SouthSideRyan

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?

This doesn't Sitwell with me.

Well that's just not true, even if Quade was still the manager this offseason, which he almost certainly won't be.

Yep, I'm a huge Ryno as manager detractor, but I'm not so sure he wouldn't have been better in a vacuum. (He'd probably get a 2nd season though, so it was best we hired Quade to get him out of the way.)

TSpain is laughing maniacally in your general direction.

Personally, I'd fire Quade. Me too, not sure what WSR is thinking.

Oy veh He's just confused because Jackson's baseballreference page says he was born in West Germany. He'll back off when he realizes he's not white.

I'd fire him tonight.

The Cubs were surviving Soriano's contract in '08 too. Gillick earned the Stand Pat nickname well before Philly, it may have even been back in Toronto.

He retired a year and a half before that contract was signed. It was his hand-chosen successor though.

Agreed, I think the best course of action is to pick up the option and worry about 2013 when you get there. The FA class is much better, and hopefully Flaherty/Vitters/DJL can provide a capable backup plan.

If only I knew how awkward.

I blame whoever it was who pointed out how well he had been doing since June. Since April.

Ortiz is in the pen. Dempster-Z-Garza-Wells-Lopez is the rotation.

I don't know about the others off the top of my head (though I believe Brownlie was only as low as he was due to signability), but arguing that the Cubs should've known to take Jason Heyward ahead of Josh Vitters is nonsense. After searching through this site, I guess it's not as outlandish as I remembered. Maybe because it was always Vitters or Wieters, but I didn't recall hearing Heyward's name mentioned much as a top 5 choice.

I wouldn't be shocked if you could find that list through BRs Draft tool. Either way, it's fun to mess with. http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?query_type=franch_year&team_ID=CHC&year_ID=active&draft_type=junreg&

I don't know about the others off the top of my head (though I believe Brownlie was only as low as he was due to signability), but arguing that the Cubs should've known to take Jason Heyward ahead of Josh Vitters is nonsense.

DREW BREES WANTED TO SIGN WITH NEW ORLEANS TO INSPIRE THE CITY AND REBUILD AFTER KATRINA HE WOULDN'T DO THIS TO ME

Sneaky thinks signing Lou Montanez was the steal of the offseason by the Cubs.

Being out for the year (or should've been out for the year) vs. the continued nagging injuries he's had in '10 and '11 are 2 different things. 2 wins a year certainly hurts at 18M, but it does mean he has some value, and if we have to eat the majority of his contract as we all assume, it makes it difficult to replace that on the free market. I think it's a mistake to assume Soriano won't get any worse going forward. Right. And why would we even need to go on the open market to replace Soriano? Colvin could play put up a .744 OPS with an OBP under .300 for the league minimum. I don't think he could.

So we're gonna ignore all context here that he was a closer in college being transitioned into a reliever. You really think it's a fair comparison to count inning totals for 3+ seasons (that being a month and a half after being drafted, a full season as a starter, 1/3 a season as a starter, 2/3 of a season as a starter, and 1 start as a starter) This isn't the first time you've claimed he's a 4-5 inning pitcher as a starter. This still doesn't make it accurate. He was averaging just over 6 innings as a starter just last year before being moved to the pen.