jackie hayes

It's nice to see you haven't carried the anti-Cub thing too far -- I want them to enjoy themselves too. But next time, no need to be so graphic...

I wonder what the source for that Maller report is, b/c I'm sure it's a typo. The St Louis Post-Dispatch initially reported the $8 mil per over 4 years, here. The Cards wouldn't even bother to offer a contract like that. You're offering the best shortstop on the market barely more than Christian Guzman, and a paycut -- less money than he's made in each of the last 3 years. It's too absurd to be true.

The Cardinals actually offered $32 mil, not $22 mil, so says Rotoworld. It's backloaded, so the value is a little less than $8 mil per. But I'd be surprised if he doesn't better offers than that.

I was relaxed...

What's truly "new" anyway? New, a week old, what's the difference? Why would fluff like this work you up? This is just another of the usual occasional offseason filler pieces. Next -- "Borchard not discouraged".

Yeah, but for $2 mil?

He looked terrible, just awful, defensively.

What's so bad about Dellucci? Granted: His splits are awful. But he's good against rhp, and he did it last season for $100K less than Timo. That is a good bargain. (As for being the BEST bargain, well, I don't know, but I don't care much about the ordering of these things.)

Odalis Perez, "a better buy than Eric Milton" -- try "better pitcher".

Who said those things you are paraphrasing in Sep and Nov? People have different opinions on this, whatever the general tenor of one discussion at one point in time. I've actually gone much the other way -- I used to be adamantly opposed to trading PK, but lately I've thought that it could work out for the best.

Good question, but it was released by the (current) Iraqi government, which would probably prefer to bias the results in the opposite direction. Or not. That was my initial reaction, b/c the US and Iraqi governments want everyone to think "All is well! ALL IS WELLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" But a report like this could also spur other countries to become more involved (at least financially), despite disagreements with the US. So it really could go either way.

Can you think of any other reason she would do this?

I just don't think Garland has quite the same 'following', for whatever the reason. Maybe it's Anna, I don't know. Still, that's not a best-case, but at least a pretty good-case scenario for Garland. If he's got a 4.70 era (not unimaginable), or a 5, you get little in a trade, and not much relief in arbitration -- maybe he's non-tendered. If you have Redman, you have a pretty consistent guy, you figure he averages 4.5 in the NL over the next 2 seasons. It's boring, but that stability might be worth the extra cost, which isn't too much.

Eh, I don't know about these numbers you're throwing out here -- you suggest Benson was having a breakout year, but he had an era of 4.22 when he was traded. Which is pretty close to what you said Redman could do in the NL (4.3). Yet here he has a 4.7.... Benson still has this #1 overall pick buzz -- I wouldn't count on quite the same return for Garland, even though he's probably just as good a pitcher. And NY was desperate. Last few days shows they still are.

No, I'm actually a big fan of Garland. I'm not trying to argue that Redman is, or will be, a better pitcher. I'm only thinking of the cost factor -- I can understand how an organization that wants to cut costs would rather have 2 years at a reasonable price than 1 year at an only slightly more reasonable price. He brings some stability instead of questions, that's all.

Maybe. But suppose you have a dim view of Garland's future. He's making $3.4 mil (he's not that cheap, really), and he's arbitration eligible. If he has a breakout year, fabulous, you sign him to a big contract and you're both happy. But if I'm a cost-conscious GM, I'm pretty scared by the thought that Garland has a fluke good year, and becomes too expensive to keep, and too unstable to sign. Redman does give you some cost certainty, and he's been pretty reliable.

Korean baseball stats mean precious little for MLB performance (probably not nothing, but almost) -- Brumbaugh is a good example. I cited the MLB stats of each pitcher. (Of course, the era isn't as telling as ip, the fact that noone had confidence enough to let either pitch more than 20 innings in a career.) I guarantee, you can comb through my posts here as fine as you want, you won't find me saying that stats in general are meaningless. As for his signing, yeah, we might find out, but I don't expect that'll be sooner than 2006, after a year in the minors (which has been my point all along -- I'm just saying, his ceiling is a total guess, but he probably won't be much in 2005). I never said he shouldn't get a shot.

If I'm the Pirates, I prefer Redman to Garland. Somewhat more established, and the contract's not up for a couple years. Garland's as likely to be gone in 2 years, anyway.

Even his agent implied that it would take time for him to adjust. The pitchers attesting to his plate discipline: Daniel Rios, ML experience of 9.2 innings, 9.31 era. Shane Bowers, ML experience of 19 ip, 8.05 era. What do they know? Maybe he will be a good ML player someday (even that is questionable -- he'll have to make a lot of adjustments at the age when he should be in his prime), but it's not going to be this year.

I meant that B-H Kim is not very popular. Jung Bong (a name I love almost as much as So Taguchi) hasn't been disappointing or arrogant enough to be unpopular.

Byung-Hyun Kim.

Then (going off TLAK's example) you'll DEFINITELY want Cliff Brumbaugh on the Sox -- his obp this year was .608, which is .265 higher than his batting average. These numbers simply aren't in any way comparable to numbers we see in the US pro ranks. Again, I'm not saying the Sox should not sign him -- if the Sox scouts like him, I trust their judgement on that. But the stats tell us next to nothing.

Obviously the 2 are correlated -- he gets pitched around b/c he's one of the best hitters in the KBO, which raises his obp. Is he's not as fearsome a hitter here (which would almost certainly be true in his first year), his obp would drop sharply. TLAK's right, you can't depend on his numbers. If the scouts think he'll translate, sign him. Even then, he'll probably be more like a prospect in his first year in the US.

WAY too much. He'll only get a minor league deal here, I think, for maybe 500k.

Btw, welcome! Neat idea, I hadn't heard of him before.