davearm2

Hard for me to imagine the Boras Factor is much of an issue with a guy still 4 years from free agency. If the Padres were inclined to flip Ellsbury for even younger player(s), the time for that would be in two or three years.

Let me guess... because you heard Rob say that earlier in this thread? In fact I believe those were his exact words.

I don't mean to single you out Serge, but all of this Jaramillo hype reminds me of when Baltimore hired Leo Mazzone and all of the O's fans assumed their entire pitching staff would show big improvements. Well whatever worked for Mazzone in Atlanta certainly didn't translate to Baltimore.

Really? I wouldn't label any Cubs acquisition as a big fish. Nomar was closest but he was a banged up shell of his former self, and Soriano was not a top player. The Cubs have been named during rumor stages, but reports of interest aren't meaningful when compared with actually acquiring the players. Ramirez was highly flawed, DLee was a second or maybe third tier 1b. Barrett was a nobody, Fukudome was intriguing, but not a top notch international free agent. Dempster was a rehab project. Seriously, name a big fish he caught. I guess we're just using different definitions of big fish. In my book Ramirez, Lee, Soriano, Fukudome, Bradley, Nomar, and Harden all count. Those guys were all expected to be major differencemakers when they were acquired. Some have been, others not so much. That is a very loose definition of big fish. Ramirez and Lee shouldn't even be debatable, they clearly were not. Soriano was only a big fish because Hendry gave him that stupid contract, but Soriano was never elite and was always a highly flawed player that wasn't going to come close to fullfiling his contract. If you want to include him, go ahead, but he was more like the only fish the Cubs could find in their decrepit pond than a big fish. Fukudome? No, he was an interesting player and a good get, but at the time he was already considered well down the totem pole of Japanese stars coming over. He was a secondary player. Bradley? No way, that's a joke. Harden? Nope, he was as big of an injury risk as there was and the guy I give Hendry most credit for targetting and acquiring, but come on, anybody who can't get a big contract on the free agent market is not a big fish. Vladdy was a big fish. Sabathia, ARod, Beltran, Manny, at one point in time the Big Unit, these are big fish. Well like I said I guess we're just using different definitions of big fish. Reasonable minds can disagree on the point, but there's no need to make such an ass of yourself arguing semantics.

Really? I wouldn't label any Cubs acquisition as a big fish. Nomar was closest but he was a banged up shell of his former self, and Soriano was not a top player. The Cubs have been named during rumor stages, but reports of interest aren't meaningful when compared with actually acquiring the players. Ramirez was highly flawed, DLee was a second or maybe third tier 1b. Barrett was a nobody, Fukudome was intriguing, but not a top notch international free agent. Dempster was a rehab project. Seriously, name a big fish he caught. I guess we're just using different definitions of big fish. In my book Ramirez, Lee, Soriano, Fukudome, Bradley, Nomar, and Harden all count. Those guys were all expected to be major differencemakers when they were acquired. Some have been, others not so much.

I'm just gonna throw this out there....maybe each year is different. Maybe each year requires a different approach based on the free agent market, the demand for those players, the salaries being bandied about, the perceived quality of the players you currently have under contract, the number of holes you need to fill, and the moves that your division rivals are making. Maybe. Obviously. Given the totality of circumstances, I'd love to hear the rationale for why moving swiftly was the wrong approach last year, but conversely playing wait-and-see is the wrong approach this year.

You're right, he's done a damn good job putting together that impressive 587-545 record with one of the top payrolls in the league. Let's just give him some time, fellas. At this point, he really doesn't have any kind of track record or body of work on which to base our criticism. There's plenty to criticize Hendry for. Folks just come off looking pretty foolish when he does things one way, and then the opposite way, and both times he gets slammed.

Managing a budget isn't about how fast to spend it or to spend it slower the next year if you spent it too fast the previous year. It's about spending it wisely, which Hendry is absolutely clueless at. It's about getting the best talent you can for the best price you can. I would have been thrilled if Hendry put the Bradley money back in the bank if he elected not to spend it on any of the free agents last year if it meant getting Matt Holliday this year. All the best players that change teams always seem to be changing teams when Hendry doesn't have any money to spend. The list of players who have changed teams during Hendry's tenure is simply amazing. And what does he have to show for it? Not sure what your point is. Every player currently on the Cubs' roster (except for Zambrano) "changed teams during Hendry's tenure". Lee, Ramirez, Lilly, Dempster, Fukudome, etc. etc. are what he has to show for it. Granted this offseason is an exception, but usually the Cubs are right there in the hunt when the top names come available on the trade or free agent markets, be it Beltran, Peavy, Roberts, and on and on. Hendry catches his fair share of the big fish -- for better or for worse. Now if you want to take issue with the guys Hendry's targeted, that's fine, but to insinuate that he's perpetually sitting on the sidelines is just ridiculous.

Aren't we a little dramatic? I wasn't asking you or anybody to ignore bad moves Hendry has made or asking you to give them a chance. I said hey lets see what the heck we do this offseason, before we complain how mediocre the team is going to be. Also if you think Hendry is not capable of making good moves, then I don't know what to tell you. But lets at least see what moves we make this offseason before we make these type of judgements or start killing people. Exactly, Cameron was the top guy I wanted and I'm disappointed we didn't get him. But the Cubs still have a very talented team, and they still can make some good moves to make them better this offseason. Especially with so many guys still on the market. This will probably be a slow moving market with good players still out there in mid to late January. So people need to be patient and not call this a horrible offseason, because we haven't done anything yet in mid December. Don't you get it? Last year Hendry screwed up by diving into the free agent market early, and missing out on the great bargains available later (Dunn, Abreu, etc.) This year he's screwing up by letting other teams acquire guys for full price before XMas. Duh!

The only thing that might derail that inevitability is Scott Boras pricing Ankiel as a young Joe DiMaggio.

I sure would be interested to see the contingency matrix that Hendry and the boys drew up on the whiteboard during their organizational meetings. All indications are that their Plans A (Granderson) and B (Cameron) are now off the board; meanwhile there's been no resolution to their first order of business (ditching Bradley). I personally don't think keeping Bradley appears anywhere on the decision tree, but they're quickly approaching their worst-case scenario.

halladay is better than lee AND they got to extend him This thing can start to make sense for the Phils if they do in fact have an extension arranged with Halladay, AND they put the same deal on the table for Lee and he rejected it. However if Lee would've accepted the extension given to Halladay, then I'm back to wondering what they're doing giving up value (presumably) for a marginally-better ace.

Should be interesting to see how all the pieces fit, but Lee to Halladay seems like a pretty lateral move for the Phils. Not sure what the motivation for that would be from their standpoint.

Curious what all the folks applauding Neal Huntington in the Grabow thread think about this move. Presumably they ought to like this decision by the Pirates, since the expected-production-per-dollar proposition is very similar for these two guys.

I'd have to disagree. It's very clear he's got very little trade value and the Cubs are desperate to move him. The current situation more than implies both. But those two things are inextricably tied together, as their obvious desperation is weighing heavily on his value. Halladay hasn't been traded yet - does that mean he doesn't have value either? There are plenty of things that point to whether or not Bradley has value in the market. But the simple fact that no trade has been executed yet is not one of them. The reason any "on the block" player hasn't been traded is because the best offer doesn't meet the asking price. So you're left to consider whether a) the offers are fair but the asking price is too high, b) the asking price is reasonable but the offers suck, or c) both too-low offers and too-high price. In Bradley's case the most likely explanation seems fairly obvious to me, anyway.

Yeah I'm sure a little tough love is just the thing that will snap Bradley back in line. :roll: Of all the options out there, having Bradley on the roster but stewing on the bench all year is by far the worst.

Dang too bad it isn't the Brewers. It was nice facing two pitchers at the bottom of their order.

You can be sure the Cubs have nothing new to say that Bradley hasn't been told many times before under similar circumstances. This is not exactly uncharted water for this dude. The guy is what he is, and expecting him to change his stripes now is pretty silly, especially as a result of some reconciliatory meeting. Of course he is, but he's an extremely productive player. Bradley's replacement in RF and his possible replacement (Cameron) in CF aren't as productive as he is and both are older than he is. I totally get that perspective. Just don't bother with the sit-down, and don't expect the shenanigans to be any different. The thing is, rightly or wrongly, the Cubs have decided they can't live with the shenanigans. At least I give them credit for realizing this is a "take it or leave it" sort of deal, and they can't expect Bradley's behavior and attitude to be any different no matter what they do or say.

You can be sure the Cubs have nothing new to say that Bradley hasn't been told many times before under similar circumstances. This is not exactly uncharted water for this dude. The guy is what he is, and expecting him to change his stripes now is pretty silly, especially as a result of some reconciliatory meeting.

http://espn.go.com/chicago/columns/blog?name=levine Every time I see it I get a little more terrified. I remember reading one report that said that who Hendry picked up to play CF depended entirely on how much of Bradley's contract he would end up eating. If he got someone to eat 10m of the 22 remaining, maybe he feels like he'd have enough to sign Cameron. If he can get 8m picked up from the 22m remaining, maybe he feels like he could get Byrd or Ankiel. If he can only get 2-4 million picked up, maybe that's when he resigns himself to Podsednik. The scariest part is I haven't really read any reports, that I actually believe, that have keeping Bradley as an option. Hopefully the reason Bradley hasn't been moved yet is because the 2-4 million-then-Podsednik option is the only one available at the moment, and just like us, Hendry hates the idea of Podsednik.

How do you like this approach: Replacement level ERA = 5.00 (?) In 119 innings, that translates to 66 earned runs. Harden assumed ERA = 3.00 In 119 innings, that translates to 40 earned runs. Difference = 26 runs, or roughly 2.6 Wins. How much is a 2.6 WARP starting pitcher worth on the open market? I dunno, I'm honestly asking. For reference: Dempster has averaged 5.6 WARP since the Cubs converted him back to a starter. Lilly has averaged 4.2 WARP in his three seasons with the Cubs. Zambrano has averaged 5.1 WARP since 2002. Wells was good for 4.7 WARP in his first year. Since becoming a starter in STL, Marquis has averaged 1.9 WARP in 6 seasons. So although that production from Harden is a bit above Marquis levels, he'd still be the Cubs' least valuable starter. Incidentally, applying this sort of analysis to the Randy Wolf deal makes it look pretty awful for the Brewers: Wolf was good for 4.6 WARP in 2009, but in the 6 years before that he couldn't crack 2 (1.6, 1.5, 1.4, 0.5, 1.8, 1.3). Yuck.

Yeah that math doesn't work. A guy half as good isn't worth half as much. If you wanted to take that sort of approach, you'd compute what 50% of Harden's innings plus 50% replacement level innings would give you in terms of production, then try and find a pricetag for that, then deduct the second guy's salary from that number, and then make some downward adjustment for the fact that you need to use 2 roster spots for one role. (Even that's a simplification, because the 50% of innings Harden doesn't give you is not spread to one player, but to many, some starters covering missed starts, and some relievers covering early exits.) Except that Harden isn't half as good. He's just as good in half the time. Value per IP is a pretty linear function unless we want to take leverage into account (which is silly for our purposes) You're trying to figure out what all we can get from that spot in the rotation, and it's confusing your evaluation. This is not nearly so simple as you're making it out to be. For that $20M, an absolute stud starting pitcher might give you a 3.00 ERA over 34 starts and 238 IP (or 7 IP per start on average). Now let's consider what half of that same production might look like, or 119 IP. At one extreme you could have a guy that makes 34 starts and averages 3.5 IP per start. At the other extreme you could have 17 starts @ 7 IP per start. Now I think (hope) we can agree that those two hypothetical pitchers are not of equal value. I'm not sure you'd want the first guy at any price -- that's way too much wear and tear on the bullpen. The second guy could be valuable, but it would depend greatly on the sort of production you could expect from the guy making the other 17 starts -- and how much you'd have to pay him. If Harden gives you the 3.00 ERA, but the AAA fill-in pitches to a 6.00 ERA, then the appropriate value to assign to Harden would be that of a 4.50 ERA "workhorse" starter. Something in the Jason Marquis ballpark, in other words. And I seem to recall everyone hating the $7M per year Hendry gave Marquis. The true Rich Harden would be approximately 1/3 the first guy, and 2/3 the second guy -- not pitching deep into games is part of his problem, but missing starts due to injury is the bigger problem. That tells me that $7M is probably on the generous side, since the second guy is more valuable than the first.

It's a pretty stupid one. Does it always have be about race. Maybe it's just about Bradley being a petulant ass while in Chicago, just like he's been his entire career. This really just needs to be done with. Not because the team will be better or worse with or without him, but because he is too much of a mental midget to deal with the situation like an adult. It's only stupid if you don't know what is being said. I never said hating Milton Bradley makes you racist. I never said wanting him gone makes you racist. I never said anything of the sort. I've said repeatedly I think he's an ass. My point is that the mythological creature that is the Cubs fan who would abandon the team due to the presence of Milton Bradley is probably going to be a racist person. It's really not a controversial statement. It makes no accusation about anybody here because I'm fairly certain nobody here is going to abandon the Cubs (even if several people threaten to every season). I'm talking about somebody saying, "I love the Cubs. But Milton Bradley is still on the team so I'm done with the team." A) It's very unlikely to happen. B) That rare creature is probably motivated by racial tendencies. Try as you might, your stance here isn't any less ignorant or preposterous. If hating Milton Bradley doesn't make one racist, and wanting him gone doesn't make one racist, then why on earth would abandoning a team that Bradley plays for make one racist? How in the world is that the tipping point? And as someone else asked earlier, what if the person abandoning the team due to the presence of Milton Bradley is himself an African-american? That person's racist too huh? (BTW great work in those Geico commercials.)

Take out "to the White Sox" and your post gets better. In the end it doesn't matter where the fans or sponsors go, if/when they pull out. It's money out of the Cubs' pocket regardless.

Thanks for shining some light on this blatant ignorance. The back-and-forth on this topic has been a real eye-opener. Just when you think folks are reasonably intelligent and enlightened, they start talking like this and turn that perception right on its ear.