upnorthsox

They signed Cabrera as their SS last week and resigned Kennedy last yr.

Eck over Carl at DH period. Carl can pickup his paycheck from the living room couch for all I care. Anyone who thinks Frank is going to be ready anytime soon is fooling themselves. He was to have his ankle examined two weeks ago, have we heard anything? If there was anything positive from it we'd have heard something by now.

Between 2nd, SS, and DH I think they could pretty much gaurantee Eck 400 AB's and still get Willie significant time at 2nd.

So then Schoe was never in the budget?

LOL! Do you think just a little. Or to take it another way, he is healthier than Buehrle, Garcia, Garland, and Contreras. That's just a little disconcerting IMHO.

I agree with that and it makes perfect sense, it's just the 2yr?$8+ mil is way TFM.

At 2yrs/$8+ mil I'd hardly call this a good deal and it doesn't leave us any room to get his replacement when he's DL'ing it at mid season. I was ambivilent to it when it was 2/$4 as that was just Schoe money but now we're into next yr too and that'll cost us. Book it.

And yet He's only had one injury that caused him to miss any real playing time and that was in '03 when he had a collision on a popup with Garret Anderson. I'd hardly call that injury prone.

Interesting point, he also doubled his avg of HBP to an astounding 18 HBP's last yr. I don't think you can count on that again either. Our #2 hitter had 0 IBB and 4 HBP and our #9 had 3 IBB and 5 HBP last yr, I'd say 1 or 2 IBB is the most you could expect from him and his avg of 8 HBP would be higher than would be normally expected. Adjusting his last yr OBP to expectations of 2 IBB and 8 HBP would put his OBP at .336 or slightly less than Willie's .343. Btw, Eck has 1 career IBB and Willie has 0 IBB, all their career PA's are in the AL.

I'm curious about the first CON you listed and why you didn't include it with Cora: Starts: Eckstein: 153, 152, 120, 142 Cora: 109, 134, 115, 148, 138 It would seem that Cora is the one who has the harder time staying in the lineup.

All 5 pitchers having career yrs all in the same yr, yep no bias there.

Well I'd say the odds just went down by 50%, the other 50% will fall shortly.

Eckstein led the Angels to the World Series And around and around we go.

Are you talking about the .364 2004 OBP or the .287 2003 OBP.

Replace Willie with Cora and you're one pulled hammy or one twisted ankle away from being the slowest team in the league. That may be fine with you but not with me. And what did Pods alone do for Milwaukee? Oh yea, 2nd worst O in the majors.

How do you know he did? I'll go by what Doug Melvin said. I agree with your premise that sometimes you have to strike fast, but IMO this wasn't one of them and this could turn into a PR nightmare if KW doesn't sign a starter.

And no speed. Also his OBP has a pattern of every other yr not breaking .300, this of course would be his other yr. He's a fine defender but not much if any upgrade over Willie in that department. Given a choice between him and Eck, I'd go with Eck who also brings speed to the table but I'd wouldn't have a problem if we got him as our utility guy. Btw, Cora hits lefties about as well as Willie.

I disagree with your disagree, granted there are times when you have to strike fast but this wasn't one of them. The Brewers would've waited for this deal for a long while and after a week or two on the bloc Lee's price might have gone up alot more(at least enough to include Ginter who was obviously tradable). I suspect that KW did it when he did it to clear his mind of any thought of getting RJ which may have not been all bad but it was still a horrible PR move to not have the starter he was seeking locked up when the deal went down. And if the whole thing fell apart? Then you still have your best all around hitter in the lineup, hardly a worst case scenerio.

A very good description of Gar, unfortunately he'll be our #3.

Better defensive shortstop? Uribe was a first yr arb guy, he wasn't going anywhere anyhow. Unless he magically turns into Miguel Tejada that contract can only be fair or hurt us. Vizquel at 40 is still a better baserunner than Uribe. It doesn't matter what you or I think of Omar, it's what KW thinks and KW thought he was the first Key aquisition to this off-season.

Good point.

Why is that? Most of the teams that were mentioned after Hudson were NL teams, the shocker would've been an AL team jumping up, the Cards were the next best offer and were offered Mulder for the same deal. That said, IMO Baltimore has a 50/50 chance of getting Zito in the next couple of days with LA the other team.

f** boy really nails it, on both sides of town. He does however fail to point out the most fatal flaw of both teams, both having paralysed themselves by self-dellusional fantasies(Cubs that they'd trade ME, Sox that they'd get RJ) that they now find themselves unable to make or have already missed the basic moves that their teams needs to compete this yr.

I don't see how, realistically you have only Konerko, Crede, or Garland to use as the centerpiece for the trade and Texas wouldn't be interested in any of them. Even if you could get them to take Garland or Crede you'd still have to trade Konerko to fit Alf into the payroll. Texas of course could just trade Alf straight up to LA for Vazquez which would make a ton of sense for both teams and now that I think of it, I wouldn't be the least bit surprise if this is the deal that went down.