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Not to mention we have a good chunk of money coming off the books after this coming season, unless Hendry decides to extend Lee and Lilly again before the season is over. Also have Aramis' salary potentially coming off the books if he opts out. If all 3 leave after the seaosn that's $40 mil off the books. There should be no reason not to consider Crawford in the offseason if that happens assuming, like you said, that Tampa doesn't extend him if all 3 of those guys leave we're going to have a lot of holes though it sucks because the contracts that are coming off the books are the good contracts, the ones you don't want to end.

Maybe. I think he's still behind, as Holliday has had one or two standout seasons to go along with his steadily good overall performance, while Ramirez is about as consistently very good but not elite as you can get. A quick-and-dirty control for park effects shows: Holliday: .808 career OPS on the road (.284/.353/.454) Ramirez: .830 career OPS on the road (.280/.334/.496) It's not perfect but it does illustrate that these guys aren't too different as hitters. yeah but that's kind of skewed due to those guys having different types of careers. ramirez struggled for a while before he figured it out, and those early ABs bring his career numbers down. it would be more useful to look at his road numbers from like 04-09 or something like that. holliday was pretty good right from the beginning so his career stats are a more accurate reading of who he's been.

They just changed the scoring on something I win 147.16-147.10 hahahahaa

both sides )bay/redsox) have pretty much acknowledged that there isn't a lot of mutual interest there. plus they'd have to trade ellsbury to free an outfield spot.

i'd be pissed if they got him for 5/80. that's not a bad deal at all

I'll give you that. He can swipe a bag with the best of them, but I'd much prefer a stronger hitter to a stronger base stealer manning center field. but with the success rate he has (70 for 82 last season), he's probably still a top 10 offensive center fielder.

what's more important is that he steals at an awesome rate. he's stolen 129 and only been caught 23 times so far in his career. if he could just become adequate in center he'd be a really nice player

Let me guess... because you heard Rob say that earlier in this thread? In fact I believe those were his exact words. actually if you go back BEFORE rob said that (first page actually), you'll see i gave my endorsement to cameron at 2/15.5. go ahead, look. it's there. now will you apologize, or will you pretend you didn't read this?

no he got you with your literal usage of the 9 players thing. now you're resorting to this

this thread makes me think that lackey is underrated, not overrated

everything you're asking for is right in the link i gave you wait, so if grabow DOESN'T have those types of innings more often, then how do you think he keeps his era low despite stats that don't really back it up? you're kind of arguin for me and against yourself here.

not really sure if you didn't understand my post or something.it's just an example of how era can be skewed over the course of a full season. how often do you see a pitcher end a full season with an era that doesn't really match up with his overall stats? all the time. are you guys trying to argue that it's not common for pitchers to have ERAs that don't match up with their overall stats? if you aren't, then are you arguing that a pitcher can have an talent/ability to consistently pitch better under certain pressure sitations and get out of jams at an above average rate on a yearly basis? i just want to know where we stand on this

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/HOU/HOU200907070.shtml single lineout single walk double play grabow's era was 0.00 for that outing. was he effective? no, he sucked and got lucky. yuou're going to argue that he got the double play when he needed it, right? why didn't he get the double play earlier? he didn't need it then? his badassness doesn't kick in until he's in a certain level of trouble? besides, you might be able to make that "results blah blah" argument with starting pitching, but not relievers. are you never going to acknowledge that era for relievers doesn't even show "results"? grabow comes in with 2 outs and the bases loaded. he walks the first guy to force in a run. the next guy ropes a double down the line to score 2 more. then the next guy pops out. his era for that day was 0.00, so he got results, right?

how many times does it have to be explained to you that era for reliever doesn't even show results? using era for a reliever is just as bad as using hits for a hitter also, by your logic, wins show results

winner

I agree that his past two seasons shouldn't warrant that contract. 5 years? Maybe, based on reputation alone... but for that ridiculous amount? Eh, not so much. This is a fun game. It's called Which of these stats belongs to John Lackey and which one belongs to Gavin Floyd. Both are combined stats from 08 and 09 (stats rounded to nearest hundredth of a decimal)... aaaaaaaaand GO! Statline 1: 117 ERA+ | 1.25 WHIP | 4.27 FIP Statline 2: 118 ERA+ | 1.25 WHIP | 4.13 FIP One of those stat lines is worth $16.5 million a year, and the other is... well, Gavin Floyd. fangraphs has floyd as being worth a combined $31.3 million combined over the last 2 years

something tells me that this protection will be a little better than bradley's "75 games and the 3rd year is guaranteed" deal

In previous seasons I think that fear would be warranted. But I don't think people realize that Hendry can't shell out big money this offseason, even if he wanted to. He probably can't give Marlon Byrd something like 3 year at 24m. The biggest contract he could probably give is something simliar to what Cameron got. But even that would probably be on the high end. Something like Byrd at 6m in 2010 and 8m in 2011, with some type of vesting option based on production is about as high as we probably can go. Which IMO is probably too high, so hopefully another team gives him something like 3 year at 20-21m. I'm sure Byrd's agent wants the best deal possible, but he got burnt pretty bad with this Bradley fiasco. How quickly is this guy going to want to work magic with Hendry again? I'm curious of what Bradley and Byrd's relationship is like, also. i'd say that all of that stuff probably takes a back seat to $$$

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. how did zambrano have better numbers than lackey in 2008? lackey era- 3.75 zambrano era- 3.91 lackey whip- 1.23 zambrano whip- 1.29 lackey k:bb- 130:40 zambrano k:bb- 130:72 zambrano gave up less home runs, and hits, but that's it. rate wise, lackey was clearly better than z in 2008, and has been noticably better from 2006-2009 edit: just noticed lackey had a higher FIP than z in 2008, so you might have an argument. the point remains though.... that lackey overall has been better than zambrano in the last 4 seasons

they use era a lot too

hahhhahahh

yeah, they gave kyle lohse 4/41

I'm just gonna throw this out there....maybe each year is different. Maybe each year requires a different approach based on the free agent market, the demand for those players, the salaries being bandied about, the perceived quality of the players you currently have under contract, the number of holes you need to fill, and the moves that your division rivals are making. Maybe. Obviously. Given the totality of circumstances, I'd love to hear the rationale for why moving swiftly was the wrong approach last year, but conversely playing wait-and-see is the wrong approach this year. are you joking? because one contract was bad and one was good. and because there was a huge market for corner outfielders last offseason. the market for center fielders this offseason is small and we're now left to marlon byrd as the top option. are you really going to pretend like you don't understand this?

You're right, he's done a damn good job putting together that impressive 587-545 record with one of the top payrolls in the league. Let's just give him some time, fellas. At this point, he really doesn't have any kind of track record or body of work on which to base our criticism. There's plenty to criticize Hendry for. Folks just come off looking pretty foolish when he does things one way, and then the opposite way, and both times he gets slammed. once again, that's not happening here. you're just confused... yet again. comparing a signing of bradley where he overpaid to a non-signing of cameron where he was had for a great deal is [expletive].

Aren't we a little dramatic? I wasn't asking you or anybody to ignore bad moves Hendry has made or asking you to give them a chance. I said hey lets see what the heck we do this offseason, before we complain how mediocre the team is going to be. Also if you think Hendry is not capable of making good moves, then I don't know what to tell you. But lets at least see what moves we make this offseason before we make these type of judgements or start killing people. Exactly, Cameron was the top guy I wanted and I'm disappointed we didn't get him. But the Cubs still have a very talented team, and they still can make some good moves to make them better this offseason. Especially with so many guys still on the market. This will probably be a slow moving market with good players still out there in mid to late January. So people need to be patient and not call this a horrible offseason, because we haven't done anything yet in mid December. Don't you get it? Last year Hendry screwed up by diving into the free agent market early, and missing out on the great bargains available later (Dunn, Abreu, etc.) This year he's screwing up by letting other teams acquire guys for full price before XMas. Duh! yeah, because overpaying for guys early is the same thing as getting a good bargain early. 2/15.5 for cameron was an absolute steal