CubColtPacer

Uh, if the Bears really did have a timeout, why did they not use it? I know you're frustrated, but you've got to give yourself one more chance to block a punt.

Padres probably ask for a little more, but that seems like a good trade. Here we are again, doing all of Hendry's work. How about changing it a little bit: Cubs get: Khalil Greene, Damaso Marte Padres get: Xavier Nady, Jack Wilson Pirates get: Chase Headley, Michael Barrett, Sean Gallagher, Ronny Cedeno, Eric Patterson The Padres are geting screwed in that deal. Giving up Greene, Headley, and Barrett for a platoon outfielder and an average shortstop? Let's add in Jack Morris to the Padres and the Pirates save a ton of money in the deal. You mean Matt Morris? And I really don't see what use the Padres would have for him with their rotation fairly set. Yeah, I meant Matt Morris. The Padres depth chart on ESPN only lists 4 starters and they have been looking at Prior. They would end up with a good corner OF, a decent replacement at SS, and a decent end-of-the rotation starter. Maybe the Bucs would send Bay instead of Nady, but I doubt it. The Pirates have been trying to give away Morris with little success. Even if the Padres wanted Nady and Morris, they wouldn't make this deal. They'd rather just trade with the Pirates, because the cost for the 2 of them together would be a lot less than Greene, let alone Headley as well.

Yup. Been a strange season for Carolina. 4-0 against the NFC West 2-3 against the NFC South (Tampa Bay left) 0-1 against their 2 other NFC games (Dallas left) 0-4 against the AFC South

To be fair, Floyd was only willing to go to one of the Florida teams this year, just as he was only willing to go to the Cubs last year and passed up several other offers to do so. With the way he limited his market, his agent did good to get that much. Also, Floyd was not an everyday player even when he was healthy last year. I really doubt he would have gotten much more elsewhere. If any team had come forward with a significantly bigger offer he would have taken it or used it as leverage to get more money from the Florida teams. I would probably agree with that for the same reasons why his at-bats were limited with the Cubs. He can't stay healthy for more than a couple weeks at a time, he is a 7 inning player, (and is unusable in some of the larger OF's in the league), and he only plays against right handers. The Rays deal is very similar to the Cubs deal for those very reasons. i don't think it's much of an embarrassment to the Cubs though to have a older player sign almost exactly the same deal as he did the year before though.

To be fair, Floyd was only willing to go to one of the Florida teams this year, just as he was only willing to go to the Cubs last year and passed up several other offers to do so. With the way he limited his market, his agent did good to get that much. Also, Floyd was not an everyday player even when he was healthy last year.

Definitely not true. Dubois was old doing that in AAA. Geo was not. Not sure I'm real sold on the age argument. For one, the difference is only a year (DuBois 25 in '04; Soto 24 in '07) For another, DuBois was getting his first crack at AAA, while Soto was spending his third straight year at AAA. I guess I just recall things differently that you guys, because I recall people being awfully excited to add a (perceived) middle of the order thumper to the Cubs' lineup, despite his well-recognized defensive and baserunning shortcomings. How did this discussion go from the Cubs being unwilling to trade their top prospects to a comparison of Dubois and Soto? Neither one of those guys are that highly thought of and if they were rated in the top five Cubs prospects at any time it was more of an indication of how weak the Cubs farm system is/was. Soto is Number 2 on the Cubs prospects list for both BA and Sickels. This is for a farm system that cannot really be labeled as strong, but is probably closer to average than weak. Certainly if you were able to add 3 prospects that would be graded higher than Soto to the Cubs system (making him 5th, the mininum criteria for your statement) the Cubs system would be graded highly. I think you're underrating Soto's projection right now, and I'm not even one of his huge fans. His positional value is just too much to be ignored, even if he regresses quite a bit with the bat.

Definitely not true. Dubois was old doing that in AAA. Geo was not. And there's the key point. It was Todd Hollandsworth that was pissing people off a lot more than a lack of Jason Dubois. Dubois was a little less than 10 months older than Soto was in their big years in the minors. I certainly don't think that qualifies one to be old and one to be not old. The better reason of course is positional scarcity. An 800 OPS for Soto with his defense would mean the Cubs have a greatly above average catcher. An 800 OPS for Dubois playing a below average left field would make him a below average left fielder overall.

as an alumnus, i'm totally excited with this seemingly last-minute turn-of-events. all the rumors about brady hoke made me want to burn my diploma. the fact that he's bringing gibson (db coach) and magee (oc) might mean debord's gone. excellent. DeBord was on his way out anyway. Run left hasn't worked for years. I'm also excited about Rich Rod bringing our strength and conditioning program into the 21st century as well. I do hope they keep Ron English on as DC. I wasnt so sure about what would happen with Debord. His status caused a lot of consternation after reading all the rumors of what was going on in this process behind the scenes. I was never so sure until RR was hired. The new guard at AA won on this one. As for Mallett ill be surprised if he transfers. He burnt his redshirt and transfering would cost him another year. Plus after listening the RR's presser this morning there were at least 3 questions about his offense and how it will fit in. He said that his spread offense is moldible to the talent of a passing or running qb and in the past they have geared it towards a throwing qb and utilizing the skill position players. I thought Mallett was a true freshmen this year. Yeah, if he transfered he only has 2 years of elgiblity remaining but had he redshirted like a lot of Qbs he would have 3 left which isnt so bad. And its not like hes played all that much this year to granish a year of experience. At the same time a lot of qbs dont get their first start until their junior year so who knows. IF he transfers it will definetly hurt UM. Waht are you talking about? If he transfers, he still has 3 years to play. Not redshirting actually helps him keep a year. If he transfers to a 1-A school he has to sit out a year and that year counts against him. If he goes 1-AA then I think he can immediately. I think Hosak is referring to that if he hasn't used his redshirt year yet, he can declare the transfer year as his redshirt and then still be eligible for 3 years starting in the 2009 season.

Let's just say this. After they traded Tejada, they only had to remove 1 guy to make room. When talking on Oriole Hangout about who the extra players they might have to remove from the 40 man roster in order to account for the talent coming back for Bedard and Roberts, there were a few players listed. Only 1 of the players listed were there multiple posts about really hating to lose this player off of the 40 man. That player: Freddie Bynum. Any questions?

no, they can't beat the patriots because they're not as good as the patriots. those teams were not heavy favorites. san diego was favored by what, about 5 points against the pats last year? denver was also very good in 2005. and three years ago the pats were 14-2, and had won 2 of the past three super bowls, and were facing a rookie qb... i think they were actually favored over the steelers in the afc championship game. hey maybe i'm wrong and the pats will lose, but i don't think so. I doubt the Pats are big favorites over the Colts, if those teams meet in the AFCCG. If the line is big, bet on the Colts with the points. The Pats barely won the first meeting despite the Colts missing half their team. half their team? the only important players missing from that game were harrison and ugoh. if the officials hadn't been wearing colts jerseys during the game, the margin of victory would probably have been larger. 2 of the 3 starting linebackers on a team would usually be considered important. The Colts didn't even have 3 linebackers healthy for the Patriots game, let alone their best linebackers. Also Anthony Gonzalez missing the whole 2nd half and the Colts having to rely on the horrible Aaron Moorehead as an outside receiver (and if you don't believe that's a factor, take a look at how the Colts offense has changed since Gonzalez came back). It wasn't a shock that the Pats defense had a lot easier time against the Colts the second half after he left. Then you add in the fact that Brady hasn't been the same player as he was earlier in the season in the last several weeks, and things have changed significantly since the Patriots were destroying everybody in the first 8 weeks of the year.

"An unnecessary gamble?" There's 4 minutes left, if Dallas punts they might not get it back! Also, they're a good offense, they should be able to pick up a 4th and 2. Finally, even if they don't get it, they still can get the ball back down only 1 possession! It would have been criminally bad to not go for it there. And what do you know, they pick it up with complete ease.

To be fair, I don't think cuse ever actually said pressure situations. At the same time, cuse didn't mean anytime runners get on base Prior folds (all he said to begin with was when Prior "got hit he faded", and then he clarified it to when he had been hit hard, i.e. given up 4 runs or more in a game. Nothing has been used statistically to refute that yet. Now, if someone did the legwork they could refute statistically that Prior's performance didn't suffer in those situations, but that would be a lot of work for a person to do for a small argument that in a week will mean nothing :) . The fading part is a qualitative statement that the stats can give indicators for (if he pitched well in those situations he has a greater chance that he wasn't fading at the time) but cannot prove it definitively to be wrong. I also think there's been a quick rush to call an unsupported opinion as a "bad" opinion. A bad opinion is unreasonable, somthing that is incredibly unlikely given the available evidence. We know barely anything about how Prior performed after giving up 4 runs, so virtually no opinion that doesn't touch the extremes is likely to be unreasonable (for example, an extreme would be that Prior cried on the mound when he gave up several runs. We all saw that he didn't do that in those situations, so that's a bad opinion). At the same time, the detractors are right that it is an unsupported opinion. Even though it's reasonable, so are a host of other opinions. Because it's an unsupported opinion, it's very unlikely that it's going to convince anyone to change to that way of thinking (it certainly hasn't changed my belief that Prior did a great job of settling down and pitching well most of the time after some early runs in games). That doesn't make it unreasonable though, not until the available evidence changes significantly.

his experience as a high school baseball coach gives his opinion as to the psyche of a professional player he's never met respect? not from me. He has seen plenty of pitchers lose it on the mound, and has a greater idea than the average fan of what little things to look for to get an indication of that. Sure, professionals lose it a lot less than high schoolers. If you know a person, that also makes it easier to tell, and obviously Cuse doesn't know Prior. Body language experts would tell you that doesn't matter all that much though. There are many traits that all people do in similar situations if you know what you're looking for, and Cuse has seen examples of it so many times that he has a better chance of noticing a little detail than almost anyone else. So yes, I do believe his profession gives him an edge on noticing something like this. Right now I disagree with him, but his opinion is not absurd. high schools pitchers have about zero in common with major league pitchers. come on. Exactly. Right. MLB and colleges get their numbers that are projected by PECOTA and Bill James when players are little leaguers and draft them by using those. How many high school kids have you seen go straight to MLB and pitch? A high school kids mentality is far far different then a MLB pitchers. I highly doubt most MLB pitchers are worried about passing their Chemistry 2 test while pitching, and whether or not Suzie from down the road "likes him". Come on Cuse, there is a big difference between pitching in high school ball, and pitching in the pros. The changes in a person's body language when they lose confidence in what they're doing (which is basically what cuse is asserting that Prior lost confidence and faded when he was hit hard) is not that much different from person to person. Also, patterns such as trying too hard to rely on your best pitch when you're being hit hard is normally the same no matter what the age of the person. A high schooler typically has a more pronounced effect because they're much less used to dealing with failure, but any person will have the same fundamental body language indicators when they are not confident in what they are doing. The pros indicators will just be more masked and harder to detect.

who cares? on paper the bullpen looks to be one of the better ones in the league, with or without a "truly dominant closer." let the reds have cordero at $10.5M per; let the brewers have gagne at $10M. our bullpen should be just as good, and probably cheaper than at least the brewers' pen and possibly cincy's too. The point wasn't a lament of the lack of closer. Rather, it seems like a pretty steep price when the bulk of it isn't being absorbed by some guy throwing bullets at the end of the game with a track record to support a hefty salary. Having a number of $3M-$5M relievers isn't ideal, IMO. Look at recent contracts for relievers in the $12M range: Hawkins, Eyre and Remlinger have had horrendous years in the midst of their respective contracts, yet we continue to give out big dollars for extended periods to relievers. Dempster is a joke, and has been despite his save percentage (which is a farce). I can accept an argument that Howry is worth his contract, but he has had his shaky moments. The point is simply this: mid-range contracts add-up and the Cubs ought to learn from their mistakes. Bullpens ought to be stocked from within the organization with the bulk of their guys earning less than $3M, or, at the very least, not have extended commitments at +$3M. You could argue that the Cubs have learned from the mistakes of Eyre and Dempster though. They have only given out 2 deals of over 1 million to relievers in the past 2 years (Ohman and Wood). Ohman was a 2 year deal for a relatively small amount that they traded away after year 1. Wood is a larger deal, but only a 1 year commitment. The team hasn't continued to give out extended commitments to relievers for quite a while now. The big test will come after 2008, when Howry, Dempster, Eyre, and Wood all come off of the books. How many multi-year deals will be spent to replace them? If it's more than 2, I think you'll have a greater point about the Cubs learning from their mistakes. Right now, they're just living with their past mistakes (and Howry has been anything but a mistake, he has earned every penny and more. To have a dependable guy who is consistently and significantly above league average from year to year is worth a lot in this market, even for a bullpen guy).

They're not getting out of the whole 8 mil. St. Louis is sending cash as part of the deal to pay for part of his contract.

From all I've heard, while Donaldson is still learning the position and is in some ways still very shaky defensively, there is no real expectation that he'll have to move off of the C position. He has the natural skills and instincts, and now it's just a matter of experience and teaching to get him better defensively behind the plate.

his experience as a high school baseball coach gives his opinion as to the psyche of a professional player he's never met respect? not from me. He has seen plenty of pitchers lose it on the mound, and has a greater idea than the average fan of what little things to look for to get an indication of that. Sure, professionals lose it a lot less than high schoolers. If you know a person, that also makes it easier to tell, and obviously Cuse doesn't know Prior. Body language experts would tell you that doesn't matter all that much though. There are many traits that all people do in similar situations if you know what you're looking for, and Cuse has seen examples of it so many times that he has a better chance of noticing a little detail than almost anyone else. So yes, I do believe his profession gives him an edge on noticing something like this. Right now I disagree with him, but his opinion is not absurd.

Here is the latest report from one of the Orioles insiders talking about Roberts: That's it right now, so hopefully we'll hear more explanation is if that's temporarily staying or staying through the whole offseason later. To be fair, there seem to be other sources who still think the trade will be going through eventually.

You guys are right and I'm wrong. What more is there to say? I want you, just once, to support your claim in some way other than some blanket statement about it being your opinion. Is that a lot to ask? How can he support it in the format of this board though? I'm sure that if he had access to the game tape of Prior's starts during that time period and could post it here, Cuse could show you what differences he saw at the time between Prior's body language/throwing motion after he had been hit a few times. Unfortunately, that isn't really available, so all he can give you is his opinion from his experience. BTW, I happen to disagree with Cuse on the overall point, but his experience gives his opinion added respect IMO. His opinion is not such a completely unreasonable thing to be dismissed out of hand just because he doesn't have the access to support it here. It's certainly possible that Prior did, and it's certainly possible that he did not. Unfortunately, the access to game tapes that we have means that it won't likely be proven either way anytime soon.

I can't believe the AFC South this year. The Texans get to 7-7, and that's good enough for last in the South. It wasn't supposed to be nearly this difficult of a division, but teams like the Texans have grown up quickly. If they were in any other division, they'd be a playoff team. (7-3 outside the division, 0-4 inside the division).

I think it's the pitchers/hitters thing. When a general fan talks about steroids, he wants to mention Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Giambi, etc. All of them are hitters. All the people Congress called to testify that they actually suspected were hitters. Even though more pitchers have been caught for steroid use than hitters, pitchers are much more easily believed that they are using it to "help with injuries" rather than to gain a true competitive advantage by being able to hit the ball farther. It's a double standard, but for some reason fans only care about steroids with sluggers, and not steroids with pitchers or steroids in other sports.

What's the third one supposed to signify? I'm trying to find the sad one who understands, which choice if any should I pick?

Who you missing? Cedeno as the second infielder off of the bench and primary backup SS. Thanks for the correction. That's assuming he doesn't get traded for Roberts, but he hasn't been in the latest rumors. For TT: the 5 man bench excludes Pagan for now if they get Mench. If they have to have a backup for CF, then the bench is done already (Cedeno, Ward, Murton, Pagan/Fuld, Blanco). If they don't (if Fukudome is that backup) that opens up another spot for Mench.

If Murton is traded in a deal for Roberts, I'd definitely get Mench to be the right-handed pinch hitter off of the bench. That would require that Fukudome move to CF though when Pie gets days off, and I'm not sure if the Cubs are willing to do that. If they are, then I'd have the bench as DeRosa, Ward, Mench, Cedeno, and Blanco.

I would compare Soto more to Cedeno than Theriot. Theriot never really had that big breakout year in the minors like Cedeno and Soto did. I do believe that Soto is much more ready for the majors than Cedeno was in 2006. At the same time, I agree with you that we need to adjust that .850 number down by at least 50 points and probably closer to 100 points.