davearm2

The production they get from that money spent(or that roster spot) has a monetary value, and the probable difference in production between Silva and Bradley far exceeds the money saved from the trade. Of course you ignore that production wasn't the reason that Bradley was traded in the first place. If production was the only consideration then there's no doubt he'd still be a Cub.

We did not "get a few bucks in return for him." We got a near-worthless player whom we still have to pay huge money to over the next two years. The Cubs got both a few bucks and an (allegedly) near-worthless player. The huge money over the next two years is a sunk cost. The Cubs will not receive a single payment from the Mariners. Therefore they did not "get a few bucks in return for him." Instead of paying money to Bradley over the next two years, they will be paying slightly less money to Carlos Silva over the next two (or three depending on the accounting) years. The Cubs did not nor will they ever receive "a few bucks." This is a bunch of accounting minutae. Had they kept or released Bradley, they would've written checks totalling $21M over the next two years. Now instead they will be writing checks totalling $16M over the next two years. If you take exception with the characterization that they are "getting a few bucks" since technically they are actually "saving a few bucks", then so be it. The distinction is totally immaterial to the discussion.

The Cubs got both a few bucks and an (allegedly) near-worthless player. The huge money over the next two years is a sunk cost. It's not a sunk cost when we didn't have to pay it to a horrendous player before the trade. I don't think you comprehend the concept of a sunk cost. In this case the monies committed to Bradley cannot be recovered. That $21M absolutely WILL be paid. Replace "ticket" with "contract", and "movie" with "Bradley circus", and you've got the present situation described to a T, except here the Cubs got a little something for their "ticket" instead of just throwing it away -- a marginal player and $5M savings. Yes, I absolutely understand what a sunk cost is, and it's a simplistic idea that doesn't consider the realities of a MLB trade. Of course the 21 million will be paid, but as we can see it is not for certain to be paid by the Cubs, and the value received from that 21 million varies significantly depending on who is "playing for that 21 million" so to speak. That would be an applicable analogy if we had paid all but "a couple bucks" of his salary and got something like a minor leaguer in return. Instead, what actually happened is that we now have Carlos Silva and his contract. To sum up: Before: Bradley and his contract providing X value After: Silva and his contract providing X - a billion value, plus a few million dollars To use that ticket analogy, if Bradley is the ticket, then Silva is someone hitting you in the back of the knee with a crowbar. The Cubs can release Silva tomorrow and still be $5M ahead. Heck maybe they will, like they basically did with Vizcaino last year. Bottom line is the value the Cubs received is the $5M refund on the sunk cost they had in Bradley. Whatever production they get (if any) from Silva is just gravy. People are so hung up on Silva, but he's really sort of a nonfactor in all of this. The $$$ saved is the central issue.

The Cubs got both a few bucks and an (allegedly) near-worthless player. The huge money over the next two years is a sunk cost. It's not a sunk cost when we didn't have to pay it to a horrendous player before the trade. I don't think you comprehend the concept of a sunk cost. In this case the monies committed to Bradley cannot be recovered. That $21M absolutely WILL be paid. Replace "ticket" with "contract", and "movie" with "Bradley circus", and you've got the present situation described to a T, except here the Cubs got a little something for their "ticket" instead of just throwing it away -- a marginal player and $5M savings.

Your constant personal attacks add nothing of value to the discussion.

Except for the key points that are completely wrong, like Milton not owning up to when he performed poorly or not being able to play with the pressure of what was going on. He may have been playing better but he was certainly losing it. There is just no way that Milton Bradley can make it thru a season at wrigley, even if he was putting up sosa-like numbers. Some people are just drawn toward chaos. I'm glad we got a few bucks in return for him. We did not "get a few bucks in return for him." We got a near-worthless player whom we still have to pay huge money to over the next two years. The Cubs got both a few bucks and an (allegedly) near-worthless player. The huge money over the next two years is a sunk cost.

LOL yes, just before back-to-back division winning seasons. you really love to give him props for that 85 win (in a terrible division) nc central title in 2007, don't you. really he probabably deserves more credit for the 2009 team than he does the 2007 team. the 2009 cubs played in a much better division than the 2007 cubs and only won 2 fewer games. i guess it's more of an achievement to be surrounded by crap teams though. OK then I stand corrected. As Dexter says, Hendry deserves credit for his achievement in all three seasons.

LOL yes, just before back-to-back division winning seasons.

Either you're being intentionally melodramatic and misleading, or you're the only baseball fan on Earth that doesn't know why Bradley was traded.

Your math in this thread is seriously flawed. As someone else mentioned, the $25M the Mariners owed to Silva was a sunk cost. What the M's were willing to do was pay an extra $5M over two years to have Bradley instead. No different than a free agent offer of 2/$5M, except that it also provided the M's an out from their horrible Silva contract. If another team came in with an offer that would've netted the Cubs more than $5M in savings, then they'd probably have Bradley on their roster right now. Apparently none did. That's not necessarily true. If Ricketts truly put a limit on the amount of money the Cubs could send with Bradley (which is just a terrible way to do business, and paints a grim picture of the future) then some team could've been willing to pay 2Y/10M but didn't have an awful, negative value contract to send back in return. Fair enough. It's possible the Cubs preferred Silva and $5M savings over no player and $10M savings. Naturally that implies they value Silva at something greater than $5M, or they had some aversion to laying out cash for Bradley to play elsewhere.

Your math in this thread is seriously flawed. As someone else mentioned, the $25M the Mariners owed to Silva was a sunk cost. What the M's were willing to do was pay an extra $5M over two years to have Bradley instead. No different than a free agent offer of 2/$5M, except that it also provided the M's an out from their horrible Silva contract. If another team came in with an offer that would've netted the Cubs more than $5M in savings, then they'd probably have Bradley on their roster right now. Apparently none did.

Describe one way that Milton Bradley's presence on the Cubs roster would affect Lee's ability to hit (I seem to recall he hit pretty good this year), pitch/catch or run. Describe one way that a professional athlete making millions of dollars would allow their hatred for a teammate to affect his play on the field. Just one. Well "by committing murder" has been nominated. So has "by committing rape". Those seem just as silly to me as "by acting like a jerk". You think it's silly to not want to cheer on a rapist? Most ballplayers are jerks, very few are convicted rapists or murderers. I didn't say that at all. But as jersey cubs fan has said (paraphrasing), who cares what the fans think or whether they like the players.

Illegal behavior is just that. Teammates actually forgive that, also. Heck, Michael Vick kills puppies and he's still playing pro sports. The question is how is anything Milton said or did this year affecting the play of his teammates? No, the question is how would committing a crime affect the play of his teammates?

Describe one way that Milton Bradley's presence on the Cubs roster would affect Lee's ability to hit (I seem to recall he hit pretty good this year), pitch/catch or run. Describe one way that a professional athlete making millions of dollars would allow their hatred for a teammate to affect his play on the field. Just one. Well "by committing murder" has been nominated. So has "by committing rape". Those seem just as silly to me as "by acting like a jerk".

I would agree. It's a bad deal regardless. But Silva still has a decent chance of being close to mediocre. And that has value for a starting pitcher. I'm hoping the Cubs will be willing to release him if he struggles and doesn't show any bounce back from last year. That's my biggest worry of the trade that they will give him way too long of a leash. But if he does come back, he could easily be worth 4-5 million per year and a roster spot and the Cubs would have only wasted 6-8 million on this deal. If he doesn't and the Cubs are willing to release him, then they are out 16 million. The biggest problem is if they let him have negative value for most of 2 years clogging up a roster spot. It's definitely a bad trade, but it's how the Cubs handle it that could turn it from bad to absolutely horrible. And Silva has a chance of making it only bad if he can pitch like he has for a decent percentage of his career. His contract is so ridiculous because his upside is mediocre. But he doesn't have a horrible chance of reaching that upside like he has before. The Cubs did cut bait pretty quick on whathisname that came back from Colorado for Marquis. Pretty similar situations there -- the Cubs wound up with a guy they probably didn't want just to be rid of a guy they wanted even less, and they didn't have any qualms about junking him.

Barry Bonds has probably been the most hated teammates in the history of the game. Rickey Henderson? Manny Ramirez? These guys played on teams that went to the playoffs. These teams didn't blow up because someone said something not very nice. Zambrano beat up a teammate on national television, which is probably way worse than anything Bradley did. He's still here. So why is there a line being drawn at illegal behavior, is what I'm asking.

Because being a dick and not causing your teammates to suck is completely different than committing a felony and not causing your teammates to suck. You really can't see a difference between being an a-hole and killing someone? In terms of how it impacts one's teammates' ability to hit/pitch/catch/run, no I can't see a difference.

Sure, if he killed somebody, or raped a chick or something like that I would strongly advise not bringing him back to the team. Why that's not going to make his teammates hit any worse or forget how to catch the ball etc etc so who cares what he does off the field. Right? Personally, I've been pretty consistent in saying that I draw the line at breaking the law. DUIs, wife beating, PED using, etc... Last I checked, being a dick wasn't illegal. And jersey cubs fan has been pretty consistent in saying that all of the criticism heaped on Bradley for his attitude and clubhouse demeanor is essentially bogus because has no effect on how his teammates perform on the field, and thus no effect on the Cubs' W-L record. So I'm left to wonder how this other stuff matters, since it seems to me that it too would have no impact on the rest of the team.

I dunno, Silva's had one real stinker year, and last year he was hurt, but he's also been pretty squarely in the league-average range his other six seasons. Certainly nothing to get excited about to be sure, and he's undoubtedly unworthy of the contract the M's handed him, but hardly grounds for vitriol we're seeing in this thread. FWIW, Bill James has Silva at a 4.64 FIP for 2010. Again not great but not disastrous by any stretch either. I get that folks are pissed about how the Bradley situation was handled, but the Silva hate seems more than a little over the top.

Sure, if he killed somebody, or raped a chick or something like that I would strongly advise not bringing him back to the team. Why that's not going to make his teammates hit any worse or forget how to catch the ball etc etc so who cares what he does off the field. Right? Depends on who he killed or what method he used. But regardless, those are meaningful offenses. Being a dick is not. Meaningful how? I mean in a baseball production, winning and losing games sense.

Sure, if he killed somebody, or raped a chick or something like that I would strongly advise not bringing him back to the team. Why that's not going to make his teammates hit any worse or forget how to catch the ball etc etc so who cares what he does off the field. Right?

I think we can now conclude that the Cubs have drawn a line in the sand as far as how much of Bradley's remaining salary they will eat, and so far no team has been willing to take on the rest. It should be interesting to see who blinks first, and perhaps what the Cubs' move will be if February rolls around and nothing has happened. They've said they won't release them, and they seem dead set on having him off of the roster by the time the team reports to camp.

You'd have to consider that Ramirez has followed the same basic pattern too though. If you really wanted to do this right, you'd find a way to park-adjust the individual OPS numbers for both guys, then take a PA-weighted average of the normalized OPS's for both guys, and finally compare those two numbers. I didn't go to all of that work, which is why I said it's quick and dirty to look at .830 vs .808. My intuition tells me that the method outlined above wouldn't change those figures significantly enough to disprove the point that these guys are more or less equal as hitters.

Not to mention we have a good chunk of money coming off the books after this coming season, unless Hendry decides to extend Lee and Lilly again before the season is over. Also have Aramis' salary potentially coming off the books if he opts out. If all 3 leave after the seaosn that's $40 mil off the books. There should be no reason not to consider Crawford in the offseason if that happens assuming, like you said, that Tampa doesn't extend him if all 3 of those guys leave we're going to have a lot of holes though it sucks because the contracts that are coming off the books are the good contracts, the ones you don't want to end. Wait, so Hendry entered into several *good* contracts? I thought your whole schtick is that he is a completely incompetent, overspending boob incapable of such a thing. That detail aside, if the Cubs want to continue paying Lee $13M/yr and Lilly $12M/yr on those good contracts, I'm quite confident their only question will be, "where do I sign?"

Maybe. I think he's still behind, as Holliday has had one or two standout seasons to go along with his steadily good overall performance, while Ramirez is about as consistently very good but not elite as you can get. A quick-and-dirty control for park effects shows: Holliday: .808 career OPS on the road (.284/.353/.454) Ramirez: .830 career OPS on the road (.280/.334/.496) It's not perfect but it does illustrate that these guys aren't too different as hitters.