Lefty

You're right.

Which position player would be in jeopardy in that scenario? Every thing we've seen indicates that Walker's replacement would be a glove man. While I'm here, I take a flyer on Jose Vidro. We take on his salary and that should be enough for Washington.

Ohman is a commodity. I do that in a heartbeat. But then I need to dump Pierre. BTW, Michaels hits righties just fine. Lefties who can get outs in the late innings are more valuable the 4th OF (besides we have Mabry/Grissom/Restovich :roll: ) who would force Murton to the bench. And no, I wouldn't do a Ohman for Michaels deal. Maybe Bartosh and Wellemeyer but not Will Ohman. We have Eyre for outs in the late innings if you think such micro-building of your bullpen is required (it isn't). I didn't advocate benching Murton. I'd prefer to dump Pierre. Even though that is not going to happen, with Jones' flailing against LHPs, Michaels could get over 300 PAs with us and have a great OBP. Ohman's a commodity. And Michaels is way better than Mabry, Grissom or Restovich.

Ohman is a commodity. I do that in a heartbeat. But then I need to dump Pierre. BTW, Michaels hits righties just fine.

Hard to disagree, except I am not yet convinved that JH should be fired. You'll come around soon enough.

Hey Jon Davis, could you get us the audio of Brickhouse's call?

It's not just the OF depth which is weak. We have one of the worst starting outfields in the majors.

I would make this trade in a HEARTBEAT. One thing no one really seems to mention when they talk about Lugo is his ability to steal bases. His numbers last year (and career numbers) for that matter, are just as good as Furcals. In fact, Lugo last year hit .314 with RISP and had a .384 OBP. Even though Baker is not much of a base stealing type of manager, he's never really had any "natural" base stealers (and lets' not call CPatt a base stealer, he looked more lost on the bases then he did at the plate). Now we can potentially have 2 (in Pierre and Lugo) to set the table for D-Lee and A-Ram. The havoc that those 2 guys can present on the base pads is something that doesn't show up on stat sheets. Getting into pitchers heads and having them lose just a "little" focus on the hitter can do wonders. Just the threat of stealing a base is enough. We would have our version of Pierre/Castillo, or Podsednik/Iguchi, Figgins/Cabrera (these are all combos that have been in the post season). Speed, it really does work everyone..... I was under the impression that the Rays wanted a few kids from the farm (Hill, etc), but for Williams and Walker, if it were me, I'd pull the trigger in a "Heartbeat"....... Oh by the way, Walker last year hit .259 with RISP and had a .293 OBP. And he can't run worth a lick, and has absolutely NO range. He is nowhere near an ideal 2 hitter......Perhaps a 6,7 or 8, but definitely not a top of the order guy. Beware of small sample sizes. Welcome to the board.

Unfair. Maggs got a basically guaranteed five years from the Tigers. There is no way we could have, or should have, competed with that.

I think we underestimate how much extra revenue the White Sox got from the six post-season games.

Unfortunately that's probably a random stat with no predictive value. Such is the problem of signing middle relievers after their "breakout" season. I understand that, but the point is that Eyre's ERA was better than it looked last year. He was excellent at holding inherited runners on base, which is what you want relievers to do. Put another way, we need not worry when Dusty puts him in in the middle of an inning. So many discussions here (particularly about Remmy) noted that certain pitchers were only effective if they started an inning. This shows that Eyre is valuable with runners on. That's what you want from a LOOGY. But what if he's lousy with inherited runners next year? I don't think these things have any predicitve value. We know what he did last year. That explains his contract. It means nothing now.

Thats crazy that someone could completely avoid the battersbox or the field... (althought, he could have played in the field, but never made a play). Never played the filed.

Unfortunately that's probably a random stat with no predictive value. Such is the problem of signing middle relievers after their "breakout" season.

Yes they have. I have talked to Will about it, and there is a lot of overlap between Marshall's approach and the "Tom House" school of thought. There is disagreement on elbow position, but it does not have to be a major point. But as Will wrote in a recent article, while Marshall runs a school for amateur pitchers, where are they? House's disciples are all over the place, but where are Marshall's?

Hendry has made a lot of bad decisions over the last 2 offseasons. This is just another in a long line. Leaving Jose Macias on the 40 man roster when he basically had no room to protect up and coming prospects is just another in a long line of bone headed moves. Hendry gave away Jermaine Van Buren. They gave away Sisco. When Miguel Tejada was available as a free agent, the Cubs owed Alex Gonzalez 5.5m for the 2004 season. Did the Cubs shop elsewhere because they didn't want to pay Tejada AND Gonzalez at the SS position? Vlad was available too that year. Did they shop elsewhere because Sosa was already in RF for another 2 years and Alou for 1? Alou could have been moved to San Fran pretty easily. 2 years later, Hendry is going to give away his top prospect AND the franchise player for Tejada when he could have had him for nothing via free agency. Will Hendry now ignore some other blue chip free agent for RF because Jones has a year or two to go on his contract? It sure looks like he would to me. He did it with Tejada, Vlad and Beltran in the last 2 years. Money obviously wasn't the thing blocking a deal from happening either. A raise of hands on who would have rather seen Hendry sign Tejada instead of Maddux? I'd have done that deal all day long and dealt with Rusch/Cruz or whoever in the 5th spot in the rotation. There is a domino effect going on here right now that is getting uglier by the day. Someone needs to go in and stop the dominoes from falling. If Hendry has a plan, it's not a very good one. Plain and simple. Fantasy GM or no. Amen brother!

God I am sick of seeing this garbage. Here's what you should do, go into every political thread and tell everyone to shutup, because they dont know what they're doing anymore than President Bush. I mean, if we aren't smart enough to be a GM of a baseball team, obviously we arent smart enough to challenge the leader of the nation. This just really gets under my skin. If your boss does something you dont agree with, do you just swallow it up? You dont have to be smarter or more capable than someone to disagree with them. Thankfully Hendry does not have the power to cut our health care services or send us to war. That makes Hendry as powerful as the President. Wow!

Why? You'd give up a minimum of 10 guaranteed runs for 18 (approx.) more appearances on base? Even if you only scored half the time (which is very high... 25% is more like it), that would still be less than those extra 10 homers. Makes no sense. That's why I think some folks overrate OBP. Not because OBP is a bad stat... it's a great one. But some people are so in love with it that they don't stop to even think about what they're saying. a MINIMUM of 10 guaranteed runs for approximately 4-5? NO thanks. Give me 20 and .320 over 10 and .350. First of all, 10 HRs is worth 14 runs. But by definition your 20 HR guy will have a higher SLG. To get from .320 to .350 OBP would be about 20 walks over a full season. That's about 7 runs. It's also 14 or 15 fewer outs, and that's another run or two. So in this example your man is only worth 6 or 7 more runs. And all this assumes the 10 HRs is replaced by 20 walks. If a guy hits 10 doubles and 20 walks, the .350 OBP guy is clearly superior. You have to use one of the Runs Created formula, I have a good one in the Jaun Pierre thread, to compare two players. Remember a walk may be the first, middle, or last piece of a chain of offense. It is incorrect to estimate how often a player who walks will score as the summation of your analysis.

Bryan Smith at baseballanalysts.com has a positive take on the Jones signing. Smith has credibility, so it made me feel a little better. Check it out.

Check out the Cub Reporter at all-baseball.com. It spins the Jones signing as a way to trade Murton as part of a package for Zito who would then be part of a package for Abreu or Tejada. It's the silver lining approach to the Jones signing.

Will you please leave. What did I do? What I said was true, as it stands the Cubs are better than last year. Sheesh. Faint praise indeed. And you guys have a 20 game head start.

Will you please leave.

Of course this is awful. What more do you want?

Let's give Pierre a an extension to top it off.

And whose fault is the current predicamant? You can blame the Tribune, but if Hendry would have had any foresight I'm sure he could have gotten an advance from the Tribune for Guerrero, Tejada, Drew, or any of the other FAs from the last couple of years. Now he has no options? We all know the possible Free Agent classes, and they only shrink. Hendry has no one to blame but himself if he's forced to sign Jones.

Vidro is not going to be brought here to platoon. If healthy, he's a solid upgrade.