Post Count Padder

I think it would take the Cubs paying 46 out of the 50 million for someone to take Soriano from them. I'd say, "Hey, the Jays pulled it off with Wells." But he was at least coming off a decent season. Soriano can still hit for power but that's about it.

They may be tired of him constantly on Twitter, but that doesn't mean they'll just give him away. He's young, talented and cheap.

haha, that was the year that someone gave Morandini a vote. The game really was so different back then. 15 guys in the NL alone with 100+ RBI's. 9 with 120+. Check out Barry Bonds' 1998 statline. Holy crap. you could probably spend 5 minutes with your jaw dropped looking at barry bonds' br page The offensive stats are just ridiculous, but I for some reason never realized just how good a fielder he was in his younger days. He had a 3.9 dWAR in 1989, which is the second highest dWAR in one season at any position ever (behind only Adam Everett, who had a 4.0 dWAR in 2006, so for awhile he had the highest).

I thought we could use a thread for players placed on/claimed off waiver and trades made. I saw the other day we placed Z on waivers, but I just assumed we placed half the roster on waivers for the hell of it.

Yeah I just looked at the BR MVP page for that year (http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/awards_1998.shtml#NLmvp). Some good names in there, and shows how different the voting was done then. I think what's really funny is how good the "replacement player" was back then (if I understand WAR correctly). McGwire hits 70 home runs and puts up a 1.222 OPS, and it's only good for a 7.2 WAR. Bautista's got a 1.102 OPS currently, and he's already at 6.8. That's because that year McGwire had a -1.6 dWAR (pretty bad defensively) that brought down his overall WAR. Bautista has a .4 dWAR this season.

He hasn't been the same since his MVP season. And even given that, he's only had like three seasons with an OPS above .800. Given that he might command a hefty amount based on name value, I'd rather just stick with Baker/Barney/DeWitt next unless something better comes along.

It doesn't help that Soriano is a free swinger, Castro is young and aggressive at the plate and Barney and Colvin didn't walk in the minors either. Soto and Pena are our only hitters that seemingly know you can take more than one pitch in an at bat.

Meh. A 25 year old pitcher and a 21 year old repeating A-ball with similar results? I'd have hoped for better, if this is the package we're getting.

I clearly was going off reputation and hadn't looked at his stats since well before the lockout began. I had no idea he had been that terrible when healthy the past few years. I still don't dislike the signing, though. Locker's almost certainly not ready to start the season and since the Titans most likely aren't going to be better than an average team this year it won't really matter if Hasselbeck isn't good/gets hurt. My preference of Hasselbeck over McNabb was primarily based on not having to trade anything (even though the Vikings didn't give much for Donovan) for Hasselbeck and the fact that Hasselbeck is a bit more suited to a pure west coast offense than McNabb. I also thought Hasselbeck had been better than he had . . . Yeah I wasn't totally aware of that either. But I still stand by it. Getting him a change of scenery and putting him in a run-first offense might help. I'm not expecting anything amazing, but I still think he has something left and can be a good mentor for Locker.

Hasselbeck was easily the best option out there. With the lockout pushing everything back, the best move was probably to bring in a veteran QB to give Locker more time to learn the offense. Hasselbeck should actually be good if he can stay healthy. Agreed. It made too much sense to not happen, especially with his ties in the FO. He's who I wanted from the get-go when I learned the Titans wanted a veteran QB.

Their interest in him has been rumored for months and Asomugha has said he'd like to play for the Jets. They'll be paying a ton for him but they'd have the best secondary in the league.

The rumored Jonathan Sanxhez and Gary Brown was giving up too much. If it's Wheeler instead of Brown it's a clear cut win for the Mets. Guess the Giants got a little desperate.

Buster_ESPN Buster Olney The trade: Colby Rasmus, Trever Miller, Brian Tallet and P.J. Walters for Jackson, Marc Rzepczynski, Dotel and Corey Patterson.#trades Nice win here for the Jays. Rasmus>>>>>>Cpat Did you really just type this? I don't know. I might have had a seizure and just started spewing out nonsense.

Buster_ESPN Buster Olney The trade: Colby Rasmus, Trever Miller, Brian Tallet and P.J. Walters for Jackson, Marc Rzepczynski, Dotel and Corey Patterson.#trades Nice win here for the Jays. Rasmus>>>>>>Cpat

I was looking forward to Christian Ponder becoming a stain on the Metrodome turf. :( That'll still likely happen at some point, if the Chad Pennington comparisons ring true.

Is a .730 OPS the baseline for what he's going to do going forward? Or is he going to rebound some and get back into the .800 OPS area he's been in each of the past 3 years (excluding 2009 since he was hurt the entire time)? He's clearly regressing and expecting a lower than .800 OPS is pretty safe. However, as streaky a hitter as he is, if we're going to trade him for no real prospects and pay 60+% of his remaining money, we might as well keep him and see if he gets on a hot streak and somebody bites in the offseason or next year's deadline. I understand the danger of being too bearish on Soriano at a given point because his performance runs so hot and cold, but the certainty of his performance is the whole point. Soriano isn’t putting together another 7 WAR season, or even a 5 WAR season, so all that’s left is to hope for him to continue to be a ~3 WAR guy going forward. But he’s 35, has had a bunch of nagging injuries, and is now not going to meet that threshold for the 2nd time in 3 years. If you can get 7 million per year back for trading him, what’s the downside? Any platoon in LF could reasonably be expected to approximate what Soriano has done, with a similar chance of exceeding it. And that platoon would cost a fraction of the 7 million in savings, meaning a greater possibility of adding a big time 1B and SP while keeping Ramirez and not losing any production in the process. Maybe you could get a little more cost savings next year, or a little more player return, but those benefits pale with the ability to re-shape the roster this coming offseason, IMO. This. He's not the same player anymore and he's very replaceable by someone who could put up the same numbers at a fraction of the cost. I understand the free agent market is bare, but going off Soriano's numbers and the likely downward trend he's on, we don't need to break the bank to find his replacement and we have money to spend elsewhere.

No this I find somewhat baffling. If the Blue Jays were contenders, it would be a good deal. If Edwin Jackson were not a rent a player, it would makes sense. The Jays could get better value as far as prospects go for Frasor. The Sox could get better value for Jackson. Im just not getting this one on either side. It looks like it's a done deal, Frasor for Jackson and Teahan. Supposedly, Jackson is getting flipped to the Cardinals for Rasmus. I don't know any other parameters, but this is a great series of events for the Jays if true.

Vikings get McNabb and Titans get Hasselbeck. I'm actually pretty happy with both moves.

Neither minor leaguer is a top prospect but both are young with potential and Cruz has posted some nice numbers. More teams see Baker as a backup as opposed to Betemit, but I guess this could be another kind of package we might be looking at if we trade him.

Could probably mention getting a living, breathing human being in exchange for both Neifi and Miles, but Hendry put himself in those positions to begin with.

A good idea. Serves as a nice roundup for small trades so we don't have a million threads with three responses. Not a bad trade for the Giants. Keppinger can hit and can play all over the infield. Nothing special though. Better as a backup than a starter.

I can't believe there are still people mad about us "trading" Hamilton. Actually, I'm not surprised at all. People fail to grasp simple concepts. He was never gonna be a Cub. Not something you can fault Hendry for. End of story.

Al Alburquerque has a 2.73 ERA and 47 Ks in 29.2 innings this year for the Tigers. Though he wasn't much of a prospect at the time and he did nothing with the Rockies.

Kevin Goldstein was fielding questions on Twtter about these moves the other night and he does not have a high opinion of Flaherty. Thinks his ceiling is a backup. I know Flaherty doesn't have age on his side (though he's not that old) but he has still posted solid numbers. Has he been playing in hitters' leagues/is he not very projectable or is Goldstein just underrating him?