Jehrico

Um, no. You don't trade your best player or let him walk so somebody else can move to his position. A) Yeah, Lee's our best player, and everybody in baseball knows how good he is. That's why his trade value would be enormous. B) Soriano is not just "somebody else". He's a guy who has about $115M left on his contract. So if a player is owed a lot of money, trade one of he proven anchors of your team to accomodate the expensive player. Yes, I know they'd likely get a decent return, but it seems ridiculous to shake up the team that much by getting rid of one of the core players to. I've yet to see you provide a projection or anything that shows Soriano would be significantly more likely to be more productive offensively or less of a liability defensively if he moved to 1st. This ultimately amounts to you trying to argue addition by subtraction...trading Lee would create a tremendous offenive hole. They're not likely to get an established player back unless it's a pitcher, and the can't afford to trade a proven player for prospects unless they somehow come across another established impact bat in the meantime. I wouldn't do it, but I think some of you are being a little harsh on frostwyrm. It's not unfathomable that trading Lee and moving Soriano to first couldn't improve the team. It would depend on what we got back for Lee, which would undoubtedly be alot. The difference is I wouldn't be influenced to do it because of Soriano's health, I'd do it because someone made me an offer for Lee that I couldn't refuse, and it included a better LF in return.

The fact that he continues to receive regular playing time mystifies me. It shouldn't. Patterson is, after all, a veteran at this point and as everyone who knows dusty should be well aware of, a veteran who has a proven track record of being lousy is better than a young hitter who might turn out to be good. Corey has darker skin than Bruce, so, you know, he'll be able to hang better once the summer months really kick in. Plus, dude's a vet.

So what is the corresponding move to make room for him on the roster? Is a trade imminent?

I shudder at the thought of Soriano trying to do a DLee type split at first while picking a ball out of the dirt. I don't think he could make it more than 5 games at first without pulling something on one of those plays.

Marbury is a stranger to playoff basketball because he's a complete idiot and doesn't know how to listen to coaching or make his teammates better. I don't see any of that in Rose. I think he's also more physically gifted. i think they're just about equal in terms of athleticism. anyone remember seeing marbury's trampoline dunk in college? i swear that's the highest i've seen anyone jump, ever. Agreed. Marbury compares with anyone in the league in terms of athleticism and ability. If he had a brain instead of an oversized ego, he might be on track to be one of the 50 greatest players of all time in the NBA. Rose is pretty comparable in terms of ability. Let's hope he's smarter than Marbury ever proved to be.

How about this trade scenario: Bulls send Hinrich, Gordon and the 1st pick to the Heat for Wade, the second pick, and salary filler. If it's true that Miami wants Rose and will trade the second pick if they can't get him, then it's a sign that they're really concerned about their guard play. If they can get Rose and Hinrich, then they upgrade at PG with Hinrich who can run the team while they're developing Rose and while Rose is getting used to the league, without the injury risk. Gordon can replace most of Wade's scoring. The Bulls get a game-changing PG and their inside scoring force they've been looking for. They are assuming risk based on Wade's injury history. This would mean that we have to keep Duhon, which may not be that easy after last year. Thabo would be the main backup PG, unless Hughes can do it (I don't know how good of an option he would be as b/u PG considering his decline the last couple of years). If Wade's injury problems persist, then Hughes would have to step up as the SG then.

In a way in that they're not really like each other at all. I was referring as to how the organization is treating them and not letting them get consistant playing time. I'm not sure how you got that I thought Pie was similar to Gwynn out of that post. Really? You made an analogy where they were equivalent. Gwynn is a 5th outfielder at best, he has a minor league OPS under .700 and he wasn't young for his levels. It's borderline that he's a major league player, which is why it doesn't equate to the Pie situation. EDIT: Gwynn better than Mike Cameron? Not unless Gwynn gets to hit off a tee. I thought Gwynn Jr was about 3 yrs younger than he is...that puts the argument in a whole different perspective. Nevermind. :oops:

Never said the Giants wouldn't consider trading him but Rios was an all-star in 2007 and the Giants wouldn't bite. Why would the Giants trade (as previously proposed) one of their stud pitcher whose contract they control for six years for two minor leaguers (Pie and Murton), an overpriced bum (Marquis) and a significant downgrade (Marshall)? I don't recall suggesting that they would. The point is, the poster who earlier characterized the notion that Lincecum might be available as "comical" is just flat out wrong. If Lincecum was indeed untouchable, then the discussions with the Blue Jays wouldn't have lasted 60 seconds, and the media would never have gotten wind of any of this. Also, Rios may have made the all-star team in 2007, but I don't know that I'd characterize him as an all-star talent. Robert Fick and Matt Lawton were both all-stars in recent years. A single all-star appearance doesn't necessarily mean much. Rios is a nice 20-25 hr, 80+ RBI, .350 OBP outfielder at his best, but most certainly not even close to being worth a premium young arm like Lincecum. Neither are Pie, Marquis, Murton and Marshall. Pie's ceiling is considerably higher than Rios, IMO, and has had an overall more impressive minor league career than Rios despite being a much rougher project when coming into the pros. Marshall is looking like he reasonably could be expected to be a solid #3 or #4 in the league, which would be worth Rios alone in this day and age when there's never enough good pitching available. Murton is nice filler, who could provide Rios's average numbers in his best year. Marquis would be simple filler for someone who had no in house options left for a #5, or someone who had a pitching coach foolish enough to think he could get through to him after Mazzone, Duncan, and Rothschild couldn't.

In a way in that they're not really like each other at all. I was referring as to how their organizations are treating them and not letting them get consistant playing time at the major league level while loosing at bats to over-the-hill inferior players (Mike Cameron). I wasn't trying to compare Gwynn and Pie straight up.

That's where our exception would have to come into play. I firmly believe that we have enough good, replaceable players and enough financial flexibility to get that pick if Pax really wanted to go that way.

Tony Gwynn Jr is to the Brewers as Felix Pie is to the Cubs.

I like the idea of us getting both. Between our salary exception, Hinrich, Gordon, and Deng, we should be able to come up with enough to entice Miami. Trade all three to other teams for picks, then roll those picks up and offer them to Miami for the other. Throw out a front court rotation with TT, Noah, Beasly and Gooden while Rose, Thabo, and Hughes rotate through the back court. Accept another year of rebuilding unless you can find a way to do this while keeping Deng (and he has the kind of year next year that we were expecting this year). Does anyone else think there's no way Duhon stays on to be the backup PG?

Cedeno or Theriot would have to be the starting point. Add in Pie, maybe. Tough to put together a package that meets Clevelands needs as they don't need pitching.

Kosuke's lack of RBIs is a little perplexing to me. The 2-3-4 hitters in front of him (usually Theriot, Lee, ARam) are collectively putting up an OBP close to .400 (Yikes! I didn't realize how far DLee's OBP had sunk, he's down to .359), and he's hitting for a solid average with runners on. Regardless of his power output, I'd expect more RBIs out of him, as it appears he should be getting ample opportunities. That said, I'd like to see a 1-2 of Theriot-Fukudome or Fukudome-Theriot.

Volquez for Hamilton was an amazing trade. Two players with nothing but upside, and both are actually living up to it Good thing for both GMs too. If one side weren't doing so well, that GM would be getting flamed.

If only Pie had hit .400 in his first 10 plate appearances...

We totally failed to capitalize on the time when everyone in the offense was clicking to let him work some things out. Now we're back to having any given part of the lineup carrying the burden on any day instead of the whole lineup mashing.

I think it's absolutely a sure thing he gets in. What isn't a sure thing is whether it's on the first ballot.No way. He doesn't have the numbers and baseball writers have an extremely long memory. See Santo, Ron. W L ERA 200+ IP 216 146 3.46 9 The only thing he's done that is HOF worthy is keep the walks and HRs (for the most par) down. I'd love to hear Bruce Miles opinion on this. The main thing keeping Santo out is the lack of postseason success. Schilling has that with more than one club, and is the hero in one of those. He'll get in, partially for the right reasons, partially for the wrong reasons.

:banghead: I guess he didn't get stretched out enough. :tomato:

If Dusty taught us anything, it is that you shouldn't take for granted that professional baseball players are sound fundamentally. Dusty's teams were never fundamentally sound. If the manager at the Major League level can affect the fundamentals of his players, then I would assume that a minor league manager is even more important to making sure guys are ready fundamentally to make the transition to the majors. If the team looks bad fundamentally in the minors, then yeah, that manager needs to go and quickly.

Never said the Giants wouldn't consider trading him but Rios was an all-star in 2007 and the Giants wouldn't bite. Why would the Giants trade (as previously proposed) one of their stud pitcher whose contract they control for six years for two minor leaguers (Pie and Murton), an overpriced bum (Marquis) and a significant downgrade (Marshall)? I don't recall suggesting that they would. The point is, the poster who earlier characterized the notion that Lincecum might be available as "comical" is just flat out wrong. If Lincecum was indeed untouchable, then the discussions with the Blue Jays wouldn't have lasted 60 seconds, and the media would never have gotten wind of any of this. Also, Rios may have made the all-star team in 2007, but I don't know that I'd characterize him as an all-star talent. Robert Fick and Matt Lawton were both all-stars in recent years. A single all-star appearance doesn't necessarily mean much. Rios is a nice 20-25 hr, 80+ RBI, .350 OBP outfielder at his best, but most certainly not even close to being worth a premium young arm like Lincecum.

\:D/ :thumbsup:

I agree, and this is the inherent problem with this absolute disgrace of a park. In an effort to manufacture nostalgia, the Astros have embarrassed themselves. What they've done is essentially copy "quirks" of old baseball stadiums. The problem is that all of these prior quirks were not anyone's intent. The hill in CF is copied after the old Polo Grounds. Nobody built that hill, it's just the result of trying to fit a baseball diamond in a huge polo field. That's just the way the ground naturally was. The flagpole in CF is there to copy the fact that the monuments and flagpole used to be in play in the "Death Valley" outfield in Yankee stadium. It was so deep out there that the pole never came into play. It wasn't meant to be an obstacle, like this one is. Like someone mentioned before, it's a short porch in LF at Fenway because of the urban layout in that area, not because someone thought it would be cool to have a short porch. Nostalgia has resulted from all these unintended quirks in the old parks. You can't manufacture nostalgia, especially in a park that has had 3 names in 10 years. The freaking hill had a name before a game was even played there. The hill and the pole are a joke, and trying to be cute with the left field wall has led to only confusion, to the point where nobody can figure out where the ball even lands in more than half of the home runs hit there. Arena baseball? Lines on a wall determining a home run? It's a joke. I'm probably in the minority, but I'm actually offended by that park. Build something original, that brings nostalgia naturally. Don't plagiarize other parks to try to artificially get a feeling. +1. Worst park in baseball.

"Candy Maldonado's last name pronounced backwards is Odanodlam." Or, from a younger Harry Caray: "It's going back, way back, it could be, it would be, and its..........caught by the second baseman."

I don't think there's any irrational love for Rose because he's from the Chicago area, that didn't turn out so well last time (see: Eddy Curry). If there's any irrational love for Rose, it is because he's a PG, and any self respecting Bulls fan should have an affinity for a star PG that can run the show (see: Michael Jordan). Jordan wasn't a PG, but I'm with you on the general point. Technically no, but it's hard to argue that he wasn't doing his share running the offense before the first retirement. The offense was all Pippens after he came back the first time.