're going prospect-hunting I'd rather look for a guy with a different game than this type. I mean, Chris Young struck out a lot, that's one thing, but Chris Young also displayed an Isolated Power of near .250 in the minors, he was quite a basestealer, and he walked a lot so his K/BB ratio was only 2:1.

This complaining about interest in Jenkins is excessive. It reminds me of Phillies fans complaining that they might get Mike Lamb for 3b instead of Mike Lowell for 4/60. The snazzy name value is nil, but compare the prices. I'm not sure what the options are. Why shouldn't Hendry be looking at Jenkins? It's not like the article said "Hendry is ignoring Fukudome and in love with Jenkins." Every year unexpected things happen in the market. What happens if someone offers 4/60 for Fukudome? I wouldn't go there. The Crawford trade didn't seem legitimate from the beginning. Where does that leave you? Hopeless internet trade scenarios concocted as to how to get Alex Rios, Brad Hawpe, etc.? People start asking "Hey, can Chad Tracy or Dan Johnson play right field?" I don't think plunking down $14-16 million a year over 4-6 years for guys like Hunter and Rowand is any good. Jenkins and Murton could be productive.

This statement is problematic to me. I don't understand the reasoning that a player under 30 must have every season be better than the last. It doesn't work that way for players of any age as a rule. For example, Grady Sizemore posted a 123 OPS in 2005, a 133 OPS in 2006, and a 122 OPS in 2007. So if I had predicted that, would you have said "That makes no sense. He is inexplicably going to decline at the age of 24-25?" Even Miguel Cabrera's OPS+ took a decline this year. What is odd about predicting Crawford's batting average is going to come down considering every year his strikeouts and BABIP rise? He had something like a .371 BABIP this year. I will go on record and say that Bedard is never this good again. But yeah, some of those predictions look pretty silly and out there.

I'm not sure why you singled out that phrase. I just said Crawford is unlikely to do what Cust himself is unlikely to do next year, and Cust did it with the Rob Deer grip-and-rip approach which I doubt would work for Crawford or suit his game at all.

First of all, your last two lines are unnecessarily harsh. You're in a position to say, but I'm not? Even if you're right, that comes off as too condescending and egotistical. The "no clue" bit was just unnecessary and rude. When you said that Carlos Silva was the same as Zambrano over the past 4 years with Fielding Independent Pitching, I didn't say you had no clue what you were talking about. I just pointed out where that didn't appear to be the case. Kotsay's EqA ranged from .264-.290 those years. Iwamura's slugging was not 85% of his Japanese numbers. Hideki Matsui's slugging doesn't get to 85% of his Japanese numbers and his OBP doesn't get to 93%. The Japanesebaseball.com site lists Johjima's OBP as .360, not within the 93%. And we're just throwing out Kaz Matsui's numbers because we don't like them. Saying the batting average will stay within 96% without taking into account strikeouts seems like it could have problems.

Who said that about Crawford? How likely is it that a guy who hits the ball on the ground as much as Crawford does hits 40 home runs? Is he suddenly going to hit more balls in the air? His swing doesn't look conducive to it. Are 25% of his flyballs going to turn into home runs when the major league average is (last I saw, maybe someone else can find more authoritative numbers) was 9-11%? The only guy I can find who hits the ball on the ground at least that much and had an Isolated Power over .190 more than once is good 'ol Jacque Jones. There are guys who hit a decent amount of groundballs and hit home runs, but they're not good comparisons to Crawford. Matt Holliday - he plays in Coors. Jack Cust this year - something's got to give. 34% of Cust's flyballs were home runs this year, that's not going to happen again. But Cust is a big, muscular guy, I wouldn't compare him to Crawford. If Crawford fills out like Cust he isn't going to be stealing any bases. Vlad Guerrero hit a lot of groundballs and home runs in 2007 - Vlad is a freak. Crawford is not Vlad. Does Crawford have any hope of generating the kind of sheer power and torque Guerrero does with his swings? No way. I just don't see it. Hitting the ball on the ground benefits Crawford's speed. If he hits fewer balls on the ground his home runs may increase but then his batting average and OBP would likely drop. I don't see where he's going to reach this fantasy scenario where he's hitting .320 with 40 home runs and so and so steals.

Nick Punto at 3rd base is shaping up nicely. Now we have to acquire Adam Kennedy. We must have gritty, blue-collared, hard-nose, play-the-game-the-right-way, be able to bunt and handle a bat, full-throttle, get your uniform dirty, smiling white guys instead of these overpaid divas. I like Nick Punto and Adam Kennedy not because they're good at baseball, but they remind me of my grandfather who was a Pennsylvania coal miner.