Shilzzz

why would he criticize himself? i swear between cf26 and cf11 one is hendry, the other kaplan. it's hard to tell who's who sometimes.

Fly balls are going to kill Harden in Texas. Safeco on the other hand...

The groundswell of pro-sandberg-in-'11-types amongst average cubs fans, at least here in peoria, is overwhelming. "oh, he's such a class act," "oh, they are sure grooming ol' ryno for the job," and "boy oh boy that'd be great, he'd straighten out some of those guys up there"... ITS GONNA HAPPEN

Cubs' Draft Review is up on Fangraphs

mlbtr

oh snap...masonic work, the triangle building??? the illuminati runs the cubs now. that should bring us championships and darren daulton protests, if nothing else

Just that gut feeling. I had the same feeling when everyone was hyping samardijza, i felt he wasn't that good of a prospect and a reliever at best which i still feel. I felt that way about Hughes, Kennedy, Bucholz, etc. I think if you watch baseball, normally you can see someone and just know they'll be something good. Its just my own opinion, not saying its right. I don't think Buccholz fits in with the others here. Not to throw this thread further off track, but he projects quite differently than Phil Huges or Ian Kennedy, to be sure.

hahaha Has there been any talk of Cleveland wanting to get rid of Westbrook or Carmona? They could fit as an AL team looking for a bat. See, there's a reclamation project i wouldn't mind, Fausto Carmona. Edit: Give me Michael Brantley and Carmona for Bradley and I'll eat some cash.

That's certainly the bar he should set if he wants more bidders, Carlos Silva. Stupid like a moron.

You guys remember a couple years back when Lilly was signed that Hendry also liked Silva a great deal? Man, alive. I really am convinced that homey is trying to get fired.

mlbtr

i know no one cares, but i've changed my opinion. bring on the ads and jumbotron. sure it's nice to be able to brag that we don't have all the whoring out of each inch of our favorite stadium, but, really, once hendry is gone and the cubs bring in a more competent gm, if the revenue is way up the club can spend more money on key players, both free agents and young international kids, as well as overpaying slot guys in the draft. i'd rather be able to brag about world series championships than the stadium. it's not like wrigley isn't going to be completely different in three years anyhow.

MLBTR's Dierkes said his source says there is nothing to this rumor. Edit: Link

Don't get me wrong. I will still be a slave to pat and ron broadcasts every game, but there is more disdain than ever, I guess is a better way to put it. If my roommate and I get mlb ticket next year I think I will look forward to giants games with more hope, but less emotional strings

As an addendum to my bet in the wagner thread, I will put another 15 that saito has a better fip than grabow in 2010.this offseason has severely diminished my feelings towards this club.

yeah if you call the yankees everyday lineup inferior, i suppose. he was pitching in the al east, not the al central. I get that he's old and is coming off injury, but he was doing everything he has ever done and there is no reason to think he won't continue to build off what was started last year. again, wagner is as sure of a bet as relief pitchers go, ZiPS and other projections believe this also. not only that, but now he is going to be pitching in the nl west, in parks like turner and the marlins stadium. If anyone is willing to put their money up, i would wager 50 bucks that his ERA is under 3.30 and he throws at least 55 innings next season.

Yeah, Wagner is as good of a bet as anyone on the market in my opinion. What he did at the end of the year in Boston was filthy.

hmm, one year of billy wagner at 7 mil or two years of grabow for 7.5... hmmm. this one is tough

Mookie Blaylock

This is serious insanity. Maybe Ricketts doesn't understand arbitration just yet or something, but for all of his talk about wanting to improve the farm system first, why in God's green earth do you not offer? Unless there is already something under the table going on in terms of an incentive laden multi year deal, i just don't get it. I wish i lived in SF so i could watch the Giants more often. Why are we just dumping some of our best players for nothing? JOHN GRABOW JUST GOT A MULTI YEAR DEAL

1 - I thought we were discussing Bradley and his production. 2 - I never said I wanted a team full of Ecksteins or Theriots or Reed Johnsons. Trust me, I don't root off of pure emotion. What I don't do is fall in love with numbers and think that is the only way to judge a player. Do you think Bradley's teammates worry about his OPS when he is a complete jerk to them and is not helping them win? There is a reason Mr. Bradley doesn't stay on a team for very long. That fact cannot be discounted and made to go away by statistical evaluation. 3 - While I understand OBP and OPS are important stats in judging a player, to discount RBIs seems disingenous to me. Yes, guys have to get on base and get themselves into scoring position but someone also has to drive them in. An infield hit with two outs and a guy on second improves individual stats, but if the next hitter makes an out and the team doesn't score, the infield hit really wasnt any different than an out. Don't get me wrong, I'll still take the hit but the point is that type of hit in that situation doesn't necessarily mean the hitter is productive. 4 - Yes, I remember those comments about Ramirez and don't agree with them. I would like to see everyone hustle but pulling a hammy or straining a quad on a routine grounder to 2nd for a guy like Ramirez isn't worth it. I watch a lot of Cardinal games and Pujols coasts as much as any player in the game on a ground ball to an infielder. I don't blame him. Look, all I want is for the Cubs to win the World Series. If Bradley is the starting right fielder in the clinching game, that is fine with me. This is not a matter of falling in love with numbers, as you so casually suggest before considering the argument. It's a matter of being in love with a team and using the proper numbers to accurately digest just what happened last year, so as to have the most informed opinion of what the future holds. We are talking about Bradley and his production. His production is relevant to that of his teammates, of which Bradley was in no way the biggest issue on the 2009 Cubs. Your logic just doesn't make any sense... with the train of thought you are using, if Bradley hits a double to the gap and there is a strong defensive play and Theriot is thrown out at home, the double was worthless and not productive. That simply isn't true. Look, I agree that personalities make a difference. I work for a living, just as i assume you do, and i know what it's like to work with jerks. But that does nothing to stifle my production, and actually, i become a harder worker for that. And yeah, i complain about the other guys from time to time, or will let out a sigh of relief on days on which they call in, just like some of the Cubs were said to have when Bradley was suspended. However, if Reed Johnson is worse, or if Mike Fontenot suddenly can't hit because they don't like a teammate of theirs, and their teammate has better numbers, then the problem is with the guys who all of a sudden can't perform. I don't discount RBI anymore than it should be discounted. It is no different than a starting pitcher and wins. You can't tell me that Zach Greinke in 2009 wasn't better than, say, Joe Saunders or Scott Feldman. Do better pitchers win more games than bad pitchers? By and large, yes. But do slightly above average pitchers on teams with very good offenses win more games than good pitchers on teams with bad offenses? Quite often, yes. So, then, how do we know that Greinke was a better pitcher than Joe Saunders even though they have the same amount of wins? You look at statistics. The real statistics that are independent of what other guys are doing. And those statistics say that Milton Bradley was a productive player in 2009, and suggest that he is going to be at least as productive in 2010 as whatever else they end up putting in right field. And yes, it does mean that that player was productive in his at bat, and it also increased the chance of his team scoring a run, even if it didn't happen in your instance. I will take that infield hit to put runners at first and third every chance I can take over an out. You only get 27 outs in a game, it is the most important commodity in baseball. I will take a guy who gets on base at a .378 rate, because he gives his team more of a chance to score runs than someone who gets on at a lesser clip. It's quite simple, and people who cling to RBI are not giving themselves a chance to give themselves the best possible chance at understanding what it takes for his or her team to put together the best possible team to have the best possible chance to win a world series you say you want. I would take a whole team of guys who get on base like that, because you end up with at least one guy on base an inning. And whether that is a weak infield hit, or a walk, i will take it. Now, obviously an extra base hit is more valuable than a single or a walk. I am not questioning that. And part of the problem in the Bradley equation is that people expected a power hitter, which Bradley has never been to the degree of expectation. I fell into the trap of thought, too, thinking he was going to hit for much more power. However, knowing what i know now, and understanding just what Bradley brings to the table as a baseball player, to trade him for something lesser just makes the Cubs chances of winning a world series that much worse. Now and in the future, as the team will be eating salary it won't be able to justify in terms of production out of the initial contract and the resulting fallout. People just got caught up by the media in Chicago, who knows that their industry is going under and needs to find targets they can dirty up to sell newspapers. Did Bradley do some boneheaded things? Of course. I was screaming as loudly as anyone when he tossed the ball into the stands. Did Bradley get off to a slow start? Yeah, for sure. So all of this is going to fuel a fire, one that Bradley got caught up in and didn't help put out. BUT. If everyone, Bradley included, can kind of take a step back and look at the situation critically, I think it becomes clearly apparent that Bradley is the best fit for the Cubs right field position next year. Hendry is not going to get equal return in overall production (i am counting headaches in this) in any realistic deal involving Bradley. I could live with Millwood, but i don't think it's very likely to happen. I will not live with Burrell, however, and if you are okay with that, then get ready for 2005 and 2006 all over again. I, for one, am not ready to accept that sort of mediocrity from a team i unfortunately spend much too much time thinking about.

good post, woodchip. that whole thing looks pretty awesome and i'm curious to see how it all pans out. between fangraphs, dan symalphabet, and tango tiger, there are some really cool ideas out there in stat world.

This kind of quote makes me laugh. When games are won or lost based on which team has a better ops, let me know. Do you think fans care about OPS when Bradley throws the ball into the stands with one out? Do they care about OPS when he turns and throws the ball over the cut off man's head allowing a runner to take an extra base? Does anyone care about OPS when Bradley fails to come through time and time again? There is nothing wrong with looking at stats, but to act like they are the only thing that matters is silly. Bill James himself has said the player's personality and ability to get along with teammates is a very important part of the evaluation process. Sometimes you just have to watch the game and realize the guy is not as good as his numbers might be. Say whatever you want, but in the month of June when Ramirez was out, Bradley had 77 plate appearances and drove in 3 runs. To say he is productive is generous. 1) Does anyone care about OPS when Bradley fails to come through again and again? I would say that people should care about whether the guys who are OPSing less than Bradley are the ones to be asked that question, because those were the players who, by your logic, failed to come through time and time and time again. 2) I want to make a sarcastic joke about maybe we should field 9 David Eckstein's, but instead i'll humor what i think you were trying to say. Yes, personality matters. But i think the real question is to what degree. You can't be foolish enough to think that David Eckstein in all his gritty glory is going to make the team more productive by adding personality and spunk to that sub .650 OPS, but what is the real breaking point? No matter what kind of strawman argument you throw out, you can't just shove aside the home OPS of Bradley. If you, alongside other Cub fans, wish to be ignorant and always root off of pure emotion without critically analyzing what you are boo-ing, you have every right to. But your kind of logic is what gives Cub fans a bad rep. 3) The fact that you used RBI to argue your point goes to show mine. 4) Speaking of Aramis, do you by any chance remember the days when the media didn't have a target like Bradley and jawed on and on about how Ramirez watches his homeruns and doesn't hustle? I think those 77 at bats when he was gone should have shown everyone just what that lack in hustle and showboating means to the productivity of the lineup.

has any player who ops'd .892 at home in wrigley been more maligned?

Can we please drum up some fake internet hype in hopes it catches Hendry's attention? BP Article