DonnieD

I can't imagine any team would prefer to sign any 20 something player to a 5yr $25m per deal over a 8yr $16m per deal.

The other AL East teams averaged 834 runs & 764 runs in '09 & '10 respectively. The other NL Central teams averaged 693 and 695 runs in '09 & '10 respectively. I would say there is a pretty significant difference in the divisional opponents that Garza will face by moving leagues.

And by "bunch of awesome AL teams" you mean two? I think the last couple of Blue Jays offenses are in the team picture for "awesome"

I'm a fan of Trammell, and I think he has an argument to one day make the HOF. But I don't think he is as close to Larkin as you do. They have almost 50 points of OPS difference between them, which is not insubstantial. For comparison, that is about the difference between the careers of George Brett and Bill Madlock.

I think there is zero chance that Mauer leaves MN as long as they offer him a contract that is remotely competetive. I don't think he'd leave even if say the Yankees offered him a crazy ARod contract. If the Twins come in close to everyone else, say 7 years $120 mil for arguments sake, and the Yankees offer 10 years 250 mil, I bet he would still stay in MN. The Cubs have no chance to sign him at all in my opinion.

That would be 4 years ago when Bailey's predecessor as Oakland closer, Huston Street won it.

Hopefully you will be able to, a project is in the works.

I wrote a song a while ago, and I have often thought of putting it on here to get some feedback from you guys. I was finally motivated to do it after seeing and reading Ski's baseball poem. I have taken the initial steps to have this published, I got it copyrighted and submitted it to a couple of songwriting competitions, one of which I placed as runner up in. However, I don't really know the next steps that I need to take to get someone to notice it and want to record it. One huge obstacle, I know, is that it is lyrics only. I don't know the first thing about writing or playing music so that obviously makes it much more difficult to market to anyone. Anyway, here is the song, feel free to fire away with any feedback you may have. MEMORIES OF OUR GAMES I was twelve years old, Baseball on my mind Sittin’ in school dreamin’ ‘bout the summertime When my brothers and me would find an old ball Hand-me-down bats and gloves for us all Then we’d choose our teams from the Major League’s best We had a big wood backstop after Daddy built that deck We spent hours and hours, wasn’t it great When you had Nolan on the mound and Fisk behind the plate Our Heroes they all played, right in our backyard On All-Star teams we picked from Baseball cards It was, call your own strikes and pitcher’s hand out The field of my dreams stood right outside our house Lookin’ back we really had it made I’ll always love those memories of our games Every weekday afternoon at One-fifteen It was W.G.N., Harry and Steve That Ivy-covered fortress at Addison and Clark We’d root them on, then back outside ‘til dark You’d be Cal Ripken with your orange and black glove And I was Andre Dawson from those ’87 Cubs We spent hours and hours, wasn’t it great I had Clemens on the mound, Ryno at second base Our Heroes they all played, right in our backyard On All-Star teams we picked from Baseball cards It was, call your own strikes and pitcher’s hand out The field of my dreams stood right outside our house Lookin’ back we really had it made I’ll always love those memories of our games Were all grown up now, raisin’ families of our own Fifty hour weeks just to make ourselves a home As time flies by and we try not to lose touch I’ll always cherish those memories so much It was Home Run Derby, you against me Hittin’ long Home Runs over that big oak tree All those days we spent bein’ our idols in pretend We didn’t know how good we had it when…. Our Heroes they all played, right in our backyard On All-Star teams we picked from Baseball cards It was, call your own strikes and pitcher’s hand out The field of my dreams stood right outside our house Lookin’ back we really had it made I’ll always love those memories of our games

How is he acting all high and mighty? He was defnding himself because you basically called him a liar and lumped him in with some joker on cubs.com. DonnieD never said the trade was done. If you read too much into it, then that's your fault. How in the world did i call him a liar? All i'm saying is dont call the kid or guy on cubs.com a liar until he's proven wrong just like we didnt call him a liar until we were proven wrong. Yes I was responding because I took it that you basically called me a liar. From the end of your post If you were saying it is not true then you were calling it a lie, and by extension, me a liar. BTW, Dexter thanks for the support.

I don't really see what a Cubs.com rumor has in common with what I posted from Puerto Rico. Since EVERYTHING I posted either came true or was confirmed by media sources after the fact (ie: Peavy will not go to the Braves, wants to be a Cub, etc.). Remember this is when most media outlets had Peavy to the Braves as likely or even iminent. I suggest you scroll back through the thread(s) and re-read my posts if you think they have something in common with a typical (at least when I used to visit 6 years ago) Cubs.com post.

Reading the last page worth of posts makes my head hurt. Some people are talking about Peavy singing the song "Go Cubs Go" and others are talking about him signing autographs with the inscription "Go Cubs" and there are posts responding to one about the other. I had heard about the former, but not the latter. I know they look similar but "sing" and "sign" are different words.

He doesn't turn 32 until after the start of the season. He is certainly not "done" unless he decides that he doesn't want to put in the work to get back into shape and be something close to the player that he was. Players have had abysmal years and then come back to have good seasons again. McGwire's 1991, Greg Vaughn's 1997, heck Ruben Sierra fell off the face of the Earth and came back to have some productive seasons. I'm not saying the situations are exactly the same or even that it is likely, but there is certainly a possiblility that Jones could be a good player again.

scarey, I don't think there are many people that "don't want you here", and it is definitely not most. Understand that the reason statistical or baseball philosophy arguments get somewhat heated is that people (yourself included) want others to see things as they see them. I myself was much more of a baseball traditionalist about 5 or 6 years ago. I got most of my information and developed (or borrowed) most of my ideas from baseball announcers and ESPN. Only when I found this site and began reading and contemplating some of the contrary ideas and opinions of many of the members here did I really begin to do some of my own analysis. I consider myself an extremely open-minded person, so even though these ideas all but shattered my long held baseball ideals, I researched and examined many viewpoints and ended up much more in the SABR camp than not. As far as this particular discussion goes, my take on it is that you look too far into the RISP thing. Many have pointed out the sample size issue, but I think what it really comes down to is that with almost no exceptions a hitter’s line in “clutch” situations is going to be completely in line with their overall statistics. I briefly looked at 3 year splits for overall numbers and RISP numbers for a few MLB players and even among the players traditionally considered “clutch” like David Ortiz, their RISP numbers fall right in line with their actual numbers. A players RISP rate stats are typically going to fall somewhere between their best and worst years. For example with David Ortiz here is what you find: Period AVG OBP SLG OPS 3 year .297 .413 .596 1.009 3 yr RISP .326 .454 .620 1.074 Best year .332 .445 .621 1.066 I suspect the difference in OBP is more than accounted for by his intentional walks with RISP. With nearly every player I looked at (Adam Dunn included), their RISP numbers fall between the best and worst years of their 3 year splits even though their RISP sample sizes are smaller than one season. That is why posters here are disregarding your RISP argument or attributing it to luck. You needn’t drill down into someone’s “clutch” stats, you can look at their actual numbers and tell with a high level of assurance what type of hitter they are going to be. The biggest problem I have (and I assume others do too) with your argument is that you claim to value OBP “very much”, but in your analysis you are disregarding OBP and instead are stressing the inferior AVG. In addition, you seem to be in agreement that Dunn is a productive player because of his high OPS, but your argument seems to be that Dunn is a bad hitter with RISP despite his (still high) OPS, because of his low AVG in those situations. However his 3 year splits show that he hits .234 with RISP, right in line with his .244 overall average, and the same as his AVG in his worst year of the last 3.

I got mine Saturday

I would definitely take a flyer on Saito. His numbers are outstanding, I know he has health questions but for ~ $4 mil, I'd take the chance.

What else could it mean? I wasn't speaking in code. No, I'm wondering why you are implying that his last 2 seasons have been similar when they aren't even remotely close. I think you thought his 2007 was bad when really it was his second best of his career. Eh, now that I look at his stat sheet, you're right. Didn't realize his 2007 was that good. Yeah, I'd be thrilled if we could get those kind of numbers. Unfortunately I think we're going to get closer to the 2008 lee You know what the difference between 2008 Lee and 2007 Lee was? 5 games. 5... games. 2007 Lee: 150G 567AB 91R 180H 43-2B 1-3B 22HR 82RBI 6SB 71BB 114SO .317/.400/.513 291TB 2008 Lee: 155G 623AB 93R 181H 41-2B 3-3B 20HR 90RBI 8SB 71BB 119SO .291/.361/.462 288TB 5 extra crappy performances in 2008 made 2007 seem light years better. He virtually put up the same numbers, stop looking at his OPS+ to determine if it was better. It was THE SAME, it only looks better because of a slightly smaller sample size EXACTLY. Somehow he must have went 0 for 56 in those 5 games though.

Assuming we need salary relief in order to be able to add Peavy though the question is would you rather have Marquis in the rotation and Lee at 1B or Peavy in the rotation and Hoffpauir at 1B. I'd take the latter.

Career minor league OPS doesn't always work though. Soto's is .784. Heck Derrek Lee's career minor league OPS is .844. Hoffpauir has made significant progress over the past two seasons.

I'm confident that he would be terrible. That's about it. What about his numbers indicate to you that he would be "terrible"? I have little doubt that he could match Lee's numbers from last year over the course of a full season. look at what jason dubois did to PCL pitching Or Geovany Soto? Hoffpauir didn't exactly look overmatched in his big league AB's either.

I'm confident that he would be terrible. That's about it. What about his numbers indicate to you that he would be "terrible"? I have little doubt that he could match Lee's numbers from last year over the course of a full season.

If Lee were to get traded is anyone confident that Hoffpauir could be next year's Soto? Good way to clear some salary and add a left handed bat to the lineup (since that seems to matter to Hendry).

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2008/nov/15/padres-s16padnotes/?padres Wow, that sounds so much like Donnie's story, that I'm starting to get suspicious. I don't think I mentioned who was in Puerto Rico with him, did I?

Going to bed now, I have to catch an early flight. I'll check back tomorrow night.

That could be it, or they may have been a team that he initially thought would be okay when Towers approached him and he could have just changed his mind over the past few weeks. Hopefully he doesn't change his mind again and sticks to his guns (& what he told me).

His NL preferences (assuming he is definitely being moved) are L.A.D. and the Cubs and he as much as said he wouldn't be willing to go anywhere else.