dew1679666265

Picking up Furcal would have been really nice.

I don't know either way, but I wonder what their trade value was at the time. I would think the three of them could have netted more, but Hendry has proven to be very good at not overpaying for players. It just makes me wonder. Hendry really really wanted a speedy leadoff hitter. His own personal valuation of the situation was clearly askew. Very possible. Even for guys he's really wanted, though, he generally hasn't traded a huge amount (didn't he hold out for a while to get Michael Barrett, even though he really liked him?).

I don't know either way, but I wonder what their trade value was at the time. I would think the three of them could have netted more, but Hendry has proven to be very good at not overpaying for players. It just makes me wonder.

Our payroll increased about $5.2 million from 2006 to 2007 ($94 mil to $99 mil). Our biggest payroll increase was 2008 to 2009 when we jumped from $118 to $134 mil. As for the spending spree of 2006, most of the signings were very good. The Ramirez deal was good and the DeRosa signing was very productive as well (and eventually netted us Gaub, Archer and Stevens). The Lilly signing was also very good. The Soriano deal has been decent enough so far, but he's significantly overpaid - especially going forward. The Ward and Floyd signings were pretty insignificant due to being (I believe) 1-year deals. And I'm not so sure we overpaid much, if at all, for Aramis. The cubs.com article (for what it's worth) was written as if the Cubs got a hometown discount and that's what I tend to remember as well. I could be remembering wrong, though.

Panther WR Steve Smith broke his arm during a flag football game.

I think the list of Hendry's accomplishments starts and ends with the Aramis trade. No way you can put this year's lack of production on him. I'm confused by this. Are you saying the Aramis trade is the only thing Hendry has done well? Or am I misunderstanding you?

The Cubs have definitely underperformed their payroll in the Hendry years overall, but his era certainly hasn't been some kind of awful mess. We're certainly not the only organization – or even the only good organization – that gives out bad contracts, overpays for relievers or underperforms at times. Though they have had their share of each.

What the Cubs will do and should do might be two different things. If they keep Silva and automatically give Wells a starting job over Gorz, it's not what they should do. Z and Dempster should be the only guys with guaranteed rotation spots next year. I'd hope we'd trade Silva in the offseason, slot Gorz into that spot and keep Wells in the rotation. We then have minor leaguers competing for the fifth spot. Even if we don't deal Silva, however, I'd rather keep Gorz and let him have the fifth starter spot over the minor leaguers instead of giving him up for less than peak value. Being in the bullpen or (preferably) the AAA rotation next year can still help both Cashner and Jackson and I'd rather let Diamond walk (if we have to) than trade Gorz for less than peak value in order to start Diamond.

Z doesn't fit this at all. He had three years of xFIPs in the 3-range (3.82, 3.88, 3.54) from 2003-2005. Since then his xFIPs have been 4.20, 4.62, 4.45, 4.27 and 4.26. He re-signed with the Cubs in 2008, the 4.45 xFIP year. Since signing, he's been about the same to a little better than the two years immediately preceeding the extension. Aramis is much the same way. Before re-signing with the Cubs, he had OPS' of .956, .921, .912 and .915. Since the 2007 extension – .898 and .905. A bit of a dropoff, but not huge In both cases, if the contract had been given out because of one amazing year, it would have been given out much earlier than it was. If anything, both of them got big contracts for consistently very good performance over a number of years. Soriano: As a Yankee: .824 OPS. As a Ranger: .814 OPS. As a National: .911 OPS (1 year). As a Cub: .840 OPS. Lee: As a Cub: .909 OPS. As a Marlin: .822 OPS. Both have been better as a Cub than anywhere else, with the exception of Soriano's breakout year with Washington (which he almost matched in Chicago with an .897 OPS). ARam has been better as a Cub than Pirate by a huge margin, but that would be expected. Z has only been a Cub. You make some good points in this, but a couple of issues: On point #2: The Cubs have been one of the least budget conscious teams since Hendry took over. They've consistently raised the budget anytime a player they felt could help was available. I do agree that they've misspent a lot of that budget, but until the past couple of years they really haven't been all that budget conscious. Also on point #2: The Red Sox rarely have the best player at every position. The Yankees come close because of their ridiculous payroll, but the Red Sox generally have good to very good players at every position, but not top players at each. Just this year, they have less than top 5 production at 2B, SS, RF, CF, LF and DH. Looking just at players, they have David Ortiz DHing, Marco Scutaro at SS, J.D. Drew in RF and Adrian Beltre at 3B. I doubt any of those guys, entering the year, would be considered top players at their position.

I don't know that Silva would bring much at the deadline either, but if he can continue any level of this success the rest of the season, I'd be stunned if he didn't garner a decent amount of interest at least. It's at that point he should be traded. That his trade value may have eroded some recently is all the more reason not to trade him. A player like Gorz should only be dealt if a team is offered the proverbial "deal they can't refuse." With him stuck in the pen, the best choice would be to hold on to him and find a spot in the rotation in the offseason (i.e. trade Silva).

I'd only trade Gorz for a significant deal. He's got too much value as a cheap, productive arm to trade him unless we just get bowled over by an offer. Like Tim said, it'd be much better to just deal Silva instead.

It might be worth a try, but I included Lee in the trade offer because he had originally tried to trade for Lee. I don't know if it's because he thought I'd be more willing to give up Lee or because he valued Lee more than the other two. For what it's worth, he turned down the Lee/Berkman for Gonzalez/Lind offer I countered with.

Kind of silly to talk about a "trio of outfielders" that doesn't include Colvin, since Colvin's got the highest OPS of them all. I don't think it's silly not to include him when he's got nearly 100 less PAs than any other outfielder. If one of our starting OFs were bad this year, I'd be much more in favor of starting Colvin over him and seeing if he can keep the production up in a full-time role. However, benching one of our most productive players for a guy who's had half the plate appearances (and has gotten much luckier than the rest) is not a sound strategy.

I could see Theriot's value being equal to or greater than Todd Walker's value when we traded him for Ceda. For whatever reason Walker was not valued highly around the league (defensive issues mainly, I think) and even though Theriot isn't as good, I think he's more highly thought of than Walker. I don't know if we'd get a DeRosa-type deal like O_O brought up, but somewhere between the Walker and DeRosa deals is realistic, I think.

Colvin could keep hitting exceptionally well, but the odds are much greater that Kosuke is the better player over the course of the season. Coupled with Kosuke's trade value likely dropping if he's benched, the right move is to stick with Kosuke. I'm all for getting Colvin as many ABs as possible, but I'm not in favor of benching the guys who are most likely to help us win this year. The trio of outfielders have been easily our best hitters this year (save for maybe Soto) and we shouldn't be benching any of them. The best way to get Colvin ABs is to let him hit for whoever needs a day off or whoever is struggling. Kosuke and Soriano have both proven to be streaky players, so giving Colvin more ABs when one of them is mired in an extended slump is fine. Outright benching any of them is not the solution, though.

I like that deal. As you said Wainwright is an improvement over Bucholz, so basically the deal is Kemp/Holliday for KRod/Phillips/Gardner/Manny/Beckett. The potential is there for Beckett to be the best player in that deal and Phillips/Manny could be similar to the power numbers of Kemp/Holliday.

I'd be stunned if we could get a guy like Schlereth. A little closer to what we could expect, I would think, is the Neifi to Detroit trade where we got Chris Robinson. We could probably expect a bit more than that as Theriot is cheaper, younger and better, but Schlereth is probably shooting too high. Or a better comparison might be Todd Walker for Jose Ceda. Walker was a better player than Theriot, but Theriot is younger and cheaper and, my guess would be, more valued around the league than Walker.

I do not understand the Kosuke hate. He's a nice trade piece and we need to treat him like one. this seems like a great situation, really. Boston needs a good OF and can handle Kosuke's contract with no problem. I imagine they have something decent we could get in return. And they may not want to wait to see if the price comes down, since there are 2 teams ahead of them in their conference, instead of just one. Given how unlikely it is that Kosuke completely tanks for the next month, this seems like a great time for Hendry to sit and hold his cards. Sasaki is in town as well and working with Kosuke and he usually heats up quite a bit after working with Sasaki.

In this case, that's a good thing.

I don't really remember Pierre doing much damage in the NLCS. .303/.343/.455/.797 So...meh. It was a decent improvement on his season stats that year, though. .305/.361/.373

I agree. There's some real talent on the 25 man roster, just not enough. The front office is on the hot seat as it is. The key there, though, is if we brought in an Ed Wade type, he could mire us in a truly long-term stretch of mediocrity. I trust Ricketts to make the decision, though, with his background/interest in stats. And too, if we replaced the 25 man roster, we'd be getting rid of Castro, Cashner and Marmol. I don't want to do that. :D

5.73 ERA - 1.55 WHIP - 4.59 xFIP - 9:5 K:BB Not much to like this year for Wuertz. Only 11 innings, though, so he must have been hurt or something. Ya, he missed the first 2 months or so. His last few years have been very good though. Yeah, he's been really good so those numbers really stuck out to me. That was before I saw the 11 innings, though.

5.73 ERA - 1.55 WHIP - 4.59 xFIP - 9:5 K:BB Not much to like this year for Wuertz. Only 11 innings, though, so he must have been hurt or something.

There was a lot of discussion about the "reliance on the farm system" quote before the season started, but I just don't see how it's an indication that he's going to decrease payroll.

Those good minor league players will eventually need to be paid, so relying on the farm doesn't necessarily mean decreasing payroll, just relying less on free agency. Here's something not directly answering your question, but close, I think: And this: