CubColtPacer

That doesn't mean he's not overpaid. True, but the original poster's point is that Hendry would only go up as high as he did if there was some other teams bidding for him as well. All of them might have been overpaying for his actual production, but the fact that Hendry signed him for so much indicates that there was a market for Marquis. Since I brought up the market think, I'll state that what I said was there wasn't much of a market. There weren't 10 teams bidding heavily, that much is obvious. Maybe somebody else offered the same money, that doesn't make it a strong market. And that doesn't support the idea that he's tradable right now. I would agree that he's not tradable right now-I think he could be tradable without picking any part of the contract up by a month in (although I don't think the Cubs would do it).

Jason Marquis for starters. So your position is that Hendry, prior to signing Marquis, has shown a pattern of overpaying starting pitchers because he signed Marquis? :? Hendry has shown a clear pattern of overpaying for mediocrity in the past. I don't understand how you can try and defend the signing of Marquis by saying he usually doesn't overpay for starters. If you believe that he does overpay for starters, please feel free to cite some examples. I can't recall a starter that he vastly overpaid for, prior to this year. Are you trying to use that as defense of the Marquis signing? I don't see what it matters. But to entertain the notion, Rusch was used as a starting pitcher and overpaid. I think he overpaid for Maddux, who was making $9m as a mediocre starter. He paid $90+ million for one of the worst teams in baseball, so obviously he overpays. You don't think another team would give Rusch that money after two years of being an above average pitcher and then an average pitcher and also being left-handed? I very much disagree. Again-the discussion is if another team would trade for him, so money related to production doesn't mean as much as the pitcher's perceived market value. Marquis had value out in the market, and some team would have paid him 4-6 million if the Cubs hadn't.

I think the big difference is that Perry wants guys to look for a pitch that they can make solid contact on, regardless of whether it's a strike or not. Baker wouldn't acknowledge that sometimes pitches can be strikes and also be more or less unhittable (unless you're looking for Juan Pierre quality contact), and wanted them swinging at anything that was close enough for blind Angel Hernandez to call a strike. That, and he didn't' seem to acknowledge that there was any value, at times, to taking pitches for the sake of taking more pitches (i.e. getting a better look at a pitcher's stuff and how he's attacking you, tiring the pitcher out a little over the course of a game, etc.). True, but Perry doesn't acknowledge that either.

That doesn't mean he's not overpaid. True, but the original poster's point is that Hendry would only go up as high as he did if there was some other teams bidding for him as well. All of them might have been overpaying for his actual production, but the fact that Hendry signed him for so much indicates that there was a market for Marquis. I don't think anyone is questioning that Marquis is overpaid per production, but rather if he was overpaid compared to market value.

Jason Marquis for starters. So your position is that Hendry, prior to signing Marquis, has shown a pattern of overpaying starting pitchers because he signed Marquis? :? No, that's just the most recent example. Going back for a couple more I would say Ted Lilly and Greg Maddux. The discussion is relative to the market, that Hendry offers much more than any other team-Lilly can't be thrown in there in that case, because another team was offering similar type money to the Cubs.

The Central Division is pretty good. Four of the five teams are over .500. It's the rest of the East that stinks. True but you have to admit overall the Chicago teams are a little lucky in this regard. I don't see your point. So would somebody who is a Knicks, Mets, Giants and Rangers fan. What about Philly fans? Furthermore, it's not like this is a hard and fast rule. The NFC used to reign, and will again. The NBA West wasn't always dominant. Neither was the AL. Exactly. In the 90's when the Bulls were on the run, wasn't the East considered the dominant conference like the West is now? Yup-it went a little back and forth, but there were multiple times where the Eastern Conference Finals had what experts believed to be the two best teams in the league in it.

Are we talking about the Jim Hendry who GMs the Cubs? He has a history of signing or trading guys who have little market value for inflated prices. Who? I can think of one, maybe two guys that this is true of.

Partially because he took significantly less than some other pretty crappy pitchers. Partially because there just wasn't any talk about him going elsewhere. It's pretty clear there wasn't a big bidding war for him. I don't see how it's a stretch to say that. First off, I'd say there was very little talk about all the St. Louis pitchers. Suppan was also getting ignored about where he was going till pitchers like Lilly, Meche, and others had signed, and Marquis had already signed by then. I heard barely a thing about Suppan, and nothing about Weaver or Mulder till well after Marquis was signed, so the fact that there wasn't rumors about teams interested in him doesn't mean that they weren't there. Sure-Marquis's 2006 basically made sure that he would have to accept less money. He was in the third tier of pitchers-there were probably other teams out there willing to pay him 4-6 million per year though. Here is one writers take on it: Notice he didn't say that Marquis signed with them because they were offering him much more than anybody else (and he did note the signing as very controversial earlier in the article) but rather because of a personal relationship. I don't know how credible the writer's sources are though. Here is the article: http://www.kffl.com/article.php/63380/88

We can't trade Marquis yet. If Marquis was told he was being put in the bullpen, I'm sure he'd ok a trade. I think that's the smallest part of the difficulty. Not only does he have to okay a trade, the big problem is getting the opposing team to okay the trade. Nobody would take him right now. There wasn't much of a market for him this offseason, and any team that may have been interested likely spent that money on other options. Basically, if Marquis was a free agent right now, it would be virtually impossible for him to get the same contract he got from the Cubs from any other team. So how can they trade him? The only way is for him to pitch relativley effectively for a considerable period of time. I could see the Mets being desperate enough for starting pitching to take him on, but it would have to be after he's shown something this season. There's no way they take the risk that his 2006 was an aberration right now. While I would agree that nobody would probably take him now, I don't know why you would say there wasn't much of a market for him-I'm not sure anybody has any idea what the market for Marquis was. If he pitches and has an ERA under 5 through the first month or two of the season, I could see a pitching-thin team trading for him-I just don't know if the Cubs would trade him.

Well, I'm sure Phoenix and Dallas will meet sometime during the playoff series-that should be a great series. I still think the East has a decent chance in the finals, which is kind of sad considering that no team in the East is nearly as good as the top teams in the West-it's all about matchups though, and I think an Eastern team would have a reasonable chance (30-40 percent) of winning the Finals.

I definitely agree with the first part of that. Murton looks pretty good coming in, but when he gets near the wall he gets a little lost back there. I would only classify Murton's arm as average (maybe a little below, but not too much)-it's accurate and much stronger than Pierre's, although still not quite the strength you'd want for a left fielder. Overall, I think he's a pretty average fielder. Soriano as you said is a huge question mark, and Jones is hard to judge because he is pretty good at fielding, sometimes good at throwing, and sometimes absolutely awful at throwing. When you combine those 3 with having Floyd out there in the OF for 300-400 PA's (who struggles now to play LF), you have a potentially bad situation defensively.

This is exactly what we should be striving for on defense. Not spectacular, but not a problem. This is going to be a subject that gets completely overblown in the media because we don't have a proven OF and I've already read the opinion that we will have the worst OF in the league. It's possible that the Cubs do have the worst outfield defense in the league (but not the worst outfield). If they can make all the routine plays, I will be absolutely thrilled-with this outfield, I don't care about making the above and beyond plays. The whole key to the outfield defense is Soriano. If he can move very well laterally with good instincts, then the outfield will be ok, because at least Jones and Murton have decent to good range at their positions as well. If Soriano struggles a little bit moving laterally and getting to balls, then the outfield could be in trouble defensively, especially in the bigger ballparks and any times that they put Floyd/Soriano/Murton out there.

40.5? For a RB? :shock: The only thing is, I don't think that's exactly that important for him. I think he can succeed as an alternative back in the NFL, but he will need a little bit of seasoning first.

We obviously have different definitions of what a bust is. A guy drafted number 1 overall should be considered a bust if he's just contributing somewhere. Kwame Brown has been a bust and so has Diop. Kendrick Perkins is sure looking like a flop as well with 4 ppg and 4.3 rpg in his fourth year. Martell Webster is headed down that road though this is only his second year. Same goes for Gerald Green though he's shown actual improvement this year. But with him, it's hard to get behind a guy who can only get 20 minutes a game for the worst team in the league. Robert Swift is hard to tell since he's injured this year and it would have been his third year. Telfair has regressed this year but like Swift, it's only his third year. But both these guys are headed down the bust road also. I was wrong in the only first rounders statement and, like you said, a lot of the flopped high schoolers were second rounders. Also for your star list I would include Dwight Howard also. Dude is a stud. I would agree they are "busts" in that sense, but with high schoolers the only big regrets about not going to college are the ones who never get beyond their rookie contracts and have nothing to do the rest of their lives and have probably blown their rookie money. Most of the people on this list have at least stayed in the league a while, picking up more money and a livelihood-but yes, when comparing to draft status, there are several more busts on there. You're right also in that I should have included Howard-can't believe I made that omission.

Following up on my previous post, let me check this-high schoolers drafted in the 1st round: 1995-Kevin Garnett 1996-Kobe Bryant, Jermaine O'Neal 1997-Tracy McGrady 1998-Al Harrington 1999-Jonathan Bender, Leon Smith 2000-Darius Miles, DeShawn Stevenson 2001-Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, DeSagna Diop, 2002-Amare Stoudemire 2003-LeBron James, Travis Outlaw, Kendrick Perkins 2004-Dwight Howard, Shaun Livingston, Robert Swift, Sebastian Telfair, Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Dorell Wright, 2005-Martell Webster, Andrew Bynum, Gerald Green I'd put Garnett, Kobe, Jermaine, McGrady, Amare, LeBron as stars The only person I see that completely busted was Leon Smith-everybody else is contributing or starting to contribute somewhere (with the possible exception of Diop, but he has stayed in the league for 6 years)-and the only person who is not in the league besides Smith is Bender, who pocketed not only rookie money but a big contract extension before retiring with injuries (he was a special talent-Bender would have been one of the best players in the league if his knees had let him).

Playing time in college > practice time in the NBA. It's not highly unlikely he won't get much time in the NBA. He's not a very good offensive player right now and he would benefit from playing another year in college. I don't think he will stay, but it would be better for him. Yes, something bad could happen to him, and people always throw this out there, but it's highly unlikely. This isn't football. Oh yeah Kobe and LeBron always go on and on about how they didn't develop at all once they got to the NBA. Well actually LeBron might be a bad example. Lol. You go to college to prepare to make money or get a nice job. He has the job, why should he stay. Do I really need to list all the players coming straight out of high school who were drafted high in the first round but flopped in the NBA? Because there are probably more high schoolers who flopped than those who are stars right now. I doubt that there are more high school first rounders who flopped. Most high schoolers who flopped either got drafted in the second round or not at all-there are certainly more high schoolers who became stars in the first round than high schoolers who flopped.

Isn't that already the case? Aren't teams like the D-Rays, Royals, Pirates just basically farming up players for other teams to eventually pluck off their rosters? It's too bad they can't do it like the Marlins do. True, but the Marlins small-market tactics have only worked for 1 title. I think you have to count the 1997 title as really more of a big-market type strategy-they didn't go with what they currently do until after 97, and they've had 1 playoff appearance and one title since then-so they've been successful, but not that successful.

Didn't Bruce say his defense looked wonderful so far this spring? Let's say Cedeno struggles and Theriot can't handle SS, what options do the Cubs actually have to replace Izturis if he is hitting 220? Yes, Bruce said his defense has been very, very good so far and that the pitchers already like him. In that scenario, I guess that the team could move DeRosa to short and play Theriot at second.

I don't know if 650 will be enough to replace Izzy with Cedeno very quickly-I mean, Cedeno would have to improve a pretty good amount from last year to be an improvement over those numbers. 650 might be bad enough for them to make a trade at mid-season, but not to be replaced by Cedeno without injuries. It might depend on how well the rest of the team is hitting too. You might be able to carry Izturis if the rest of the team is hitting well but if they are struggling, it's going to hurt having his bat in the lineup at 650. More importantly, it's pretty safe to assume nobody in the Cubs organization is going to think at all about a 650 OPS, what it means, and whether it should be replaced. If Izzy is hitting .275, with a .310 OBP and .315 SLG, they aren't going to be thinking about his 625 OPS. He's probably going to have to do something like hit .220 for 3 months with less than stellar defense before they think about replacing him. That's a good point, and you're probably right about your projections. They know he hasn't played much in quite a while, so I think that the organization is going to at least give him 2-3 months to get acclimated again before thinking about replacing him. If he gets hurt, that's when Cedeno possibly has a chance to earn the job before Izturis comes back though.

From what I've heard, Izturis is not one of those players that makes it "look flashy", but rather than he's just very smooth and very consistent in what he does. I'll be interested to see people's opinions on this at mid-season, and I guess the extent of the injuries will be much better known by then.

I don't know if 650 will be enough to replace Izzy with Cedeno very quickly-I mean, Cedeno would have to improve a pretty good amount from last year to be an improvement over those numbers. 650 might be bad enough for them to make a trade at mid-season, but not to be replaced by Cedeno without injuries.

Amazing Race is also back now on Sundays in the lineup.

Well, with the way MLB rules are, I guess you'd be seeing his reaction in the clubhouse when you got there :D.

Absolutely. Although that's really not the right way to look at it. From a basic risk/reward perspective, Miller was a good, sound $1M gamble last offseason, when (at the time) he was projected to be able to pitch in May or June. It didn't work out, oh well. That's why the word risk appears in risk/reward. This offseason, $1.5M is another good, sound gamble on a high-upside guy that's expected to be good to go on (or near) opening day. The point being, the Cubs made two separate and independent decisions that happen to total $2.5M, not a one-time decision to spend $2.5M. People have brought up the Chris Carpenter example. That's the best-case scenario, obviously. But it illustrates perfectly why clubs take these low-cost flyers on guys with lots of upside coming off of injury. I hope the Cubs continue to be very active in this speculative market with guys just like Wade Miller (and Dempster, and Williamson). It's just good business. I disagree. You have to look at each case and determine if it's worth it. Williamson hasn't done anything that a guy from the minors couldn't do with less cost. There are also other guys the Cubs have gone this route with that haven't panned out to do anything other than costing money and taking a roster spot away. Obviously you have to look at each case and determine if it's worth it. That goes without saying. And almost by definition, you're going to have more misses than hits. Which is fine, and everybody should realize this going in. Nonetheless, the general principle is a sound one, and successful teams follow it regularly. Exactly-if 3 of 4 pitchers completely flame out and the other turns out to be a successful pitcher for even a couple of years, the team still has gotten back more than it has put in (especially with the pitching market the way it is right now). I do agree with the poster a page or so ago that said that Miller may need to go to another team though-he was good insurance, but right now it looks like the Cubs hopefully won't need that insurance, and so they have an excess of pitchers without a true spot for Miller.

I don't know if I'd call it scapegoating because it was Hendry's decision and I don't blame Miller for signing. The Cubs don't need him on the roster, that I'm not 100% sure off. Why, because I like to have the most options possible and this would have given the Cubs another positive option. It could have allowed the Cubs to trade Eyre(+) and get a SS or another player that could help. Who do you think the Cubs could get more value for right now, Campusano or Miller? Some of your feeling on this is hindsight. The Cubs signed him last year before a number of our pitching prospects got their feet wet at the ML level. One could argue that one or more of the prospects could out perform him (and probably be correct). However, after taking the flier on him last year, and knowing that guys usally recover in their second year removed from TJS, I totally understand why the Cubs resigned him. They would have hated to pay him to sit for a year only to watch some other team reap the potential benefits this year... I still think Miller has more value, right now, than Campusano. Wade Miller may still be effective if he learns to change speeds and hit his spots (that doesn't mean he's right for this team). I'd be willing to bet that more teams would gamble on him, right now, for $1M than be forced to keep (another gamble) Rule 5 guy on their 25 man roster. If Miller is stuggling to reach the mid 80s with his fastball, changing speeds won't matter one bit. Neither will location. It's not that hard to adjust to off-speed pitches when I guy throws that slow. In fact you could look off-speed and still catch up to the fastball. Now if he can get some arm strength back and get back intot he low 90s mid 80s consistently he may have some value. He didn't show enough to me at the end of last season to warrent resigning him. What was his problem at the end of last season besides control? He certainly wasn't a low strikeout pitcher-20 K's in 21.2 IP. He gave up 19 hits, which isn't awful, and the only huge problem was that he gave up 18 walks. Control the walks, and Wade becomes a very effective pitcher. It isn't always black and white like that. IMO his game was nibbling and hitting spots and with that goes walking more guys than you'd like too. If he gets too much plate it's a hard hit ball so he has to locate and he hasn't ever proved he can do that. I didn't see him nibbling much at the end of last year. I saw a guy who had some great movement on his pitches, and he didn't seem to know where they were going. If he can control that movement though at least somewhat, that should be enough to make him a pretty good pitcher even with reduced velocity. After his first start, he had a 3.74 ERA over his last 4 starts, and his WHIP dropped to 1.44. If he can get his WHIP down a little more by dropping his walk rate by 1/3 this year (which his control should definitely be better with the extra time throwing), then he has a very good chance of being effective IMO.