17 Seconds

but their outfield (offensively) would be significantly worse. i guess there's a good chance that would be the case even if ludwick stayed though Depends on Rasmus production and the Ludwick drop off. It could be about the same or slightly worse. it's hard to get excited about rasmus' 2009 in the majors when his 2008 in the pcl was so crappy

What question?

Another mention of it- http://www.suntimes.com/sports/deluca/1315528,CST-SPT-deluca05.article

Has this been posted? http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2008/dec/05/padres-cubs-still-in-hunt-for-peavy/

but their outfield (offensively) would be significantly worse. i guess there's a good chance that would be the case even if ludwick stayed though

i don't know if you meant it that way, but holy hell that sounded racist.

If taking on Peavy's contract is being held up by the new owners needing to approve it, then why wasn't Dempster's deal also held up? Because none of this is true. I was at Wrigley today along with the other reporters. There is no deal in place with San Diego. Hendry asked us what the deal was. And the Cubs are not cutting payroll. I expect it to be between $140 million and $145 million. Then why the hell didn't they offer Kerry Wood arbitration? Because they didn't want to pay him $10 million a year, even for one year. From what I've been told, Wood and his agent made it pretty clear they wanted a three year deal, going all the way back into this past season. Wood never came to the Cubs and said he'd take a one year deal. When he was pressed during the press conference, he said, in effect, "Sure, I'd take a one year." And if he doesn't get the three year deal he wants from the right team, my guess is he'd explore it with the Cubs. For how much, I don't know. That's only my speculation. Maybe they'd do something for $6-7 million with incentives. Who knows? But the Cubs still want their left-handed bat, and they're going to try to move Marquis. If Wood were to have accepted arbitration, it definitely would have put a crimp in things. But all this talk about it being "officially" over between Wood and the Cubs in some sectors of the media made me laugh. That's not true at all, as you well know, because you guys know the rules. In effect, it might be over, and I don't think he's coming back, but you never know. Bruce do you think the Cubs will be comfortable with the state of the rotation if Marquis is traded to free up payroll, but no new starter is brought in to replace him? I find that a rather unlikely scenario myself, and I figure if Marquis is dealt that it is a significant indication Peavy is a go, but I'd be curious to hear your take. If Marquis is traded, it certainly would set the stage for a Peavy deal. The Cubs are one half or even one third of the equation still. If they couldn't get Peavy, they appear comfortable with Marshall in the rotation instead of Marquis. The Padres and/or another team would have to agree to something. The first priority is the left-handed bat. Ibanez, Abreu and Bradley all are names the Cubs are looking at, but they're willing to see if the price drops with guys like Ibanez and Abreu. I suggested Bradley in my blog the other day. As of now, nothing is close. That could change over the weekend and certainly by the time we all get to Vegas Sunday night. I just looked it up out of curiosity... in 2005 they signed Burnitz on the 5th of Feb... in 2006 they signed Jones on the 10th of Jan. If the Cubs are hoping to find a bargain for RF, there's probably going to be a lot of waiting around required. Actually Jones was signed in mid December

you mean the outrage at hendry for not signing him to a one year deal?

Do you think anything could get done at the meetings next week, or is it just likely to be more talk?

well that could very well be true. a lot of the speculation has been that atlanta's refusal to allow Peavy's NTC was what held things up

From Bruce in the Peavy thread- Like I've said all along, it sounds like Wood was just trying to save face with Cubs fans and was kind of full of it.

If taking on Peavy's contract is being held up by the new owners needing to approve it, then why wasn't Dempster's deal also held up? Because none of this is true. I was at Wrigley today along with the other reporters. There is no deal in place with San Diego. Hendry asked us what the deal was. And the Cubs are not cutting payroll. I expect it to be between $140 million and $145 million. So would a potential deal for Peavy have to wait until the ownership situation is resolved or could Hendry do it right now if Marquis is moved?

sounds like a great deal for the braves

i don't think most people here want to waste money on abreu or ibanez either, so i don't see why you keep saying that we have to get one of those 3 guys. i don't want any of those guys. winn would be a waste of payroll space considering it's arguable if he's even better than fontenot.

worst poll ever. the most obvious choice isn't even listed.

Zambrano Ramirez Marmol Soto have whoever else you'd like

people are up in arms over non tendering a guy who is 25 years old, cheap, can start or relieve, and has kept his era under 4.5 for the past 3 years gaudin isn't great, but he has good value...... especially to a team with rich harden in their rotation Gaudin doesn't have good value. He is due to earn over $2MM for a reliever that puts up terrible numbers. Many people considered Howry to have a terrible year last year, but Howry's WHIP and K/BB ratio were actually better than Gaudin's career numbers. ] i just showed you why he has good value. he's not just a reliever. he's a reliever who can start. that gives him value. plus, even though his peripherals might look bad, he has shown for 3 straight years that he can keep his era under 4.50 while bouncing between the rotation and bullpen. that always has value, especially when we have at least one guy in our rotation who is basically guaranteed to miss a chunk of start (i already said this, you're just ignoring it and pretending he's just a reliever). you can't make a blanket statement like "his numbers are terrible" when his era has been fine for 3 straight years. plus he's only 25 and should get better To be fair, ERA isn't a great way to judge a pitcher and an even worse way to judge a pitcher who pitches in relief a lot. That said, I think Gaudin does provide a good amount of value and I agree with you that he especially provides value to a team with a SP who is very likely to miss quite a few starts. i agree with you on era, and that's why i was trying to word it correctly. my point was that he's been able to sustain an era under 4.5 for 3 years in a row now, so he should be able to continue that

The only thing he did that had me really roll my eyes was the Soriano quip. I still don't get why people think he's a terrible defender at a position manned by the likes of Adam Dunn, Manny Ramirez, Raul Ibanez, and Pat Burrell. i never said anything about him being terrible in left field. my point was that he "can" play center field, but not really

first of all, i never said anything about wanting abreu. also, i'm not the one getting all defensive and copping an attitude. i'll break this down for you since most of your arguments are about stats that don't really matter runs/rbis are a terrible way to evaluate a player's worth. they are a team stat based on lineup positioning. san fransisco isn't really a pitcher's park http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor?season=2008 why do you keep comparing him to those guys? those aren't the only options. it's not like we have to get one of those guys. i wouldn't want any of those guys with the price they'll come at. winn is not good defensively, so that's what we should be saying. we shouldn't be congratulating him for being slightly better than other crappy defenders. again, terrible way to evaluate a player's worth. most people here would say that clutch hitting is a myth and risp hitting is mostly luck, which is why it jumps around from year to year. winn caeer- .288 .347 .425 .771 winn career w/risp- .282 .350 .415 .765 he's actually slightly worse with risp. also, why do you say the cubs desperately need guys who hit in risp? not that it matters, but the cubs were 2nd in the NL w/risp. zing not well. soriano "can" player anywhere in the of too anyone can. it's been shown that lineup contruction is close to meaningless. there are tools where you can check that out. a couple things wrong with this a) small sample size. winn career day games- .270 .338 .386 .724 winn career night games- .296 .350 .442 .792 so he's actually significantly worse in day games. i don't know why that matters anyways. b) even last year (the year you're referencing), you just cherry picked OBP and ignored his other stats. he had a high obp, but you left out that he had a .389 slugging percentage (.446 at night). his ops was 25 points lower in day games. again, it doesn't matter, but your argument wasn't even correct. my point is that winn is not that good. we're already really tight with payroll and we want to add 8.25 million for a guy who put up the following ops numbers over his career? .704 .673 .664 .740 .821 .771 .772 .733 1.071 (231 ab) .721 .798 .790 give me a break. that's what we want out of rf, and that's what we want to waste valuable payroll on? awful. fukudome wasn't that far off of those numbers last season. like i said, i'd rather give fontenot a full time job than waste money on winn. fontenot's career ops is now .826, which is higher than winn has EVER put up in a full season. granted those numbers are a little bit skewed since fontenot has been platooned...but still, i'd be willing to bet he could match winn's high .700's OPS and wouldn't cost 8.25 million to do it. not really a surprise that you come from cubs.com

people are up in arms over non tendering a guy who is 25 years old, cheap, can start or relieve, and has kept his era under 4.5 for the past 3 years gaudin isn't great, but he has good value...... especially to a team with rich harden in their rotation Gaudin doesn't have good value. He is due to earn over $2MM for a reliever that puts up terrible numbers. Many people considered Howry to have a terrible year last year, but Howry's WHIP and K/BB ratio were actually better than Gaudin's career numbers. ] i just showed you why he has good value. he's not just a reliever. he's a reliever who can start. that gives him value. plus, even though his peripherals might look bad, he has shown for 3 straight years that he can keep his era under 4.50 while bouncing between the rotation and bullpen. that always has value, especially when we have at least one guy in our rotation who is basically guaranteed to miss a chunk of start (i already said this, you're just ignoring it and pretending he's just a reliever). you can't make a blanket statement like "his numbers are terrible" when his era has been fine for 3 straight years. plus he's only 25 and should get better

eric gagne had a 1.47 whip last season bob howry had a 1.46 whip last season 1.53 is pretty much the definition of awful

people are up in arms over non tendering a guy who is 25 years old, cheap, can start or relieve, and has kept his era under 4.5 for the past 3 years gaudin isn't great, but he has good value...... especially to a team with rich harden in their rotation

Personally, I don't think it has anything to do with ownership at all. Hendry has his budget and he knows what he can spend. I think he just needs to move Marquis, 1) to free up money and 2) complete the package for Peavy. We also know that Hendry doesn't like leaks. It certainly doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out Marquis has to go if Peavy is coming here. Besides that, Hendry has acknowledged that teams have expressed interest in Marquis. Hendry is generally recognized as a straight shooter. Towers knows that Hendry is offering up the best package he possibly can and Towers is pretty much stuck and will have to take it. At the same time, Hendry isn't going to shortchange Towers. Hendry likes to be able to negotiate with these same guys in future deals, so this will probably end up being a deal where everyone walks away about as happy as they can be given the situation. I'm still pretty convinced that a deal is already in place and Hendry just needs to find a taker for Marquis. That's pretty much how I feel there may be a player or two that are yet to be determined but the main pieces are probably set in place it is just a matter of time before Hendry makes it a go. I fully expect Marquis to be gone within the first 2 days of the winter meetings next week, and a Peavy deal short after. Marquis really isn't going to be that hard to move if we eat about 3 million of his salary and make the base around 6 million. Hendry loses some leverage if he trades for Peavy first. Granted, most of us would probably take a sack of balls for Marquis, but Hendry isn't so dumb to recognize that he can probably get more for Marquis if he doesn't necessarily "have to be traded". Another question is is trading Marquis going to be purley a salary dump, or will it have to net the other components to land Peavy. I'm pretty sure if somebody called Hendry right now and said they'd take Marquis off his hands but wouldn't give the Cubs anybody in return, Hendry would immediately do it.

The part that sucks for Meph is that even if Greene has a good season next year (and I think he will), he'll never get credit for being right because everyone will just be all "blah blah blah Cardinal pxie dust blah blah"

oh, and it's a travesty that zito isn't number one on that list