badnews

In my experience gap power is too often used as a euphemism for guys with not enough power. Nobody seems to have a good idea what Fukudome will cost. A lot of money for Mark Kotsay numbers is a bad idea. He's got a career .753 OPS, and a career .123 Isolated Power. Matt Murton could put up a .123 Isolated Power and a .753 OPS. Heck, I think Jones or Floyd could do that. Ryan Church, Freddy Sanchez, Aaron Hill, Yuniesky Betancourt, these guys have what is often termed "gap power," we need better hitters than these guys, or at least, we need to not pay them a lot.

I'm not ecstatic about selling these guys at the bottom of their value. If Dempster comes back with a solid season he could net the team a draft pick considering his save totals in 2006. What is he going to be traded for? Did the Angels get anything for Kevin Gregg? No. Are a lot of these guys even tradeable without eating salary? It doesn't seem like it. Yeah, that argument looks weak even to me (but hey, I didn't say anything about Dempster being a funny guy in the clubhouse, +1 for me) but I still think selling at dead bottom value is a disturbing trend with this team. Most of this is probably not likely to happen anyway, isn't Hendry in love with Jeremy Affeldt and wants to sign him or something? I heard that somewhere, no idea if it's reliable. Speaking of Fukudome, anyone else not thrilled with the meant-to-be-complimentary adjective "gap power?" Has "gap power" ever been applied to a good player?

There are a lot of teams who would want Jason Marquis? What was his ERA after the month of May, 5.40? Who wants that at an escalating salary?

I think we can all agree that it's bad for the Cubs that they don't have excess quality trade chips they can deal from and not feel the pain. But I don't care for the fawning. It's just a matter of how things are framed. I've noticed when people cite supply and demand it tends to be in support of a bad deal. And you can say Dombrowski "moved quickly" but what does "moving quickly" usually mean? That you folded faster than Superman on laundry day, that's what it usually means. It's interesting nobody cares if A-Rod can play shortstop anymore but everyone's decided Guillen can't. Guillen's shortstop numbers aren't prohibitively bad. And every time we decide someone can't do something defensively, things get spun on their head. Michael Young can't play shortstop, then he does and he's been a well above average shortstop the last two years. Aramis Ramirez is a bad defensive 3b, what ho, he's the best defender at 3rd this year. Theriot can't play shortstop. Wait, actually he can. So forth. People were impressed the Tigers got Sheffield there. Like Renteria, wow, they got a name. They traded a bundle for him (why not just get Abreu for nothing) and then proceeded to give him a large extension. Why? Because Sheffield is a scary name. A name. Sean Casey had a .746 OPS this year. What was Edgar Renteria's career OPS before this year? .745? So you're replacing Casey with Renteria, as someone above said. Dombrowski would be as well off to replace Inge, then let the spooning begin. Keeping a sub-.700 OPS 3rd baseman because he's a good fielder is preposterous. Pedro Feliz is a better defender than Inge, does anyone on earth like him? David Bell was a good defender too. Let's see what happens there. I think a lot of people just have blinders on when it comes to Detroit. 95% of baseball fans I come across still think Jeremy Bonderman is a great pitcher. Until he pulls his Gil Meche routine, hardly.

There's something wrong with the circular logic that marijuana is illegal because it's bad for you because it ruins lives, ruins lives by getting people in trouble with the law. But anyway, a Brewer prospect in trouble again. HAW HAW

Wasn't Rob Neyer the writer who said, after his breakout 2004, Jake Westbrook would be out of baseball entirely in 3 years? That doesn't sound like a guy with a clue, if you're pre-free agency and can get ground balls you'll hang around.

How can we talk about Geoff Jenkins and Shawn Green without mentioning Brad Wilkerson?!

I don't know about that statement in general. Cla Meredith has a pretty good sinker but his home/away splits are a joke.

I say we cut ties with Prior and Wood to teach them a lesson, and so we can move forward. Ha, that's what one of them would say. The misconceptions are amusing. Like Wood and Prior's money is keeping us from obtaining Johan Santana or something. And "depending" on them. Yes, we're "depending" on them like we "depended" on Sean Gallagher, Angel Guzman, Rocky Cherry, Steve Trachsel, etc. that is, you see if they can help you and if not you move on to someone else. After this year Prior is a free agent. No one believes that Prior could pull some kind of Adrian Beltre BS and have a big year and sucker some team into giving him a big contract?

Compare those defensive metrics to years past though. That's a huge jump from the past. And actually, look at Jacque Jones's defensive metrics for center field in 2007, extremely impressive. They would indicate Jacque was better than the "name" guys like Torii Hunter and Vernon Wells.

The heck with Scott Linebrink. He's just an overrated name. Give up a draft pick for Scott Linebrink? That's crazy. No San Diego reliever is trustworthy, at all. Submitted for your approval, the oft-posted list of San Diego relievers in recent years who weren't good but did well just because they were in San Diego: 2002: Steve Reed Alan Embree Brandon Villafuerte Clay Condrey 2003: Rod Beck Matt Herges 2004: Blaine Neal Jay Witasick Antonio Osuna 2005: Pedro Astacio Rudy Seanez Paul Quantrill Craig Breslow Chris Oxspring 2006: Jon Adkins Cla Meredith Brian Sweeney Scott Cassidy San Diego relievers are illusions and that includes Linebrink whose peripherals have crapped out.

AMEN. One thing that bothers me about this board, the skepticism level is practically zero. If someone puts up a good year, that's it, it's accepted at face value. There are some points others have made that I disagree with. - First of all, Jurrjens and Gorkys absolutely smokes Marshall and EPatt. I can't believe anyone said they were at all comparable. Pretty much every GM but one would take Jurrjens in two seconds over Marshall, that one dissenting GM being Jim Hendry. - This idea that Dave Dombrowski is just the bees' knees because of this. Hey, I'd like to have him as our GM. But I think the Braves are going to walk away from this deal clear winners, like they usually do. I didn't like the Gary Sheffield trade. Look at what the Yankees gave up for Abreu (and Lidle). They gave up squat. Look at what the Tigers gave up Sheffield. A ton, and he's old, injury prone, and look at his OPS, not that great. - Renteria is going to go back to his old .735 OPS self, and then we'll see how smart the Tigers are. I thank the Tigers for removing this temptation from Hendry. And then how much of an offensive upgrade will it be? But all of this misses the main point - the Tigers have the chips to do trades like this, we don't. They're giving away Humberto Sanchez (what that his name? Something like that, I'm in a hurry), Kevin Whelan, Jair Jurrjens because they have Andrew Miller and Rick Porcello. They can give away Gorkys with Curtis Granderson and Cameron Maybin in that outfield. Just like the Braves could trade their overrated prospects for Teixeira and not be sunk. We don't have the chips or the depth.

We need that money to pick up Trachsel's option and bring back Jason Kendall!

Don't we need a post overvaluing outfield defense right about here? Okay, I'll do it. With Coco Crisp in center and Pie in right it will be the best outfield defense ever and make the 2008 Cubs pitching look like the 2003 Dodgers.

The Yankees' offense is not awesome without A-Rod, I think. Furthermore, why do people keep saying $30 million buys you 2-4 good players? It doesn't. Ichiro is a $20 million player, Torii Hunter, who is way overrated, is going to be a $15-16 million player, stiffs like Matt Morris and Miguel Batista are $9 million a year pitchers, Carlos Silva could make $12 million this year, ugh. $30 million does not buy as much as people keep pretending it does, unless you're buying out the arbitration years and extending one of your home grown players in a discount (which the Cubs don't have to worry about, they never have home grown players).

The Yankees probably wouldn't be able to get Cabrera. You can't pull this "Uh, you can anyone except Wang, Hughes, and Chamberlain" nonsense on a deal like that. The Rangers made a similar deal, and they're a franchise that does not spend in accordance with their media market stature. It's a lot of money but I don't think it's not do-able. You're guaranteed a home run chase that everyone will kiss ass at a disgusting level on. The total money is a lot, but for year-to-year money it's more manageable. What does $32 million a year buy you these days? Option A: A-Rod Option B: J. D. Drew Miguel Batista Esteban Loaiza I'd rather have Option A for the money. Torii Hunter is looking at a $15-16 million a year deal and he's got a career OPS of under .800 and everything about him is overrated. I'd be surprised if A-Rod couldn't do better than this deal. Teams blow $31 million getting nickel-and-dimed on junk.

I think he could do better. The three remaining years are a discount. Why couldn't he get something like 9/288 on the open market? His "legitimate" home run chase is going to bring in how much money? The Yankees would be getting a discount. What are they going to do if he leaves? Sign Mike "I hit .373 at Fenway, .276 everywhere else" Lowell to replace him? Hold out for more A-Rod! Bleed those damn Yankees dry!

As long as we're tossing out half-assed trade ideas that look sort of logical but rather aren't, how about this one: Felix Pie, Rich Hill, and Carlos Marmol for Nick Swisher. Now that's not junk for treasure. Hill and Marmol are proven and Pie still has good value. Rich Hill could be Barry Zito in that park, or better. Marmol could close and Billy Beane (who thinks closers are overrated) could trade Huston Street for a treasure trove. Meanwhile, a switch-hitter who takes 100+ walks and hit 35 home runs while playing in Oakland is a 1.000+ OPS season waiting to happen in Wrigley Field batting between Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez. There's your right fielder, there's your thunder from the left side, also he's an "athlete" so Hendry will buy into it. Now in actuality I don't think that's a good idea, I don't think Swisher can keep his BA high enough to be a .950 OPS guy, let alone 1.000, and I think if you're giving up guys like Marmol and Hill you could do better than Swisher, who sometimes looks like he could go the Brad Wilkerson route, and I'm not a huge fan of switch-hitters who hit lefties better than righties. But I am on board with getting a 100+ walk right fielder more than most of these ideas.

Here's what I think we should do. We should stop trading for guys at the top of their value and stop trading guys at the bottom of their value. Every year on message boards I see people clamoring for whoever had the good year that year to be traded for. Anyway, more specifically in the topic, the Prior/Orioles deal was just one of those throwaway rumors, like "Lastings Milledge could've brought the Mets Joe Blanton but Minaya didn't pull the trigger, oh, what a bastard, fire him." I'm not a huge fan of Bedard. If the Orioles were smart they'd trade him now for a huge bounty. He's not a guy I'd personally want to pay $20 million a year to because I don't think he'll repeat his 2007. I think he'll be a lesser A. J. Burnett - some flashes of brilliance, frustrations with consistency and staying healthy. Let someone else take the gamble, I don't trust the organization any more to make big trades and not get taken. Assuming a lot of things. But I'm more skeptical; we've been paper champs before.

No. He's had two down years and he looks like toast. If San Diego's cutting him loose that's a huge knock on him - these are the guys who still believe Morgan Ensberg and Jason Lane are good contributors. Marcus Giles is like Richard Hidalgo. There was a time when you'd have been glad to have him, but that was years ago.

What scouts like Justin Berg? He gets groundballs but everything else looks blah.

I don't really agree with that assessment. If you think about, there's not a lot of reason to take anyone's word on Fukudome, all we're doing is tossing around glittering blandishments. I'm not sure how that qualifies as a fact. I know that Iwamura and Johjima put up some good numbers in Japan, especially in the last two years before they came over, they signed for modest contracts, and are putting up OPSes in the mid .700s. What is the dollar total for Johjima and Iwamura's contracts? $16 million? What's the numbers we hear get tossed around for Fukudome? A 4 year, $52 million deal maybe? Is Fukudome going to put up numbers 3-4 times better than those guys? Doubtful. I agree with Bobby Abreu 2007 type numbers, or 2007 J. D. Drew numbers. The problem is, I don't think those numbers are a good use of $12-13 million a year. It's weird, Bobby Abreu 2007 numbers are close to Jose Guillen 2007 numbers, but nobody wants to pay Jose Guillen anything. Matt Murton has half a chance to put up some permutation of an .814 OPS. I don't like long committments and pricey ones to players that don't look like great.

Have we ever been pleasantly surprised by a PTBNL? I think we traded Dwaine Bacon to the Angels for a PTBNL as then actually got nothing. And good 'ol Clint Brannon. Here's my method to figuring out who the PTBNL will be. Scan the Pirates Low A roster for anyone over the age of 23. Presto! There's your PTBNL.

I'm not sure that proves anything. How many times did Jeremy Sowers rank better than Fausto Carmona in the prospect rankings?

I haven't looked up the numbers of those teams to find out what's going on, but just eyeballing them some of them have other factors. Adding Tejada isn't going to make the Cubs lineup Milwaukee-esque. I'll just conveniently blame Texas's success on their park. The Angels steal more bases than I think the Cubs have a chance to do. That probably goes for the 2004 White Sox. I don't think the Cubs properly utilize their basestealing talent even when they have it.