davearm2

Everyone else will get better. Who knows about Aramis. Are you serious Clark? Of course. Leaguewide numbers for 3Bs are extremely likely to revert toward the mean (i.e., get better). There's nothing specific to being a 3B that's causing a precipitous drop in offensive production (relative to history). The whole notion is preposterous, frankly. Who knows what Aramis' hitting problem is. But it isn't that he stands nearest to 3B when the team is in the field. Wait, you honestly think anyone is arguing that? What else would be the point of comparing his production to other 3Bs?

In that specific role, sure. But as a whole he's been pretty middle of the pack, as TT pointed out. "Godawful" is pretty melodramatic, especially since we actually saw what a "godawful" Aramis looks like just last year. So you're good with a .745 OPS being "godawful", but a .750 is something else?

Everyone else will get better. Who knows about Aramis. Are you serious Clark? Of course. Leaguewide numbers for 3Bs are extremely likely to revert toward the mean (i.e., get better). There's nothing specific to being a 3B that's causing a precipitous drop in offensive production (relative to history). The whole notion is preposterous, frankly. Who knows what Aramis' hitting problem is. But it isn't that he stands nearest to 3B when the team is in the field.

Inasmuch as he's paid to be the power threat they need, I'd say the term godawful fits just fine.

Everyone else will get better. Who knows about Aramis. But his problem is not that all his 3B comrades have sucked.

Nobody should be taking any comfort in the fact that everyone else's 3B has sucked too, unless they think 3Bs hitting like 70s era shortstops is a true longterm trend. Ramirez has been godawful. The rest is just coincidence.

And I thought Pujols was the big free agent this winter

If Bob Melvin is the answer, I don't want to know the question

Lots of times, the douchebags that do this sort of thing are more dangerous when drunk.

Yikes, I hope that tub 'o lard is being treated by God himself (herself?) if the bill is in the billions

+1 Absolutely. Agreed. Vince McMahon agrees too. sports A lot of those guys are athletes on par with any other sport. So are ballerinas (and whatever you call their male equivalents).

You can't offer Ramirez arbitration unless you're OK with paying him like $12M next year.

I'm often pretty puzzled by the amount of slack Soto gets around here. Many folks still view him as a cornerstone type player, and well above average at his position. He's certainly been that at times, but he's also sucked rather mightily for long stretches too. Soto had the highest OPS of all starting catchers last year. I think I can look past a bad first third of the season. And a lousy 2009 too, apparently. And you can look past his fantastic 2008, apparently. Not at all. I see two great years, and two lousy years (albeit this year is still only 1/3 done), and then wonder why folks seemingly expect (or even assume) more great instead of more lousy in the future. I see the guy as a huge questionmark going forward. Not many else seem to: the general perception seems to be that the Cubs are set at Catcher.

Well ever since the focus has turned toward the future beyond 2011, Soto and Castro seem to make everyone's list of "players to build around" or "good young players" or what have you. That's the slack I'm referring to.

I'm often pretty puzzled by the amount of slack Soto gets around here. Many folks still view him as a cornerstone type player, and well above average at his position. He's certainly been that at times, but he's also sucked rather mightily for long stretches too. Soto had the highest OPS of all starting catchers last year. I think I can look past a bad first third of the season. And a lousy 2009 too, apparently.

I'm often pretty puzzled by the amount of slack Soto gets around here. Many folks still view him as a cornerstone type player, and well above average at his position. He's certainly been that at times, but he's also sucked rather mightily for long stretches too.

Also, players with NTCs can block waiver claims if they wish.

Perrenial contender? 0 playoff appearancs with Miggy, 1 division tiebreaker loss, and a 272-273 overall record with him on the team. They are a team that could easily decide with another DUI that having him on a .500ish team with him isn't getting them over the top and trade him for top prospects and rebuild. Key word. We dont have such a creature. Hes 28 years old and a top 10 player in baseball, maybe better, and the only way that wed be able to get him would be a deal centered around Castro or completely emptying out the farm system, and I dont see either option happening. Cabrera alone has made the Tigers an above .500 team for the past 3 years now. Take him out of their equation, and they're probably on the bottom of the division. Cabrera can't be viewed in the same light as any other elite player. For one thing, he's got an enormous contract, so he's not a bargain. But more importantly, he's viewed by many as a ticking timebomb due to the repeated off-field incidents.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. They made Ryno the highest paid player in the game in the early 90's. From the late-90's through the 2000's, when Wrigley actually started selling out on the heals of success they rose the payroll from middle of the road to top of the NL. It wasn't just prior to the sale. They very selectively did so. By the time they started doing B "for real" the failings of A brought everything crashing down. Your issue should be with MacPhail, and his small-market mentality, not with the Trib. The Trib was making money available, MacPhail was just too cheap to spend it on a bigtime free agent. Instead he spread those dollars across 3 or 4 okay free agents. So it comes back to A). My issue was with both. He may not have been spending as much money as he had, but it's not like there was a ton. This might just be me getting things wrong or making things up, but I could swear the talk has been that Hendry wanted to go after both Guerrero and then Beltran in the mid-00's but both signings were effectively nixed due to money constraints. My recollection was that MacPhail wouldn't authorize a mega contract. Same story with Tejada and later Furcal.

My guess is, Hendry doesn't actively shop Wood. But, once another team calls expressing interest, he can couch the conversation with Wood as "hey Kerry, so-and-so called asking if you'd like to join them, what would you like me to tell them?"

Misleading title. Nothing in the agent's quotes say he will not waive his NTC.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. They made Ryno the highest paid player in the game in the early 90's. From the late-90's through the 2000's, when Wrigley actually started selling out on the heals of success they rose the payroll from middle of the road to top of the NL. It wasn't just prior to the sale. They very selectively did so. By the time they started doing B "for real" the failings of A brought everything crashing down. Your issue should be with MacPhail, and his small-market mentality, not with the Trib. The Trib was making money available, MacPhail was just too cheap to spend it on a bigtime free agent. Instead he spread those dollars across 3 or 4 okay free agents. So it comes back to A).

Details? Basically that the Cubs will suck for the next 3-5 years if not longer. We should trade Marmol because a team like the Cubs has no use for a closer. Also, that team is broke and will probably be lowering payroll to 90-100 mil if not 75 and then farm system sucks and the "pipeline is dry". These guys are far from experts, and anything they say is to be taken with a grain of salt, but its depressing stuff to hear none the less. It's only depressing until you realize that these guys get paid to paint the extreme ends of the cup-half-full and cup-half-empty scenarios. If all they said was "The Cubs will probably be OK in a year or so" nobody would listen. But in an honest moment, that's quite likely what they really think.

... which would tend to support the notion that perhaps the Trib wasn't so bad after all.

I think the second half of the Tribune ownership did some real things. The biggest mistakes they made was not hiring the right baseball people. But in the early 90's they went out and got a hot shot young exec in Andy MacPhail to run things and make a commitment to building through the minor league system. They also spent more and more every year on payroll, giving unprecedented resources to the team. They also laid the groundwork for the first real upgrades to Wrigley Field and got them done. I agree. A good owner will... a) hire the right people; b) open the checkbook; and c) stay the heck out of the way. The Trib definitely did b) and c), and tried to do a). In the end, MacPhail's small-market tendencies just didn't work here. Ricketts and co have yet to establish a), b), or c). But they haven't given us a reason to believe they'll fail on any of these, either. Nuts&Gum suggested that they had done these things already. I was merely pointing out that they have followed the track that was already in place and have yet to really make any clear decisions about a or b. I think scouting in asia is awesome I would like to see them get in china as well. But latin america has some great talent, maybe overpriced maybe not. But as a major market team we should be signing a million plus guy in latin america every year. Signing an overpriced player -- from latin america or anyplace else -- every year doesn't seem real smart. What I'm seeing is, the Cubs are taking those same dollars to places (most notably Asia) where the players are comparatively underpriced. Seems pretty smart to me, in a decidedly Moneyball way.