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TheDude

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Everything posted by TheDude

  1. TheDude
    I dunno. I didn't think they had much of a shot over both Philly and NY. But I guess it's fair to say they were in the conversation. Yeah, that was pre-season for 2008 (a bit early in the offseason for2 009 predictions :D ). If you go back and look at the pre-season predictions, many many many people had the Braves winning the East. Sorry, there wasn't any clear indication in your post you meant pre-2008, so I had assumed you were speaking in the present. And fwiw, anyone pre-2008 that had picked the Braves over the Mets or the Phillies was doing so on reputation, or else drinking. Nearly everything I can remember from the pre-2008 season had the East with two teams making the playoffs, with the other divisions being much weaker. I thought most had Mets and Phillies, but something in my brain tells me the Braves were the popular dark horse pick. I do remember Neyer writing something about the carry-over effect of a dozen (or whatever) division titles in a row by the Braves still impacting pre-season predictions. Especially since the year writers actually did write them off (was it 2005?), they still won it, surprising everyone, and this 'never underestimate the Braves' attitude seems to have forever permeated the baseball writing circles.
  2. TheDude
    You're placing a 72-90 team as a favorite for the playoffs next season. It isn't true now, and it wouldn't be true with Peavy. They would be a 'middling' team either way, to use your term.
  3. TheDude
    Suppose the Braves signed Furcal as the answer at SS (irony won't allow this, but it's hypothetical). Then they trade for Peavy. they make several quality budget moves. They are still behind the Phillies and the Mets in that Division. The point is this; if 'contender' is truly Peavy's motive to waive his NTC, the Braves still won't be the answer come April, even if they pulled off an A+ offseason. Meanwhile the Cubs don't have to do anything but trade for Peavy, and they are the favorite instantly.
  4. TheDude
    I'm really curious if this would fly if legally challenged. You have a motivated seller and buyer in agreement, and that usually trumps when taken to court.
  5. TheDude
    I'd have to say I'm pretty ok exchanging Marquis for Peavy in a rotation that had the 2nd best ERA in baseball last year (and highest K rate, and lowest BA against). Zambrano, Peavy, Harden, re-signed Dempster, and Lilly? Holy mother of god puss puss.
  6. TheDude
    You should have reflected your second statement in your first. It's more accurate to say that Hendry strayed from his roots with regards to OBP because of Dusty, and has since returned to center and even moved right with Lou. But it's not like Hendry as baseball person was oblivious to OBP pre-Lou. His biggest mistake was starting his GM career with Dusty.
  7. TheDude
    I can't see replacing Fukudome with someone that had worse 2008 production on the hope he breaks out. If you put Hermida in RF, and slide Fukudome over to CF, then what have you gained over Pie in CF and Fukudome in RF? Either way the team is banking on a 24 year old breakout season. If you're going to roll the dice, why not just use what you have and not give up cheap assets to move laterally.
  8. TheDude
    I really hate this line. Either the GM utilizes his resources correctly, or he doesn't. There have been plenty of 'expensive' teams that are not playoffs teams over the last 10 years. If you believe he has correctly utilized his budget when acquiring talent, then you can't come to the conclusion that he's not a good baseball man and just fortunate. If you believe he has poorly utilized his budget when acquiring talent, then it seems reasonable to question his baseball talent evaluation skills, but then you have to do an adequate job explaining how a consensus elite and deep team is merely a fortunate team. It is a tough argument to sell that he is a poor GM coming off a 97 win season in which the team had an elite offense (2nd in MLB Runs, 3rd in MLB OPS), an elite pitching staff (3rd in MLB Runs Allowed, 3rd in MLB OPS Against), and a middle-of-the-pack defense. And it is very much the same team from 2007, and likely the same team in 2009 which will be projected as the 90+ Win division holder once again.
  9. TheDude
    I think you're math is off by about 6 million. I'll assume it was 130 at season's end, as you mentioned. You say they lose Howry, Eyre, Lieber, Edmonds, Ward, Dempster, Wood and Blanco, then mention payroll still at 120 after the Harden option...which implies all these players combined added up to 17 million. But that collection of players is ~ 21 million. Plus the team can drop the millions from 2008 buyout numbers (such as Jones). After the Harden option, I think the number is around 214 rather 220, unless 2009 buyout number push it up.
  10. TheDude
    What are you defining as the 'problems'? 97 wins?
  11. TheDude
    You want one of the only NL RFs that had a worse OPS than Fukudome? Why bother when you have Fukudome? Yes Hermida is only 24 (a significant advantage over Fukudome), but he also costs talent to acquire, for a net result of a short-term lateral move. The Cubs aren't going to do this, they want to win now.
  12. TheDude
    Anyone have numbers on Fukudome's returns? I know a lot of people are down on him for his production vs. salary and want to dump him (which isn't going to happen and is quite reactionary), but I'm curious if an attempted cost differential is out there speculating on his actual cost after new revenue streams are considered.
  13. TheDude
    and that's exactly the way it should. I would be very happy with this, as long as there was say 1 substantial addition. We need either a star bat that we can count on for the number 3 spot, or else a mindless power bat for the 4 spot and move Ramirez to the 3. I dont think Lee is washed up, but he should be a 5 or 6 hitter, as he always should have been. he had that insane 2005, but other than that, what we got from him this year is more of what he has been throughout his career. I said this last offseason and I still believe it - Lee is a 2-hole at this stage in his career. He is still one of best on the team at working counts. He still gets on base. He's a smart runner. He should be a solid hit-and-run hitter with his ability to spray singles to all fields, which has relevance in the NL on a Piniella managed team (even if it disagrees with anyone's personal philosophy). I want to see Lee move up in the order, not down.
  14. TheDude
    So now is the time for symmetry. The Cubs were up 3-0 in the 8th inning at home in an elimination game...
  15. TheDude
    This is an awful idea.
  16. TheDude
    wrong. look up his career numbers...he's hit a number of good pitchers very well...sabathia, smoltz, glavine, k escobar, carpenter, mulder, maholm, etc. The least you can do is read. This is not my opinion. As stated clearly in the post, this is what the so-called analysts say about Soriano. And their commentary is in the context of the post-season, not career numbers. My personal opinion is that they are right some of the time, and in the context of the post-season, most of the time. Last night he proved them correct. I'm not certain he was thrown a pitch in the strike zone all night, as even the pitches he took were borderline pitches called strikes by the home blue. With Soriano, he will take the first pitch if it's a breaking pitch. If it's a strike, espea questionable strike, then he expands the strike zone from toe-to-shoulder. That's just who he is. It's up to Soriano at this point or simply a different umpire. He could change nothing tonight, have that first borderline breaking pitch get called a ball, exhibit more patience based on the first call, then hammer then 2-0 fastball for an extra base hit. We've all seen that Soriano also.
  17. TheDude
    Every 'analyst' that also happens to be a former pitcher has said the same thing. Soriano is not a threat against a good pitcher. They throw him breaking pitches until he stops swinging - and everyone knows he isn't going to stop swinging.
  18. TheDude
    This is all I can do, ask this question over and over. Discarding the supernatural, I cannot for the life of me figure out how Loney's ball reached the seats when Edmonds' ball did not. Edmonds had much better contact and it looked like he hit the ball much harder than Loney. If Edmond's ball died at the wall, Loney's should have been a lazy 350' fly out to CF. At the moment of contact, I actually jumped up in celebration, because there was no way that Loney ball was HR and I thought Demp got out of it. I just don't get it, and I don't think I can stop obsessing about it until the next game starts.
  19. TheDude
    Wtf happened? Just tuned in.
  20. TheDude
    So I checked in only briefly every inning or so...was Harden getting squeezed or just that wild? Seems like every time I glanced at ESPNs gamecast strike zone with Harden on the mound there was a fat green 'ball' inside the strike zone lines. Maybe it was just ESPNs zone.
  21. TheDude
    Sweet. Back-to-back no-hitters!
  22. TheDude
    It should be pointed out that during this 5 game losing streak, the Cubs have had 60 base-runners just counting Hits + Walks. The offense has struggled to score Runs, and the two shutouts looked especially bad, but the team's OBP has remained constant overall. This streak is just a combination of diminished performance by the staff, the inability to score the when the lead-off gets on base, bad luck, and bad breaks.
  23. TheDude
    I wonder if they even knew he was this good until he went to the Cubs? Yes. Gammons specifically, but several of the bloggers as well, have consistently rated Harden as among the best pitchers in baseball when healthy. These analysts rarely settle definitively on a "best", they often use phrases like "may be the best pitcher", and then add some other qualifiers. Gammons likes to use the phrase, "the best pitcher you've never heard of" when talking about Harden. But I've read Harden-love numerous times from the ESPN baseball team long before he was a Cub.
  24. TheDude
    Out of curiosity, does that mean the Cubs have actually played under their pythag record for the year?
  25. TheDude
    My apologies on Harden. That was typo, I meant Haren. Haren is more or less in the same boat as Dempster as far as Cy Young goes, but not ahead of him. And my sentiment on Zambrano goes back to previous threads where numerous people cited Zambrano as the Cubs MVP for 2008 so far. Of coarse, they may have been before his last two starts, where he has fallen behind Dempster after giving up 14 ERs in 10 Innings. The point is moot. Most agree Webb is the favorite and Dempster has to kill in his last 7 starts to get his name in the mix.
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