when the cubs/brews make big moves and the cards, after 2/3s of a decade of dominance, are now looking up at them…

Sorry to be nitpicky.

not a slide rule, an algorithm chart, or a byzantine statistical formula that would prove you cud hang an elephant off a cliff by tying its tail to a daisy.

So because you (clearly) don’t understand something, you don’t like it?

The “stats on the back of a baseball card” (I assume you’re talking about batting average RBI etc) are all ridiculously flawed and holding to that belief is the difference between the Mariners having Richie Sexson and the Rays having Carlos Pena. Aside from the fact that those stats really aren’t that complicated—-unless weighting singles/doubles/etc by their impact on run scoring is too complicated—-they’re better.

Question, how many times did you even watch Jody Gerut this year to make the claim that watching him lets you tell you how good he was?

is pretty strongly correlated with losing franchises. I think it is pretty funny that someone who calls himself a moocow and litters his posts with “cowisms” would refer to anyone as a nerd.

black and white people segregated from everything too…there are a reason things change because there are better ways to do things…we now know that you can judge a player better than how many of his teammates get in scoring position in front of him. you can actually see how many runs he creates on his own…there are reason dairy farmer dont go out and milk every cow by hand anymore because there is a BETTER WAY TO DO THINGS!!! if you cant accept that i feel sorry for you more than anything else.

Allow me to translate your post:

“I don’t agree with that stat. I really don’t have any reason, other than my gut, which tells me that Peavy is a feaking stud. Oh, and I have seen Peavy play, and I’ve heard of him before. Because of all this, I reject the validity of the entire statistic and conclude that the "Sabernerds” are getting out of hand with their dumb statistics. Their statistics are so dumb, that I’m not going to attempt to figure them out or understand them. Besides, we have stats like RBIs and HRs that measure players’ performance. We’ll just use them."

A good gamble. Didn’t I read something that the San Diego medical team found something that the Cubs missed in Prior’s shoulder?

Something I noticed in comparing baseball-reference.com info on the two pitchers. Peavy got to the majors two years earlier than Hudson. Hudson’s “Age 27” season was his fifth MLB season while Peavy’s was his seventh. Hudson was injured in his 10th season which is comparable to Peavy having issues in 2011.

I ran a report for starters who have an ERA+ of 120 or higher in their 8th or later season over the last three mlb seasons. Not sure if that was the “correct” stat or threshold to choose, but the list is pretty short (19 starters count for 27 occurences). There are a total of 83 times a starter has hit the threshold regardless of their mlb experience during 2006-2008.

Investing in pitching is risky. I don’t understand why people sometimes can’t accept that basic premise. People can contort themselves in pretzels trying to explain why pitcher x is different, and it probably is true that some pitchers are more likely to sustain performance than others. To me, it’s still a little like saying playing blackjack is safer than playing roulette.

It doesn’t mean you don’t ever invest in them, but when you do you need to accept that it is a gamble. Sometimes gambles pay off, and sometimes you are driving home broke and eating ramen noodles for a month.

because we never had him. As for your assertion that Peavy represents a bigger upgrade than Rasmus over the course of control we would have over them, there is absolutely no evidence to support your claim.

“Teams are getting smart and renegotiating contracts before their players come up for FA.”

That’s precisely why we should keep Rasmus, he will be one of those players for us! Trading one (or three) of those players for a high cost pitcher isn’t what smart teams do.

“My point was simple. We have boatloads of talented outfielders both at the ML level and in the minors.”

We saw at the end of last season how quickly a surplus can turn into a liability. Our loaded and talented OF saw both Felipe Lopez and Aaron Miles playing there in September. Our bullpen was viewed as our team’s greatest strength coming into this season….we know how that turned out! Its amazing how quickly things can change…that’s why holding onto Rasmus is so important.

“We even have 2 young 3rd basemen that can probably converted to RF or LF if needed.”

Why worry about converting someone into a position they will suck at defensively when we have a great defensive CF who could contribute greatly with the bat as well?

“What our organization does not have is ANY, and I mean ANY potential aces anywhere in the system.”

Ridiculous. There is no way to make this type of claim. Wainwright still has some projection in him, and is plenty good already. Sure, we don’t have a high profile pitching prospect, but who does? We have some guys who could be mid rotation starters fairly soon, and there is plenty of value in that. Pursuing the idea of a “true ace” causes many teams to over reach and pay too much to acquire them. See Erikkkkk Bedard, and our own Mulder, talked about in the post above.

Rasmus’ combo of defense, offense, and speed will make him a more valuable player than Peavy very quickly. Others have outlined above how many players were better than Peavy last year and contributed more to their teams. Rasmus will be in that list, let’s make sure it happens when he’s in our uniform.

First, you can’t honestly be serious about being able to replace Rasmus with Chris Duncan or John Jay, can you? I’m not buying the whole “an outfielder is an outfielder, and they are easily replacable — hell, lets just move our third basemen out there.” Miles pitched an inning this year, didn’t he? Doesn’t mean its a good idea, or that you will get similar performace. I’m not saying Rasmus is going to be the next Willie Mays, but he might be the next Beltran. And I don’t think anyone would seriously argue that we could trade 5 years of young, cost controlled Beltran simply because we could replace him with Skip Schumaker or Brett Wallace. Have you seen Wallace, by the way? Not to make fun of the guy, but I don’t think he’s cut out to play any position that requires speed.

Your first sentence sums it up, doesn’t it? The fact that the free agent market is going to get worse is precisely the reason to hold on to young talent. You grow it from within. I agree that trading from a position of strength is a great way to improve a team, but why trade your best, youngest player for someone at the height of their earning and playing potential — there’s no where to go but down. We don’t even know what Colby can do — lets find that out first before we throw it away for someone who will do nothing but eat up a chunk of our salary and get worse over the next 5 years. Buy low, sell high. Not the reverse.

We have boatloads of talented outfielders both at the ML level and in the minors. We even have 2 young 3rd basemen that can probably converted to RF or LF if needed.

But none of them are potential 5-tool All-Stars like Rasmus is…The closest would probably be Jones, but from watching the both of them play in Springfield, I’d say hold on to Colby and don’t let go of him. We could afford to trade away Jones.

as a pitching prospect or TINSTAAPP!

If you are refering to injuries then I seem to recall a “golden boy” in our AAA system that went down for awhile with injuries. I also seem to recall a big slump. One of our outfielders was injured so much in his 20’s, that he finally healed and made a big splash in year 30. My point is that you can’t count on one side getting hurt and another not. Injuries happen.

Is gutting the farm club worth saving a few million dollars for the next few years? I don’t think it is, nor is it necessary.

People ignore salary a lot of times when talking about these things. You can’t though, it’s a huge part of this. Peavy’s contract isn’t horrible, but he could only outproduce what he gets paid by so much, and a lot of downside pain there. Rasmus is all upside financially, and the only downside pain is the length of time it would take to figure out he doesn’t have it if he were to flop.

You summed it up really well there.

as he COULD become an excellent player for free."

Yes Rasmus has the skills that translate well to the major leagues. However he has do two things so far at the major league level…Jack and Squat. Now Peavy on the other hand has a track record of “ace-like” performance. There has to be a middle ground somewhere. Who would you trade Rasmus for then? Is there anybody? I’m not suggesting we trade for PEavy, but I don’t think Rasmus has earned anything yet. This is one thing though that must be considered. I know there is a lot of “proven-vet” Larussa bashing, but at least it paints a clearer picture.