El Rojito

But he doesn't bat left-handed.

If you're going for offense, Soriano should not be in the lineup right now.

The main thing is that Fox can be sent to AAA. Guzman is out of options, and there's no way he'd clear waivers. Furthermore, he's still just coming back from TJS. Considering how talented he is, it's worth keeping him around if you have the space for him. Considering how awful Gaudin looked at the end of last year and how terrible he's pitched this Spring Training, I'm hoping the Cubs can find a trading partner for him, send Samardjiza and Fox down to AAA, and keep Guzman and Patton.

Well, it worked last time!

Can anybody post the text of the alleged Cubs.com email?

It's helpful to look at the actual game logs. In the first part of the season, he pitched very well. Then in one game he was left in to pitch 6 innings. After that appearance, he pitched poorly. If nothing else, that should dictate that he be a reliever and not a starter.

That's a nice idea. Has anyone heard when the tickets will go on sale?

Guzman started out well but had 2 or 3 really bad starts that have screwed up his VWL numbers. As always, we should be worried that he might be hurt. :| Guzman was great until he had a 6-inning start. Since then he's been bad. Yes, it does make you wonder if it's physical. I thought it was stupid to let him pitch 6 innings, considering he's coming off TJS and will be used as a reliever.

I saw that. Not that what he says really matters. He's just speculating and going off stuff we've all heard. Agreed. Nonetheless, it's always satisfying to get a response, considering how many questions I tend to ask.

FWIW, Tim Dierkes just answered my--I mean Milton Bradley's question on the mlbtraderumors chat:

As far as I can tell, he's not. But Pie ostensibly still has a little bit of trade value, so I can only assume this signing means that Pie will be traded.

1) Sorry: I should have made it clear that I wasn't necessarily addressing you personally, but rather the "royal you" in attempting to clarify my original point, which was: "we [the royal we] shouldn't be so flippant in dismissing Colin's point, since he knows his stuff." 2) I stepped back from my original assertion which was hyperbole. But I think we can agree that Colin does know his stuff. We can disagree with his conclusions, but if we are then we should probably address his methods to show why we disagree. Anyways, back to Gathright...

I should add: I don't know that Gathright would be as good an option as Colin suggests he is, but I do know that I know a lot less than Colin does about advanced metrics.

Number one, that's opinion, not fact. Number two, if that were the case, then what's the point of even having a conversation on a message board? He could post front page articles and they'd be gospel. No point in having discussion. Point taken. Perhaps I should have said that Colin knows more than just about anybody else on the board. What I'm getting at is: Prima facie, what Colin is saying here is may strike us as ridiculous. But since Colin is extremely knowledgeable we shouldn't dismiss it outright just because it doesn't fit into our existing frame of what is valuable in a baseball game. For years (and unfortunately in many circles to this day) batting average, RBIs, and pitchers' W-L records were considered to be among the most important statistics with which one could judge the value of a player. Thankfully, OBP, OPS+, WHIP, and more advanced sabermetrics are beginning to take precedence. However, I think most would agree that our understanding of defense, including reliable defensive metrics and grasping the true value of defense, lags far behind our understanding of offense and pitching. So, since Colin is so knowledgeable about these areas, if you disagree with his assertion back it up with some statistics rather than just dismissing it outright.

You guys do know that Colin knows more about sabermetrics (and particularly defensive metrics and the true value of defense) than anyone else on the board, right?