dew1679666265

That's actually an .887 OPS . . . :wink:

Aurilia yes, Atkins, no. Granted hes been on the steady decline since his breakout 2006, but hes was very good in '07 and solid in '08. I cant see him continuing to be this bad this year. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they spent the offseason trying to dump him and give his job to someone else. Wed probably end up splitting the remainder of his 7 million dollar salary, but surely we could afford that rather than giving up more valuable prospects for a rent a player. The problem with Atkins is when Aram comes back he has nowhere to play. A guy like Betemit when Aram comes back can play SS and 2nd base, meaning goodbye Miles and or Freel. Atkins plays 3rd and 1st thats it, and makes alot of money for a guy we would be hoping to do something. Betemit comes cheap, and has OPS'd over .800 against RH pitching for the last 3 years combined. Betemit just makes too much sense. THe thing about Betemit is yes, he could go back to being decent, but he could just as easily be another Miles/Freel/Scales/Blanco, and at this point, we really need something better. I still say Jim should at least inquire about Branyan if he hasnt already. That's the same case with Atkins, but at least Betemit can play SS and second base, thus lessening the impact of Aaron Miles. Branyan is still a far better option, though.

The Dolphins are considering the option of cutting S/CB Jason Allen and WR Ernest Wilford, according to the Miami Sun-Sentinel.

There may be a new safety on the market soon, for those Bear fans who want more help at that position. Apparently the Dolphins are considering cutting S/CB Jason Allen and WR Ernest Wilford. Allen is a former first round pick and will be 26 when the season starts.

Glenn was actually developing into a nice safety before he got hurt. It'll be interesting to see how well he comes back from the injury.

I'm continuing to say Gregg, but if Guzman continues to pitch very well, it'll be tough not to want a Marmol/Guzman back end of the bullpen.

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.

The Cubs aren't based in Des Moines and he plans to be in the majors, thus Chicago is close to Valpo and he would be playing close to home. I've heard comments from Samardzija that he wants to stay close to home in his major league career. From his comments, it has sounded like his desire to play close to home overrides all else. If he's lying about that or using it as a ruse for some reason, I have no idea. I can only work off the comments he gives. I have heard of no other comments indicating he would be willing to play somewhere not close to home, so I'm working under the assumption he originally gave. If there is evidence to the contrary, please point me to it and I'll change my tune. Otherwise, I can only work with the information I have gathered from his comments and from people who have followed him more closely than I. That information leads me to believe he will not waive his NTC - or at least is extremely unwilling to waive it.

The As gave up Carlos Gonzalez, Greg Smith and Houston Street for Holliday this past offseason. I'd be surprised if Beane would take less than what he gave for Holliday. Do we have the pieces to match what the Rockies obtained? Hendry and Beane seem to have a good relationship. I think Hendry could pull off another one of his patented rabbit out of a hat trades. Remember, between the Nomar, Aramis, and Harden trades, the one guy we MIGHT end up missing one day is Gallagher. Hendry may throw foolish contracts at players, but hes good with trades when this time of year rolls around. Josh Donaldson's a long way away, and won't stick at catcher, but he could still do something. Didn't Beane really talk up Donaldson in that deal? I was thinking I heard that Donaldson was a key to the trade, but I could be remembering wrong.

The As gave up Carlos Gonzalez, Greg Smith and Houston Street for Holliday this past offseason. I'd be surprised if Beane would take less than what he gave for Holliday. Do we have the pieces to match what the Rockies obtained? Hendry and Beane seem to have a good relationship. I think Hendry could pull off another one of his patented rabbit out of a hat trades. Remember, between the Nomar, Aramis, and Harden trades, the one guy we MIGHT end up missing one day is Gallagher. Hendry may throw foolish contracts at players, but hes good with trades when this time of year rolls around. Oh yes, Hendry is excellent at making midseason deals. However, this isn't a player that has come up through the Oakland system. This is a guy that Beane just gave away good, young talent for a few months ago. How bad is he going to look if he basically trades Gonzalez/Smith/Street for Fox/Marshall/Ascanio? I would think he'll have to at least break even valuewise to justify trading Holliday. I dont know too much about Smith, but I know Gonzalez is a pretty good prospect and Oakland had lost patience with Street and he was on his way out of town regardless. Street had one average year after three very good to great years. They may have wanted to get rid of him, but he still had a good bit of value. Gonzalez was the top rated prospect in the As organization at the start of 2008 - according to Baseball America - and Oakland pretty much always has a very good farm system. John Sickels had Greg Smith as the 15th rated prospect in the As system as well. That's quite a haul, though I remember some on here weren't as high on those guys as BA seemed to be.

It was very clear he expected to win a starting role this year when the 5th job was open. And when it became clear he wasn't he was quoted as saying he just wants to make the major league team. What do you mean "must plan to use it often"? That wasn't the only way. It was part of an obscenely large contract. And it is now an asset he can use. He could stick with the Cubs until his contract expires and no longer have any sort of no-trade protection while still being under team control, but what's the point of that? Service time is also a valuable thing, and if he can get more major league service time by accepting a trade, that would be wise. I don't understand why a NTC always tells Cubs fans that a player only wants to play in Chicago and will never accept a trade. Guys waive their NTC. They like them because it provides them a bargaining chip and protection from going to an unsatisfactory location. It's not just that he has it, it's that he would not turn down the NFL until the NTC was put into his contract. Normally, a no trade clause is an incentive for the player to take a bit less money (security over money, basically). That's not what it was for Shark, though. He simply wouldn't sign the contract unless he got the NTC. The question then is, if he was so particular about the NTC being in the contract, he must not plan to go anywhere anytime soon. A player who asks specifically for a no trade clause and will not sign a contract without it normally plans to stay where he is. Couple that with Shark's comments about wanting to stay close to home and you have an extreme unlikeliness that he would waive the clause.

The As gave up Carlos Gonzalez, Greg Smith and Houston Street for Holliday this past offseason. I'd be surprised if Beane would take less than what he gave for Holliday. Do we have the pieces to match what the Rockies obtained? Hendry and Beane seem to have a good relationship. I think Hendry could pull off another one of his patented rabbit out of a hat trades. Remember, between the Nomar, Aramis, and Harden trades, the one guy we MIGHT end up missing one day is Gallagher. Hendry may throw foolish contracts at players, but hes good with trades when this time of year rolls around. Oh yes, Hendry is excellent at making midseason deals. However, this isn't a player that has come up through the Oakland system. This is a guy that Beane just gave away good, young talent for a few months ago. How bad is he going to look if he basically trades Gonzalez/Smith/Street for Fox/Marshall/Ascanio? I would think he'll have to at least break even valuewise to justify trading Holliday.

The As gave up Carlos Gonzalez, Greg Smith and Houston Street for Holliday this past offseason. I'd be surprised if Beane would take less than what he gave for Holliday. Do we have the pieces to match what the Rockies obtained? If you're asking me, I would say we do HAVE the pieces. However, I am not one that believes we should utilize resources on acquiring Matt Holliday. I wasn't necessarily asking you, it was more of a general question. I just happened to click the "quote" button because it pertained somewhat to my post. :D

I don't get how people come to this conclusion. He said that when he was drafted and signed the big deal. But he made it quite clear this spring that his goal was to be pitching in the majors. And with the Cubs he's got very little chance to be pitching in the majors anytime soon. The last comments I saw from him indicated he would not waive the NTC under any circumstance. I can't find it right now, but I'm pretty sure he reiterated that this past offseason, but I'm not certain. But what is the value of such comments? First, they occured in the postseason, when he was preparing for and quite likely expecting to be a part of the Cubs rotation. Second, what else is he going to say? Yeah, I have a no-trade clause (a valuable bargaining chip for any player) but I'll waive it the first time they ask me. Saying he's pretty adamant about playing near home suggests he regularly says he will not accept a trade to any other team. A realistic scenario has never really presented itself, especially not since he was moved off the major league roster and passed up for promotion by another guy. The day he rejects a trade that would place him on another team's major league roster instead of Iowa is the day I will believe he is adamant about playing near home. I don't think there were any plans for him to be in the major league rotation this season. The plans are that he'll eventually be there, but I don't recall anything even implying it might be this year. All the talk could be just a ruse, but the only way Hendry could convince Shark to leave football was to give him an NTC. He must plan to use it often if it's that important to him.

The As gave up Carlos Gonzalez, Greg Smith and Houston Street for Holliday this past offseason. I'd be surprised if Beane would take less than what he gave for Holliday. Do we have the pieces to match what the Rockies obtained?

I don't get how people come to this conclusion. He said that when he was drafted and signed the big deal. But he made it quite clear this spring that his goal was to be pitching in the majors. And with the Cubs he's got very little chance to be pitching in the majors anytime soon. The last comments I saw from him indicated he would not waive the NTC under any circumstance. I can't find it right now, but I'm pretty sure he reiterated that this past offseason, but I'm not certain. I could see that. My thinking was that Fox's bat gives him decent value to an AL team as a DH, but he's not better than a throw-in to an NL team. Wells has mainly moved up, in my opinion, because of a few good ML starts and I wasn't sure how high to move him. With some work I think he can turn into a good corner OF. Again, though, I'm higher on Colvin than a number of people on this board. I also could see him falling into the "decent" value range and not having a lot of value. It mainly depends on the team you're dealing with, I think.

right vance, i forgot that if someone doesn't think the way you do, they are wrong Would you kick guys like Gaylord Perry, George Brett and Don Drysdale out of the Hall of Fame because they have been caught cheating? Perry and Drysdale threw spitballs (an illegal pitch) for most, if not all, of their careers and Drysdale admitted to it.

Yeah, I was torn on Colvin. I think he has value, but I may be overestimating it. He's more of a potential guy that a team would take because of his upside moreso than basing it on production - if that makes any sense. I don't think he'll waive his NTC for any reason. He seems pretty adamant about wanting to play near home. I guess if the Cubs guaranteed to him that he'd never sniff the majors, he would accept a deal, but like you said, that's not going to happen.

Yeah, I forgot about Hoff, but I don't think there will be any interest in trading him and despite his production I'm afraid teams will shy away from the fact that he's nearly 30. As for the levels, there was really nothing scientific to them. I feel like Vitters and Marshall could be cornerstones to a deal for a guy like Peavy. Then the value goes down from there. I don't think Hart will move anywhere at this point unless he does very well in the majors (kind of like Wells has done) and Fox's value is hurt so much by the fact that he can only be a DH and nothing else. The "good" value guys could be add-ons to a major deal or key pieces of a smaller trade, while the decent value guys might add value to a major deal while being add-ons to a smaller (Branyan-esque) trade. The throw-ins are just that, throw-ins to make a trade work. And I would swap Branyan into the "good" section of your breakdown and Sanchez into the "decent." Sanchez has never been all that good, while Branyan has pretty consistently put up .800+ OPS'.

Really? His 3 year combined OPS against RH pitching is over .800., and surely he can outhit Aaron Miles, Bobby Scales, etc... And he'll field like Jake Fox. He's not a good fielder by any means, but he's not a butcher either. He's not the same player he was with the Braves, though.

I think you mean DHing and that would be Jack Cust. He's 33, but showing no real signs of slowing down offensively. Though he's had some nagging back (I think) troubles this year. Fox could be part of a deal, though, if Beane thinks Cust's back issues that have forced him to the DH role are temporary.

But there's no guarantee Fox can hit. When you're looking at defense that bad, it's especially hard not having any idea whether the kid can hit major league pitching or not. Soriano and Holliday will (should) both produce offensively at a high rate to at least partially offset the terrible defense. We don't know that about Fox. But we won't know unless Fox is given a chance. I agree that Holliday should produce, but he didn't produce anything earlier this season (he seems to be coming out of it now). I guess my point revolves around the cost of acquiring Holliday. If we can get him for fringe prospects, then I would be okay. All we know for sure about Fox is he can't play defense. On a team struggling to win ballgames, it's not a very good idea to put a guy whose only certainty is that he will allow more baserunners than normal. If we were going well and the rest of the team were performing, we could afford to find out whether or not he can hit at all. Right now, though, it's too costly. And I agree that Holliday would likely be too expensive, especially since the result of his acquisition would be Soriano to second. But Holliday is only 29, so there's likely to be 3-4 more good years of production, if we can find the room to re-sign him.

I don't know as much about the farm as many others on here, but here are my thoughts: Great value - Josh Vitters, A ball - Sean Marshall, MLB Good value - Tyler Colvin, AA - Wellington Castillo, AAA - Jay Jackson, AA - Jeff Stevens, AAA - Jose Ascanio, MLB Decent value - Randy Wells, MLB - Jake Fox, MLB - Chris Archer, A - Jon Gaub, AA Possible throw ins - Kevin Hart, AAA - Mitch Atkins, AAA There are others who I'm not sure how to categorize - guys like Steve Clevenger, Chris Carpenter, Tony Thomas, Andrew Cashner, etc - and others like Jeff Samardzija and David Patton who could have value (a lot in Shark's case) but cannot be traded. I'm sure someone who knows the minors better will have a better understanding and would likely scoff at my list, but that's my rudimentary view.

But there's no guarantee Fox can hit. When you're looking at defense that bad, it's especially hard not having any idea whether the kid can hit major league pitching or not. Soriano and Holliday will (should) both produce offensively at a high rate to at least partially offset the terrible defense. We don't know that about Fox.

So what is the difference between each type of cheating?