Jehrico

If this much is true, the Brewers could have a decent shot. Its clear at this point that if CC wanted to play for the Yanks, hed have signed by now, as nobody will match that offer. I know that the reason hes taking so long is that hes waiting for one of the Cali teams to match the offer, or at least come close, but if they dont, he could choose Milwaukee, as he enjoyed his time their, and was treated like royalty, where as with the Yankees, as soon as he has one non quality start he'll be booed out of town, and he could take a $30 million bath to be in a lower pressure environment, as long as the players union and his agent dont intervene. If this does happen, we need to step it up for Peavy. I guess when you're making this much money a few million may not mean much, but I can't see leaving $30,000,000 on the table because I don't like NY. For that money, I would learn to love NY. I can't imagine really being happier making $30 mil a year as opposed to $20+ mil a year to be honest. Once you're in that pay echelon, I'd rather go somewhere I liked instead.

If/when Jocketty cans Dusty and hires his own manager, I'll be all over Bruce and Votto.

Towers has put all of his cards on the table since day 1. That's some crazy negotiating tactics. Towers is in an odd position. He kind of has to with this one. There's going to be a fan backlash, as there's no way they're getting fair value in return for Peavy. he doesn't want to dump Peavy, but he really doesn't have a choice. I think he's making it open so the fans see that he is doing what he can to make a move that he's being forced to make in order to minimize damage done to the fan base.

the problem is that kelly johnson isn't selling high Well, you gotta think, after 2007 season, the Braves would've laughed at the thought of Ludwick for Kelly Johnson. Now, it's a realistic trade. I think it's much more likely (in this case) and arguably more valuable to have a second basemen who can hit 280/360/450 then have a corner outfielder that's 275/360/500. i'm not saying it woud be a horrible trade, i'm just saying it's not really "selling high" when you trade a .966 ops CO for an .800 OPS 2b If they don't think Ludwick will repeat his performance, then they are trying to sell him while his value is high. I.E. selling high. i always thought selling high meant getting the max/highest/truest possible value for a guy's recent success I also think your undervaluing a 26 yr old 2b with great defense who is already a good bet to OPS .800 or so. The 26 yr old part is part of the equation that I think you're overlooking.

the problem is that kelly johnson isn't selling high Well, you gotta think, after 2007 season, the Braves would've laughed at the thought of Ludwick for Kelly Johnson. Now, it's a realistic trade. I think it's much more likely (in this case) and arguably more valuable to have a second basemen who can hit 280/360/450 then have a corner outfielder that's 275/360/500. i'm not saying it woud be a horrible trade, i'm just saying it's not really "selling high" when you trade a .966 ops CO for an .800 OPS 2b If they don't think Ludwick will repeat his performance, then they are trying to sell him while his value is high. I.E. selling high.

He's renting a room at Moonlite Ranch. that place would be awesome if the girls weren't all shockingly unattractive I'm assuming he's referring to the moonlite bunny ranch. If so, then if by unattractive you mean "extremely hot" then yes, I'd agree (with one or two exceptions looking at their website).

the problem is that kelly johnson isn't selling high Well, you gotta think, after 2007 season, the Braves would've laughed at the thought of Ludwick for Kelly Johnson. Now, it's a realistic trade. I think it's much more likely (in this case) and arguably more valuable to have a second basemen who can hit 280/360/450 then have a corner outfielder that's 275/360/500. Exactly...buy low on Johnson, sell high on Ludwick. Atl would have laughed at the proposal last year.

Baseball is probably the last thing on Henry's mind right now. Understandable, obviously, but that just happened recently. In other words, we're probably not going to hear anything on that front for awhile. I haven't heard Hendry connected to any other catchers, so either he's planning on bringing Koyie up, or he's going to talk to Henry when it's more appropriate. I'd be rather surprised if he went out and signed some other FA. I think Henry is going to retire with the Cubs and move into coaching. When is the magic question.

Baseball is probably the last thing on Henry's mind right now.

The Cards seem to be trying awfully hard to sell high on Ludwick...maybe they're not optimistic he can continue or improve upon what he did last year.

Countdown to the WBC death knell...

I can't imagine someone holding all the records Rickey Henderson has could miss the first ballot. That said, I'm sure there will be writers who don't vote for him because he played in the steroid era/if Babe Ruth wasn't unanimous no one should be/he talked in the third person. I doubt more than 25% of the writers will use that reasoning though. He played for a quarter of a century, and his prime was not in the steroid era. Not to mention his numbers began to decline when this began to pop up more. I don't think this is even a thought for anyone with a vote. Do we even really know for sure when the steroid era was? No but I base it on when the stats began to really be impacted. Even if steroids were used in the late 80's I don't think we saw the same impact we had in the mid-late 90's. 98-02 specifically. So many nobodies and platoon players were hitting 30 or 40 bombs a year during that time I think they started getting into a different class of PED in the 90s, but they were using performance enhancers going back to at least the 70s.

Considering how the market is shaping up, this is a bad deal for Atl.

Yeah, the perennial playoff appearances, the championships, the good ol days... Don't forget spending top dollar to retain our best players like Greg Maddux. Honestly, that's maybe the one thing the Trib did well. Outside of Maddux, did they ever lose another player that they wanted to hold on to? I think he was the only one. The Maddux debacle was all Himes. The money was there, Himes let Maddux walk out of spite because he didn't like Maddux and his agent acting so presumptious by giving him a deadline on when to have their offer in, so he let the deadline pass and sent him the offer the next day to show them who was boss. Himes should have been publicly lynched over that one. I think the Trib's record speaks for itself. They owned the team for how many years? And made it to the playoffs 10% or less of the time? Don't see how it could get much worse than that for a major market team. I'm not defending the trib...they never had a budget appropriate for what the fans were bringing in until the last couple of years, their first 20 years were horrible. However, outside of Maddux, they retained EVERY good player they ever wanted to keep. On top of that, Maddux wasn't lost because of money either. Their frugality didn't keep us from keeping our good players, where it showed was that we never paid top dollars for any premium FA talent, nor did they ever trade for any. The first big-name, expensive acquisition was Nomar, 24 years into their ownership, and their first big-name FA signing was Soriano, 26 years after. Their record is horrible and there is plenty to complain about. All I was saying was that loosing our best players is maybe the ONE thing about the trib's ownership in the first 20+ years you couldn't complain about.

our team would be Soriano-Dempster-Zambrano. Ha...That would be horrible One pitcher, one infielder, and one outfielder for every game. Kinda like that Bugs Bunny episode. We'd still beat Pittsburgh. I'll take Aramis, Marmol, and Geo instead of Soriano.

I can't imagine someone holding all the records Rickey Henderson has could miss the first ballot. That said, I'm sure there will be writers who don't vote for him because he played in the steroid era/if Babe Ruth wasn't unanimous no one should be/he talked in the third person. I doubt more than 25% of the writers will use that reasoning though. He played for a quarter of a century, and his prime was not in the steroid era. Not to mention his numbers began to decline when this began to pop up more. I don't think this is even a thought for anyone with a vote. Do we even really know for sure when the steroid era was?

With where things stand right now, that wouldn't be a very smart move...

Regardless of how anyone feels about Greene, he's a Cardinal now. That means he's the enemy, and everyone should be rooting against him now.

I still think he was more of a steal than a throw in. If Shark and Ascanio start in AAA, he'll be the youngest guy on the team. Gaudin's biggest problem was he came up in Tampa when they were horrible, and he was forced up to the majors too early. Tampa burned all of his options before he got out of there. You can't really judge the guy on his career numbers straight up. You have to judge him like any other prospect...was he age appropriate for his level, and if not, you have to compensate one way or another. A lot of his peers will be making thier debuts or will be in their second seasons this year. If he weren't in TB to begin his career, no one would be talking about his horrible "career" WHIPs and what not.

Fun with arbitrary endpoints. 2003: 4.59 2002: 6.23 I'm much more inclined to say 04, 05, and 07 are the "flukes" (if we must cherrypick) than 02, 03, 06 and 08. The career totals tell a story that can't be brushed off as easily as rumors of arm problems. I know I'm a little late catching up on this one, but are you really going to use Peavy's 2002 and 2003 season against him? He was 21 and 22 that year. Most of his peers were in high A while he was in MLB, unless they were good, then maybe they were in AA. Starting with 2004 isnt' arbitrary. It's when he started coming into his own in the league, something many good pitchers don't do until they're as old as he is now. People forget how young he is. He's younger than Rich Hill.

It definitely sounds like it or else it would have been done already IMO. They are probably looking for one more starting pitcher that they feel is a fit for them in the future and apparently they don't feel Marshall is the guy for that and frankly, I'm surprised about that. I'm thinking Hendry might be saying no to Marshall in the trade due to them wanting him as the swingman and put Shark in the minors to start. From the Padres perspective what you said makes sense though. Actually I've been operating under the presumption that SD wanted two ML-ready SPs: Marshall is the first, and the Cubs need to source the second from another team since they don't have another of their own to put with Marshall. Now conceivably, Hendry is offering only one of Marshall and Vitters. That's certainly a possibility. I wonder how far off of Marshall Towers views Gaudin...

I think the only person that is this dumb is Paul Sullivan. At least I hope so...

Even in that scenario, there's no way they couldn't get another young arm back. The guy was talented enough to break into the league at 20 and stick. He can start or relieve and be expected to perform at worse league average. Like was said earlier, he's only 25, so he should only be expected to improve as he's still several years shy before he hits his physical peak. Someone would trade for him. If the Pads want a cheap major league arm back for Peavy, then they could package him into that. In this market with everyone afraid of overpaying for an FA, his value should be pretty decent in a trade.

Dont quite see the point. Hes a quality reliever, who can spot start, plus hes only like 25 years old. I say keep the guy/ Agreed. This would be really, really stupid. Maybe the dumbest move of all of the offseason. Especially if Marshall ends up going in the Peavy deal. If nothing else, they should trade him. I can't imagine there'd be a shortage of teams interested in him in this years market. But then again, this was reported by Paul Sullivan, so that probably means they're close to an agreement with him instead.

If that is the hold up, then that's pretty dumb. Dunn shouldn't play RF with Soriano in the same OF. Any manager who would play Soriano in LF and Dunn in RF should be fired. On the spot. So you wouldn't want Dunn, or you would want Dunn but put either Soriano or Dunn in another position. I didn't imply either. I was only saying that RF defense should not factor into whether or not to sign Dunn. LF defense yes, but defense isn't as important in LF as it is in RF. As to what I would do, if Dunn can be had for 3/36 as was suggested, I do that today, and let Soriano know he's going to be in RF, and Fukudome CF. Our overall defense in the OF takes a hit, but it's worth it.