StearnsFTW

Do not walk Zimmerman here please.

Carpal Tunnel is not a freak thing. Its a repetitive stress injury. Yes genetics can play a role, but it nerve damage due to repetitive motions. You know, like pitching. Yep. That's a big concern for me as well. I'm a little surprised everyone thinks he's likely to stay healthy. It seems very unlikely to me. He's had a litany of injuries. No reason to think that'll change IMO.

I agree about Rogers, but I just don't see any way he's going to say healthy. Hope I'm wrong.

Or they could imitate the Cardinals and just undress Carpenter. As much as I hated Beast Mode, ripping Carpenter's clothes off after playoff wins was way way way way way worse. God, I hate the Cardinals.

Peralta, and it's not close for me. Easily the best stuff of anyone listed, and with a 3rd pitch could become a 1/2 type pitcher. Thornburg would be 2nd for similar reasons.

The Brewers averaged 25,000 fans in 2004 with their worst team of the last 35 years, and I can guarantee you if they had been in a playoff race the would've had 35,000+ every game. Pittsburgh's fan base is terrible.

I've got to agree here. There are a handful of current/former Pirates players who irritate me (such as Devil Eye Doumit, Gap-Toothed Jack Wilson, Jeff "Plunk" Karstens), but I find myself able to identify and empathize with Pirates fans. Even vuvuzela guy, who at least is showing up. I don't know how you guys can feel bad for a completely apathetic fan base. I hope they lose the rest of their games. Those "fans" don't deserve any better.

I would prefer Edwin Jackson, but Hamilton at 5/115 wouldn't bother me. And I really don't think he'll get more than that.

As if there wasn't enough evidence that that's a fairy tale already. I think he should win. I think there's no chance he will win.

12-4 from here on out. Which wins the 2nd wild card. Sweep the pirates, split the nationals, lose 2/3 to Cincinnati, sweep the last 6. That's my prediction and I'm sticking to it until it's impossible.

All al teams have a shot before the brewers. And I would think pretty much every team would claim him.

He also won MVP, batted .350, and had a WAR of 6.1. Aoki has a WAR of 1.1. Adjust that since I think his fielding is much better than the statistics are currently giving him credit for, and he might be a 2 WAR player by the end of the year. Very solid rookie season, but not a ROTY candidate in my opinion. Fiers should be able to throw 35 more innings this year (I hope they cut him off between 155-160) and hopefully get to a WAR of around 3 which probably wont be enough given the head start Miley and Lynn have. As a disclaimer, obviously I used WAR to compare these players while the voters most likely wont. I simply used it because it takes into account time played, position, and production...all of which voters will look at. yeah, i know, his rookie year was pretty unreal. probably one of the best rookie seasons ever, IMO. im just sayin, the only offensive rookies that are 1/2 that ive seen are Aoki and Harper, and if theres a case for Harper, theres a case for Aoki, too. doesnt really matter, NL ROTY is going to be blown away by the attention Trout will get with everything he's done this year. that kid is unreal. It'd be pretty cool if Trout won MVP. Fred Lynn is the only other person to do that. His rookie year was better than both Pujols' and Ichiro's incidentally. Assuming you use OPS+ or WAR. Pujols and Lynn are pretty comparable, with Lynn having a slight edge IMO. Suzuki is not in the equation.

Much rather have Skaggs than Bauer. And have little interest in upton. Wouldn't love that deal.

It appears he's a columnist at sportsfullcircle.com., whatever that is. Not sure if that makes him reliable or not. Hope so, because Arizona has some great pitching prospects.

Skaggs.

I agree fondy. Hart is about the same player at about a 25% discount. He's worth more than Pence IMO.

I wouldn't take Upton. I'd take Bauer & Skaggs and put them both in the rotation for 2013. It actually fills 2 slots in the rotation instead of 1. Probably just as effectively as Gallardo and Peralta (example). Or at least close to it. I have a very, very hard time believing Arizona would deal those two guys for Gallardo though.

NM

Just a point of clarification: lee is guaranteed $87.5mm including the $12.5mm buyout for 2016. Or $27.5 for 2016. I wouldn't take him for free let alone trade anything of value for him. Man, have the phillies screwed themselves with the contracts they've handed out.

I, just, wow. Why? Look at the results based on their past lists. Go ten years and out and look. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/top-100-prospects/all-time.html The 75-100 players are generally about 80% misses, with many laughable. They aren't much better on their 20-74 rankings. Heck, a lot of years their Top 10 rankings are a joke in hindsight. My point is that their ratings should be taken with a grain of salt not as the gospel as a lot of people here seem to do. I'm not saying that their ratings are completely worthless, but they shouldn't be given the reverence that many give them. Again, this is not a video game, guys' 'rankings' don't translate automatically to their skill in the game. As for trading quality for quantity, almost exactly 16 years ago, Sal Bando traded Greg Vaughn for a package including two guys from BA 'Top 100'. I'd bet that a lot of people here would have been all over that, especially when Marc Newfield started off as hot as he did. Bottom line, prospects are far for a sure thing. It is a major risk to start dumping all of your established talent for them, especially when you have a fallow farm system. Your odds of 'retooling' certainly are very low, you are more likely to end up in a Sal Bando/Dean Taylor cycle. If you start dumping guys for young talent, may as well do it full bore and admit that you are rebuilding. Do you think that Attanasio and especially Melvin are going to be on board for that at this point? 2006: 76. Jay Bruce 77. Dustin Pedroia 78. Kendry Morales 79. Jason Hammel 80. Josh Johnson 87. Ricky Romero 89. Andre Ethier 96. Matt Kemp 2007: 80. Jeff Samardzija 81. Daniel Bard 84. Ubaldo Jimenez 87. Brandon Morrow 88. Drew Stubbs 89. Kurt Suzuki 90. Matt Harrison 97. Wade Davis 2008: 93. Neftali Feliz 97. Chris Perez 99. Jeff Niemann 100. Drew Stubbs 2009: 77. Jonathan Niese 79. Jeff Samardzija 80. Desmond Jennings 81. Brett Lawrie 87. Freddie Freeman 88. Gerardo Parra 91. Chris Perez 97. Gio Gonzalez 98. Daniel Bard That's a lot of really good players in the 76-100 range. I didn't think prospects in that range were as good as they are until you pointed it out.

I nominate this post for crazy rant of the year. Bravo. FTR, I don't think it'll happen either, but I certainly think it's possible. Very unlikely, but possible.

He was already traded to Texas for Olt. I thought I read that somewhere. Like 23 times.

Disagree 100%, but I won't derail the thread.

I think it's funny that anyone takes anything Haudricourt says seriously, considering he thinks the Nationals "aren't likely to part with Brad Peacock" in a deal for Greinke. Umm, Tom, Peacock has been an A since December. I'll wait until a knowledgeable reporter weighs in on what the return might be. It's frightening how bad the Journal/Sentinel is on all non-Packer sports topics.

Depends what they think of Maldonado I guess. Pretty underwhelming return for Hellickson IMO, although I know a lot of people on here love Jimmy Nelson.