daa84

i think you make a great point.....over the past few years our pen has been helped extraordinarily by the starters ability to pitch 180+ innings a year....i think a solid long man would be a very important part of our team with 2 rookies in the rotation...that said, do solid long men really exist? typically its the last role you fill on your pitching staff, and better pitchers tend to pitch either as starters or late inning relievers....if we don't add another starter, id be totally in favor of adding another late innning guy just for depth in the pen, juan cruz would be nice at a decent price...long men, "garbage" men, innings eaters out of the pen or whatever you wanna call em unfortunatley are usually young guys just making the big league team (guys like masset, or potentially broadway going forward) or old starters (loaiza).... I personally like the idea of bringing haeger back on a minor league deal as i think he still has long term value

i heard that of all teams in baseball the sox are tied with teh Nationals as the team that spends the highest % of their revenue on payroll...so nobody should ever, every complain about how much we spend on players....i guess JR doesn't need to make money off the Sox, on the other hand the Bulls are a freaking money making machine for him

Men at Work by George Will is absolutely excellent Veeck as in Wreck is one of the most entertaining baseball books ive read I've also read the Clemente, Koufax, and Gehrig biographies, but can't recall their authors New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (from 2000) is an awesome book and reference as well to be completely honest...Moneyball is a bit overrated...if you are somewhat familiar with it, you probably know a great deal of what is in there already, and some of it is already outdated (some of the stats/approaches to finding undervalued players)

FWIW clayton is another guy (along with Marquez) who has just ridiculously good HR rates in the minors, which should help translate in our ballpark....even during his time in the majors he only gave up 5 in almost 50 IP...which translated to a full season is roughly 20 given up, damn good as a rookie....i hope KW realizes the value of a good defensive shortstop with ground ball pitchers....i also hope he realizes Alexei likely won't be a good defensive SS (based on his subpar metrics at 2b).... btw i wonder how much better clayton's starts would have looked in the box scores if the dude could field his position at all....i hope to god he works/has worked on that

at bare minimum he will be a lefty specialist....long term im not sure if he's ever gonna be more than a 5th starter, but considering we pay him nothing have him under control for alot of years, and considering we drafted him in the 8th round the guy could have some serious value to our team whether its out of the rotation or pen in the forseeable future

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 15, 2008 -> 10:49 AM) The Office was just f***ing nuts this week. yeah it was too ridiculous, i dunno....something about that show has declined in my mind...its still worth watching every week, but not nearly as funny as it was 3 years 2 years ago

anyone watch House of Saddam on HBO? With something like that its always impossible to tell what is based on fact and what isn't but it was interesting and entertaining nonetheless.

bears are pretty much all but done now....wild card is almost for sure out of reach with Tampa (Oakland still left to play) and Atlanta (st. louis to play still) 1 game ahead with a tie breaker and each having a guaranteed win in there....that doesn't even count dallas and philly....so basically they will have to win the division, so they will have to win out and Minny will have to lose out..possible but pretty unlikely...especially given the fact that the giants won't be playing for s*** vs. minny in that last week

QUOTE (103 mph screwball @ Dec 14, 2008 -> 05:06 PM) Runner on with no outs bunt play Probability of Score = 2 x avg risp Runner on with no outs = Probability of Score= (chance of xbh + chance of advancing runner - GIDP) x 2 + chance of xbh x 1) Ok this needs some work I think. I actually think this can be calculated by someone smarter than me. Let's get John Dowon on it. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statisti....php?cid=204022

QUOTE (striker62704 @ Dec 11, 2008 -> 03:23 PM) I not sure why everyone hates Owens. I'm sure he can bat better than Swisher did last year .219/.332. I'm fine with him and Anderson duking it out for CF and the 9th spot in the lineup next year. If not then we might as well trade them. because Jerry Owens won't have a .332 obp and .410 slugging ever...and those are career worsts for swisher which are likely to improve

QUOTE (R.J. @ Dec 11, 2008 -> 01:58 PM) The CUBS pulled out? WHY? Because they didn't want to lose KEVIN HART!?!?!? I'd still expect Peavy to be dealt. He's not going to want to play on that team for long. After seeing the pile of waste the Cubs almos got him for, maybe some other team like the Astros will figure something out. i think it was a complicated deal for the cubs from the get go....they were gonna give up dick in terms of talent, but remember with new ownership taking over, the cubs were set to take on peavy's entire contract, plus probably would have to pay half of marquis contract....if they had the financial flexability to pull this off, and didnt do it because of the prospects than they are dumb, but i think it probably came down to money in the end

thinking about it, id be ok to offer a third year for abreu as by that time he certainly take over for Thome at DH

interesting .....both are awful in the field, so i guess its a wash, although this may be an upgrade as I assume abreu would be in LF with TCQ in RF I love abreu's ability to take a walk and work the count....not to mention hes the antithesis of Nick Swisher with 2 strikes on him if we get a good young pitcher for Dye and sign abreu to a reasonable 2 year deal with a mutual option i think this is a good move.....abreu is one of those guys KW has always had his eye on

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Dec 11, 2008 -> 12:56 AM) There is some pretty decent sports radio in chicago (especially since Mike North has gone bye-bye) I can listen to any of the following, get my fix and be entertained: Mac Jurko & Harry Boers and Bernstein Waddle & Silvy Mully and Hannely Chicago Sports Radio is currently about as good as I can remember. i agree...in the past year or so sports talk radio in this city has gotten so much better.....i can't stand dan bernstein...while occasionally he adds intelligent commentary he mostly is just an obnoxious, arrogant dick and if anyone ever disagrees with him, he dismisses them as being an idiot...Boers is entering fred huebner territory of uselessness....im pretty sure the only thing he adds is a laugh that sounds like hes gasping for air just after bernstein makes fun of a caller.... Unfortunately that 2-6 time spot has become an entertainment show with both B&B and MJH, and its almost as if intelligent sports conversation takes a back seat to humor and entertaining waddle and silvy are the gold standard....also there is some really really good stuff at night on either channel...IMO thats when the stations really cut the fluff and talk about sports

i'd bet that edwin jackson gets tittied this year...not sure that joyce will ever amount to much, especially in that detroit OF, but i dont think jackson is gonna be all that good

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 11, 2008 -> 10:23 AM) http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3761924 I like the trade for the Brewers much more than the Yankees. Brewers lower their payroll and get a guy who could be their CF of the future, and can actually play defense, as opposed to Hart and Braun who are butchers out there. Yankees just spend more money for another older guy who hits homers and doesnt get on base a lot. I guess he can steal bases when he does get on base, but thats not often enough. well its not like melky cabrera gets on base....and mike cameron is still a good CF, not what he once was, and maybe not as good as Melky, but certainly not bad...im not really convinced the brewers got a good baseball player in this deal....cabrera slugged .340 last year and had a .301 obp...those are awful numbers...IMO melky has been an overrated player on this site because the threw a few guys out from CF and hawk slobbing all over his nuts of course shifting from the AL east to the NL Central (which is going to be an absolute joke this year) will help his numbers

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Dec 10, 2008 -> 05:50 PM) I think our ability to improve pitchers is greatly overstated. It's worked a couple times, but it's also failed several times. i dont think its necessarily our ability to improve pitchers, as much as it has been our ability to scout other teams and take advantage of teams who are down on players who are likely to improve....people so often want to see results out of a kid who is just 22 years old, but people forget it takes time for that talent to have an impact in the bigs... on the topic of marquez, i like his future better than most do if for no other reason than his minor league HR rates are ridiculously low (34 in 560 IP)...and before this year in AAA they were insanely low (22 in 480 IP)

id love to nab hermida...not sure if id deal away poreda, but id think strongly about it...unfortunately i think the cubs are going to be the ones who end up with him

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 10, 2008 -> 04:44 PM) If all he needs is a cutter, don't you think the Yankees would teach him one? And if they teach him, what is the guarantee it will be any good? If its that easy, why don't they teach MacDougal a cutter? Why didn't they teach Horacio Ramirez a cutter? I love how everyone compares Marquez to Garland. It must be because he strikes no one out. As I stated before, when Garland was Marquez's age, he had more IP on the major league level than Marquez has on the minor league level. It also took a long time for Garland to be considered trustworthy. pfff nobody on the yankees throws an above average cutter

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Dec 10, 2008 -> 03:47 PM) Lance Broadway? Where is the thread about Kyle McCulloch that should have been started long before this one? yeah seriously...at least broadway could potentially be a long man in the pen...mcculloch is just terrible...besides looking at that draft (and with most drafts) if you are picking the second half of the first round...theres good odds your pick won't amount to jack s***...and after broadway was taken, there isn't a whole lot of good from that draft

what a draft that was for the red sox....ellsbury, buccholz, lowrie, bowden and hansen

i can't believe how quiet our club has been during these meetings...the only rumor with any substance was the dye for bailey one, and that was shot down really quickly....even with free agents, Rock has said KW has been talking to some, but who? Bruce levine said the sox might go after some mid level free agents (in the area of 5 or 6 mil), but who is out there at that price that we would want? We'll see, but I was expecting KW to make some more moves cuz right now our team has some enormous holes (2b CF 3b....im fine going young at one or two spots, but not all three, and two holes in the rotation... which im fine having richard marquez or poreda fill one, but not two)

each day that goes by, that mark buerhle deal looks better and better.....even in a crappy economy...

pretty good article here from the hardball times on the enigma that is vazquez http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/...javier-vazquez/

sounds like the mets are about to get K-Rod for 3 years 37