Ennder

I'd be pretty surprised if Vargas was in the rotation. Wouldn't it most likely be Suppan, Bush, Sheets, Villanueva, Capuano with them trying to build up trade value for Capuano/Bush with early starts?

Anyone notice Counsell almost looks like a hitter this year. Last year it looked more like he was trying to jump out of the batters box and do a backflip he was reaching so high in the air. The bat is still high but it isn't as ridiculous and his swing looks a lot better because of it.

There was never a chance to lock up Prince long-term so not really sure why you would knock Melvin for that. Boras does not buy out arbitration years.

Phillips has absolutely no chance of matching Utley, he just doesn't BB enough. He is a great fantasy player but just a good real player.

Pitchers on average tend to be at their worst in the 1st inning and then the 3rd time through the order. Not sure this is a good idea at all. Having a very short leash with marginal pitchers after the 2nd time through the order is a good idea. Yanking them in the 2nd or 3rd inning probably is a bad idea.

My guess is the difference is Howard had a ROY and an MVP which ramps up the pay.

But if you throw Prince a little extra isn't it insulting to the other young guys if you don't throw them extra too? If their system isn't compensating enough they should change the system, but going outside of it for one player is just asking for a headache.

Yes they do, but studies have shown not every pitch takes the same toll. Minor league innings as an example are 'easier' than major league. The major reasoning is that in the majors these days you throw almost every pitch maximium effort. There are very few easy outs in the lineup where you can go on cruise control. So a pitcher today throwing 100 pitches is exerting something like 120 pitches worth of effort from a minor league pitcher. I'm a firm believer that if you take a 300 inning pitcher from the past and put him in todays game he'd either totally stink, would get injured pretty quickly or would have to cut down his innings significantly. A lot of those olden day lineups had 3 or 4 light hitters in them, that just isn't the case anymore.

Interesting discussion about pitchers but I think they are drawing the wrong conclusions. Pitchers cannot afford to just cruise these days, the lineups are just too strong top to bottom. Pitchers throw at max effort more so can throw fewer pitches total than before, not because managers dont' expect them to throw more, but because you cannot be effective unless you do.

I doubt Fielder ends up a Yankee. Teix will sign a long term deal with them next year and if he doesn't Howard will. Fielder is too far from free agency to be on their radar.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080302&content_id=2400416&vkey=spt2008news&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb Soriano will be out of action 3-4 days, he is also having some lingering leg issues. That Pie injury sounds painful, heh.

Not a big deal. Boras isn't going to let Fielder sign with the Brewers until free agency anyway so why would the team break its own system just for Fielder.

I'm semi worried that almost our entire bullpen walks after this year, but on the other hand I think we have some talent in the minors that could be viable and I'm sure we can sign a guy or two next year so I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Closer is not one of the more important players on the team, but a deep bullpen is very important.

Hunt had an article about Sheets in the paper today. The idea that a salary cap would keep Sheets a Brewer is absurd btw, in fact a salary cap would make it LESS likely that we keep him as in baseball you can temporarily go over budget to add a player in football you can't go over the cap. NFL has a salary cap and teams keep 1, maybe 2 stars tops longterm and there is more player movement than in MLB. The more popular/larger market franchises still have the advantage because players will sign for less for a team that is winning and can net them more endorsements. Teams like Arizona who are bad and poorly run still have no chance just like teams like the Pirates in baseball. Baseball is far from perfect but this notion that a salary cap would fix everything and let every team keep all their stars is just over the top.

Not sure how you see the Cubs with a win in LF either. At best that is a push in my opinion. Soriano is 32 as well, Aramis will be 30 this year, DeRosa is 33. That is a relatively old team compared to the Brewers. If you want to talk straight question marks there is not a single position on the Cubs team that doesn't come with a question mark other than Rich Hill so we aren't going to 'lose' that battle. Soriano - is he healthy? he is only going 75% in spring training. Lee - is his wrist healed? DeRosa - can he keep that BABIP up so he is still productive, will his heart cause problems? Theriot - can he actually hit? He had one good month last year. Ramirez - Is he going to be healthy? He had chronic type injuries last year that he didn't fix, just rested. Soto - Is he just a one year wonder? He was not good until his 3rd year in AAA. Pie - is he a AAAA player like Patterson? Fukudome - how long will the adjustment last and how is the elbow? Zambrano - is his arm dead, he has gotten worse 3 years in a row. Lilly - he has had one healthy yaer in his entire career and one year with good control, can he repeat it? Marquis - he fell apart in second half last year. Leiber - is he done? Dempster - can he be a starter? Marmol - will the league catch up to him, his BB rate was as bad as Turnbows in the 2nd half last year. Wood - can he stay healthy? You could do this same exercise with the Brewers but I don't get why the discussion always turns to the Brewers question marks and ignores the Cubs. This team has a ton of downside potential too. The Brewer bullpen might stink but so might the Cubs! Marmol BB's 5 per 9 again, Wood can't stay healthy. Howry's peripherals regressed last year. This Bullpen could be pretty bad too. The Cubs lineup could stink, if Lee doesn't get his power back, Aramis and Soriano continue to struggle with injuries and Pie, Soto and Fukudome don't explode onto the scene. The Cubs rotation could be pretty pathetic, Zambrano regresses again, their 4-5 starters look like ours did last year (marquis isn't any better than capuano and neither is leiber or dempster). If you are gonna play the what if game at least do it with both sides of the argument. From a straight up talent standpoint I think the two teams are pretty darn even, I just think the Brewers have youth on their side and that will make the difference. I think it was the difference last year as the team collapsed under the pressure and I think it will be the difference this year as the team has the experience to not do it again and the youth to stay healthier and improve on their current talent level more.

1) I think the Brewers were better than the Cubs last year, the team just choked it away with a bad month. 2) I think the Brewers improved more than the Cubs in the offseason. Fukudome doesn't seem like a huge upgrade over what they got in RF last year and that is the only big addition. 3) I think the Cubs have more potential holes in their team than the Brewers. Both teams could have flops at C. The Cubs could be a mess at CF, 2B and SS and who knows what Fukudome will do. 4) I think the Cubs have more downside than the Brewers, they have more players on the wrong side of their career who would be expected to regress. 5) I think the Brewers have more uspide than the Cubs. We have loads of talent that could take a step forward and improve their game especially in OBP and defense. In short I agree with you, if the Cubs don't trade for Roberts I'm going into the season predicting the Brewers come in 1st (something I haven't done in the past 10 years).

Ryan Howard won ROY in 2005 and MVP in 2006.

Hardy is too young to judge. In 2005 he had an .363 OBP in the second half and I think we can all agree his first half doesn't represent Hardy very well that season. In 2006 he had an .323 OBP in April and then in May he had a .179 BABIP before getting hurt. In 2007 he had a good OBP in April and May and then got hurt in June and tailed off the rest of the year. It is just not an easy body of work to judge just yet. His MLEs suggest he has a .350 OBP future in him given a .275 AVG and a 7-8% BB rate.

Seemed to work today, Braun with a HR in his first spring training AB, heh.

1) I don't think hitters are going to change the way they approach Braun when Hart is behind him. 2) Is it a bad thing for Prince to see more fastballs with Braun behind him? 3) A good hitter is a good hitter and Braun is a good hitter. He'll be fine. 4) If it doesn't seem to be working for some reason they can always just switch them back.

Cordero blew 7. (pared back nested quote --1992)

I hope he doesn't save 40, they need to baby him some to make sure he lasts the whole season.

One that looks at more than just last year. Very few players actually see a steady increase in OPS year to year. It jumps around a lot. I don't think ESPN has a very good system though so you are correct there. I expect Fielder and Braun to lose some OPS myself, I think Hardy(I'm mostly alone in this though~) and Weeks will gain some. Hart I dunno.

He only qualifies at 3B in fantasy. In some leagues he can't gain OF eligibility until next year, in many leagues not for 20 games. So he classified him correctly. He's wrong about Hardy though, he is a legit 20 HR guy.

Yeah the Estrada deal does look bad in hindsight but I still can't call it a bad move. There was no way to know the pirates would trade us Torres and we'd sign Riske and Gagne. If any of those other deals fell through I actually wouldn't mind Mota being on the team.