dew1679666265
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Everything posted by dew1679666265
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There's no guarantee they'll contend next year, but if you hold a firesale you guarantee they won't compete next year. You also take the chance that Fielder and/or Wilson won't sign with the Cubs because they don't appear committed to winning after selling off their major league talent. I'd much rather hold onto guys like Byrd, Z, and others who have just one year left on their contracts, sign Fielder and Wilson and try to contend next year. If we don't, we can always trade those same guys at next year's deadline.
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Those aren't mutually exclusive ideas. Signing a 28 year old first baseman who's one of the best hitters in the game and a 31 year old pitcher who has less mileage on his arm than the vast majority of 30+ guys is building a longterm contender. Pick up those two fill in young stars like Castro and Soto and solid young players like Jackson, McNutt, Szczur, Whitenack, etc., coming up and you have the makings of an extremely good team going forward long term. And at the same time adding Fielder and Wilson gives us the tools to be competitive next year as well. Tearing the current team apart and eliminating any chance of contending for 2-3 years is pointless for a team that can win as soon as next year, while at the same time bringing in the pieces to be serious contenders long term.
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You have to weight the value Baker provides in his role vs what young player you can get for him. Just a couple years ago the Cubs got Baker and gave up A-ball reliever Al Albuquerque. Albuquerque has been really good this year, but if Baker's value on the market isn't better than an A-ball pitcher then he's more valuable to us on the team than traded. Baker has an .867 OPS this year against lefties and a .901 career OPS against lefties. Pair him up with Ryan Flaherty at third and it allows us to let Aramis go so that we can sign, say, Fielder and Wilson. There's a lot of value in that.
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So sign the 28 year old Fielder. The point is we can have that kind of superstar player again if we're willing to pay them and a combo of Fielder/Wilson without giving away Zambrano makes this team a contender in a really horrid division.
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There's no Lee or Soriano in their prime, but there could be Pujols or Fielder in his prime. That would be better than Lee or Soriano.
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I clearly was going off reputation and hadn't looked at his stats since well before the lockout began. I had no idea he had been that terrible when healthy the past few years. I still don't dislike the signing, though. Locker's almost certainly not ready to start the season and since the Titans most likely aren't going to be better than an average team this year it won't really matter if Hasselbeck isn't good/gets hurt. My preference of Hasselbeck over McNabb was primarily based on not having to trade anything (even though the Vikings didn't give much for Donovan) for Hasselbeck and the fact that Hasselbeck is a bit more suited to a pure west coast offense than McNabb. I also thought Hasselbeck had been better than he had . . .
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Baker can actually really help us next year, especially in a platoon at third if we don't bring Aramis back. I agree that saying what Hendry did and then appearing desperate to dump Z doesn't make any sense.
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Hasselbeck was easily the best option out there. With the lockout pushing everything back, the best move was probably to bring in a veteran QB to give Locker more time to learn the offense. Hasselbeck should actually be good if he can stay healthy.
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If we're talking about a platoon situation, why not bring Colvin back up and platoon him and Soriano? Sori's #s in limited sample against lefties this year: .297/.342/.541 with a .371 wOBA. Killing lefties for a while may serve to raise his value some and we can save more money in the offseason or at next year's deadline.
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These are good points and are the reasons I don't flat out oppose trading him if we're eating more than 50% of his salary. Maybe I'm simply putting too much stock into last season, but just a year ago he was a 3 WAR player and I'm not certain those days are behind him. A really cheap platoon could give us a 1.5-2 WAR if that's what Soriano is from this point on, but if he can give us 3+ WAR like last year, it's tough to pay almost his entire salary and get nothing in return simply to have him go away.
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I'm not so much excluding 2009 as pointing out that he was severely hampered by injuries. He really shouldn't have been playing at all and hasn't had that level of injury since. That season did happen, though, and considering he's also struggling pretty badly this season, it's a concern. I'm still not ready to say he's definitely a .730 OPS/1.5 WAR player as his baseline, though.
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Is a .730 OPS the baseline for what he's going to do going forward? Or is he going to rebound some and get back into the .800 OPS area he's been in each of the past 3 years (excluding 2009 since he was hurt the entire time)? He's clearly regressing and expecting a lower than .800 OPS is pretty safe. However, as streaky a hitter as he is, if we're going to trade him for no real prospects and pay 60+% of his remaining money, we might as well keep him and see if he gets on a hot streak and somebody bites in the offseason or next year's deadline.
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You wouldn't trade Soriano even if we ate 60%? That would save over $20 million over the next few years. The problem is, we'd have around $7 million extra over each of the next 3 years, but most (or all) of that would go into replacing him. There's not much in the minors or free agency that's going to be better than Soriano for the money we'd free up. That said, I wouldn't flat out oppose trading him at 60% value but I'd hesitate a lot.
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I don't think I'd trade either if I had to eat more than 50% of the remaining deal - certainly not Z, probably not Soriano. Really good prospects coming back would make it more palatable in the Z deal.
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Is it really hurting Carson to refuse to trade him though? By not trading him, you're basically telling an injury prone guy who could use a year off anyway to take a year to continue to rest and rehab and be even more fresh next year when he gets his wish anyway (officially retire and then return and I believe your contract is void). The Bengals, on the other hand, lose their (granted, aging) franchise QB for nothing when they could have dealt him for a 4th-5th round pick potentially.
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No reason they need to cut him until after August either, though. There's always the potential for an injury on another team and somebody may see something in Grabow they like. Cutting him now wouldn't be a bad thing, but I don't know that it'd help much, considering keeping him might mean we get something of marginal use for him, even if it's just a team picking up the remainder of his contract.
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Nice logic. They could get something of value potentially for Carson, but instead decide not to even shop him simply to spite him. Regardless of whether he's in the right or not, the Bengals are only hurting themselves here.
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I think Reed and Pena have good to very good chances of being traded. Somebody might give a PTBNL and cash or Grabow too, perhaps.
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I hadn't thought about it that way. My concern was after giving up McNutt, who would we have to cheaply fill the holes left by Dempster and Zambrano after next year? Ideally it'd be Cashner and Whitenack, but both players' injuries left that in doubt. Trading for Ubaldo and signing Wilson would solve that, though.
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They probably won't ever contend considering all those monster, bloated, never-ending contracts they have weighing them down.
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I tend to agree with you and don't necessarily disagree here. Babin did break out under Jim Washburn's tutelage, though, and he's the same guy who fixed Vanden Bosch off the scrap heap and he wasn't a flash in the pan (with Titans and Lions now). Washburn might have been able to fix Babin permanently.
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That'd be a lot more appealing to me. Not sure it'd be enough to make me prefer Ubaldo to Wilson, but it gets a lot closer. I'd like to be more comfortable about Whitenack and Cashner's progress from injury first, though.
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Can the starting pitching be fixed for 2012?
dew1679666265 replied to Fro's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I think the general idea is that we'll have somewhere around $35-45 million to spend after arb raises, etc. If we could get Fielder for $25 million and Wilson for $15, that falls right into the range of money we should have to spend. Wilson is 31, but he's largely been a reliever most of his career. He has less mileage than most 31 year old starters and should have a longer shelf life. -
Can the starting pitching be fixed for 2012?
dew1679666265 replied to Fro's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
In 2007 and 2008, Upton was worth 4.5 and 5.0 WAR. He dropped back to 2.3 in 2009, but was back up to 3.9 last year and has been worth 1.6 so far this year. He's a much better player than we can expect Jackson to be early on in his career. I'd prefer Kemp, but Upton would be a really interesting target. The problem is both he and Jackson are probably best suited to be CFs, so one would likely be playing out of position. -
Jimenez has been worth 8.8 WAR the past two seasons (6.3 and 2.5) while Wilson has been worth 8.2 (4.4 and 3.8). Is the difference between those two and between Flaherty/Baker and Aramis worth going from Brett Jackson in center to a Reed/Colvin platoon in right next year with Byrd in center? And then having to go out and spend on a 6th (maybe 5th) starter to replace McNutt? And then having to spend more FA money on the rotation and right field in two years? It'd make us better next year, but I think it would hurt us in the mid-term (2-4 years) because our best, closest prospects would be gone and we'd have to supplement with FAs until some of the lower minors guys were ready. If we could give some guys further from the majors, I'd be more open to it. Even still, Wilson's got less mileage and I think we'd be better overall with Wilson/Jackson/McNutt/Szczur/Flaherty/Baker than Ubaldo/Aramis/Reed/Colvin.