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RockCoCougars

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Everything posted by RockCoCougars

  1. I'm not sure that it's a safe assumption that a 35 year old shortstop is going to come in and be an elite fielder. At that age, most guys are moved off shortstop. As I said, I don't remember hearing much at all about his defensive reputation until Powell talked him up and that article came out rating him a 'top 3' defensive shortstop (both this offseason). I've heard a lot more about Barmes' defensive prowess than Gonzalez'.
  2. Hardy was probably the best defensive Brewer shortstop that I've seen. The main criticisms that I've seen leveled to him regard a lack of range. He wasn't a mainstay on the highlight reels, but the same time, he made all the routine plays, and some non routine look easy.
  3. We shall see about Gonzalez' defense. I never remember hearing anything about him being a great defensive SS until Powell talked him up. The stats certainly don't back this assertion, though he has gotten a little better with age. As for his hitting, I can't stand guys who strike out unless they have power. If he hits 20 homers, I'll give him a pass. Otherwise, the only thing that you can say about strikeouts is that they are better than a GIDP (though Gonzalez was among the league leaders in that last season as well). Bottom line, Gonzalez is most likely an upgrade over Yuni as long as he stays healthy. At the same time, I'm not sure that his play will justify the cost and/or that he will be the huge upgrade that most are assuming. I'd have preferred Barmes at any rate. With Gonzalez' easily vesting option, the contracts are a virtual wash as far as I can remember.
  4. You can't honestly think that the Rangers are concerned that Hamilton is gonna go back to being addicted to heavy drugs do you? They absolutely should be. I'd be pretty leery of giving $100 million to a guy with his past, with at least one confirmed relapse recently.
  5. I wouldn't read much into this. My guess is that Boras pushed hard for some type of substantive meeting with someone to leak to the press. Ryan is already downplaying it. As for your question, I'd take Fielder in a heartbeat over Hamilton. Hamilton is a lot older, and has a history of reckless off field behavior as well.
  6. I guess that Z really does hate pitching. Even though Pineda hit the rookie wall last season, he put up pretty good numbers for a 22 year old. Not a deal that I would have made.
  7. The Bucks have had an easy schedule, but is it really going to get much tougher? The East is a cesspool after the top few teams. As for the horrible road record, has this team not played like crap on the left coast since the 80's? I know that they have horrible long term records in Utah, Phoenix and Dallas.
  8. Nice analogy with Norman Greenbaum! My point is the Rolling Stones still may be tremendously popular but they mostly ride the wave of past successes and have been for a very long time. Parra is doing the same in a way, riding on the success of one OK season. fwiw, Exile was released in 1972. I was around when Some Girls was released. I was turned off by the disco pandering, the incredible hype at the time of release, the mocking C&W, and the overall commercialism of the Jagger dominating era of the group. That's just my opinion; lots of people and critics loved that album and Tattoo You. For some reason, I thought Exile was '74. Anyway.... since I grew up with it, I really don't mind any of the 'later' Stones catalog except Bridges to Babylon- even some of the albums that are almost universally panned. Anyway, kinda-back on topic, if Parra is Greenbaum, I'd say that Jagger could be represented by Clemens. They ceased touring/playing at roughly the same time, and though it could be argued that they were only in it for the money, when push came to shove, they still performed pretty well. (I doubt that Mick was on HGH though).
  9. Gonzalez is a virtual lock to slide into the Yuni role, if you ask me. I really don't think that he's going to be the upgrade that people expect. I can see a lot of arguing about Gamel as well if he doesn't get off to a good start. On a grander scale, I wouldn't be surprised to see Ramirez and/or K-Rod to take over the Suppan role- not to the Suppan extreme, but I could see one or both getting booed at MP if things aren't going well. Both of those situations are boom or bust if you ask me. If they go bad, they will go very bad.
  10. Have you heard a Rolling Stones ablum in the last 40 years? Not to turn this into a Stones discussion, but they've released a lot of good stuff since '72. Exile on Main Street, Some Girls and Tattoo You are generally regarded as good albums. I also have a soft spot for Undercover (wore that cassette out one summer). You can't compare Manny Parra to Mick Jagger either. To me, he's a one hit wonder at this point (first half of '08). I will compare him to Norman Greenbaum at this point. His 'hit' was very good, but we are years removed. This season will probably provide his last opportunity for another hit, if he doesn't get one, he's going to lose his record deal.
  11. Is this a non-guaranteed deal? I hope so, because if he's not ready to pitch come April, there is no reason to pay him for doing nothing again.
  12. I just don't see a one year deal working either way. Prince would have to take out a huge insurance policy in case of an injury, and he's still taking a huge risk. As for the Brewers, I'd love to have Prince back, but I'm really tiring of this year by year stuff. I think that a backloaded 5 year deal that averages more than Pujols with an out after year 3 is the way to go. Obviously Wolf and K-Rod would likely have to be moved, but I'd rather have Prince than those two. I don't think it would be too hard to move Wolf, but K-Rod would be a real challenge. On a semi-related note, let's say that K-Rod is injured this spring. Could the Brewers cut him and give him the 20 percent or whatever without facing a grievance?
  13. On a semi-related note.... The fall of one 'Superagent' continues
  14. This is similar to some of the heat TheCrew07 takes in Melvin discussions -- you can't possibly claim to know what deals were or weren't out there. I cannot. However the timing of the way things went down suggests that the Phillies were in substantive talks with Boras on Madson on a multi year deal before they pursued Papelbon. If the Phillies truly targeted Papelbon from the start, why did they waste their time on Madson?
  15. You can't take anything away from Bagwell's stats that's for sure. Really, any way you look at it, steroids hurt his chances for the HOF. Either he was a juicer, or even worse... was not, and his numbers don't look as good as they should because of all the juicing that was going on.
  16. Nats out on Prince? Seriously, what is he going to do, follow his dad's footsteps to Japan?
  17. If this drags on a couple of months, I'd be shocked if Prince gets a huge deal. I agree that there is no way he will take a one year deal, but he's going to have to consider settling soon for a deal much less than he was looking for. I've got to think that this will be resolved in the next week or two, unless there is some under the table deal somewhere (Dodgers?).
  18. I'm just not sold on K-Rod being a dominating 8th inning force this season. Hopefully he succeeds, but he's lost a lot on his fastball and he weaseled out of a lot of jams last year. There is something to be said for veteran guile, but I got the impression that at least some of his success was smoke and mirrors. Bottom line, if he approached the Brewers at the end of the season offering to sign a one year deal for ~$12 million, do you think they would have bit? I doubt it. They were gambling for the extra draft pick. I am also concerned that he may not be the best clubhouse guy if he's not getting the ability to pad his save stats for the next payday. Everything is fun in a pennant race, but let's say the Brewers stumble out of the gate and Ax blows a few games.
  19. I guess Roger Maris was juicing in 1961 also. '61 was another outlier season of prodigious offense feasting on expansion pitching. Because of this, baseball tried to adjust by raising the mound, etc. The short porch in Yankee Stadium aided Maris as well. McGwire and Canseco stopped being teammates in 1993, why did Mac wait until 1998 to hit significantly more HRs than he did as a rookie? McGwire lost most of the early 90's to injury. I don't remember the exact timeline that Canseco spelled out, but from what I remember he started juicing in '89 or thereabouts. Outside of '91 (horrible year, maybe he laid off the juice), his PA/HR seemed to significantly decrease as his career moved forward.
  20. I'll include Cameron still as an editor's pick Suppan would be better. I ranted on him more than anyone http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif As for Boras, I don't think that I'm alone in my contempt for the guy. I will crow anytime he fails, and in this case it's obvious that this is a failure any way you cut it. There is no doubt that Madson could have gotten a significant multi-year deal from the Phillies had he not gotten greedy. Even 3/$25 would have been nothing to sneeze at. Now he is forced to risk everything on how he pitches this year. I really don't see how you can absolve Boras for blame in this situation. If he's the genius many think that he is, he should have noticed that there were a glut of closers on the free agent market this off season. I can't remember an off season where so many closers have been, and still (by the way, I'm loving the fact that Coco is still unsigned) are on the market. There seem to be more closers out there than teams. As for Prince, Boras seems to be creating a market that just isn't there. I just don't see a team throwing huge money at Prince now. Most teams that sign a guy to big money want to use him for offseason promotion (e.g. ticket selling). We are almost 2/3 through the off-season now. It was pretty easy to guess that the market for Prince was going to be soft with the big boys on the sidelines. It's really too bad that Prince had to get greedy and go to the dark side, he could have taken his $100 million and owned this city for years.
  21. I agree to an extent. I'd be shocked if Canseco was the first MLB user of steroids. At the same time, it's pretty apparent that he got the ball rolling. His association with McGwire helped jumpstart the HR wars of the late 90's, and his trade to Texas basically resulted in one of the early hotbeds of steroid usage.
  22. Is this the guy that they wouldn't trade for Santana?
  23. So in 1987 it is a juiced ball but in 1993 every player in the league all systematically used steroids at the same time to cause a uniform increase in power? Did you know in 1987 Rawlings opened a new manufacturing plant in Costa Rica for its balls? Maybe there were some start up problems in making the ball the exact same way they used to previously in Haiti, causing a juiced ball for the 1987 season? You are exactly right, as far as I know. I remember this being the case. As for the ball being juiced in the 90's, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. At the same time, I have a tough time believing that guys like Brady Anderson would be hitting 50 home runs even with a juiced ball. I do believe that steroids really started taking hold in the early 90's. In large part, it seems that you can trace the beginnings of movement of steroids in baseball to Canseco's movement around the league, most notably Texas. As Canseco (and his former teammates) moved through the league, Pandora's box was opened. After that, outposts developed all over the country.
  24. What is there not to get? Time will tell, but by all appearances Boras has failed tremendously this off-season. It seems that people are finally getting wise to the guy. More specific to the Madson/Philly contract situation, it appears that his usage of his stooges in the media backfired on him in a huge way. I can't stand the guy, so I'm loving it. Prince may get lucky and land on his feet, but this bogeyman 'mystery team' is becoming less likely by the day. By the way, you can put Billy Beane between Boras and Epstein. I don't hate Cameron, I just thought he was tremendously overrated/overpaid.
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