neely crenshaw

yep. and unbelievably Dayton gave it to them! I think I would have liked to get Odorizzi-Myers more the Shields-Davis, at least where we are as a team.

theo>dayton BUT kc royals prospects > chi cubs prospects

you playing with stats that are guesses. and then you attach "should" Also Lahair was 0.7, and Rizzo was 1.8 but you can't compare a full season of Rizzo to a half season of Lahair. The difference is .9 of game in the first half of the season. Rizzo was the first basemen in the 2nd half season, so you have to compare Rizzo to Rizzo not Lahair. Your 0 for Lahair may have included his out of position play in the outfield. I used only the 1B war for each, which I am guessing plays out to about half a season for each

other than missing a chance at prospects. The problem the front office had is at the best time to deal him(at the deadline with a year of control), he got hurt. They could have moved him earlier in the year but I'm sure they were trying to get the most for him and hoping someone with need would ante up for him. Currently I think they have to wait to show he is healthy in order to get value from him. I'm sure people have checked but I don't think they'll offer enough with question marks on his health. Bottom line if healthy he is our one and only real tradable commodity.

The FO seems to be much more attached to Rizzo and much more willing to deal Castro. That's the only reason I put it that way. I think shark is here until he is in his free agent season, Then his pitching will dictate his future.

I vote for "not trade Samardzija". That would seem to go against what they have done so far. Certainly he is one of our only valuable pieces but he's not a free agent until 2016 and relatively cheap, and definitely on an upswing in performance. He and Rizzo might be the only ones still here in 2016

Jackson seems to be trending upwards. His recent stats are much better than his career averages, with his ERA hanging in the high 3's as opposed to a 4.40 career. They are saying his output does not match his stuff. The difference between re-signing Garza vs signing Jackson is we already have Garza. He is one of our only chips to build with. We almost have to trade him at some point to get prospects, then maybe we re-sign him, or someone they want more- and we still have those prospects. I am not sure about signing Jackson for too much or too long, but I'm not against it, I'll leave that choice to guys in charge. It doesn't seem that help is close from the minors. I am pretty sure we should deal Garza at some point. I do have to ask if we do nothing else, how are we going to be in contention even if Garza looks great? Dempster posted a 2.25 era with 1.038 whip and was still only 5-5 and the cubs were 27 games under .500 with pretty much the same offense.

Actually it was 7-3, he sat vs Strasberg, Westbrook and Kyle Kendrick. He also started against Danks, Capuano and Wolf. It looks more like they were being smart and giving him his days off vs lefties as much as possible rather than "platooning" him. 3 of the games he didn't play were within the first 2 weeks of the season, as well as 3 other non-starts. So 6 of these games he was being "protected in" were in the first 17 games. Perhaps it was a young guy who was still earning his shot? His next non-play game was a month and half later at the end of May(27-29), as well as his last 2 non-starts (May 22-23). To me that doesn't seem like a normal pattern of platooning. Regardless whether his stats are"propped" up or not, Someone still has to pick up that performance from the 45 games he did contribute. If you want to say that the Cubs offense will be better in the 10 games they sat LaHair, then OK, but when do we pick up the slack from the other 40 starts? You just can't completely disregard what LaHair did at the start of the season. He carried us offensively in April and lots of May. I guess I'd just say this, I think the Cubs are better with Rizzo at first. I just don't think that translates into more wins next season.

Cheap would be the only way or reason to go. Of course there is a good chance that something will fall off of the man before season's end. The only point is there isn't much out there and we have zero offense. Do we spend more money, for a longer contract on a cody ross we don't really want or gamble for little risk like dejesus and stewart.

that was my thought

that would be a great point but it's not really true. lahair did not play in 5 of the first 50 games (april and may) and played but did not start 5 others. I wouldn't exactly call that a platoon. even in june he did not play in 4 games, and didn't start 6 others. (27 total games) at the end of June Rizzo took over first base after that he basically was a part-timer. I think you guys are looking at this the wrong way. I am certainly not trying to say Lahair is as good or better. Rizzo is the better player, the team is better with him no doubt. BUT If we are trying to point out where the team will win more games this season over last you can't just say we will be better because of Rizzo's performance at first. The stats we had in 2012 have already happened. To improve on paper, someone has to get those stats, and do better in order to win more games in theory. This is all theoretical but if we can't just say we will win more games because we now have Rizzo playing first for the full season because Lahair was a stud for 5-6 weeks. The team is better, but to say we will win more games than 2012, the performance that happened has to be replaced. So I am just saying that with what we can expect from Rizzo over the full year, it will be pretty much exactly the same as we got out of first base last season statistically. The main reason I say that is because the stats for our first basemen were almost identical in the first and second half. Of course its true! In 2012 LaHair had 86 starts. He started 5 games against left handed starters (.292 OPS vs all lefties on the year in 48 ABs) and 81 against right handed starters. If that's not a platoon I don't know what is. Rizzo started 23 against lefties (.599 against all lefties in 101 ABs) and 62 vs RH starters. Full time. He (Lahair) started 45 of 50 games(first 2 months). Yes, they gave him days off vs lefties but to say that "propped" up his stats is wrong. If he went 3-20 (which is about his split) he'd still have very a nice stat line. Regardless of this, do we still need to have someone replace the stats he actually put up or do they not count because he didn't hit off enough lefties? Whether we like it or not Lahair had an awesome start, the team has to compensate for that to be better this year. We have a lot of the same offense, so if we don't get a 1.200 ops for the month of april, and we are guessing everyone else to do their average, how will our offense be better? Rizzo is an upgrade but we had "george herman" Lahair for a month and a half, then he returned to plain old Bryan.

I agree totally, and I know if you don't read every post, it doesn't sound like that. I think where this went off track is, I just tried to say that we have to factor in how well Lahair did in the first half of the season, and to be better win-wise as a team, we have to compensate for that great start. Rizzo is absolutely an upgrade. I hope we can pencil him in for the next 10 years at first and batting 3rd. We just need a few more upgrades before I think we can start talking about 75 wins. Heck I think we need a lot to break our way to get to 70 with current lineup

Should we plan on winning 10 more games based on Rizzo playing 1B for a whole season instead of Rizzo and LaHair last year? No. And he never suggested as much, but you seem to think his wording implies a lot more than it actually does. No I recanted. My fault,I just kind of put everyone in the same boat!

So we should plan on winning say 10 more games with that decent improvement? I'm sorry grass, you kind of came on at the end. This has been about how much better we will be simply because Rizzo replaces our 2012 First basemen not just that he should improve us. So I kind of lumped it all together. You are right it will be a solid improvement and hopefully continue to grow from there. I just don't see it as anything that by itself will makes us very much better, partially because Lahair did have such a good start last year.

Like I said, it would take a disastrous 12 or so starts to drag it down. Is that possible? Of course. It's also possible someone hits .320 with a handful of doubles in that time. Assume that in those 12 games they get the same lousy rate of production they got from Baker this year in 20 games at first base (a .577 OPS). That would lower the OPS from that position from .850 to roughly .833, which is still a decent improvement over the sub-.800 OPS they got in 2012 from the position. Really, you feel .037 points of ops for an entire season is a game changer? That's a shade over 3 fewer hrs for the entire season (.030)

Other than Soler what could we possibly give them?

It seems to be. He has to have as good a chance as Stewart did/does to rebound and we signed him twice.

Ok, so if you know that, why would you use the entire season at first base to show improvement rather than the .850 that was posted by Rizzo/Lahair in games they started? That would be the correct correlation. In the 45-50 at bats that 12 starts would garner, a non-playing back up could easily put up stats bad enough to drop the overall ops by 20 to 30 points. Could you see someone not hitting an extra base hit in 12 sporadic starts? That would drop slugging 20 points alone? how about a .200 average or less in those sporadic starts? another 10-20 in ob% especially if walks are few (which I'm guessing whoever is in that spot is going to be pitched to) For the record Baker in his first 12 games last year hit a robust .207 with no extra base hits. So I would say it's very possible.

The sad part is that Porcello is probably more attainable, I would be shocked to see them move Smyly instead of Porcello. Smyly is the only lefty, has better stats and has less service time than Porcello. Since they don't have a pressing need at the major league level, I just don't know why they wouldn't move Porcello for whatever the best offer was, or just hang him in long relief/spot starter to cover injuries.

I'm not going to be happy, but I've resigned myself that we're going to have someone pretty awful in the "right-handed infield depth" role. The field of interesting free agents that fit our needs has really, really thinned in the last week or so. Look at it this way, we have very nice RH hitting back ups players, they just happen to be starters...

That doesn't seem to be the MO right now. They seem to be stockpiling prospects for that type of use further down the road, when adding a piece could put us over the top. It would make sense but I haven't seen them do it or even heard serious rumors about that type of move. Also I am not sure we have added the type of prospects that would garner that trade unless it was Soler. Which seems out of the picture. I don't see Detroit taking a gamble on prospects with health issues for this type of pitcher. We were in a situation (up against the deadline) where we needed to get as much talent for our assets as possible and had to gamble on some upside. Detroit is a WS contender that doesn't need to deal if they don't want to. So they hold more of the cards.

The .796 is what they got out of that position for the entire season, regardless of who was playing there. However, after Rizzo was called up, he started 86 of the remaining 89 games. Barring injury or a complete collapse in his performance, I think you can pencil him in for at least 150 games. Therefore, an .850 OPS (if he's able to reach that) would make for a nice improvement over last year's production at the position. No you are comparing 2 different stat lines. you are comparing the stat line for every player at first base from last year with only the games played by the starting first basemen this year. A bad 50 at bats by the sub would drop the overall ops by a lot.

Probably no chance we could get for a 2-3 year deal. At 29 I could 2 years of value but I'm sure Boras is looking for a big payday of many years.

What is the down side of micheal bourn, other than having Boras as an agent? seems to be pretty steady at a high 200's ba with a .340-.350 ob%. too expensive, or too long a deal? Upton is gone now and not much else out there. It would/could return DeJesus to RF which helps defensively in both spots. If we could swing a deal for Soriano then the platoon of Scheirholtz and Sappelt could move there. Also any chance that the bat migration from Texas helps a Soriano for Olt deal, or do they(texas) hope he is ready to pick up some of the loss from the young/napoli losses. It seems like one of the only ways we can move an asset and not get markedly worse for this year.

I really do hope that is the case but 45 years of being a cub fan makes doubt creep into my thoughts every year at this time...