Clem Fandango

I don't remember where I read it, but there was an article discussing pitch counts... actually I think it was on ESPN. Anyways, there was a pitching coach who said he had a pitcher who was obsessed with his pitch count, or something to that affect, so he kept track of every pitch/throw he ever threw in the day he pitched, from his pre-game warm ups, to the middle inning warm up pitches and all that. I think he said the total came out to over 300, maybe 400.... I'm probably horribly inaccurate on this, but it was something like that. This really doesn't have much to do with anything regarding thew pros and cons of pitch counts, it's just interesting because a lot of people don't take warm up pitches into account because they obviously aren't throwing 100%, but fact remains they are still throwing hard enough that it could cause some mild fatigue, and also could make you figure that some pitchers might be able to last longer if they lighten up in their warm ups. I don't know, just spitballing for the sake of discussion.

This sounds like Phil Rogers name dropping to make himself sound forward thinking and intelligent. It seems like he just found the guy in the minors who has consistently stolen the most bases with the highest OBP and ignored everything else.

Son, you're forgetting yourself

Supposedly getting him to play 1B. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4767894

Washington is a small market? In what universe ? I don't consider them a large market simply because no one really gives a crap about them. Kind of like the Pirates ;)

GO JAGS!!!! :D

Yep, and after one year they were back to third place, 19 out of first and 11 out of the wild card despite 1 more win than the Cubs. You should seperate lusting over their talent with wishing you were in their position. The Cubs are in a fantastic position, the biggest fish in a small pond, that's much harder to fix than the level of talent. I suppose you're right.

The key word being "slowly". Indeed, one that they've been building for what... 12 years now? :) But they're on the brink right now. Their system is stacked with talent. They're not gonna win this year, but they might shock some teams in 2011. Just looking at their list young players makes me envious. Except they are still in the AL East. So were the Rays. Whatever, it's not important, and this thread is getting derailed. My bad. Theriot needs to go :)

The key word being "slowly". Indeed, one that they've been building for what... 12 years now? :) But they're on the brink right now. Their system is stacked with talent. They're not gonna win this year, but they might shock some teams in 2011. Just looking at their list young players makes me envious.

Totally agree, the thing that sucks though is that Hendry's such an idiot and gave NTC to Zambrano, Soriano and DLee. I mean eventhough you can't move soriano because of his contract, you would still have the option to trade him by eating up salary. Zambrano is still young, so in the case of Zambrano, best case would be to hope he has a all star season and his value increases dramatically or just keep him as your ace for years to come. I'm not to in line with trading Z but i do feel you have to deal Theriot, Ramirez, DLee, Soriano. As a cubs fan i wouldn't be dissapointed if the cubs started to rebuild because i would be excited about seeing some youth here and seeing that youth grow up. Kind like what the Blackhawks have done. I bet your excitement would fade quickly with the realization that the Cubs don't have nearly the young talent the Hawks do. Take away Ramirez, DLee, Soriano and the Cubs start to look more like the Orioles or Royals than the Rays. I'd give my left nut to be in the Orioles position right now LOL [expletive] no. You clearly haven't been paying attention to the potential juggernaut they've been slowly building

How were the Braves unimpressed? His September/October numbers this year were ridiculous... 2.28ERA 0.92WHIP 43IP 2CG 46:9 K:BB I'm not saying Vasquez is a marquee pitcher, but this season gave the Braves ample opportunity to sell high. I refuse to believe that Melky Cabrera is the best player they could get in a Vasquez swap from anyone. Cabrera is a joke.

Totally agree, the thing that sucks though is that Hendry's such an idiot and gave NTC to Zambrano, Soriano and DLee. I mean eventhough you can't move soriano because of his contract, you would still have the option to trade him by eating up salary. Zambrano is still young, so in the case of Zambrano, best case would be to hope he has a all star season and his value increases dramatically or just keep him as your ace for years to come. I'm not to in line with trading Z but i do feel you have to deal Theriot, Ramirez, DLee, Soriano. As a cubs fan i wouldn't be dissapointed if the cubs started to rebuild because i would be excited about seeing some youth here and seeing that youth grow up. Kind like what the Blackhawks have done. I bet your excitement would fade quickly with the realization that the Cubs don't have nearly the young talent the Hawks do. Take away Ramirez, DLee, Soriano and the Cubs start to look more like the Orioles or Royals than the Rays. I'd give my left nut to be in the Orioles position right now

Totally agree, the thing that sucks though is that Hendry's such an idiot and gave NTC to Zambrano, Soriano and DLee. I mean eventhough you can't move soriano because of his contract, you would still have the option to trade him by eating up salary. Zambrano is still young, so in the case of Zambrano, best case would be to hope he has a all star season and his value increases dramatically or just keep him as your ace for years to come. I'm not to in line with trading Z but i do feel you have to deal Theriot, Ramirez, DLee, Soriano. As a cubs fan i wouldn't be dissapointed if the cubs started to rebuild because i would be excited about seeing some youth here and seeing that youth grow up. Kind like what the Blackhawks have done. There are ways of convincing your players to waive their NTC's... like say, telling them you can't afford them anymore and have no choice but to ship them off (What's up San Diego?). Or tell them you were given orders to go into a rebuilding process and that they don't fit into the teams future plans. Or if you want to be a dick about it, you can tell them they're not wanted anymore and bench them until they waive it...... That last one is a joke, though it would probably work if it came down to it :-))

To be honest, i think the cubs should not extend DLee and should try desperately to trade him and try to convince him to waive his no trade. I honestly feel they should trade ramirez and Dlee and somehow acquire Miguel Cabrera through the prospects they would get. Eventhough Cabrera is paid big money, he's very young, one of the best and could be your first baseman for many years. A lot of people dont want to trade Ramirez but if you're honest with yourself, he's injury prone, does still have a lot of value and he can opt out next year so why not trade him. I expect the cubs to contend for the division but they're not going to be good enough to win it all. They need to sell high in my opinion. Agreed. If Jim Hendry extends Derrek Lee, as much as I love the guy on the team, I'll be pretty livid. They need to cut him loose. If the club is out of it by the half, they should have no problem telling Lee "Hey, we don't plan on extending you" which should give him the hint that he needs to waive his NTC. Sell him on playing for a contender and it should be able to happen, in theory. Unless Lee is enamored with Chicago to the point where he'd like to play out his last few months of the season on a sinking ship

I didn't need to read the article to agree with that sentiment. The article just cemented the idea. I have very little faith that this team will be a playoff contender this coming year with the way this offseason has been handled thus far (as I'm sure most people do). Might be time to consider trading players who still have some sort of value left in them to maximize our return. Me personally, I wish they'd consider putting Aramis on the trading block, NTC be damned.

I doubt it's Z. If it were, Bruce would be all over it. From MLBTR: Yankees Closing In On Javier Vazquez By Howard Megdal [December 22 at 8:34am CST] 8:34am: The Yankees are closing in on a deal for Vazquez, according to Jon Heyman of SI.com (via Twitter). Heyman says the Yankees will acquire Vazquez and Boone Logan for Melky Cabrera, Mike Dunn and a prospect. The Yankees are lucky they have a mystique that surrounds all their players that makes people think they're actually good. Melky Cabrera and a toss in for a guy coming off a year in which he was 4th in Cy Young voting and 2.87 ERA and 1.02 WHIP and 238 K's is unreal. Sure it's odd that this is the first year Vasquez has had extreme success, but he's a K machine and an innings eater who should be able to draw far more value for what he's capable of providing. BTW, check out this awesome sponsor message on Melky Cabrera's BR page...

I'm pretty sure he's talking about Hurricane Rita, which... oh nevermind. P.S. Melky Cabrera isn't even qualified enough to lick the sweat off my taint, let alone play baseball. And I know the rumor was shot down, but the mere fact he was being talked about being a quality exchange piece for Zambrano was ridiculous

Sorta bumping this cause it looks like it has gotten a little neglected. I like the idea of adding him, I just hope Hendry hasn't gone completely coconuts and gives him a top of the line deal. The price he'll be paid I think will determine whether or not it's a good move to add him, but it sounds like this could happen sometime in the near future.

Even if Edmonds has lost a step in the past year while he wasn't playing baseball, I'd probably still be more in favor of that move than some of our other options. Hendry really bent himself over a table this offseason

Well the silver lining in all of this nonsense is that this will probably be ludicrous enough to secure Jim Hendry's ticket out of Chicago at the end of next season. Perhaps if we sign someone like Scott Podsednik he'll be gone before the ASB. If Tom Ricketts knew anything about baseball he'd put the kibosh on this trade in a heartbeat. So glad to know we've found an adaquate replacement for Rich Harden in the form of one of the worst, if not THE worst pitcher in baseball

Hudson isn't a free agent until after the 2012 season. Then Cot's hasn't updated the 2011 FA List. He was on there. I noticed some other people like Roy Halladay on there too.

Not to mention we have a good chunk of money coming off the books after this coming season, unless Hendry decides to extend Lee and Lilly again before the season is over. Also have Aramis' salary potentially coming off the books if he opts out. If all 3 leave after the seaosn that's $40 mil off the books. There should be no reason not to consider Crawford in the offseason if that happens assuming, like you said, that Tampa doesn't extend him if all 3 of those guys leave we're going to have a lot of holes though it sucks because the contracts that are coming off the books are the good contracts, the ones you don't want to end. I don't know if I'd care if Lilly or Lee left after their contracts. Aramis will probably hurt if he leaves, considering Vitters probably won't be ready for at least another year, but you never know. It would create some holes, but it would open up the pocketbook quite a bit, and there are several really nice potential free agents (though most of them will likely get extended/have their options picked up in reality). Here is a list of the premier/big name potential free agents after next season (according to Cot's): Lance Berkman, Carlos Pena, Albert Pujols, Derek Jeter, Johnny Peralta, Jose Reyes, Jimmy Rollins, Garrett Atkins, Jorge Cantu, Victor Martinez, Joe Mauer, Carl Crawford Michael Cuddyer, Adam Dunn, Jermaine Dye, Brad Hawpe, Magglio Ordonez, Jayson Werth, Josh Beckett, Matt Cain, Aaron Harang, Tim Hudson, Cliff Lee, Javier Vasquez, Brandon Webb, Chris Young, Brian Fuentes, J.J. Putz, Chad Qualls, Mariano Rivera, Scot Shields, Huston Street, Kerry Wood. Obviously a pretty sizable chunk of those guys will have their options picked up and/or be extended, but that's what the potential free agent class looks like. It's pretty nice. With a possible $40 million off the books, we could find some nice players. Maybe not to replace, but to fill other weak positions will finding stopgaps to replace the new holes... sign Mauer, trade Soto for a 1B :)

Not to mention we have a good chunk of money coming off the books after this coming season, unless Hendry decides to extend Lee and Lilly again before the season is over. Also have Aramis' salary potentially coming off the books if he opts out. If all 3 leave after the seaosn that's $40 mil off the books. There should be no reason not to consider Crawford in the offseason if that happens assuming, like you said, that Tampa doesn't extend him

FWIW, even though I don't think there's any Cubs on these teams, you can watch two Winter League games streaming on ESPN360. The Tigres vs. Aguilas from the Dominican league and the Bravos vs. Tiburones from the Venezuelan league http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/index?id=293500006&league=ncaam

I'll give you that. He can swipe a bag with the best of them, but I'd much prefer a stronger hitter to a stronger base stealer manning center field.