Kosuke1

Well, for starters, you said Pierre was an average hitter. In 2006 he got on base at a .330 clip. That's not bad if you're an 8-hole hitter. Pierre, unfortunately, was the leadoff hitter. Ok, well, having a bad OBP is alright if you slug well. Well, Pierre slugged .388, which is pitiful. Sadly enough, that was actually his 3rd highest slugging percentage of his entire career. He stole 58 bases; he was also caught 20 times. 58 for 78 is 74.36 percent, which is slightly below the 75 percent benchmark at which stolen bases statistically 'break even' in terms of helping/hurting your team, so Pierre's stealing had almost no effect on the Cubs and what effect it did have was negative. Pierre also surrendered roughly 800 bajillion extra bases because of his sixth-grade transsexual-caliber throwing arm. He wasn't bad defensively, but his bad arm keeps him from being what could really be considered good. Was Pierre an average center fielder? Well, there were 26 center fielders in baseball in 2006 that qualified for the batting title (if you count Jacque Jones, which Yahoo! stupidly does). Pierre was 24th in OPS. That is not average. That is mind-numbingly awful, especially when you have the Cubs' resources. PS: If you're curious, the guys below him were Willy Taveras and Clint Barmes. Great company. You can't just say his SB% was slightly lower than the "breakeven" point and arrive to the conclusion that his legs didn't help the Cubs win because that is dumb and you only need to watch the games to see this. Those with their noses in enough spreadsheets realize it as well. His legs definitely added a benefit to the Cubs and made him close to an average offensive player, maybe a little below average, but with above average defense he's at least an average centerfielder. Either way if he's a bit below, a bit above it does not matter. He was not the Cubs problem. He had a down season so we can't peg this one on Hendry.

Do you care to elaborate on why my opinion isn't correct?

What? I read FJM. Can I not quote FJM? Vorpies is a hilarious term.

Chris Carpenter failed at what he was supposed to do after signing a contract extension. Does that make it a dumb move? No. If Hendry knew that Pierre would have a rough season do you think he would have went after him? The number of outs is nice, after all he did play in 162 games batting leadoff most of them and runs a lot. So he had the most plate appearances and a lot of steal attempts. Just because he made a lot of outs it doesn't mean he was bad. He was a pretty average hitter in 2006 and played decent defense. That makes him an above average center fielder. Above average is not bad.

Conventional wisdom has it that a speedy leadoff hitter is an absolute necessity for a good baseball team. Jim Hendry took that information and ran with it, reaching a logical conclusion... "I should acquire Juan Pierre." Of course, Juan Pierre was completely useless, even though he performed exactly as everybody anticipated. The lesson? Logic is only useful when it is guided by good information. And many GMs and managers avoid good information simply as a show of solidarity for their "old school" ways... forcing them to come to logical conclusions that are ineffective or downright detrimental. That makes them dumb. This isn't exactly true. Hendry knows that a speedy leadoff hitter is not an "absolute" necessity for a good baseball team. Hendry gave up garbage for Pierre. The Cubs had no answer in centerfield, and were looking for a guy who could leadoff and run the bases and had some range. Pierre filled that role nicely. He's not an elite player, but he's not the type of player who is going to ruin your team. That said he was better off on a team like Los Angeles, San Diego or Florida where the home run is not a big part of the game. Juan Pierre, though, was a very good fit with the wind blowing in. In those situations you absolutely must play small ball to score runs, even Vorpies will admit to this if you force them into a corner. Pierre's skillset doesn't fit the traditional Vorpies view of a good player, but his skillset is a good one that helps win ball games when they're close. He's the anti-Eric Chavez. His skills become better as the quality of play for the team increases, and the game is on the line. Chavez, even when he was 100%, was useless after the 7th inning and in clutch situations because he turned into chopped liver against a middle relief southpaw. Good pitchers also tend not to walk hitters, so someone who is a hit machines going to be relatively good against them. These are things that could have gone in Hendry's head, or he could have just did what a GMs job is: Get the tools a manager wants. Maybe Baker stressed he wanted Pierre because Pierre's skin color, which is another rational thought. Science backs it up. Maybe it was Baker thinking about small ball in close games. Like I said above GMs make mistakes. Making mistakes does not make them dumb; even if it is the type you stated. Not learning from them makes them dumb. Has Hendry gone out and re-acquired Juan Pierre since Pierre lost his job and the Cubs had questions in center? Has Hendry started to stress the importance in on base percentage and made a conscious effort of acquiring it? Did Hendry finally get tired on waiting for Prior and Wood? Hendry seems to be learning from his mistakes. If you were a GM, I'm sure people like IMB! and Derwood above would be calling you dumb the first moment you made a deal they didn't agree with.

Considering the last three gm's he's worked for, I'm not sure I'd be floating this argument out there. "stupid is as stupid does" And I am also pretty sure that the three GMs he's worked for aren't the only people who are interested in hiring him. what kind of logical reasoning led to the victor zambrano for scott kazmir deal At the time Kazmir was a fine prospect, but a prospect with four starts above double A. The likelihood of an elite pitching prospect flaming out and getting hurt is pretty high. That being said that all GMs make poor decisions. Every one makes mistakes. GMs are not always right, but they're not stupid people and they're not stupid baseball people. There are some many things that factor into the decision of signing, trading or hiring people. Dusty Baker is a tremendous baseball teacher, while he's probably not the best in game manager, he's absolutely great at every other aspect of being a manager. You'd think Vorpies would be fine with him, because in their opinion managers don't mean anything. The difference between good ones and bad ones in game is minimal. The good things about Torre and Dusty are simple: People want to play for him. It's possible they can lure a player or two which negates any on the field negatives that they may have. For instance, all of Dusty's on the field screw ups were likely made up by Mike Remlinger's pitching in 2003. Without Baker we don't have Remlinger. We'd be stuck with some scrub again like Scott Eyre or Kent Mercker or Carmen Pignatiello. And new wave stats oriented GMs dance with the devil in the other way. They have their problems as much as the old-fashioned GMs. Like I said of course they make mistakes, but because they make mistakes it does not mean they're dumb people. Dumb people wouldn't be able to get that job in the first place. Of course some are better than others, but none of them are stupid enough to make dumb moves all the time. The worst thing about being an arm-chair GM is not really knowing what's going on behind closed doors.

So is Mark Prior.

I thought this was a trade thread for Marshall or Murton.

Votto and Hatteberg would put up similar numbers this year, you're right. The thing is that Hatteberg has no future with the Reds and Votto should be starting over him. The Reds are contending mode and they two guys are similar. You can argue either decision. They're both right. How can you say hes not that dumb or ignorant? The guy hit Neifi Perez, Jose Macias, Rey Sanchez, and Corey Patterson at leadoff or 2nd during his stint as Cubs manager. He then gets a new job and bats Corey Patterson leadoff again. He most certainly is that dumb and ignorant. He keeps getting jobs for a reason, and it's not because the people who are hiring him are dumb. Dumb guys don't become GMs. They may not make moves that "statheads" agree with but they make moves based on reasoning that's logically based. They're not dumb.

Dusty is not that dumb or ignorant. You can play armchair manager and GM all day, but he's not that dumb. He's using his head. Votto and Hatteberg had similar numbers statistics last season, except Votto's were in Triple A. Hatteberg still has some value left in him and Votto's ceiling is Hatteberg.

The A's will contend next year. Why would he move his remaining good pitcher? He's not going to unless he's blown away like he was in the Haren offer.

Dusty Baker's making a plausible decision with Scott Hatteberg, of the Moneyball fame. He hit .310/.394/.474 last season and had a very nice season the year before. Sure he's getting up there in age, but at this point he's not much different than Votto.

I must say I really love that you post all of this transaction stuff. It's really easy for me to see what's going on. Thanks.

Carlos Marmol's worse at this than Kerry Wood. Really the only righty the Cubs have in the back end of the pen who doesn't have poor control is Bob Howry. Most relievers with outstanding stuff like Marmol are relievers because they can't throw strikes. For a flyball pitcher Kerry has never had problems with the long ball and has never given up many hits. Grooving pitches doesn't seem to be a problem if he falls behind. It never has been. He still has enough stuff to get away with it most of the time.

Everyone says "relax, it is only one game...." and I agree, but yesterday's game is a prime example of why Kerry shouldn't be used as a closer. He takes a long time to warm up and needs to throw a few pitches and face a few batters to settle into a pitching groove. You Wood followers know that he has been like this his entire career. All starting pitchers "struggle" the first 20-25 pitches of a game relative to the rest of the game. This is expected because pitches 1-25 come against the best five hitters in the offense. We shouldn't be surprised that they hit Wood or any other starter decently well. It's not struggles.

A pitcher is a pitcher. A pitcher is the same pitcher when it's 1-0 in the 9th inning as he is if it's 0-0 in the 9th inning. The only time you might be able to argue that it's situational is only when a starting pitcher has a huge lead and just concentrates on not walking hitters, other than that a pitcher is the same no matter what. I think Kerry Wood is best used as a closer as a way to keep him healthy. Middle relievers have to be able to get warm quickly and be able to warm up, sit down, warm up, sit down according to the situations in the game. That's a lot to ask for a guy with a crankly shoulder. As a closer he'll get much more time to warm up and he won't have to warm up, sit down and so forth as often. Sure he's not better than Marmol but would you rather have Kerry closing and Marmol in middle relief or Marmol closing and Kerry Wood on the DL? I'll take the former every time.

Haven't we learned not to trust the Cubs' injury reports? I'm prepared to see Zambrano out of the rotation for two months because of this.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL200404060.shtml Check out this major league debut.

Pat and Ron said he was running it up to 95-96 in the first. hmm this is on ESPN. dont they use the same gun?

the last two have been 84 and 85.

Am I the only one concerned that Zambrano is only sitting at 87-89. I know its cold, but still.

Depending on the money, this could be two very bad longterm contracts for outfielders by a very smart GM in Ricciardi.

Yeah it looked like he was covering 2B for a stolen base as a SS. Foot in front of the base and everything. He's going to be more brittle as a 1B than a SS if he keeps doing that.

He hasn't built up any stamina, of course he is not going to break camp in the majors. I am a bit surprised that he's going to high in 'expert' fantasy drafts. Don't tommy john guys generally have a year of no command like Wood? Next year Ill draft him, not this year.

The Cubs had a rough time against lefties last season, so they made it their priority to get more left-handed batters. I love the Cubs.