hawkeyecub

There's a reason no team in baseball thinks Nomar can play SS next year. I don't understand why people can't get that. Put him at 2B then and place Cedeno at SS. When we are talking about losing Mark Prior for a SS you have to wonder and think what other options were available. There's really no difference at 2B though and again no one in baseball was willing to put him there. He's restricted to 1B, 3B and LF at this point in his career.

There's a reason no team in baseball thinks Nomar can play SS next year. I don't understand why people can't get that.

Tejada is much better than Furcal.

He was listed as a"B" prospect in John Sickel's 2004 handbook. That info is nearly 2 years old now, however. Bedard was less than impressive in the majors. 2005: 141.7 IP, 4.00 ERA, 1.38 WHIP and a .260 BAA. His minor league numbers do look outstanding, but if I'm trading Prior along with Hill, I want more than Tejada and Bedard. In the very least, I want a prospect like Markaris thrown back into the deal. Bedard is no more accomplished or impressive than Hill or Williams. He's no less of a "health risk" than Prior. He is not nearly enough to justify such a trade. I would say he has a higher upside than Williams and possibly Hill, but yeah he hasn't done it in the majors and the health risks are still there.

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=10235 See this is my problem with the analysis of this supposed deal. People put whatever little label they want on a player and all of a sudden it starts to make sense. You have to look at the entire package, the big picture, the whole enchilada. When you do that, you can't justify the Cubs trading Prior for Tejada. The offense gets better, the pitching gets worse, the current team stays stagnant and the future is at risk. I agree with your general sentiment, but I think it can be justified and I don't know that it necessarily makes the team worse next season. I'm a little surprised to hear Neyer say that, but I'm kind of glad he did. If it were up to me I wouldn't make this deal. But some people are acting like this would be an enormous blunder and makes zero sense. It would be a risky deal, but there are positives and it could turn out to be a good deal in the long run.

His biggest value is that he puts up those numbers while playing a solid defensive shortstop. He's the best shortstop in the game and his salary is very reasonable. I think the 40 HR/130 RBI talk was just Manny.

Come on now.

On KFAN (Twin cities radio station I listen to online for Vikings coverage) they said White was signed to be the DH in Minnesota. Ryan said this ended their pursuit of Piazza. White can produce fairly well and that's a reasonable contract. But you simply can't count on him to play even close to everyday when he's also playing in the field.

What killed the offense was a lack of OBP almost everywhere, which was due to a lack of walks. It was not solely because of the 1 and 2 spots, no matter what Hendry tries to sell you this offseason. They sucked in the 4 or 5 spot (whichever one Burnitz was hitting from), and were an awful bottom of the order team as well. And they had absolutely no bench. They were a team full of 6 and 7 hitters. which is why we shouldn't get bogged down in this "filling important holes in the lineup" rhetoric. there are no holes in the lineup, we'll be batting 8 position players ahead of 1 pitcher come april. the problem is with overall organizational hitting philosophy. hendry's too busy hoping we'll all be dazzled by a big name like pierre and the proverbial hole he fills at leadoff to worry about hitting philosophy. this lineup needs a healthy dose of OBP, not at a single position, but at all positions. Starting line up as of now with OBP from last year Pierre 326 Walker 355 Lee 418 Ramirez 358 Barrett 345 Murton 386 Cedeno 350 Patterson 254 Assuming Pierre bounces back to the 340-360 range we only ahve one weak spot in our order right now and that is RF. I would have to say our lineup is improved over last year. I don't know how anyone can deny that. The simple fact that we don't have Nefi and Corey or Hairston batting one two improves the lineup. You also can't ignore that there's virtually no chance that Lee, Murton and Cedeno put up OBP's of .418, .386 and .350 over a full season next year.

Will you just tell us? I'm guessing from that tone it's either Prior or Z.

Zambrano, Patterson and Cedeno for Tejada and Daniel Cabrera or one of the Orioles' pitching prospects. Then try to sign either Millwood, Washburn or Weaver for the rotation.

They'll need a new SS, and they have no pitching, so I'm guessing Cedeno/Williams/Hill. If that was all it took this deal would have been done yesterday.

LOL, what? Good Lord that doesn't even make any sense. Who here said "Stevie" was their boy? That's really relevant to the discussion also, isn't it? Both of the Iowa people in this thread acknwoledged that Alford is not popular in Iowa. In fact he's one of the most polarizing figures in Iowa sports in quite some time. But I'm sure all you know about him is what B&B preach on their show. Whatever they say must be true, they're on THE SCORE! Can you actually debate something like this intelligently or is it just "The Score is great, ESPN is awful, The Score is the best station out there, ESPN sucks, Ofman gets all the scoops, Levine gets none." I'm still waiting for a response to your ridiculous Kerry Wood claim. He has to win 25 games next year to prove you wrong? Those are some pretty high standards considering that no one in baseball has one 25 games in over 15 seasons.

Ya think? Don't work for The Score, but I think it's great that people in Louisiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, China must listen to it more than I do. They can tell us what is said every minute of the day. 8) 8) 8) 8) Even I can't do that. I can understand why people in Iowa don't like The Score after B & B took on self-righteous Steve Alford and his raping basketball player. Many Iowa fans were mad at having this clown exposed. They have an agenda. Yeah they really exposed him by calling him a "penishead" repeatedly. Plus it's not like Alford is a popular figure in Iowa, so that's not the reason. Great try though. Maybe they don't like it because the lineup includes Murphy, North, B&B and erronerous/clueless reporting from George Ofman? Nah, couldn't be it. Listen, when at least half of your posts have been defending, praising and bragging about the The Score to the point that the majority of posters here think you MUST work for them, nevermind...

Ya think? Don't work for The Score, but I think it's great that people in Louisiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, China must listen to it more than I do. They can tell us what is said every minute of the day. 8) 8) 8) 8) Even I can't do that. I can understand why people in Iowa don't like The Score after B & B took on self-righteous Steve Alford and his raping basketball player. Many Iowa fans were mad at having this clown exposed. They have an agenda. I'm just a Cubs fan in the western suburbs, who only wants 3 things in 2006. The Cubs win the World Series, Badger gets a $100K+ job and Kerry Wood wins 25 games and makes me eat my words. I feel confident about 2 of them. LOL it's too much. Kerry Wood has to win 25 games next season to make you eat your words? That's outrageous. No pitcher in baseball has won 25 games since 1990. But yeah you better hold him to that high standard. If he went 23-4 with a 2.10 ERA that simply wouldn't be enough.

I do not mean this with any disrespect, backhandedness, sarcasm, or anything other than a sincere desire to know the answer. Do you work for The Score or have friends or relatives who do? I have never come across someone who is more pro-Score than you. Like I said, no disrespect, just curiosity. Not even CubbieRich?

No, I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that Ofman apologized later about telling this story? If so, that wouldn't surprise me. Remember, Kinzer and Hendry (and the Cubs) have an ongoing relationship to consider. Kinzer is also Aramis' agent so it's not a good idea to have a story out there that tries to make the organization look badly. Also, even if the story is false, it would behoove Hendry to ignore it (rather than dispute its merits) because its a lose-lose proposition. Kinzer and JH need to maintain a positive working relationship. He certainly couldn't blast him the way Schurholtz (sp?) did. The story that George Ofman reported was also on WGN Radio(Kaplan) last night. So much for it being false and made up, if Kaplan reports it too. Big difference between reporting a false story and reporting private negotiations. The agents and Hendry are both big boys and would never be so petty to allow this story to get in their way. The Cubs aren't immune to trying to float stories out there themselves. Remember the Sammy tape of him leaving early? Did anyone ever actually see that tape? If so, please speak up. Wonder if the Cubs were just calling Sammy's bluff? Poor Oldcubsfan, Bruce got scooped again on a Chicago Cubs story. For someone who listens to Bristol Radio, you sure follow The Score alot. That's okay, I understand they have more than 70,000 listeners signed up to listen over the web. You have plenty of company. LOL, how predictable was this?

Isn't that the break-even point of SB effectiveness? I wouldn't call that "can't steal to save his life". Some say 75% is the break even point but I've heard 70% quite a bit also. People don't understand what a good percentage is and like to throw out that "he gets caught so much it's not worth it." Well with some people it is, but if you're at 75% or higher, run. For crying out loud there were people on this board saying Furcal wasn't a good base stealer because he's only 78% successful on his career and the last 3 years he's gone 93, 83 and 82 percent. There aren't many active base stealers who are successful over 80% of the time.

Speed is fine, but he cant steal to save his life, he gets caught 25% of the time. 75% is a very solid percentage. To say he can't steal to save his life is absurd.

Its not so much hate as realization that he's vastly overrated. I beleive Tim has done a very good job of describing why he (we) feel he is overrated a couple of times. I'd give you a link if i had one. But what it boils down to is even when he bats .300+ he is not getting his obp more than 20/30 points higher than his AVG, meaning he doesnt walk. At all. That's just wrong. Pierre's career IsoD is .050. In '03 it was .056, in '04 it was .048, in '05 it was .050. If he hits .300, he's going to get you a .350 OBP. By comparision's sake Todd Walker's career IsoD is .058. In '03 it was .050, in '04 it was .078 in '05 it was .050. Last year Walker hit .305/.355 which is Pierre's career numbers. Yet the popular opinion by many is that Walker is a walk machine, while Pierre can't get on unless he slaps a single.

Don't believe everything you hear.

Sounds like an agent's BS to me. If Furcal chose LA over CHI because of $500k in a $40 million deal, then he's either greedy or stupid. Exactly. If he truly wanted to come here that badly, why was the difference between $9.5M and $10.2M the breaking point?

There is a lot of speculation in that "story." Notice the use of the words "just a little bit" and "probably" less than a million a year. I doubt that all it would have taken was an additional total of $3-4M. As bad as Hendry wanted him, if that was really all it took I would be very surprised. Either way it doesn't really bother me that we aren't paying him a 5/$51 deal. George Ofman is the same guy who said last winter that J.D. Drew wouldn't make sense for the Cubs because "He's a rightfielder and the Cubs are looking for a left fielder to replace Alou. It would be hard for him to adjust from RF to LF so unless the Cubs trade Sosa, he just doesn't fit.

I bet you could get him for Pie + a few arms. Doubtful. They want a front of the line starter now. Not prospects. They're dreaming if they think they can get one for Abreu. Which is why they'll probably hold onto him. It simply makes no sense for them to trade him for prospects with what that team is triyng to do. It also depends on what you classify as a front of the rotation starter.

I bet you could get him for Pie + a few arms. Doubtful. They want a front of the line starter now. Not prospects.