The Other 15

5/91 for Burnett? Really? Seriously? Wow, this is what they learned from the whole Pavano fiasco.

Why? Because they're both black? You're not aware that Jones had to endure racial slurs from some of the idiots at Wrigley on a daily basis for most of his stay with the Cubs? Everyone would love to have great defense with every player, but this is a team that had Alou and Sosa as corners and still had a lengthy playoff run. I have hard time believing that anyone can play RF worse than 2002-2004 Sosa.

I understand that. I merely said that Bruce wouldn't come on NSBB unless he has current info that is legit/confirm by people in the know. It just seems to me that Rosenthal and Levine get a grain of truth and expand it, where as Bruce would rather get the picture from the higher ups, and then best explain what is going on without burning any bridges. Please expand on how you know this to be true about Levine? Are you aware of how long Levine has worked covering baseball in Chicago? You should do a little research before making ridiculous statements like that.

Who said it would be all those guys? A) we dont really know what the package is B) if you choose to believe one of the rumored packages, then you should choose to believe that adding derosa to the package would take out at least one of the other players. i'd bet everyting i owned that they dont trade all 5 of those guys for peavy Nobody said it was all those guys, but it (based rumors, at least) appears that the package seems to be getting very favorable to the Pods in a market where they have very little leverage.

Pie (then Olsen), Marshall, Vitters, Cedeno, Marquis, now supposedly DeRosa all for a guy that will be a factor in about 34 games next year? I want this trade to happen but damn, for a team behind the 8 ball like the Pods supposedly are, they sure are driving the price up quite a bit.

The Phills were not even in the original 5 that Peavy gave permission, right? Braves Astros Cards Dodgers Cubs Also, didn't he say he didn't want to play for a team in NE? Roesnthal has been all over the place on this to be considered more than just another guy who is reaching for any information and sports radio is just a bunch of balding, bad bearded egos pretending to be experts on everything.

I was disappointed to see Eyre celebrating and laughing with one of the Phillies (Meyers? maybe?) who said something to the effect of " Suck on it Hendry" in the clubhouse after they won the WS. Eyer, of all people, knows that Hednry did all he could to trade him to a contender because he told him he would.

Ok, freak accident or not, a 32 year old who has had a major leg injury at that stage is not very promising as a younger player. And that's not even talking about how bad he is in the batters box. Younger? Literally, not practically. Cheaper? Yes. Better in any baseball way than Rent, no.

Pretty good deal for the Tigers. They are getting cheaper and younger at both SS and C That's a very optimistic way of describing the difference between Renteria and Everett. From 34 to 32 year old is not exactly a youth movement when you consider how bad Everett is at staying on the field since he turned 30.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/sullivan/20081208-9999-1s8sullivan.html Nice quotes there. Not to turn this into another Hendry debate, but fans just don't get how important it is to have a GM that everyone considers honest and up front about everything. Without that trait, it's highly doubtful he lands Harden and he'd probably have no shot at Peavy.

i don't know if you meant it that way, but holy hell that sounded racist. If that's how it came across, it was unintended. However, in the past, Bradly has had issues accusing teammates (kent), fans (Boston) and media of racism. I'm not an expert on the racial tensions in MLB, he may be right to an extent because I have witnessed first hand how awful fans were to Hawkins and Jones. Neither Hawking or Jones were confrontational with the idiots in the stands but something tells me Bradley wouldn't be so passive.

Bruce, why do you believe that a player like Bradley who has a hair trigger on all criticisms of him being rooted in the fact he is black, would be a good fit at Wrigley? That just looks like trouble after a couple of bad slumps

So, win shares is what will make Greene better? There's a concrete science.

There are two separate days. Today is the deadline for teams to offer arbitration to their former players who declared free agency. Kerry Wood, Jim Edmonds, and Daryle Ward (and others) fall into this category. The other day (this year, December 12th) is sometimes referred to as the deadline for teams to offer contracts for the upcoming season to unsigned players under team control. "Unsigned players under team control" fall into two separate categories - those with enough service time to be eligible for arbitration (Chad Gaudin, Reed Johnson, Michael Wuertz, and others) and those with not enough service time to be eligible for arbitration (Geovany Soto, Sean Marshall, Randy Wells, and others). If the Cubs "offer a contract" to Chad Gaudin, they are, in effect, offering him arbitration (if the two sides cannot otherwise reach an agreement). If the Cubs "offer a contract" to Geovany Soto, they are essentially giving him a take-it-or-leave-it offer, as he has no leverage to negotiate a higher salary. You will sometimes hear this called "renewing a player's contract" and this class of player is sometimes referred to as "auto renewal" players (or "0-3 players", referring to the amount of service time they have). If Soto doesn't like his renewed contract salary, he can swallow hard and play or sit out. The latter is almost never done. Failing to offer a contract to an unsigned player under team control is often called "non-tendering" him, as in not "tendering" (offering) a contract. This can be done to either arb eligible players (fairly common, to avoid paying them an arb-determined salary) or to auto renewal players (extremely uncommon, as there is little incentive to avoid paying them a league-minimum-ish salary). You probably already knew most of this, but I hope this helps. Feel free to add, correct, or clarify as necessary. Admittedly, I didn't understand how Muskats quote had anything to do with todays deadline for Wood who is the subject of that article. Reading your post a second time, I understand what you meant. It just wasn't clear to me the first time. No offense intended.

For pending FAs. Which, of course, describes Wood's status.

Today is the deadline for teams to offer arb and Sunday is the deadline for players to accept arb.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081126&content_id=3694386&vkey=hotstove2008&fext=.jsp For those of us who hope Hendry offers arbitration to Wood, I wouldn't take too much comfort in this article by the truly awful Carrie Muskat. In it, she provides this wonderful bit of misinformation: Wrong, Carrie. That deadline is December 12th. Where did you get your information from? Maybe the 12th is the date that players have to accept by but today is the deadline for teams to offer arb.

Oh, man that LH bat would be HUGE! Paying someone like Abreau or Ibanez close to $20 mil annually would guarantee that no one fills up their pants when playoff pressure is here? Having the most productive offense from 1-9 is no match for adding poor defense to help that already good production. This missing link LH hitter myth that Lou sparked is spreading like a wild fire. I find myself wondering how having a LH hitter batting third would make such a huge difference when no one gets on base before or after he bats during the playoffs? Maybe 3 playoff games against the Dodgers is proof that no one will hit or produce in future playoffs?

I don't know what's going to happen. But players can get left behind in free agency. Especially players with legitimate injury concerns. While others get very popular (see Penney). I wouldn't be surprised in the least if Wood and Sheets end up getting the leftover deals after all the primary FA's are gobbled up. If that happens, Axelrod and Hendry could end up talking again about Wood.

Yeah, I checked again and saw what you pasted. I'm saying that I saw an additional blurb on Wood in that site earlier this morning. Now, it's not there. Does anybody know if this happens often there or what could be the deal?

Anybody else see this, or am I going crazy? About an hour ago, i went on MLBtraderumors just to get a little gossip. Among the story that the Cubs were going to resign Demp was a Kerry Wood blurb that said he could end up with the Cubs afterall on a one year incentive lased contract like last year. I talked on the phone to a friend, and he says he can't find it. I go back to find it myself and it's not there. Anybody else notice it or know what may be going on (besides me going nuts)?

I checked his DER and BABIP. Looks like Howry was just unlucky. These guys that give up high BAA tend to have bad luck with BABIP and DER.

So you are arguing that a pitcher has control over his BABIP neutralizing for batted ball type? You aren't going to win that battle, especially for a reliever that has such little batters faced that way more of their BABIP is due to luck rather than anything the pitcher does. No, I'm stating that there are multiple reasons, not limited to "luck" or stats that just reflect luck.

I'd bet that he ends up with the Cubs or one of the LA teams for a surprisingly low looking offer. He won't keep Peavy just to spite him and they've agreed that it's time for them to split.

It's likely that they already got the deal they liked from ATL, but Peavy has narrowed his preferred destinations to LA or Chicago. I don't think this is playing out how Towers envisioned, and Peavy probably has something to do with that. It's left Towers in a tough spot. He can't just hand Peavy over to the Cubs, and he really isn't excited about having to face him 6 times a year if he's traded to LA, so he's trying to create a competitive market. It may or may not work, but these GM's are getting goofy with their expectations for single players no matter how good they might be. As for the Yankee interest, it may be legit, or they may be creating a sense of urgency with Sabathia, Lowe and Burnett that their money train won't be in the station for ever.