badnews

The cost of Sidney Ponson means we won't be able to get Rocky Biddle!

yes, plz, let's get Elijah Dukes, Lastings Milledge and Milton Bradley in the same clubhouse. Dukes & Milledge were in the same clubhouse last year and they didn't go on any gang banging rampages. Dukes has HOF talent. its worth the gamble. That's over the top.

Langerhans is a nothing guy even on the Nats. I think the time for Kearns and Pena may have largely come and gone. I remember when everyone here was an Austin Kearns groupie. Him and Brad Wilkerson. Yeah. I remember after his 2004 I was like "This dude is going to have a monster season this year." Uhhh....

On the downside, the whole AIDS thing. YOU MISSED THE PART ABOUT THE HOT GIRLFRIEND

Above Stephen Drew and Jered Weaver? That's laughable.

Ben Sheets isn't going to pitch in 2009. I'd let someone else deal with the hassle of signing him for August rehab.

What annoys me is that when it was just Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Juan Gonzalez, and Rafael Palmeiro, people were all for and making pariahs out of them. Then it became A-Rod and Roger Clemens and people are like "Well, let's reconsider." I'd rather have Barry Bonds in the Hall of Fame than Roger Clemens, Clemens is a bigger ****head than Bonds. Who throws their wife under the bus to get out of trouble?

Did anyone else laugh out loud at the line "According to Wikipedia?"

I actually haven't looked at his defensive statistics, I just know whenever I happen to watch the Phillies Ryan Howard looks like a cow trying to play 1st base. Also, $18 million a year buying out someone's arbitration years is not a bargain. He'll make more in arbitration than he will on the free agent market.

I remember everyone liking the signing. My thought was, hey, a lefty who can miss that many bats in the AL East, sounds good.

SHAWNE MERRIMAN LIGHTS OUT OMFG Yeah that gets me too. In baseball using steroids, really, is about akin to being a sex offender. In football, who gives a damn. Doesn't make sense to me. Although I have to admit, personally I love to see that bastard Roger Clemens twist in the wind. Ha ha ha.

That Robnett guy is going to be great. Truth be told, I really thought Mark Rogers was going to be badass. But if you remember the two best prospects weren't even Verlander and Humber, I believe they were Stephen Drew and Jered Weaver. They were calling Weaver the best college pitcher since Prior.

A-Fraud or A-Roid This is a time of many difficult decisions

Murton hits the ball on the ground too much. Murton reminds me of a less good, right-handed version of Ben Grieve.

Adam Dunn at $10 million a year is a better value than Manny for $25 million a year. Manny is not a 1.232 OPS hitter. I don't know why anyone isn't picking up on the obvious. What Manny did with the Dodgers is essentially like what Randy Winn did with the Giants. Yes, of course, Manny is better than Randy Winn. We all know that. The point is neither of them is what they showcased after the trade. Randy Winn was not a 1.071 OPS player and Manny is not a 1.232 OPS player. And the way people are ignoring Manny's age seems downright disingenuous to me. Manny was one of the greatest hitters of the past 20 years. Okay. So was Frank Thomas. Somebody give Frank Thomas $20 million. I like the ability of older guys to keep their bats in good shape if they're DHing. Manny's career OPS+ is 155. Jim Thome's is 148. Guys like Jim Thome and Frank Thomas get to DH. Sorry. A younger Manny is worth $25 million. If we could use Doc Brown's flying DeLorean to kidnap the Manny Ramirez of 2003 and sign him for $25 million, fantastic idea, I say fire up the damn flux capacitor. But falling into the trap of thinking age has no effective on a rotund position player? Eh... my bottom line point is not that Manny is washed up, he isn't, my bottom line point is you have to temper your enthusiasm and not pretend you're getting Manny 2003.

Coors Field isn't going to help Murton much because of those mighty hacks of his that produce groundballs directly to the shortstop. If you actually break down the player Murton into his assets all of a sudden you realize the guy isn't really good at anything. Like, if there was a 50 man active roster he might have a place on the Nationals.

I wish we had Manny being Manny on our team That part where he shoved the traveling secretary to the ground was badass. I mean, some 72 year old jackass starts gettin' lippy with me about how he can't get me all the tickets I want, I'm going to make him eat **** too. This business where no one thinks Manny will decline with age reminds me of when people used to think the same thing about Gary Sheffield. Sheffield had good numbers from his age 34-36 years. Manny's going to be 37 in 2009 and once he has his money, which he's going to be sour about since it's not 4 years, $100 million, I just don't see him being this 1.232 OPS guy people are talking about. Would you give Chipper Jones 3 years, $70 million?

I don't understand what's going to keep him motivated once he has his money. "Hey hey I'm Manny! I'm unna lie down on the ball in the outfield! Maybe I play, maybe I don't! Manny being Manny huzzah!"

Look at Mark Prior's pitch counts for the 2003 season and tell me that's normal. How many times do you send a 23 year old pitcher out there to go over 120 pitches? The last two months are simply brutal, it makes my arm hurt. Yes, having guys throw 130+ pitch outings back to back games is sensible. But anyway, team not getting better. Yes, I agree with that. I'm not sure why Bradley is still characterized as a big bat. I think he'll be an .815 OPS, 110 game, beat up the lefties and do okay against the righties type of bat, which really doesn't solve any problems.

I'm enjoying the revisionist history on how we should've gotten rid of Rich Hill immediately after he was successful. After all, he did have junk stuff, stuff crappy enough to result in a K/9 above 8. And he did fall apart with runners on base (sarcasm here). I mean, look at his LOB % vs. the major league average, my God, this guy just let everyone score once they were on base. Deer in the headlights I tells ya, deer in the headlights. I'm glad we never had Cliff Lee, otherwise we'd have sold him for junk after his bad season as well.

You think one, single pitcher (who wasn't even that great last season in terms of total value) is worth 1/14th of a championship every season to this team? That's insanity. That's Khalil Greene-territory. Not really. Let's just do a rough take on the situation. For now let's make a couple relative assumptions. 1.) Without Peavy the Cubs have a 100% chance of making the playoffs. 2.) With Peavy the Cubs have a 100% chance of making the playoffs. 3.) Rich Harden is able to make one start in the NLDS with or without Peavy 4.) Cubs starts in a 7 game series w/o Peavy: 2 for Z, 2 for Demp, 2 for Lilly, 1 for Harden. 5.) Cubs starts in a 7 game series w/ Peavy: 2 for Z, 2 for Peavy, 1 for Demp, Lilly and Harden. 6.) The Cubs offense coupled with pitching staff #4 is an average team faced in rounds 2 and 3 of a hypothetical playoff. 7.) The Cubs offense coupled with pitching staff #3 w/o Peavy is an average team faced in round 1 of a hypothetical playoff. 8.) The Cubs offense is a 5.00 runs per 9 innings offense. That's ~825 run offense. 9.) The career SP-RA is to be used for each starting pitcher. 10.) We're slotting the Cubs bullpen as a 3.00 RA bullpen in the 9th inning, 3.50 in the 8th, 4.00 in the 7th and 4.50 in the 1-6th. Obviously, since we're assuming that the Cubs without Jake Peavy are an average playoff team, the Cubs chances of winning the World Series under these assumptions is 12.5%. How about once we trade for Jake Peavy? Well we go ~98 win team to a ~105 win team, once you make the proper adjustments. Our chances of wining the World Series improve to 21.4%. Nearly a nine percent increase in this model. If we make the same assumptions for 2010 and 2011, which is of course a big assumption unlike the ones I've already made, then the chances we go title-less in the three years without Peavy is over two-thirds but if we trade for Peavy, we're better than a coin flip bet to win at least one title the next three years. I don't know about you, but I like those odds. I like them very much. Hey look everyone. It's the same shady math that Meph used to guarantee that Fukudome would be a significantly better offensive player than he actually is. Despite the fact I pointed out most of the players it didn't work for. Oh well. Fukudome is still awesome. He's Japanese. The nonsense you continually comes up with never ceases to amaze me. There was the "Jake Peavy is better than Johan Santana" nonsense. Then there was the nonsensical "This formula proves Fukudome will be good, I guarantee it," nonsense. Then there was the "Investing $300 million in a 4 year deal for Yu Darvish is underpaying." How do I put this? A lot of the time you are full of crap. And the fact that you are full of crap with a lot of certainty doesn't fool anyone with any sense that you are still full of crap. Good day.

Having to do with the governance of a city, town, or township perhaps.

Because the Padres have even worse constraints than fan pressure. They have an owner mandate to lower payroll to a point that demands Peavy be dealt, and Peavy and his agent have essentially made the Cubs his only possible destination. Ben Sheets is not a great alternative to Jake Peavy.

I remember when Jonny Gomes was a fairly flashy name, i.e. one of those 4th outfielders everyone's always gunning for.

Here is what I am not understanding about the theoretical push for Peavy. The Pads would know the Cubs were determined, almost mandated, to make a big splash. So what is stopping them from making the asking price almost prohibitive? You can have what you want but you have to pay the price, or go back to your fans empty handed. Why don't the Padres ask for Carlos Marmol, Mike Fontenot, Garrett Olson, Jeff Samardzija, Welington Castillo, Dae-Eun Rhee, Josh Vitters, Jay Jackson, Larry Suarez, and more? Why don't they just get every prospect on the Cubs that's won't need to be protected on the roster for two years or so and see what happens, in addition to getting the bigger prospects. Is there a price that *is* too high? Would it even be possible for the Padres to ask for too much, assuming of course Soto is left out of the discussion.