Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the signing, but isn't this just making it more difficult for Piniella to manage his bench? I mean, the guy can't throw from what I'm reading  It will be obvious to all teams that Nady isn't able to throw yet, so that will leave the team at a defensive disadvantage from the start.  Would the Cubs be better off starting the season with  Nady on the dl, and keeping another RH hitting OF?  Or at the very least, if Nady starts the season on the roster, go with 11 pitchers and an extra bench player.

I will preface this fanpost by saying if it is thought that this isn't worthy of a fanpost, I'll be happy to remove it.  But this has been one of the most fascinating trade deadlines in recent memory, IMO.  So, over a bootleg Yuengling or two, here are my thoughts on the past couple weeks activicties.

AL East

Yankees-  they seem to finally be joining the rest of baseball in having to consider financial ramifications of trades.  And valuing their young players.  Whodathunkit?

Blue jays-  Not sure whether or not to congratulate JP Ricciardi on sticking to his guns on keeping Halliday.  It probably makes him a hero to his fanbase, but some of those offers would have been hard for me to turn down.

Orioles-  Holy crap, the Orioles found somebody they can trade with!

Red Sox-  they held on to Bucholtz and Bard and got who??

AL Central

Tigers- seem to have gotten a top end starter, but, wow, I've never looked at Washburn as more than a four or five.  Methinks he's outkicking his coverage this year.

Indians-  Will the last one in Cleveland please turn out the lights?

Kansas City- uh, um...really?  They traded for Yuniesky Betancourt?  Did Dayton Moore lose a bet?

Twins-  Not a big Orlando Cabrera fan, but I would be the Twins will be in it till the end.

White Sox-  Not a big Kenny Williams fan (well, at least not as big a fan as Kenny is, anyway), but you have to give him credit for not being afraid to take a chance.  Probably the biggest riverboat gambler in MLB

AL West

Angels-  The Anti-Kenny Williams.  Always loaded with trading chips, but rarely willing to pull the trigger.

Mariners-  I know they're 8 games out, but that still has to be disheartening to see one of your best pitchers go when you're having a rebound year.

Rangers- i wonder if they would have anted up for Halladay if he hadn't rejected them first.  That could've been a helluva trade considering the Rangers farm system.

A's-  Same old, same old.  Always recycling.

NL East

NY Mets- Should I stay or should I go now?  You shoulda went.  This seasons toast and you should've been repositioning for next year.  Your fans aren't stupid.  They would've understood.

Phillies-  They continue to act like a team that's not satisfied with one WS Championship and I admire the way they're going about their business.  And they would've been stupid to have traded J.A. Happ plus a truckload of prospect for Halladay.

Marlins- Nick Johnson's a good pickup, but I don't think it'll help enough.

Nats-  I have no idea what you do with that mess, but you better sign Strasburg or your fans will revolt.  The '62 Mets have to be getting a little nervous.  Their claim to fame may be slipping away.

NL Central

Cardinals-  Holliday was a smart move, and may be enought to win the Central.  I'd still be concerned about the pitching, though.  Should be a fun two team race.

Brewers-  See:  Mets

Pirates-  This isn't your first rodeo on being deadline sellers.  Have you gotten any better at it?

Astros-  3.5 back or not, I don't think they're in it for the long haul.  One of those betwixed and between deals.  Should've sold, but were too close to justify it to their fanbase.

Cubs- Considering their needs, i wouldn't be surprised to see some waiver deals, especially if Johnson takes too long to come back. 

NL West

Dodgers-  Never thought I'd say it, but Colletti seems to be doing all the right things.  The deal that didn't happen with the Padres is insane (and I mean that in a good, fascinating kind of way)

Giants-  I've always thought him to be a fool, and a too vet-happy fool at that, but Sabean's doing a nice job this year, and 1B was a glaring hole he needed to fix.

D-Backs-  Seems to me they should have gotten something for Garland and/or Davis.

Rockies-  Hardest team for me to figure, and I still don't believe they're for real.  That said they'll probably be the wild card and go to the WS.

Padres-  See Cleveland

In looking over his minor league stats he's really only had one year that stands out as anything special, his 2005 season at high-A Daytona/AA West Tenn.  He's given up just over a hit per inning in the minors, with a so-so 1.34 whip.  And he'll be 27 in August.

That being said, he's obviously been outstanding in his five starts with the big club.  I realize that there's no chance that he'll be able to keep putting up some of the numbers he's produced so far (24 hits in 37 innings, .911 whip), I am curious about what some of you who have followed him more closely think.  Is he viable for the rotation for the rest of the year?  What is his upside considered to be?

I was pleased to see the reaction of Frank Wren and John Schuerholz to the apparent reneging on a deal that would have brought Rafael Furcal back to the Braves.  The Braves claim the deal was verbally agreed to (at 3/10 plus a 4th year option), and that Furcal's agents went and shopped the deal to the Dodgers who upped their offer to match it.

I realize that the baseball business world is a different animal, but I couldn't agree with Atlanta management more that this was a completely unethical thing to do.  They have now gone public with the statement that they will never again do business with Furcal's representation, the Wasserman Media Group.

http://www.ajc.com/braves/content/sports/braves/stories/2008/12/18/atlanta_braves_john_schuerholz.html

Huge kudos to Wren and Schuerholz for taking this stand, and for making it public.

Supposedly the Royals and Braves are working on some sort of a Francoeur-Greinke trade.  I would have to think that it would take a much better offer than just Francoeur to net Greinke, but it seems to me that it would make more sense to try to work out a deal with the Royals for Greinke than with San Diego.

Greinke doesn't have the pedigree that Peavy has, but he had an outstanding year last year, and his talent has never been in question.  My guess is that it would take about half of the prospects to net Greinke has it would to get Peavy.  He's still under team control for two years, and will cost much less in dollars as well.

Names like Damaso Marte, John Grabow, David Weathers, and others are going to be thrown around in the next week.  With the uncertainty surrounding so many of our relievers, is it worth giving up actual prospects for a relatively solid middle reliever/setup guy?

I don't think any of these guys are real difference makers, but a guy like Weathers can pick up a few saves for you if need be, and otherwise throw serviceable innings in the 6th-9th innings. 

It appears as though Hank Steinbrenner has been paying attention to his old man all of these years after all.  Every time there's been a story about the Yankees this offseason, Hank is there with a quote, and usually there's lots of "I" this and "I" that, making it sound as though he's the only one making the decisions.

It almost makes me feel sorry for Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi.  

Simply because I was tired of hearing the argument that "even if Bonds took steroids prior to the testing era in baseball, he hadn't broken any rules", I sent an email to Lester Munson asking his opinion on the subject.

I respect Munson a great deal, and he was kind enough to respond to two emails on the matter.  He basically said that the only rule a player would have broken would have been a "technical violation regarding prescriptions" which the player could easily dance around.

I always held firm to the belief that there had to have been some sort of "illegal drugs" clause in the CBA prior to 2002.  Apparently, that's not the case.

Here's what he had to say about the union's stance:   "Steroids were not
addressed.  The union tried to argue that steroids should be treated as a disease,
a form of addiction, with treatment and confidentiality.  It was a ridiculous
position.  Steroids are not addictive.  There is no rehab for steroid users.  
We do not treat steroid users.  Steroids are cheating.  We do not treat
cheaters.  We expose them and we punish them.  It took the union and MLB a long time
to come to this fairly obvious realization."

Anyway, my apologies to anyone who(m) I may have contradicted with my errant thinking regarding this.

I often hear the argument that a team would just as soon take a couple of draft picks instead of deal a player for prospects.  Obviously, it depends on the prospects involved, but I question the wisdom of this strategy.

Let's use the White Sox and Jermaine Dye as an example.  Question the validity of the rumor if you want, but one version had the white sox turning down Craig Hanson and Wily Mo Pena.

First, why does it seem like Hansen has been a Red Sox prospect forever, when he was drafted in '05?

Anyway, you have a legit pitching prospect and an OF with spotty success, but strong upside for a player they should be letting leave via FA.

The choices are:  taking two players who could reasonably contribute this year, and possibly for several years at low pay, or two draft picks which will cost you millions to sign and develop, and may never be the prospect of the two from Boston.

The amount of money and time that it takes to sign and develop players never seems to come up in the conversation, but it seems to me that it should be a huge factor.  "We'll get a first and second-rounder" sounds great, but if legit prospects are being offered, I'm not convinced that it's the way to go.

Does anyone have the numbers on what percentage of first and second round picks make it?  What are the average signing bonuses these days?

Probably because we've now been exposed to a nice stretch of winning here, but I can't help but think that Piniella seems to embody most of the traits that I value in a manager.

One, he doesn't seem to tolerate stupid baseball.  I think more than anything else, he's stressed to this team that if you want to play, play the game the right way.  You hit cutoff men, you have consistently good ab's, you don't throw away outs on the basepaths.  I think the team's baseball IQ has improved dramatically under Piniella.

Two, stats matter.  It took him awhile to figure it out, but I would think the days of seeing Jones against LHP are pretty much over.  He understands matchups, and seems to put players in position to succeed.  Again, maybe it just appears that way now that they're winning.  

Third, he's doing an excellent job of managing the pitching staff.  I'd like to credit Rothschild, but I'm not sure that it's his doing.  I loved Piniella's quote after yesterdays game, explaining why he brought Marmol in so early, saying that sometimes you have to save the game in the sixth, or else you won't have a game to save later.  

Finally, accountability.  During the Dusty era, many of us complained about Baker making excuses for his players poor play.  I don't think we've seen much of that this year, aside from some early remarks about the weather.  While I don't feel that he's been unduly critical, he's not afraid to say that a player or the team just plain played poorly.  Apparently that ruffled a few feathers early on, but it looks like they've adjusted.

IMO, Piniella brings the best of old-school philosophy regarding accountability and how the game must be played, while still respecting the use of statistics and being willing to adopt new ways of thinking.

The Cubs now have developed 3/5 of a pretty darned good rotation from the draft.  Add a couple of pretty good power arms in the bullpen.  Until ARam gets back, the SS, 2B, and CF are all home grown.  Prospects were used to acquired Ramirez and Lee.  Seems to me that's better production than we've seen from the minors in quite a while, and that's with losing Wood and Prior.

Also, the team seems interested in boosting the overall baseball smarts of the team.  Theriot and Fontenot are ballplayers.  Certainly not the most gifted, but smart, hustling, headsup players.  Pie was sent to Iowa to work on being a smarter and more disciplined hitter, not just relying on God-given talent alone, and it seems to have helped.  It even looks like Koyie Hill may be getting more playing time because he looks to be just plain smarter on the field than Barrett.  

I absolutely loved Rich Hill's attitude towards what he felt was a weakness- holding runners on.  He saw a flaw, and set to work to fix it, immediately.  

I guess my point is that Piniella may just be having an effect on the mindset of the organization.  You can't just load the team up with five-tool guys with low baseball IQ's and wonder why you aren't winning.

Plenty of competition for this spot, but I get a little crazy when I think that Vlad Guerrero was available after the '03 season.  There wasn't a ton of activity on him, surprisingly, and the word at the time was that he preferred to stay in the NL.  Sosa was still a Cub at the time, but can you imagine not only the production, but all of the mistakes that could have been avoided had the Cubs made the effort?

Piniella had a couple of telling quotes after the cluster!@#$ yesterday:

Quote 1:  When asked if he and the coaches had control of the team, he said, "Sure, we have control. We've talked about the things that make us look silly at times. We've talked to the players. What the heck are we supposed to do? I know what I would do, OK? But we'll leave it at that."

Quote 2:  "You don't want to see people fighting one another on your own team. You really don't. And at the same time, you don't want to see silliness on the field.  I only have so many players that I can play. You know? And it's about time some of them start playing like major leaguers! Or get somebody else in here that can catch the damn ball and run the bases properly! All right? That's all I can say!"

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I was absolutely floored to read yesterday that Rey Ordonez was likely to make the Seattle Mariners roster.  The Cubs were the last team to issue Ordonez a uniform, and he was a complete waste.  

Before the winter Rule 5 draft, I would have given Josh Hamilton about a 2% chance of making a roster.  In his case, not because of lack of talent, but because of his significant personal issues.

Has anybody seen any other big-league roster shockers?