Clem Fandango

The good news in all of this is that the Giants will not lose a draft pitch for signing him

Horrible, horrible, horrible story. My sympathies to Henry and his family. And in case anyone was wondering 200 million Bolivares = about $93,000 USD according to xe.com. So these guys killed his brother over $93,000 dollars. From the sound of the story it seemed like Henry was more than willing to pay, he easily had the money to cover that. This is such a tragic and sick story. My deepest condolences, Mr. Blanco

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-02-mitchelldec02,0,7758848.column 2 things from that... So you don't like him as a ballplayer but you want him on your team because you think he's cool? That's a good way of communicating to him that his services are wanted in your bullpen 1) Is this true, because I don't remember seeing this 2) If this is true, could this be the reason Wood was not offered a contract or arbitration 3) If that is the case, Lou just made my ish list... at least for the time being

I don't think you realize that Hendry is cutting back in the bullpen and trying to be creative so he can upgrade the line-up and possibly the rotation. For years people bashed Hendry for investing too much money in the pen. Now some want him fired because he wouldn't spend 3-5m more on the pen with having Wood over Gregg. This is a bad move, because I don't think Wood would have accepted arbitration, but there was no way I wanted Wood back with Gregg already on the roster. There's only so much money to around, and no more needs to be spent on the bullpen. That's a decent point to be made, but if he didn't trade for Gregg he could've just kept Wood instead. Trading for Gregg meant the Cubs wouldn't be able to afford both Gregg and Wood. Not trading for Gregg meant the Cubs could afford to at least offer him a reasonable contract, but it would appear that regardless of all that it was Hendry's intention from the get go to let him walk. Not offering arbitration was probably Hendry's way of ensuring he has money to spend elsewhere, however like others have said, if he really knew him well then wouldn't he know if he were going to accept arbitration or not? He should've offered it to him anyway. We could've used those draft picks at the very least. Now if he offers Howry arbitration and Howry accepts it I'm going to hunt Hendry down and kick him in the face with a golf shoe EDIT: He didn't offer Howry arbitration.

Well what would make next year's team better than this past year's team? An ace pitcher or a mid-level skilled left handed right fielder who will probably cost similar amounts of money in 2009? What would be a better team... Soriano LF Theriot SS Lee 1B Ramirez 3B DeRosa RF Soto C Fukudome/Johnson CF Fontenot 2B Peavy/Z/Harden/Dempster/Lilly Or... Soriano LF Theriot/Fontenot SS Lee 1B Ramirez 3B Ibanez or Abreu or other LH bat for RF DeRosa/Fontenot 2B Soto C Fukudome/Johnson CF Z/Harden/Dempster/Lilly/Marquis or Marshall? Not posing this as a rhetorical question, just wondering what others would want. Personally I'd rather have the first option, all things considered (trade pieces given, increase in payroll, etc). Here's a question, which player would generate a better revenue stream for the Cubs... Peavy or someone like Ibanez or Abreu or whoever else we're targeting for RF? I think at least with Peavy the Cubs would make a heck of a lot more money on merchandising than the other options, granted it probably wouldn't be a huge amount, but it'd be significant compared between the two

How you make that post after reading BBB's post above is dumbfounding to me He's not even in the top 15 of starting SS I'd rather have. Ramirez Reyes Rollins Hardy Furcal Young Drew Jeter Peralta Escobar Aybar Cabrera Tejada Renteria Aviles Lowrie Tulowitski 17 reasons you're not a GM. I think Theriot is a fine shortstop and all, but to sit there and say you'd rather have Ryan Theriot over Hanley Ramirez or Jimmy Rollins or Jose Reyes is either one of the silliest things I've ever heard or one of the largest sarchasms I've ever fallen into

I like how for years now the media has been saying how 3,000 strikeouts is one of the HOF clinchers for pitchers, while Blyleven was 300 shy of 4,000 and still isn't in. Absurd

If he wants to give us one of his patented out of nowhere one-of-the-best-SS-in-the-league performances like he did with ATL in 2007 and STL in 2003, then yeah he might be worth it. But the chances of doing that are slim, and thus should make him 100% avoidable as he keeps getting up there in age andwill still likely cost a lot of money compared to Theriot who is doing just fine, IMO.

How he managed to get $2 mil guaranteed as a 36 year old who pitched for the first time in 3 years and pitched horribly over 78IP is mind boggling. He shouldn't have gotten more than a $500,000 offer with incentives. The Astros are either desperate, incredibly dumb, or a strong combination of both

There was a pretty good ESPN Debate article last year between Gammons and Stark discussing whether or not Raines was a HOF worthy candidate. Stark said he was, and eventually made Gammons also believe that he was. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/hof08/news/story?id=3169953 Stark gives some good info in there. I'm surprised no one is high on Lee Smith. People are going to cream their jeans when Trevor Hoffman goes into the HOF because he's the saves leader. Lee Smith was the saves leader for a long time, and his numbers weren't terrible, his career ERA is 25 points higher than Hoffman's at this point. An ERA+ of 131 isn't bad, but people will look at Hoffman's save totals and instantly induct him, which to me is confusing considering Lee Smith held the record for saves for a while and no one has really gotten on a bandwagon of voting him in. If I had my way Henderson, Raines, Blyleven, Dawson, and Smith would get my vote

I hear ya now. No worries. Was just confused by your wording on the topic and was not quite sure what you meant by it.

He's got to write something in the offseason. A highlight article looking back at the few key highlights of their season isn't silly to me. Find another Pirates game that was more meaningful/exciting as beating the division champs in an extra inning endurance match. I don't see what the problem is. If last year we didn't make the playoffs and Muskat did a story about the Aramis walk-off against the Brewers no one would care

Dumping his salary will not benefit the team unless they dump it to free up space to sign someone like Mark Teixeira. I don't think they'd dump Lee without the intent on getting a equally good or better 1B. This team is trying to move forward, not backward. If they try and trade Lee, it will likely be for a step forward. And you keep talking about "Who said they are trying to trade Lee?" when you yourself posted your source who, when you cut through all the muck, pretty much said they're trying to trade Lee. "Derrek has blocked a trade already" as quoted from his agent makes it seem pretty clear cut to me that yes, they are in fact trying to trade Derrek Lee. So I don't know why you keep going on about "There's a difference between trying to trade and listening to offers" when it's clear that the Cubs are trying/have tried to move him already based off Churchill's interactions with Lee's agent, so I'm confused as to why you keep harping on that whole thing.

I would like to say that an outfield of Nick Markakis, Felix Pie, and Adam Jones performing to their full potential would be sick. Of course, it has to actually come full circle for it to be that way and that might not happen. But still, that's a pretty good outfield if Jones and Pie play like they have always been expected play like. Markakis is already awesome

Rosenthal's latest on Peavy...

Rosenthal has a piece on arbitration and Wood was a focus in it... Link

I'm all for trading Vitters for Peavy, but if we're sending a guy like Lee to another team and we get one other player in return from that team, I'd rather we get another mid-to-upper tier 3B prospect in return to replace Vitters in the situation where Aramis' contract is up and we have to decide between letting him go or letting our prospect in the system take over. I thought the whole point of drafting Vitters was to let him develop and by the time he's ready would be by the time Aramis' contract was over. Getting rid of Vitters and not getting an adequate replacement in the system in this deal for Peavy will really handcuff us in the future with the 3B situation. Unless there's some way we can finagle a 3B prospect away in alternative trades in the future that would be nice, but it seems if we have to go big and trade a guy like Lee to a team like the Angels, this would be our best shot at replacing Vitters with a player of acceptable value to our system. Oh and the reason I bring this up is because Aramis has another opt out clause after 2010, which he'll likely take since his 2011 player option is less money than he'll make in 2010, so we'll have to resign him if we don't have a good replacement from within, during a year when 4 players will make over a combined $60 million in 2011 (Z, Fuku, Soriano, Demp). It would be nice to have an internal option to replace Aramis if he opts out to save some major money

No one will spend close to $1 billion dollars to buy a baseball organization only to sabotage them from the inside and watch them fail and financially collapse in the name of helping out their real favorite team

Quick question, didn't feel like starting a topic about it. What's the different between a "No Trade Clause" and a "Full No Trade Clause"? They don't seem to be any different from one another but they are used separately for specific players. And while we're on the topic, whats the difference between a "Limited No Trade Clause" and "No Trade Protection"? Just curious.

Dusty reads NSBB? Dusty has friends/acquaintances that check out these sites and occasionally relay info when it is that interesting. This is some pretty juicy stuff. Hardly. But jeez, since people seem to think this is a bad thing, it is finito

Well first off, he wasn't even there. It was his wife who agreed with me. I'm sure he doesn't have strong ill will toward Dusty Baker, but I'm sure he probably has his doubts about his managing ability as I'm sure lots of players do toward certain managers. Fact is, if Dusty gives him a spot on the 25-man he'll be the best manager ever in his book. But from a purely unbiased point of view looking at his managing capabilities, he's clearly smart enough to realize Dusty has his shortcomings. And if Baker does become his manager, as a young player he'll likely bend over backwards and do whatever he asks of him regardless of how he might feel about the way he's being managed. I'm sure most of us would too if we were in the same situation. Not to mention she was probably also probably playing along a little bit to my criticism.

Yeah, perhaps you're right. Better change some of that info

Lock please

http://www.dvd.net.au/movies/d/11311-5.jpg

Wasn't there some blogger who developed his own defensive rating system that said Theriot had one of the strongest arms in the majors?