Clem Fandango

Can't that be said of any pitcher with a large contract, though? That same statement can be applied to Zambrano, Santana, Sabathia (when he signs). I would say Zito but it'd almost be worth it to pay him to not pitch

Wright: 159G | 114PO | 286A | 16E | 21DP | .962FP | .956lgFP | 2.52RFg | 2.23lgRFg | 2.51RF9 | 2.60lgRF9 | 159GS | 1433.3Inn Glaus: 146G | 99PO | 279A | 7E | 27DP | .982FP | .956lgFP | 2.59RFg | 2.23lgRFg | 2.74RF9 | 2.60lgRF9 | 145GS | 1243.3Inn He really was pretty damn good. I would dare say he was robbed.

You called? Cubs sign Furcal and then trade Marshall, Veal/Hart, and Ceda to Marlins for Hermida and Olsen. Cubs trade Olsen, Pie, Theriot, and Hill to SD for Peavy. Furcal @ SS, Hermida in RF, and Peavy in the rotation. Knew I could count on ya. :grin: Can someone explain why Hill would have any value at all? Because if someone can fix whatever is going on with him, they'd have a really nice #2-3 starter. Has anyone thought of getting him those Rick Vaughn glasses? Maybe that would help. Lou: Seeing is the important thing Hayes: Not that important Tortoise-shell style. Gnarly

There's the official word... http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081105&content_id=3664890&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb http://mlb.mlb.com/images/2008/11/05/WqxC7Sps.jpg

They aren't posted anywhere online that I can see, but ESPN News is reporting these are the NL Gold Glove winners... C Yadier Molina 1B Adrian Gonzalez 2B Brandon Phillips SS Jimmy ROllins 3B David Wright OF Carlos Beltran OF Shane Victorino OF Nate McLouth P Greg Maddux Discuss EDIT: According to Rotoworld the AL Gold Glovers have been leaked... here they are... C Joe Mauer 1B Carlos Pena 2B Dustin Pedroia SS Michael Young 3B Adrian Beltre OF Torii Hunter OF Grady Sizemore OF Ichiro Suzuki P Mike Mussina

Same thought I had. He'd look better at Petco than Wrigley, I'd think. Although last year was a good improvement over 2007, he still had some bad home/away splits. Good call. This could get interesting. Who would we have to give up for both of them though?

I'm really sick of seeing this logic(and the usual accompiniment of IT'S BEEN 100 YEARS GO FOR IT ALL NOW) as if there is no limit to the amount of young players you should give up to try for it all in one season. Let's say we give up all of our best tradeable assets for Peavy. Then Soto goes down and we need a stopgap to catch the rest of the way. What are we gonna give up for that rental? James Adduci? Every player in a system has some sort of value attached to them. Every time one is given up there is an opportunity cost at stake as to what else that player could acquire now, what they could acquire later, what they could contribute now, and what they could contribute later. Throwing the kitchen sink at a team because we've got a chance at it all is a good way to guarantee that you have only a few chances to win it all. - Pie is obviously no longer apart of this team's future plans. - Hill is obviously no longer the pitcher he once was and has already been rumored to be used in this potential deal - Marshall would be replaced with Peavy, advantage Cubs - Cedeno is battling it out with Theriot, and in all likelihood will probably be a bench player next year if Theriot is around - Ceda would be a useful piece for the Cubs in the future, but would his loss outweigh the gain of Peavy? - If Theriot goes, Cedeno probably stays and hopefully he doesn't crap it up like the last time he was given the starting job - Vitters, I would like to keep, but when will he be ready? 3 years from now? 4 years? It's still very early to determine whether or not he'll be a bust or a great signing. It's only a "GO FOR IT ALL NOW" situation if we'd be giving all this up for one year of Peavy, but we'd be giving it all up for 4 years of Peavy (5 if we were to decide to pick up his $22 million 2014 option, which we probably wouldn't). And despite all of this, even when discussing these trading pieces, does anyone really think a mix-match of these players would even get the job done? I'd love to have Peavy, but even I don't think these players will get him on the Cubs. When we start hearing rumors of us giving up valuable players (as in players who will be on our MLB team next year and will be above average contributers), then it gets serious, but if these are the players we're rumored to be kicking around should this really be much of a debate (even though they probably couldn't get us Peavy)?

Giambi-.247/.373/.502/.875 32 hr Lee-.291/.361/.462/.823 20 hr As I stated, Im not sure how much of a defensive liability Giambi is, but the offensive numbers are a significant upgrade. In all seriousness, Giambi benefited form the left handed advantage of hitting at Yankee Stadium. He had equal HR output home vs. away, but had an OPS 102 points higher at home than on the road (.929 vs. 827). Here's his scatter plot from Hit Tracker. Clearly he's a pull hitter so he took advantage of the short Yankee stadium RF... http://www.hittrackeronline.com/parks/Giambi_Jason_2008_scatter.jpg

GIDP... Giambi - 6 Lee - 27 Winner winner, chicken dinner. Clearly Giambi is the superior first baseman

Backloaded, but reasonable. It's not like Soriano's deal or what CC is going to get. It's actually not backloaded, that was a contract extension. His original contract ends next year and the extension kicks in in 2010, and even then, that contract is still favorable for his skillset compared to a lot of other contracts out there. Regardless, his current contract is backloaded, he makes relatively little now but will make significantly more down the road. The important point is that it's still reasonable for the performance you can expect. Truth. Which is another reason to me why he should be the proper target

Backloaded, but reasonable. It's not like Soriano's deal or what CC is going to get. It's actually not backloaded, that was a contract extension. His original contract ends next year and the extension kicks in in 2010, and even then, that contract is still favorable for his skillset compared to a lot of other contracts out there. And when it comes to the players we give up... of the names being kicked around in a trade for him, who exactly are we giving up that is going to be a detrimental loss to our current team and our future team? Pie? Hill? Marshall? Cedeno? Ceda? Theriot? Vitters? Really? These are the mammoth players that will hurt us if we trade for Peavy? The Cubs minus a mix-match of those players plus Jake Peavy at $9 million next year and $15 million in 2010 is still greater than C.C. Sabathia at $20 million a year for the next 4-5 years in my opinion. While Peavy will be getting paid more in 2010 and beyond, it will still be less than Soriano and Zambrano, and similar/close to Aramis's paycheck (although Aramis has another opt out clause in 2010 and he may opt out for more money again depending on his numbers). There's $50 million committed to three players next yea (Soriano, Z, A-Ram). Throw in Sabathia and we got $70 million to four players. Is that REALLY what this team needs right now? Remember when we signed Soriano and people were up in arms about backloading contracts and hurting the team financially for the future? That future starts next year, and adding Sabathia to the mix will only cause more damage to that. Granted this is all contingent on who the next owner will be, but it's still a lot of money to commit to just 4 players

I'd rather have Peavy. We don't need another backloaded contract killing this club in the future, which a deal to Sabathia likely would be. Peavy would be cheaper, slightly younger, and arguably just as good as Sabathia would be. Plus I thought Piniella said we don't have the luxury of going balls to the wall crazy with free agents because of the ownership change in limbo and we have to fix ourselves through trades? I don't think Peavy is close to as good as Sabathia right now. I'd be worried about how Peavy would do without playing half his games in Petco. Plus he was very Kazmiresque this season with his high pitch counts causing him to leave the game early all the time. Meanwhile Sabathia is an innings eating mahcine. I agree with you that I'd probably rather have Peavy at the price each owuld cost, but I don't think there's any way you could say Peavy is as good as Sabathia right now. Who is to say Sabathia will still be as good? Sabathia pitches 9 innings, yeah. But at what cost? High pitch counts each time out? Future arm issues? Who knows. Maybe he is a freak of nature. But the fact remains that Peavy is still an ace on almost any staff, and he will cost $8 mil (or $9, don't remember) this year, while Sabathia will cost someone $20 million. I'll still take Peavy. That gap between ability and payroll savings is too much to ignore, IMO

I'd rather have Peavy. We don't need another backloaded contract killing this club in the future, which a deal to Sabathia likely would be. Peavy would be cheaper, slightly younger, and arguably just as good as Sabathia would be. Plus I thought Piniella said we don't have the luxury of going balls to the wall crazy with free agents because of the ownership change in limbo and we have to fix ourselves through trades?

Ken Rosenthal reports he opted out... http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8756808/Burnett-opts-out-of-deal,-will-become-free-agent

Both of which are Type A free agents as well. Which leads me to this question... Let's say we let Dempster and Wood go, and also someone is dumb enough to sign Howry. How many draft picks would we get if all three signed with someone else? You'd get three sandwich round picks for sure, and up to three first round picks, assuming they all signed with teams who ranked in the top half of MLB (and assuming that you offer arby to all three players -- isn't that unlikely with Howry?). If all three signed with teams in the bottom half, you'd get up to three second round picks. That's assuming that all three players sign with teams that didn't sign another Type A ranked higher than them. If the Yankees sign Ryan Dempster but then also signed CC Sabathia, the Brewers would get the Yankees' first round pick and the Cubs would get their second round pick. Both teams would also get sandwich picks, but the Brewers' would be higher than the Cubs' because Sabathia's rated higher than Dempster. Gotcha. Thanks for the insight, was always curious about that

Both of which are Type A free agents as well. Which leads me to this question... Let's say we let Dempster and Wood go, and also someone is dumb enough to sign Howry. How many draft picks would we get if all three signed with someone else?

I think Smoltz shouldn't retire just yet. Yeah he's old and yeah he just had major surgery, but unlike Glavine and Maddux, he was still an above average pitcher. I'd like to see if he can bounce back for another year or two. It's not like he was putting up mediocre numbers like Maddux and Glavine were. Smoltz was still good. I'd hate to see him go out just because Maddux and Glavine do, I think that's a BS excuse, especially when he's got the skill to still be one of the better pitchers in the league.

I did exactly what I predicted I'd do. Get pissed for a few days, and go back to being a normal Cubs fan. Yes I still wear my gear, and I wear it proudly.

Pretty sure IMB! is lampooning Aramis Fan's posts about this topic.

Griffey isn't even an honorable mention, huh? I was about to say that Mark Kotsay is much more interesting FA prediction than Griffey would ever be. Someone dropped the ball

You should've snuck into the utility shed and turned on the sprinklers

OBP is the new black. Every team talks about it now and how important it is, and probably because every reporter who is more statistically inclined that others will always bring it up. It's not like they're gonna say OBP is a dumb stat.

I do like the sound of this. Would he be the most tatted out manager ever? Until Josh Hamilton decides to start managing. WESHOULDAKEPTHIMASMANAGER i don't understand why the entire board thinks he would be a great manager. all i hear on here all day is what a great manager josh hamilton would be. i feel like i'm *some kurt russell character* on *some kurt russell movie*. Quiet down Jack Burton, or else there'll be big trouble......

I'm not as excited about Burnett as everyone else seems to be, especially for the crazy money teams are lined up to pay him. Assuming Dempster's year wasn't a total fluke, Dempster will be $3-$4 million cheaper per year for 1-2 less years. You really think Burnett is going to go for insane money? I certainly see Sheets and Sabathia going for insane dollar amounts, but i'm not sure how I feel about Burnett. He had his worst year since 03 last year so possibly his price tag will be a little less? Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. Isn't Burnett giving up big money to opt out in the first place? I can't imagine he'd opt out and take less money to sign somewhere else. But, I don't know what his current contract looks like, so maybe he isn't giving up big money by opting out. Burnett has 2 years and 24 million left on his deal. Wouldn't you want to opt out and wait for the C.C. Sabathia sweepstakes to come to a close before negotiating deals? Sabathia's contract is going to effect what Burnett, and all other above average starters, will make in free agency. If Sabathia signs (and he probably will) a monsterous $130 million deal or something, Burnett could probably weasel into the $15-$16 mil a year range for another 3-4 years instead of the $12 he's slated to make the next 2, IMO

Our northern neighbors could beef up their bullpen :)