For What it's worth.....

[JTrea81]

With all the holes on the team a 30 year old reliever is not on my list of players we have to keep.

The fact that he is under control for four years is the reason that we can get some nice prospects to fill holes for us.

The reason Sherrill was added to the deal was to come here close for a few months raise his trade value and than look to move him to add more prospects.

And how sold are you that Sherrill is this great answer in the pen? He is already 30 years old and if we keep him instead of trading him for some young positional prospects it would be a huge mistake.

The guy dominated in the minors and the majors. He's been good vs. LH and RH hitters. Sherrill wasn't added to be trade bait IMO. He was added because we needed a guy to stablize the pen and Trembley wanted a guy like him. BB has already said he isn't going anywhere and I'm glad. I'll actually have confidence in one of our relievers going up against tough LH hitters like Ortiz, who have crushed guys like Walker and even BJ Ryan.

And there are a ton of relievers that are 30-33 that are plenty effective. It's not like he's pitched a ton of innings.

[Rocky1983]

Marquis and Marshall can stay in Chicago, in my opinion. I would rather see a deal of Colvin, Veal, Gallagher, Cedeno, and PTBNL Tony Thomas for Roberts& Payton plus $2million.

Both Marquis and Marshall have 4.5+ ERA's in the NL which would be close to 5.0 or higher in the AL. If I had to live with one it would be Marshall because he is younger. The O's can use this trade to fill some positional player positions to beef up the minor league system.

[davearm]

The bolded statement really irritates me. The 'top 6 or 7 under discussion' has been constantly changing as players are taken off the table or labeled untouchable. If we can't get the best of the limited players available, then the Cubs can really look elsewhere.

"Pie's untouchable, now Colvin is, Ceda probably is, we're high on Veal, oh, and of the guys remaining, you can have every even one in the rankings but not the top three. Unless it's Wednesday...Gallagher's untouchable on Wednesdays."

If it irritates you that Roberts isn't worth what yo think he should be, that's on you.

[Cubsfan]

You OHers are brutal. Everytime there's a hint of the deal heating up, the posts turn into "5 players for 2", "Pie/Colvin/Ceda included", etc.

[davearm]

He could be PTBNL, correct?

To my knowledge, that's never been done in these circumstances.

[hoosiers]

If it irritates you that Roberts isn't worth what yo think he should be, that's on you.

Dave, you are the last person here to heckle another poster about Roberts' worth.

For about 1000 posts and two months, you were telling us that Roberts is worth Gallagher, Murton and Cedeno. Nothing more. Nada.

[Crazysilver03]

You OHers are brutal. Everytime there's a hint of the deal heating up, the posts turn into "5 players for 2", "Pie/Colvin/Ceda included", etc.

The 5 for 2 is coming from the Cubs side, dont pin that on the OH.

[Migrant Redbird]

LOL why would the O's trade Roberts for Chris Duncan when they could get Matt Murton and two or three other guys from the Cubs instead?

Duncan's no better than Murton. Somewhat different, but not better.

Duncan is an established major leaguer, who will be the starting left fielder in St. Louis this year. I expect him to be platooned less in 2008, although it's difficult to tell with La Russa. Duncan's OPS+ was 140 in 2006; it was on a pace to be 150 or 160 in 2007 until he was injured.

Murton is a prospect -- a somewhat "fading" prospect until he posted a strong August and September last year. He burst upon the scene with a 132 OPS+ at the age of 23 in 2005, but that was only over 140 total at bats. Given much more exposure in 2006, he faded to an OPS+ of 104. Last year, he started off weakly and was relegated to the minors for a while. Even with that strong finish, his OPS+ for the 2007 season was only 100.

As I say, Murton is a prospect, who might still turn into an all star performer. On the other hand, I believe that Duncan is more of an established major leaguer. He still needs to prove that he doesn't need to be platooned, but he's going to put up monster numbers against right handed pitching.

Murton has more speed, although Duncan is faster than he's demonstrated. I'm assuming that Murton's glove is better -- it could hardly be worse -- but Duncan's glove would be irrelevant if he were primarily a DH. The biggest difference to this point is in slugging -- Duncan has a career slugging mark of .528, compared to .455 for Murton, and Duncan's stats were depressed because La Russa kept playing him last August and September when it was obvious that "sports hernia" (whatever that is) was seriously impeding Duncan's ability to swing a bat. Duncan had 20 home runs by the end of July; he finished with just 21 for the season. There was no excuse for continuing to play Duncan through his injury, but La Russa's ego insists that he can force players through their incapacities.

MurtonYear Ag  G   AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI BB  SO  BA   OBP  SLG OPS+2005 23  51 140  19  45  3  2  7  14 16  22 .321 .386 .521 1322006 24 144 455  70 135 22  3 13  62 45  62 .297 .365 .444 1042007 25  94 235  35  66 13  0  8  22 26  39 .281 .352 .438 100Total   289 830 124 246 38  5 28  98 87 123 .296 .365 .455 108DuncanYear Ag  G   AB   R  H  2B 3B HR RBI BB  SO  BA   OBP  SLG OPS+2005 24   9  10   2   2  1  0  1   3  0   5 .200 .200 .600  982006 25  90 280  60  82 11  3 22  43 30  69 .293 .363 .589 1402007 26 127 375  51  97 20  0 21  70 55 123 .259 .354 .480 115Total   226 665 113 181 32  3 44 116 85 197 .272 .356 .528 125

Over the next 7 years, PECOTA projects Duncan at 0.260/0.355/0.476/0.830 with clearly subpar defense in LF; Murton shows 0.294/0.360/0.460/0.820 with roughly average defense in LF.

And how does PECOTA factor in Duncan's August 2007 OPS of .541, or his September OPS of .422? You can't blindly use projections without knowing a little bit about what influenced the numbers going into them.

Duncan's 7-year WARP comes in at 15.2 in 2976 PAs; Murton is at 10.8 in 1984 PAs. Normalize for PAs (since WARP is a counting stat), and Murton jumps to 16.4.

All of which becomes a little irrelevant when one recognizes that Duncan was a late bloomer in the minors. Minor league stats can be used for projections when they're all that you've got, but major league stats are a lot more meaningful once the player has sufficient playing time.

Duncan burst upon the scene with 22 home runs in just 280 at bats in 2006. Cardinals fans got excited, but most of us recognized that it was only a half season, so we waited for 2007 to see if Chris was the real deal.

Through July, Duncan was vying with Pujols to lead the team in slugging and home runs. Then he developed that injury. Just for comparison, I've listed the monthly splits below for Murton, Duncan, and Pujols.

Spl PLR  G   PA  R  H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB IBB  SO  BA   OBP  SLG  OPSM/A  MM  18  48  7  11  2  0  0   2   4   0   6 .250 .313 .295  .608    CD  22  90 13  26  5  0  4   9   8   0  19 .317 .378 .524  .902    AP  24 105 13  23  4  0  6  15  11   4  12 .250 .343 .489  .832May  MM  23  69  8  18  5  0  1   6   8   0  10 .295 .377 .426  .803    CD  22  83 15  17  4  0  5  11   9   0  19 .233 .325 .493  .818    AP  27 114 14  33  6  0  3  13  14   1   7 .340 .421 .495  .916Jun  MM   8  16  1   1  0  0  0   0   2   0   3 .071 .188 .071  .259    CD  21  70  7  15  3  0  5  18   9   1  26 .246 .343 .541  .884    AP  26 118 18  30  6  0  7  20  23   6  15 .326 .458 .620 1.077Jul  MM   3   5  1   0  0  0  0   0   1   0   3 .000 .200 .000  .200    CD  24  85 12  24  5  0  6  21  15   1  21 .348 .459 .681 1.140    AP  26 114 21  34  8  0  7  23  16   4  10 .358 .447 .663 1.111Aug  MM  24  72  9  21  3  0  4   8   6   0   9 .318 .375 .545  .920    CD  28  76  3  13  2  0  1   7   8   0  27 .191 .276 .265  .541    AP  27 119 18  31  1  0  7  13  17   4  12 .307 .412 .525  .937S/O  MM  18  51  9  15  3  0  3   6   5   0   8 .326 .392 .587  .979    CD  10  28  1   2  1  0  0   4   6   1  11 .091 .286 .136  .422    AP  28 109 15  34 13  1  2  19  18   3   2 .386 .486 .625 1.111Tot  MM  94 261 35  66 13  0  8  22  26   0  39 .281 .352 .438  .791    CD 127 432 51  97 20  0 21  70  55   3 123 .259 .354 .480  .834    AP 158 679 99 185 38  1 32 103  99  22  58 .327 .429 .568  .997

Give Duncan an August and September equivalent to the average of his first 4 months and he hits 30 home runs, with an OPS above .900. Give him 2 more months like July, when he really got it going, and he hits 34 home runs with an OPS approaching 1.000.

Neither one of these guys is worth Roberts straight up. Not even close.

I like Roberts, but a commentator on XM yesterday was pointing out that he hits something like .317 through May, then slumps to a .270 average for the rest of the year. I know that's largely because he's had injuries which depressed his 2nd half numbers, but that just illustrates that Roberts has been a little fragile. He's also getting older, so any tendency towards injuries will be magnified.

Duncan is under control for 4 more years; Roberts makes $6.3M this year and $8M next year -- then he's a free agent. At this point, given that the Cardinals have several good looking middle infield prospects coming up, I'd rather have Duncan if I didn't believe that he really belongs in the AL where he can be a "Big Papi" type of DH.

It's always risky to project future performance, but I would expect Duncan to probably hit twice as many home runs over the next 5-10 years as either Murton or Roberts.

[davearm]

Dave, you are the last person here to heckle another poster about Roberts' worth.

For about 1000 posts and two months, you were telling us that Roberts is worth Gallagher, Murton and Cedeno. Nothing more. Nada.

Swap Veal for Murton, since apparently the O's don't want Murton, and you're squarely in the right neighborhood.

In fact it's been reported by the insiders that those are the three guys the two clubs have agreed to.

[SrMeowMeow]

If it irritates you that Roberts isn't worth what yo think he should be, that's on you.

That's clearly not what I said irritates me. More things that irritate me are occurring to me, though.

[jerios55]

but adding ceda would offset that contractual difference

Ceda was in both deals...

davearm (Gallagher, Cedeno, Ceda and Fontenot)

previous mentioned (Gallgher, Cedeno, Ceda, Patterson and Marquis)

the difference is Patterson/Marquis instead of Fontenot. So I believe you misunderstood the question.

Is there a significant difference with Patterson/Marquis to Fontenot alone?

[Sports Guy]

I never thought I would be defending Jason Marquis. As I posted earlier, Marquis is overpaid and underperforming, but he is a first half pitcher and an innings eater. If the O's got him, I'm sure it would be to flip him at the trade deadline. Below are some stats for some #3, #4, and #5 starters over the last three years before the All Star game:

Marquis - 4.41 (ERA) 25-17 (W/L) 333 (IP) .250 (BAA)

Contreras (WS) 4.25 18-15 311 .249

Suppan (Brew.) 4.98 23-20 319 .297

WestBrook (Ind.) 4.74 14-19 279 .259

Williams (Astros) 4.45 13-16 244 .271

L. Hernandez (Twins) 4.59 23-16 363 .293

Maddux (Padres) 4.48 22-21 335 .283

O. Hernandez (Mets) 4.42 16-14 232 .258

Marquis is what he is, a #4 or #5 starter. If he performs at his career averages for the first half of the season, I would think there will be teams interested in him at the trade deadline.

You are showing the worthless stats as far as prediction and aren't taking into account the switch of leagues.

Marquis would be an awful AL pitcher for the price he is.

If you guys took back Payton and one of Mora, Gibbons or Baez, i would be fine with it...If you added Pie to the package of suggested players, I would be fine with that...Beyond that, it is a stupid move for the Orioles.

[Sports Guy]

Swap Veal for Murton, since apparently the O's don't want Murton, and you're squarely in the right neighborhood.

In fact it's been reported by the insiders that those are the three guys the two clubs have agreed to.

However, we also know we want another player and the Cubs look like they will do that...So obviously they think he is worth more.

[davearm]

Migrant redbird, your fixation with the Homerun is really quite fascinating, although hardly surprising considering that's all that Duncan does well.

As I indicated, Murton's overall skillset (including superior defense, baserunning, hitting for average, and onbase skills) puts him right on par with Duncan in total production/value.

Meanwhile Roberts' production/value is on a whole different level. The WARPs he is projected to produce in his next two years would take Murton or Duncan 4 or 5 years to produce.

And that conclusion is based upon the output from a completely unbiased and analytically rigorous forecasting model (PECOTA). Whatever PECOTA's flaws, yours are magnitudes worse as a Cards homer -- as you're demonstrating quite clearly here.

[Sports Guy]

I am with Dave on this one...I would prefer Murton to Duncan.