David

It's starting.

Except those two aren't even in the neighborhood of what it would take for Bedard alone, let alone him and Roberts. Does anyone have the adjusted OPS with the steals included for Roberts (maybe DeRosa's too for comparison). I'd guess (off the top of my head) that it'd be in the .870 neighborhood if you counted those singles with the steals as doubles. This is a really bad way to do things and really, you don't have to look at made up numbers like this to see that Roberts is more than just a marginal upgrade over DeRosa. Just look at WARP.

Bob-San's owner is the brother of the owner of Sai-Cafe. Both are my favs in the City. Nice. Is Sai similar to Bob San in terms of the decor? I don't like the whole cold and modern feel to it.

All that said, I'd still rather keep DeRosa at 2B and get an upgrade at SS. But Roberts is nowhere near what people are making him out to be.

I really don't get why people keep saying that Roberts is only a marginal upgrade. DeRo at his best = baseline of what we can expect from Roberts.

There's a few other things to take into account. Many believe, Meph included, that DeRosa won't repeat the season he had last year next year. I was a big DeRo supporter from the get-go, but it's not like he's a proven entity or a certainty. Of course, the same could be said for Roberts, but I think a lot of people underestimate how good Roberts is. Last year, Roberts had a WARP of 7.1 last year (DeRo's was 4.5, FWIW). That's a fairly big difference. In 2006, Roberts had an off year at 4.2, which is still right in line with what DeRosa did for us last year. In 2005, Roberts had a WARP of 9.4. Maybe he was on steroids that year, who knows? I think what I'm trying to get at is that DeRosa, at his best, is about as good as the baseline of what we can expect from Roberts, while BRob also has the potential to be much more productive. On top of all that, as others have mentioned, DeRosa taking those ABs away from the lesser bench players can wind up being a big factor as well. Hell, who knows, maybe at some point he'll even take the SS job from Theriot (doubtful, though).

The deal is Gallagher, Murton, and Patterson.

Bob San on Division wouldn't be a bad choice. Best sushi I've ever had. Not a fan of the decor or the vibe of the place, and the service is just average, but the sushi itself, wow.

I'm certainly not arguing that certain hitters aren't better at making contact than other hitters. There's no question of that.

I should restate that. There's some belief (among those insiders and O's fans in general) that they are waiting to announce a deal until the steroid stuff cools off a bit, so that it doesn't "look" like they're just shipping him off because of it. That said, Hendry's interest in Roberts apparently hasn't cooled one bit due to any of this.

According to Oriole "insiders," the steroid stuff is unlikely to have affected the trade negotiations.

So you would rather have a hitter K with a man on third than hit a deep fly ball to the OF with 1 out? I understand what you're saying but an out isn't an out straight across the line. Obviously not, but when is this "choice" going to come up? You can't base player personnel decisions on these types of situation, because by and large, hitters aren't coming up in these situations. I can bring up a choice of hypotheticals like this too, where the K would be the far preferable result. That's why I love baseball, all the variables are a chess game. Putting the ball in play pros: Errors - the NL made 1,616 of them last season Poor defenders / defenses - A guy that could hit the ball to Chris Duncan four times a game is likely to have a productive day. Prince Fielder may hit a ton, but he's not goin to have great range on Defense. Advancing runners - As Cuse pointed out. We all have our own opinions. My experiece tells me these hypotheticals do matter, I'm just not smart enough to back them up with stats. :D I think the mistake is thinking there are choices involved here. You don't just choose to put it in play or choose to strikeout. You try to hit the ball hard and go from there. Baseball is much less of a chess game than the myth makers in the media would like everybody to believe. The vast majority of outcomes are determined by the ability of the players taking part, mainly the pitcher and the hitter. Some players make a lot of contact, others don't. Each tries to hit the ball hard. One does, one whiffs. There are definitely players that aren't always trying to "hit the ball hard" and instead go up there looking to make contact just for the sake of contact. And they usually make weak contact. This is especially true in two strike situations. Some might not agree with me, but I'd rather my guy strike out while trying to drive the ball with two strikes than ground out weakly in an attempt to avoid a strikeout. It's this very same stigma against strikeouts that results in hitters with this garbage mentality.

So Roberts dabbling in steroids has no effect on the deal from the Orioles or Cubs perspective according to Oriole "insiders"? Highly doubtful. It's not like it was news.

In recent years the Cubs have been both at or near the top and bottom in strikeouts. They've been at or near the top in sacrifices as well. What they haven't been is anywhere near the top in walks taken, OBP or runs scored. That is what matters. Yup.

So you would rather have a hitter K with a man on third than hit a deep fly ball to the OF with 1 out? I understand what you're saying but an out isn't an out straight across the line. Obviously not, but when is this "choice" going to come up? You can't base player personnel decisions on these types of situation, because by and large, hitters aren't coming up in these situations. I can bring up a choice of hypotheticals like this too, where the K would be the far preferable result. I never said the batter has a choice. I was merely saying that one out isn't the same as another. As for striking out, of course it's better than a DP. Just throwing out a statement that an out is an out is incorrect, they have different impacts/results. Neither did I, nor was I suggesting that you did. GMs and managers make the choice when they pick and choose what kinds of players they put on the field. Within that context, considering all outs equal is the right way to do it. All these situations that can come up during games are beyond anyone's control and when they come up, the choices have already been made. The abilities and tendencies of the players that are out there aren't going to change. Of course there are tons of situations you can use to show that certain types of outs are better than others. As you seem to know, they go both ways and they even out in the long run.

So you would rather have a hitter K with a man on third than hit a deep fly ball to the OF with 1 out? I understand what you're saying but an out isn't an out straight across the line. Obviously not, but when is this "choice" going to come up? You can't base player personnel decisions on these types of situation, because by and large, hitters aren't coming up in these situations. I can bring up a choice of hypotheticals like this too, where the K would be the far preferable result.

The odd thing is, wrigley has referred to the Cubs as a lineup full of "strikeout kings" in other threads. How crappy of a kingdom is that when the Cubs only had the 11th most strikeouts in the NL and 18th most in MLB?

Nah, Roberts will be wearing #1, guys.

I think it would be really nice if our hitters made outs less often.

I think most people wouldn't argue really strongly with you on that. DeRosa might be better leadoff option than Soriano, anyway. I don't think it really matters all that much, though, because lineup order means little unless you're talking about a Rey Ordonez or Neifi Perez getting a ton of PAs at the top of the order, but the real problem there would be those guys getting any PAs at all.

You could argue, though, that a more patient approach overall in our lineup would have that effect derivatively. We tend to have a lot of quick innings, and if more guys saw more pitches (which is obviously a byproduct of, like you said, waiting for a pitch to hit), the opposing pitchers would be more fatigued as the game goes on. We let guys have too many quick efficient innings. That said, I'm not at all advocating taking for the sake of taking, but I would like all my hitters to go up with the general approach of waiting for a pitch they can drive, "their pitch," even if they have to take borderline pitches that might get called strikes to do it. Obviously, they can't go up there doing that every time, because pitchers will adjust, but I feel like that's the best general approach.

You're missing the point. K's are just like any other out and are often a byproduct of a patient approach at the plate (obviously not in Soriano's case).

Things even out. Contact brings double plays too. The stigma associated with strikeouts is inexplicable to me. Hell, the more patient hitters strike out more because they're willing to take more pitches and thus find themselves deeper in counts more often. I'll never understand the love for guys who will make weak contact for the sake of making contact. Strikeouts (for batters) are up there with pitcher wins and losses as statistics I hate to hear cited the most. On top of all that, how often do leadoff hitters come up with runners on to move?

Don't forget the Creature threads/sigs.

Sarcasm? Lefty/righty splits at least have some level of legitimacy. Granted, not a great sample size...