JUGGERNAUT

Frank has a big incentive as well. The 12M opt for 2006. He knows that RJ will be under intense pressure to pick that up if he puts up near MVP numbers. With respect to speed, that's why Iguchi is an important addition to this team. Hopefully KW will find it in his heart to offer Igs 2M/2 yr in bonus money as well. Without Igs the CWS are locked into Rowand in the #2 spot because he has more speed than Uribe. With Thomas expected in the 3 hole you have to put your 2 fastest guys up front. You can't waste Thomas' rbi ops with poor speed. You want to turn Frank's long singles & 2B's into runs. With Rowand at #2, the back of the order is heavily dependant on AJ. What a big acquisition that turns out to be. 1-Pods 2-Rowand 3-Thomas/Dye 4-Koney 5-Dye/Everett 6-Uribe 7-AJ 8-Crede 9-Harris OBP Pods-Rowand-Thomas: (313-343), 361, 434 Koney-Dye-Uribe: 360, 329, 327. AJ-Crede-Harris: (319-336), 299, 343 Crede is the weakest link. When Harris leads off an innng, you have Harris-Pods-Rowand. If one gets on then Thomas comes to bat. That means every Thomas ab will feature good speed aboard if any one gets on. Thomas has 23 GIDP's in his last 1000 ab's. Combine that with the speed & every time Thomas comes to bat with runners on the odds are in the CWS' favor to score a run. In comparison, Koney has 51 GIDP's in his last 1150 ab's, Dye has 42 GIDP's in his last 1400 ab's. Uribe has 10 GIDP's in his last 553 ab's. That's not any worse that Maggs-Koney-Lee was. AJ has 40 GIDP's in his last 1050 ab's. JC has 25 GIDP's in his last 1120 ab's. WH has 8 GIDP's in his last 824 ab's. AJ following Uribe should cut down his GIDP's. JC's will probably rise as will Harris' but not to where it's going to severely hamper drives. So it's not just the fact that you have 4 guys (Harris, Pods, Rowand, & Uribe) with good speed. It's where they are in the lineup. Uribe is in a perfect place & the other 3 are positioned for maximum output by Thomas. I think it's great that Aaron said something about Frank because that makes me thing he's going to be ready by opening day.

Alex Cora 32 #1 April .213 .284 .344 .628 - #6 +71 May .369 .468 .538 1.006 - #1 +99 June .340 .450 .400 .850 - #4 +110 July .256 .340 .354 .694 - #7 +84 Aug .233 .349 .342 .691 - #7 +116 Sep .208 .310 .333 .643 - #7 +102 Compare Harris' spread to Cora's. IT's night & day. You must be able to see that!

The Win-Share report gave me this idea. Basically the most important measure for any player to a team is R & RBI. In terms of hitting a player contributes the most when he generates a R or an RBI. In terms of pitching a player contributes the most when he gives up the least amount of R. So let's look at 2005 in comparison to 2003,2004. I'm using Thomas 2003 #'s for 2005. R or RBI games: 2005 SPod 04: Apr 18, May 15, Jun 13, Jul 10, Aug 11, Sep+16: Tot 83. JDye 04: Dye 04: Apr 17, May 14, Jun 16, Jul 13, Aug 14, Sep+ 9, 15 DNP: Tot 83. PKon 04: Apr 10, May 15, Jun 14, Jul 10, Aug 15, Sep 15: Tot 79, 563AB JUrib 04: Apr 8, May 15, Jun 12, Jul 6, Aug 13, Sep 17: Tot 73, 502AB AJPe 04: Apr 8, May 5, Jun 14, Jul 12, Aug 11, Sep+ 8. Tot: 58, 471AB WHar 04: Apr 8, May 9, Jun 11, Jul 8, Aug 7, Sep 13: Tot 58, 409AB 2004 CLee 04: Lee 04: Apr 12, May 13, Jun 19, Jul 16, Aug 13, Sep+ 19: Tot 92. Got to run. I'll finish it later. Feel free to answer the poll if you like. Later What I'm going to use for evaluation. The team that has the better R or RBI game average will be considered the most productive offense. The team that has the lower R given up avg will be considered the more productive defense. Then it's a judgement call as to which will weigh more in 2005.

Why we need Iguchi: Harris 04: BA, OBP, SLG, OPS Apr .254 .299 .324 .623 May.384 .439 .438 .877 Jun .182 .316 .197 .513 Jul .188 .333 .229 .563 Aug 288 .347 .379 .726 Sep.218 .291 .295 .586 Having a 2B who hits 262 consistently is a good thing. That's not Harris. R or RBI games: Apr 8, May 9, Jun 11, Jul 8, Aug 7, Sep 13: Tot 58 Compare this to Uribe: R or RBI games: Apr 8, May 15, Jun 12, Jul 6, Aug 13, Sep 17: Tot 73 Do I think Iguchi can produce a R or RBI game total > 60? Yes.

Based on rumors, Cora & Byrnes are out. That leaves ... Ray, Jimmy, Castillo, Polanco, Soriano, & Larkin. In terms of price: Soriano 7.4M, Ray 7.2M, Castillo 4.7M, Polanco 4M, Jimmy 2.5M, Iguchi 2M, Larkin 700K Factoring that in, then the pecking order is: 1-Jimmy,2-Iguchi,3-Durham,4-Castillo,5-Larkin,6-Polanco, & Soriano last. If you break it down between talent & cash: Iguchi: 2-3M/yr, no talent cost. Durham + cash: 5M. low talent cost. Soriano: 8M/yr. High talent cost. Castillo: 5M/yr. High talent cost. Jimmy: 4M/yr. High talent cost. Polanco: 5M/yr. Low talent cost. Larkin: 1M. no talent cost. Larkin & Durham are probably the only ones on the list where you can make only a 1 yr commitment.

The difference is short-term deferment vs long-term deferment. JR likes to make use of l-t d. Teams like the Yanks & Mets make use of s-t d. AZ made use of l-t d with RJ's first contract. They'll be paying him til he's in his 50's. NY made use of s-t d to fit RJ in such that they reduce their luxury tax costs. They will be paying RJ for 6 yrs. NYM did the same thing. Making use of s-t d to reduce luxury tax costs. Each passing yr from now until 2007 raises the bar for that cost.

You missed the boat entirely on the question. I didn't say compare injuries. I said compare the payrolls of their injured players. KW has had to face a loss of betw 30-40% of the payroll from 2001-2004 to injury. Min has not. Min has lost at best 10-20%. That means Min was in a better position to deal with those injuries than the Sox.

Bummer. I wanted Cora because he could spell both Uribe & Harris at a reasonable price. Now the only guy worth considering on that list is Larkin. He still has some baseball left in the tank. If nothing else it take CLE out of the running for Iguchi. Our biggest competition might be coming from teams like HOU. Teams willing to spend more than others because of the hole they find themselves in.

You are grossly underestmating the value of Davis. He simply has not had enough regular ab's in the ML's to consider a bust yet. I liken his value to that of Jiminez' when the Sox got him. As a prospect he was highly rated. But in limited capacity he didn't get it done. Now with regular ab's at CIN he's an everyday player. Davis is worth at least what we gave up to get Jiminez at the time.

That is so unfair to KW. You totally ignore the rash of injuries he's faced. 2004: Schow (lost Aug+Sep), Thomas(lost J+A+S), Maggs(lost J+J+A+S). Put another way, KW has lost about 35%-40% of the payroll to injuries in the last 4 years. I challenge any other GM to win a division with that luck.

And you think I spend too much time working on that stuff. Anyways, 35-36 Garcia starts should considerably lower the starter's era. Assuming 11 RP for most of the year, the absence of Cotts & Jackson should lower the pen's era. I expect the 2005 CWS to be directly below the Yankees. About 4.40 in the pen & about 4.60 in the rotation. If I'm reading your FIP right that would place the CWS close to the NYY.

After halladay won the cy young in 2003. Team Asked Offered 2003 Salary Roy halladay Blue Jays $9,000,000 $6,500,000 $3,825,000 Doesn't the arbitrator have to choose between what the player's asking & what the team's offering? In Santana's case, I believe the arbitrator considers the price of his peers. The cost for starters went up considerably this year with all these insane contracts. I think that makes his situation different than Halladay's. So if Santana's asking for 9/10 & the team is offering 6 but the average cost for a #1 is 7/8 then Santana is likely to win.

In Chicago: The White Sox avg 143K on WGN, Bulls 138K on WGN, & NASCAR 108K on FOX. On cable, BHAWKS avg 18K, NASCAR 53K. Those are household numbers.

One woman is enough thank you. That took about 40 minutes to do. I like writing code. What can I say. I saw an article referring to the schedule got the idea & did it after supper. Next year I just have to change the names & the off days. Shouldn't take more than 10 minutes. I believe Garcia will pitch opening day. It's no knock to Buerhle. Last yr Garcia was 1-0 vs the Tribe w a 1.93 era. Buerhle was 1-2 vs the Tribe w a 4.37 era. Both avg'd better than 7ip amongst their starts.

JonG 04: 0R 0, 1R 6, 2R 6, 3R 3, 4R 9, 5R 3, 6R 5, 7R 1, 10R 1 Garland had 7 starts where it's basically game over, Sox lose. If it makes you feel better this is my final word on this. Schow is a LH & that in conjunction with his numbers makes him more valuable than Herm. But he is a much greater health risk than Herm & has proven to be such at the Cell. So what it comes down to is would you rather have Herm for 6 months or Schow for 4 months? Because we have 5 quality starters now we are more in need of a RP with a good health history than one with a bad health history.

ERA, like W&L are really poor measures for both starters & relievers. For a starter it's more important to look at how many quality starts they had, how many winnable starts, & how many poor (unwinnable starts). Some pitchers like Garland self-destruct on their ERA when they have a poor start. Garland is prone to give up 8,9, even 10 runs when he flat out stinks up the mound. That distorts the kind of pitcher he really is. Makes him look a lot worse than he really is. This is also why it was a complete joke that Clemens got the Cy Young over RJ last year. If you compare their dominant starts (6+ip, 0 or 1r), their quality starts (5+ip, <= 3r), their winnable starts (6+ip, 4r), & their bad starts (era > 4.50 or 5r+) RJ kicked his arse. For a relief pitcher all that really matters are two things: 1) # of scoreless appearances 2) severity of runs Herm RP 04: 0r 46, 1r 4, 2r 4, 3r 1, 4r 4 SSch RP 03: 0r 39, 1r 10, 2r 7, 3r 1, 4r 2 Since Schow had 59 appearances I just doubled Herm's numbers for comparisons. Herm beats him on scoreless appearances. Herm beats him on severity of runs. On average a team can still win if a RP surrenders only 1r. But more than 1r usually results in a loss so 2r+ is consider severe enough. Keep in mind that if a RP inherits BL & gives up a HR that's 4R. His era just got blown to crap because he won't even get credited for one IP if he's yanked after that. Everyone is going to have a bad night now & then. It happens to even the best like Mariano. But what separates the winners from the losers is consistency. Herm demonstrated that last yr with the SFG & finished the season healthy. Schow was on the DL at the start of Aug.

It's easy to do this stuff with spreadsheets. I prioritize the off-days to give MB & FG the maximum number of starts. I have a VB macro that does all this for me. Then I just have to type it up here.

El-Duque projected starts: @MIN, vSEA, @DET, @OAK, vKCR, @TBD, vBAL, @ANA, @TEX, @COL, vARI, vKCR, @OAK, @CLE, vBOS, @KCR, vTOR, vSEA, vMIN, @SEA, @TEX, vANA, vKCR, vCLE, vMIN, @CLE I'll make the BOS series for sure, & I'll try to make both MIN series.

I'm going by what Cooper said in the Southtown today. He indicated they want to give Hernandez the smallest workload in the rotation. That doesn't mean he's a #5. They still want to try & match him up with 3's as best they can. But they will put rest as a higher priority than the matchup. Cooper also said Garcia will likely get opening day because of his numbers against the Tribe. It's interesting how it works out if they were to follow this rotation, because after the all-star break Mark takes over the lead on the rotation. Assuming a post-season, Mark would pitch the 1st game.

You still are clueless. ERA is a meaningless stat for a RP. Why is that so hard for you to figure out? Herm RP 0R 23, 1R 2, 2R 2, 4R 2 He failed 6 out of 29 appearances. I would call that effective. You can scale that to 12 out of 60 to see just how much. SSch RP 03: 0r 39, 1r 10, 2r 7, 3r 1, 4r 2 He failed 20 out of 59 appearances. I don't know if I would call that effective. Put another way, win, save, or hold is all that matters for a RP. The fact that Hermanson did his work in the NL & Schow did his in the AL does matter. But when you consider the health history of Schow in both ANA & CWS Hermanson is the lower risk.

Koney for Castillo straight up? No way. That is way too high a price to pay. I think some of you are drinking too much Ozzie Koolaid & forgetting Koney's contribution. We loss potentially 200 RBI & about 150 R between a healthy Maggs & Lee. I'm leary of dumping another 100 RBI for speed & defense.

Cooper's comments seem to suggest they are going to maximize the off days to skip starts for El Duque. APR: FG, off, MB, JC, JG, OH, FG, MB, off, JC, JG, OH, FG, MB, JC, JG, OH, FG, MB, JC, JG, OH, FG, MB, off, JC, JG. FG - 5, MB - 5, OH -4, JC - 5, JG - 5 MAY: FG, off, MB, OH, JC, JG, FG, MB, OH, JC, JG, FG, MB, OH, JC, JG, FG, MB, off, JC, JG, FG, MB, OH, JC, JG, FG, MB, OH, JC, JG. FG - 6, MB - 6, OH -5, JC - 6, JG - 6 JUN: FG, off, MB, JC, JG, FG, OH, MB, off, JC, FG, JG, MB, OH, JC, off, FG, MB, JG, JC, FG, OH, off, MB, JC, FG, off, JG, MB, JC FG - 6, MB - 6, OH - 3, JC - 6, JG - 4 JUL: FG, OH, JG, MB, JC, FG, off, JG, MB, FG, All-Star, Break, MB, FG, OH, JC, JG, MB, FG, OH, JC, JG, MB, FG, OH, JC, off, MB, FG, JG FG - 7, MB - 6, OH - 4, JC - 4, JG - 5 AUG: JC, OH, MB, FG, JG, JC, OH, MB, FG, JG, off, JC, MB, FG, JG, OH, JC, off, MB, FG, JG, off, JC, MB, FG, OH, JG, JC, MB, FG, OH FG - 6, MB - 6, OH - 5, JC - 6, JG - 5 SEP: JG, JC, MB, FG, off, JG, JC, MB, FG, OH, JG, off, MB, FG, OH, JC, JG, MB, FG, OH, JC, JG, MB, FG, OH, JC, JG, MB, FG, OH, JC, JG FG - 6, MB - 6, OH - 5 , JC - 6, JG - 7 FG - 5, MB - 5, OH - 4, JC - 5, JG - 5 FG - 6, MB - 6, OH - 5, JC - 6, JG - 6 FG - 6, MB - 6, OH - 3, JC - 6, JG - 4 FG - 7, MB - 6, OH - 4, JC - 4, JG - 5 FG - 6, MB - 6, OH - 5, JC - 6, JG - 5 FG - 6, MB - 6, OH - 5 , JC - 6, JG - 7 Tot: FG - 36, MB - 35, OH - 26, JC - 33, JG - 32

Cooper also mentioned they might rest El-Duque in the first month with the 3 off days. That would make Contreras the 3rd, & Garland the 4th when they don't need a 5th. But matchups will play a bigger role in that decision. Garcia is likely to get the nod on opening day because of his success vs the Tribe.

Maybe cub mgmt just refuses to acknowledge the existence of the STL Cards: their biggest rival that won 105 games last year. It seems that way. It seems they built a team to beat Pitts, Milw, Cinn but ignore both Hou & Stl. Hou will fall to earth. Having lost the Rocket & Beltran you can't keep a high. But STL seems to just re-tool year after year. If they body shops, STL is constantly upgraded their rod while the cubs seem to just do routine maintenance on theirs. All that being said, they sure do acknowledge the Cards when it comes to ticket prices

MIN won the ALC in 04 w 92 wins. We had 83. We lost the div by 9 gms. We lost both Maggs & Thomas. That's equivalent to the Twins losing Hunter & Stewart. In 05 MIN entire IF is gone. We have added Dye, Pods, AJ, El-Duque, Hermie, & Vizcy. We expect a healthy Thomas back. At the very least an objective writer would suggest the Twinks will come down from 92 wins & the CWS will rise from 83.