davearm2

Or Alfonso Soriano? Why should we expect sudden and soon? I didn't say I expected that. If I expected that, then 6 or 7 years would be too many, too.

The beautiful thing is that I'm 100% confident that Epstein and his staff will have cutting edge forecasting methods that are way more robust and reliable than you and me sitting here spitballing :good: They will crunch the numbers backwards and forwards, and if Pujols' (or Fielder's) pricetag falls within the range that their black box says is a worthwhile risk, then they'll be aggressive in getting a deal done. If the price goes beyond that, they'll bow out. Either way, the decision will surely be backed by sound theory and rigorous empirical analysis.

Ok, for 2 years of a 10 year deal Pujols would be in his 40s (2020- 40; 2021- 41). The contract may turn into an albatross, I've never denied that. But the likelihood of it is so much lower with Pujols than with Soriano simply because of the differences between the two players. Pujols' success is derived from having a great approach at the plate, being a patient and disciplined hitter, understanding and manipulating the strike zone, and staying very well conditioned. Soriano's success was derived from being exceptionally athletic. The chances of Pujols' success remaining later in age are far higher than Soriano's. Does that make late career success a sure thing for Pujols? Of course not. But his chances of being Frank Robinson and Johnny Mize are higher than his chances of being Alfonso Soriano. Just for reference sake: Soriano 4 years before his deal was up (2011 season): .325 wOBA/1.3 WAR Robinson 4 years before retirement (age 38): .383 wOBA/4.4 WAR Mize 4 years before retirmenet (age 37): .412 wOBA/2.3 WAR We can agree to disagree without bringing Frank Robinson and Johnny Mize into it. Those guys have about as much to do with this as Fran Tarkenton and Bill Russell. Look, Pujols' production curve is going to turn south during the course of his next deal. Neither of us knows exactly when (if it hasn't already), or how severely. You're confident it's going to be late and gradual. Me, not so much. As I said, 6 or 7 years at a higher AAV? I'm in. 9-10 years? I'm queasy, even at a reduced AAV.

Part of risk-taking is figuring out the likelihood of the risk blowing up in your face. That's where the comparison between Soriano and Pujols goes from very, very weak to completely nonexistant. When we signed Soriano, there was an extreme likelihood he'd be awful by the end of his contract. He's not awful quite yet, but he's heading that way. Many people on this board, myself included, noted this likelihood at the time of the signing. With Pujols, the likelihood of him being an albatross late in the deal is significantly lower than with Soriano. There's a very realistic chance Pujols is a 3-4 WAR player late in his 30s (look at ARod and numerous all-time greats for examples) which is still productive enough to not be an albatross holding us back. A guy like Soriano has to remain as good as his peak (or close to it) to retain any form of value to the team. A guy like Pujols can regress a great deal and still be quite valuable. Sure he'll still be overpaid, but a team with the payroll like the Cubs have and almost certainly will continue to have can afford to overpay guys late in their deals if they're still getting a solid level of value and productivity from that player. I might be inclined to agree with you, if I thought Pujols would be in his late 30s at the end of his deal. 41 or 42 seems more plausible to me. Pujols for 6 years, $180M? Sign me up. Pujols for 10 years, $240M? IMO you're going to have a very similar situation as Soriano for the last 3-4 of those years. I'd say the "albatross odds" are about equal.

I think the odds are slightly in favor of him being retained (because that is the actual smart thing to do), but it is very hard to tell. I'm not on record either way. Zambrano is going to be a fascinating case study to watch. Everything we know about Epstein's analytical approach would point to keeping him. From a pure cost/benefit approach, it definitely makes more sense to keep him than to pay him to play someplace else, especially given the Cubs' need for pitching. Everything we hear from Epstein about changing the culture, doing things the right way, standing up for teammates, having each other's back, etc. would point to ditching him. Should be intriguing to see how it plays out.

Not sure what people see as "fairly short order", but at 5 hours or more per post approval, it's going to be rather hard for anyone to be a part of the conversation here or to make a quick quip. As to the Cubs fan "again" comment, really? Blood in the water for the faithful here? I was referring to a renewed sense of interest and love for the team that I have lived and died with for over 30 years. Pretty sure I'm not the only one that lost interest and refused to spend any money on the debacle that were the Cubs the last couple of years. This board has a very clique-like mentality, afaik. It limits the amount of people wiling to post here and endure the hazing atmosphere. In turn, this limits input and diversity. Tim and the Mods would do well to try to eliminate that kind of behavior instead of protecting everyone from "spam-bots" imho. You have the ability to moderate after an offending post is made, correct? Hence the comment about a board that feels the need to moderate both before AND after the fact. Just my .02 Flame on. :hello: Diversity... that's good stuff. :lol: The NSBB core wants nothing to do with diversity. Around here there's only one intelligent way to look at every situation. Everything else is idiocy. Espouse the populist view, and you'll get your back slapped. Espouse any other view, and you'll get hazed. Hope this helps. Welcome!

Zambrano was out of the game and talked about retirement after a teammate berated him. He didn't quit. No amount of spin can change the fact that Zambrano walked out on the Cubs. If that's not quitting on your teammates, I don't know what is.

Yeah of course Epstein is going to come out on his first day on the job and say we're going to give everyone a shot, look at all our internal options, etc. Just imagine the tone it would set if instead, he came right out of the gate saying the dude that hit 40 HRs in AAA last year has no chance.

He can put up a .900 OPS with very good defense (which would be a decline in both offense and fielding) and still not be a handcuff on the franchise. There's little chance he'll be OPSing 1.000 when he's in his late 30s, but at the same time there's little chance he'll be OPSing .750 in his late 30s. He's a patient, intelligent, well-conditioned player who is probably one of the 2-3 greatest players ever - and maybe the best ever. Those players have a higher rate of success late in their careers than your general good player. The mindset with Soriano by some people was "maybe he'll play great for a couple years because he's going to be terrible soon." With Pujols, it's "he'll likely be incredible for about 3-5 years and then probably really good from there." There's really no way to compare Soriano and Pujols' deals in any way, shape, or form. There was no indication whatsoever that Soriano would age well, he was a very inconsistent player at the time, and he didn't have the skills to have any success once he started to decline. Pujols is a 100% different player than Soriano in every aspect, even without regard to the fact that Pujols is historically great. There's plenty of reason to think Pujols could be productive into his mid-late 30s, whereas there was none with Soriano. The point of comparison is obviously that Pujols may one day be grossly overpaid relative to his production, just as Soriano is now. Soriano is getting superstar money to be barely average. If Pujols is getting best-in-the-game money and is simply pretty good, the situations will be very comparable. In both cases, the value of the production will be a small fraction of the salary.

At least some of that is park and run environment influenced. 15M + young players would be worth it if the Cubs get a high end 3B post-Ramirez for a few years. 15M + young players would not be worth it so long as simply keeping Ramirez remains an option.

With what money? They are at last year's payroll even if they don't bring back Fielder. Just a hunch they go big at SS to offset the loss of Fielder. They were terrible at that spot and still have a playoff-caliber roster returning. We've already seen them make bold moves for guys like Sabathia, Grienke and Marcum. I think they make their next splash at SS, even if it requires a boost in payroll.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wrighda03.shtml Besides last season what should I be worried about here? The '09 with 10 HRs? It also came with a .300+ BA and a .390 OBP, plus it's hard to believe he's a 10 HR guy in Wrigley anyway. I know Wright's had his issues, but except for last year 15 million really isn't a bad price for him. Even last year his Iso's were strong... What I'm worried about is that he went from four straight years of .900+ OPS to .837, .856 and last year .771. $15M isn't a bad price, given the potential for a rebound. $15M plus a bunch of young players is, though.

Whoa sorry Semantics Sam. As a 29 year old David Wright is still in his athletic prime years, and therefore probably capable of throwing up a couple of really good seasons. He hasn't even really been all *that* bad the past couple of years, and in two of the past three years he's basically been a 4 WAR player. The Mets will be able to ask alot for him, and he won't come cheap. It'd be nice if he did. One would think that what the Mets can get back for Wright is somewhat limited by his contract. I wouldn't expect anyone to be in a big hurry to shell out lots of great prospects AND $15M for one year of David Wright, coming off of several subpar seasons.

You think he'll get more than 8 years? I sure don't. I don't even think it's a given he gets more than 6. And the Cubs wouldn't be signing him at age 31; you'd be getting him for this typical peak years of 28-32. So you want them to pass on both? What about signing someone like Kemp to a big deal after 2012? The (somewhat irrational) Cub fan in me would be thrilled and giddy if we landed Fielder or Pujols. Signing either one would be incredibly exciting. Especially Pujols. The (very rational) economist in me sees both guys as losing propositions from a pure risk/reward perspective. Signing either one would be incredibly risky and potentially crippling. Especially Pujols. You could argue that perhaps I'm too risk-averse, and maybe you're right. But when I remove all of the emotion from the equation, I just think both flunk the cost/benefit analysis.

I think he wants to stay, and when push comes to shove he'll take a discount to make that happen after nobody will go 10/$300 or whatever pie in the sky figure he has in mind.

Put the Brewers down for Reyes or Rollins. Pujols stays. Sabathia stays. Wilson stays. Fielder to the highest bidder. Won't be the Cubs.

The Mariners would never trade Ichiro anyway. Or I should say it'd take something drastic. Maybe a trade deadline type thing where he becomes the 2012 Kenny Lofton... I'm not sure it gets any more drastic than finishing behind Baltimore.

I like that option a lot too.

It may or may not impact how Theo views Ramirez, but it bears noting that he took a bath by re-upping with Mike Lowell not so long ago.

Dunn has had 1 season of a 5+ WAR, a career wOBA of .375 and career OBP of .374 and he's 31. Fielder has had 3 seasons of 5+ WAR (one of those over 6), a career .391 wOBA and a career .390 OBP and he's 28. I'm really struggling to see how Dunn is anywhere near the player Prince is. Interesting to note, however, that Dunn still has a similar IsoD to his career level, but this year he had a BABIP of .240 with a LD% of 20.0. Looks like he had some major bad luck this year, especially considering his 9.6% HR/FB ratio, even though he's hitting the ball as hard as he ever has. Even if you view Dunn and Prince as similar players (they aren't), there's plenty of reason to believe Dunn simply hit a major patch of bad luck this year and could rebound with better luck next year. They're both very similar hitters -- disciplined and patient I think you called it. They also both have unathletic body types. Does that prove anything definitively? Of course not. Does it cast doubt on your theory about such players aging well? It does for me.

He had a 5.7 and 5.0 WAR season while in New York and UZR didn't like his defense, his other seasons in NY and Texas were .2, 2.1, 2.3, and then he had a 5.3 WAR his last year in Texas when his defense jumped to 6.6. Prince has had three seasons so far that were higher than 5 WAR and the highest his UZR was during that time has been 1.7. Soriano's 7.0 WAR season with the Cubs was helped greatly by a 33.6 UZR. And keep in mind, Prince has been younger than Soriano was. Soriano was 27 when he posted his first 5+ WAR season. Prince was 23 when he posted his first 5+ WAR season. That's significant. If we give Fielder an 8 year deal, there's no doubt in my mind he'll decline during that contract. However, I don't see any reason to believe he can't improve going forward and he likely won't have the dramatic fall Soriano has because Prince isn't an impatient hacker that Sori is. Prince is a disciplined, patient hitter and that can help keep his overall numbers boosted a bit over a guy who relies on slugging and stolen bases for his offensive value. More or less disciplined and patient than Adam Dunn?

You think he'll get more than 8 years? I sure don't. I don't even think it's a given he gets more than 6. And the Cubs wouldn't be signing him at age 31; you'd be getting him for this typical peak years of 28-32. No, I think he'll get more than $18M/year.

We signed Soriano to 8 years when he was 31 years old, I'm advocating giving Fielder 8 years when he's 28. Also, Soriano had a lot of WAR tied into his very good defense in a number of years. Generally that's a good thing, but with Soriano, his defense wasn't going to stay any good since it was primarily based on his great athleticism making up for bad reads and poor routes. His offense has been marginally comparable to Prince, but Soriano's best wOBA seasons are some of Prince's worst. For instance, in 11 seasons Soriano has posted 5 wOBAs over .370, none of those over .380. In 6 seasons, Prince has posted a .370+ wOBA 5 times, with 3 of those over .400. And they're largely OBP based, meaning that offensive value will remain as long as his back doesn't give out. Soriano had a few star level seasons because he was super athletic, Prince is a star level player. Add in that we're signing Prince 3 years earlier than we signed Soriano and the deals aren't very comparable. Actually Soriano's defense was universally considered below average until he moved off of 2B. That happened one year before he signed with the Cubs. Anyway, I maintain that a big fat 28 year old Fielder represents as much or more risk of decline as a lithe and athletic 31 year old Soriano. My guess is, so long as he stays healthy, Fielder will hit about like he has to this point. The rest of his game will slide.

Doesn't mean the shape of their career WARP curves aren't likely to mirror each other when all is said and done. And if so, the point about Pujols being a significant liability in the second half of his next deal is very valid. In fact I think that's essentially a given. Nobody's arguing that he wouldn't decline over the course of a 6-10 contract at this point in his career. The point in him being better than ARod is that it means there's a very good chance that his decline would still leave him at a level where he's better than most longer than the typical player, or even someone at ARod's level. Do you want the Cubs to not sign either Pujols or Fielder? Best case is you give 'em a deal with an opt-out, and they take the opt out. The Yankees should have let ARod walk. And they should let CC walk too, if they get that chance this year. So if they can't sign them with such a clause they shouldn't do so? What if they have the opportunity to sign Kemp after next season? When do you think the Cubs should actually dish out a big contract? Only if the player is homegrown and they can do it earlier in their career? You can talk yourself out of these types of deals, but it's absurd for a team with the Cubs' resources to pass on such players given what they need. This isn't Soriano part deux. I don't think the risk/reward equation for Fielder is all that different than Soriano's was. I posted the WARP numbers earlier. I anticipate Fielder's contract numbers will be larger. Of course there are some gigantic contracts out there that I would be comfortable with the Cubs handing out. Obviously each one needs to be evaluated independently. Personally, I anticipate both of these guys are going to turn out badly at the dollars and years being speculated.

right now he is, but ARod' renegotiated deal started the year after he posted 9.8 WAR. Entering 2008, he was in his age 32/33 season. Pujols is entering his age 32 season and has had two years where his performance has slipped a bit. If he's looking for a gigantic deal that is 7 or more years, how certain are you that he won't decline in 2-3 years the way ARod is? Now that we aren't in the steroid era anymore, the expectation should be for normal human declines, and mid-30's was typically the area where decline started to happen. Everyone is different, but therein lies my concern with a Pujols deal. Another impact of the end of the steroid era -- we have to question whether the next wave of superstars will remain productive as long as guys like Manny and Bonds did. So there weren't players productive into their mid-30's prior to the "steroid era?" Of course there were. But the percentages were smaller.