don_kessinger_was_good

Floyd is no deadbeat, cut the guy some slack. He WANTS to play for the Cubs, and he makes the team much deeper. I like Murt, but if Floyd is healthy, I gotta admit a Murton/Floyd platoon would be even more productive, and the bench would be looking quite strong. Now, if Hendry can trade either Murton or Jones and use excess pitching to get a legitimate power OF bat, we would be in great shape at that point. It's still December, and an unusually few number of trades have been made this offseason to date. I'm going to stay optimistic. And btw, when Floyd is healthy, dude really can mash, with better all-around skills then Jock ever dreamed of. Good pickup.

Sheez, 220 ABs for Casey, he's put in a full 1/3 of a big league season, after his regular minor league season. Give the dude some time off!

The Cubs aren't seriously considering using Pie in CF in 07, are they? He's not even close to being ready. Put Soriano in CF and keep Jones, why is that so difficult?

There are doubts about DeRosa and Izturis, and justifiably so, but Lou Piniella is no Dusty Baker. I am convinced that if Theriot picks up where he left off and looks good again, Lou will not hesitate in eventually letting him play over one of those two. It's not like the Cubs have a big $$ commitment to either guy, and in Izturis' case, it's just for this year. Personally, Izturis is the one that bothers me, not DeRosa. If you told me the Cubs DP combo would be Theriot and DeRosa, I think I'd be perfectly satisfied. And how do we know that Izturis will even physically be able to play come Opening Day? He was banged up pretty good last year.

Sisco pulled the same crap here in KC he did with the Cubs. When he struggled, he wouldn't listen to anybody, this guy thinks he's the cat's meow, he has a very serious atttitude problem. Royals decided they'd had enough. Rotoworld can get as snippy about it as they want, but the fact is right now at least, all Andy Sisco is worth is Ross Gload. I applaud the Royals for moving on.

John Mabry vs. Daryl Ward; Neifi Perez vs. Ryan Theriot. Combined, those two things have to be worth three or four extra wins over the course of a season, at a minimum. I think Ward may be the best bench player signing Hendry has made since he's been here. And at reasonable money for once, too. Good job.

Quick question Bruce: Adam Dunn or Andruw Jones, have the Cubs shown any interest, or are they not thinking that big at all? The Cubs have an awful lot of extra players at this point, a good half-dozen.

Can we trade Moore and Patterson to the Devil Rays for Kazmir while we're at it? The problem is that our minor league system just isn't very good right now, and we really don't have the prospects to trade for these players. If Jones or Wells were being shopped (which they're not), I guarantee their teams could get more than pitchers like Marshall or Marmol. Felix Pie isn't even among the 10 CF prospects on some lists, and he's our #1 prospect. Give Wilken a few years, and he'll fix what Stocksill broke. If you're claiming Murton, Marshall and Ohman would not be fair value for Dunn given his question marks, I would beg to differ. A lot of people like Marshall's upside, he's shown in brief stretches he can be a successful ML pitcher. Ohman is a quality LH relief specialist, every team needs one as do the Reds, while we happen to have three (if you include Rapada). And we all know what folks think of Murton.

Oh, we don't like it. You can rest assured on that. Why exactly is Hendry so enamored with him? That's what I don't understand. Izturis is just another in a long line of slick fielding/no hit SS's who come and go in this league, and are soon forgotten. I wasn't fond of his offensive output pre-injury. He's 2 years removed from that offensive output and may never match it again. The Cubs apparently feel they'll get enough offensive production from Soriano, Lee, Barrett, Ramirez and others that whatever Izturis gives them will be fine as long as he continues to play defense as he has in the past. This makes me so frustrated because if Hendry would use some ingenuity, there are significant bats out there that could be attained in trade. He has a lot of trading chips that some teams would value highly--young pitchers and a couple of available and interesting young position players (Moore, Patterson). And he has the $$ to help teams looking to clear payroll. Adam Dunn, Andruw Jones, Miguel Tejada, Pat Burrell (if he waives his NTC) and Vernon Wells are the impact bats potentially available in trade. Each of those teams, with the exception of Toronto, needs pitching. On the next level of production down, there's Ryan Church, Wily Mo Pena, Coco Crisp, Aaron Rowand, and Tampa's gazillion OF-ers. Each of those teams is looking for pitching help too. Myself, if Hendry doesn't want to go too far, I would like to at least acquire Church and use him in a CF platoon with Felix. That would take some of the pressure off Felix to perform, would improve the bench, and would not be expensive in terms of players. Sign Floyd if you must for the bench and to take some ABs from Murton (bad idea), spin Jones somewhere for peanuts, and give RF to Soriano. Done. My bold move would be the Church deal, skip Floyd, spin Jones, and send Matt Murton, Sean Marshall and Will Ohman to the Reds for Dunn, but that's just me, I'm permalocked on the Dunn bandwagon.

The Cubs have a closer if they'd just give him the job--his name is Michael Wuertz.

There's nothing in the trend line of Marcus Giles' numbers to get excited about--in fact, Atlanta's decision to run away screaming is probably the wise strategy. I don't want him.

This is a really dumb statement. Hirsh is a prospect, he didn't pitch for the Astros last year. Tavares is addition by subtraction, and Bucholz is a nobody. Conversely, they add Jennings, a major league 3/4 starter. A couple years down the road, this will likely be an awful deal for the Astros, but in 2007, it makes them marginally better. That makes our job harder, not easier.

No thanks on Jones. You'll never re-sign him and the Cubs would have to give up a fortune in players. Ditto for Tejada--I'd love to have him, but the Orioles as-always will ask for the moon in players. I'm resigned to Murton, Soriano and Jock in the OF for 07.

The D-Rays beat writer was on XM yesterday talking about possible moves, he stated pretty clearly that Tampa has no intention of moving Carl Crawford--zip, none, not gonna happen. He did indicate that Baldelli is possible, but (where have we heard this before) Tampa would have to be "overwhelmed" with talent to trade Rocco. These guys just don't seem to get it that they'll never improve their pitching if they don't use some of their excess hitters in trade. Upton, Dukes, Baldelli, Crawford, Gomes--there isn't room for all of them in Tampa. The Rays are stupid if they don't sell when the market is at its frothiest and get themselves some young pitchers that they desperately need.

Do the first shot at non-tenders go in reverse order of finish like with the amateur draft, or is it everyone has a shot first-come first-served? Because we're third-worst in 06, so I'd love a chance at Brendan Donnelly, Morgan Ensberg, Mark Hendrickson, or Omar Infante if any are up for grabs.

At this point, I think the Cubs should stick with Jock, put Soriano in CF where he has max value, and I guess that's the team. No way Pie is ready, he hit 260 with a sub-340 OBP in Iowa, that's not major league ready. At least Jones gives you HR power and some run production with his sub-340 OBP. Unless Hendry can spin some of our excess young pitching into a genuine corner OF like Dunn or Crawford or Burrell, I say to heck with it. And no, Baldelli is no great shakes, I see no reason to overpay for him.

Cubs need another bat before you can start talking playoffs, IMO. Can I start beating the Adam Dunn Drum again? (ducks)

1. Veal could be da bomb. 2. Gallagher--all he does is win. 3. Marmol. Kid is going to be the Cubs closer, and soon (2008?) 4. Gooz. Too talented not to make it. Here's a name for you: Early Wynn. HOF, 300 wins. He didn't figure it out until he was **30 YRS OLD**. Guzman has plenty of time, he'll be fine. 5. Billy Petrick. If he recovers fully, he will make it. Really like him. 6. Marshall. Weak upside. I'd trade him this year. 7. Mateo. Meh. 8. Ryu. He's young, but nothing I've seen is worth getting excited over. Too early/not enough info: Pawelek. I agree with Tim too, Samardzija could easily be #2 on my list if he goes with baseball. And don't forget the upcoming draft, Cubs will pick #3 and I'm 98% certain will get Brackman. Based on college performance alone, I'd put him #3 on the list above.

50,000 Basically, that means the Cubs broke even. $50,000 was what they had to pay Tampa Bay, so they're just getting their money back from the Reds. Consistent with the idea that they were really drafting him for the Reds in the first place. I'm sure there's a gentlemen's agreement in place that, at some time in the future, the Reds would do something similar for the Cubs if the situations are reversed. Otherwise, it would make no sense for the Cubs to help out a division rival without getting anything in return. Nope. I read elsewhere (no link) the Reds paid the Cubs $100,000 for Hamilton, so the Cubs netted $50K by doing this for them. Overall, the Cubs received a net $250K cash from the Rule 5 draft. That'll cover one week's worth of Alfonso-Mania! My quote was from a trib article, was just passing along what I saw. I guess they were wrong. Not hassling you, just correcting the info. I figured there had to be some reason the Cubs would do this other than just "doing a favor" for the Reds, turns out the reason was for 50 large.

I responded to you in the other thread Vance, but my answer is you're wrong. If, by some unfathomable turn of events, Mark Prior is healthy, he gets traded. Period. Buh-bye. The only reason he hasn't been traded to-date is because he's a broken-down bust.

3/28 for Marquis - the rest is mostly teeth gnashing. Not 3/20 as reported this morning? According to ChicagoSports.com, it's now 3/28. Which I think we all agree is a bad thing. And if Miller and Prior are healthy (yeah, I know big "if"), then Hill gets bumped from the rotation for Marquis. Wrong. If Prior is healthy, he gets traded. Book it.

Seriously, this is a firing offense for Hendry if I were the owner. Inexcusable. Are you flipping kidding me, $9MM/year for Jason Marquis? Wha??

yeah, this does not matter at all. Sure it does. I'm not trying to say Gordon's going to flame out Brooks Kieschnick style, but in the context of next season's offense he's far from a lock to put up great production. Look at Miguel Cabrera, his first full season of at bats(after putting up better numbers than Gordon in AA) was a little over an .800 OPS. Nothing terrible, but not that good for expected middle of the order production. I've seen Gordon. He's going to be better than Cabrera. Seriously. This kid is the real deal.

Really? Berroa and LaRue are black holes, Grudz isn't any good, Sweeney's coming off a subpar half season, Brown's a platoon player, and Gordon doesn't have a single MLB at bat. It's not a lock to be terrible, but it's nothing admirable really. Not sure how you could possibly say that, considering that he has done a pretty solid job for the Royals. I know that his OBP and OPS isn't glamourus, but it's sure a heck alot better than Neifi Perez when he was in KC. Looking at his stats, it seems that he is going to provide the Royals .290/.330/.400 type of numbers, and there's no reason not to believe that he'll won't put up those numbers this year. I think the organization value Grudz as more of a defensive player. His 2006 defensive numbers. 2B - 132 games, committed 4 errors for a .994 fielding percentage. SS - 4 games, committed 0 errors for a 1.000 fielding percentage. There is one thing I do agree with you TT, Berroa is terrible. It's too bad the Royals can't get rid of Berroa, because KC is one team we could likely trade Izturis to otherwise.

50,000 Basically, that means the Cubs broke even. $50,000 was what they had to pay Tampa Bay, so they're just getting their money back from the Reds. Consistent with the idea that they were really drafting him for the Reds in the first place. I'm sure there's a gentlemen's agreement in place that, at some time in the future, the Reds would do something similar for the Cubs if the situations are reversed. Otherwise, it would make no sense for the Cubs to help out a division rival without getting anything in return. Nope. I read elsewhere (no link) the Reds paid the Cubs $100,000 for Hamilton, so the Cubs netted $50K by doing this for them. Overall, the Cubs received a net $250K cash from the Rule 5 draft. That'll cover one week's worth of Alfonso-Mania!