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If they don't resign Dempster in this scenario, they'll still have Marquis. That's not saying much, but still..... He was talking about next offseason. Marquis will be a free agent along with Harden.

No the Grossman 2.0 last year (Where he was much better) loved tossing that fade route to Olsen. Were those fade routes actually completed? In the games where Grossman played after he got back, Olsen had: Raiders: no catches Seattle: 7 catches, 43 yards Denver: 1 catch, 10 yards Giants: 2 catches, 7 yards In the Washington game, all 3 of Olsen's catches were after Griese replaced Grossman. Their longest connection during that whole time? That 10 yard pass in Denver. That's a rather short fade pattern if it isn't in the end zone. Plus there were no TD catches. It looks like Olsen was only used only as a safety valve when Grossman came back. They didn't send him down the field at all. Olsen's value came last year only when Griese was in.

The difference in picks is pretty negligible(unless Affeldt is the reliever signed), and I didn't include the return on Lee both for simplicity's sake and so that we didn't get into a "we're getting too much/little for Lee" debate, which wasn't my intention. Sort of. Losing two type A players and signing 2 others does have its advantages. If the Cubs did that, they would: lose their first and 2nd round pick but they would gain Anaheim's first rounder, Arizona's 2nd rounder (I believe Arizona is the last team whose 1st round pick is protected), and 2 sandwich picks. So the Cubs would pick up 2 extra high picks with the swap. It would be even better if the 2nd type A free agent was also among the best 15 teams and they would effectively swap their 2nd for another team's first. Even if it just is 2 extra sandwich picks though, that is still significant. Dempster to LAA and Wood to ARZ, or vice versa? Oops. Thanks for the correction. I'll edit the post above. I didn't actually mean those two to those particular teams. The most likely result would still then be that one of the top 15 teams would sign one of them, and one of the bottom 15 teams would sign the other one. So the Cubs would get a 1st and a 2nd and two sandwich picks while giving up a 1st and a 2nd.

I'm not sure it would be wise to have both Harden and Marshall in the rotation. That's a likely 160 innings that you'll have to find from a 6th and possibly 7th starter. Harden is effective enough that even with missing 1/3 of the season the numbers for that spot are still excellent. I'm not so sure you can say that about Marshall. Sure, he'll give you a good 110-130 innings. But if the other 70-90 innings is filled in with an emergency starter, will that be worth more than Marquis? Plus with Harden having Marshall as that extra starter becomes even more valuable. He'll likely be able to be used to his full potential in that swing starter role because of those injury concerns with Harden.

The difference in picks is pretty negligible(unless Affeldt is the reliever signed), and I didn't include the return on Lee both for simplicity's sake and so that we didn't get into a "we're getting too much/little for Lee" debate, which wasn't my intention. Sort of. Losing two type A players and signing 2 others does have its advantages. If the Cubs did that, they would: lose their first and 2nd round pick but they would gain either 2 firsts, 1st and a 2nd, or 2 seconds (depending on two things..if the teams that signed them are in the top 15, and if they are the highest ranked free agent signed by those teams) and 2 sandwich picks. So the Cubs would pick up 2 extra high picks with the swap. It would be even better if the 2nd type A free agent was also among the best 15 teams and they would effectively swap their 2nd for another team's first. Even if it just is 2 extra sandwich picks though, that is still significant.

That's a really hard question to answer. If you sort by 100 plate appearances, the Cubs are the first team to get 2 catchers on the list (Soto is 4th in OPS, Blanco is 23rd. That's out of 64 catchers that qualify). Cin had 2 catchers as well, but one of them is Valentin who wasn't really used as a catcher much this year. Blanco is also looked at as one of the best defensive catchers in baseball, and had another great percentage at throwing out runners (45.4%). So at least with his arm, that reputation is earned. But best backup? It's hard to say. There are a few catching situations that is hard to pick the starter and the backup. Plus catcher defense is even harder to quantify then other positions. But Blanco has to be right up there. Anytime you can say your backup catcher was an average catcher offensively (for both starters and backups) and probably well above average defensively, that is an amazing combination for a backup. Now-there is a question if he can repeat what he has done the last 2 seasons when he is healthy with the bat. Those were numbers he never put up earlier in his career, and it seems strange for him to finally be figuring it out offensively in his mid 30's. He'll turn 38 next year. So some decline has to be expected for him. Blanco's probably the best catcher floating around in free agency even if he's not the best backup overall. The question becomes if you really want to pay a premium for a backup catcher when you have Soto as your starter. How many resources do you want to pay for a guy who will start 30-40 games in the regular season and is only an insurance policy in the playoffs? The Cubs are at a level right now that they should probably think about how to best utilize their resources both for the season and the playoffs. You don't want to load up too much money balancing your team and creating very little holes during the season, but at the same time end up having 15-20 million dollars locked up in your 5th starter, backup catcher, and 4th or 5th relievers, none of who will play much role in the postseason when you could have made an upgrade to get a star somewhere else. So Blanco could be both worth the money and yet not worth it to the Cubs. It's just how much of a risk the team wants to take. Do they buy one star in the offseason and try to risk it in the regular season, or do they continue to build the best 25 man roster top to bottom, even if it isn't the best 18-20 man squad?

Wikipedia has it listed as -7.

Terrible news. Somebody had a decent shot of taking a chance on him if he was a type B and they weren't going to lose any picks for him. I'd be shocked if anybody was desperate enough to lose a pick over him though. And I believe the minimum you can offer in arbitration is 80 percent. So they'd have to offer Howry at least 3.6 million. He might get that somewhere else..if we don't offer him arbitration. If we did, he'd accept for sure because that would pretty much kill the market for him.

I'm not as excited about Burnett as everyone else seems to be, especially for the crazy money teams are lined up to pay him. Assuming Dempster's year wasn't a total fluke, Dempster will be $3-$4 million cheaper per year for 1-2 less years. You really think Burnett is going to go for insane money? I certainly see Sheets and Sabathia going for insane dollar amounts, but i'm not sure how I feel about Burnett. He had his worst year since 03 last year so possibly his price tag will be a little less? Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. Isn't Burnett giving up big money to opt out in the first place? I can't imagine he'd opt out and take less money to sign somewhere else. But, I don't know what his current contract looks like, so maybe he isn't giving up big money by opting out. Burnett has 2 years and 24 million left on his deal.

The Padres are looking to cut payroll and get younger by trading Peavy. DLee doesn't help them with either objective. Plus they already have a good player at his position.

Then later in the article.. Makes me wonder if he would take Randy Bush, leaving the Cubs without a worthwhile GM. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-081016-chicago-cubs-jim-hendry,0,582070.story Yeah I think there would be interest for Hendry then some think. I know many have not like some of his moves in the past, but even the best GM's make subpar moves.When it comes down to it Hendry has made alot more good moves then bad. Then when you consider he's put a competitive team on the field 5 of 6 years(05 team could have contended for playoff spot without all the injuries) he's been the GM, and has 3 division titles in 6 years. His resume is actually pretty solid, and I can see the Mariners, Blue Jays and a few other teams interested. But I would be surprised if Hendry isn't back, he seems to like it here, and the team is happy with him. I don't see his style working well with a mid-sized market team like Seattle. Hendry makes good moves, but he also throws a lot of money at his problems as well. I can't see him having the flexibility to do that in Seattle, a market that has let very good players leave due to money. And if they do give him some money to spend, are they going to give him more money to spend when he makes mistakes on some of his big money acquisitions? The Mariners spent around 1 million less than the Cubs this year and outspent them last year. They are plenty willing to spend money. They just haven't spent it on the right people.

Well, so much for that trade. McCargo fails his physical and goes back to the Bills.

The season is way too long in MLB to always be looking forward to the playoffs. I refuse to make all my enjoyment based on what happens in a couple week stretch. Sure, it was very disappointing to come out like the Cubs did in the 3 games of the playoffs. But if I enjoyed a team more than they frustrated me, then I'm happy. And there was so much to enjoy during the whole season that 1 week of frustration does not come close to matching. This Cubs team was fun to watch. Obviously, this team still has ways to improve in the enjoyment factor by putting together some postseason success. But if you solely are looking at the postseason to see if the team was enjoyable or not, you're missing a lot of fun with games during the season.

I'm not watching the Bears game, but one way that a defensive player can get called for a delay of game is if they are calling out fake signals trying to make people believe that they are the quarterback. It's probably what happened if there was no real clear delay.

You want a catcher that tips pitches? :confused: Also Hank did hit .292 last year. Did I miss the Koyie tips pitches story? It all stemmed from one game the last week of the season. Samardzija was on the mound, and on every offspeed pitch Hill stretched out. He stayed straight up on every fastball. I didn't see any evidence that he was tipping anybody else's pitches, and that's the only inning I've seen him catch Jeff. I don't think it's a big concern.

Agreed. I'm fine with Hill backing up a prospect at AA or AAA, but he's done as a major league backstop. There are other options available on the cheap that I'd be perfectly fine with. But, my first preference would probably be to bring back Blanco for 1m. I don't think anywhere near 1 million is realistic for a good veteran backup catcher. You can find another catcher out there for around a million, but he won't be anywhere near as good as Blanco. Most backup catchers that have hit free agency make between 1.5 and 2 million, and most of them aren't as good offensively or defensively as Blanco. I think it has to be either the expensive option (Blanco) or the cheap option (Hill). The in between options don't really give you the correct value for your money.

I get the random blind guess of zambrano, he has had a temper in the past and seems to like to play practical jokes (depending on whether the pipe was broken out of anger or as a joke). But..DLee? Huh? I think Lee is being seen as a guess because he was the only one who threw anything during the game. He was pretty upset when he cracked his helmet.

We do need to make an adjustment also for how many throwing errors Theriot caused due to his baserunning. Just on steal attempts, that would be 3 errors this year by opposing catchers that allowed extra bases for himself and others. At the same time, double steals have to be treated differently. If you're on the front end of a double steal you should get a positive adjustment, a back end of a double steal gets a negative adjustment. That would likely be more negative than positive for Theriot this year. His baserunning was definitely a net negative this year. It's hard to pin down exactly how much. The problem becomes that some of the positives of aggressive baserunning are hard to pin down statistically while we can pin down how many times he was thrown out at 2nd, 3rd, or home (although we'd have to look through the game logs to find out the times he was thrown out other than steal attempts). Even with that, him getting thrown out at bases definitely was enough of an effect for his baserunning to be noted as a negative to his game this year though. But the deeper you get in and the more adjustments you start making to try to finetune a number, the more that negative would probably tend to get overstated. Don't get me wrong-it was still a very unacceptable amount of aggression. But it's much harder to analyze the benefits of aggression than it is to be able to take off the detriments.

No. he could. With the huge exception of OBP, Theriot's offense this season was not even close to good. That .387 OBP would also likely come down with his batting average not likely to stay at .307 Why is it not likely? Because you don't like him? i haven't looked too closely at the stats but I assume his BABIP is a little bit high for his LD% also, where would i find LD% stats? fangraphs.com. And no..his BABIP is actually in line with his LD percentage (23.2% with a BABIP of .340) If anything, it's just a touch low, but it's pretty much right on.

I've got a quick question. Your premise is that when the defense makes an error, Zambrano lets the emotion get the best of him and prolongs an inning. You're then using the double by Martin as evidence of that premise. My question is..what about the at-bats by Kemp, DeWitt, Blake, and Billingsley? There was already a poor play defensively in the inning before any of those 4 players stepped to the plate. If Z had let the emotions get the best of him after that poor play, wouldn't he have thrown bad pitches and not gotten these 4 out? That didn't happen though. Z continued to make good pitches. So why did Z suddenly blow up emotionally against Martin, but not against these previous batters? What about the situation changed? And to recap the inning. Before the Martin double, Z struck out 2 batters in the inning. He also had 3 ground balls right to where his infielders were playing..including 2 that could have easily been double plays. His defense recorded exactly 0 outs in that inning. And I can point to other times where the defense struggled and Z fought through it. One was when these Dodgers were in town and Z had to throw 130 pitches because his defense failed him twice in a row in the 8th inning. Zambrano battled back and got the next hitter to end the inning and keep the game close. That's just one example to show good faith.

Derosa's season should be viewed as somewhat flukish, I doubt he just came into his own at 33. He's in his last year of his contract, and should not be extended, so either have him play out the season or trade him at a high point. I'd trade him. Theriot isn't going to continue to get better. He turns 29 this winter and has likely reached his peak, which was okay, but hardly special. His entire game is based on finding holes with singles and bloops. He hits nothing hard, and I don't see him maintaining these numbers very long. And at his age, we might expect his defense to get even worse, as middle infield is a young man's position. Do you think you can get enough on the trade market though for DeRosa to compensate for a year at his 2007 levels (I doubt he can hit at his 2008 levels again) and then a potential 2 draft picks when he leaves? I'm not sure his trade value is high enough to make up for both of those which would make me lean towards keeping him and hoping to pocket the picks after the year. I agree with you that signing him to an extension is the worst option of the 3. As for Theriot, I agree with the overall point but disagree with some of the finer points. It's probably semantics..but he hits plenty of hard hit balls. It's not like he's trying to find holes with weakly hit balls most of the time. He hit more no doubt line drive singles than probably any other hitter in the league this year. The question becomes if somebody can keep up a line drive rate like that with his swing pattern. I'm not sure if he can, and even if he does his upside is so limited because his swing prevents him from getting a lot of extra base hits. I think the next couple years will have him bouncing between a .690 and .750 OPS before he declines and fades right out of the league. A medium priority to upgrade that would be higher if there were more options available.

The 2006 team only won like 32 games. No way Geo played on that team. But seriously, he didn't. Debuted in September of last year, candidate for ROY this year. 2006 was a Barrett year. Soto did play on the 2006 team in September. I'm not sure it was the same guy though..because whoever was using his name looked absolutely clueless at the plate. A lot of swinging bunts, weak ground balls, and strikeouts in his very limited number of at-bats. He had a .471 OPS (over only 25 at-bats) and that was because he got lucky with his BABIP. Thankfully we never saw that version of Geo Soto again.

I have found the starters for Tuesday's potential game. John Danks on 3 days rest vs Nick Blackburn.

Ok, so here's my situation. I was about 10 points behind in my rotisserie league as of the beginning of the week. I have made a furious charge and am now down only 4. Normally, I would be dead anyway with the end of the season. But I still do have both the Detroit-Chicago game, and then possibly the Minnesota-Chicago game after that. Here are the categories I am close in: Runs scored Other team-868 me-867 K's first place team-1144 me-1143 wins me-82 first place team-82 other team-82 Saves other team-79 me-78 Remember, the score is 81-77 right now. Our league is limited by number of starts. I have one start left. I have picked up every White Sox, Tiger, and Twin guy available (including all the White Sox big players-Thome, Konerko, Swisher, Cabrera, Griffey, Uribe..plus Inge, Polanco, and other Twins. On my pitching staff, I have Rodney the Detroit closer, plus Seay, Linebrink, Dotel, and Thornton). I can pick up Freddy Garcia, but not Gavin Floyd. So I have two questions. One, who are the potential starters for Chicago's matchup with Minnesota on Tuesday? And should I risk picking up Garcia using up my final start of the year, or risk that the White Sox will win tomorrow and try to pick up one of the starters on Tuesday (hopefully they're not on another team..but most White Sox and Twins starters aren't)? Any help tonight would be greatly appreciated.

Excellent move by the Mets. Plus, today was more of a must win at the time than tomorrow. They didn't have the luxury of seeing how the Brewers did first. If they didn't win today, then they could have been eliminated by a Brewers win then saving Santana for tomorrow would have been pointless. Kinda like saving Zambrano for Game 4 last year then getting swept. There is no way that today was more of a must win than tomorrow. The Mets still have to win the maximum number of games they can win this season. For example, let's say they were planning on starting Niese today and pushed him back to tomorrow for Santana. That fits your scenario...need to move Santana up because today is a must win game, and then take your chances with the inferior pitcher tomorrow. Now let's say your chances of winning are 40% with Niese and 80% for Santana when pitching on normal or extra rest. Your chances of winning with Santana on 3 days rest are 70%. What do you do? (obviously all those numbers are approximations..but I think you'll agree with me that Santana is hurt more by going on 3 days of rest than Niese is helped by an extra day of rest). In that scenario, you have to go ahead and pitch Niese on Saturday. Yes, you could get eliminated before Santana even pitches. But your overall chances of making the playoffs are higher by doing it that way than if you move Santana up. And isn't that what you always strive to do..improve your chances of making the playoffs over the course of the season? The fact that it also means you have a greater chance of getting eliminated before the final day of the season means absolutely nothing. Just because you could get eliminated doesn't mean you should start playing for a small increase today at the greater decrease for tomorrow. It has nothing to do with luxury. That being said, I approve of the Santana move because that means they get to pitch Oliver Perez on Sunday instead of Jon Niese. Perez wouldn't have been available to pitch today, so they had to move Santana up in order for that to happen. Plus, it helps Santana have more rest before the playoffs as an extra benefit. So I agree with you that what the Mets did is correct. But I disagree with you strongly that one of the reasons they needed to do it was because today was a must win due to them possibly getting eliminated. Unless you believe strongly in momentum, that doesn't really hold up.