Tyrant

Based on the past few pages of this thread, I think it'd be best for everyone if MLB just contracted the Cubs.

I'll take ATL on the road as well, though it's close. I think what pushes me over the edge is that I can't stand the idea of GB coming to Chicago and winning the CG on our field. I think Green Bay is better than Atlanta. I also think the Bears are better suited to play on a fast surface indoors than on sloppy Soldier Field turf. The Falcons' home crowd would worry me a bit, but I'd probably still rather play ATL. Most of all, of course, let's just beat the Seahawks.

It's moot now, but this was always the logical viewpoint. Even if Lee would have come up and been a truly incredible defender, young all-star players don't get displaced by rookies.

That's big talk from a fan base that was rooting to miss the playoffs in order to get better draft position.

wut

"Four significant talents?" Come on.

About that... Garza falls into a similar category as Greinke and Gonzalez in terms of breaking the Cubs' budget. He might be under the Cubs' control over the next three years, but he doesn't come cheap. My biggest concern about this is that the Ricketts are going to keep dropping the payroll down in the coming years.

Is there something you'd like to say about Garza's peripherals? As it's been said on here and elsewhere, xFIP and FIP are just metrics. They can be very useful. But they are certainly not the only way to get a complete picture of a pitcher. Garza has put up actual results that are better than his xFIP and FIP for 700+ major league innings. At some point people need to examine why that might be happening instead of ignoring a trend and just pointing to his FIP's and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Fangraphs had that article yesterday that basically chalked it up to Garza being lucky on his flyballs not going over the fence as often as Aaron Harang's. They said there's no evidence to suggest that's a skill, which seems odd to me. Given that Garza has a big, riding fastball and likes to work up in the zone, I think it's very possible that he's developed the ability to be successful that way. And since xFIP tends to favor high-strikeout, groundball types like Ubaldo Jimenez, it may not completely measure Garza as a pitcher. Granted, that's just one possible explanation I threw out there and it may not actually mean anything. But I think there's enough of a sample size of Garza outperforming his PERIPHERALS that it should lead to more examination, instead of taking every Fangraphs metric as an absolute.

It's pretty clear that he's not after last year's draft and trading 3 top 10 prospects for 3 years of hispanic Randy Wells. Randy Wells would have an ERA around 30.00 in the AL East.

Why? The Cubs have Garza through 2013 and he's in his prime. It's not like he's 33 and only has one year left on his contract. He'll be with the Cubs for a while.

Compete in the division. That's all this move does, and I think they can do that without adding Garza. Making this trade does not assure them of finishing ahead of any of Milwaukee, Cincy or St. Louis, however. And they definitely aren't in the same league as Phily. No, they're not in the same league as Philly at all. But that's not really the point. All they need to do is finish ahead of the other NL Central teams, none of which are locks to be great. That gets them into the postseason, which we all know is a big crapshoot.

Yea, that was a bad trade. I'm not a very big Hendry fan but he hasn't traded away too many guys that have come back to bite us. His trades are about the only thing I have a little faith in.

How can you forget the mistakes of trading away future studs like Sean Gallagher, Eric Patterson and Jose Ceda?

I just read two pages of this thread in hopes of being entertained. A totally inefficient effort on my part.

No, I'm not. I played basketball; I know how floor spacing works. This has gotten turned pretty far away from the original argument. I like Melo a lot as a player and I said earlier on the page that I'd probably go for the Deng & Noah trade. All I was responding to was the idea that Melo was currently a top 5-7 player in the NBA, right now. As good as he is at scoring, that's pretty much all he provides, elite as he is at it. There are other players that are more well-rounded, and even others who are better scorers because they're more efficient at it. I think those guys are better, based on observation and metrics like PER, etc. I still think he's a top-12 player and probably does slip into the top 7 if you focus on guys you'd want for the next five years. It's probably my fault for nitpicking too much on the top 5-7 thing.

See above for my comments You're overrating scoring. And underrating lots of really good players. Bosh and Dirk are absolutely better players than Melo. Dirk scores almost as much and far more efficiently, plus he's a better rebounder. Same with Bosh, and he can actually defend. Funny how counting stats have been scrubbed out of importance in baseball, but people still overrate them in basketball.

Are you asking me?

Should never completely reject the thought of acquiring one of the top 5-7 players in the game for any reason. Melo is good. He's not THAT good. Off the top of my head, these guys are definitely better than Melo: LeBron Wade Durant Paul Kobe Howard Gasol Bosh Duncan Dirk Deron Williams and Amare are arguably better than Melo as well.

I think I'm with you on this. The Bulls can't just think about 2011. I think they might actually be worse overall next year if they gave up Noah for Melo because the center position would be such a disaster, but they can't just think one year at a time. If they can get Rose and Melo, they should do it and build around that. It might take a year or two to fill in the other pieces, but it's really hard to acquire true superstars in the NBA. If you can get one who's still in the early part of his prime, you can't pass it up. You mean like "trade for Luol Deng and receive one complimentary Joakim Noah"? I don't think the Bulls should just give him away for free like that.

Maybe he's saying that since Wood made that much money in previous years, he's not likely to be worth the contract he'll expect this winter.

Then just give him a break. Don't come out in public and say that you're giving him a break to punish him for his lapses or whatever. That's dumb.

Yea, a great time for him to sit back and observe would be the day after he ends a streak of six straight multi-hit games.

It's not playing for one run. You're missing the point. The Cubs are 114 games out of first place. There's no reason to have Castro bunt in that situation.

'09 Sanchez: 53.8% completion, 6.7 yards/attempt, 0.6 TD/INT ratio, 10 fumbles '08 Jamarcus Russell: 53.8% completion, 6.6 yards/attempt, 1.6 TD/INT, 12 fumbles

87 mph: http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/429194/ChapmanSL2.gif