Cubs Rumors: Harden, Grabow, Zambrano

Resigning harden at 5-7 mil guaranteed per year for 2 yrs wouldnt be bad.
Then flipping him at the trade deadline would net some good prospects.
As far as bradley goes he was a cancer last year but maybe jaramilo could work his magic on bradley 1 more time and they could flip him at the trade deadline for something without eating as much as 25% of his salery. When bradley keeps his racist or reverse racist mouth shut and focuses on playing ball like he used to in texas he isn't that bad of a contract.
Both players should net some good prospects if they stay healthy.

should read Bradley for Rowland

Not to mention the fact that Rowand is not nearly as good offensively. Rowand's OPS+ the last 5 years: 93/86/124/94/90. Bradley's: 154/121/168/161/99.

Bradley's year last year was clearly flukey, and he's bound to bounce back somewhat. He may not manage 161 again, but he will certainly outperform Rowand. Rowand's UZR/150 last year was 1.5, so it's not like he's a magical defender, either.

Still, given the non-performance-related issues, I understand why Bradley has to go. Why not sign Cameron? OPS+ the last 5 years: 114/121/104/111/111, with a UZR/150 of 10.3. OK, he's older and more likely to drop off, and he's Yet Another Righty. But at this point, I think he's a better option than Rowand.

Soriano's another story. While I think Bradley will rebound, I'm not convinced about Soriano. He's a couple years older than Bradley, and has been steadily declining each year.

I worry about where our offense is coming from over the next year or so.

"So they're moving a guy that hit 11 HR's and drove in 54 runs to right field? Yeah, that production should matchup well against the Phillies (Werth 36 HR's 99 RBI) and Dodgers (Ethier 31 HR's 106 RBI) right fielders.

Posted by: MPM | November 10, 2009 at 10:37 AM"

What do those guys have to do with Fukudome? Oh, NOTHING. They aren't trying to play this dumb game of roster comparison, they're trying to move him to RF because he's not as valuable defensively in CF.

The Cubs have Rammy at 3B, while the Dodgers have Blake and the Phillies had Feliz. Does that matter? NO. Teams have different points of strength and weakness, so saying moving Fukudome to RF is bad because of who other teams have there is just stupid.

"Then flipping him at the trade deadline would net some good prospects."

We could have, and should have, traded him last year if we were really interested in getting prospects for our players. Signing him with the idea of moving him at the deadline for prospects likely isnt going to happen around here.

"As far as bradley goes he was a cancer last year but maybe jaramilo could work his magic on bradley 1 more time"

As I mentioned yesterday to someone else, take a look at Bradley from 07 to 08 – he was basically the same exact hitter. Same ISO. Similar BB/K (dropped a bit in Tex). His BB% went up, but his K% spiked just the same. Similar speed (dropped a bit in Tex). Same zone-swing percentage, same out-of-zone swing percentage, same swing percentage, similar contact rate (went down a bit in Tex)…

There are only two things that really changed from 07 to 08.
1) playing time. He managed to get 510 PA as a DH in Tex
2) BAbip. It was a reasonable .329 in 2007 and unrealistic .396 in 2008 whle playing in a park notorious for inflating BAbip and hitting production overall.

Jaramilo didnt have control of those things though.

Yes, playing roster comparison like that doesn't make much sense, but it does point to the issue of production. As in, where will the offensive production come from?

If Fukudome stays in CF, then the Cubs can either keep Bradley or replace him with another run-producer in RF. If they move Fukudome to RF, then they (theoretically) need a run-producer in CF, which is much harder to come by.

Suzysman: The fact Bradley offers so much more value than Rowand while playing 2/3 of the time kind of shows that he'd be even more valuable over a full season. It depends on the OPS+ of his replacement, I suppose.

mmontice,

That is one of the more level headed posts I've read regarding the Bradley situation here in a while. Most of the trades I've seen have the Cubs taking on additional salary (either by taking on an average player with a bigger contract or by paying a large part of Bradley's salary while also taking on the acquired player's full contract). This is a lot of money to pay to get rid of an unpopular player...while doing nothing to improve the product on the field. If the Cubs decide they absolutely can't live with Bradley, then they are better off just releasing him. Still, losing $20 million isn't a good option either, it's possible they just might be stuck with him, so they might have to start thinking about how to begin to repair Bradley's image...if he can play nice with the media for a few months and be productive, hopefully it'll be easier to trade him and get something worthwhile in return. As much as people don't like it, the Cubs may be better off looking a couple of years down the road when some bad contracts finally start to expire and prospects like Vitters, Castro, Brett Jackson and Jay Jackson become ready to contribute.

If you are talking about moving Bradley with his bad attitude and bad work ethic. Move him. Sign free agent LF and move Soriano and his bad defense to second base. Allow Sam Fuld to play center and Fukudome to play right field. Your starting left fielder and your power bat can be signed on a one year contract with a base salary with numerous incentives in his contract. The left fielder...no other than Barry Bonds.

So many other teams fans want the cubs to give up the farm or the bank to get rid of bradley.
In reality he sould be fined several thousand dollars every time he says anything derogatory to the media, fans, or anyone else and jaramilo did improve bradley in texas I dont care what suzy says.
Bradley gets fined severly untill he has to shut his mouth then the cubs may recoop some small amount of his bad contract. He needs a good p.r. man to help for sure to make him net a good trade prospect.
Yes the cubs should have flipped bradley, harden, heilman and miles last year but it didnt happen we have to hope for better decisions this year.
Now with my 2 cents in you wanta-be gm's can get your " quotation marks ready "

"The Cubs should sign Mike Cameron."

I agree. Him or Coco Crisp. Why not? We need a speedy contact-hitting CF, and Sam Fuld needs a little more seasoning in AAA. He can get called up at some point during the season if somebody gets injured or is playing terribly.