MLB: Cubs set to sign walker, garciapara
 

anybody have any opinions on garciapara? i think he has the potential to be a superstar again, and from what i hear the cubs are set to sign him to a one year deal at about $8mil or so a year. at that price i think the cubs could be sitting on a gold mine of value with him. walker also played GREAT off the bench last year, and with the starting job could be a real impact...especially with that lefty bat.

Anything the Cubs do seems to turn out wrong.

I'd be surprised if Nomar returns to his superstar form. A lot of people don't realize how serious his wrist injury was in 2001, no one in the history of baseball had ever come back from that type of injury, and it sapped a lot of his bat speed, which is why hes a .300+ hitter now instead of a .350+ hitter. I think it does say something when a year ago you were looking for a 4 year $60 million contract, and now he seems willing to take the 1/8 deal the Cubs are offering.

And if Walker is the starting second baseman next year I just hope for Cubs fans' sakes that there aren't many ground ball hit on the left side of the infield.

He played well with the Cubs last year when he played. The reason he isn't getting the big bucks is because he hasn't proven he can stay healthy. If he has a good year this year which i think he will he will cash in. I think Renteria would be a better fit with the Cub in my opinion.

He played well yes, but Nomar playing well is not the same as Nomar playing well 3-4 years ago. Back then Nomar playing well was worth $15+ mil, he was a top 5 defensive shortstop and one of the toughest outs in the game. Now Nomar playing well is maybe a $10+ mil player at best. His defense has been in subtle decline, and may take a dive if he doesn't come back completely recovered from his achilles injury, that can be an injury whose effects never leave you. Add that with the fact that he is now a .300/.360/.500 hitter instead of a .350/.420/.600, and you have a guy that is no longer worth what he once was.

Up until last spring Nomar was still going after the big bucks, now that hes hit the market hes realizing no one is gonna be getting $15 mil, Beltran might not even get that, nevermind a SS on the wrong side of 30. Don't get me wrong, Nomar is still a great player, and a top all around shortstop, but he is no longer the superstar caliber player that he once was.

i believe that the only thing that is dictating the noamr deal is his injury history, not his performance history at all. it is to the best interests of both nomar and whatever team signs him to make it a one year deal, very similar to the deal that pudge signed with the marlins two years ago.

if he performs well, and stays healthy for the year, i wouldnt be at all surprised to see him get a 3 year/30 million deal. his problem is that he signed a long term deal with the sox before the market peaked, and now that he is a free agent again the market has been depressed.

i think that if he can remain healthy, which is a big if, he will return to become one of the elite shortstops in the league. even after the wrist injury he showed in 02 and 03 (except for the slump at the end of 03), that he could hit for both average and power with the best shortstops in the game.

There's no doubt even now that Nomar can run with the best of the best shortstops when it comes to his offensive numbers, it's just that before his injury, he could run with the best of the best in the entire league. If he had been a free agent around 00-01 he probably would've gotten an ARod-esque deal. Even a 3/30 deal is a discount compared to what he turned down the two previous springs, he reportedly declined to accept offers of 4/60 and 4/48.

He's still one of the premiere shortstops in the game but he'll never be one of the most feared hitters in the game like he was pre-injury. It's really just a string of bad luck/bad in hindsight decisions that prevented Nomar from having a megadeal right now, signing a long term deal that looked good at the time, completely unknowing that a huge boom in the FA market was about to come, then the injuries that have plagued him in '01 and '04.

i really think that the entire difference in what nomar will get is from the downturn in the market, and also insurance companies not insuring risky contracts anymore. i believe that he will be a feared hitter again, and that his performance will be great, even if it doesnt reach his 1.000+ OPS mark of earlier in his career.

he did make bad decisions by not taking the sox money, but due to factors out of his control, he will not get the money that he was offered before.

Todd Walker is a awesome stick to have in the lineup and is a great club house guy but he is weak defensively... Im a reds fan and he played for them awhile. I thought he was great to have on the team even tho his defense was lacking.

I can deal with Walker's glove at second. Him being a lefty helps. However with Nomar and Walker up the middle that is a pretty weak double play combo. That will come back to bite us in the ass. The Cubs need to find a way to get Beltran. With him it wouldn't really matter.

there are actually scouts around the league that say walker's defensive reputation is a little overblown, and he's not as bad as people make him seem. he's not a gold glover, but people make him sound like he cant pick up a ground ball. i think nomar will have a good year -- last year he was slowed by injuries heavily. beltran is definatly the key free agent though, i would LOVE to get him but we'll definatly have to move sammy's contract if we want to sign beltran.

Don't be so confident that Beltran will solve all the Cubs' problems. He's a young superstar but offensively he was very similar to Moises Alou in 2004. The Cubs need to find a way to at least shed some of Sosa's contract, but I don't know why any team in their right mind would take him for any substantial amount of money right now.

Also, did Dusty Baker keep running Corey Patterson out in the lead off spot for the entire year? This just has to stop, Patterson doesn't get on base nearly enough to be a good leaf off hitter, he's not a great hitter for average nevermind his terrible plate discipline. And that DP combo of Garciaparra/Walker could be really ugly next year, Nomar was not good defensively last year, how much he'll be able to recover from his injury is impossible to say right now, and Walker's rep isn't overblown, he's one of the worst regular 2B in the majors.(defensively that is)

yeah i agree we do need a leadoff hitter, but there aren't that many left in the game. no beltran isn't a cure all, but he's a great defender, and he's a young stud with proven playoff performance.

No, comparing Beltran to Alou is like comparing a supermodel to Roseanne. Beltran steals bases, plays tremedous defense, hits from the left side, and plays extremely smart. Alou did none of this. He hit well, not as well as Beltran did though. Our problem is hitting and playing hard. I think this is what Beltran would bring. However it doesn't look like it will happen. Hopefully we can get Maggs or someone on his level.

I wasn't comparing Alou and Beltran, I just said last year they had similar offensive numbers, which they did.

Beltran: .267AVG/.367OBP/.548SLG 92BB/101K
Alou: .293/.361/.557 68BB/80K

We will agree to disagree Beltran also had more runs scored, 4 more triples, and 29 more steals. Not to mention he was a lefty which the Cubs desperatly need and to me there is no question as to who i would want based on offensive numbers alone. Other news is that Nomar signed a one year deal today with the Cubbies. Could be worth up to 11 Million.

Runs scored is a largely irrelevant stat when evaluating a player's production because it is so dependent on the hitters who bat behind a player in the line up. Same with RBIs, except they're dependent on who hits in front of a batter.

But anyways, looks like any team who wants Beltran is gonna have to get into a big bidding war, and the Astros just fired the first shot, reports are they offered a contract worth somewhere around 5/70 or 6/81.

I like Nomar at that price. If he has a year where he plays without injury he'll probably be the second best SS in team history. I like Walker too. Wish he would've played more last year, but hey, FUCK LAST YEAR.

I'm super skeptical about Dusty and where he's taking this team. Hopefully they can get rid of that cheating, useless, fuckwad in RF so I don't have to cheer for someone I hate.

Looking forward to another baseball season.

Grudz will be missed. He hit over 300 for the time he was with the Cubs. Also remember that we traded the drunken coke head Hundley for him. Too bad he is injury proned. I think Walker will do well as long as we have a sure fielding veteran on the bench for late game situations.

The Red Sox just signed Matt Mantei to a 1 year deal worth $750k.

750k?? holy shit. talk about the bargain bin. mantei will definatly have a rebound year.

If he can stay healthy. He seems to get hurt every year.

This is a great siging because theres so little risk, and the potential reward is huge. If he goes down with another injury, o well, the Sox got 10 decent innings out of him and are only out $750k, if he is healthy though, the Sox have an awesome shut down set up man who strikes out over 11 per 9.

yes, definatly a great signing for the sox. it's an all win situation, 750k is most certainly less than i thought he would sign for. i'm sure he has some incentive clauses that will bring the total value up, but in that case it works for both him and the sox.

If I remember correctly there are incentives that could bring the deal up to $2.5 milliong. Don't take my word though I'm not entirely sure if I heard this from a credible source.

There have been some really crazy signings recently. Injury prone Troy Glaus get $45 mil, Steve Finley gets almost $10 mil a year to patrol the spacious center field in Dodger Stadium until hes 41!, and the DBacks give Russ Ortiz something like 4/34. Some of the recent signings are insane, and it makes me wonder what some GMs are thinking this offseason.

Carl Pavano is reportedly being offered 4/40+, who knows what Beltran will get, injury prone and aging guys are already getting upwards of $10m/year, guys like Kris Benson, Jaret Wright, and Eric Milton are getting $7-8 mil a year, while Odalis Perez is reportedly only being offered $15 million for 3 years, and the best FA pitcher on the market currently has a grand total of....2 teams bidding for him. Sometimes its hard to fathom what some baseball execs are thinking.

Sox reportedly signed David Wells to a 2 year deal worth 8 million + incentives. I have a feeling that a lot of the high ticket free agents are gonna sign in the next week, especially Pavano, Pedro, and Renteria, not to mention the possible trade of Tim Hudson.

finley signed with the angels, and that's actually i think a great deal for them. he's a gold glover, he plays well under his age, and he averages 150+ games a year. wells is a decent signing, but i probably wouldn't have guaranteed him the 2nd year. already a crazy offseason..

Right, wrong SoCal team. Anyways, I think the Angels are going to regret this signing. He's been declining offensively the last three years to the point where last year he had .330 OBP and I don't think those GGs mean a whole lot, UZR has Finley pegged as a -23 defender the past 3 years.

uh declining in the last 3 years? do you even know what happened in the baseball world last year? finley won a gold glove, PLUS hit 36 (i believe) homers. not too shabby.

He has been declining offensively the past three years.
2002: .287/.370/.499
2003: .287/.363/.500
2004: .271/.333/.490

His walk rate also dropped for the third season from 11.3% in '02, to 9.8%, to 8.8% last year.

And Gold Gloves is one of the last things I would use to measure defense, among the Gold Glove winners from '04 are Jim Edmonds, a player whose range is pretty average and routinely jogs after fly balls to set up dramatic catches, Derek Jeter, who is widely regarded as having one of the worst ranges for a shortstop in baseball, and Bret Boone, who was below league average defensively for a second baseman in pretty much every statistical category this year.

I dislike Edmonds as much as anyone else and he does dive to make a dramatic catch but I think he has good range. He has made some of the most spectaculat catches i have seen. In all directions. I feel bad now writing goods things about this pud.

Edmonds probably does have one of the best abilities among major league outfielders of making unorthodox big catches, like his leaping catches that have saved a few HRs over the years. But I'm not sure if any current defensive metrics take these kinds of things into account, or if they'd even be significant enough over the course of a season to change anything. I do wonder how good of an outfielder Edmonds would be if he went all out after anything he could get near, add that with his ability to make the dramatic catches and he could probably be an amazing defensive player in all aspects.

wow yes that sure seems like a dramatic downswing in offensive numbers. those numbers are actually so close it shows what a CONSISTENT player finley is. is he a superstar? no. is he a VERY solid outfielder with good pop, a good glove, some speed, and he's durable.

I think you're missing the most important trend.
OBP
2002: .370
2003: .363
2004: .333

On base percentage is probably the most important offensive stat and Finley's has been steadily declining, and this year even his BA and SLG% showed signs of dropping off. His decreasing walk rate, which probably has the most predictive value of any of these stats, is also not a promising sign.

ok moneyball, thanks for spamming me with OBP, because nothing else is important, right? ask any baseball analyst what they think about the finley signing and they all give it two thumbs up.

So far the Kidd has failed to be wrong on any statement he has made. :rolleyes: I think finley is a good sign by the angels. It also looks like Renteria to Boston is a done deal. I think that is a really good pickup for them.

actually renteria could easily land with the cards -- he is saying money is not a big factor, and he wants to stay in st. louis. as long as st. louis can at least contend with boston's offer, renteria will stay put.

I don't remember ever saying that nothing else is important. And at least read the book before you criticize it, Moneyball was not about OBP being the most and only important stat in baseball, far from it. Moneyball was about finding inefficiencies in the baseball market, or finding skill sets that are widely undervalued by most people, and exploiting these things to maximize the production you get from line up without spending $80+ million.

His defense by UZR is not good, and his patience and ability to get on base have been in decline. I'm not saying this is a terrible signing, just that I don't think it was the smartest idea to commit $20 million to a center fielder whos gonna be 40 or over for the entire deal.

well when you become GM of a major league organization go ahead and pass on finley while getting in the beltran sweepstakes and see where that gets you. finley was the best CF on the market besides carlos beltran, and his asking price is ridiculous. i do not think he will decline, i think he's been a very consistent player over the years, and every GM/scout asked about the finley signing agreed it was a great signing for the angels.

Sorry my opinion doesn't agree with what a few interviewed GMs and scouts said, the numbers show that Finley is starting to decline, because of that I don't think that it was the greatest idea to commit that much money over two years to him. I'm reading on espn now that its only $13 million instead of the $20 that was initially reported. If the contract is for only $13 then this is obviously a better signing than I originally thought, but it still carries some risk.

13 million for 2 years of steve finley carries risk? now you're just scraping for reasons to still be "right."

Why does me defending my opinion turn into me "scraping for reasons to still be right"? He's a center fielder who's over 40, his patience at the plate and on base skills have been declining, and UZR does not have him as a good defensive center fielder, thats why I think this is a somewhat risky signing. I don't care if I'm considered "right" by anyone, I'm just supporting my opinion. Sorry if you have a problem with that.