frostwyrm

It's so silly that Alou is still in the NL. He's a textbook example of a fragile vet who should be DHing. He should have gone to the AL at least 2 years ago.

He's good, but not a superstar. He should really bat 1 or 2. He has great OBP skills but little power. Then there's Soriano, who has lousy OBP skills and lots of power. It's ridiculous Fuku bats down in the order and Soriano at the top.

Awesome post. You're a credit to this community. Seriously, if you won't even try to come up with anything remotely insightful to say why can't you just stay out of the thread? Way too many of your posts are nothing but empty insults, and many of the others are just plain stupid. People here, including myself, show a hell of a lot more civility towards you than you display to others. Other people have disagreed respectfully and supported their arguments, but not you. Just leave the thread if you can't add anything. Better yet, just leave. sorry, but it's hard to take your pleas for insightful posts seriously when you continue to propose this ridiculous idea. i could sit on the keyboard and come up with something more insightful than trading lee, one of the team's most productive and popular players, so that soriano can move to a position he's never played before, hurting the team both at 1b and lf...all because soriano lost a ball in the sun and had one bad defensive game in st. louis. i mean, you're basically proposing trading one of the cubs best players to improve the leftfield defense. that's insanity. you're saying that the defensive production the cubs get out of leftfield is more important than the offensive production lee provides. it's leftfield. leftfield. do you realize how far down "leftfield defense" is on the list of things a baseball team needs? and then do you realize how nice it is to have a gold glove, .900 OPS 1b? the reason i haven't put the effort into making any "insightful" posts on this matter is because you're idea is so stupid it doesn't deserve insightful responses (plus, for a while there i was sure you were joking...that's how terrible this idea is). if someone came on here trying to tell me the earth was flat, i wouldn't put much effort into refuting that either. How does this excuse your acting like a jerk? Even in this post you had to slip in insults. Why not just stay out of the thread if you can't comment without resorting to insults? There is no valid excuse for your type of behavior.

Awesome post. You're a credit to this community. Seriously, if you won't even try to come up with anything remotely insightful to say why can't you just stay out of the thread? Way too many of your posts are nothing but empty insults, and many of the others are just plain stupid. People here, including myself, show a hell of a lot more civility towards you than you display to others. Other people have disagreed respectfully and supported their arguments, but not you. Just leave the thread if you can't add anything. Better yet, just leave.

Okay, I'll bite. Your thesis that Soriano would necessarily be a crappy defensive 1B is unconvincing. Two words: Todd Walker. A solidly below average defensive 2B and OF, yet he became an adequate defensive 1B. Soriano is a far better athlete than Walker ever was. And when Soriano is constantly hobbled his arm isn't nearly good enough to make him a non-crappy defensive OF - that's a fact that has been demonstrated clearly, so the hell with his arm. And his stats wouldn't be as impressive at 1B? So what? We're stuck with him, essentially married to him, and have a humongous amount of money invested in him. Best to keep him on the field as often as possible and hopefully not in a position where he can cost games with crummy defense. And persuading Lee to accept a trade needn't be an "elaborate plan." Just tell him the organization feels it's necessary to clear 1B for Soriano by the fall of 2010 at the latest, which means there is no Derrek Lee in the Cubs' longterm plans. If Lee craves longterm job security he may very well want to move to a team that will offer him an extension. Obviously there is no guarantee that he wouldn't want to finish out his current contract and go to free agency. I never said there was. I'm also not buying this idea that Soriano wouldn't be less injury-prone at 1B. Stretching at 1B is not a sudden or violent motion. You have time to prepare for and execute the movement at your own pace. I think he'd do fine. Getting him off the astroturf of the outfield and onto the dirt of the infield can only help, as would having to run less. And all these statements I see in this thread positing the inconceivability of moving Lee are statements that could be made about any really good player. Apparently if it were up to some of you people no good player would ever be traded. They'd all play out their careers for one team, like George Brett. In the real world good players actually do get traded and the universe doesn't implode when it happens. Sometimes people are even happy with what they get back in trade.

Please stop this while you still have a shred of dignity left. Very classy. You should look after your own dignity if that's your idea of a worthwhile comment. It's not nearly as classy as broadly dismissing huge segments of people due to the presidential candidate they support. I can't control what Truffle thinks. If you have a problem with his contempt for the hillibillies of the industrial midwest you'll have to take it up with him.

Please stop this while you still have a shred of dignity left. Very classy. You should look after your own dignity if that's your idea of a worthwhile comment.

I can't for the life of me figure out what is so weird about moving a hobbled LF to 1B, particularly when he's had plenty of experience at 2B. You'd think I'd suggested converting Kerry Wood into a shortstop. And I bring up that Soriano is owed $115M and the response is "so what?" What is so weird about wanting to preserve value in such a large contract? And what's with all these theories about it being impossible for Soriano to play an adequate 1B? Can someone explain to me why Todd Walker can move to 1B but Alfonso Soriano can't? Walker was never a defensive wizard at 2B or the OF, yet he was an acceptable defensive 1B.

What the hell is Corey's role now? Is he reduced to a pinch runner and defensive replacement for Dunn? That would be a pretty questionable use of a roster spot.

It sucks that Andruw Jones has tanked and Juan Pierre is a regular again in LA. I wanted oh so badly to see Pierre in Cincy.

Jay Bruce just got called up. Looks like CPatt is done in Cincy. It's sad to see how far his career has gone off track. I hope he catches on somewhere else, but I really doubt it will be with a contender. He had to accept a minor league deal this spring and his stock has to be even lower now.

Um, no. You don't trade your best player or let him walk so somebody else can move to his position. you're wasting your time. the whole idea is ridiculous and everyone on the board besides him knows it. it'd be like if i argued for sending ramirez down to AAA and signing kevin orie to play 3b. it's so stupid it's not even worth your time arguing about. If you had thought about this post before typing it even you could have seen how stupid your analogy is.

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.

Those DLee splits are nice but I don't think they're a required skill for the position. A lot of 1B's can't do splits and they're still regarded as adequate defenders. I'd be happy if Soriano could just give us average D and stay healthy. Of course, he could still reverse his injury tendencies, in which case all of this would be moot. But I'm not real optimistic about that.

I'm not sure why you think he'll be an acceptable at 1B anymore than people think he's unacceptable anywhere else right now. If his defense/injuries gets worse but he can still hit in a few years, the best option is likely to try and trade him to the AL as a DH and eat a chunk of the salary. I think he'd be a MUCH worse 1st baseman than an OFer. What makes you think he couldn't be a decent 1B? He has plenty of experience on the right side of the infield and he's a good athlete when healthy.

I've said this before, but if Soriano can't reverse his recent injury history I believe he'll have to go to 1B at some point. He's a lousy defensive OF when his legs aren't 100%, he's shown that clearly. And we can't have someone who's owed 100+ million breaking down from leg injuries. If you tell DLee you're going to have to let him walk in 2 years time to clear 1B for Soriano then Lee might see it as being in his interest to accept a trade to a team that will give him an extension. If Soriano has to move to 1B anyway better to do it sooner rather than later so we can get something back for Lee rather than letting Lee walk and getting nothing for him.

yes, please. so we'll move fukudome to center for hoffpauir, but not for murton? ok. Where the hell is Murton on the OF depth chart these days? Is he the 11th outfielder?

Todd Hundley, Eric Karros, Rick Aguilera, Eric Young.

Gordon was hilarious. He kept racing ahead of the music, realizing he was ahead, pausing to let the music catch up to the next lyric, then singing too fast again, realizing he needed to pause again, etc. It was like he wanted to sing it as a fast punk rock song but the organist wasn't cooperating.

The only reasons that I can think of as to why any of these players doesn't make the HOF on the first ballot are: Bonds - Steroids Clemens -Steroids Sosa - speculation of steroids Johnson - short of 300 wins Piazza - poor defense Biggio, Maddux, Martinez, Glavine, Smoltz are all cinch 1st ballot HOF. The numbers would make all 10 of them 1st ballot HOF. Johnson - 4653 K's (soon to be #2 all-time) Piazza - arguably the greatest offensive catcher in the history of the game I'm not saying I would use any of the reasons that I listed, I think those could be excuses for some sportswriters to exclude certain players. I think all 10 should make the HOF on the first ballot. I think there's an evolving unwritten rule among Hall voters that roid guys shouldn't get in right away. I think it's a good idea. It's the only practical way for baseball to put an asterisk by a guy's stats.

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/962/toilet13marquisee8.gif

Batters are doing .327/.385/.484 off of him. He's lucky his ERA isn't over 6. What's worse is this is the time of year when he's supposed to be good.

The current stats of the traded players is not the main issue It was a dumb trade mainly because Hendry gave up 3 guys who had substantial market value at the time for one year of a mediocre CF. Hendry squandered even more market value by failing to trade Pierre at the deadline, despite the fact that Pierre was riding a big hot streak that would've made him easy to move. Wasting market value of players is a primary reason why Hendry needs a big budget to field a competitive team. Pie's value is being wasted right now. He should have been traded while his value was high instead of being foisted on a manager who doesn't want him.

I can only guess it's those good 2006 numbers that are causing Lou's faith in Reed vs. RHP. He actually hit righties really well that year. Unfortunately 2006 is a huge statistical outlier in his career. The Blue Jays must have figured the same, or else they wouldn't have released him.

Good chance here for Soriano to change the dismal mood of his season.