Jehrico

And the Pope is just a little religious.

I've paid far less attention to our minors lately than I had in the past because I thought our farm pretty much sucked outside of Vitters. Sounds like our farm is actually looking like it's taking a huge step forward this year. Outside of Colvin, it sounds like Wilken is doing a decent job at getting our farm moving back in the right direction.

*cough* Randy Wells *cough* *cough* Fox can hit at this level, going to the AL would be perfect for him. Fox and Wells should both be attractive to the Jays. I say sell high on them. At least make an offer that begins with that and see how far apart you are.

I don't think they'd trade him for Hart. Like you said, he's been good and he's only making $415k. He's not FA eligible either, unless I'm mistaken. The only reason they have to move him by the deadline is if they got more for him than they could get in the offseason. Of course, if I'm wrong on the FA eligible part, then that changes the picture. I still think he could get more than Hart.

Two, apparently. And there's also the possibility of moving Chad Fox to the 60-day DL. Ahhh, Chad Fox. I almost blocked him out of memory. Forget the 60 day, he could just be dropped. No one else is going to claim him. No one. But since we have two slots open already, it's a moot point.

Do we have an opening on the 40 man? If not, who gets exposed when they try to add him?

Are you just refusing to factor in how paying someone like Vernon Wells 25 mil a year over the next several years could hamstring a team? Keeping that contract hurts them...it's worth a prospect or two to get someone to take his contract off of their hands. For example, if it weren't for Soriano's contract (or others), we might have actually sealed the deal on Peavy in the offseason. Obviously I'm not the only one who thinks this way, as Toronto has already stated they're going to try to package them. I think they are making a mistake, unless I'm underestimating how much adding Wells will eat into the package they are going to get for him, or overestimating what they'd get without Wells in the deal. They could set themselves up with a good handful of elite prospects who will be around and helping them win long after Wells' contract is up. It's hard to judge without knowing exactly what the package is. Giving Halladay away just to dump Wells doesn't make any sense...but taking a small downgrade in the package enables them considerably to be better over the next few years. The only thing that is ridiculous is judging the concept of packaging the two together without knowing exactly what the costs are first. The only way they'll move Wells, outside of a deal for Zito or another worse contract, is if they package him. They'd be foolish to not at least explore the possibility.

Are you just refusing to factor in how paying someone like Vernon Wells 25 mil a year over the next several years could hamstring a team? Keeping that contract hurts them...it's worth a prospect or two to get someone to take his contract off of their hands. For example, if it weren't for Soriano's contract (or others), we might have actually sealed the deal on Peavy in the offseason. Obviously I'm not the only one who thinks this way, as Toronto has already stated they're going to try to package them.

Have you looked at what Wells numbers look like, and what the rest of his contract looks like? They need to get rid of him, badly. He's worth packaging even if it decreases Halladay's value. The question is how much devaluation is acceptable.

Halladay doesn't become cheaper, he becomes untradeable. Repeat after me "Nobody Will Take Wells In A Trade. Absolutely dead wrong. Nobody will take Wells in a trade for something useful. There's plenty of other bad contracts out there that other teams may not mind swapping for Wells, depending on the other factors in the trade. For example, you know the Giants would do a Zito for Wells swap in a heartbeat.

If they insist on another team taking back Vernon Wells, then Halladay becomes MUCH cheaper, and almost any team should be able to offer enough for him.

And I'll only agree to a trade to the Cubs. :)

You're neglecting to consider who the GM is there in Toronto. Surely there's at least one GM that would consider this buying low on Soriano and wouldn't be too scared by the contract if we were taking a bad one of theirs back.

There's no way anybody is going to take Wells unless the Jays pick up at least half of his contract. Rios is a possibility, but I would think the Jays would be better off trading Halladay and Rios seperately since Rios has "some" trade value. Unless Toronto takes back a bad contract. If the deal were for Halladay only, we have no chance at landing him. Involving Soriano for Wells or Rios with additional massaging I think we actually could be one of the better fits in the league here. I wonder if Vernon Wells is fixable, and if Hendry would be willing to part with Soriano. I also think Jake Fox is best suited in the AL, and his and Randy Wells values are probably about as high as they're going to get. If we could swing something while holding onto Fox (maybe send Hoff instead?), I wouldn't mind letting Fox and Wells duke it out for LF playing time. The mileage on Halladay's arm is a small concern however. But, I think there's a fit between the Cubs and Jays on this. Don't know if it'll ever happen though.

How far apart would we be on a trade of Soriano, Randy Wells, and Fox for Vernon Wells and Halladay?

$$$ Take it a step further than that...who would management be willing to pay that money for in order to bump them out of the rotation? Harden? He's going to get every chance to bounce back as long as he's healthy, as he should. Lilly's been great, Zs turning in a better season than I expected so far, and Wells isn't going anywhere as long as he keeps pitching the way he has been. That pretty much leaves Dempster, whose only a year removed from an All Star appearance, and hasn't really been that bad either. Spending money on Pedro would kind of been the equivalent of going out and getting a Porsche when you already have 5 other similar or faster cars in your 5-car garage.

They need to, but they won't. Hendry won't admit it was a mistake (especially since it was a two-year contract). I think the best we could hope for would be for Miles to remain on the DL. I'll take it. Someone's second baseman has to go down to injury sooner or later. When it happens, Hendry needs to offer Miles for a PTBNL.

What could Fox and Wells net in a trade? :-k

That article is hilarious. That wouldn't work even if Hendry were dumb enough to try it. Any team that saw Zambrano on waivers would probably just guess that we were just hiding someone else we were trying to slip through waivers.

That's a stupid bet. I don't know, I'd call it a push. We're an old team right now, our window is closing fast with the core we have in place right now. If we don't win it this year, or maybe next year, we're not looking good beyond that. We don't have the farm system nor the personnel in charge to quickly rebuild our franchise once we bust up the core to this team that we have right now. The Nats have some promise in the farm and could have have a good team in a few years if the ownership commits the resources necessary to bring in quality vets to fill the holes their farm doesn't. We're going to have to catch lightning in the bottle or work some very creative trades for some prospects to posture ourselves to be successful into the middle of the next decade. Or Vitters is going to have to become the next Babe Ruth.

Geo seems to be hitting a resurgence lately, which we desperately needed. Fox is hitting really well, but he didn't have much exposure to Perry. Could be coincidence, but I can't quite say we're getting the same results. I want whoever the heck can figure out Soriano since Lou apparently is bent on treating him with a double standard and keeping him in the leadoff spot. He's got to be the worst leadoff man in the league right now.

Who else takes a 90+ win team and dismantles it because he needed more lefties? None other than the worst gm in MLB. To be fair we were closer to being a 100 win team than a 90 win team. Don't know if I'd call hendry the worst ever. His 2009 is one of the worst seasons one of our GMs has had...trailing the year Himes let Maddux walk, and rivaling the year we traded away Lee Smith, the first domino in the chain that lead to trading away Palmiero for Mitch Williams amongst others, which set us back by a good decade. This is way worse than normal for hendry though. His performance since October has been bad enough to justify firing him, but not enough to put him in all-time worst discussions.

A PED isn't necessarily a PED, and all of them shouldn't be counted the same. Technically, Red Bull could be considered performance enhancing. Hell, you can count coffee as performance enhancing. Knowingly taking a substance that is either a) banned by MLB or other world doping agencies, or b) illegal by federal law, for the purpose of gaining an unfair advantage over others, is cheating. Not every performance enhancing substance fits into that, IMO.

thats true, and so was Manny Ramir... wait that doesnt work But Frank played college football in the SEC so we know he never had access to steroids as a young man. The guy with a desk in the same office as me grew up with Frank and went to high school with him. He was always big, even as a kid. He didn't suddenly bulk up in college or anything like that. That doesn't guarantee he didn't do it, but it should take away alot of whatever doubt there is.

I think you're giving them a bit too much credit.