Kenny Hates Prospects

Hooray for Gordon! PS I have a question for the SoxTalk mods. Is there a way to add some kind of sword-swinging/dragon slayer smiley to the site? Because that would be a great smiley to use for Beckham.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 20, 2009 -> 12:27 PM) The Tampa Bay Rays tried exactly that last offseason; they felt like they had more pitching than they needed, so they traded Jackson to Detroit. Jackson had a great season, one or two of TB's starters struggled, and Tampa suddenly had a deficit of starting pitching and might well have been a playoff team had they still had Jackson. Agree. They were idiots for dealing Jackson and putting faith in Sonnancrap. I could see it if they dealt Jackson because they wanted to start the season with Kazmir-Shields-Garza-2 of Price/Niemann/Hammel/Davis but they blew it when they counted on Sonnancrap. The Burrell signing was also dumb, and as was the case with us in '05-'06, having several RP with breakout years is a pretty good sign of an inconsistent bullpen or worse the following season.

QUOTE (striker62704 @ Oct 20, 2009 -> 12:25 PM) I'm not personally looking to take it apart. I would rather have the stellar rotation and keep Hudson to have a 6th arm in the waiting. I just don't think the trade idea is terrible overall. He's writing from the Mariners perspective anyway. I think we can all agree that Lowe and Lopez are good. I think that anytime you can get 2 good players for 1 that you are helping your team. You are also cutting your risk in half. The difference between Pena/Linebrink and Lowe, plus the difference between Getz in his 2nd year and Lopez, is less than the difference between Danks and Hudson/Freddy, meaning that trade is stupid. Anyone who blogs about baseball and says there's not much difference between Johnny Danks and Jose Lopez needs to stop immediately. Lopez is a free-swinging, poor defensive 2B with no OBP skills. Danks is one of the better young lefties in baseball. Yeah, that's pretty dumb.

QUOTE (striker62704 @ Oct 20, 2009 -> 12:18 PM) I would consider the deal. If you dont' have money to spend, and it doesn't look like we do, then you trade. And you trade from your strengths (starting pitching) to fix your weaknesses (offense and bullpen). I would have a deal in line for Nix or Getz first though. I don't understand why people get so upset over a trade proposal. It's just someone's opinion. Why get all upset. No, you trade from an area of excess to fill holes, and 5 legitimate SP with a 6th on the horizon is not what I'd call an excess. You don't tear up a strength to address a weakness. That just makes you mediocre.

Here's another one "Danks is not that much more valuable than Lopez. Sorry, he’s just not." Moron.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Oct 20, 2009 -> 11:48 AM) I think it’s very interesting to look at Milton Bradley’s performance and behavioral history under the mangers that he’s played under. An interesting trend starts to emerge. Bradley had decent, poor, to serviceable years under: Alou, Manuel, Wedge, Mancha, Piniella, Black Bradley had great years under: Tracy, Washington The conclusion while not perfect seems to suggest that Bradley performs best in a more open clubhouse, with less authoritarian managers. Manual, Alou and Manuel are famous for running very tight ships, Mancha, was an organizational figurehead at the beck and call of the front office, while Black is a slightly mellower version of Mancha. I think this dichotomy is due to Bradley’s temperament. He accepts people who try to work with him on his level. From the beginning a lot of Bradley’s managers have attempted to intimidate him publically (something that Bradley HATES), or have simply disagreed with the player that is Milton Bradley at a molecular level (Alou, Sweet Lou), instead, Bradley’s greatest season seems to come with managers who run a clubhouse that allows for the free expression of ideas a clear communication between player-manager-Front Office. Bradley is not without his faults. He can be irrational, he’s short tempered, he threw a freaking chair at Billy Beane, but he is a great hitter, he is a switch-hitter, and he does get on base. And he can be had for VERY little. This is not a perfect study; I just think that a manager like Ozzie would agree with Bradley. Your standards for great hitters must be pretty low.

Probably. I know every offseason is full of dumb trade rumors, but some of these just make you go wow. It's one thing for the Score callers to make these things up, but beat writers and bloggers who follow the game religiously do it too.

http://ussmariner.com/2009/10/20/daves-2010-off-season-plan/ His idea: Trade Jose Lopez, Mark Lowe, and Jason Vargas to Chicago for John Danks. Someone pretty much tells him he's a moron, so he responds with this: edit: there's some other moronic quote too but now I can't find it.

In all fairness, when you look at Linebrink you have a guy who is vastly overpaid but nonetheless is still someone who has value on a baseball field, at least until the All-Star break rolls around. He's not worth anywhere near the $10.5M he is owed, but he is still worth about $2-4M or so over two years just based off of his first halves and his potential to be good for a whole year. He's not a clubhouse cancer either. Bradley OTOH, as a garbage defender and an injury risk who is coming off of a pathetic offensive season, is a straight release candidate who would be worth about the league minimum on a one year deal with incentives. And because of his character issues, even taking him on basically for free and hoping for a payoff in production is a risk in itself that a lot of teams wouldn't be prepared to take. If Kenny made a Linebrink-for-Bradley deal where the Cubs eat enough salary to make the contracts equal, then he would have to do so with his finger already hovering over the release + eat salary button, which would mean giving up on any potential value Linebrink could supply, as little as it may be compared to his contract. The Sox IMO would need to get back a player who would alleviate those concerns, so that way if the Sox did immediately release Bradley, they'd still get a player who they believe would be at least as productive as a halfway decent Linebrink, if not better. Jake Fox, Sam Fuld, Micah Hoffpauir, etc. would not work for me at all. And given the Cubs' desperation to dump Bradley, my starting point would be either Marmol, Guzman, or Cashner. If that doesn't work, then let the Cubs eat that entire salary and release him.

QUOTE (Cubano @ Oct 17, 2009 -> 10:50 AM) I think the WS will land at least one these players. I wrote this about Anderson. http://cubanballplayers.blogspot.com/2009/...fifth-best.html I wrote this about Cuban 1B in exile. http://cubanballplayers.blogspot.com/2009/...basemen-in.html Is Anderson being repped by Jaime Torres? If so your write up makes him sound like something we could use. If the numbers you gave on your site are correct then he walked once every 7.5 AB and struck out once every 8.3 AB in Cuba. So I guess that would be kind of like a prospect drawing 67 BB vs. 60 K's in 500 AB in Birmingham or something. That definitely sounds interesting, and if he has a little bit of pop to go with that I'd be all for it assuming it wasn't extremely expensive. But I'd look at him to be a Kotsay replacement who kind of starts all over the place and gets regular playing time that way instead of a straight starter somewhere.

QUOTE (BlackBetsy @ Oct 17, 2009 -> 10:12 AM) The Royals have a very pro-family atmosphere in their clubhouse and they suck. If the Sox had 25 jackasses on their team and won the World Series, I would prefer that over a family clubhouse. Yeah, but we're not talking about a potential World Series-winning addition here. This isn't Manny Ramirez, it's career underachiever and health risk Milton Bradley. PS I'm not saying we should sign Manny either.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 17, 2009 -> 09:56 AM) If you look at the thread when he signed the contract, most thought he had to sign it, but I didn't see too many posts saying it was a crazy deal. Some interesting posts though as Olney speculated they would trade Rios with Wells signed. Most were in facor, even as a leadoff hitter. Rotoworld thought a Milledge/Heilmann offer from the Mets might entice Toronto. It was only 3 years ago. That's a long time in baseball. I don't know what was said here. I was on another forum at the time and I'm sure I talked about how scary it looked. I know I ripped the Soriano deal to shreds because I was pissed about the implications it would have had on the Sox in free agency. Edit: I remember the Milledge and Heilman stuff though. Those guys were rumored to have been traded to every team for every player in baseball. I think we were supposed to get them for Freddy at one point.

The Wells deal wouldn't have been so surprising had the Yankees done it, but the Jays really got a lot of attention doing it because they'll never have a $200M payroll. I thought the deal was crazy at the time. And didn't like every baseball fan on the planet call Soriano's deal atrocious the minute the terms were announced? The Matsuzaka posting was outrageous as well and had people calling the posting system a complete joke that should be outlawed. But still, this was the Red Sox and Cubs making those crazy signings. The Blue Jays didn't put themselves in position to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox by making huge signings, they did it by running a fiscally smart franchise. The Wells deal was a potential disaster for the club the moment it was inked.

Hendo is talking with Strikeforce about a contract because his side and the UFC are pretty far apart still. I hope Hendo doesn't go to Strikeforce. There's not much for him there. Also, Condit vs. Daley has been made which should be an awesome fight. I doubt Condit is going to mess around with Daley on the feet now that he's training with Greg Jackson. The AZ Combat Sports Condit might have tried that, but Jackson should have him being smarter.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 17, 2009 -> 09:25 AM) They have a choice to try to compete. The only reason they even considered trading Halladay is because Roy basically stated he was going to walk when his contract was up. They were going nowhere in 2009 and 2010 is probably a longshot. Put things into perspective here. The Blue Jays were devasted by injury. I think most of their starting rotation was out. Attendance was weak. They dumped a lot of salary in Rios and Rolen, but have some nice talent. Wells is a problem, but when he signed, I don't think it raised too many eyebrows. JP's problem was that he was in the AL East. Its going to be hard for any team to compete year in and year out with Boston and NY and now TB. The Blue Jays still have won more games the past 4 seasons than the White Sox. I think if Toronto was in the Central, JP would have been given an extension rather than a pink slip. I agree with some of this. The Blue Jays dealt with lots of injuries, but even with everyone healthy, I highly doubt they could have competed in that division. The Yankees and Red Sox are tough enough to beat as it is, but adding the Rays to the equation makes it almost impossible. They would have had to really beat up on teams outside of their division to have a chance, and for that to happen, they'd need great seasons out of Rios and Wells at least. Yes they do have a choice as far as whether to try to compete or not, but it's not a very hard one to make. It's pretty clear what road the Jays need to take. Wells' deal did raise a lot of eyebrows at the time because it was enormous and very uncharacteristic of non-Yankee teams. They gave him basically what amounted to the maximum amount of money the Yankees could have/would have offered. IIRC they went off the Beltran deal and tried to pay him like he was better than Beltran. Just a bad deal, although it didn't look anywhere near as bad as it does now because Wells at least was productive then. The AL Central thing works both ways. If the Jays had the same exact teams that they've had in recent years then they would have taken our division at least a couple of times. But OTOH, Toronto isn't exactly an enormous baseball market either, and when you take away all those divisional series between the Red Sox and Yankees, can they still afford their current payroll? My guess is not. Put the Sox in the AL East with the Jays coming to the AL Central and our payroll definitely goes up while theirs goes down. IMO, aside from maybe Cashman and Sabean of the Zito deal, there isn't another GM in baseball whose job would be safe after that Wells contract. Right or wrong, that contract is enough make anyone look incompetent.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 17, 2009 -> 08:53 AM) It was but a small example of my point. The larger focus was "why would Texas trade away their star? What is the point?" and then "I wouldnt trade X player unless, and only if, the team became better". Many things JP did got him fired, I totally agree. This thinking, in my opinion, was part of it. Oh ok, that makes sense. I was just talking about the Buehrle point, but I agree, Hamilton won't be traded because no deal will come along that will make them better. I see what you mean about Ricciardi taking that same stance regarding a Halladay deal, and maybe he did. Whatever his reasons were for not trading Halladay at the deadline, they were dumb.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 17, 2009 -> 08:48 AM) Today's vocabulary lesson for the day: "Brevity." Tell that to whoever wrote the latest revision of the Illinois Fire Code. While my posts are always long as hell, they are similarly important.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 17, 2009 -> 08:21 AM) Honestly, WHY would Texas trade Hamilton at this point? The kid has been a revelation, even if he was injured last year for a while. You have to ask yourself if you were the guy in charge of Texas, why would you trade away someone as good as Hamilton? You cant just throw names out there and say "why dont we trade for this guy?" without thinking about the other teams position and this kind of thinking is what got JP Ricciardi fired. Trades are risks by both sides(most of the time), and they are calculated risks. Sometimes teams trade away players who are very close to breaking out for high ceiling, cant miss prospects, sometimes underachieving players are traded for other underachievers, but no matter what the teams are both trying to make themselves better. You cannot automatically assume that the trade you are going to make will make your team better, although that is what you are aiming for. Sometimes it is a wash(swisher), sometimes it is a look to the future(Peavy and Rios). What he is saying is smart baseball management if you're a team like the Sox. Unlike the Blue Jays, the Sox do not NEED to dump a good player's salary in order to pay a bad player to suck. What got JP Ricciardi fired was giving out massive contracts to several players, with Vernon Wells and BJ Ryan being the most devastating ones. Ricciardi didn't get fired because he didn't trade Halladay. The Halladay situation only came up because the Blue Jays spent a ton of money on a team that was performing so poorly dollar-for-dollar that they were forced to cut payroll because the fans weren't showing up. The Blue Jays because of their commitments to bad players do *not* have a choice to try to compete with the Red Sox and Yankees. If they did then they would target the kind of players the poster was talking about, proven talent that makes the team better. The Jays are forced to target prospects simply because they will not be able to compete again until a lot of these horrible deals are off their books. I agree though that Ricciardi SHOULD have traded Halladay, but trade or not trade, that franchise was already screwed.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 16, 2009 -> 10:10 PM) Considering Floyd has been better than Buehrle, imo, the past two years, I'd much rather move Buehrle than Floyd. The order goes something like this: Peavy, Floyd, Danks (you can interchange Danks/Floyd...but everyone here knows about my man-crush on Floyd...although Danks is real real good too). Buehrle is trade-able, although I highly doubt the Sox would get the value for him in a trade. I agree with this and would rather move Buehrle than Floyd right now. But for me, that's like saying I'd rather rip out my toenails with a pair of pliers than cut off my foot with a hacksaw. The bolded part I agree with completely. QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 16, 2009 -> 10:10 PM) I see Floyd and Ramirez getting talked about in trade proposals. Both are dirt cheap players with plenty of upside and both have been pretty good (Floyd being the better of the too). Ramirez was in his first full year at short, he'll be much better next year. Very much agree. Ramirez is very underrated here. He had a bad offensive second half after a horrid start to the season at the plate. He's made quite a few mental errors and he's lacked hussle on the basepaths at times (remember how he took that pop-up for granted, over-ran the bag, then got called out because he wasn't paying attention?) but all things considered, he still has great upside, he did improve at short defensively over the year, and his production faaaaaar outweighs his contract and will continue to do so for the next few years. QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 16, 2009 -> 10:10 PM) If the Sox want to retool drastically, they'll have to move some in the group of: Linebrink, Jenks, Konerko, Buehrle. Take Mark out of that group and I agree. I say we should shop Jenks and try to get either a couple prospects and salary relief or a Major League player who fills a hole and makes less than Jenks does. The Mets want power at 1B and don't want to give up talent to get it, and they are looking at taking on a contract, so I think we should see if they will take Paulie. If we could get out of Paulie's entire deal then we should let him go without asking for anything at all in return. We should shop Linebrink around to every team in the league and try to find someone that will take a good portion of his salary, hopefully in exchange for a smaller bad contract so we don't have to straight eat salary. If we could save some money there then great. But those are the players we should look to cut payroll with, not Buehrle. If we can come up with enough payroll space to sign a couple of risky free agents by moving those contracts then fine, but the last thing we should do is move our good contracts (and I believe that Buehrle is definitely a good contract) without trying as hard as possible to get out of our not-so-good contracts. QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 16, 2009 -> 10:10 PM) All guys that make a lot of money and aren't stars. Buehrle is a borderline star and I f***ing love him, but of all our starters he's the most expandable because of his salary and the fact that he's said he's retiring in two years. Peavy is a bonafide ace and Danks/Floyd are young mid of the rotation starters with #2 potential. This "Mark is going to retire after his contract" stuff is overblown and sounds eerily similar to the "Mark is going to leave and sign with the Cardinals" bulls*** we all heard before he signed an extension with us. The 2011-12 offseason is a long ways away and people change their minds all the time. I bet Mark doesn't retire, and even if he does, why wouldn't we want him to retire in a Sox uniform? We'd actually rather have a couple of prospects than retire Mark Buehrle in a Sox uniform? How petty is that? We could do more for our farm system than a Buehrle trade would by simply adding another $3M or so to the amateur draft or international free agency budget, maybe not even that much. We probably could have gotten Goodwin, Jones, and Morgado for around that price, and what are the odds a Buehrle trade brings back that kind of talent? I don't think they're all that high. QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 16, 2009 -> 10:10 PM) I am not advocating we deal Buehrle, but if someone were to offer 2 top 50 prospects (one being a top 25 prospect), I'd think long and hard about it because 2 major league ready top 50 prospects and 14 million could be very very valuable to a team that has quite a few holes. The problem is you might have opened up a hole in the rotation, however, there is always Jon Garland who you could slide in as a #5 (while letting Huddy develop and seeing what Garcia can do). If we get MLB-ready prospects then the odds are they're going to - at the very least - suck some ass while they learn to play at the Major League level. This isn't going to help us contend in 2010 barring a Beckham-like miracle. I understand the thinking is that Sox could move Buehrle for prospects while freeing up cash to spend elsewhere. Here's the problem. Let's say they do this and they give like 2/$22 to Abreu (because on the open market that's a realistic figure for him IMO) and sign a reliever or whatever with the remaining amount. I know the idea is that, in this example, the difference between Hudson and Buehrle is more than made up by the addition of Abreu's bat at DH and the reliever to the bullpen, and the prospects are just the gravy on top. I would counter that by saying, 1) Hudson is being drastically overrated, and if we relied upon him as a starter, he should be viewed as a #5 in 2010 as opposed to a #2/#3 like Buehrle, so the difference between the two is enormous; 2) Abreu would be paid for his age 36-37 seasons which means he is a greater risk than Buerhle for close to the same salary, and even if Abreu is healthy he will *not* make up the difference between Buehrle and Hudson; and 3) the reliever is at best a shot in the dark, because the really good ones that we'd be able to put considerable, almost Buehrle-like faith in will get closer jobs that pay them well over the $2-3M we could offer. There are all kinds of player combinations that you can put together with Buehrle's salary, but I'd still argue the same basic points. The bats out there that we can reasonably afford (not Jason Bay, not Matt Holliday) are all mostly old players (Abreu, Matsui, Damon, etc.) who will be looking for guaranteed money as they decline. Others out there are reclamation projects (a non-tendered Coco Crisp or Jeremy Hermida for example). Others are injury risks (like Nick Johnson). No matter what, we would have to compete against *every other interested team* in order to sign them, meaning we would have to pay full market value to sign a player who we will *not* be as confident in as Buehrle, who I believe is on a deal that is still below market value. This means we are potentially looking at trading one good contract for 1-2 bad contracts. Not smart at all IMO. However, it does make sense to take those risks if you can clear up salary by moving some combination of Jenks/Paulie/Linebrink, because in that group we are giving somewhere around $25M to a 1B who would be expected to produce at around a league average or just above pace for 1B, plus a reliever who falls apart in the second half, and a closer who at this point doesn't look a whole lot better than Thornton. All three of those players are pretty much replaceable for less than their contracts pay them.

For those who think Buehrle is overpaid/makes too much money, here is a list of contracts for the other starters in baseball with Buerhle-esque high contracts who are guaranteed money beyond 2009. I am omitting arb and pre-arb players as well as those players who signed security deals which took them out of arbitration because it would be very unfair to compare Buehrle's extension with Cliff Lee's deal or Greinke's deal for example. The only arb-negating security contracts I've put on are the ones that were supposed to take the player well into a FA period. Roy Halladay 09:$14.25M, 10:$15.75M Roy Oswalt 09:$14M, 10:$15M, 11:$16M, 12:$16M club option ($2M buyout) Derek Lowe 09:$15M, 10:$15M, 11:$15M, 12:$15M Javier Vazquez 09:$11.5M, 10:$11.5M Jeff Suppan 09:$12.5M, 10:$12.5M 11:$12.75M club option ($2M buyout) Chris Carpenter 09:$14M, 10:$14.5M, 11:$15M, 12:$15M club option ($1M buyout) Kyle Lohse 09:$7.125M, 10:$8.875M, 11:$11.875M, 12:$11.875M Carlos Zambrano 09:$17.75M, 10:$17.875M, 11:$17.875M, 12:$18M, 13:$19.25M vesting player option Ryan Dempster 09:$8M, 10:$12.5M, 11:$13.5M, 12:$14M player option Ted Lily 09:$12M, 10:$12M Dan Haren 09:$7.5M, 10:$8.25M, 11:$12.75M, 12:$12.75M, 13:$15.5M club option ($3.5M buyout) Vicente Padilla 09:$12M, 10:$12M club option ($1.75M buyout) - Texas ate this Barry Zito 09:$18.5M, 10:$18.5M, 11:$18.5M, 12:$19M, 13:$20M, 14:$18M club option ($7M buyout) Jake Westbrook 09:$10M, 10:$11M Carlos Silva 09:$11M, 10:$11.5M, 11:$11.5M, 12:$12M mutual option ($2M buyout) Johan Santana 09:$20M, 10:$21M, 11:$22.5M, 12:$24M, 13:$25.5M, 14:$25M club option ($5.5M buyout) Oliver Perez 09:$12M, 10:$12M, 11:$12M Kevin Millwood 09:$11M, 10:$12M Aaron Harang 09:$11M, 10:$12.5M, 11:$12.75M ($2M buyout) Bronson Arroyo 09:$9.5M, 10:$11M, 11:$11M club option ($2M buyout) Josh Beckett 09:$10.5M, 10:$12M club option ($2M buyout) Daisuke Matsuzaka 10:$8M, 11:$10M, 12:$10M (add the $51M negotiating fee and it doesn't look so cheap) Aaron Cook 09:$8.75M, 10:$9M, 11:$9.25M, 12:$11M mutual option ($0.5M buyout) Gil Meche 09:$11M, 10:$12M, 11:$12M Dontrelle Willis 09:$10M, 10:$12M Nate Robertson 09:$7M, 10:$10M Jeremy Bonderman 09:$12.5M, 10:$12.5M Jake Peavy 09:$8M 10:$15M, 11:$16M, 12:$17M, 13:$22M club option ($4M buyout) CC Sabathia 09:$14M, 10:$23M 11:$23M 12:$23M 13:$23M 14:$23M 15:$23M AJ Burnett 09:$16.5M 10:$16.5M 11:$16.5M 12:$16.5M 13:$16.5M Compare all these contracts to Mark Buehrle's contract: 09:$14M, 10:$14M, 11:$14M The bolded and underlined names (Beckett, Halladay, and Haren) are all definitely better bargains than Buehrle. The bolded, italicized names could be similar bargains or better: Oswalt - ace stuff, but I wouldn't expect him to put up better numbers in the Cell than Mark. Buehrle is cheaper and a safer bet IMO. I'd rather have Mark. Javy - ace stuff, typical success when the pressure is off. I don't buy it. I'd much rather have Mark. Carpenter - if he stays healthy then he's a better bargain than Mark. Zambrano - paid like an ace but plays like a #3. I'd rather have Mark. Santana - if he comes back healthy and stays that way then he's definitely the better pitcher, but that contract is enormous and he's owed $93M through 2014 before the buyout option comes around. I'd rather have Mark. Matsuzaka - that deal is actually more like 10:$16M+, 11:$18M+, 12:$18M+ when you add the negotiating fee to it. If you don't consider that fee then the deal is better than Mark's, but when you do, I'd rather have the guy who doesn't walk the world and who didn't miss a ton of time due to injury this year. I'd rather have Mark, again, because you simply cannot ignore that fee. Peavy - If he's healthy over that span then he should be a better deal than Mark, at least through 2012. Sabathia - same thing as Santana. If he's healthy and stays that way then he's the better pitcher, but if we had that contract and CC got hurt then our club would be crippled for years. I'd rather have Mark because CC's deal is just way too dangerous. Burnett - Javy with more heat and an injury history. No f***ing thanks. I'd rather have Mark and bet that Burnett isn't going to suddenly become Mr. Consistency and evolve into the perennial Cy Young candidate he was supposed to become back when he was in Florida. There are 32 pitchers on that list including Buehrle. The only players on that entire list whom I would say are or will be better bargains than Mark are Beckett, Halladay, Haren, Carpenter, and Peavy. In my mind, Mark's deal is the 6th best deal out of that group of 32. He is not overpaid and his salary is not hurting our chances of improving the ballclub. I believe Buehrle's deal is actually below market value and if Buehrle was free agent this offseason he'd get a better deal than he currently has with us. John Lackey reportedly turned down $15M per over 4 years from the Angels and is seeking more than that. Given Lackey's injuries, I'd also rather have Mark's deal over what Lackey will get.

Bradley gets $9M in 2010 and $12M in 2011 Linebrink gets $5M in 2010 and $5.5M in 2011 Taking Bradley for Linebrink straight up, even with "sweeteners" involved, would be very dumb. The difference in salary between the two players is $10.5M over two years. Think of all the great prospects we'd be able to buy with $10.5M dollars, or think of all the players we'd be able to afford in free agency with $10.5M dollars. That is a hell of a difference to make up and it will not be made up unless the Cubs throw in at least Marmol and Vitters. That is a lot of money to just flush down the toilet with Bradley. If the Cubs ate $4M+ of Bradley's deal in 2010 and $6.5M+ of Bradley's deal in 2011 PLUS threw in some good talent that I would view more helpful than 2 good half seasons of Linebrink, then I'd make that deal because Linebrink at this point is a sunk cost. But I'd first explore every possible avenue of moving Linebrink and getting a team to take on at least half of his salary before I gave up and made a Bradley deal. And if a Bradley deal happened, I'd immediately try to eat some more of his salary, plus send the Cubs payments, and try to get a taker on him for $1-2M per. If that didn't work then I'd want to see a meeting take place where Kenny, Reinsdorf, Ozzie, and the entire coaching sit down with Bradley and give Bradley the job of convincing them all why they should even invite him to Spring Training in 2010. If even one member of that group is not convinced then I release Bradley outright and eat what would amount to Linebrink's salary. If, however, all of those people came out of that meeting convinced that Bradley deserved another chance, then I'd let him go to ST to compete for a roster spot - but I'd make no guarantees and I would have the DH spot already filled before that time. The first sign of trouble and he'd be DFA'd. If he behaves well and produces, then I again start shopping him to see if I can get another team to take on some more of his salary. But the whole idea would basically be about getting value out of a sunk cost in Linebrink while taking on no additional monetarial commitments.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Oct 16, 2009 -> 01:31 PM) He got traded to the Brewers halfway through 2007, and that probably didn't help. No idea why he he went from stud-to-dud the prior year, though. My best guess is that he's had shoulder problems for years and it finally became so bad last year that he couldn't pitch through the pain. I'd be interested in seeing his first- and second-half velocities over the past four seasons. I've never really understood Linebrink. Back in March, he said that he didn't know if his shoulder would ever be 100% again. He had a average-to-mediocre first half, and then completely lost his command... but was still routinely hitting 94 on the gun. I hope for the best, but have the sinking feeling that we'll end up releasing him next December. That's why I think it's mental. He comes out there with good stuff and he just throws meatballs like he's doing a Javy impression. And I know he's had injury issues, but 4 years is still a long time, I mean there are guys who will have a good year, then suck and find out they need TJ, then get TJ, then suck as they recover, then fully recover all within a 4-year window (i.e. Freddy over 2006-09). Linebrink's first half numbers during those years have been excellent, and if you look at his splits from 2005 and prior, his second halves were mirroring his first halves. Just my guess, but I think what might be happening is that Linebrink gets a bit tired (every pitcher goes through that dead arm period) around the second half and then he gets lit up a bit as a result. After that he just can't get back to where he was mentally even though he gets stronger again. I mean, I've seen some horrible, horrible pitches from him in good pitchers counts, and I've seen him go out there looking like he has it all working for him and then boom, now we're out of the ballgame. And I completely agree with your sinking feeling about having to dump him eventually which is why I'd love to get creative, if we can, and come up with a way to not pay him all this money we've guaranteed to him. At least if we go with a young guy, if he sucks we can send his ass down or outright release him. When Linebrink sucks it just encourages Ozzie to play him more because (and I'm paraphrasing Chris Rongey here) "if we're going to win anything then we need Linebrink to be good, and you can't get Linebrink to be good again unless you keep running him out there." That's not logical to me and I'm sick of hearing it.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 16, 2009 -> 01:15 PM) Once you get below about #10 or so, as others have stated, there is a whole batch of players (through to about #30 or so) in our system right now that are very similar in potential (just differences in how developed they are versus ceiling, how their results are versus projectability, etc.). Hard to really get on someone for a guy being 15 versus 20, or 30 versus 25. I have Cassel as my AAP, so I should be his biggest cheerleader, but even I realize he is fringey at best, and he didn't even make my Top 30. If I've interpreted this correctly then I mostly agree. There are a lot of names to consider for any number of reasons. I said before though in this thread that 1) probably nobody is going to like the list because it's such a mixed bag, 2) the list overall is a good one for those reasons, and 3) that players who are seen as too high or too low simply haven't defined themselves, so it's hard to argue a whole lot about their placement - and even if you do want to argue about it (like I've done) then you still can't really put any one player in any one specific spot, it's more or less a window IMO, like somewhere between 11-14, or 19-24, etc.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 16, 2009 -> 01:08 PM) Maybe we keep him, then at the deadline next year trade him to someone desperate for a reliever. That would be extracting max value. That would be a beautiful thing to see.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Oct 15, 2009 -> 05:10 PM) People think of Cassel as a prospect? Fringe at best. No one put him in their top 30. That's an extreme example. I agree he is fringe, but that was kind of what I was saying. We have other fringe guys in our list too IMO. I was just using Cassel and Santos as examples since I had been looking at the AFL thread.