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I was a Dunn supporter in the offseason, but keep in mind you have to weigh his offensive production with his awful outfield defense. That defense negates at least some of his value offensively. milton bradley is a pretty poor defender too. at least dunn isn't hobbling around out there and wouldn't make us hold our breath every time he has to use his legs As SSR said, Bradley is actually an above average right fielder defensively. His UZR is 13.2 in RF (11.7 UZR/150). Dunn in right field in his career is a -15.0 UZR defender (-41.8 UZR/150). This season so far Dunn is at -11.6 UZR, Bradley is at -1.6. Fielding metrics aren't flawless by any means, but that's a pretty huge difference between the two - enough to make up for any inaccuracies. I'll agree with the durability issue - and that's one of the biggest reasons I supported Dunn (and I didn't think Bradley would be significantly better offensively minus defense).

This is way people need to stop using the "win/loss" as a stat to evaluate a player's ability. Too many uncontrollable variables happen. The bottom line is that while in Denver when the Broncos' "D" played halfway leage average, Cutler was easily one of the game's best QB's without question. It was those games in which that same D played crappy that Cutler had to go outside of his game to keep his team in the game. If the Bears "D" is even half as good as the D that took the Bears to the Super Bowl a couple of yrs back, and the Bears are battling the Eagles as the best team in the NFC. Exactly. Cutler is better than his record would indicate because he had a horrible defense blowing the leads he would build (or putting the team in a deficit he'd have to fight out of). Collins, for instance, is worse than his record would indicate because the Titans win games because of defense and Chris Johnson. If the point is to evaluate the production level of an individual, you should look at what that individual has some control over. In football no one player can win or lose a game and therefore shouldn't get the credit for winning/losing. Only for how well he does in pursuit of a win.

His June numbers have actually not been that out of line with the rest of his months. If anything, he's hit the ball better in April than most months. For Lee, I think, injuries may be the only thing that keeps him from being productive. He started off very slowly this year and he had a neck issue. Once that healed, he started producing at a high rate - and still is. If he can remain healthy the rest of the way (risky proposition, I understand), I think a good midway point between the last two years (maybe roughly an .840-.860 OPS) is a reasonable expectation.

I don't know if they can use that tact with a guy like Branyan. He's a very nice bench player, but he's not that unique for them to force us to take on a bad contract with him. If it came down to it, though, I might take one of Batista or Washburn if it helped us get Branyan for next to nothing. That's if we can afford to take on $9-10 million this year.

I was a Dunn supporter in the offseason, but keep in mind you have to weigh his offensive production with his awful outfield defense. That defense negates at least some of his value offensively.

After 2007 would have been perfect For straight value, sure. But it would have also left the Cubs with a huge hole at 1B in 2008 (at least what would reasonably be expected to be a huge hole). You don't trade away one of your key hitters (which Lee was still at the time) when you have absolutely no idea how you're going to replace him, even if you do think he will decline and not be worth his contract. By the time the Cubs knew they had a potential fill in there, his 10/5 rights would have already kicked in. A - it was more of a "hindsight being 20/20" post B - but I don't think his 10/5 rights kicked in until after last season, so they could have traded him before 7/31 of last year too. Now, this all assumes there's someone willing to take his contract, which might not be reasonable. I don't really know. But I would have liked to see him dealth in '07. And I don't particularly want Hoff to be the starting 1B and I sure didn't want it in '07. But there are a ton of good-to-great 1B out there. Finding one in a trade or FA that has a better contract than Lee couldn't be that difficult. It's hard not to be in favor of getting the kind of haul we likely could have for Lee when he was at his peak, but there was just never really a good time to deal him. Before this season would have been best (especially when we thought Bradley would give us significantly better production than Lee) but that wasn't an option - both because of the NTC and the 10/5 rights. Judging from what we knew at the time, there was never really a good option if we traded Lee. We would have been forced to include a first baseman in any trade we made and that would have limited what we could have gotten for him.

A quarterback's win/loss record is a useless stat in probably 100% of the situations. Consider that going off of QB W/L from last year, Kerry Collins was one of the top 2-3 QBs in the league. I love Kerry, but that's silly. By the way, I'm not directing this at you Banedon. Just commenting on the fascination overall with the stat.

The loss of Wilford and his 3 catches last year would be huge. Allen's a former first rounder who's never been able to find a set position in a mediocre secondary thas has had injury issues. He's played okay in stretches, but it'd be even harder for him to fit in now, considering the dolphins just signed a safety and a corner, then drafted two corners (in the first two rounds) and a safety. Yeah, I had high hopes for Allen when he was drafted. He was a very good player at Tennessee until he got hurt and before the injury he showed terrific athleticism. It was generally accepted (and I tended to agree) that he could be a top 10 pick if he hadn't gotten hurt. I wonder what happened to him.

Yeah, Scales isn't even getting on base right now. It could be Scales, but that leaves Fox or Blanco to go down for Freel. Unless they either DFA Freel or cut Patton.

That's more math than I was willing to do.

Yeah, Lee got off to a bad start perhaps because of his neck issues. If he can stay healthy the rest of the year, I think he can have a good year. If he stays healthy, that is. As for Hoff, I would platoon him in right with Reed while Bradley's out, but Lou doesn't like his defense so he'll play out there less. Fox is performing the role now that he will long term if he remains a Cub - right handed power bat off the bench. His defense just isn't good enough to play a position regularly.

I'd think Blanco is a near certainty to go down when Miles comes off the DL - Blanco came up to replace him as the backup SS. I'm not sure about Freel. Probably Fox.

Well, he tries to. He's much like Aaron Miles in that sense. True, he's not much worse than Miles at it, though. Plus he'll likely hit better than Miles.

If Betemit gave us his 2007 numbers (.333 OBP and .454 SLG), he'd probably be better. But that's unlikely and it's why I'd only have an interest if he was very cheap.

True, but neither have been good this year and that's part of why people are clamoring for a trade (guys who have had success recently not having success now - Fontenot, Bradley, etc). I guess while Atkins has a much higher upside, Betemit has no risk. Worst case scenerio we try him for a bit, and if it doesnt work out, send him on his merry way. Both have the upside of an .800+ OPS. I'd say Atkins might be a bit more likely to reach that, though again, both have struggled a lot this year. Betemit plays positions we need more depth at, though - SS and 2B. When the alternative is Bobby Scales, I cant imagine not taking the risk on Betemit, at least in the short term. Granted he wont place Aramis, but might be an upgrade over what we have. I'm not completely advocating Betemit - I'd only be interested if he came super cheap. I still want Branyan if we make a move.

True, but neither have been good this year and that's part of why people are clamoring for a trade (guys who have had success recently not having success now - Fontenot, Bradley, etc). I guess while Atkins has a much higher upside, Betemit has no risk. Worst case scenerio we try him for a bit, and if it doesnt work out, send him on his merry way. Both have the upside of an .800+ OPS. I'd say Atkins might be a bit more likely to reach that, though again, both have struggled a lot this year. Betemit plays positions we need more depth at, though - SS and 2B.

After 2007 would have been perfect For straight value, sure. But it would have also left the Cubs with a huge hole at 1B in 2008 (at least what would reasonably be expected to be a huge hole). You don't trade away one of your key hitters (which Lee was still at the time) when you have absolutely no idea how you're going to replace him, even if you do think he will decline and not be worth his contract. By the time the Cubs knew they had a potential fill in there, his 10/5 rights would have already kicked in. Yeah, it's really hard for a playoff team to trade a 31 year old guy who just posted a .913 OPS when there's no successor waiting in the wings. Hoff had just OPSd .917 the year before, but that was after an .852 in 2006 and .663 in 2005. 2007 was also Hoff's only year above a .900 OPS in the minors up to that point. Hoffpauir also had a severe knee injury that ended his season in 2007, and of course that .917 was in the severely hitter friendly PCL. He had been just starting to get a chance at a bench job when he got hurt..he certainly wasn't close yet to being an option for the starting job. The only real good option at that point would have been to make sure we got a young, MLB ready first baseman in the trade. And that kind of limits our options to get the best deal possible.

After 2007 would have been perfect For straight value, sure. But it would have also left the Cubs with a huge hole at 1B in 2008 (at least what would reasonably be expected to be a huge hole). You don't trade away one of your key hitters (which Lee was still at the time) when you have absolutely no idea how you're going to replace him, even if you do think he will decline and not be worth his contract. By the time the Cubs knew they had a potential fill in there, his 10/5 rights would have already kicked in. Yeah, it's really hard for a playoff team to trade a 31 year old guy who just posted a .913 OPS when there's no successor waiting in the wings. Hoff had just OPSd .917 the year before, but that was after an .852 in 2006 and .663 in 2005. 2007 was also Hoff's only year above a .900 OPS in the minors up to that point.

I'm no Mort fan, and these early summer practices don't really tell you much, but this is what I'm expecting out of the receivers. I've had my differences with Angelo's decisions, but he's absolutely right when he talks about it starting with the QB. Everybody loves Brandon Marshall, but he was a 4th rounder. You think Brandon Marshall would be Brandon Marshall if he was drafted in the 4th round by the Bears in 2006? I sure don't. Do you think Eddie Royal comes close to the rookie season he had if he's playing for the Bears last year? A QB absolutely can make a WR. I agree, and far more often than a WR can make a QB. I can only think of one obvious example of that... Moss and Culpepper. That was a little different situation as Culpepper had Moss and Cris Carter. One of us could probably look better than bad with those two catching passes.

Holliday in left and Soriano at second would make more sense than Fox at third, but no, ultimately I don't want that. Much like with Fox, I think the severe downgrade defensively would mostly overcome whatever offensive gains we would make. Plus, I think Holliday will be rather expensive prospect-wise. Yeah, with 5+ teams interested he won't be cheap. Aren't we also talking about a significant downgrade in left if we replace Soriano with Holiday? We need to get Colin Wyers in here to tell us that we'd be better off with a lineup full of Joey Gathrights than our lineup as currently constructed. According to UZR, Holliday is actually a better defender in left than Soriano. Holliday put up a 9.1 UZR last year and is posting a 4.6 UZR so far this season. Soriano is at -2.5 this year and was at 2.5 last year. For their careers, Soriano has a 26.5 UZR and Holliday has a 31.3 UZR. Sori to second is a different story, though.

not a free agent signing. But a bad free agent re-signing. The NTC is killing us It was a midseason extension... but you're still right about the NTC. If anything that should serve as a reminder to rethink the option of tossing out a NTC like it's the extra change you dump in the "Save [insert childs name] Foundation" at the gas station When did you want to trade DLee? Because he's got 10/5 rights now as well - which make the NTC basically meaningless.

How bout, Huntington's an idiot, he values tools goofs like Gorkys Hernandez and guys who throw hard and can't control it like the A-ball guy. What constitutes more depends on what the individual values. When Dave Littlefield traded Rajai Davis for Matt Morris and his awful contract could he not gotten more for Rajai Davis.(Yes, he could've just released him) When Jim Duquette(Or Jeff Wilpon or Rick Peterson or Al Leiter or whoever pushed that trade through) traded Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano, was that the best deal he could get for Kazmir, or did whoever pushed for the trade irrationally overvalue Victor Zambrano/irrationally hate Kazmir. Look let's say Huntington sold McLouth for the baseball equivalent of $1. It's been suggested in this thread that some other team would've gladly offered him more than $1, which strikes me as foolish and naive. There's no need to argue whether the actual players involved are actually worth $2 or 2 cents. The Pirates rated them at $1, and more to the point, they didn't have another offer over $1 out there, or else they would've taken it. What if they didn't explore enough to find out if there was a $2 offer to be given?

That's actually an .887 OPS . . . :wink: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/blausje01.shtml?redir BBR probably rounded either the SLG or the OBP up a little :wink: It's funny that it worked out that way considering the way I phrased it, though. Math error at baseballreference perhaps? :) Not that it matters. You're probably right that it was a rounding issue.

True, but neither have been good this year and that's part of why people are clamoring for a trade (guys who have had success recently not having success now - Fontenot, Bradley, etc).

Can you imagine Ozzie and Zambrano together? It might be worth it for the comedic value alone. i would be up for a straight trade of Z to the White Sox, that trade is silly because if they are going to give up that package they would want peavy not Z Peavy turned down a trade to the White Sox, so them acquiring him is not an option. I also wouldn't trade Z for that package. One big problem with the trade as the Goat Riders listed it, though, is that Lance Broadway is no longer in Chicago. He was dealt to the Mets a week or so ago.