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Oh my god, he's an all-star! We have to get him! Mark Loretta, David Eckstein, and Mark Redman are all-stars too. Yeah and none of those guys would be considered a elite player for his position. Utley is the only player among 2nd basemen that has more total win shares than roberts in the past three years. Roberts is a elite player for 2B. I'm not saying he's not a good player, I'm just sick of people using the term "all-star" to qualify him as a good player. Read my above post. Anyways, Roberts wouldn't be in my top 3 choices for 2B's in all of baseball next season.

Oh my god, he's an all-star! We have to get him! Mark Loretta, David Eckstein, and Mark Redman are all-stars too. These names, and names like them, are always brought out to argue "all-star" status, and it's fair, but Roberts is a legitimate All-Star. Bold prediction: if Roberts is traded to the Cubs, he will back up Chase Utley at the 2008 All-Star game. Legitimately. I find that using the "he's an all-star" claim only weakens a person's argument for acquiring Roberts. If he's really as great as someone says he is, then they shouldn't have a problem coming up with enough reasons to prove that without saying "he's an all-star!". It reminds me of the way Theriot supporters talk.

Roberts' career OBP is only .14 higher than Soriano's

Oh my god, he's an all-star! We have to get him! Mark Loretta, David Eckstein, and Mark Redman are all-stars too.

This is what I mean about people thinking that increasingly outrageous deals are "decent." RynoHawk, I do not understand your post. Jay Payton is due $5 million in 2008, and at this point in his career he's like a .740 OPS guy against lefties and a .690 guy overall probably. He is no more of a fallback option than Sam Fuld or Eric Patterson, and he's probably worse than Angel Pagan and definitely worse than Craig Monroe. Plus, all he does is bitch about lack of playing time. So you're saying it's okay to trade our top pitching prospect, our 2nd best position player prospect, an outfielder in Murton who I think could only be a step away from becoming a Conor Jackson type hitter, and a shortstop who's fairly high risk/high reward, for a pure pricey salary dump and 2 years of Brian Roberts? Are we trading more than the Red Sox did for Josh Beckett yet? Yeesh. I'm sorry. I grow increasingly baffled by the reasoning that goes on in this topic. Soon enough we'll be rationalizing how trading Soto, Hill, Marmol, Pie, Gallagher, Murton, Cedeno, Wuertz, and DeRosa for Roberts, Payton, and Danys Baez is a fair deal. Here's how it works. People hear about the Cubs being interested in Roberts, and they get excited. They hear a few rumored packages and decide in their heads what is a realistic offer and what they'd be willing to give up. They want to believe that it will happen. Then someone posts a link of the latest rumored offer, which is a bigger package than the previous one. They don't like it at first, but then say "ah what the hell, it's only a little bit more, and I've got my heart set on Roberts." This goes on and on as the deal slowly gets pricier and pricier until it looks nothing like the original one. Then it's "well, screw it. we've spent all this time on it, might as well cave and get it done." The biggest problem with this mindset is that it appears Jim Hendry has it as well.

Bigbird is a huge tool. See, here's what he does, and this is all under the assumption that he actually does have a guy he gets "information" from, (which I think definately could be BS, I'll get into that in a second). His guy tells him his opinion on what he thinks might happen and what the Orioles should do, and then bigbird spews the same stuff out. I'd say the vast majority of the stuff he passes off as "inside info" is just his opinion and speculation. Anyways, I think it's very possible he doesn't even have a "guy", and that he just piggybacks onto Peace/Belkast's stuff. The other day I was browsing that board after he claimed a deal of Gallagher/Murton/Veal/Cedeno was on the table (sure it was, bigbird), and he mentioned that he confirmed with Peace and he had heard the same thing. In a different thread the next day, Peace posted that he hadn't heard anything about that deal. I asked bigbird why he said Peace confirmed it, when he obviously didn't. Of course I got no reply, and if you question any of the almighty "insiders" on the board, you get banned. Those guys are no more "insiders" than we are after they share the stuff they hear with us. Peace's guy is just a dude that works in the same agency as Bedard/Roberts' agent, so I can't imagine him knowing all that much about what's going on in the Orioles FO.Belkast I have no idea about, but I'd be willing to bet his guy is nothing more than a friend of a friend or something like that.

Ridiculous. If this was a witty commentary on Meph's tendency to reply to posts with one word dismissals, good job. If not, please make a point. My point? The predictions were so ludicrous that I didn't want to spend 10 minutes explaing how bad they were. I now realize that the post was a joke and he wasn't serious.

That would be a terrible deal, and the type of trade that would keep Hendry from ever getting a fair deal again.

Your other ones were poor as well.

Mets Phillies Braves Padres Cubs Dodgers Dbags Rockies Brewers who cares after that

Why? They'll have an elite offense. They essentially signed a quality #2 starter and have an elite closer. Lidge's 19/27 certainly didn't look "elite" last season. Brad Lidge and Philadelphia sounds like a potential disaster.

Ridiculous.

it is the end of the week :hello: hmmm...maybe the deal gets done today? I can already hear the wheels turning over at the OH.

Link?

How do you figure they aren't a favorite? I'm not particularly stoked about this team's chances of doing anything serious in the playoffs, but I see no reason to think the brewers have done anything to get better than us. Their defense was brutal last year. Their defensive efficiency was .8 standard deviations below average. The Cubs were almost 1.5 standard deviations above average. They've made a difference just by adding Cameron, moving Braun to the outfield, and moving Hall to the infield. Yeah, I definately don't buy the fact that since they upgraded their defense a little bit that they're the favorites. It's going to be close I'm sure, but to say "we're not a playoff team in this division" is a little silly.

I was wondering the same thing. As was I. The Cubs had talked in general terms of what would be available. The other teams knew which players were (and are) available, but talks, as I know of them, never got down to concrete offers that both teams could accept or refuse. In other words, MacPhail knows, the Cubs are probably willing to trade Marshall, Gallagher, Murton (the Cubs are trying hard to trade him) and maybe Cedeno. MacPhail no doubt said, "That's nice, but we'd like to see something with Pie, Colvin and/or Hill." That's how these things work. So the Cubs had and have enough (as they see it) on the table, as Crane put it, for other teams to choose from. Bruce, let me ask you something. If you had to guess right now, would you say we make a "significant" move before opening day? By significant I mean not something like Marlon Byrd or any other platoon partner outfielder. I'm thinking more along the lines of a Roberts type player, or possible a starting pitcher. It's just weird that Hendry has continued to say that he wants to make a couple more moves and that he's not done yet, but here we are well into February and nothing has happened since the Lieber signing.

How do you figure they aren't a favorite? I'm not particularly stoked about this team's chances of doing anything serious in the playoffs, but I see no reason to think the brewers have done anything to get better than us.

I was wondering the same thing.

If he does well they could trade him at the deadline.

Is there any realistic chance Demp/Marquis + prospect would net us crisp? If I'm not mistaken, Boston doesn't want him anymore and would readily move him in a trade. Marquis/ Dempster and mid level prospect might do it. They may still demand more, but seeing as how they have a hole in their rotation, they could be desparate. They don't really have "a hole in their rotation", at least not one that Dempster or Marquis would meaningfully fill. Beckett - Daisuke - Buchholz - Lester - Wakefield I recall reading/hearing from Papelbon that he likes his role as closer, but isn't there a decent chance they'd stretch him out to start as well? Don't you remember how 2007 started? After Papelbon ended 2006 with injuries, they decided to use him as a starter so he wouldn't pitch but once every 5 days. Right before the season started, Papelbon told them that he changed his mind and still wanted to close, and that that's where his heart is.

Is there any realistic chance Demp/Marquis + prospect would net us crisp? If I'm not mistaken, Boston doesn't want him anymore and would readily move him in a trade. Marquis/ Dempster and mid level prospect might do it. They may still demand more, but seeing as how they have a hole in their rotation, they could be desparate. They don't really have "a hole in their rotation", at least not one that Dempster or Marquis would meaningfully fill. Beckett - Daisuke - Buchholz - Lester - Wakefield I recall reading/hearing from Papelbon that he likes his role as closer, but isn't there a decent chance they'd stretch him out to start as well? Don't you remember how 2007 started? After Papelbon ended 2006 with injuries, they decided to use him as a starter so he wouldn't pitch but once every 5 days. Right before the season started, Papelbon told them that he changed his mind and still wanted to close, and that that's where his heart is.

Is there any realistic chance Demp/Marquis + prospect would net us crisp? If I'm not mistaken, Boston doesn't want him anymore and would readily move him in a trade. Marquis/ Dempster and mid level prospect might do it. They may still demand more, but seeing as how they have a hole in their rotation, they could be desparate. They don't really have "a hole in their rotation", at least not one that Dempster or Marquis would meaningfully fill. Beckett - Daisuke - Buchholz - Lester - Wakefield I recall reading/hearing from Papelbon that he likes his role as closer, but isn't there a decent chance they'd stretch him out to start as well? Don't you remember how 2007 started? After Papelbon ended 2006 with injuries, they decided to use him as a starter so he wouldn't pitch but once every 5 days. Right before the season started, Papelbon told them that he changed his mind and still wanted to close, and that that's where his heart is.

Did he sound like he thought there was a good chance of a deal happening?

Did he sound like he thought there was a good chance of a deal happening?