Hairyducked Idiot
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Everything posted by Hairyducked Idiot
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Lee right now and Soriano occasionally, hottest Cubs since Sosa?
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In case it matters to anyone, the Cubs facebook feed just said that Soto is not technically on the DL yet. They are waiting until they have a corresponding roster move before they place him.
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Harden could be our Ankiel?
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History is littered with guys who found an inefficiency in a market, got rich, and could never duplicate it once the hole was closed.
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So if Harden is bad and Ramirez may or may not be 100% the rest of the season, are we really better than the Cardinals or Brewers even if everyone else gets healthy? Probably the Brewers, still.
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Next time Billy Beane doesn't want much for a guy, we should probably begin to wonder. (Not that I wouldn't still take the deal).
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I'll go ahead and predict the Wings still finish in the top 2 in the conference.
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Feel free to substitute a prediction system of your choice. They will all tell you that there is a significant collapse rate for guys in their age 33 season with Soriano's skill set. I don't think those similar players necessarily have similar skill sets. Scott Rolen and Soriano are not like each other. Acknowledged. I used a cheap and quick way to make the point when there are better systems out there. The overall point is still valid, that 33 year olds with middling walk rates and high power are at a point in their careers where a sudden collapse is not unthinkable.
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Feel free to substitute a prediction system of your choice. They will all tell you that there is a significant collapse rate for guys in their age 33 season with Soriano's skill set.
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2004 says "hi"
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Sabermetrics looks more like scouting every day.
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At that point, you are talking about using it to help you get on base more consistently, and we were discussing the benefits *outside of OBP*.
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Probably not being a dead pull hitter. A hitter who sprays the ball probably is a hitter who tries to hit some to the opposite field and pull some. Basically Ryan Theriot, I think. I'm not certain on that, though. But hitting to the opposite field is only useful for things like hit-and-runs and productive outs, which don't concern the leadoff man.
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I'm trying to figure out what use "spraying the ball" would have for a leadoff hitter outside of OBP?
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Soriano's most similar batters after age 32 season (Soriano's in his age 33 season now): Matt Williams, fell off cliff at 33 Ellis Burks, pretty darn good until 38 Raul Mondesi, fell off cliff at 33 Tim Salmon, fell off cliff at 35 Jermaine Dye, awful age 33 season, then bounced back Torii Hunter, having a good age 33 season right now Scott Rolen, awful at 32, good at 33, looking good so far at 34 Jim Edmonds, you guys should know how this one ended Ken Boyer, cliffed at 34 Magglio Ordonez, iffy this year at 35 but could still be fine He may or may not be falling off it, but the cliffs are looming there for Soriano with his age and skill set.
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If anything, improving it three straight months makes it more likely he'll regress, not continue to improve.
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Well, let's put it this way: If I were a betting man, I'd bet against them at this point. Combine the ownership situation, farm system, contract situation, and the players currently on the MLB roster, and I think the odds are stacked against Hendry or whomever eventually replaces him. Then again, we have the most money freed up for the 2011 offseason (before the 2012 season). Isn't that when Pujols becomes a free agent? That'd make it all worth it.
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The odds of even one of those guys becoming an above-average major leaguer in the long term is decent, but hoping for two is pretty iffy. This is the "In a few years we'll have Christiansen, Guzman and Ryu in the rotation, with Kelton and Choi holding down the corners" all over again. Vitters is a great prospect, but he's a 19-year-old in A ball. Projecting him to much for 2012 is awfully optimistic. Wells is a guy who has 100 good innings this year between AAA and MLB, and a long history of mediocrity in the minors. You need 10 wins above average to become a playoff team. With the prospects we have and the players still under contract, I'm just not seeing much there at all, which means they'll need to almost all of that via trades and free agency, which means there is very little margin for error. One Bradley signing and it all falls apart, as we've seen this season. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I am saying it's not an enviable position to be in.
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Which underscores the point that they will need a whole lot of good players between now and then to stay contenders, and they aren't coming from the farm system more than likely.
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In 2011 we have $96 million committed and in 2012 we have $54 million committed. Assuming payroll doesn't plummet between now and then we will have in the area of $40-$80 million to spend in those two seasons as of right now - minus, of course, arbitration guys. I see no reason why we can't be a contender those two years. 2010 will be a tough salary year, but after that we'll have some flexibility again. By 2012, here's the ages of your key players: Soto 29 Lee 36 Soriano 36 Fukudome 35 Ramirez 34 Lilly 36 Dempster 35 Zambrano 31 I'd be surprised if more than about 2 of those guys are still above-average players at that point. Even $80 million won't go very far if they have that many needs. That's not to say they can't remain contenders. But they will need to make very few mistakes and have a lot of things go right between now and then.
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Everybody's contracts are backloaded. Remember those two division titles? Enjoy them, because they were bought with many seasons' worth of payroll.
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1) The Cubs played only two one-run games out of 12 games in that playoff season. (and none in their six playoff games since then) 2) The Cubs hitting 15 home runs in 12 games had a lot more to do with their offense than Lofton, who wasn't bad in the playoffs but was nothing special.
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I know range factor is not a great stat, but he had a couple of years early in his career that were over 7. I think getting to 2 balls a game more than Ozzie while only making 30 more errors may be a decent argument that he was better. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dunstsh01.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/smithoz01.shtml
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The Hawks' cap situation is a little better than it looks. Apparently, bonuses have to be applied to the cap even if they are unlikely to be met, and they don't come off until the player can no longer possibly reach them (usually at the end of the season). You are allowed to exceed the cap by 7.5% with those bonuses, but if you end up using them, the amount you are over the cap is taken out of next year's cap. A lot of the Hawks' young players have big bonuses they won't likely hit, and we'll be able to temporarily use some of that phantom cap space. It looks to me like they can just squeeze in under the cap with all the players they have now, possibly with Sopel going to the minors, and then worry about next year when it comes. So let me say something: This team is freaking stacked everywhere but goalie, and they aren't that bad in goal.
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They have a very broken Rich Harden when everyone's healthy. When they aren't, it gets worse. There's a ton of room for improvement there. If everyone's healthy, how is Rich Harden broken? Did you honestly not get what I was saying, or is that some pointless semantic dig?