guapo34

Can't really comment on the entire trade until its official. Obviously I love getting Crisp...but hate giving up Marte. The Guardians get the better talent, but we get the better talent for this year, and probably next year too. Marte could easily take 2-3 years before hes an above average major league player, but it will certainly happen. Crisps' road numbers make me believe he could put up close to a .900ops as a center fielder. Thats pretty damn good. And if you think its rediculous to think he could put up a .900 OPS, his road OPS was .888 last year, and hes only 26. He hits more than enough to play a corner outfield position if we decide to move him there in 2007. And if the Herald is wrong I'll still be happy.

He didn't trade Bagwell, and there were indications that Texeirra wouldn't sign unless he recieved more money than would've been imaginable at the time. Obviously its very easy to look back now and say that was a huge mistake. At the time I'm not sure it was criticized so heavily. No one has said Theos guys weren't extremely important in the championship. No one is that stupid.

Considering Crisp would be more than $11 million cheaper than Renteria, yes. I don't like this comparison though. Renteria + $11 million for Marte was a really good deal. Now we have Marte, so why would we compare Rentaria to what we get for Marte?

I've always felt Duquette was underapreciated. Theres a good chance we don't win the world series without his time with the club. He didn't just trade for Pedro with Boston either. He was the guy in charge in Montreal when they traded for him. He traded for the guy twice! One thing he was terrible at was developing players. He seemed to pretty much give up on the farm system in his final years here. He also left other clubs frustrated when talking trades. He never returned phone calls and that bothered a lot of people.

Heck i think he could give up 2 runs in 7 innings and reporters would ask him after the game, "what went wrong out there pedro?"

Just wanted to post more positives on Crisp. His road number were far better than his home numbers last year. This is also true of Hafner and Sizemore. I didn't realize how much of a pitchers park Jacobs field is. .888 OPS on the road. .370 obp, .518 slg., 12 HR

No one was a bigger pedro fan than me, but i really think by the end of that contract hes not going to be anything special. At times last year his fastball topped out at 89. His change up which has been so deadly through the years just isn't as hard to hit when its only 4-7 mph slower than his fastball. It didn't catch up with him last year, but he was hitters with little to no experience against him.

Grady Sizemore isn't going anywhere. People who think Marte is worth Sizemore are either overvaluing Marte or undervaluing Sizemore. He's 23, put up better numbers than Crisp offensively, and is much better defensively too. Crisp is still very good though, and is a major upgrade over any of our in house CF options. Its tough to speculate on how good the potential deal is without knowing all the other players involved. If the players we're getting minus crisp are better than the ones we're giving up minus marte it makes it pretty close to a fair trade in my opinion. Just to speculate, what if we could move the other guys in the trade to get Julio Lugo. Now we've filled 2 holes and improved our team from last year that won 95 games. I would hate to see us trade Marte, but I think I'd be able to understand.

Manny is almost as bad in right as Griffey is in center. Moving Manny to right field would be a disaster. Manny's arm is good cuz hes accurate and has a quick release. Those throws would get a lot longer from right.

Terrible suspension. The guy was protecting his wife, and didn't put his hands on anybody. How can you expect someone to sit there and watch while their wife gets harassed? Ray Allen got 3 games and Keyon Dooling got 5 games for fighting on the court. With Dooling getting 5 for trying to go after Allen in the back. Is what davis did as bad as what Dooling did?

Conditioning, speed, and strength would all increase. I don't really buy the theory that aim "gets off" either.

Clement was horrible for a number of starts before being hit in the head. When he came back he actually put together a string of 3 or 4 good starts, then proceeded to suck again. Getting hit with the comebacker had nothing to do with his poor performance.

Excellent news

This isn't a fair comparison at all. Arroyo wasn't eligible for free agency and won't be for another 3 years. This deal doesn't change that at all. Hes going to make more this year than he would've in arbitration. He may make less in the third year of the deal, but a million in 2006 is more valuable than to get it in 2008.

From reading Rob Neyer, who is a Royal fan, sadly their farm system is very thin. They have 1 really good positional prospect, one pretty good one, and no one else that could make much of an impact.

Reread my post, i don't think I'm the one missing the sarcasm.

Trade Matt Clement??? and only get Pujols for him? Are you crazy!

You might be lazy but you have a good memory, its exactly .328. I'd be willing to bet Youks has a higher OBP than Boggs' career best BA of .366. A .328 OBP out of Youk would be beyond awful. Of course ideally you'd like your leadoff hitter to have some speed. I don't think theres anyone out there in the rumored trades thats fast and hits well enough to hit leadoff though. Joey Gathwright? Jeremy Reed? I wouldn't mind getting either of these guys, but would much rather them hit at the bottom of the order with Youk and Loretta 1-2.

Yeah, we're picking 21, but the * was next to every playoffs teams name forever.

I agree with everything you say. I just think its a lot of money to turn down. Especially for a man with a family which i believe he has. Also, there is the whole ego thing that most coaches have. You have to think Mangini is going into this thinking he can make a huge difference.

While I agree this is a very tough job from him its easy to see from his end. This year was the first time hes made decent money coaching. And now his pay is gonna at least triple again. If he fails as a head coach, the worst thing that could happen is he gets another defensive coordinator position, probably paying more than hes making now.

The mock draft order was put together before the playoffs started. By winning in the first round I think it puts us behind the teams that lost. I could be wrong, but espns draft list puts us at 21 http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/draft06/news/story?id=2278820 but says its still subject to the playoffs. I think this would mean that those losing in the first round would jump ahead of us. Anyone know if our exact spot is determined yet?

While I wish he stayed, I'm shocked the Jets wanted him this badly. I know hes a good coach and we've heard lots of good things about him, but when was the last time a coach this young with only one year of defensive coordinator experience got a head coaching job.

I really hate to keep coming back to this cuz its such a stupid argument but i can't just ignore you. You say you're talking about a single player, not team philosophy. It doesn't really matter. My argument is still that you have to consider both offense and defense, while for someone you seem to be arguing that defense is far more important. I'm not saying you put a guy out there that can't play the position. I'm arguing that a worse defensive player can still be more valuable if hes a lot better offensively. You somehow refuse to believe that possible. The idea that since other teams in the league have good hitting so we should focus on defense makes no sense. We should put the best players, and the best team out there. If its easier to get offensive players, and we'll be better with them overall, then thats the way you go. If great defensive players are better overall cuz their offense isn't much worse, then great you go that way. It still makes no sense that you think the media is wrong while you call yourself the biggest gammons lover here. If you think hes wrong, then you either think hes being lyed to or is lying in his report. And yet you read everything he writes? Why? so you can assume the opposite is true? I guess the one thing we do agree on is if the price is a lot cheaper for Reed you go after him, and if the price is a lot cheaper for Crisp you go after him. I never said we should give up marte for Crisp. I've said exactly the opposite. So I'm not sure why you felt the need to bring that up again.

On the Reed deal, I like it. We really need a center fielder and I like Reed. I've said a few times I like Crisp better, but that doesn't mean i don't like Reed. His minor league numbers were really good and haven't translated to major league success at the plate yet but I'm optomistic he can improve. I would hate to see the yankees get Milledge, but I find it hard to believe they'd trade sheffield. This would absolutely be a downgrade this year. Doesn't seem like a Yankee type deal. I hope its not true. I'm skeptical on the validity of this site.