Ocu-Master

Awesome, so they finally found the chemical that causes poor clubhouse chemistry? We should all hope that this could one day lead to a cure for Milton Bradley syndrome.

Thanks for the replies, I'll check out cbs sportsline! -Robert

So it's that time of year when my fantasy baseball league starts to get going again and this year we're exploring alternatives to yahoo. Does anyone have suggestions? Basically we have a league already, we just need a place that will do head-to-head, live stats, and possibly keeper leagues. What sites do you guys use and how well do you like them? Maybe we can sticky this if there's lots of good references? (we're also willing to use a pay site, though free is obviously better!)

Agreed, the new collective bargaining agreement changes some of the rules about free agency, so I think it's in his best interest to file, but it doesn't mean he wants to leave the cubs.

I think the question is... are they going to make him shave those sideburns? http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/3766/8f13donmattinglyqr9.jpg

Irritable or short-tempered; irascible. Define irascible.....just kidding. Yes, that is me but some attitudes here just bring it out in me. We all want the same thing...to see the Cubs do well. In the meanwhile, let's enjoy it for what it is, have some fun and see what happens. I prefer to watch the games and the players while having some beers and some fun. haha, this has to be the first time that I've seen one these argument settled so amicably.

That hardly justifies snarky responses. Define snarky. Snarky (adj): see: bring stone back

Better yet, let's all use hyperbole and straw men to make our points. That would make for really fun discussions. This is going nowhere constructive. Believe what you will. okay....he's played one game in a Cubs uniform, is only 26 with room to improve yet he's atrocious. Okay...you're right. Well you're leaving out a lot of other information we have about him, such as his past performance at the plate. You're certainly welcome to your opinion that he will improve. I hope he does, but with the available information, I (and others) don't feel he's going to be that beneficial to the team. Defense doesn't count? Being arguably the best at his position in the game should count for something. Defense certainly counts, which is probably why he's got a less bad WARP (wins above replacement level) projection, my guess would be that its value in the Cubs lineup won't go as far in the wins column as having better hiting, but that's my opinion at this point.

We want you to stop writing writing loaded sentences like the one quoted above.

Better yet, let's all use hyperbole and straw men to make our points. That would make for really fun discussions. This is going nowhere constructive. Believe what you will. okay....he's played one game in a Cubs uniform, is only 26 with room to improve yet he's atrocious. Okay...you're right. Well you're leaving out a lot of other information we have about him, such as his past performance at the plate. You're certainly welcome to your opinion that he will improve. I hope he does, but with the available information, I (and others) don't feel he's going to be that beneficial to the team.

I'm not serious. I have a BP subscription myself. lol, had me fooled ;)

Five year PECOTA projections from BP: Year AVG OBP SLG VORP WARP 2006 .262 .305 .337 5.2 3.3 2007 .265 .308 .245 6.3 3.3 2008 .260 .309 .335 4.5 2.8 2009 .265 .312 .341 6.1 2.9 2010 .257 .304 .334 2.5 2.0 Doesn't look good. How would he get these numbers? That .245 slugging for example-the lowest slugging he has ever had in his career was .303-and that was when he was 22 and breaking into the league. Somebody brought up the point of why people would think he would improve-the simple answer is that he has improved every year in his career until he got hurt. His OBP went from .253 to .282 to .330 in 3 years, and was at .387 the next year-and then he played hurt, and it dropped down to the .302 number. We can't be sure about this years numbers yet-he hasn't had enough at-bats. For example, his OBP jumped 6 points tonight-and if he goes 0 for 4 tomorrow, it could go down those 6 points just as fast. So now that he's coming back healthy from the surgery, we simply expect him to keep improving like he did every year right up to the injury. Is it a sure thing that he will do that? Of course not-but it is perfectly reasonable that a man who improved every single year from 22 years old till 25 will continue to improve now that he is healthy again. I think arguing a more optimistic point of view or taking a let's give this guy a chance vantage point is pointless. bah, the .245 is a typo, fixed in the original post in 3...2...1...

I don't need stats, buddy, I watch the PLAYERS. Who says I don't watch the players too? Lose the attitude, I'm just adding info to the conversation. The fact that you watch the players doesn't invalidate the science of statistics.

You can point at any one player and say the PECOTA projectios were off, personally, I'll wait until the end of the season before daming the Abreu prediction but on the whole they are one of the better publicly available projections. These numbers are based on past performance, comparable players, age factors, etc. What is your prediction based on?

If that's the direction we're going, let me put my flame retardant suit on. Also, for the non-calculator inclined, there are stats other than VORP quoted in that projection. (perhaps you've head of a calculation called batting average)

Five year PECOTA projectsion from BP: Year AVG OBP SLG VORP WARP 2006 .262 .305 .337 5.2 3.3 2007 .265 .308 .245 6.3 3.3 2008 .260 .309 .335 4.5 2.8 2009 .265 .312 .341 6.1 2.9 2010 .257 .304 .334 2.5 2.0 Doesn't look good. Bill Pecota doesn't know what he's talking about. . . . . http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/pics/bill_pecota_autograph.jpg but look at his intagibles! He's got special dice that he uses to determine those numbers

Five year PECOTA projections from BP: Year AVG OBP SLG VORP WARP 2006 .262 .305 .337 5.2 3.3 2007 .265 .308 .345 6.3 3.3 2008 .260 .309 .335 4.5 2.8 2009 .265 .312 .341 6.1 2.9 2010 .257 .304 .334 2.5 2.0 Doesn't look good.

^^^ edit: beaten by cbbryan ^^^ I don't follow the Rays very closely - how bad are his shoulders? Is it a "one-time it'll be better next year" thing or a chronic problem? His Shoulders looked fine when he took Schilling deep yesterday. that isn't the problem -- I've been following him closely (he's on my fantasy team) He can't throw and hasn't played in the field at all for over a month now. He was on pinch hit duty in all the NL parks during interleague last week. They're pretty sure he'll have to have off season surgery on that shoulder and apparently he's been taking grounders at first lately. I think he'd be a pretty big risk to an NL team and I don't think trading for him would smart for the cubs right now.

I can't see any US authority telling the kid no if he tried to... And yes..he looks amazing. Plug him into 2nd base for the next 10 years and I'd be happy.... The U.S. could refuse to grant him assylum and then deport him back to Cuba. most likely the cuban government has a hold of his family or someone that will suffer if he tries to defect. These guys aren't nice :evil:

good lord, hopefully the management agrees with him and they're also willing to let the cubs have him for dirt cheap. I mean, that Sosa trade worked out for them didn't it?

Oh I totally agree with you, the Phillies would be fools to trade him off, especially to "shake things up" like phillyBurbs.com was alluding to. However, IF the Phillies front office were shopping him, you've got to take a look at what they want. The only salary dumping they'll be doing is Thome, and I just don't see how they can pull it off.

Speaking of Abreu, check out the scathing remarks about Bobby made by SI's Tom Verducci recently. I didn't realize how low is 2nd half power numbers have been. What's going on with him? http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/102-09302005-548673.html Hoops Don't know if it's playiing on his mind, but his fiance, former Miss Venezuela Alicia Machado, got caught doing the nasty with another guy on tape this summer. The steamy sex video has been all over the place. It was a major sex scandal. he was due to wed her in December. I would imagine that's gotta affect a guy's job performance. The Phillies have been saying for most of the second half that his swing changed after the HR derby. In the last couple of weeks there's been some comments in the press about him battling a leg injury of some sort, so I can't relly blame him for not legging out a triple. If the cubs can get him for something reasonable, I think you've gotta pull the trigger. This guy is consistentently good every year, he's an OBP machine with speed and power, and he's got a rocket arm. Just think of the damage he could do batting in front of DLee and Aram Edit #1Link: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050925/SPORTS01/509250327/1002/SPORTS edit #2: Abreu's career line is .303/.411/.512

Sometimes I think of how Houston left him available in the expansion draft and I laugh. Imagine if Houston had him in the lineup all these years... Imagine that they didn't let J Santana go in the Rule 5 draft either. They may have won a WS last year. Imagine that in 5 years they might be saying the same about Sisco ;)

Agreed. he is the most underrated player out there. Baseball Prospectus made a hall of fame case awhile back and in my mind its fairly convincing. Bobby Abreu has been one of the top ten most valuable players over the last seven years. And nobody knew his name until the derby. for those of you with a subscription here's the link: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=3832 Take a look at his numbers yourselves and don't let the fact that he's not a household name mar your judgement. Abreu is one of the elite players in the league. If he continues to put up numbers like he has (or can be expected over the arc of his career) for several more years, he's HoF quality in my mind, no doubt (edit: here's the WARP1 numbers to back up BP's top 10 claim -- for the non-stat heads, WARP is Wins Above Replacement Player which measures the overall cumulative value of a player's contributions, both offensive and defensive) Player WARP1 (1998-2004) 1. Barry Bonds 87.2 2. Alex Rodriguez 70.6 3. Pedro Martinez 68.6 4. Randy Johnson 63.6 5. Todd Helton 62.5 6. Jeff Kent 60.6 7. Scott Rolen 59.8 8. Sammy Sosa 59.7 9. Bobby Abreu 58.4 10. Curt Schilling 58.2