squally1313

Anyone know how long DeRosa is expected to be out? Obviously with that sort of thing you want to give him all the time he needs, but it'd be nice if he got all the rust off before opening day.

Yeah he's on pace for 112 points through 8 minutes, which would be, I believe, a little bit above his season average.

I can't even explain how good it feels to have him in they're instead of Jaque

Oh man, could you imagine if the Cub's games outdrew the Sox games at Hell in a Cell? Which, thinking about it logically...wouldn't be all that unrealistic. One nice little consolation if this were to happen....

Having no knowledge about the accuaracy/past success of this application, I thought it was funny that: A. Hendry seemed absolutely set on trading our 3 hitter for Kaz Matsui B. Soto bats above Soriano. Geovany Soto. C. Theriot bats 9th, below the pitcher. Our pitcher's that good of hitters? LaRussa actually a genius? Theriot actually that bad? (Hmmmm, I wonder) I mean, I know this would never be the lineup, and I know lineup organization has been proven by some very reputable sources to be pretty meaningless, but still, found it amusing...

So knowing Hendry, let's guess how this contract is structured.... Year 1: $8.50 Year 2: $1.5 million Year 3: $18 million Year 4: $28,499,991.50 ...Just trying to balance out all the positive posts

Along that same line of thought, I'm assuming you guys were against Soto being called up at the end of 2007? After all, he put up great numbers in the minors, but he never proved anything in the majors before. Those great minor league numbers just weren't translating...

Great minor league numbers. Too bad we haven't seen a hint of that yet in the majors. Yet, by starting Theriot next year, you're basically guaranteeing that you aren't going to see any good numbers from Cedeno next season either. Outside of Ward, there's not a lot of people that put up good numbers getting a start once a week. What are you planning on doing with this 24 shortstop who dominated AAA last year? If you put him back there again, odds are he puts up the same numbers, but obviously minor league numbers aren't good enough to deserve a shot at starting over one of the worst shortstops, statistics wise, in baseball last year. You want to keep him with the Cubs as a backup next year? I'm sure it's a great idea to give our best middle infield prospect 4 at bats a week. He should improve tons backing up Theriot, learning his hustle and grit and 672 OPS. If we're starting Theriot next year, get rid of Cedeno before whatever value he has is destroyed.

I love this logic. How is Cedeno going to prove he can hit major league hitting when he is getting at most 1 start a week? You saw what that kind of stuff did to Murton last year, and I pray to God it doesn't happen to Pie in 2008. To repeat what everyone else has said, because apparently it's still necessary: At age 23, Cedeno was absolutely terrible, to the tune of a .610 OPS for the Major League level Chicago Cubs At age 23, Theriot was almost as bad for the freaking single A and double AA minor league teams. (671 and 621 OPS) Theriot's amazing performance at that age got him sent back to high A ball, making him, at the time, a 24 year old playing single A ball. There he posted what I guess is an acceptable 273/367/342 line, but nothing that screams future major league starter. What did Cedeno do at age 24? You mean besides put up a ridiculous 359/422/537 line at AAA? Well not much I guess... To a certain degree, I understand the logic. We know what we will get out of Theriot this year. He'll hustle, get his uniform dirty, maybe slide into first a couple times, etc....But he'll do all that putting up numbers that are replacement level at best. I know all of us here, Theriot lovers and Theriot haters, can agree that Eckstein is the most overrated player in recent memory. Theriot's numbers last year are worse than any of the last three years for Eckstein. Is there a chance, if Cedeno starts, he puts up the same crap numbers he did at age 23? Of course. But of all the shortstops in AAA with more than 50 games played, Cedeno was second in OPS. He's got nothing else to prove in the minor leagues (For what it's worth, he also threw up a 921 OPS in 2005 at AAA in 65 games). To let him sit on the bench while Hustle McGrit puts up a 700ish OPS next year is just a wasted opportunity.

Agreed but in just 2 or 3 more days I'll be out of here and get a well deserved month off. I'm hoping that by the time I'm finished with my Final tomorrow Fukudome will be signed with the Cubs. Get it done Hendry. I'm secretly agreeing with you guys here about finals week, but I'm also quite sure that almost everyone else on this site would be in the college situation if they could, so I'm not going to complain about it. Back on topic...glad that step one is out of the way. Being able to pencil him in at the 2 spot in the lineup every day would be amazing, and gives us so much more flexibility for more moves this offseason.

Please explain this Second what King said. I mean, I'm sure you have plenty of statistics to back this up and everything, because I've never really seen you say something you couldn't support (outside of maybe the anti-Pie stuff), but all the statistics I'm looking at show Bedard putting up Rich Hill like numbers last year in the AL East, which is much better than the NL Central.

http://wintermeetings.mlblogs.com/nashvilleconfidential/ Edit: This is the website MLB.com links to. Here's the MLB page http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071204&content_id=2317414&vkey=hotstove2007&fext=.jsp

Like I said, I was just throwing out ideas. I know Rich Hill is a great pitcher, and I would never do the first trade if I didn't have the second one in line and confirmed. But I know Arizona needs starting pitching, and I know Baltimore needs outfielders. Arizona gets a solid number 2 for one of their many outfield prospects (Quentin, Young, and Upton, along with Byrnes and Salazar), Baltimore would get a number 5 pitcher, a young shortstop to replace Tejada, two outfielders that could conceivably start with Markakis in Pie/Gonzalez and Murton, and we would upgrade from Hill to Bedard, and obviously Theriot to Tejada, which would cost us only Marshall, Murton, Cedeno and whatever prospects we would need to finish the Baltimore deal, since we would still have a young top outfield prospect. I would hate to see Hill go, but Bedard put up better numbers in almost every single category, against significantly better competition. And since it's been mentioned many times how we weren't even that bad in right field last year, upgrading Shortstop would help our offense the most.

I agree that Rich Hill is a great pitcher, but I'd rather have Bedard's 146 ERA+ out of the AL East than Hill's 119 ERA+ out of the NL Central. I definitely think Rich Hill is already a number 2 pitcher, and maybe could become an ace, but he just seems like a guy Arizona would love to pencil in as the number 2 guy behind Webb. That only strengthens our package that we could offer to Baltimore. In my opinion, going into next year I think having Bedard/Tejada/(Dempster, Prior, Hart, etc) at #2 pitcher/Shortstop/#5 pitcher is a lot better than Hill/Theriot/Marshall. Bedard put up better stats (WHIP, K/9, BB/9, ERA) in a much better division. Tejada is obviously an upgrade, at least short term, over Theriot/Infante/Cedeno, and while I think Marshall is better than any of the options we would have at the #5, I don't think the difference is that much, or near enough to overcome the advantage gained in Bedard vs Hill and Tejada vs Theriot. Plus, as you said, the organization clearly doesn't like Marshall, much like Murton and Cedeno, so who knows where Marshall would even be next year if we don't make any moves.

It would be a brilliant move on the Cubs part to get a guy like Carlos Gonzalez, however, it will never happen. The Cubs aren't willing to give their own prospects a chance. How on Earth is someone else's prospect going to get that chance? Because our prospects aren't very good. This guy is good. If the Diamondbacks need a SP, send them Marquis and a prospect. Gonzalez is a no brainer top 50 prospect and possibly/probably top 25. In other words...you've set the bar pretty high for most ridiculous trade proposal of the day. Yeah I don't think Marquis gets the job done, and I'm pretty sure the same thing goes for Marshall. However, if we throw Hill at them, and manage to sign Fukodome to go along with Soriano, that would leave 3 young, cheap, good prospects in Pie, Gonzalez, and Murton for only 1 real position for the next few years.... With that, would we be able to package two of those guys, Cedeno, Marshall, plus pitching prospects for Tejada and Bedard, pick up a relatively cheap righty outfielder to platoon with Pie/Gonzalez (Kielty has a career 296/379/503/882 line against lefties), and let Dempster, Hart, Prior, Gallagher, etc fight it out for the number 5 spot? Rotation Zambrano Bedard Lilly Marquis Dempster/Prior/Hart/etc Vs Righties/Lefties Soriano/Soriano Fukudome(Right Field)/DeRosa Lee/Lee Ramirez/Ramirez Tejada/Tejada DeRosa/Kielty(Right Field) Soto/Soto Pie/Gonzalez(Center)/Fukudome(Center Field) Pitcher (I didn't give much thought to the line up and know that Fukudome shouldn't be hitting 8th in any lineup, but you get the idea) Sure, it would take a few prospects to get the deals done, but it allows us to keep a top outfield prospect, get a great young pitcher in Bedard, take care of the issue with Pie hitting lefties, and lets us improve a ton at shortstop. With the way Hendry's set up the big contracts, and the ages of our hitters, this kinda puts us in win now mode, and I think that lineup is pretty dangerous. Note: Haven't really thought about salary too much, and if adding Tejada/Fukudome/Kielty would put us over our speculated limit...

I didn't really think it was necessary to start a new thread just to throw a new name around, but I was just wondering if someone smarter than me could tell me the general consensus on the Diamondbacks Carlos Gonzalez....I saw a blurb on rotoworld saying that they were looking for a starter to replace Livan, and that he was their best trading chip available. All I really know about him is that he is a 21 year old left handed outfielder.... Basically I'm just wondering if A. He could potentially be ready to play in the majors next year/platoon in right in Murton B. If he's not quite ready and platooning him would just stunt his growth and C. Do we have anything near what it takes to go after him, if he's even worth it? I'm aware this is completely out of nowhere, but I've been trying to look at anything to try and fix this right field thing, since it looks like the Cubs are set with "fan-favorite" Theriot at short. The Diamondback's need starting pitching, and we seem to have a surplus of potential starters...a 21 year old Lefty corner outfielder wouldn't be too bad to acquire, assuming the price wasn't too steep...

That'd be hot. Can we also trade for Tejada and Bedard while we're at it? Alright I know you were kidding, but I just got really really happy just thinking about that.... Soriano LF DeRosa 2B Lee 1B ARod 3B Tejada SS Kemp RF Soto C Pie CF Z Bedard Lilly Billingsley Prior I think I would be pretty comfortable not having a minor league system if we trotted that team out in 2008. And NSBB could organize a fundraiser to help alleviate the extra costs, although I'm sure it wouldn't be too much of an issue for Owner Mark Cuban (I'm still in fantasy mood) Alright done with the dream, but that just made my night...

On the google aspect of this statistic, which by the way I love... I tried different players on google using "gritty (player name)" I only spent about 30 seconds gathering my data, because frankly, preaching the grittiness of players doesn't include much data, but the results are as follows.... "gritty Barry Bonds"- 1 "gritty Manny Ramirez"- 1 "gritty Ryan Theriot"- 2 And the kicker... "gritty David Eckstein"- 61 That's right, David Eckstein is 61 times more gritty than Barry Bonds.

I think most of us want to see Pie getting the majority of the starts in center field next year, with Soto being the number one catcher. To add another assumption, I think most of us agree that Murton is a better major league hitter than Theriot/Cedeno. With no real center field free agents out there beyond the most likely expensive Andruw Jones coming off his worst season in a while, upgrading right field leaves us with Soto, Pie, and Cedeno/Theriot in the lineup. Soto was amazing the last few weeks of the year, but it's a pretty small sample size. Yes, he tore it up in AAA, but so did Cedeno, and we haven't seen much out of him in the majors yet, admittedly again with a small sample size. Pie is more or less the same thing. Basically my point is that upgrading right field, where as someone pointed out we still OPSed 6th in the NL at the position last year, leaves us with 3 relatively unknowns in the lineup, in addition to Theriot who we pretty much know adds nothing. I personally don't feel comfortable going into 2008 with a $100+ million dollar payroll and having Soto, Pie, Theriot, and Cedeno make up our 6, 7, 8 spots. Yes, trading for Tejada (IMO, clearly the superior choice to Renteria) is a short-term decision, and in a couple years we would be back in the same spot we are now at Short. But the key offensive players, Lee, Ramirez and Sori, are all in their late 20s, early 30s, arguably in the prime, or just past the prime of their careers. With our pitching staff around that same situation, combined with the unclear ownership situation and the amount of money we already have tied into the future, it looks like right now is the time to make a move for the present. Tejada blocks Cedeno, who has done everything he needs to in the minors to deserve a shot with the Cubs, but having him on the bench, compared to Theriot being the first guy off, allows Cedeno to fill in at second and let DeRosa move around where needed. Let Murton get the majority of the starts in right, and if he struggles then you can start platooning him with Jacque, who hopefully would step it up in a contract year. While no one wants to see Marquis in the rotation, he's going to be our number 4 starter for the next 2 years, which means we have a good amount of talent fighting for the number 5 spot. If Marshall's value is high enough to Baltimore, then I think you have to deal him, and hope Hart/Prior/Dempster/etc can come close to his numbers, knowing that you've significantly upgraded your production at Short.

Not sure if this has been pointed out...but this article made it onto FJM. Might want to check it out...

Just don't go. The most logical option, yes, but we've been in a race since the beginning of the year, and, being way too shortsighted, I've already used that reasoning a few too many times...

Man....I just realized that this game started 3 hours earlier than game one on Wednesday will, and it's coming up on midnight in the Eastern time zone. Staying up till 3:00 with a full day of classes the next day is really not something I would choose to do.

Alright wow...I'm really sorry for even saying that

Man, leave it to Rich and the Cubs to get me emotionally invested in one of the two games that don't matter this entire year...