davearm2

The sneeze analogy perfectly illustrates what I've been trying to explain. People sneeze all the darn time, and nothing comes of it. Just like as dextermorgan has explained, professional baseball players step awkwardly on their leg all the darn time, and nothing comes of it. So if throwing your back out sneezing is a freak injury (since you've sneezed countless times with no injury occurring), then by the same logic, tearing your ACL stepping awkwardly is also a freak injury (since you've stepped awkwardly countless times with no injury occurring). Except people almost never get hurt sneezing. That's why it's a freak injury. People get hurt by twisting their legs. You're leaving out that very huge difference. Also, I'd say that there's a pretty big difference between a sneeze and a twisting of your leg. One is a natural thing that the body does by itself. The other is something that your body is put through due to a mistake. Your definition of a freak injury is: something people almost never get hurt doing (reference the bolded statement above). You've told us over and over and over again how baseball players step awkwardly on their leg all the time without getting hurt. Therefore by your own definition of the term, when a baseball player gets hurt stepping awkwardly, it's a freak injury. That's not my definiton at all. I don't know where you're getting that. "people almost never get hurt sneezing. That's why it's a freak injury." -- dextermorgan

It's highly amusing when someone whines about how Hendry wasn't willing to pay Kerry Wood $10M a year, and then turns around in the very same post and plays the injury card on Milton Bradley. Priceless. And someone please find me a Cub fan that wasn't thrilled with the Fukudome signing at this time last year.

The sneeze analogy perfectly illustrates what I've been trying to explain. People sneeze all the darn time, and nothing comes of it. Just like as dextermorgan has explained, professional baseball players step awkwardly on their leg all the darn time, and nothing comes of it. So if throwing your back out sneezing is a freak injury (since you've sneezed countless times with no injury occurring), then by the same logic, tearing your ACL stepping awkwardly is also a freak injury (since you've stepped awkwardly countless times with no injury occurring). Except people almost never get hurt sneezing. That's why it's a freak injury. People get hurt by twisting their legs. You're leaving out that very huge difference. Also, I'd say that there's a pretty big difference between a sneeze and a twisting of your leg. One is a natural thing that the body does by itself. The other is something that your body is put through due to a mistake. Your definition of a freak injury is: something people almost never get hurt doing (reference the bolded statement above). You've told us over and over and over again how baseball players step awkwardly on their leg all the time without getting hurt. Therefore by your own definition of the term, when a baseball player gets hurt stepping awkwardly, it's a freak injury.

With all this talk about acquiring LH hitting to balance the lineup, I suspect we'll see a lefty batting second (Fuku or Fontenot), Bradley splitting up Lee and Ramirez, the other lefty hitting 7th, and Theriot batting 8th. Soriano Fontenot Lee Bradley Ramirez Soto Fukudome Theriot

Indeed. If nothing else, this pushes the odds of the Cubs getting Bradley even higher than they already are. Allegedly the Rays were the main competition. Hopefully we'll find out soon.

The sneeze analogy perfectly illustrates what I've been trying to explain. People sneeze all the darn time, and nothing comes of it. Just like as dextermorgan has explained, professional baseball players step awkwardly on their leg all the darn time, and nothing comes of it. So if throwing your back out sneezing is a freak injury (since you've sneezed countless times with no injury occurring), then by the same logic, tearing your ACL stepping awkwardly is also a freak injury (since you've stepped awkwardly countless times with no injury occurring).

I love how you don't have time to respond to me when you can no longer defend your weak arguments because you "have a fie and kid", yet you constantly take shots at me and reply to my other posts. awesome and yeah, you're right. a professional baseball player stepping awkwardly on his leg is just freaky. i mean, what are the chances of something like that happening? just.. weird. I thought we agreed that professional baseball players step awkwardly their legs fairly frequently. The occurrence is not unusual. In fact its commonness is precisely what makes it freaky when it results in a torn ACL. You'd have to be a fool not to realize that torn ACLs are very rare in baseball. So when one happens, the reasonable conclusion to draw is it was a freak thing, and not evidence that the player involved is weak or fragile or what have you.

You're apparently still mising the point that Bradley surely has stepped on his leg funny countless times (as you've told us all baseball players inevitably will), yet only once has it resulted in a torn ACL. Sounds like that meets any reasonable definition of freak injury. By that logic, every time Bradley has sufferered an injury he hasn't suffered before, it's a freak injury. He must suffer from a lot of "freak injuries", and in that case you could say he's likely to keep suffering these new "freak injuries". When someone says something was a freak injury, that generally implies it's not part of a pattern and shouldn't be considered in any kind of pattern. So if Bradley tears a tendon his finger next season (and hasn't done it in the past) while swinging a bat next season, are we just going to say "meh, it's a freak accident"? It was a freak situation, not a freak injury. So basically you're say that anytime a player suffers an injury that he hasn't suffered before while doing something he's done in the past, it's a freak injury? Derrek Lee breaking his wrist by getting run into was a freak accident. Prior getting hit with a line drive was a freak accident. They are freak accidents because you know there is almost no chance they happen again. Bradley stepping funny on his leg could easily happen again, and based on his fragile body, could result in another similar injury. If he tore his ACL in 2010 while running the bases, would you be saying "holy crap...... that's like impossible! 2 torn acl's in the same lifetime? freaky!". No. How can a torn ACL be a freak accident when athletes suffer them all the time? Have you once turned on ESPN to see them talking about an athlete who suffered a ton ACL and thought to yourself "wow, that's crazy. what are the odds of that happening? No, of course not, because it happens all the time. Well I can certainly appreciate your efforts to escape the fatal flaw in your own logic, but when you've reached the point of calling a pitcher getting hit with a line drive a freak accident, and a 1B colliding with a baserunner a freak accident, yet still maintain that a guy getting tackled by his own manager is not, then it may be time to quit while you're behind. Are you serious? I've already explained to you thatr the cirumstance was freakish, but not the actual trauma his leg suffered. Just for some reason you keep ignoring that I've admitted that and even explained it. We've already been through this. Just because the situation in which the injury occured was weird doesn't mean the actual trauma to his leg was weird. It's not like Bud Black picked him up by his leg and started spinning him around. Getting restrained by Bud Black did not tear his ACL. Catching his leg awkwardly is what tore his ACL. twisting your leg a little bit funny is not a freak accident. Having a baseball hitting your elbow at over 100 MPH is a freakish. You're twisting up what we're discussing here. I've already admitted that the situation was freakish, but not the actual trauma that tore his ACL. Since we're discussing his ability to stay healthy, the circumstance in which his leg got twisted up doesn't matter as much as the fact as that a simple slip of his leg, something that probably happens a lot during a full season, caused his ACL to tear. In the context of this conversation, a torn ACL while slipping as your manager is holding you back is no different than a torn ACL while jumping back to the bag on a pickoff attempt and landing on your leg in the same awkward manner. It's just another example of how somewhat normal types of "trauma" put Bradley on the shelf. No he'd never twist his leg like that while being held back by a manager again, but he could easily twist is like that again by doing something normal and baseball related. I know you're smart enough to understand what I'm saying. You're usually a good posted but for some reason you're just trying to start stuff right now. The fact is that a player could twist his leg like that in any number of ways during a season. The fact that it happened in that situation isn't really relevant to what we're discussing.... which is the ability of Bradley to stay on the field. You know perfectly well that Bradley twisting his leg that slightly could EASILY happen during a regular season and it wouldn't be considered a freak thing. I'll say it again since you you are trying to make this into something it's not. It was a freak situation, not a freak accident. Pitchers almost never get hit on the elbow with a line drive Players almost never get their wrist run into by a guy going full speed Players step awkwardly on their legs during a season Do you really not see the difference? The first 2 clearly weren't due to a player having a tendency of being injured, aka being soft. Tearing your ACL by stepping on your leg a ittle funny could easily be the result of a fragile body. You're still trapped by your own faulty logic. The more you argue that stepping awkwardly is a common occurrence for a ballplayer, the more you reinforce that it has surely happened to Bradley many times without an injury occurring. So if a particular type of trauma is suffered countless times with no adverse effects, and one time with severe effect (torn ACL), what does that prove, exactly? Not whatever you're trying to make it prove, that's for sure. We've already been through this. So every time Bradley suffers an injury while doing some normal baseball related activity that he hasn't suffered before, it's a freak injury? That's exactly what you're saying, and then you talk about my faulty logic. Right. The fact that he's done the same activity multiple times and this is the first time it's resulted it's an injury doesn't make it a "freak injury". I'm sorry, but that's just really dumb. An athlete stepping on his leg funny is not a freak injury. If you really don't see how that is not a freak injury, then I don't know what esle I can say to you. You just keep ignoring my explanations for some reason. I haven't been ignoring your explanations. On the contrary, I've been addressing them headon and illustrating why they're nonsensical.

Is this is more or less harsh than what the NSBB consensus said last year about Jim Edmonds. So? Just because you catch lightning in a bottle once doesn't mean you start looking at crappy players and thinking about how you can do it again. Plus he said 90%, not 100& Or, perhaps it's not "catching lightning in a bottle" when the scouts you pay to evaluate these situations say, "hey this guy looks like he's still got something left in the tank and we think he could help us." Seems ridiculous to write that off as dumb luck if/when they turn out to be right. Now if anyone feels that way about Jones is uncertain, but I surely wouldn't dismiss the possibility out of hand.

You're apparently still mising the point that Bradley surely has stepped on his leg funny countless times (as you've told us all baseball players inevitably will), yet only once has it resulted in a torn ACL. Sounds like that meets any reasonable definition of freak injury. By that logic, every time Bradley has sufferered an injury he hasn't suffered before, it's a freak injury. He must suffer from a lot of "freak injuries", and in that case you could say he's likely to keep suffering these new "freak injuries". When someone says something was a freak injury, that generally implies it's not part of a pattern and shouldn't be considered in any kind of pattern. So if Bradley tears a tendon his finger next season (and hasn't done it in the past) while swinging a bat next season, are we just going to say "meh, it's a freak accident"? It was a freak situation, not a freak injury. So basically you're say that anytime a player suffers an injury that he hasn't suffered before while doing something he's done in the past, it's a freak injury? Derrek Lee breaking his wrist by getting run into was a freak accident. Prior getting hit with a line drive was a freak accident. They are freak accidents because you know there is almost no chance they happen again. Bradley stepping funny on his leg could easily happen again, and based on his fragile body, could result in another similar injury. If he tore his ACL in 2010 while running the bases, would you be saying "holy crap...... that's like impossible! 2 torn acl's in the same lifetime? freaky!". No. How can a torn ACL be a freak accident when athletes suffer them all the time? Have you once turned on ESPN to see them talking about an athlete who suffered a ton ACL and thought to yourself "wow, that's crazy. what are the odds of that happening? No, of course not, because it happens all the time. Well I can certainly appreciate your efforts to escape the fatal flaw in your own logic, but when you've reached the point of calling a pitcher getting hit with a line drive a freak accident, and a 1B colliding with a baserunner a freak accident, yet still maintain that a guy getting tackled by his own manager is not, then it may be time to quit while you're behind. Are you serious? I've already explained to you thatr the cirumstance was freakish, but not the actual trauma his leg suffered. Just for some reason you keep ignoring that I've admitted that and even explained it. We've already been through this. Just because the situation in which the injury occured was weird doesn't mean the actual trauma to his leg was weird. It's not like Bud Black picked him up by his leg and started spinning him around. Getting restrained by Bud Black did not tear his ACL. Catching his leg awkwardly is what tore his ACL. twisting your leg a little bit funny is not a freak accident. Having a baseball hitting your elbow at over 100 MPH is a freakish. You're twisting up what we're discussing here. I've already admitted that the situation was freakish, but not the actual trauma that tore his ACL. Since we're discussing his ability to stay healthy, the circumstance in which his leg got twisted up doesn't matter as much as the fact as that a simple slip of his leg, something that probably happens a lot during a full season, caused his ACL to tear. In the context of this conversation, a torn ACL while slipping as your manager is holding you back is no different than a torn ACL while jumping back to the bag on a pickoff attempt and landing on your leg in the same awkward manner. It's just another example of how somewhat normal types of "trauma" put Bradley on the shelf. No he'd never twist his leg like that while being held back by a manager again, but he could easily twist is like that again by doing something normal and baseball related. I know you're smart enough to understand what I'm saying. You're usually a good posted but for some reason you're just trying to start stuff right now. The fact is that a player could twist his leg like that in any number of ways during a season. The fact that it happened in that situation isn't really relevant to what we're discussing.... which is the ability of Bradley to stay on the field. You know perfectly well that Bradley twisting his leg that slightly could EASILY happen during a regular season and it wouldn't be considered a freak thing. I'll say it again since you you are trying to make this into something it's not. It was a freak situation, not a freak accident. Pitchers almost never get hit on the elbow with a line drive Players almost never get their wrist run into by a guy going full speed Players step awkwardly on their legs during a season Do you really not see the difference? The first 2 clearly weren't due to a player having a tendency of being injured, aka being soft. Tearing your ACL by stepping on your leg a ittle funny could easily be the result of a fragile body. You're still trapped by your own faulty logic. The more you argue that stepping awkwardly is a common occurrence for a ballplayer, the more you reinforce that it has surely happened to Bradley many times without an injury occurring. So if a particular type of trauma is suffered countless times with no adverse effects, and one time with severe effect (torn ACL), what does that prove, exactly? Not whatever you're trying to make it prove, that's for sure.

You're apparently still mising the point that Bradley surely has stepped on his leg funny countless times (as you've told us all baseball players inevitably will), yet only once has it resulted in a torn ACL. Sounds like that meets any reasonable definition of freak injury. By that logic, every time Bradley has sufferered an injury he hasn't suffered before, it's a freak injury. He must suffer from a lot of "freak injuries", and in that case you could say he's likely to keep suffering these new "freak injuries". When someone says something was a freak injury, that generally implies it's not part of a pattern and shouldn't be considered in any kind of pattern. So if Bradley tears a tendon his finger next season (and hasn't done it in the past) while swinging a bat next season, are we just going to say "meh, it's a freak accident"? It was a freak situation, not a freak injury. So basically you're say that anytime a player suffers an injury that he hasn't suffered before while doing something he's done in the past, it's a freak injury? Derrek Lee breaking his wrist by getting run into was a freak accident. Prior getting hit with a line drive was a freak accident. They are freak accidents because you know there is almost no chance they happen again. Bradley stepping funny on his leg could easily happen again, and based on his fragile body, could result in another similar injury. If he tore his ACL in 2010 while running the bases, would you be saying "holy crap...... that's like impossible! 2 torn acl's in the same lifetime? freaky!". No. How can a torn ACL be a freak accident when athletes suffer them all the time? Have you once turned on ESPN to see them talking about an athlete who suffered a ton ACL and thought to yourself "wow, that's crazy. what are the odds of that happening? No, of course not, because it happens all the time. Well I can certainly appreciate your efforts to escape the fatal flaw in your own logic, but when you've reached the point of calling a pitcher getting hit with a line drive a freak accident, and a 1B colliding with a baserunner a freak accident, yet still maintain that a guy getting tackled by his own manager is not, then it may be time to quit while you're behind.

Would you prefer that I pull a Vance and post in only emoticons for a while? :wink: I'm actually probably going to tone it down a bit. Since the Titans clinched the #1 seed a few weeks ago and the Vols didn't have a bowl game, I've had to expend my energy into Hendry's recent bad moves. Now, though, I'll be able to fret and worry about Saturday's playoff game for the Titans - which will distract me from the Transactions thread for a while. :D Before you go I'm hoping you could clarify how many games you think Bradley will miss. Haven't seen you comment on that much. ;)

You're apparently still mising the point that Bradley surely has stepped on his leg funny countless times (as you've told us all baseball players inevitably will), yet only once has it resulted in a torn ACL. Sounds like that meets any reasonable definition of freak injury.

Is this is more or less harsh than what the NSBB consensus said last year about Jim Edmonds.

Huh? That's 100% backward. You're the one telling us that pro athletes like Bradley step awkwardly all the time. And I agreed. So by your own logic, then, Bradley himself has survived this occurrence uninjured many, many times. Apparently what's a freak thing is to have it result in a torn ACL.

Why don't you tell us. How many times a year does a guy slide awkwardly, step on a base awkwardly, take an awkward step in the outfield, etc? What is the frequency on that kind of thing? Once a month? Once a week? Every game? Regardless, your point seems to be that an everyday player like Bradley would be exposed to that sort of circumstance frequently. Yet somehow only once in however many career games has it resulted in a torn ACL. Huh. And this is supposed to be convincing proof that what happened there *wasn't* a freak accident?

We're not doing this because we're not in a position to go bidding against the Yankees for pitching: Lowe. Who's got the Yankees in on Lowe? AFAIK so far the Mets are Lowe's only serious pursuer. yankees/mets same thing. you know what i mean. his market is bigger. there is no corner outfield market. The Yankees ($88M coming off the books) and the Mets (owner just lost $500M or whatever) are the same thing? Hardly. The Mets are bargain-hunting much like the rest of baseball.

One thing that seems to be getting lost in all of this is that Hendry reportedly walked away from the Peavy deal because Towers' demands were apparently through the roof. That's one version of the story anyway. Do we have any reason to believe that rather critical component of the equation has changed at all? If not, then all of this speculation is rather meaningless IMO.

We're not doing this because we're not in a position to go bidding against the Yankees for pitching: Lowe. Who's got the Yankees in on Lowe? AFAIK so far the Mets are Lowe's only serious pursuer. The Cubs are amongst a handful of teams seemingly on the periphery.

Everyone seems fixated on signing Bradley and trading for Peavy. What if Hendry goes a complete different direction by signing Lowe or Sheets, and trading for Hermida or Scott? Naturally that would contradict the Levine intel that Bradley is a done deal, but still interesting to consider. Cheaper too (in $$$ and players).

This is a good point. Obviously Hendry is making some downgrades to trim payroll. What happens to the money saved is anyone's guess. Most want to believe it creates enough space for both Bradley and Peavy. He could just as easily be trying to fit Bradley only. Or even neither is a possibility.

This is short-sighted and naive. There's nothing wrong with acquiring another middle infielder to back up Fontenot to allow DeRosa is traded. The problem is if we're making moves to save money and get some prospects, why in the world are we spending five million on a one million dollar player? Alex Cintron and Luis Rivas aren't noticeably worse in a backup role and will probably be getting minor league deals. I agree 100%. These are the types of signings that end up precluding a bigger signing later. For $1.5 million over the next 2 years, you could get the same production that Miles is going to give you for $5 million. Do that at 2 or 3 positions (backup catcher, middle relief) and you've just cost yourself a decent player at a more important position. What you seem to be missing is that the Cubs are paying a premium to have 6 positions backed up by one roster spot. If you want to slam the Miles signing, then propose a viable alternative capable of doing the same.

This is short-sighted and naive. There's nothing wrong with acquiring another middle infielder to back up Fontenot to allow DeRosa is traded. The problem is if we're making moves to save money and get some prospects, why in the world are we spending five million on a one million dollar player? Alex Cintron and Luis Rivas aren't noticeably worse in a backup role and will probably be getting minor league deals. Cintron and Rivas don't offer the flexibility of playing IF and OF the way DeRosa and Miles do. Try again. I'm not saying there aren't viable alternatives to Miles (and truth be told any decent system should yield a decent super-util guy like this), but you haven't offered any yet.

If you think Aaron Miles is an "average middle infielder" then I just don't know what to say. Aaron Miles and Neifi Perez are interchangeable. This is nowhere close to being anything but an irrational stupid move that should get Hendry fired. There's no excuse for this deal. There are all sorts of reasons why downgrading from DeRosa to Miles (or someone else) makes sense. The simplest explanation is that the extra $$$ is needed to sign Bradley. The explanation that many here are running with is that the extra $$$ is needed to sign Bradley, PLUS the prospects gotten for DeRosa are needed to land Peavy. If grabbing Aaron Miles is the lynchpin for landing both Bradley and Peavy, then who's going to complain at all, let alone claim "there's no excuse" for it? Now if you want to make the argument that there are other alternatives out there in the highly-versatile IF/OF mold that would be some combination of better and/or cheaper than Miles, then I'm all ears.

Not sure what the perceived distraction is supposed to be. Improving your team doesn't seem like much of a distraction. I'm not sure distraction is the right term. What you're proposing has been tried by the Rangers. In the two years he played for them, they hit him primarily in the 3-hole one year, and primarily in the 5-hole the other. He responded with the two worst offensive seasons of his career (excluding his rookie year, when he also hit outside the leadoff spot), despite being in the most favorable home hitting environment he's had. The Nats put him back at leadoff, and presto, career year. So the question is really one of, do you expect Soriano to generate the same numbers at another spot in the order? Or do you necessarily have to accept inferior production if he hits outside of the leadoff spot? If you can get a .900 OPS from anyplace in the lineup, then sure, there's a strong argument for moving him. But if it's .900 from the leadoff spot, or .800 from the #5 spot, then the former option is the obvious one.