Magnetic Curses

If he was righty, he'd be the perfect platoon partner with Jones. Too bad he's not. i wonder if the crew would do: jones dempster for jenkins clark that would be a trade that would make sense. the brewers might want some cash, though.

the nostalgia factor. maybe jerome walton can come back and hit in 30 straight games and the cubs will come out of nowhere to win the division. i wonder if we could get wild thing to quit his pin-monkey job in west texas.

Guh. That's just absurd. That's DiMaggio-esque right there. Don't believe me? Career, Joe DiMaggio had 361 HR and 369 K's. pujols, as of this point in his career, is better than dimaggio.

I don't think anyone has really said it's because of Beane/OBP, etc. this year. In fact, people have noted the A's team this year hasn't been as good as most of their other playoff teams and that their OBP isn't that great this season. pitching pitching pitching. can we get some pitching, please?

my only worry is a catastrophic injury.

i generally attribute any deviation to manager's skill or ineptness. i don't know why, but i do. i'd say leyland did a pretty good job staying out of the way.

i'm very much looking forward to the a's winning the world series.

what was the pythagorean win expectancy for detroit this year?

detroit led the AL in era this year. i doubt that leyland had much to do with that button. "push the right buttons", what the heck does that even mean?

first off, i don't know why you wouldn't want wood back at a reasonable, incentive-laden deal. it's a virtual no risk/high reward situation. i'm all for those. i agree with adding zito, but there were two train wrecks on this team last season, pitching and offense. pitching is much more important than offense, so an appropriate amount more should be spent on it. Signing Wood = $20 million bullpen. No thanks. I also don't believe we'll contend without major upgrades to the offense. it's not wood's fault that hendry overspent last offseason. i think wood would be effective and cheap as a closer, personally. as far as offense, well, i guess you just won't listen to reason. i've made clear that it's pretty common for a below average offense to make the postseason when accompanied by a very good pitching staff. i see no reason why our aim should simply be to make both offense and pitching merely average when we could make our staff very above average and make the postseason.

i think that most of the "stat guys" on this board believe that RF is flawed metric. a strange post from the p-man, a poster that i respect greatly.

Didn't he pick Marc Columbo too? i think he was talking defensive talent. Yes. Defensive talent. With regards to Columbo he would probably be our current RT had he not blown apart his knee cap. maybe, but i'd still probably take fred miller over columbo.

Didn't he pick Marc Columbo too? i think he was talking defensive talent.

he could also be a huge bargain.

i see him getting around 3 mil for a year.

ERA League rankings for world series teams over the last 5 years. 2005: white sox (1) vs astros (2) 2004: red sox (3) vs cardinals (2) 2003: marlins (7) vs yankees (3) 2002: angels (2) vs giants (2) 2001: dbacks (2) vs yankees (3)

edmonds will be a better bargain at his level of production than near any other player.

I can't comprehend your inclusion of Mussina. He's an old inconsistent pitcher. He could easily be a mediocre 100 ERA+ guy next year, going on his recent track record. He could also easily fail to reach 200 IP again. How in the world can you justify putting him over highly productive lock offensive players. You are blinded by the need for pitching. inconsistent picther? first of all, he's fourth on my list. any of those first 3 i would take over him. no, he's a consistent innings eater that has had 2 below 100 era+ years in his entire career (99 and 98). no, history doesn't show he's due for a terrible year. his ERA+ was 125 this year, but i guess we can just assume he's bound for imminent disaster because he's 38. Who said terrible year? Here's the facts on Mussina. 3 years in a row of sub 200 IP. His last 5 ERA+ numbers have been 108 129 98 101 125 That's inconsistent. Two good years, 1 decent year and 2 mediocre/average years. That's not somebody you put 4th on your list ahead of difference making offensive players. You are blinded by the need for pitching to the point where you are willing to throw huge money after old pitchers who don't guarantee you much more than a 160 IP season of averageness. And to top it off, you want a broken down shell of his former self in Edmonds to be the offensive centerpiece of the offseason, while at the same time letting Ramirez walk. It's a terrible plan that will lead to nothing more than continue failure. you are equally blinded by the notion that some sort of ridiculous "balance" needs to exist between offense and pitching. it doesn't. players like soriano and CLee will do us absolutely no good if all we get for the staff is vicente freaking padilla. the pitchers i've named are the best pitchers available. and as pitching is more important than hitting, you take care of the most important facets first. meaning you sign your pitchers before anything else. overspending on some streaky, inconsistent, generally low OBP hitter isn't going to fix this team. what will fix this team immediately is pitching. the best way we can attempt to get that done is by acquiring the best pitching on the market. neither of us knows how big of a payroll the cubs will have next season, targeting hitting first is idiotic, completely idiotic. look at the freaking team era last season and tell me that pitching wasn't the problem. and when doing so, remember that our team OPS in 2006 was 10 points better than the loser of the 2005 world series and nearly identical to the 2005 world champion. you cannot deny that pitching is near-exponentially more important than hitting. seeking some sort of metaphysical "balance" when you aren't the yankees is unbelievably foolish.

personally, i feel that edmonds has 2 very productive seasons left as an outfielder. that's really what it comes down to. i think it's a small risk to take.

So you expect a guy with a mediocre career minor league OBP to improve upon that OBP in his rookie season? Yes, Edmonds is going to keep declining. Do you not understand the idea of aging ballplayers? Do you think all these injuries have been faked? do you understand that aging ballplayers are capable of good seasons? do you understand the concept of the 1 year deal? goodness gracious, goony, i'm not talking about signing this guy long term. relax. Do you understand what a complete wreck Edmonds is right now? He's a shell of his former self. so is derrek lee. so is anyone who's been hurt without a history of a previous major injury. if he's been playing hurt he's capable of playing hurt a lot better than juan pierre is capable of playing injury-free. like i said, let's not sign him long term, but the production level he's at right now, as a wreck, is still better than the alternatives. wow, you'd think i was talking about re-signing willie wilson or something. There's a difference between Derrek Lee breaking a bone, and Jim Edmonds getting concussions and needing cortisone shots for various other ailments. I don't see how you can assume he'll return to his production level, because down the stretch he certainly wasn't at it, when he actually did play. concussions aren't injuries you get because you're injury prone. generally, they are injuries you get from running into something or getting hit by someone. as for the cortisone shots, i'm sure there are a lot of players that get them, especially older players. again, i don't see how anyone can point to edmonds history and say: "he's going to be worth less than juan pierre in 2007". that doesn't make sense at all.

So you expect a guy with a mediocre career minor league OBP to improve upon that OBP in his rookie season? Yes, Edmonds is going to keep declining. Do you not understand the idea of aging ballplayers? Do you think all these injuries have been faked? do you understand that aging ballplayers are capable of good seasons? do you understand the concept of the 1 year deal? goodness gracious, goony, i'm not talking about signing this guy long term. relax. Do you understand what a complete wreck Edmonds is right now? He's a shell of his former self. so is derrek lee. so is anyone who's been hurt without a history of a previous major injury. if he's been playing hurt he's capable of playing hurt a lot better than juan pierre is capable of playing injury-free. like i said, let's not sign him long term, but the production level he's at right now, as a wreck, is still better than the alternatives. wow, you'd think i was talking about re-signing willie wilson or something.

That is an uncanny impression of Jim Hendry. Bravo! i don't even know what that means. i think you mean "dusty baker", but getting a cheap productive veteran with a great OBP and SLG really is indicative of neither. and really, starting 3 young position players isn't either. so bravo, you're pretty sweet.

I have no interest in mediocre at both, and there's no reason why you would be. You aren't guaranteeing excellent pitching, there's no such thing. if that's the case, what are we doing on a message board, speculating?

HERE LIE THE TWINS 2006 THEY PLAYED THE GAME THE "RIGHT" WAY

I figured out that the major leagues' average hitter would have reached base a grand total of two fewer times than Pierre did this year with the same # of plate appearances...and would have had a lot more total bases. The average hitter would have had fewer hits (lower batting average), but more walks (better BB/PA rate) and more total bases (higher SLG). Oh yeah...and that includes the NL pitchers in those "average" numbers. good stuff.