Transmogrified Tiger

Bradley is not getting 4/40. Ranting and raving about Bradley playing in Arlington and having a high BABIP in 2008 rings awfully hollow considering he's raked no matter where he's been. People aren't excited because he hit well in 2008, they're excited because he's been a good hitter forever. Bradley's career OPS is over .820(misleading anyway since he's always had an OBP heavy OPS), and he's played in pitchers parks everywhere he's been. Bradley's health is a valid concern. However, with DeRosa and Fontenot around, we're well equipped to gamble on higher performance(compared to the alternatives) at the risk of health. The rumored deal was 2 years with a vesting option, so he's not going to be a millstone contract if he breaks himself.

Temple beat #8 Tennessee by 16 at Temple. Temple has losses to Miami Ohio and Buffalo. UMass held off #23 Kansas in Kansas City. The win brings UMass to 3-6 on the season(with losses to Jacksonville State, UW-Green Bay, and Toledo)

I only saw the highlights from tonight, but the block he spiked off the backboard was ridiculous.

I don't really understand how misplays by CF and SS matter more than misplays by LF and RF.

Here's what it comes down to for me. DeRosa is pretty much a shoo-in for 400 PAs due to some combination of: -getting no one better for RF -whoever we get for RF sucking -whoever we get for RF being hurt -Fontenot sucking/needing a platoon partner/getting hurt -Ramirez getting hurt Going from DeRosa to replacement level is something you can probably cover in the starting 9 to start out with, but it's a significant drop off. Marshall is pretty much a shoo-in for 10-15 starts due to some combination of starters being hurt. Going from his 115 ERA+ to Gaudin or Samardzija being 100 ERA+ with a chance to be better or (more likely) worse over ~100 innings is not a small thing either. Even with that, Peavy is still a net improvement on the club. However, I don't think that mitigated improvement is worth Vitters, Pie, plus two more of the Hart/Atkins/Cedeno/etc brigade, plus paying 5 million dollars of Marquis' contract to send him as well. There's easier ways to get that smaller improvement without completely draining your organization of tradeable assets. Depending on how you value it, you can maybe get that improvement by adding someone like Juan Cruz to the back end of the bullpen. There's also Peavy's history of arm troubles to consider, and there's some who think he's on the brink of big problems with his mechanics. That said, if you think Peavy will make us more dominating in the playoffs, think he solidifies the rotation with Harden and Lilly set to leave within the next two years, and/or think we can replace the losses in the trade easier than I or others think, that's fine. It's not an outrageous position by any stretch, Peavy is really good. But I don't think either side is worthy of the sarcastic histrionics of "WE CAN'T LOSE OUR SWING MAN" or "IT'S JAKE PEAVY" in response to that rumored deal that Hendry walked away from.

This is on point. McCoy, Daniel, Freeman, and Harrell are 3 year starters, and Bradford, Robinson, Ganz, Reesing, and Arnaud are all returning starters, plus the top newcomer was Baylor's freshman QB Griffin. You'll see a step down next year with upwards of half the conference having turnover at QB.

what makes that so obvious? oh, and i'd also be remiss if i didn't mention Fuku was roughly 5 runs better than Ibanez on the basepaths last year I'm guessing it's obvious to him because Fukudome didn't just hit some rough patches that held down his numbers, but rather he was a complete piece of crap at the plate for months. I don't get why people are thanking god that Ibanez won't be available. He wasn't ideal, but they are more likely than not getting somebody, and they could do a lot worse. Ibanez was the worst of any possibility mentioned this offseason, including any permutation of not adding someone and going with what we currently have.

Hideki Matsui had one good month(June) his rookie year. His line outside that month was .270/.331/.394

Because Fukudome is one of the top few defensive RF in the game, and Ibanez is one of the bottom few.

Many are. UZR has long been held up as the gold standard for defensive metrics, and is just now being made publicly available(although I think the version at fangraphs is a little different than the original, or at least uses a different company for the data).

It's hard to tell how bad Burrell would be in RF because since his rookie year he's never played as much as an inning anywhere other than LF(and he's not good at it). I don't think he'd be a good enough bet to be better than DeRosa(or maybe even Pie depending on who's evaluating his defense) to bother with.

I was surprised too. Not necessarily advocating him since he'd cost money, players, and at his age he's more prone to fall off the face of the earth(plus he's not that much of an upgrade over DeRosa, especially if Pie stole some late innings defensively and some ABs v. RHP), but he's been very solid with the bat and the glove for a few years now.

Not if he keeps OPSing in the 600s. Actually, that's how good he is defensively, he's really out of this world as an outfielder. The Cubs aren't in a great position when it comes to Pie. Kosuke is going to get paid, so he gets first crack at the "disappointing left handed outfield bat that plays great defense" half of a platoon. Pie's not going to develop much as a 5th outfielder and there's no way they give him a starting OF spot, but his trade value isn't much to make it worth dealing him. JMO of course, but here's how I'd rank the output we'd get from some of the options we've heard, assuming a Kosuke/Johnson platoon in CF, and ignoring the contract they'd get. Bradley Winn DeRosa Hermida DeJesus Abreu Dunn Pie Ibanez

If they aren't giving up DeRosa for Peavey why would they give him up for anyone else? It's mindbottling It's mind boggling. And it's not that they were giving up DeRosa, it's that they were going to give up DeRosa and everyone in the organization with more than one vowel in their last name.

Chase Coffman wins the Mackey award, my sanity is preserved.

What'd we say, 3 wins difference between Peavy and Marquis? Is it hard to imagine a 1 win dropoff from DeRosa to whoever(since we're trading Cedeno too), even if he only plays a supersub role with the addition of Bradley? Is it hard to imagine a 1 win dropoff from Marshall to Gaudin as the swingman, especially with the corresponding weakening of an already weakened pen? Plus we're giving up Pie, Vitters, Guzman, Hart, and anyone else who has an Iowa Cubs hat laying around for the privilege of Peavy's contract and injury history?

agreed, plus edmonds' bat is probably going to deteriorate (like it was before it magically got good again). i won't miss watching him play OF; he was just brutally slow and that is one thing that ain't changing. Not that you were saying this, but to clarify, I wasn't trying to compare '09 Fukudome to '09 Edmonds. I was trying to see how '09 Fukudome would replace '08 Edmonds in the CF platoon. And Wade, you should take that to mean that Fukudome in CF will likely be no difference from Edmonds was last year, on an offense+defense basis. Bradley throughout his career has been an above average defensively(a conservative estimate using UZR is +5-7 runs over a full season in RF), and as we all know he kills the ball(career .359 wOBA, .397 last 3 years, .385 projected for '09).

I've been on a bit of a defense kick lately, and I wanted to illustrate that losing Edmonds' production from last year isn't as big a blow to the team as previously thought. Last year Edmonds put up a .354 wOBA as a Cub. Using .328 as league average from a recent FanGraphs article, and Tango's formula to convert to runs, Edmonds was about 10 runs above average with the bat. UZR had his defense continuing a 4 year trend of deterioration at -10 runs. Since it was the largest jump in those 4 years, let's be conservative and say that he was actually half that bad, and say on an offense+defense basis Edmonds is +5 runs. Now for Kosuke. He finished the year with a .328 wOBA, exactly league average. Bill James projects a better season from him next season while Marcels has more of the same, let's be pessimistic and say he drops to .315. That makes him 5 runs below average with the bat given Edmonds' PAs. UZR has Kosuke as a +10 defender in RF. Since Kosuke's strength in RF is his range, I don't think that it would be overly different in CF, so let's say he's a +7 defender there next year. That puts Kosuke at +2 runs on an offense+defense basis. Three runs separating the two players is not really significant. Given that we were generous to Edmonds' defense and pessimistic to Kosuke's offense, there's reason to believe that simply inserting Kosuke instead of Edmonds into the CF platoon makes us better off as a whole next year. Also, for anyone who's curious, Pie is probably a +15 CF, and as such needs to be about a .301 wOBA to equal Edmonds at +5. To compare across statistics, Marcels projects Pie for a .310 wOBA, and a .251/.317/.389/.706 slash line.

Who do you replace them with? Hart, Cedeno, Atkins, Guzman, even Pie may not have a ton of value to other teams, but 1) they asked for them for a reason, and 2) the Cubs already weak system has no one to pick up the slack for them in the organization. It's one thing to not care if one of them goes in a deal, it's another to care if they all go, it's how you end up with Les Walrond pitching in meaningful games or Joe Simokaitis getting meaningful at bats. kevin hart and ronny cedeno weren't necessary in meaningful games last year, so i don't think their replacements would be this year. They will when you've traded away Marshall, Marquis, Guzman, Atkins, and DeRosa too, that's the point.

Who do you replace them with? Hart, Cedeno, Atkins, Guzman, even Pie may not have a ton of value to other teams, but 1) they asked for them for a reason, and 2) the Cubs already weak system has no one to pick up the slack for them in the organization. It's one thing to not care if one of them goes in a deal, it's another to care if they all go, it's how you end up with Les Walrond pitching in meaningful games or Joe Simokaitis getting meaningful at bats.

Which one, Mayora?

Who is playing 2nd when that happens? Depends on who else is on the roster.

Fontenot can play 3B too if you want a bigger bat than Cedeno.

They're getting rid of Dye so they can add Abreu? What?

They can't kick you out of the special teams huddle when you're a gunner on the coverage team.