SouthSideRyan

He's almost certainly going to be completely unproductive by his age 37 season, so I'd rather spread the ~$6 million over two years than have him take up a roster spot and/or be $6 million of deadweight all in one year. In reality, however, I wouldn't give him a 3-year deal or $10 mil a year. You always take 3/20 over 2/20. I don't care what he's worth in his age 37 season, you budget appropriately.

What kind of prospects are we looking at getting back in this Soriano trade? In this scenario, we'd be paying $40 million of the $60 million remaining on his deal, so I'd want to get something of value back. I'm more of a Kosuke fan than most on this board, but I'm not sure he'll be all that valuable when he's signed for just under $7 mil a year through his age 37 season. If we got a modest return for Soriano and you could decrease Kosuke's deal to, say, 2/$20, I'd probably take option B. If we could decrease his deal by a year for the same total dollars??

They're not automatons either. Folks act like a guy dogging it has no impact on the rest of the team, as if they're impervious to basic human nature. They're not 8 year old little leaguers.

If we sign Pujols or Fielder, absolutely.

Where did the Ramirez talking point even come from? Is it all still carryover from Pittsburgh when he was playing on a broken [expletive] ankle?

These 2 statements don't seem to go together. I have no idea how you could come up with even a guesstimate of 20-30 bases. That's a base every 20-30 innings.

I don't know how many times it needs to be said that they're not 8 year old little leaguers, but they're not 8 year old little leaguers.

Who said Amaro was an idiot?

Jokisch and Searle aren't garbage. Harman was ridiculous at Peoria as a reliever, this is just his 3rd start at Daytona.

So he can put his own personal achievements over the good of the team, and possibly cost them the pennant by playing himself and betting against them?

Yikes. The Kool-Aid stand is open early this year. SOMEBODY TAKE THE SHOT. I HOPE HE SKIPS THE KOOL-AID AND GOES RIGHT FOR THE CYANIDE

GROOOOOOAAAAAAANNNNNNNN

As I said earlier, you could say the same thing about Soriano in '07 and '08.

Do you think Amaro pumps out 90 win season after 90 win season without the massive payroll?

I was thinking of Vernon Wells and his horrendous contract.

No idea how that moron keeps his job. Assuming the plan was to let Aramis walk at the end of the year, Id definitely take Morel in a trade for him despite his offensive struggles in the bigs, but I dont see why we want broken down Jake Peavy over Matt Garza. Ramirez's value is a lot higher than Brent Morel.

Are you saying you'd rather have "reasonable" contracts no no WS wins? Yes. That is exactly what I said. Sorry, I phrased that incorrectly. You're saying that even if the Cubs won 5 world series' within a decade, you'd be still be bitching about 1 bad contract on the team. No. The point is obviously the end goal is to win the world series, but the same way a world series winning manager isn't automatically good, neither is a world series winning GM, and when you're looking to hire either you don't simply look at what their end results were. Kenny Williams trading Carlos Lee for Scott Podsednik doesn't automatically become a smart move because the White Sox won a world series. Garagiola Jr putting the D-Backs in severe debt doesn't become intelligent because Mariano Rivera blew a save in game 7. The fact that Gillick's protege in Philly thought that contract for Howard was a good idea is something to be concerned about when talking about Gillick. Gooney makes a good point that it hasn't hamstrung them, but the fact that they have a payroll pushing 170M isn't hurting them either. It's a bit of chicken or egg: Did the success of the Phillies lead to the 170M payroll, or is their success a byproduct of said payroll. I'm not trying to argue that Hendry is a better GM than Amaro, or that Gillick will be a failure, but that Howard contract is certainly an eyesore.

There was so much wrong with the Morris trade, even beyond the fact that he was toast. They give up an actual body for him in Rajai Davis. Granted it was just Rajai Davis, but he certainly had a place on the Pirates at the time, judging by the fact that he's still active now(albeit, terrible offensively) They gave up their 9th round draft pick from the prior year's draft. Again, the caveat that Pirates drafts were abysmal back then, and the guy was in Indy ball a year later, but still. They just drafted Daniel [expletive] Moskos as their first round draft pick because they couldn't afford Matt Wieters. They follow this up a month later by trading for Matt Morris and his 10M yearly salary.

LaHair would almost certainly be a downgrade defensively and is in AAA for his fifth and a half season.

Until this past offseason. And even then, I'm not so sure.

Who are we replacing Soriano with now?

You're gonna love when you find out who was the 1 player of those 5 to amount to anything. (What a mess of a sentence) And how the Pirates re-acquired him at their normal trade deadline dump that same year. (despite him doing nothing all season at the major league level. Only to trade him away later for a guy they'd non-tender a month after acquiring him. Sorry Jake. Heh, just saw this after my previous post. Yeah, we still talk about this. It's hard to find fault with them for trading him away. (The return on the other hand??) But re-acquiring him the same year he wasn't even good enough for your 40 man roster after he had proven nothing?? Just bizarre. (Which I guess sums up the Littlefield regime.)

It amazes me how many people are begging for the day they let him go, as well as all the reports that he is as good as gone next season. If he walks, they will have to spend just as much money to get back to where they are today, let alone add another stud. Agreed. We had 1 season of decent 3B play between Santo and Aramis (Madlock) and people are ready to ship Aramis anywhere. 3B in baseball is a giant pile of crap right now. With so many other holes on this team, might as well ride Aramis as long as possible. What do you consider decent? Maybe not great, but I'd think the following were all at least decent. 1983 - Cey 658 PAs , .805 OPS, 118 OPS+ 1986 - Cey 306 PAs, .891 OPS, 138 OPS+ Lopes 191 PAs, .908 OPS, 144 OPS+ Trillo 172 PAs, .740 OPS, 99 OPS+ 1993 - Buechelle 520 PAs, .782 OPS 110 OPS+ Plus quite a few years where the 3B had OPS+ over 100. Again, I'm in no way saying these were great seasons (although the 86 team had really good output from 3B), but they weren't crap either. As a side note, in looking at B-R for these numbers, when I saw the batting stats from 1993 I was surprised they were a 4th place team, granted they did win 84 games. Then I saw their pitching stats for that season. How did they finish over .500 when their best starter was Greg Hibbard, with the 100 ERA+ and 1.340 WHiP. Their best starter!? Shouldn't pretty much every 3B in MLB have an OPS+ over 100 when accounting for all of the terrible offensive players at SS, 2B, and C, at least theoretically? Besides that 1986 platoon, which was good, the others are still pretty bad production wise for 3B, historically an above average offensive position. I know you were talking historically, but it's a sorry, sorry lot this season. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=3b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=180&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=2011&ind=0

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_p8y4rLrBXtQ/TDlOmsexIjI/AAAAAAAAAh4/1X8NcR1FY-M/s400/baghdad-bob.jpg

-19.8 UZR/150 -16 DRS Both are worst in MLB. Fangraphs has him at 0.1 WAR and B-Ref has him at -0.5. Weren't Luhnow/Mozeliak supposed to be big on numbers and low on grit?