Clem Fandango

Potential 1B free agents for 2013 according to Cot's. * = 2013 option year on contract FWIW

Do you see Brett Jackson starting out at AAA this year, even with a hot spring?

Yeah, it worked out famously for the Phillies. [/easysetup]

We knew that's who the Cubs were likely targeting but last I'd heard was the Tigers didn't want to trade him if they didn't have to. If they're willing to listen that makes things more interesting and leads me to believe, personally, that the hold up in a Garza deal might not be Turner, but who they're asking for to go along with him.

No, he cut one of his fingers off

Yeah. Like dextermorgan said, we're not using the money on anything else and we have it available, might as well spend a little bit of it on the last bastion of Cubs nostalgia we have to keep the fans happy.

Especially since I was just trying to say that replacing Kerry Wood's production with someone else is probably easier than most people think and cheaper than bringing him back at what he wants. Clearly Davis' fWAR is an outlier (sample sizes and all that). Davis is an baseball abomination.

Also, to be fair, Davis' bWAR was -1.2, so... Yeah he sucks.

Doug Davis' FIP was 3.86, though. P.S. In no way do I want Doug Davis on a baseball diamond in a Cubs uniform

I tend to agree with that. Side note: Any time someone mentions "The Cubans" it feels like we're talking about the Cubs dabbling in human trafficking

Expounding on what Butters posted... Fangraphs had him listed at being worth about $2.1 million last season. If "substantial raise" means at least $3 million a year, or even $3.5, they're overpaying, but if he's holding out for an extra $500K-$1MM there probably isn't any harm in paying him that with all the money we're not spending on FA's, but he's honestly not worth that much money from a baseball standpoint. It'd be for the whole Golden Calf effect. I'm A-OK with that, but if they don't sign him it's not exactly a dumb baseball move. SCARY FACT: I know one was a starter and the other was a reliever, but Doug Davis was considered more valuable than Kerry Wood last year, and in fewer innings pitched (0.7 to 0.5).

I'm wondering if his decision to sign for what appears to be under his market value has anything to do with having Theo at the helm. Is it a stretch to think that a lot of players would probably like to be part of a Theo Epstein run organization?

FWIW, if he wanted $4 million and he was able to repeat last years numbers (and not regress) we'd actually be overpaying for what he'd actually be worth, if that helps some of you sleep at night.

Rodrigo Lopez, silly

NNOOOOOOOOOOOOO But who will be our veteran reliever now!?!?! WHY THE [expletive] DIDN'T WE RE-SIGN GRABOW GOD DAMNIT P.S. I'd rather Kerry go somewhere he can win than be on a rebuilding team and just go through the motions. Plus it means we don't have to commit another guy to the 40-man

For a pretty good price it would seem, too.

Quoting davell from the FA thread... I know it's been downplayed and we've discussed it at length already, but maybe this will open them up to a Soriano deal involving Tillman, assuming we eat a huge chunk of that salary? I know Tillman has his issues with velocity and all that, but he fits the mold of the type of guys Theo and Jed have been targeting, and I'd much prefer him (issues or not) over what I would think would be a lackluster minor leaguer. Since Tillman is probably the one of their young pitchers with the least amount of upside/most amount of failure, I imagine he'd be the first one they'd shop. He had an obscenely high BABIP (.348) and his FIP/xFIP were much lower than his ERA (5.52 ERA - 4.83 xFIP - 3.99 FIP), granted it was in limited time last season. It's all conjecture on my part, but if we're trying to move Soriano to the O's, I imagine/hope they'd be targeting someone like Tillman and not trying to get whatever they can off the scrap heap in an effort to move the salary

It also helped that he was very close to Jim Hendry, and the decision to come back happened after Ron Santo's funeral which was probably a who's who of Cubs legends which he possibly felt at home around on an emotional day.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/ Don't ever use anything else for salaries. Ever.

TT's irrational and intense hatred of him, I think. It's really not all that irrational. I think "Unbridled" is appropriate to use in this situation

I soured on Soto a couple years ago. Even after his great bounce back campaign I didn't expect him to sustain that level of production. It could be wise to hang on to him to see if he can build his value back up after a rough 2011, I would think. I think Marmol should go simply because of the uncertaintly behind his reliability, health, and his ridiculous penchant for inconsistency. Trade him while you can wrap a pretty bow around his K totals and hope people ignore the fact he's the most volatile closer in the game right now before more people take notice this season, IMO. I think you trade Dempster whenever. Trade him now a team gets a full year out of him vs. a half year, but Dempster isn't the kind of guy teams need a full year out of. He definitely fits the "We need a reliable mid rotation guy to help bolster the starting 5" mold, which a lot of team tends to go after at the deadline. Even if he puts up league average numbers, he might yield a similar return at the deadline than he would now. I say trade him whenever they feel is best, just so long as he is, in fact, traded for something Byrd should be one of the easiest pieces to move. He's still productive, one more year, very affordable contract. He won't bring back a big return, but I think trading him now brings back a better return than later, personally.

You bring up a good point. Unless we're eating so much that it will only cost a team $5 million or less per season of Soriano, there's really no reason for anyone to bite on him with that lineup of available players out there who can put up comparable numbers for a better price (and probably friendlier terms). And even then this report summary suggests that even if Soriano came over costing the O's $3-$4 million a season after we picked up the rest they still wouldn't like it... I still think they move him, but the hopes and dreams of getting anything even remotely valuable back is probably nil. I get the feeling that Volstad for Zambrano will look like a coup compared to a Soriano deal

Is that a rhetorical question, because the closest thing to an answer that I have is that my spell check doesn't catch such errors. Fair enough... on this one. There's no excuse, however, at this point for not knowing that Jorge Soler's last name is NOT spelled Solar That is all P.S. You're not the only one who does that with Soler

Also, why do you misspell players names so horribly?

I think Arrieta fits the mold, though his advanced statistics don't exactly make his 5.05 ERA seem like it's an aberration. Then again there's that whole "toughest division in baseball" thing