davearm2

Not the hold-up... more like the straw that broke the camel's back. There probably wasn't any one player that Hendry refused to put in, he just refused to put them all in.

Spending all their money in all the wrong places. He'll be a big boost to their offense, but Mark Teixeira won't fix their atrocious pitching Just for fun I looked it up to see how right you were. The Orioles were 11th in runs scored this year, but 29th in pitching. Wow what questionable decisions. I know, right? There's big names on the FA pitching market that would be significant upgrades to their rotation even if they got the 3rd or 4th best one available, and they're putting all their eggs into a basket that, while it could always use improvement, won't help them win games. We're looking at Randy Johnson to effectively be our #5 starter, and he'd probably be the #1 or #2 on Baltimore's staff. They are such a poorly run organization. And Angelos is clearly behind the Teixeira bandwagon to get him in Baltimore. Signing Teixeira would never be a bad thing if you take cost out of the equation, but good God their pitching needs severe help I agree in principle. But, Baltimore is in a pretty tough environment to land special FA pitchers. If you are CC Sabathia, and Baltimore, Boston and NYY are all offering you identical packages to be in their rotation, in what order do you sign with those 3 teams? Since every scenario will likely involve Boston and the Yanks first or second, how much more can Baltimore offer above Boston or NYY to push them to the top of your list? Boston and NYY are going to get the leg up simply because they are in pennant races year in and year out. Couple that in with pitching against them for several of your starts, and the appeal for Baltimore is even less. Everything you just said applies equally to hitters and pitchers. The "in" they have with Tex that could theoretically tilt the playing field in their favor is the hometown thing.

2 plus pitches, no command, will collaspe easily. I love his arm. That's the name that jumped out at me. Think he could find improved control pitching one inning at a time? It's certainly possible, but some pitching coach on some rebuilding team has fallen in love with Cabrera's arm, and is convincing his GM to spending starter money on him. If that team was out there, then they would've traded a minor somethingorother to the O's so as to lock in an arb price and not to have to compete with the other 29 teams. That's only true if you assume his arb price is lower than he'll get on the open market... which it might not be in this case. You mentioned "starter money" above. I guess that's pretty ambiguous but I certainly interpreted it to be a number higher than the $4-5M Cabrera would've gotten via arb.

2 plus pitches, no command, will collaspe easily. I love his arm. That's the name that jumped out at me. Think he could find improved control pitching one inning at a time? It's certainly possible, but some pitching coach on some rebuilding team has fallen in love with Cabrera's arm, and is convincing his GM to spending starter money on him. If that team was out there, then they would've traded a minor somethingorother to the O's so as to lock in an arb price and not to have to compete with the other 29 teams.

Of course not but if you're a Padres fan, the blame rests with the owner, not the GM. Towers doesn't seem to be playing the cards he's been dealt real well here, but let's not lose sight of the fact that the cards were crappy to begin with.

For anyone still hopeful of getting this done, the problem with that analogy is neither the Yankees or Red Sox emerged with Santana in the end. When they walked away, they stayed away. Another key difference is that Santana didn't have a no-trade clause, which gave the Twins more bargaining power. They weren't forced to work with only certain teams as dictated by Santana. This is incorrect. Santana had a full NTC, by virtue of winning the CY in 2006.

Well said in the last few posts guys. There's no one single dealbreaker, so the "OMG not our swingman" "OMG not our 34YO 2B" "OMG not our A-ball prospect" comments really miss the point.

For anyone still hopeful of getting this done, the problem with that analogy is neither the Yankees or Red Sox emerged with Santana in the end. When they walked away, they stayed away.

And Rich Hill too. They're all wildcards as starters at the ML level though, which is the point. as opposed to jason marquis and sean marshall who are rock solid locks to be healthy, awesome major league pitchers. Before you get all snotty perhaps you should go back and notice that I said, "Obviously those 22 Atkins starts could be painful but IMO it'd be worth the upgrade from Marquis to Peavy."

And Rich Hill too. They're all wildcards as starters at the ML level though, which is the point.

That's odd. Well we know Hendry has always been really high on Pie. So he probably isn't gonna just trade him for a bad young pitcher who wouldn't be in our rotation, or average prospects. If MacPhail said Pie for Brian Roberts, I'm sure Hendry would listen. I heard Hendry say Pie would have a chance to beat Fukudome out for the starter against RH pitching this spring. So if Pie has a big spring and Fukudome struggles, Pie might get a chance. Having a $12M 4th OF would sure be interesting. Although I guess that's how things ended in '08.

Just slapped some numbers into a spreadsheet, and what came out was this. As-is, Marshall ought to get in the neighborhood of 22 starts, assuming 20 for Harden and 30 each for Zambrano, Dempster, Lilly, and Marquis. (Now we know in reality a few of those guys will get 33 or 34, and one or two will get 25 or something, but the average of 30 seems OK.) If Marquis and Marshall both go, and Peavy comes in, then you need Peavy and a Mitch Atkins type to provide the 52 starts you just lost. So do you prefer Marquis 30 + Marshall 22, or Peavy 30 + Atkins 22? Obviously those 22 Atkins starts could be painful but IMO it'd be worth the upgrade from Marquis to Peavy.

what was that package? I'm talking about the package you referenced when you said "especially when they had a trade in place without giving him (DeRosa) up," and later "we didn't/don't need to get rid of DeRosa to get this deal done." Those quotes clearly imply Hendry should've taken the offer, so I figured you'd know what was in it. The only thing I know about it is that it's been described by the agent as unreasonable, and by the Cubs as a Herschel Walker-type deal. Original deals seemed to center on us trading Pie for Olson and flipping him with Marshall, Vitters, Cedeno, et al to SD. That seemed like a more reasonable price to pay. The only time I saw "unreasonable" attributed to Axelrod was yesterday, after all the DeRosa hullabaloo. It seemed like as the winter meetings started and continued reports insinuated that the amount of value we were going to have to trade away to get Peavy grew and grew...and thats what I think Axelrod was refering to as unreasonable. I don't buy for a second that Towers started off at a reasonable position, but then upped his demands as the week went along. That makes no logical sense whatsoever. Much more likely is that Towers started high, but was being unreasonable by being unwilling to come down on his initial demands to find a mutually-agreeable compromise. Under that interpretation, both the with- and without-DeRosa packages were exorbitant.

And it's also clear that it's just the opposite with the bat, the far more important part of their games. My point is people are making huge assumptions about the exact nature of the difference with their gloves. The nature of the difference is easy to describe (one's good, the other's bad), but difficult to quantify in a meaningful way. So while we know it's there, it's hard to pin down the exact magnitude of the difference. One defensive rating system will say one thing, and another something else. Then you're left arguing which rating system is better, and the truth is none have gained broad acceptance yet.

what was that package? I'm talking about the package you referenced when you said "especially when they had a trade in place without giving him (DeRosa) up," and later "we didn't/don't need to get rid of DeRosa to get this deal done." Those quotes clearly imply Hendry should've taken the offer, so I figured you'd know what was in it. The only thing I know about it is that it's been described by the agent as unreasonable, and by the Cubs as a Herschel Walker-type deal.

especially when they had a trade in place without giving him up Hey let's not go pretending like we know what exactly was in that offer. I'm certain there's plenty of he-said she-said going on here, but what both the Cubs and especially Axelrod are putting out there now is that the Pads were being completely unreasonable. I'd hate to see what completely unreasonable looks like with no DeRosa involved. all i know is that derosas name popped up way late in the peavy talks And that proves what? That we didn't/don't need to get rid of DeRosa to get this deal done. I don't think anyone ever disputed that. All Hendry had to do was accept a completely unreasonable offer, and both Peavy and DeRosa would be ours. Is that what you're suggesting should've happened?

Let's keep things in perspective here. The Cubs had the best and deepest team in the NL last year, and their only key loss has been Wood. Back in October the expectation was that the Cubs were headed for a relatively quiet offseason. Re-signing Dempster and adding a RF were expected to be the extent of their impact moves. So let's not start worrying "this offseason is passing the Cubs by" when their plans were modest to begin with, and are halfway completed (Dempster) with the second half seemingly taking shape nicely with Bradley.

Why? The guy can rake. He's 36, is expensive, awful on defense, and I wouldn't say an .837 OPS for a corner outfielder is "raking". well, I can understand the age, but he can rake it. I understand you define "rake it" different than I do. So be it. Ibanez hit .293 this season, with 23 homers, 110 RBIs, a .358 on-base percentage and a .472 slugging percentage. He is one of just five outfielders who have driven in at least 100 runs in each of the past three seasons. The others: Carlos Beltran, Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Lee and Bobby Abreu. Regardless of the semantics of "raking", Ibanez would've fulfilled the middle-of-the-order LH bat requirement quite well. In that single dimension he would've been a real nice fit. The problem is, every other important consideration is seriously scary -- the money, the age vs. length, the defense. Especially the defense.

Why? Because they're both black? You're not aware that Jones had to endure racial slurs from some of the idiots at Wrigley on a daily basis for most of his stay with the Cubs? It's a terrible thing that Jones had to endure racial slurs. But the sad truth is there are going to be racist idiot fans in every city. My point is that it was (as far as I know) an isolated incident with one player. I've never heard Lee say anything about having to deal with bigot fans on a daily basis. The fact that Jones and Bradley are both black is the thing that ties one to the other, though. Couple that with the fact that Bradley himself has already been involved with his share of incidents in which race was at least perceived to be an issue, and it becomes an even bigger concern. All things considered I think it's a valid question.

especially when they had a trade in place without giving him up Hey let's not go pretending like we know what exactly was in that offer. I'm certain there's plenty of he-said she-said going on here, but what both the Cubs and especially Axelrod are putting out there now is that the Pads were being completely unreasonable. I'd hate to see what completely unreasonable looks like with no DeRosa involved. all i know is that derosas name popped up way late in the peavy talks And that proves what?

especially when they had a trade in place without giving him up Hey let's not go pretending like we know what exactly was in that offer. I'm certain there's plenty of he-said she-said going on here, but what both the Cubs and especially Axelrod are putting out there now is that the Pads were being completely unreasonable. I'd hate to see what completely unreasonable looks like with no DeRosa involved.

Only if we wanted to relive the Patterson Experiment.

I doubt anyone can answer this. Maybe we'll all find out before long.

I agree with this. In all likelihood Peavy's not going anywhere else, nor is the Padres' situation likely to improve to the point where keeping Peavy becomes any more realistic than it is now. So Hendry sits back and waits, and if the phone rings, great. In the meantime some other agenda items can get his undivided attention (Marquis, RF). When those are resolved, everything else on the offseason to-do list is complete, and getting Peavy would be pure gravy, then re-engaging with Towers might be something worth exploring.

Good gravy people. I can understand the disappointment but keep your brains switched on here. Dempster or no Dempster, Towers was asking too much. It's that simple. In fact he probably would've asked for even more if Dempster had walked. The Cubs would've been more needy of his asset then. Hendry felt he'd be able to make the $$$ work even with Dempster, or else this thing never would've gotten this far.