Tim

And I'll reinfoce it now. Let's stick to talking about how signing middle relievers to overblown and overextended contracts while weakening the farm system by giving up draft picks is a really bad idea.

The Stanford Cardinal always gets me. That's not the singular of the bird, that's the color red they use. Sheesh. You'd think those brainiacs could think of something better than that. Would that fall under the WTF, bird names or colors?

Hendry just wants to wait until December 24th so it's like a christmas present for everyone. He's very thoughtful that way.

The San Bernadino Smogs.

Will everyone here complain in 2007 then if he hits the DL :? But how many will survive without a heart attack if the Cubs win the world series because Z, Prior and Wood all have career years in 2006?

source? just my negative, nay-saying, hendry hating intuition. sorry. let's try this again... roberto clemente is so gonna be the cubs rf. hendry will find a way to make it happen. he's the best. True, Clemente didn't walk much, either. And boy could he catch the ball.

I knew I was forgetting something. As a preferred option, I might go for Daisuke Matsuzaka instead of either Burnett or Millwood. He's likely to be cheaper and I think the gyroball will mystify MLB hitters for a year or two.

After all he's even more "proven"!

I agree Vance, Bienfest is building for the future. I think the future also may be the LasVegas Gamblers and a team flush with cash. Unless Loria finds a way to screw it all up. If they move to Las Vegas, they should purchase all the old Expos gear, sew on an "e'" and be the Las Vegas Expose'. They wouldn't have to buy it...Loria stole it all and brought it down to Florida with him when he left!

Minnesota. ;)

If they move to Vegas, what are the chances they sign Farnsy for closer? :D

Well the good news is that everyone else will overpay for their relievers as well then. That the Cubs won't be the only ones hurting from overblown pitching contracts. It'll really hurt teams like Florida and Atlanta that are strapped for cash. Hell, we might have just prevented da Farns from re-signing to the Braves. Silver lining folks. Plus, if this deal is not true, and we don't sign any more FA releivers, then we have effectively burned the bridge behind us for Howry, Farnsworth, Wickman, etc. Nope. Smart teams are able to put together quality bullpens without dishing out ridiculous contracts.

:cry: They've increased their payroll though. All is well when trying to emulate the Yankees. :pukel: Except for the whole winning thing. BTW, UK, are you as livid as I am about giving up draft picks on top of the millions and the guaranteed roster spots for middle relievers?

I'd rather just sign Giles and get that out of the way, then try and trade for Abreu. Include Murton as part of the package and put Giles in LF. If we had a core of the lineup with Giles, Lee, Abreu & Ramirez we could afford to put Corey in CF and Cedeno at 2B. That's the type of overspending I'm happy to live with.

Can anyone guess what my first move would be based on what I've been saying for around 3 months now? 1 - Sign Brian Giles 2 - Sign Brian Giles 3 - Sign Brian Giles Okay, now that I'm past that.... 4 - Sign Furcal. I've come around to this position based on the defensive difference between he and Nomar and the likelihood of playing 140+ games. 5 - Send a PTBNL to the Dodgers for Bradley. He can at least keep CF warm for Pie until Milton has an "episode". 6 - Trade excess arms for some PTBNL's. It is impossible to get return for Wellemeyer, Mitre, etc. at this point because everyone knows they won't make the squad and have to go through waivers. But you might as well remove them from the 40 man roster at this point. 7 - Keep Corey, use him as the 4th OF and hope that he reestablishes some value before the trade deadline. If an opportunity to really improve the team comes up, I'd move him at this point. But I wouldn't trade him just to trade him. The Cubs have money, I'll pay the $2.5M to see if he can turn things around. There's more hope there than there is with Neifi, after all. If nothing else, he allows me to put a quality CF out there if Bradley goes down/implodes. 8 - Dump Macias 9 - Since I'm giving up so many of my high draft picks by signing relievers, I invest heavily in Latin American signings this offseason and try to nab a couple of the bigger names down there. 10 - I fly down personally to visit with Aramis periodically this offseason to see how his conditioning programs is going 11 - I seriously explore trade options with Arizona to see if I can get Vazquez and Quentin/Tracy if I take on Javier's full salary. I'd use one of Williams, Corey, Walker, Hairston & minor league pitching as the bait. I'm sure there's more, but I've run out of time. ;) Barrett Lee Walker Ramirez Furcal Murton/Quentin/Tracy Bradley Giles Prior Z Wood Vazquez Maddux Blanco Hairston Patterson Cedeno Neifi Murton/Quentin/Tracy Dempster Howry (assuming this is a fait accompli) Eyre Williamson Ohman Wuertz Rusch

Thanks for the clarification. I'd guess we can sign up to four, then. Is this a limitation on the absolute number of FA signings a team can make in any one year, or the NET number of signings? I ask because Burnitz and Nomar are on the list. It is the total.

Thanks for the clarification. I'd guess we can sign up to four, then.

One more factor to consider. I believe Eyre is a type A free agent. Assuming we also sign Howry, that would mean we've signed two type A free agents this offseason. We would then be unable to sign both Furcal and Giles, no matter how much money we have left, because teams cannot sign more than three type A free agents in one offseason unless they lose more than that. So, by signing two relievers, you are quite effectively limiting your options on what to do about the dreadful offense, Mr Hendry.

It's been real, but my subcontractors showed up. Time to get back to work. :(

Given Eyre got an 8-page thread when he was close to signing and then a 30-pager when he did sign, I think your guess is a good one. I'm trying to make up for lost time. :jocolor:

I'd do a jig, but of the two, I'd rather have Howry than Eyre.

I'm not neccessarily saying signing these relievers is a good thing. And I do view an impact RF as a necessity. But if you are gonna take away the importance of each bullpen by spreading his worth over the other 5-6 guys in the pen, you should do the same for RF. hitting is 1/2, one player contributes 1/8 of that 1/2 or 1/16 to the team total. BP on the same type of rating would come out to about 1/36, depending on how much importance you place on the value of defense vs. pitching and starters vs. relievers. Technically a RF also adds to run prevention, but lets be honest we aren't looking for that. If you really wanna add in defense their importance is maybe 1/12. So a guy who contributes 1/12 to the team contributes 3times as much as the guy who contributes 1/36. So their salary should be 3 times as much. 3mil reliever x 3= 9mil RF. Now actually using such a system to actually evaluate how much to give players is ridiculous. I think you would agree. Plus it would be much more complicated. EDIT- kinda unrelated. But it helps the reading if you cut out quotes that occured 5 pages ago. It is usually pretty sufficent to have just the last thing you are quoting shown. It gets pretty annoying to scroll through all that. So for courtesy of poster trying to read, I request that everyone tries to do so. (At another site I visit, they automatically snip quotes. Any chance you could set something like that up Tim?) Change out Burnitz' offense in 2005 for Giles and the Cubs improve from #20 in offense to close to the top 10. Change out Ohman for Eyre in 2005 and the Cubs improve from #19 in bullpen ERA to --maybe-- #18 or so. The difference in the situations for RF and the pen is that we have capable guys in place in the pen. We have an enormous gaping hole of suckage in RF.

Nah, I like the arguing. Haven't gotten much of it lately. :D Besides, everyone is entitled to express their opinion. They're also welcome to defend it against criticism. I expressed my opinion and now I'm defending it. Howry and Eyre don't suck. But they're not much better than what we have in house. And there's nothing that ticks me off faster than a GM spending a big chunk of payroll and committing roster spots over the next few years to guys as likely to tank as thrive.

Scott Eyre, 3-year trend, ERA: 3.32, 4.10, 2.63; WHIP: 1.51, 1.33, 1.08; BAA: .268, .219, .200 And the splits are even better, since Dusty will likely use Eyre more against LH batters: 2003--WHIP 1.14, BAA .219; 2004--WHIP 0.95, BAA .200; 2005--WHIP 1.04, BAA .182. Yup, looks terribly inconsistent and unpredictable to me. He apparently started taking the meds in 2002. You forgot his 4.46 ERA from that year. Ooohhh. I'm all aquiver with excitement. Treating ADHD takes time. It is more than just popping a pill and magically you are all better. There are lifestyle adjustments. Learning to manage this disease over time is a large part of the treatment (for those who aren't paying attention). And your explanation for this stud of a pitcher putting up a 4.1 ERA in 2004 is.... Okay, Mr. Sarcasm, I never called him a stud. If you have such good stats supporting your position there is no need to put words in anyone's mouth, is there? My explanation is he gave up an inordinant amount of HRs that season (8 to a normal 3 or 4). Maybe there were men on base when he gave them up. Whatever the case, his ERA didn't match the batting averages and OPS he allowed in '04. Those seemed to improve a bit over the previous season, IIRC. So I took it as another year in a trend of improvement since receiving his diagnosis and treatment. ERA is just one stat. One stat never shows a complete picture, you know that. Also, you stated earlier that Eyre allowed a ridiculously low number of HRs last season when you were trying to prove that he was just lucky. He gave up 4 in '02 and '03 and gave up 3 in '05. That number isn't low, it appears to be normal, just one below his normal rate if you consider that '04 is the aberration which it appears to be. Also, while I completely agree that Hendry appears to be spending quite a bit on relievers that aren't studs, you never addressed my point that no one knows what the Cubs payroll will be this coming season. With the bleacher expansion and the greater number of very popular tickets to be sold this year, can anyone say with any certainty just how much Hendry has been approved to spend on his players? The size of these contracts only matters if Hendry fails to spend on other positions because he tapped himself out on the bench and bullpen. I have no idea how much Hendry's gong to spend overall. But there's no sense whatsoever wasting large chunks of money and making long-term roster commitments to pitchers who are nothing more than a slight improvement over what we already have available whatever the budget is set at. Now you're putting words in my mouth with the HR rate, now. I said he was well below his career norm (I resevered the word ridiculous for the BABIP rates of Howry and Eyre in 2005). And it was well below that rate. Keep in mind, he's pitching at SBC, too.

Think high speed internet... :D It also helps to turn off signatures.