CubColtPacer

Putting aside the question if the Cubs should try for Headley or not, it doesn't make sense that they would actually win a bid for Headley. To do so, one of two scenarios would have to happen. The first scenario is that no contender with any kind of need at third base values Headley properly at all, and the Padres don't value Headley correctly (possibly because of cost concerns). The second scenario is that the Cubs overpay drastically. Headley should have more value for a contender than he does to the Cubs. They take advantage of his production right now and in the years to come, while the Cubs will only benefit from his production in the years to come. So a contending team should be willing to pay more. So should the Cubs inquire? IMO, yes. But they'll probably drop out rather quickly. As Raw said, the Padres are likely considering trading him primarily for the same reason the Cubs have less value on him. Right now the Padres have present value+future value from Headley. If they can convert that into all future value from other players, they'd much rather have that since Headley's present value is useless to them. I think the cost concerns are secondary to them. They're probably just hoping a contending team values his present value very highly and gives them a great package.

On a selfish note, I wish his debut wasn't a WCIU game. As for expectations, I'm not sure, but the main things I'll be watching for are his K rate and his FB rate.

I'm sure they are finalizing things, going through physicals, getting a visa, etc. I'm sure that as soon as all those details are worked out that the signing will be announced and he'll be assigned to a team. They're not going to wait to get him started just to announce it with Almora. Is extended spring training like a season long thing that is basically equivalent to a lower level than Boise, or does it end (or has it already) at some point during the year. If it's still going on, I'd imagine they'd send Soler there to get his feet wet first, right? Excuse the stupid question, it's my first year paying much attention to the minors. There can still be players at the complex rehabbing/working, but the extended spring training games end before Arizona/Boise start. He could be sent to Arizona which is a lower level than Boise, but they're formal games, unlike extended spring where you can bat a player leadoff every single inning if you want to.

It's a risky play for the Bulls to send Deng out, but here's what they could be thinking. With Rose out and the Bulls having to cut salary to get under the luxury tax, they might be considering this year as basically a lost one. Trading Deng will get the Bulls under the luxury tax for this year plus get a top 10 pick (I don't see how a GS deal would work because they don't have the cap space and not many good contracts, but a Toronto deal for #8 might work better for either space or for Calderon as a placeholder for this year). So the Bulls get a huge trade exception they can use if they want to add salary during the year. If they don't find a deal to their liking, they can amnesty Boozer and have a large amount of cap space next offseason. With Deng's salary gone and Boozer, Hamilton, Korver, Brewer, and Watson's salaries possibly coming off next year, the Bulls could have 18-20 million in cap space (will have around 30 million committed+Gibson's cap hold+cap hold for next year's pick+roster charges for all the unused spots). So they could make a run after another max player next offseason. If it all works out, by next year you have a Deng level player or better to pair with Rose and a top 10 pick added on as well. The main question becomes if the Bulls think a Rose/Deng/Noah core is the one they want (since those 3 combined take up 70% of the cap by themselves) or if they want to take this chance to remake the roster a bit.

That defensive number for that year is probably a huge outlier. Soriano's defense has always been underrated, but he almost certainly wasn't the best defensive player for his position in baseball by a wide margin which is what fangraphs has him at in 2007. To compare, bWAR had him as a 4.1 win player that year. But he was a very good to great player that year with either system.

Yeah, I can actually deal with Lebron, Wade and Bosh getting a title. But the "cling ons" actually bug me a bit more. Shane Battier gets a title? Ugh. I don't mind Battier. Players who don't contribute much like Howard are another matter. But Battier was a big part of their success this postseason. His great defense on much bigger players in the post was what allowed Miami to go small so often.

Yeah, the main thing to remember when looking at fangraphs numbers is that they look at hitters and pitchers differently. For hitters, they look at their results no matter how they got there. So a hitters WAR more accurately reflects how they have helped their team win, but needs to be adjusted for luck in order to have any predictive power. For pitchers, they look at their peripherals (specifically K, BB, and HR ratios). So for pitchers it tries to account for luck and looks at what should have happened, not what did happen. It's more predictive, but less reflective of their results. So in Volstad and Wood's case, since their K/BB ratio is very similar and Volstad gave up a lot less home runs than Wood has, he has a much better FIP which is what a pitcher's WAR is based on. xFIP and SIERA, both which try to iron out the variability in home run rates that FIP doesn't account for, have them as virtually identical pitchers in the predictive sense so far this year.

It's just as bad with the 3 or 4 steps travel when a guy from the 3 pt line put his head down or does a spin move and goes towards the basket. Patrick Ewing made a HoF career out of this with his running hook shot. Yeah, and in this case the result isn't nearly as bad because Miami gained no advantage on the play. It just looks so odd when there's such a long time between dribbles on a play like that which makes it more obvious IMO. But after looking it over again, his palm wasn't obviously under the ball at any point. The strange part was that the ball stopped when his hand was touching it on the side, and then his hand had to move back to the top of the ball to dribble again. So it certainly looks like a violation, but I don't know if it technically is.

How was that not a double dribble/carry on LeBron on the Harden play? Harden pokes it away, LeBron gets it back. He then takes a dribble, an obvious pause with the ball in his hands, then the ball goes down again. I know the NBA is lax about that rule, but they aren't usually anywhere near that lax.

Stewart is 36th among 167 qualifiers in K% He's 35th out of those 36 in wOBA Striking out too much was not his problem. 36th highest out of those 167. It's not his only problem, but strikeouts have been a problem for him throughout his career and to a lesser degree this year.

I'm not sure Stewart can even sustain the latter's ISOP with the way he's hitting GB's. His ISOP this year is .134 (compared to a career .185) and that's with a HR/FB percentage just barely under his career average. And while his walk rate is around career averages, it should be noted that he's on pace to break his career high in intentional walks due to being in the 8 spot lately (he's already had 4). Adjust a little bit for those two things and you have a .700-.710 type hitter. Not a huge problem, but just hanging on to a job by the skin of his teeth.

For those that like this, here is a quiz to help see if your perceptions line up with what is happening on the field (along with some statistical quirks). Feel free to take guesses in the posts below or just look at the spoiler tags. Some are obvious, and some may surprise. Ask your own as well! 1) Which unit is ranked higher in the NL: offense runs scored, starters ERA, or bullpen ERA? Answer: 2) There are two Cubs players ranked in the top 17 of the majors in LD percentage. Name them. Answer: 3) This Cubs player has the 5th highest BABIP in baseball so far: Answer: 4) This Cubs player has the 10th highest GB percentage in baseball: Answer: 5) This Cubs player has the 3rd highest HR/FB rate in baseball: Answer: 6) Which Cubs starter is in the top 20 in K/9? Answer: 7) Which Cubs starter is in the worst 30 of HR/9? 8) What Cubs starter has given up one of the 10 highest BABIPs in the league? 9) There are 3 Cubs in the top 10 of defensive WAR on either fangraphs or baseball reference. Who are they? Answer:

Because despite not taking walks right now, he's a 22 year old 4-5 WAR player at this point. You're not accounting for positional value (and having to move off SS is speculation at best, as right now he both appears to be greatly improved and grades statistically as one of the best at his position). You're also looking at him through an outdated offensive lens. Lots of people are guilty of looking at most players this way right now. The environment is much different than it was even a few years ago. Would you not agree that in order for this offense to improve and become more consistent our ability to work the count and draw walks needs to improve? Why not use our most valuable trade chip to make this happen. I simply see a player who epitomizes the over aggressiveness which has plagued our lineup for years and don't get excited over the premise of him being one of the key pieces of the franchise. You do realize Castro, at 22 with a ton of development ahead of him, is very close to being the best SS in baseball. What do you expect him to be in, say, 2-3 years? As David said, he's a 4-5 win player right now, he's going to get better. Yes he'd be even better if his walk rate improves, which I think it will (though to what degree I don't know). But still, he's still on track to be the best SS in the game with his current walk rate. It would, and should, take a stupidly great package to get him. Like two young, current ML who are also getting close to being stars, and that's a starting point. The fact is even if Castro is outproducing Andrus in terms of WAR, you can't have a lineup full of over aggressive hitters and expect to succeed. You can, but it is admittedly difficult. But that's because there are very few players with as elite of a hit tool as Castro (which you need if you're going to be overly aggressive) so it's hard to build a lineup of those types of players. Also, other positions require so much more offense that it's hard to be good at those positions with that type of approach. Castro definitely has flaws. He will likely never be the best Cubs hitter in his prime. But that doesn't mean he won't be the best Cubs player. Getting a .825-.850 OPS out of your SS (even if it's weighted towards slugging) with above average defense is more valuable than getting a .900 OPS out of 1B. As for Andrus, I understand your reasons for wanting to take Andrus right now. But he's pretty much topped out as a player, and Castro's room to grow in the power and patience departments gives him quite a bit more upside. So it really depends on whether you'd rather have the higher floor or the higher ceiling.

Jim Hendry says hi. It remains one of the things that irritated me the most about his reign. The second half of his tenure was really confusing in that regard (his last 5 off seasons starting with the 2006 spending spree). The Cubs were very active in free agency at that time while cutting ties with other veterans. With their patterns, they should have been one of the highest in giving up and getting extra picks during that time period. Yet IIRC, they received only 2 picks (Pierre, Kendall) and gave up only 1 (Soriano) in that time period. The new regime already managed to match that number of extra picks in just one offseason. They were willing to take the middle road that Hendry never was. It seemed like if Hendry wanted a player, he'd give him a multi-year deal. If he didn't, he wasn't willing to risk them even coming back for one year. The two picks he received he lucked into when those players signed before the deadline. As for the question on whether comp picks would really change the market for a player like Dempster, I think it increases the selling club's desire to deal the player, but as long as there is still some competition for that player's services I don't see it changing the price very much. Teams probably factored in the possibility of comp picks for players like Dempster, but I don't think they saw it as a sure thing, and I doubt it inflated their price by that much.

It's just that your opinion lacks any real logical argument in its favor. There is major league developmental time to consider, especially in this case when you consider Rizzo's struggles at the major league level last year. The more time he gets to adjust before games really become important, the better. I don't consider it nearly enough in this case to be worth the cost, but someone who values it highly might.

I'm pretty sure Castro was called up after the cut off for him, Rizzo is later in the season because of his service time from last year. (I could be completely wrong) edit - and while I was typing that I was proven wrong. Castro was in between the two dates. The Cubs got the extra year of team control (the one that's coming up soon for Rizzo) but they brought him up early enough that Castro will be a Super 2 giving him an extra year of arbitration.

I would lean towards yes, although in Castro's case they would have had to wait another month so the other position is perfectly defensible too IMO. There's definitely a practical aspect to waiting for dates. Do I think the Cubs should wait the 10-15 days on Rizzo to ensure an extra year of team control? Absolutely, because him playing in the majors for 10-15 days in the middle of the season is not worth the millions of dollars the Cubs would lose. Should the Cubs wait the extra month+ after that to ensure no Super 2? IMO, no. Even though the Cubs will still be costing themselves millions in that case, waiting would put it too late in the season for Rizzo to get a decent number of major league at-bats this year to be prepared for 2013. I don't think it's a horrible decision if they wait, but I think in that case the benefit outweighs the cost. But bringing him up right now? The benefit is tiny compared to the cost.

The Mets were able to trade for Hampton with some of the money that they saved from buying out Bonilla, but they didn't sign him to that ridiculous contract. Hampton signed that deal when he bolted for Colorado the next year.

Stewart? Wood? Stewart needs to improve his peripherals if he's going to be a hit. Right now both his results and peripherals are subpar. They're close enough that he could turn it around with some improved play, but it's going to take a little more than simply finishing normalizing his luck. Wood's peripherals are all over the place right now because of the small sample size, but he's been pretty terrible. For every peripheral that shows possible improvement there are 1-2 others that are worse.

I think you're dreaming. Theo would probably give Soriano away free for someone willing to take him and 10% of his salary. I hope he doesn't at this point (unless they decide they badly need the roster space). That would make Soriano worth approximately 1.5-2 million per year. It's quite possible that no team will never offer more than that, but I'd take the risk rather than guarantee 4-5 million coming back. If nothing else, the Cubs could probably get 4-5 million worth of value over the next 2+ years even if they move him to the bench. If a team offered much more than that though (10 million or so total) then I'd have to jump on that because the risk/reward changes dramatically at that point.

There have been reports that Golden State is trying to use their picks to acquire a high level wing player. Deng was on that list. Could the Bulls even be somewhat considering it? I doubt anything comes of it, but that's a really interesting news tidbit.

It was a gaffe, albeit a pretty common one. Theriot especially specialized in it. But it was definitely an error in judgement.

Whether true or not, this new CBA is a massive FAIL. Bud thought this would get players being drafted in line with talent and instead half the players drafted in the 5-10 rounds probably were barely draftable at best. I think that was their stated intent with the new CBA, but it wasn't the real intent. The owners wanted to cut costs somewhere, and this was one area that the union didn't care about as much. It seems like it's doing a fantastic job of achieving that goal. Now whether that's worth the loss of some talented players who will choose other sports, that's still a question. But this draft has worked out exactly as I think the owners hoped it would-most teams choosing to stay within the spending limits, and not having an arms race. They would love to do this with major league salaries as well, but the union will never allow that.

How much could the nagging wrist issues be playing into it? It's hard to say, but that's a problem that's not likely to go away anytime soon. So even if could be blamed on the wrist, that's still a big red flag issue for the Cubs keeping him going forward.

Stewart's peripherals have started to slip. He still should be better than he has been so far with some better luck, but there are starting to be some worrisome signs. I'm not sure at this point whether whatever swing change they made to reduce his strikeouts was worth it because of how many ground balls it's caused him to hit.