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frostwyrm

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Everything posted by frostwyrm

  1. frostwyrm
    Another heavily backloaded deal. What an absolutely stunning shocking surprise. Judging from all this deferred debt you'd almost think the GM was in a panic to win now to save his job.
  2. frostwyrm
    I don't much care for Sammy as a person, but as a baseball player and a Chicago Cub I think he did more than enough to have his number retired. I have a lesser opinion of Marquis for being presumptious enough to wear Sammy's number.
  3. frostwyrm
    It probably doesn't. So what do you estimate Guillen's price to be? There will probably be some salary deflation next year, but I think he'll still be very expensive. He's enormously more valuable than Gary Matthews Jr., and GMJ just got 5/50.
  4. frostwyrm
    Macias hit 229/.264/.344 in Japan in 2006, and he'll be 35 yrs old in January. I can't begin to come up with a reason why an MLB team would even consider investing meal money in Macias. The Nats are using 2007 to rebuild, so it would be particularly stupid for them to carry washed up vets on the bench.
  5. frostwyrm
    Signing Guillen probably means Z walks.
  6. frostwyrm
    Only argument for picking Izturis over Murton is to break up the RH bats. With Murton at #2 you have 4 RH hitters at the top of the lineup. I'd still prefer that to having a bum like Izturis bat in front of DLee and Aram.
  7. frostwyrm
    The 2007 Cubs will not be a great team. By 2009 at the latest we'll most likely have a terrible team on a bang-for-the-buck basis, if we don't already. Better hope we win in the next 2 years.
  8. frostwyrm
    It's also pretty lame that you're arguing that he was only motivated in 2006 because it was his free agent year, when he's had two other seasons just about as good. Okay, maybe it wasn't a motivational problem. Maybe he's just a player who's subject to the occasional 2-year slump. Either way I wouldn't give him $136M.
  9. frostwyrm
    It was his contract year. Wait til the Cubs flop midway thru his 8 year deal. Then we'll see how motivated he is. By this logic, no player will try if he's financially secure and playing for a bad team. No. I question Soriano's motivation because he performed way above his career norms in a contract year. A player who has been a steady performer from year to year is a different case. OPS+: 2002 - 131 2003 - 128 2006 - 132 So what were his motivations in 2002 and 2003? I don't know, but it's pretty lame that we're discussing a newly minted $136M player and we have to ignore his 2004 and 2005 numbers to make him look good.
  10. frostwyrm
    As far as I can tell everyone on this message board other than myself believes in going all out for a WS each and every year, regardless of how unlikley success may be in the coming season or how much longterm financial damage might be incurred in a likely doomed effort. Fact is, I have a hard time imagining a less favorable time to go totally win-now in strategy. We had an absolutely godawful team in 2006, the farm can't be counted on for any real help in 2007, and the FA market was weak and hideously overpriced - IMO the worst market in the history of sports. Only possible justification for not retooling in 2007 is that the personnel budget went up. In my mind that doesn't even come close to outweighing the arguments for a retooling period.
  11. frostwyrm
    It was his contract year. Wait til the Cubs flop midway thru his 8 year deal. Then we'll see how motivated he is. By this logic, no player will try if he's financially secure and playing for a bad team. No. I question Soriano's motivation because he performed way above his career norms in a contract year. A player who has been a steady performer from year to year is a different case.
  12. frostwyrm
    Maybe it's just me but I find it extremely distasteful to knowingly cripple a team's longterm welfare just to win for one season. By 2009 we'll have a backloaded Ted Lilly contract plus an aging Soriano eating up a huge chunk of payroll, along with other expensive mediocrities. IMO Hendry obviously doesn't give a crap about the Cubs except as a source of employment for himself, and for all his obscene spending I don't think the 2007 team will be anything great.
  13. frostwyrm
    It was his contract year. Wait til the Cubs flop midway thru his 8 year deal. Then we'll see how motivated he is.
  14. frostwyrm
    It's not that bad. If I remember right Bagwell and Biggio had huge backloaded deals. Yeah but talentwise Bagwell and Biggio were a different class of baseball player than Ted Lilly.
  15. frostwyrm
    No way does Pie start in CF on opening day. It's just propaganda to inflate his trade value. We heard the same stuff from Hendry about Jason Dubois, then found out Todd Hollandsworth had been slated to start all along.
  16. frostwyrm
    I'm not the biggest Izturis fan, but if you look at him at 26 he compares similar to Omar Vizquel when he was that age. Vizquel had similar type numbers and eventually developed into a solid hitter. If you get the chance look at their stats from early in their careers. Lets see if Izturis will develop more, he is still young. Hopefully he will be one of Gerald Perry's new projects. Working on OBP. Izturis can't stay healthy. He's been on the DL with hamstring and back problems and has a surgically repaired arthritic elbow. If he couldn't keep his back and hamstrings loose in southern California I don't see him being able to do it in Chicago.
  17. frostwyrm
    People are wasting their time talking about this shortstop thing and Giles. The Cubs, whether you like it or not, are happy with Izturis and are not looking for a shortstop. They signed DeRosa for three years to be their second baseman. They are not going to sign Giles. I cringe at the thought of Murton being platooned. There's no reason to take away at-bats from this promising young player. His splits don't warrant it, either. Unfortunately, Jones is horrible versus lefties, and should almost never face them. I don't think the Cubs have a "straight platoon" planned for Murton. They know that if they sign Floyd, he'll miss a lot of games (he always does), and Murton will get most of the at-bats. The outfield picture has a ways to go before it takes shape. A Murton platoon would disappoint me but it wouldn't surprise me, given that Hendry's decision-making time horizon is severely compressed due to his desire to save his job. I don't doubt that Hendry wouldn't hesitate to do anything that would hurt the longterm health of the team if it would increase the odds of contending in 2007.
  18. frostwyrm
    I wouldn't worry about Izturis sticking around. The cold April/May Chicago weather is going to make his already bad tendency to muscle injuries/tightness much much worse. His fragility will cause him to fall out of favor with the org. by midseason.
  19. frostwyrm
    Must have bullpen over $25 mil per year. Must have closer.
  20. frostwyrm
    I'm a fast distance runner. When MLB elongates the distance between 1st and 2nd base to 15 miles I will steal more bases than Juan Pierre, and I won't get caught either. Give me Pierre's 5/44 contract and I'll be happy as a clam.
  21. frostwyrm
    See this is what bothers me. You (sorry im going to pick on you for right now) give Hendry an F for signing, arguably, the best free agent available. 8 year contract-- yes too long. 17 mil a year-- possibly too much. But He is 2 mil a year better than Drew, and easily 200k a year better than Carlos Lee. I giggle at the pessimism. They didnt sign Furcal last year, and paid a huge price for it. Now they are getting every free agent under the sun, and people are having hissies over contract terms. The bottom line is they have a better roster this year then they had last year, and with all the arms in the bullpen, I doubt they are done. Soriano, who will soon be 31, put up an .821 and .808 OPS in the 2 years prior to 2006. Those numbers are barely average for a regular RF. His career OPS is only .835. There is no way in hell I commit $136M for Soriano, especially not for a corner OF spot. In two years' time, and very possibly in zero years' time, that contract will become a millstone around the franchise's neck.
  22. frostwyrm
    The Soriano contract alone is enough to make me give Hendry a big fat F for his offseason.
  23. frostwyrm
    So you'd rather the Cubs spend a bunch of money on a mediocre FA crop and tying the team down financially for the next 3 years while not improving nearly enough to compete for a WS title? When option B is a just-as-mediocre FA crop the following year? Yes. Signing free agents is not the only way to improve a baseball team, unless that team is in a panic to win right away.
  24. frostwyrm
    If it were up to me 2007 would have been a retooling period. No way do I give Alfonso Soriano $136M, to play a corner OF spot no less. The Lilly and Marquis deals are nuts too and I don't believe the market will stay this high. Z would already be gone. He's enough of difference maker to put a middle-of the-pack 2007 contender onto the WS short list, so he would've commanded a hefty price. He's an FA after 2007 anyway. All our stable of young SP's would've had a year to show what they've got, and Hill will be better with another year of seasoning.
  25. frostwyrm
    I think it was quite possible to go from worst to first. But in my mind we just didn't go about spending a fortune correctly. In fact, the four exact moves I called for in Sept were Soriano (for 2B), Drew, Daisuke and Schmidt. Admittedly, I don't know if was ever possible for us to get Schmidt, but we could have done the other three plus Lilly and not spent a whole lot more money (assuming you account for the posting fee in a different budget, that is). I think that would have put us pretty comfortably #1 in the division and serious WS contenders. Soriano Drew Lee Ramirez Jones Murton Barrett Izzy Z Daisuke Lilly Hill Prior/Miller/et al. I still would have gone the retooling route. I initially supported signing Soriano, but that was when I thought he'd get a Furcal type deal to play 2B or CF and bat 2nd or 5th. Giving him $136M to play a corner OF spot and bat leadoff is crazy.
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