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Guys who can be gotten from clubs for next to nothing whenever we need them are literally the definition of 0 WAR. You're right. But I'm talking about the next level up. Players who are undervalued by their club because of limited upside, or being blocked by better players, or being out of options. They tend to get waived or traded for very little. You don't always have those types of players available to you, but they are available so often that if you are considering a free agent, it would be relatively difficult for you not to be able to find a very cheap alternative that can be a little better than replacement level.

didn't he get 4/36? and don't we assume 5 million per WAR? unless one of those is wrong, he'd have to flame out pretty hard to not be worth the money. That forgets two things: 1) Free agency is necessary, but inefficient. 5 million per WAR compares to other players who were bought in free agency. And every dollar spent in free agency is not spent on pre-FA players, who are a lot more efficient. 2) The scale starts to break down as you get to worse and worse players because they become more and more replaceable. There are lots of players who will likely be 1-2 WAR players if just given enough playing time that can be gotten from clubs for next to nothing. For example, that is what the Cubs have in Tony Campana. So not only does Cespedes (if he's a 2-2.5 WAR type of player) not give a 2 WAR upgrade from his minimum salary replacement, but he also complicates the team's ability to acquire a true star for that position if it ever becomes available. And the 7-14 million average to above average types of players have more trouble being traded for any value as the Cubs have seen with several players the last few years. So if he's going to take time to figure it out, he better become a star or he likely isn't worth it.

A) They didn't methodically build up his innings. B) The Cubs minds? Seriously? The fact that it may not have cross the minds of the reckless, foolish, overmatched dolts that ran the Cubs makes me wrong? The consensus on Cashner at draft time was he was a reliever. The Cubs thought they could make him a starter and they did a piss poor job of trying to convert, or reconvert him back into one, let alone one who a reasonably smart person would think could make 30+ starts with 200+ innings in a season. What would you have done differently? He had the oblique injury to start 2009 and then the Cubs built him up slowly. Then in 2010 he was averaging 6 innings a start before moving to the bullpen. Would you have kept him in AAA until they had to shut him down because of innings in 2010? (which probably would have been about a month before the minor league season ended) Would you have given him any chance at the major league roster in 2011 even though he still wouldn't have been able to throw more than 165-175 that year? You're acting like his move to the big league pen was a way to limit his innings rather than them wanting a setup man. Cashner wound up throwing 10 more innings that year because of it. The goal of 2010 should've been to have him ready to take a near-full slate in 2011. You stretch him to 140-150 in 2010(if he kept pitching like a freak in AAA, you give him a taste of the big leagues, 5 starts or so, and shut him down. But as typical with the Hendry era he was a reactionary, saw a hole, and thought hey this guy used to relieve let's do that, future be damned. No, I said earlier that they moved him to the bullpen too early in 2010. I would have had no problem him throwing the last part of the year in the bullpen in 2010. If they had gotten to mid-July and had either 4 starts with him left before shutting him down or 20-25 innings out of the major league bullpen, I think there are advantages with either choice. The way they did it though put him another year behind in getting to a full workload because he just didn't get enough innings in 2010. I just disagree with the assertion that moving him to relief for a while and then putting him back as a starter is reckless. There's nothing inherently reckless with that choice, but they would have had to shut him down way early in 2011 because of how early they did it.

A) They didn't methodically build up his innings. B) The Cubs minds? Seriously? The fact that it may not have cross the minds of the reckless, foolish, overmatched dolts that ran the Cubs makes me wrong? The consensus on Cashner at draft time was he was a reliever. The Cubs thought they could make him a starter and they did a piss poor job of trying to convert, or reconvert him back into one, let alone one who a reasonably smart person would think could make 30+ starts with 200+ innings in a season. What would you have done differently? He had the oblique injury to start 2009 and then the Cubs built him up slowly. Then in 2010 he was averaging 6 innings a start before moving to the bullpen. Would you have kept him in AAA until they had to shut him down because of innings in 2010? (which probably would have been about a month before the minor league season ended) Would you have given him any chance at the major league roster in 2011 even though he still wouldn't have been able to throw more than 165-175 that year?

I still wouldn't trust Trumbo, but he has been significantly better not only in results (where he has been very lucky with a BABIP of .389) but peripherally as well. He's on pace for a good season. There very well could be improvement there that has been masked by his strange lack of power in 2009 and his dismissed PCL fueled stats of 2010. But there's still enough confusion in there that I wouldn't trust him with the most important offensive position on the field. But he could very easily be a productive player for the next few years.

No. No, no, no. You can't make that statement. Pitchers have to prove they can handle a workload before you can pretend there is no reason to believe they cannot. Cashner had very little workload under his belt when he was drafted. He had very little workload as a professional before being moved to reliever on the big league club. He'd done very little as a pro when they handed him a starting job. If spending 1 year as a college reliever doesn't bring up durability concerns, spending 2 years as a juco starter hardly makes the case that you can do. Being a starting pitcher at the major league level is hard. You have to start quite a bit before anybody can have any reasonable faith in your ability to do it over a substantial amount of time. You don't start at a baseline of "the guy can handle it", you have to wait until he does a lot more than Cashner did in the minors before that becomes the assumption. Hmm, that's a more fundamental question you brought up. You're basically saying that you believe pitchers should have a minimum amount of innings in the minors before being handed a major league job. I'm not sure I agree with that, but I can see your position. Anyway, this thread is about Samardzija. And I would say as most have 150-170 innings. And to how he suddenly figured out his control, I have no idea. But it's been about 1 calendar year since he did it, so it certainly looks like he can keep it together at this point.

You are making completely unsubstantiated assumptions here. Since when does a guy making it through a college season as a starter make it obvious he can do it in a major league season? There was nothing obvious about his ability to handle the workload. In 2009 he made 24 starts, but he only averaged less than 4 and a third in those starts, so he was hardly anywhere close to actually handling a full starters workload. You can rack up 100 innings before the all star break in the majors. There were questions both about his ability to be effective in 6+ inning stints, and whether he could actually last for 6 innings every 5 days for 6 months. Let's rephrase that. There was no reason to believe that Cashner couldn't handle the workload. Spending 1 college season as a reliever doesn't automatically bring up durability questions that aren't present with other pitchers. I do agree with you on one thing though. They made a mistake on bringing him up to relieve. But the mistake wasn't that they yo-yo'd him, but rather that they did it so early. They should have timed it where he could have finished the season in the bullpen, but still got his inning progression in from the previous year. Instead, the oblique injury caused him to not get enough innings in 2009. In 2010, he went into the bullpen too early and didn't get enough innings. And 2011 of course had the major injury. But the problem with going to the bullpen in 2010 wasn't that he was more risky as a result, but instead that they would have to shut him down so early in 2011, and that's always trickier to do in a major league rotation.

He was a college reliever who needed to be stretched out cautiously if they had hope of turning him into a major league starter, and 30-something starts into that process (when they were typically 3.5-5 inning starts) they abandoned it for a bunch of 1-inning relief innings. Then tried to make him a major league starter right after that. It was reckless. It should be noted that the big question on Cashner coming out of college was not can he handle the workload of a starter, but whether he could be effective as a starter. It was obvious he could handle the workload because he had been a starter for all but one year of his amateur career. Even the questions now are more about whether the time needed to build him back up to a starter is worth it since the injuries in 2009 and 2011 set him back. But by the end of the year in 2009 and the start of 2010 before he came to the majors, Cashner was handling a full starters workload. And the main reason he wasn't at the start of 2009 was the oblique injury, not the 1 year he spent relieving.

Hansbrough upgraded to flagrant 2 but not suspended, Haslem suspended 1 game, Pittman suspended 3 games. Not quite right IMO but much closer than I expected. (I would have given Hansbrough a flagrant 1 since he made a play on the ball, I was iffy on whether to suspend Haslem but probably given him one in the end especially since he got to play in game 5 when he should have been ejected, and Pittman should have had the book thrown at him). Looks like Miami will really go small next game since they basically have Anthony and Turiaf left up front. It sounds like all the Pacers will play, but Granger especially is still pretty hurt and others are somewhat hurt as well. I'm guessing Miami will win because of a big performance from LeBron, but we'll see.

Do you see Castro as a 30+ home run hitter with a decent amount of walks without significantly raising his strikeouts? That is probably what it would take to get to .900, and while I think it's possible for Castro to get there, I don't see it as being very likely. The power will almost certainly improve as he gets into his prime and hopefully some walks will follow, but that's a large jump for him to take. Why couldn't the strikeouts rise in conjunction with a rise in LD%? You would expect Castro to lose a little bit of LD% as his rise in power. With a few exceptions, most power hitters are not big line drive hitters. Part of that is structural in the way things are classified-if I'm not way off I think every home run is classified as a fly ball, so those hitters who are hitting 30 home runs are already in a little bit of a hole. And plus the swing change used to generate that sort of power also contributes to a loss of line drives. Plus right now Castro hits a ton of ground balls and his BABIP's have been continually higher than his LD percentage would suggest. That will change as he starts hitting fly balls to get home runs. Of course, those home runs will help inflate his OPS without changing his BABIP as well.

Ideally they would have better hitters right now who could fit the bill in the middle of the order and allow him to hit somewhere else. Down the line, I see no reason why he couldn't be the type of hitter to rely on everyday in that spot for years and years. If the 2, 3, 4 in 2015 was Jackson, Castro, Rizzo, that could be pretty cool Personally, I'd want to see Jackson and Castro slid up one spot each and #3 filled with awesome player to be named later, or Rizzo slid up and #4 filled by awesome player to be named later. That would also be nice, but Castro could very easily be a 900 OPS type hitter in his prime and awesome enough in his own right. Do you see Castro as a 30+ home run hitter with a decent amount of walks without significantly raising his strikeouts? That is probably what it would take to get to .900, and while I think it's possible for Castro to get there, I don't see it as being very likely. The power will almost certainly improve as he gets into his prime and hopefully some walks will follow, but that's a large jump for him to take.

To be fair, Castro is 22, and Miguel Cabrera got traded before his 25th birthday after making 4 All-Star games. I don't see what the state of the team has to do with trading Castro though. Either the risk/reward of multiple prospects are more valuable than Castro or they aren't. The fact that the team has a lot of holes to fill shouldn't have anything to do with it. Either way, the players who are here will be here at least 4 years (Castro) and probably 10+ years so the Cubs will have plenty of time to build around them in other ways. And I don't see much that should make the Cubs want to trade Castro right now. 2 elite prospects probably wouldn't be worth it IMO.

I'm concerned there might be a fight in game 6 if there is a rough foul. Stephenson is being tested for a concussion and might have a broken collarbone because of the hit Pittman put on him, West said a Heat player tried to take out his knee, and there is some speculation on whether Granger's injury was truly an accident or not (just based on the strange way LeBron moved under him and then stayed there while Danny was in the air). Add that to the two flagrant fouls and things could get really out of hand quickly.

Wow, so Miami should have two reserves suspended for next game. That was ridiculously unnecessary.

Granger was paramount to the Pacers chances in this series. They badly needed his defense on LeBron and his ability to stretch the floor. It was probably the most well played game in the series until he left tonight. If he's hobbled I don't see how the Pacers have much of a shot in game 6. They have nobody else that can really guard LeBron or do much to stretch the floor offensively.

you think his babip indicates he should or could rise. very possible, I think with his historically low ld% it might mean there is a reason his babip is low. possible also. Thanks for reading and considering. I just wanted to address this point. His LD percentage is not that low. It's a little lower than his career, and it's definitely lower than major league average but he's not among the very bottom. For example, among qualified players the median line drive percentage is about 20.5%. Stewart ranks 134th out of 175 qualified players with 17.9%. In BABIP, the median is about .302. Stewart is 166th out of 175 with a .221 BABIP. So the difference between median LD and median BABIP is about .097 (which is a little smaller than normal). Stewart's is .042 which as you can see is less than half the average. That's where the bad luck has come into play. His BABIP should be at least in the .270's based on his LD if not higher (as noted, the fact that his ground ball/fly ball ratio is so high should raise his BABIP a little more since ground balls are more likely to find holes). I don't think anybody is saying he will work out for sure. His strikeout rate could easily rise again and he could turn out to be not that useful of a player. But so far he's played well and gotten unlucky. If he can keep playing just as well, his numbers should improve. I don't know if he will keep up this improved play or not.

As I said in my last post, I apologize for the names that you have been called, but that doesn't excuse you calling other people names. Please stop. And again, I ask you to go back to my post on page 3 and address it (or even my post on BABIP on page 4). I'm willing to address your points but you continue to ignore mine. BTW, I don't think anybody is saying that Stewart has hit into bad luck his whole career. What is different from his time in Colorado is his strikeout rate. It's significantly less this year. And his line drive rate is close to the same, so his average should have shot up. It hasn't, and that's because of a really low BABIP that major league history has shown is unsustainable over a large sample size. He has been unlucky so far in 2012, and that should start to even out over the course of the season.

Yes, ground balls and fly balls get caught more often than line drives do. The rule of thumb is to add .12 to the line drive percentage to get BABIP. If you hit mostly ground balls instead of fly balls, you probably add a little more (more ground balls go for hits than fly balls) while with fly balls you should add a little less. In Stewart's case, he's a career 18.8% LD percentage with a .289 career BABIP. So a little less than .12 but that's understandable since he's been a heavy fly ball hitter in his career. This year, he's at 17.9% LD percentage and a .221 BABIP. That isn't anywhere close to either the rule of thumb or his career. And he's hitting a lot more ground balls this year, so his BABIP should actually be higher than his career difference would indicate. His BABIP based off of a normal hitter and his career should be 60-90 points better than it is. And that's a significant difference.

First off, I apologize for any names that you were called. That is unacceptable behavior. Second, I think you have misread some of the arguments being made. I would love to see what you think of my post on page 3. I think it addresses just about every concern that you have laid out in this post.

Batting order doesn't really matter. The fact that he's playing just about every day kind of negates the notion that he's been "jettisoned" in any way shape or form. this is good to know because all this years we have complained about our leadoff guy, and made fun of managers that wanted to put Soriano there, all along it really never mattered. I know you are just jumping in halfway through, so please understand..I have not said anything about anyone being better. I only wondered why it seems that Barney is getting moved out. Instead of ridicule, a great answer may have been- They see Barney as an 8 hole hitter in the future on hopefully a much better team. OK, that would make sense. My question was why is he sent to 8th, when other players are doing far worse than Barney has done. I also wondered why he has been out of the lineup now 6 times over the last 19 games despite his stat line going up. To me it seems like they are working to replace him. I can certainly think of many other spots that seem to be much more glaring weakness comparatively. He's been out of the lineup 5 times over the last 19 games. He's been out of the lineup 7 times all freaking year, and he's Darwin Barney. are you making things up, guessing or simply can't read? 1)April 15- DNP- did not play 2)April 22 DNS-did not start 3)April 30 DNS 4)May 2 DNS 5)May 8 DNP 6)May 20 DNS 7)May 21 DNP So that is 7 times this season, and 6 times in the last 20 games (not the original 19) April 30 to yesterday. Part of the point is exactly what you state. In the first 21 games he sat once, in last 20 games he sat 6 times. That seems like a change and it strikes me as odd considering his stats over that period are way up, and yes better than stewart's huge hot streak that everyone wants to use as proof that he's actually good. Yes, he's Darwin Barney, who happens to be out performing most of our other starters. Remember also that Barney physically wore down with the grind of the season last year. He put on some weight to try to counteract that over the offseason, but it's almost certain that Cubs management is going to try to get him some rest as well.

I don't think anyone is saying the Pacers have stars. They have a potential star, and some All-Stars, but no true stars right now. We were discussing a potential SA-Boston final though which does have stars on both sides. IMO, it's a problem for the NBA if they can't market that series well.

NL 3B in 2012: .245/.315/.400/.714 MLB 3B in 2012: .249/.312/.402/.714 That .795 OPS Stewart has in May would put him fifth in OPS in MLB out of the 17 qualified 3B in 2012, behind only Wright, Moustakas, Beltre and Cabrera. Guys he would be ahead of include Freese (.787), ARod (.779), Hanley Ramirez (.753), Zimmerman (.697) and Lawrie (.690). It should be noted that, if not for injuries, Stewart would also be behind Longoria and Sandoval. how about you compare his year to their years, or his "hot" to their best 18 games streak? I won't do the leg work but I am guessing that guys who are above .700 for 40+ games have an 18 game stretch of much better than their average. here's an extreme example to attempt to illustrate the fallacy of using stewart's 18 games vs a season. erik aybar has a 7 game split of .455 .455 .682 1.136 which puts him number 1 at shortstop in every single catagory and way above the average for MLB shortstops. Now it clearly doesn't matter that his seasons stat line is .228 .248 .297 .545, your thinking has just annointed erik aybar the number 1 offensive shortstop in the major leagues logic be damned! That wasn't your argument though. You said this: Soccer just showed you if he hits like he has in May, that would be good. Not whether he can keep up what he has done in May over a full season, that's a different argument. That's what posts like the one I made earlier tried to address.

Do you think that's just because it's not fresh, or some problem with how the NBA markets itself? On paper, it looks like a great matchup. The run and gun elite offense of SA vs the grind it out, elite defense of Boston. And all the stars are at the same positions on the court so they would face off quite a bit on the court.

Really? You don't understand how injuries work? You think he was "drummed out" of baseball instead? Yeah, there was a conspiracy to not sign Todd Walker...good call. IIRC, it wasn't injuries. He was poor defensively, there were whispers about him being a problem in the clubhouse (although others said he was a great teammate), and his bat was slipping. After the Padres cut him to save the arbitration award, he got a chance with Oakland. Once Oakland got rid of him, he refused to go the minors, and that was just it. I don't now if anybody ever called him (he said he was open to returning) but even if they did it must not have guaranteed enough for him to want to leave his families.

You are correct that we should be skeptical of guys who rely on their power coming out of Coors Field (although it should be referenced again as somebody brought up that his power has been slightly better on the road than at home for his career, which makes that a lot less worrisome). He's never had a full season of at-bats which is why his counting stats are that low. Is that something to be concerned about? Probably. He has had injury issues. But that's a question of if he can stay healthy, not how good he is when he is on the field. The main reason things like his batting average was so low in Colorado even with decent BABIP's was not because he hit the ball softly. It is because his strikeout rate was so high. In his three seasons with more than 200 AB's he struck out in 30.1% of his PA, 28.1%, and 24.9%. Players who strike out that much are not going to have good averages unless they are prodigious home run hitters, and Stewart is good in that department (very good for the position he plays) but not elite. This year though there's been a huge change. He's at 18.8 percent so far. That's a significant improvement, and one if it continues should make his average go up by quite a bit. His amount of line drives are just below his career average. So he should have a BABIP that is somewhat close to his career average, but it's not. It's much lower. He has also changed many fly balls that he was hitting in previous years into ground balls this year. But that should actually raise his BABIP not lower it (while hurting his power a little). His power is down as expected from not hitting as many fly balls. And home/road splits are very shaky this early in the year, but he's been significantly better on the road. Will his efforts at Wrigley improve when the wind is more in his favor? And as others have stated, 3B average in the majors right now is .250/.312/.403 which is close to what it was last year (.252/.316/.390). As you mentioned, it's not the steroid era anymore, and hitting is down significantly. So the Cubs don't need as good of hitter in order to have a quality player there. And Stewart's defense is seen as above average at third by both scouts and defensive metrics. The main thing though is that Stewart is striking out a lot less than he ever used too. And if you put that many balls in play, some will find holes eventually. Stewart's BABIP right now is .221. Out of the 145 players who had enough at-bats to qualify last year, exactly one hitter had that low of a BABIP last year. So the odds are very much in his favor that it will go up as the year goes on. Can he ever be a great/elite player? Not unless he puts his new strikout rate with the power he had previously, and that isn't very likely. But he can get you to average/above average offense with above average defense, and that's valuable.