Clem Fandango

Never heard of him, anyone know anything?

Does that chatter include the Cubs? Saw a couple things on Twitter, but didn't want to read. Not that I can find. Mostly Twins, Royals, and Mets, according to Rotoworld

Schoenfield with a fluff piece about why the Cubs should sign Jacoby Ellsbury: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/42592/cubs-should-sign-jacoby-ellsbury

5.3 million for a replacement level part time player? No thanks.

I can understand hearing some vitriol from St. Louis fans about trading Freese, given what he did in the World Series a couple years back and that he's a home town guy... but to even facetiously say you're giving up on life because they traded an often injured 3B they didn't need makes me laugh. Can't wait to see more reactions.

He just reports what he hears. He never says it's 100% truth, per se. They're mostly rumors to him as far as I know, he's just in a position where the rumors he hears have more clout and he passes them along. He's not really trying to break the next big signing or trade, just being a right neighborly insider.

I'm just a big ball of [expletive] today, that's all. I was switching back and forth between Stewart and Headleys BR pages, I saw the poor numbers for Stewart and assumed it was his first year for the Cubs, and Headley's similar counting stats for 2011, combined with... ugh, it's not worth it to explain. I fucked up. Time to take accountability for my lack of thoroughness.

Oh [expletive] you're right. WTF, ignore everything I wrote, which most of you probably do already, so... keep on keeping on. How the hell did I miss that?

lolwut? Okay, I'll give you that one. Headley's OPS+ was very good. 120, vs. Stewart's 97. Didn't look that far... I looked at Headley's .773 OPS vs. Stewarts .781. Stewart's 18 HR vs. Headley's 4. It's very possible the Cubs favored Stewart's power potential and over Headley. Stewart had a .454 SLG in thep revious 3 seasons leading up to the trade. Headley had a .387 SLG.

I like to think our front office has voodoo beyond fangraphs pages. Okay, he was also younger, cheaper, had a better pedigree, had yet to hit his prime years, and was coming off of a better offensive season and cost us Tyler Colvin and DJ LeMahieu instead of our best pitching prospect (assuming Garza trade had been done already) and our cheap, fan-favorite starting catcher who put up 10+ wins over the previous 4 seasons.

I know that makes us all angry, but FWIW Ian Stewart's overall numbers were better than Chase Headley's at that point in their careers.

Fielder is going to put up some monster numbers in Texas (until he gets too fat and falls apart). Also opens up Profar for 2B, finally. But yeah, obviously the Tigers needed Scherzer more than they needed Fielder. If there weren't other factors like that in play, and it was just a one-for-one trade I'd actually favor Texas in the deal,but it's kind of a wash, given all the secondary moves that happen for both teams now.

It'd be one thing if he barely hits for power. That'd be understandable. It's that he barely hits at all away from Coors that troubles me. Here's all the ballparks where he has a .750 OPS or higher for his career besides Coors: LAA (3 G, .788) TEX (3 G, 1.448 hitters park) CIN (15 G, .748 - close enough... hitters park) DET (6 G, .786) PHI (19 G, .767 - hitters park) ARI (39 G, .847 - hitters park) STL (17 G, .775) WAS (12 G, .956) Every other park is less than .750 OPS. Of those 22 parks, 13 of them he has an OPS under .700. Of those 13, 8 of the he has an OPS below .600. Even in the parks where he has a decent OPS, only 3 of them are pretty good to great, and one of them is only a 3 game sample size. To make it even worse, his bad numbers away from Coors come WITH a .329 BABIP, so he's not unlucky. If anything he's been more lucky than normal, and he still can't reach a .700 OPS. In my mind he's closer to replacement level away from Coors than someone of value, but Colorado won't market him as such, and for that I'd prefer the Cubs stay away. I just don't trust his bat away from Coors. His numbers are uninspiring. Like I said if he came cheap, that'd be one thing and it'd be worth looking into, but I don't see Colorado doing that. I see them asking for a valuable prospect and/or MLB player in return.

I would think just moving from Coors to Wrigley would improve his value quite a bit. Career Home/Road Splits (667 games, 2,635 PA's) Home: 333 G .298/.395/.485/.880 27 HR 146 RBI 65 2B 33 3B Away: 334 G .241/.333/.361/.694 13 HR 64 RBI 55 2B 20 3B Fowler is a train wreck away from Coors. Unless he's coming for cheap, I would pass with the quickness. A .700 OPS for a cheap outfielder as a stopgap... okay, sure. But Fowler would be sold as a solid offensive piece for whatever team he's traded to and he's just not going to be worth what Colorado would likely ask for him.

Oh yeah, totally forgot I met Hank Aaron last year. Helped shoot a promotional video that had him congratulating our city on our bi-centennial or something. He was nice, would not sign autographs (because he is under contract with a company), and pronounced birthday like "boithday".

Is there a belief she's good looking in any setting? Back in her "crazy" days in the mid-90's. People Magazine ranked her the #1 most beautiful woman in the world in 2007. I don't get it either.

You can't put a price on heart or something

Who else do they have besides Buxton, Sano, and Meyer? I never really hear about anyone else.

In regards to the Angels, I really like Kole Calhoun, but I don't know how much the Angels value him. Calhoun is one of the guys I keep an eye on. Not a great fielder, but a really nice hitter. His numbers in the minors were spectacular, and he did really well this season in 58 games at the MLB level (128 OPS+, .808 OPS). Just turned 26 and won't reach arbitration until 2017. He never had high pedigree, and more or less filled in because he was hitting well and Pujols went down with an injury (which moved Trumbo to 1B), but I really liked what he was able to do. Like I said, not sure how much LAA values him, but I would not be opposed to looking into him.

I don't think you can fault Ricketts for not following through on his renovation promises when his plans are approved by the city, and as far as I can recall are ready to go, but he's gotta fight rooftop owners and a piece of [expletive] Alderman who keeps trying to prevent them at all costs. I'm sure they've allocated funds for the renovations already, and all they can do is sit on it until Tunney and the scumbags lining his pockets play ball.

Also, Tom Tunney should be castrated.

Relax guys, we're good...

Well this is going to get messy http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/9977389/major-league-baseball-purchase-biogenesis-documents-impeded-florida-department-health-investigation-sources-say

Don't the Nats really like Rendon? I just kind of got the impression they wouldn't want to move him.