Jehrico

I think alot of people are still thinking of Soriano's 2002 season in NY, and the fact that alot of people thought he would only improve the next few seasons, which he has not.

I would say that 27 is the beginning of many position player's prime years, but it's certainly not the peak. I don't know if anyone's ever done a study, but I highly doubt that 27 on average is the most productive year for most players out there.

I would prefer we went after Pierre. I'm afraid the next alternative is jumping in the Damon race, and you know we'll overpay more for him than we would for Pierre.

I thought the Whitesox said they weren't interested in Pierre? I guess it is Phil Rogers, so the exact opposite is probably true.

Fixed. :) That probably died when we signed Eyre and Howry.

Great find Vance. I love the last line. It about sums up Piere for me. Also pointed out in the article the fact that Piere has never hit over 30 doubles in a season or, somewhat more shocking seeing as he played in both Colorado and Flordia, never more than 35 combined doubles and triples. I don't know why people are concerned with Pierre's lack of power. We're talking about a slap hitting, speedy leadoff man. I don't buy into the whole "speedy" leadoff thing. I want someone who gets on base. He had a down year last year. The three years before that, his OBP went from .332 to .361 to .374. He'll only be 28 next year, so his best years are likely ahead. He had a down year in 2002, and recovered nicely the next two years. All he has to do is get on base in front of DLee and ARam. I like his speed because it helps negate the lack of power. He'll steal alot of bases, and be at 2nd anyways when they come up. And even if he doesn't, he can score from first on pretty much any double, and can score from 2nd on many singles, where other slower options would have to be a base further up. My only real concern with him is his caught stealing numbers. If you subtract the number of times he was caught stealing from his hits, and add his successful steals to his singles and make them doubles instead, it lowers his career OBP from .355 to .329, raises his slugging from .375 to .425, and raises his OPS from .731 to .755. I would rather he not steal bases unless he can improve on his success rate, maybe cut the number of times caught in half. In his defense, though, he did improve his success rate from 2004 to 2005, as it went from .654 to .770 (I think I saw an article somewhere that said .750 is the break even point, anything over that is pretty good). His career success rate is .743, without that awful 2004, he's .765. Does anyone recall if he was plagued by any injuries in 2004 that would have slowed him down? That year seems to be a bit of an anomaly as far as his stolen base success numbers goes. Anyways, if he could keep above a .350 OBP, I wouldn't mind him at the top of our order, regardless of his lack of power. If he could return to a .370+ OBP, I'd be thrilled.

I don't know but who does Oakland have to play second base? Mark Ellis who happened to put up a 316/384/477 line last year. Well shoots that deal down! Isn't he arby eligible? I wonder what Oakland might want for him?

We wouldn't be using him as a backup corner IFer...he'd be our starting RFer. You usually have 3 backup IFers, someone else is going to be signed. I don't know too many successful teams that rely on a starting corner OFer to backup 1B. I wouldn't exactly call him a backup corner IFer, as he has exactly 4 innings at 3B in his career. Most outfielders, if needed, can pull a slightly-below average 1B. He's nothing special in that ability, he's just been used more as that than many other starting RFers. As for the difference between Jones and Ibanez, I think their careers are more telling. Jones has been in a funk in Min for some reason, a change of scenery will do him well. You could probably expect a return to his career averages. I wouldn't want to commit anything to Ibanez...you'd be buying high who is approaching his mid -30s, and could be digressing in the near future. I don't want either of them. I'll concede that Ibanez is a little better than Jones, but not enough to give up any worthwhile talent for him, or to commit to him for more than one year. I don't think you should expect a considerable difference between them next year if Jones leaves MN.

The 2005 version wore me out too. Bradley has wore out his welcome with Cleveland and the Dodgers............can't imagine why Chicago would be any different I didn't have that much of a problem with the 2005 team themselves...just the piss poor management of the team. Neifi and Macias batting 1 and 2? Neifi and Corey? The blatant misuse of the pen? The absolute lack of fundamentals on the team? They obviously weren't prepared coming out of ST, and never did get over the hump. We were better than our record showed in '05. Not good enough to overtake the Cardinals, but at least wild card contenders, if the team was managed properly and prepared for the season. The '04 team, however, whined alot more and choked down the stretch.

Wow....I'd definitely take Ibanez :) Raul Ibanez = Jacque Jones, Jr hmmmm.....Jones is just like Ibanez.....minus .036 in obp......minus 18 runs.....minus 16 rbi's.....minus .031 BA......oh yeah....and minus the fact that Ibanez is also a backup corner infielder. :roll: Lets see....Ibanez is 33 (best years likely behind him, decline on the horizon), Ibanez career obp is only .014 points higher than jones, ba .004, slugging .004 difference. A career difference in OPS of .018 isn't anything to write home about. As for runs and RBIs, those are more team dependant. Ibanez is also a backup corner IFer...we don't need another backup corner IFer, so for our purposes, that's pretty moot. So, like I said...Ibanez is Jacque Jones, Jr. Well, since he's actually older, maybe I should have said Jacque Jones, Sr. edit: I was a point off on the slugging difference, it's .005, not .004. So the OPS diff is .019.

:( Pretty disappointing. I wouldn't have even minded the batting averag, but I wanted to see that OBP go up. I would have taken that BA is he put up a .310ish OBP to go along with it. Currently the difference there between BA and OBP is about the same it has been. I don't know if theres a stat that looks at something like that with more detail, but looking at it very simply it appears that his OBP is still highly dependant on his AVG. I'm willing to discount these numbers for the time being due to the fact that Pie took a good amount of time off from baseball thanks to the Cubs holding him out while he recovered from his bone bruise. If he struggles in AA or AAA next season, then I'll be worried. True, this is more like Spring Training for Pie than most of the other guys. Wasn't there a quote out there supposedly from Hendry that Pie wasn't going to make the team until '07 at the earliest? I would hope that is true.

Wow....I'd definitely take Ibanez :) Raul Ibanez = Jacque Jones, Jr

I'm all for this move, but not at this cost for either player. That being said, I doubt it'll happen. It has to be bogus. P.S. - Since Furcal would be one of the first FA signings, can you imagine how much money Boras would then want for Damon? Or how much Giles could command? Talk about screwing not only yourselves, but all of MLB. Exactly. The FA market has not shown to be a bell curve, more like the foot of a cliff. Don't you think Eyre and Howry would be demanding more money if we hadn't signed them before Ryan's insane deal? Maybe Hendry realizes he needs to overwhelm Furcal with a deal NOW. Hendry's not an idiot, and we have money. No, the Trib has money, and I guarantee that FitSimons wouldn't sign off on a ludicrous deal like that. Especially if you consider the fact that there are rumors of the Trub possibly putting the Cubs up on the market, there's no way they'd allow any $100 million deals for anyone that is not on the Vlad/Rodriguez level, as any bad long term contracts the team is saddled with would certainly have a negative effect on the market value on the team.

dbl post

If they did consummate a trade for Mench and Soriano (I'd still rather have Walker in LF and Cedeno at 2B than those two), I wonder if that would preclude them from wrapping up a deal for Pierre.

You keep talking about this website as being reputable. Name one major MLB signing or trade that they scooped. They've been way off several others that are posted. Furthermore, this isn't the same guy that had been running the site in the past, so he has no history one way or the other. He's also not the guy that's given free passes away, so it still could be a hook and lure. I don't see why you think this guy/site is credible in the least.

Todd Walker, CPatt, and Welly are worth about what TWalk is worth by himself. So an easier question to ask, is what could TWalk bring us?

Me personally, I don't care if they are lovable or not. I prefer "the most loathed WS Champs ever" to "lovable losers," but that's just me.

getting away from the veracity of this story, I'd rather have Cedeno at 2nd and move TWalk to RF (ouch, I know), than trade those two and a couple of other minor leaguers for Soriano and Mench.

Not really. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they spend alot more time following college sports and prospects. I didn't know that professional sports was part of their forte. When wsa the last time scout.com was credited with breaking any big MLB rumors? I can't think of any. An older, respected site or not, they have no credibility when it comes to MLB FA rumors. It was also pointed out earlier that a new guy has taken the site over. It's highly possible, and in this case, I think likely, that the new guys is inexperienced, and has not developed the ability to differentiate between BS rumors and the real deals. Who knows if the guy that bought the site has near the contacts in the industry of the old guy? Add on top of that the fact these factors: 1. Hendry is focusing on defense this offseason 2. He's never shelled out more than 3 year contracts 3. the dollar amounts are ludicrous We'll, lets just say that this new editor doesn't have any credibility established yet, and this article doesn't pass the common sense test. I'd be pissed if I had sank 80 busk into that site and now I see the new guy posting stuff like this.

Career .356 OBP (.377 and .395 the last two years) off of the bench sounds like a stellar PH to me. I'd love to have him coming off of the bench for us.

I wouldn't mind someone LIKE Kevin Brown (in his prime, without the injuries, or the 9 figure contract), but not Kevin Brown himself. Thanks, but no thanks. He'll be 41 by the time the season starts. I could see Hendry signing Esteban Loaiza if it's late Jan./early Feb., and he hasn't been signed yet. that would be such a "Cub" move- I'm sorry Hoops but so far Hendry is not getting it done for me- I like the Howry & Eyre deals but the Rusch and Perez deals coupled with no mention of interest in the BEST OF available in Giles and the lagging on the Furcal deal are making me lose faith-please tell me I shouldn't be a doubter and Hendry is just bidding his time.......please.........waiting......please........ And the lagging of the Furcal deal? How often to the best FAs of the class sign during November? Very, very, rarely do they. They usually wait until closer to the winter meetings or later as they've had better opportunities to allow the market to develop and guage their value.

..double post

He was a good guy, but he sucked. He'll never stick in the majors, not even with the Braves. I'm surprised they bothered wasing a AAA slot on him.

I wouldn't mind someone LIKE Kevin Brown (in his prime, without the injuries, or the 9 figure contract), but not Kevin Brown himself. Thanks, but no thanks. He'll be 41 by the time the season starts.