How much would you pay...

[DrungoHazewood]

Well, we could move Mora to LF.

If it took 5/75 to get ARam here, is that a contract you would give him(even if you felt it was overpaying)?

That's an option, but it does limit who else you could bring in because you've locked up DH/OF with Mora/Patterson/Markakis/Gibbons.

If he's up for it, I'd make Mora a supersub, getting reps almost everywhere and keeping everyone fresh. Not bad when you can give almost the entire lineup a day off once every week and a half, and still plug in a .750-.800 OPS guy. That's Tony Phillips without the paranoia. That's an asset.

[Pheasants]

A question to tie other threads to this. How does Adam Stern effect anyone's thinking on who to get for LF? Only .258/.300/.388 this year, but .321/.385/.494 last year (both at Pawtucket). Is he part or all of a solution?

[TonySoprano]

Well, we could move Mora to LF.

When there wre rumors about trading for Lowell, Beattie was quoted as saying, "I wouldn't move Melvin out of third base unless Brooks Robinson came back." (reference - Washington Post, July 19, 2005 ). I wonder if that is still the philosophy of the organization. We know that Mora's preference is to remain at third base.

Mora said. "I'm not a center fielder anymore. I'm not an outfielder anymore. I'm a third baseman. I cannot go over there to look ridiculous in front of a million people to try to catch a fly ball and [have] the ball go over me. ... I'd just like to have a little bit of respect."

Source - Baltimore Sun, February 27, 2006

[erb8472]

Mora said. "I'm not a center fielder anymore. I'm not an outfielder anymore. I'm a third baseman. I cannot go over there to look ridiculous in front of a million people to try to catch a fly ball and [have] the ball go over me. ... I'd just like to have a little bit of respect."

Source - Baltimore Sun, February 27, 2006

Shame Conine didn't have the same opinion of himself. That PA (or is it AB ) option wouldn't even be a question right now.

[mweb]

I guess if you want to take Jay Gibbons ceiling and Carlos Lee's floor and compare them, then yes, they're pretty close. And that's if Gibbons stays healthy. You're ignoring a lot of things if you say the only difference between the two is .010 points in OBP.

Yeah, exactly, for some reason SG continues to like to say this even though he's been called out on it numerous times. They're somewhat similiar, but there's more like a .040 difference in OPS, not just .010 in OBP. And that's only factoring in Jay's last 2 seasons, and this season isn't the biggest sample size.

[mweb]

However, having some guys (like Gibbons, Roberts and Markakis and 4 of the 5 starting pitchers and closer) who are very underpaid allows you to overpay a few just as long as they are gone or in the last year of their contracts when you have to start paying the other guys.

It won't happen but besides a couple smart relief pickups (maybe), I would sign two of those players, if available:

Aramis Ramirez for 5/$75

Nomar Garciaparra for 2/$16 with a chance with incentives and an option to make it 3/$30 or 3/$33.

I would also sign Zaun for a year or two.

I would also sign Jose Cruz jr. to platoon with Patterson.

Roberts-2b

Markakis-rf

Tejada-ss

Ramirez-3b

Nomar-1b/dh

Mora-lf

Gibbons-dh/1b

Hernandez-c

Patterson/Cruz-cf

Nomar will be offered more than that by a much more attractive team to him imo. Looks pretty good though.

[wildcard]

That's a curious statement since his 2003 season was better than his 2005. Why do you make the cutoff for your projections at 2004?

It has nothing to do with Lee. I just have always thought that one year is not enough to evaluate a player on. Two years is better but if there is an injury or production varies for any reason a third year is needed to get a good trend. When you are projecting forward, four years ago is a long ways away. Players can change alot over time and the closer you stay to the current capabilities the better without looking at a small sample.

Some people weight the stats. 45% for the current year, 35% of two years ago, 20% for three years ago. I find that that is complicated. These are only projection. If you try to get too fine with them, I think you only kid yourself. No one has a crystal ball. To think that more detailed analysis gets closer to the true is often way past the capabilities for the numbers. These are humans and there are other things going on in their lives. I think a broad analysis is about as far as one can go.

I think you do have to factor in age. 35 and older are definitely years of decline of most players.

This is just my way of think about it. I am sure others have very good logic for looking at it differently.