Hairyducked Idiot

I'm actually kinda surprised how many of those are still in the system. For being rated something like a bottom 5 system that year, it turned out quite well. Samardzija, Rizzo, Castro and a fraction of Garza all came directly from that list with Vitters and Castillo on the cusp of getting a shot at being starters. And Lee, despite some heavy struggles to start off at AA, is still considered a top prospect. We fired Hendry too soon. His plans were just starting to take hold.

I'm actually kinda surprised how many of those are still in the system.

He's getting pretty close to alleviating my concerns.

Yeah. This was planned all along for the Pirates. Taking Appel was their way of passing. Next year they get their regular pick + No. 9 pick + competitive balance pick, and that gives them a ton of pool flexibility.

One top-tier position prospect and then a whole bunch of arms. I think that's the template for the next few years.

This argument can essentially be boiled down to: Pro-Vitters: Why aren't you guys more excited? He's showing that he has the chance to be an average starter. Anti-Vitters: Why are you guys so excited? He's an average starter, at best.

I'm completely stunned that a guy would make noise about impasse and going back to school several days before the deadline, then turn around and sign. The Marlins were the ones who made noise about not signing him, informing him they wouldn't sign him. They were offering less than $2.6 he signed for. Heaney never made noise about going back to school and probably wouldn't have if he didn't sign. I'm completely stunned that I would post about something from memory and get most of the details wrong.

I'm completely stunned that a guy would make noise about impasse and going back to school several days before the deadline, then turn around and sign.

When you are talking about Upton-level trade chips, it's Castro, Rizzo, Garza and a bunch of filler.

Sveum's job is not to be accurate. Sveum's job is to offer carrots and sticks to players such as Vitters.

Why would you say that? If he strikes out swinging in his next PA, I'm going to go all old school and blame you.

My ability to jinx players is unparalleled.

He's a fringe-average defender on the good side of the defensive spectrum. you're simply not being intellectually honest if you believe that to be true Which part? The fringe average or that 3b is on the good side of the defensive spectrum? You are wrong and I am right on both counts, but I'm curious which part you are so sure of yourself on.

He's a fringe-average defender on the good side of the defensive spectrum.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "legit prospect." I can't find the link now, but Baseball Prospectus did a nice writeup of his prospect status the other day. He got 40s and 50s all the way across the board, which basically means he will definitely have a major league career and could establish himself as a long-term starter. In order to convince people he has some ceiling beyond that, he probably just needs to hit like this for the rest of the year.

Vitters BB. Up to the minute BB rate: 6.8%.

You're assuming that Wood started off with an even number of service years. No, I did the actual maths. Or I tried to. He was at 1 year, 39 days coming into the season. He was kept down until May 22. If I'm doing the maths right, he will miss cutoff for another year by a few days.

I was going to come on here and moan yet again about Volstad (who got rocked at Iowa again tonight) getting a rotation spot out of spring training. Then it hit me that we saved a year of service time on Wood by keeping him down for a few months. Theo > me yet again.

Hasn't started since the 4th and he's been terrific 2 starts in a row. Why not? I can't remember who started the games leading up to the break, but I would assume you would always start Samardzija, Garza or Dempster if you could. Or even Wood. I was hoping the answer was "because Garza or Dempster is going to be traded in the next 24 hours."

Why is Maholm starting?

Should I be concerned that he doesn't have five yet?

Kaplan told me he was struggling.

I can totally see it. Let's say they dump Soriano and save $1 million/year, and Garza is traded, Soto is either traded or non-tendered, and Stewart is non-tendered. That leaves $34.17 million in firm commits (including Soler and Concepcion) with Marmol and DeJesus being the only players on the 25-man to show for it. Castro, Russell, Valbuena, Volstad and Samardzija make the team as arbitration-eligible players. $12 million in total seems pretty reasonable for them, probably even a bit high. That gives us 7 players for $46.17 million. The hard part is predicting how many pre-arb players make the roster. This year we ran like 10-12 all year so far. Nobody's really a lock because who knows who will be traded between now and then. Best guess: Rizzo, Wood, Clevenger, Castillo, a backup OF (Campana? Sappelt), Barney (or Valbuena if he's traded), at least three farm bullpen guys (Dolis, Beliveau, Cabrera? I dunno, I'm not good at that part), at least one scrapheap bullpen guy and maybe two of Jackson/Vitters/guys we get out of trades this offseason. That's a total of 12 for about $6 million. That's 19 roster spots already filled up and we've only spent $52 million. We still need a couple starting position players (at least one outfielder, maybe two) and a couple of rotation arms (depending on who we get in the Garza and Dempster trades). If we're not in on the stud FA starting pitchers, and I'm betting we're not going to do more than kick the tires on them, then it's hard to even get to $90 million. tl;dr: We have a crap-ton of positions likely to be filled by pre-FA guys next year.

Vitters' numbers were rarely really that bad. The big problems were two half-seasons that came after premature promotions and were paired with horrible BABIPs (A+ in 2009, when he hit 238/260/344 in 196 PA with a .256 BABIP, and AA in 2010 when he hit 223/292/383 in 228 PAs with a .247 BABIP). The sub-3% BB rates early in his career were also concerning, but he's been more like a 5-7% guy since 2010. A lot of his other minor league seasons have been underrated, in particular last year when he held his own as one of the youngest players in a pitcher-friendly AA league. He's always been almost a perfect storm of underratedness: A) He's been young for his league every step of the way B) He was drafted very young so it seems like he's been around forever C) People have huge expectations for a No. 3 overall pick, despite the fact that few of them become stars D) He's got a set of tools (especially his hit tool) that won't always produce gaudy minor league slash lines but will likely play up at every level moreso than a fast guy or a take-and-rake with contact issues.

Garza for Upton might be a starting point. I don't think they are looking for prospects, but I could be misreading it.