fearthecubs

Another club with interest in Overbay is Boston, which could have pitching to spare after acquiring Josh Beckett from the Marlins. One rumor circulating has the Red Sox offering right-hander Matt Clement to the Brewers for Overbay. The Brewers took a run at Clement on the free agent market last winter before he signed with the Red Sox for three years and $25.5 million. Overbay made $446,000 last season and is in line for a big raise through salary arbitration, but the Brewers would have a bigger payroll bump in acquiring Clement, who went 13-6 with a 4.57 ERA in 32 games for Boston. Melvin, who has said he would only trade Overbay in the right deal, did not indicate if he'd be interested in such a swap but noted the Red Sox might be after Chicago White Sox free agent first baseman Paul Konerko. After dealing for Philadelphia's Jim Thome, it is not known if Chicago will try to keep Konerko. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brew/nov05/372964.asp

Do you think the Delgado trade or Thome trade can give us any new insight as to what it might take to land Abreu in terms of players and money? Hoops, you have to ask yourself how the Phillies are going to 'look at' the 25M they sent to Chicago. What percentage of that counts towards the 06 payroll that they're budgeting for? Secondly, it's pretty obvious that either Abreu or Lofton will be traded, and that brings up the second question of timing. Assuming neither have signed by the beginning of the winter meetings in early December, do you forget Furcal and go all out for Abreu assuming he's made available? What would it take to acquire Abreu? Obviously not another outfielder, so Corey is out of that equation, which brings up question number 3 - Corey hasn't been rumored in the Marlins trade, and if he doesn't have a spot in Philly in a possible Abreu trade.......what are we going to do with him?

So you're implying I'm stupid? Well I'm not implying you want it, but you'll never earn my respect saying stuff like that. People will disagree with you pretty much every day in the workplace, etc., you better get used to it. I'm not implying anything. It is a general statement. You made it pretty clear that you are not interested in looking at the statistical side of baseball. I find that attitude to be ignorant in many respects. It's like the caveman throwing a fit b/c the round wheel wasn't what he used before. Stick with that square wheel. I'm not attacking you. I'm disagreeing with your approach. You can get all bent out of shape about it, but that doesn't help advance your idea. Where have you attempted to argue, with actual evidence, against the use of stats? No where that i've seen. You just throw out unsubstantiated opinions and get mad when people don't agree. I still think you owe me an apology, but whatever. I do care about stats, I've said in a few other threads I find great importance in OBP. Another stat I think isn't used enough is WHIP for pitching. I guess my point isn't that VORP or whatever isn't useful, I highly doubt any GM in professional baseball uses it to weigh making a deal. It's a fun hobby, and predicting transactions is what this forum is for, but I don't think it ever carries over to the real world. I really cant even see Theo sitting at his desk musing "Hmm, let's go with Player A due to his filthy VORP rating."

So you're implying I'm stupid? Well I'm not implying you want it, but you'll never earn my respect saying stuff like that. People will disagree with you pretty much every day in the workplace, etc., you better get used to it.

Point well taken

I'll agree with you there.

I totally disagree for one simple reason - Perry doesn't take himself 1/10 as seriously as Rogers takes himself. Perry also is pretty smart, I definately don't think he's some sort of goon. Whoever had that Podsednik comment, you're a hypocrite. About 99.999999% of us advocated that Lee for Podsednik trade. [-( Podsednik sucks. Thanks to people like Joe Morgan and Co., some individuals actually think he's good. He doesn't "suck" anymore than Hendry is a "moran". He is overrated in terms of being labled an All-Star, just like Hendry has made some good moves, and some not-so-good moves. Podsednik ranked 14/21 in OBP, 21/21 (dead last) in SLG, and dead last in OPS last year among qualified AL left fielders. He had a 72 SB% which is just above the break even mark. He ranked 10/14 in VORP among AL LF with 400+ PA. He sucks. You, sir, only care about stats. I don't think you see anything else. If you asked players on the Sox they'll tell you that Podsednik and Iguchi set the tone for the rest of the order day in and day out. I don't even know what the hell VORP is, no do I care. No one cares. People only care about winning, and Podsednik, unarguably, helped that team win. What you are failing to grasp through your statistical rantings is that you can twist numbers to suit whatever point you're trying to make, don't you pay attention to politics? Man, lay off the numbers pal - and look at the PLAYERS.

Just curious, I wonder what depth of of incentives there are to be the radio station to break a signing before other. Do other urban areas have mutiple stations covering the same team?

I'm really not trying to draw battle lines here but what is the common obsession with ruining everything CW posts? He's usually right in my humble opinion. God forbid the guy be optomistic.

*crickets*

It bothers me seeing as a PH only point and purpose is to get on base. I put my vote in the Sweeney hat, the man had a filthy OBP last year. Its for sure one area where OBP is the defining statistic. Typical Cubs, though.

I totally disagree for one simple reason - Perry doesn't take himself 1/10 as seriously as Rogers takes himself. Perry also is pretty smart, I definately don't think he's some sort of goon. Whoever had that Podsednik comment, you're a hypocrite. About 99.999999% of us advocated that Lee for Podsednik trade.

Even as a Cub fan I tip my hat to this organization. Instead of sitting on their WS loot, it goes right back into the team. Thome did always want to play in Chicago, you know.

That was my first impression too. :?

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/5104870

Exactly.

I told you we weren't bidding against ourselves. It's just the market, guys, put down your sniper rifles.

Get over yourself and your armchair opinions. Lol, thats probalby construed as a personal attack, but I agree with you. You can't act like you know more than a GM in baseball, the guy has his job for a reason. GM's are smart, smart people, with degrees from great universities. I know Epstein is a Yale grad. Having your opinion is one thing but just keep at that, an opinion, don't try to make it fact! edit - grammar

No, middle relievers for pricey 3 year deals are bad ideas. Especially ones like Eyre who don't have any sustained success. As an aside, does anyone know what happened to Howry's K's this year? Three years of sustained success isn't enough? Can't anyone look beyond the one stat of ERA in '04 to gain a more complete picture of Eyre? I agree with you on quite a few things you've put into this thread CW, including the ridiculous sarcasm exhibited by a lot of people here. Looking at one year of stats is insane. Patterson hit 300 with 15 jacks and some steals or whatever before he tore his ACL, everyone thought he'd be great the next year, then he hits 260 with a million K's and gets sent to AAA the next year. Like I said, if not Eyre, who? It was printed EVERYWHERE that the Yanks wanted Eyre too, why is it so crazy to think we HAD to pay that much? Instead of complaining you should be thrilled the Tribune is spending some cheese. The Tribune has been spending some cheese for several years now and doesn't have much to show for it. I want them to spend some cheese wisely For about the 800th time, if not Eyre, who?

Obviously Dotel is going to command more money than Eyre, so wouldn't people complain even more? What's the difference? Dotel hasn't shown me anything that Novoa cant do - and I absolutely guarantee you thats how the Cubs view him.

No, middle relievers for pricey 3 year deals are bad ideas. Especially ones like Eyre who don't have any sustained success. As an aside, does anyone know what happened to Howry's K's this year? Three years of sustained success isn't enough? Can't anyone look beyond the one stat of ERA in '04 to gain a more complete picture of Eyre? I agree with you on quite a few things you've put into this thread CW, including the ridiculous sarcasm exhibited by a lot of people here. Looking at one year of stats is insane. Patterson hit 300 with 15 jacks and some steals or whatever before he tore his ACL, everyone thought he'd be great the next year, then he hits 260 with a million K's and gets sent to AAA the next year. Like I said, if not Eyre, who? It was printed EVERYWHERE that the Yanks wanted Eyre too, why is it so crazy to think we HAD to pay that much? Instead of complaining you should be thrilled the Tribune is spending some cheese.

wow...95 wins is failing horribly? sign me up for a couple years of that type of failure! Obviously I was referring directly to their bullpen performance, any Red Sox fan will tell you that bullpen inconsistency doomed any chances of a championship. so despite a bullpen disaster, they still won 95 games? sounds like a great pen may be overrated if you can win that many games w/ such a bad pen. how about some offense? Dude. When you play in the AL East you're not trying to win 95 games, you're trying to beat the damn Yankees.

wow...95 wins is failing horribly? sign me up for a couple years of that type of failure! Obviously I was referring directly to their bullpen performance, any Red Sox fan will tell you that bullpen inconsistency doomed any chances of a championship.

Wrong wrong wrong. Look at the Red Sox of 03, with the closer by comittee. Then they fail horribly, realize they need a closer, sign Foulke, and win the World Series. Houston had Lidge. St. Louis has Isringhausen, White Sox had Hermanson/Jenks. The truth is that having a great closer and setup man shortens the game to 7 or 8 innings. Also, did you know that Hoffman has more saves than Mariano Rivera in less opportunities? Wagner is in that upper tier as well, either one is worth at least 3/30 to me. Wagner I'd go 4/40 without hesitation due to being younger.

Looking at the year by year stats for Eyre and Howry, what is it that is there that inspires confidence in you that they're especially predictable? Since you choose to belabor your point...it was reported extensively that Eyre suffers from acute ADD, and has been on treatment for it the last few years. His numbers have been outstanding in that time. Yes, I would consider a three-year run after a life-changing event a run of sustained performance that leads to some confidence that the trend will continue. Bob Howry had three solid years for the White Sox--two of which were terrific--then started having arm trouble, culminating in surgery in 2003. Since coming back from surgery, his numbers are excellent to near-ridiculous. Yes, I think that constitutes a trend of good pitching that the odds say can reasonably be expected to continue. So you're a big fan of Eyre's 4.10 ERA in 2004? I'm glad you're happy spending that kind of money on peformance you can get at league minimum. I'm not. Tim, why do you CARE. I put this in another thread as well, I don't understand as a Cubs fan, it affects you if they give Eyre 1 or 10M a year. If it doesn't affect the signing of another player (and it won't), why do you care? Just so everyone can badmouth the Cubs front office for actually fielding a decent team? Maybe they had to pay that much in this market? I just don't understand how you can complain about getting two quality relievers after last years debacle. And whoever said we should sign our bigger holes before relief pitchers, dude, you don't even understand how the offseason works. Why would those players sign early, of course they're going to wait until teams fall into the "I NEED this player mode". The lesser players and players who are deserved of draft comp picks go first, THEN the A and B players. Give me a break.