Sabermetrician

Let's get Kotsay then. Swisher, Bradley, Payton, Kotsay, Kielty...

The Dodgers are offering that, not the Braves.

what wrong with cedeno? Meh. After all this potential talk of free agents, going into next season with Walker/Cedeno as 2B/SS would be a bit of a letdown to me.

Once again Hendry focuses only on one guy and most likely has lost him. What's the backup plan? Re-sign Nomar? Good luck with that one after ignoring him since free agency started.

They can have him. My offseason plan called for Nomar over Furcal for one year anyway. Of course, it also called for a trade of Castillo and Bradley, and the signing of Giles. :cry:

No news is good news...

*waits for the CPatterson20 blurb about BABIP here*

Here is another thought... Would the Angels do it for Erstad? Would you? He makes $8.25M but he's entering the final year of his deal. I know we've talked about Erstad before and the majority thinks "he sucks," but he's a gold glover anywhere he plays and he will most likely get on base at a .320-.330 clip...which is just slighty below average, but if he were batting #8 would he really be all that bad? Our lineup could be: SS Furcal 2B Walker 1B Lee 3B Ramirez RF C Barrett LF Murton CF Erstad And if that RF is someone like Bradley or Wilkerson, that's not a bad lineup at all. It's not great but it's not awful either... Not saying I would do it, just something to consider. I think I value "expiring contracts" (NBA term) a lot more than other people, I think they're all low risk high reward because if they don't work out you can just use that money to sign someone else the next year.

I could've told you that since the first day of the offseason... Castillo/Bradley 1-2 is the way to go, with of course Giles at #4 :( and Nomar at #6 :(

I would do Patterson for Finley without the prospect if the Angels throw in the money to make the salaries even. I'll take my chances that Finley is better than Patterson next season. But, I think there are better options than Finley.

That will come in handy seeing as how the board's seemingly had some troubles lately. :(

That will come in handy seeing as how the board's seemingly had some troubles lately. :(

I've posted a possible Walker for Bradley proposal a couple of times this offseason. In fact, this was my lineup for the 2006 Cubs, before we made any moves: 2B Castillo CF Bradley 1B Lee 3B Ramirez RF Giles SS Garciaparra LF Murton C Barrett I think he'd be a great acquistion.

Restovich has absolutely brutal splits, which is why he can never stick with a ball club. It's very important for a pinch hitter and role player to have comparable splits, because they come to bat late in the game when either a lefty or righty could easily be replaced with the other. If your PH is an auto out against a RHP, for example, you needlessly burn a bench bat because of the switch. Which the Cubs can NOT afford to do, since they will likely go with a 12-man staff again this year. The bench is one man short to begin with, you can't further hamstring yourself with one of the bench guys unable to hit half the pitchers he'd face. You're right. I knew he was decent against lefties and just assumed he was at least okay against righties. I should have looked it up before I posted...

If all else fails, Green would be decent. Outside of Giles, he may be a better option than anyone else on the free agent market.

What's his contract look like?

They still have Heilman and Looper. I think the bp will be much improved. Omar is putting together a very solid team. Looper is a free agent I believe.

I think Mike Restovich, who was just released by Pittsburgh, would have been a great pickup for the Cubs. I'd rather have him than Mabry anyway and likely for half the price, but I'm not going to complain too much over a 4th outfielder.

Who knows. It's very possible that we'll look back at these signings at the end of the offseason and say they were great deals, that's not possible right now because no other free agents have signed yet.

Why not sign Rondell White for $2M instead? :lol:

Cubs will see the Cardinals after him and try to sign him themselves...

http://www.stephent.com/jays/sabr.html

Fixed. :)

Great find Vance. I love the last line. It about sums up Piere for me. Also pointed out in the article the fact that Piere has never hit over 30 doubles in a season or, somewhat more shocking seeing as he played in both Colorado and Flordia, never more than 35 combined doubles and triples. I don't know why people are concerned with Pierre's lack of power. We're talking about a slap hitting, speedy leadoff man. I don't buy into the whole "speedy" leadoff thing. I want someone who gets on base. He had a down year last year. The three years before that, his OBP went from .332 to .361 to .374. He'll only be 28 next year, so his best years are likely ahead. He had a down year in 2002, and recovered nicely the next two years. All he has to do is get on base in front of DLee and ARam. I like his speed because it helps negate the lack of power. He'll steal alot of bases, and be at 2nd anyways when they come up. And even if he doesn't, he can score from first on pretty much any double, and can score from 2nd on many singles, where other slower options would have to be a base further up. My only real concern with him is his caught stealing numbers. If you subtract the number of times he was caught stealing from his hits, and add his successful steals to his singles and make them doubles instead, it lowers his career OBP from .355 to .329, raises his slugging from .375 to .425, and raises his OPS from .731 to .755. I would rather he not steal bases unless he can improve on his success rate, maybe cut the number of times caught in half. In his defense, though, he did improve his success rate from 2004 to 2005, as it went from .654 to .770 (I think I saw an article somewhere that said .750 is the break even point, anything over that is pretty good). His career success rate is .743, without that awful 2004, he's .765. Does anyone recall if he was plagued by any injuries in 2004 that would have slowed him down? That year seems to be a bit of an anomaly as far as his stolen base success numbers goes. Anyways, if he could keep above a .350 OBP, I wouldn't mind him at the top of our order, regardless of his lack of power. If he could return to a .370+ OBP, I'd be thrilled. 27 is prime age. I don't expect Pierre to play as poorly as he did last year, but he'll likely never play at the level he did for the two seasons before last, either.

As a fan I'd take Bradley in an instant. As a GM, I would definitely evaluate these possible character issues very closely before actually making a move for Bradley. There's no doubt about it, Bradley would make an impact in any lineup. He sports a high OBP, has some pop, decent speed, he really could hit any spot in the batting order 1-8. Defensively, I'd say he's above average, getting good jumps and tracking down everything hit to him. So, Bradley would definitely be worth a look, but like I said I'd look more into it as a GM than I am as a fan. If I were Hendry, I'd call around asking some former players of Bradley what they think of him as a person before making a decision.