1/10 is a pretty damn good deal for a 33 year old player with his resume to "settle" on, especially when it's as much money as he's ever made in any one year. He sucked last year. Now he has another chance to play for a contract without taking any haircut for his terrible 2010 performance. Even a marginal improvement will go a long way toward convincing a team like the Cubs, with no impact bats in their system, to give him an extension. If he signed 2/14 he'd likely make less over the next two years than signing 1/10 this year.
Just curious but what would be your first option? I personally prefer this over the money/years Dunn got and over the prospects given up/money/years Gonzalez got. There is nobody in the system even close to being capable of playing 1B at a decent level next year. You are just going to have to go out and overpay another guy next year. If the Texas deal goes through, you have a year to groom Davis or Colvin for the future. They are baseball players. You can't really groom them into being something they are not. Neither of those guys is a decent bet to hit well enough to justify a starting 1B gig.
Just curious but what would be your first option? I personally prefer this over the money/years Dunn got and over the prospects given up/money/years Gonzalez got. There is nobody in the system even close to being capable of playing 1B at a decent level next year. You are just going to have to go out and overpay another guy next year.
why? no one would go. they'd be the Clippers x10 You're not giving Chicago fans any credit. People support the [expletive] Chicago Wolves. They'd support a second NBA team. They support the Wolves because they built a reputation of succeeding while offering a dirt cheap product. Chicago is a football first, baseball second and basketball only because of Jordan city. They aren't going to pay NBA prices to see a non-Bulls team.
I think that is the bare minimum of acceptable for a supposed power hitter. It's pretty much average overall and substandard for a first baseman. Ok, thanks. I couldn't remember, though I had always considered LaRoche a fairly patient player. He's no more patient than Ramirez, but doesn't have near the ability to make up for it.
It doesn't count in the standings but in rankings it absolutely should. Winning big is a sign of a good team, and they do it often. Losing by small margins on the few times you do lose is meaningful, just like getting blown out is bad.
He'll probably be better than Lee was last year, so that's something. No guarantee. Lee was a 2.0 WAR player last year, LaRoche has peaked at 2.6 in his career.
He's nowhere near a lock for an 850 OPS, he's a high strikeout low walk guy with no upside. And this team needed an impact bat at 1B, not more of Derrek Lee's bad years.
I'm not sure how delusional he was considering he still got paid. He knew, or at least his agent knew, that the Yankees were going to overpay. Why would he ask for less?
At home, by 3. Basically a toss-up game, and Green Bay looked better than Atlanta last week. Yeah, it's not crazy at all to rank GB higher. They maybe should have won that game, and I think they are better on a neutral field.
But he pitched in those games and was pretty bad out of the bullpen last year. He walked 30 people in 54 innings. And he didn't match that up with some ungodly K/9 either.
The weird thing about keeping Cashner in the pen is he wasn't even any good there last year. If a guy is great in relief it's tough to make the move even if you know it's better (let alone if you're obsessed with relievers and overvalue them in general).
If it's done, the Cubs better end up with the best player involved in the trade by including others in a package with Gorzelanny. Some small market team should love to get Gorzelanny, Wells and Colvin to fill three starting spots and virtually no cost.
In a roundabout way. Washington is where the money is at nowadays. Lots of cash flowing for things like luxury boxes to be picked up by lobbyists, law firms and contractors.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/morning-jolt/12/07/chargers.kings.yankees/index.html?eref=sihp More talk of Chargers being the team that LA takes. Obviously that involves the least amount of upheaval, but it's also boring.