Transmogrified Tiger

Because the last 4 years he's averaged an .800 OPS to go with 50 steals at 80+% and elite defense.

The production they get from that money spent(or that roster spot) has a monetary value, and the probable difference in production between Silva and Bradley far exceeds the money saved from the trade.

The Cubs got both a few bucks and an (allegedly) near-worthless player. The huge money over the next two years is a sunk cost. It's not a sunk cost when we didn't have to pay it to a horrendous player before the trade. I don't think you comprehend the concept of a sunk cost. In this case the monies committed to Bradley cannot be recovered. That $21M absolutely WILL be paid. Replace "ticket" with "contract", and "movie" with "Bradley circus", and you've got the present situation described to a T, except here the Cubs got a little something for their "ticket" instead of just throwing it away -- a marginal player and $5M savings. Yes, I absolutely understand what a sunk cost is, and it's a simplistic idea that doesn't consider the realities of a MLB trade. Of course the 21 million will be paid, but as we can see it is not for certain to be paid by the Cubs, and the value received from that 21 million varies significantly depending on who is "playing for that 21 million" so to speak. That would be an applicable analogy if we had paid all but "a couple bucks" of his salary and got something like a minor leaguer in return. Instead, what actually happened is that we now have Carlos Silva and his contract. To sum up: Before: Bradley and his contract providing X value After: Silva and his contract providing X - a billion value, plus a few million dollars To use that ticket analogy, if Bradley is the ticket, then Silva is someone hitting you in the back of the knee with a crowbar.

You have a strange interpretation of great.

Except for the key points that are completely wrong, like Milton not owning up to when he performed poorly or not being able to play with the pressure of what was going on. He may have been playing better but he was certainly losing it. There is just no way that Milton Bradley can make it thru a season at wrigley, even if he was putting up sosa-like numbers. Some people are just drawn toward chaos. I'm glad we got a few bucks in return for him. We did not "get a few bucks in return for him." We got a near-worthless player whom we still have to pay huge money to over the next two years. The Cubs got both a few bucks and an (allegedly) near-worthless player. The huge money over the next two years is a sunk cost. It's not a sunk cost when we didn't have to pay it to a horrendous player before the trade.

That is a lot more than I thought Crisp would get.

You would think some teams would be willing to kick in 6m over two years to get Bradley. But I'm really starting to believe teams wouldn't even kick in that much. From everything we heard about the Rays, they weren't willing to kick in any money or very little money for the second year. So any money we would have saved in that deal would have been trading Burrell again and eating most of his contract. Sadly I really do think this was the best deal the Cubs could get when it comes to getting money back in return. The only reason why the Mariners were willing to kick in that much was to get Silva off there hands. Hendry knows Silva is a long shot to do anything productive and is basically talking about him like he's a guy he just signed to a minor league deal. I really believe Bradley value dropped to basically nothing. A few teams were willing to try him out basically for free or for very little money. But nobody was willing to invest more then 3m per season for Bradley. The Mariners were willing to pay Bradley 2/29 to get rid of Silva. I think there'd be a touch of interest in him at 2/6.

Would you rather pay 2/15 for Carlos Silva, or 2/6 to never have Carlos Silva come near your roster? I'm pretty sure I'd take the latter. That's the choice between this trade and cutting Bradley. Heck, do you think we could've done better than Silva if we had paid all of Bradley's contract except for 2/6? You think anyone would've given us even a low level prospect for that? Of course someone would have.

This couldn't have happened last week before Cameron signed? And seriously, let's get on that "Silva released" press release.

Oh, for sure they'd have a fit. I know Sandberg isn't a popular name around here these days, and at the risk of alienating myself even further from the NSBB population, I'm going to say that I agree with his quote that says "When did it become ok to just hit home runs and forget how to play the rest of the game?" That's essentially what the DH allows a player who can't field anymore to do. Defense is huge in today's game, and with the love that it gets around here, you'd think more people would be on each player to have to play defense. The pitcher plays defense whether there is a DH or not.

There is no intelligent reason to expand with the [expletive] options you provided. How bout that? As already stated, nobody gives a [expletive] about Rutgers. The Pittsburgh market is already a part of the BTN (via PSU). That leaves making a short-sighted move of adding Missouri so you can add St. Louis for your cable station? Really?? It's dumb, and it's a short-term cash grab to hurt your potential in the long-term. You make hard runs at Texas and ND, schools that will give you serious market share in cities that matter while being schools that will actually draw attention to your conference. Is anybody outside of the Post-Dispatch going to care about the dynamite acquisition of [expletive] MissourI? If Texas/ND say no then you have 11. Perish the thought of having no championship game! How bout you act like the Pac 10 and schedule up to that last week. Put OSU/UM up against whatever [expletive] the ACC is running out for their title game year after year. What's the downside to expanding? Aside from the opportunity cost of inviting a different, better school that would never ever consider coming to the Big 10.

Jury's still out on Ellsbury's defense. UZR and PMR agree he was pretty good in 2008, and UZR has him as poor this past year. The Fan's Scouting Report rates him at least average the last two years. Anyone know how +/- sees him? Even if he's not a plus defender, he still has plenty of value. A .750-.775 OPS with 60 steals at a great percentage is plenty valuable, and if his defense is average then he's nearly a 4 win player going forward.

Pitcher's don't hit, DH's don't field, there's only 9 playing at one time. I don't like the DH either, but don't make up a bogus interpretation of the rules to try to claim some moral ground for preferring it one way.

Yes. And I'm one of the biggest Sam Fuld proponents around.

Absolutely not. A small part of me would die if the NL got the DH. Without a doubt I'd prefer if the AL got rid of the DH. But if it meant a more equitable playing field, I could probably live with it.

I'm to the point where I don't particularly care as long as both leagues end up the same. I think it's the main reason for the competitive imbalance between the AL and NL.

They'd probably rotate it like the Big 12 does, they go between Texas sites and KC.

None of this is remotely true. You can say that, but I'd take Pujols, Holliday, Carpenter and Wainwright as my building block over what the Cubs have right now, and if the Cardinals had the Cubs payroll, they could have filled in a few more holes pretty nicely. The Cubs window is closing rapidly, with not a whole lot of hope to expand on payroll anytime soon. To go over your post again: The Cubs have been 11 games better than the Cardinals the last 3 years. The Cards and Cubs had pretty much identical payrolls from 2002-2006. Pujols has no contract after next year, and is a free agent after 2011. They got Holliday(who they haven't signed), but haven't added anyone big in recent years. And their farm system might be the worst in baseball right now. As far as preferring the Cards core, remember that next year if one or more of Carpenter/Wainwright are visiting Dr. Andrews, and/or if Holliday is wearing another uniform.

None of this is remotely true.

Yep, the Cubs are better than their performance of last year. Not to say that they aren't missing out on chances to be even better, but just standing pat would make them strong contenders for a playoff spot.

If Cameron signs I would hope we just keep Bradley. Bradley is better than Cameron and keeping Bradley wasn't an option then, so I don't know why it would be an option now. Bradley is better but not by much. I think ridding the headache of Bradley + drop off to Cameron > keeping Bradley > ridding the headache of Bradley + drop off to Byrd/Pods Cameron is easily better than Bradley, and that's before you consider that with Cameron you get to play Kosuke in RF, which is a huge defensive jump.

Yeah, way too much money for Lackey. But ESPN will somehow overlook the amount and say "Theo did it again." Way too much? He's a better pitcher than Zambrano and it's less money. At the very least, it's overpaying a top of the rotation starter, instead of some schmuck. Is anybody signing better free agent pitchers for less? Huh, how is lackey better than Zambrano. Zambrano has better numbers and is three years younger. Zambrano is a nut case but his numbers are better than Lackey's. please tell me how Lackey is better than Z. umm, the last time zambrano had better numbers than lackey was 2005 Also, 2008. And if you're talking about how either would fit on the Cubs, or any NL team, there's very little difference between them.

A Fuld/Crisp platoon would be a lot better than many people would think. Perhaps indistinguishable from having Cameron play CF.

Incredible.

That's kinda the point, isn't it? No one would've said "great hire" if anyone had hired Pinkel after 1994. He actually built something, after those 4 years he had 5 first place finishes and 2 second place finishes in his last 7 seasons. Even besides that success, the additional 7 years of experience is a crucial difference as well. I'm not saying that Gill is destined to failure. I'm saying that because of his minimal and not mind blowing track record, he has a lot in common with coaches who have succeeded as well as failed. On a related point, how long do you think Gill gets to prove himself? To extend the Pinkel analogy, do you think he lasts if he has 1 winning season and 1 bowl appearance in the first 4 years like Pinkel did?