mystikol87

2009 Marlins - Still a Cheap Thrill.

I think it's pretty cool that we had the top 2 guys in MiLB homers (Dallas and Stanton). And our team has been mashing the NL for a few years now. For a team that loves [drafting] pitching, we've got a whole lot of pop.

When Coghlan finally learns to field his position, if he ever does, he very well could push Uggla out his starting 2nd base role and maybe elsewhere in a trade. But as long as CC has no D and the Marlins are contending in 2009 I suspect there is little chance of it happening. He's projected to be a solid defender. How do you know he has "no D?" Have you ever watched him play? did you know that Coughlen had more errors in the minors than Uggla had at the major league level? Does it make any difference that it's in the minors? My gut says no, although maybe NNY or someone can inform me. I mean, maybe guys are better hitters in MLB, but MiLB pitchers don't throw the ball as well, and baseball fields are baseball fields, so the ball probably bounces just about the same ways and is hit just about as hard. Also, you can't forget that 2008 was only Coghlan's 2nd year playing 2nd base. And if you want to use errors and FP as a barometer: As a 22-year-old, in his 1st season playing 2B, in A-ball and A+, CC's fielding % was .964 and .974, respectively. As a 22-year-old in A-ball and A+ who was drafted to play 2B, Uggla's fielding % was .969 and .950, respectively. (And while neither was a large sample size, the .950 stint was the larger of the two) As a 23-year-old, in his 2nd season playing 2B, in AA, CC's fielding % was .968 As a 23-year-old and beyond who was drafted to play 2B, Uggla's fielding % was as follows: A+ - .977, (24 yrs) A+ - .979, AA - .940, (25 yrs) AA - .959. So, if that's the route you want to go, Coghlan has been putting up similar numbers at even younger ages, despite a recent switch to a position that Uggla was being groomed to play for some time.

Coghlan is not projectable. He is what he is. Every scouting report on him says that. His ceiling really isn't that of an all-star while Uggla's is. I've never said that Coghlan is gonna be a bad player, but Uggla is special and Coghlan isn't. As an early Marlins fan, its kind of like comparing Gary Sheffield to Dave Magadan (yes I'm aware that they weren't both second basemen). ts completely obvious who was the more important player. Uggla has that kidn of impact bat while Coghlan has a competent bat. You just don't get rid of a star like Uggla for an average prospect like Coghlan. No one disputes this, besides Uggla is a star because he isn't. If Coghlan is going to hit .775-.800 and play neutral defense (which are both very likely because of his BB/K and pedigree), and Uggla is going to hit career .831 and play around neutral defense for $7-10 million dollars a year after 2009, the choice is easy. And I'm not talking about because we're the Marlins. I'm talking about, if we're the Yankees. Uggla is more than likely going to play himself off the team because we have comparable alternatives and he is going to be more valuable than in trade than in on the field production. We're set at 2B. Uggla, or no Uggla, is not a problem. I agree, but if we move Uggla and don't receive any 2B prospects in return, we'd be a bit thin organizationally I believe. After CC, Smolinski seems to be the next guy with any chance of being a legit starter at 2B. I just don't see it in Emilio or Andino, although the organization seems to believe in the former, at least. And with Smolinski such a wildcard (injury history + lack of a true position), I'd be a little nervous about that.

I don't think Coghlan has been under the radar at all, in fact I think he has been talked about quite an awful lot for an average middle infield prospect. But there is absolutely no reason to think that Coghlan could drastically exceed his projection, so much so that we feel fine with sending Uggla off without even having anyone else in the lineup capable of matching his power production. I agree with your assessment of Coghlan; however, we can't lose sight of the fact that we wouldn't be trading Uggla just so Coghlan could start. Everyone realizes the folly in that. But in dealing Uggla, we would get a big chunk of salary relief and likely a hefty haul in return. So the question becomes is the salary savings + trade return significant and important enough "that we feel fine with sending Uggla off without even having anyone else in the lineup capable of matching his power production"? We're 99.99% to not find anyone to match his power potential while still being a [decent fielding] 2nd baseman. That might be okay though, depending on the factors mentioned above. Also, if it's power you want, this team is far from sorely lacking, even without Uggla (These are potential numbers; I'm not claiming complete accuracy - obviously they could be somewhat higher or lower). Figure this as far as home run production: LF - Hermida - 15 RF - Ross - 20 (eventually Morrison/Stanton could project to 20-45) CF Maybin - 20 1B - Gaby/Cantu - 20 2B - Coghlan - 5 SS - Hanley - 30 3B - Cantu/Dallas - 25 C - Baker/? - 10 That's 145 home runs just from the starting 8, and these seem to be to be a little conservative for some of these guys playing a full season. (If Hanley bats 3rd, he might go to town; Ross hit 22 in just 461 AB last year) Sprinkle in about 25 homeruns off the bench, and 170 dingers would put them 16th in MLB, and 8th in the NL. Middle of the road, and better if any of these guys exceed these moderate estimates. Or you could take the 208 HR from this year, -32 for Uggla, +5 for coghlan, -32 for jacobs, + 10 for gaby, and you get 169 HR, just about the same number. I'm fine with that, especially if Coghlan/Gaby/Dallas/Maybin can greatly improve our OBP (there's a very good chance of this in the next 1-3 years) and the haul for Uggla is solid, which it figures to be. Not to mention that $5 million+ of salary relief (I'm not necessarily referring to right now, but possibly later this season or next offseason), could be enough to go after that FA or two who could really, in combination with our other [new] players, put us over the top.

ehhhhh maybe to try out in spring training? a minor league contract? I think this board has a habit of assuming that we might able to get guys, like Pavano, for example, on minor league deals. There are teams more desperate than the fish and willing to gamble on a ML deal a lot more often than we think/hope, IMO. It's not that I believe/want ... etc that... I just don't want to spend "precious" money that couldn't be spent on a Joe Nelson on someone like Jesus Colome... especially when we have as many good, young arms as we do Fair enough :cool And......agreed. What is Colume expected to command in the open market?

ehhhhh maybe to try out in spring training? a minor league contract? I think this board has a habit of assuming that we might able to get guys, like Pavano, for example, on minor league deals. There are teams more desperate than the fish and willing to gamble on a ML deal a lot more often than we think/hope, IMO.

It depends on how you define longterm. If they want to buy 2 years, which is what Texas did with Teixeira, no problem. Anything more is very bad payroll management because we would be paying a premium price for Uggla right now coming off his peak year, and it's doubtful he remains a high 800 OPS because of his contact issues. Dishing him a 5 year contract, which is what I think you mean, would be horrific. He is not a star like Hanley. And this is especially true with Coghlan and Bonifacio around. We have his rights for 3 years, not a big deal. He's not going anywhere if we want him. The only players the Marlins should be thinking about buy outs are Maybin, and all 5 starting pitchers. Whoever shows up next year, should get 5+ year contracts from that group. Everyone else, including Hermida even if he OPS's .900 next year, should not be bought out at this time. Maybin isn't even due arbitration for quite some time. I would rather wait until we see what he can do over an extended period. I'm not partial to that buy now and save $$$ down the line theory. It can work, but when it dosen't you are stuck. We can't afford to be stuck. And all 5 SPs? I'm not into signing any pitcher long term. Much less a bunch of kids that really haven't shown they can be huge innings eaters that can go injury free for the long haul. I would prefer to keep stocking the minors with studs and pay the SPs per year. That's not what he's trying to say :banghead He just means that everyone else on that roster is even a potential candidate for a buyout. He wouldn't even touch Uggla, Cody, Baker, etc. The only guys who could even potentially be in that discussion at some point are Maybin and the pitching staff. Obviously we'd want to tread very carefully with buyouts/long(er)-term deals, but these are the only guys with whom he sees the possibility of talks opening up at some point for a potential buyout. I can't really say it any other way without wasting effort that should be spent cramming for my econ final.

Yea but do we really have the money to afford anything more at most maybe 5 Mil? If he really wants to play here he would sign for anything over $1M But most likley he's gonna sign with the team that gives him big bucs No, in Arbi. He'll make $5M this year. Rab, your patience is impressive. He's young and eager to learn. His mind is still moldable. Yeah, and it's nice to see someone take that angle. It's a shame that some of the best debaters and knowledgeable minds across this forum have significant trouble in those areas, and I'm sure it rubs off on people.

I'd take him for 1 years2 Million dollar contract with a 2nd year team option so if he plays solid like he can we bring him back again but if he dosen't then off he goes But thats just me What would you guys do? He'd be the biggest moron in the world to sign for $2M. Yea but do we really have the money to afford anything more at most maybe 5 Mil? If he really wants to play here he would sign for anything over $1M But most likley he's gonna sign with the team that gives him big bucs No, in Arbi. He'll make $5M this year. Rab, your patience is impressive.

Wrong. What we are seeing right now is a failure to regulate government and The Federal Reserve. Following the end of the Dot Com bubble we had set interest rates too low, producing cheap credit. This cheap credit lead to malinvestment, subprime lending, and the housing crisis. Furthermore, the problem is that we are not allowing the market to correct/regulate itself by propping up failed entities through government regulation and government extensions of credit and inflating the money supply. In other words, everything we've seen so far and the problems that lie ahead of us are entirely attributed to government intervention within the economic sector. The only possible way Obama or Bernanke could alleviate the problem is by doing nothing at all. Since they appear to be committed to intervening, we will see more inflation (and the subsequent destruction of the dollar) because the printing press is the only tool they have. Might this be going a bit overboard? The banks did decrease lending standards to absurdly low and nearly non-existent qualification levels. Of course ignorantly low interest rates contributed, but i think entirely may be too strong of a word. Also, don't the interest rates have to be set by a central bank connected to the government, or is there a way around this (in reality or theoretically?) This might be a time where we wish we could have a President or fed chairman for 20 years; it's sad, but the political feasibility of letting the market take care of itself while waiting out the trials of a recession are too much for a 4-year politician to stomach, let alone a 2-year person. This belongs in a separate thread likely, but if Supreme Court Justices are elected for life so that they are as unbiased as possible, why can't we view key economic officials in a similar light. Consistency (of capitalistic approaches) are imperative, but our current system seems diametrically opposed to that. Hey, my party won! Hey, my guy got elected! Hey, I got a position in the cabinet which can be terminated at any time!!! Hey, I'd better do something! Hey, I'd be best to leave everything alone, but that might look like laziness to the 295 million Americans who don't get it.......oh well, I'll come up with some crazy plan to save a few thousand jobs in [insert City, State, or industry here, i.e. Flint, Michigan?), but will actually hurt our country much more significantly in the future! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The market regulates itself. Government cannot. In fact, the market has been trying to regulate itself since the end of Bretton Woods (as this current massive bubble had been building) but it's actually been government that has been preventing this regulation from taking place by spending more, printing more, and borrowing more. And socialism and central economic planning are objectively failures. I don't have links here, but even socialist intellectuals have admitted that theirs is/was a flawed theory doomed to ultimate failure. Marx's theories relied on a Labor Theory of Value. This is not true: it is more closely a combination of the cost of production of a good + its marginal utility, so Marxism fails, and all other types of socialism and communism, as well.

To suggest that this current crisis is a result of capitalism reflects either ignorance, misunderstanding, or sheer dishonesty. Monetary policy is what made all these mistakes possible. Blaming everything on greed, as if greed were something you can eliminate, is a waste of time. Greed produces bad things and good things, but you'll never stop greed. Seriously, what are you gonna do, pass a law against people being greedy? We can't even effectively enforce laws that try to prohibit people from obtaining and using tangible substances like drugs. There is zero chance that government (or anyone else) will be effective in regulating emotion, thoughts, and desires. If they are, then that's pretty friekin' scary "Brave New World" crap. Agree with the rest.

Who the f*** are the Mets? a baseball team from Queens, New York :mischief a bunch of queens from New York fixed I LOL'ed It looks like they NL East and the AL East are gonna be the best divisons with the Muts Fillies and Fish in the NL battling it out and the Bankees Bo Soxs and Devil Gays in the AL To steal a line from Eric......fixed.

when mlb teams try to buy instead of develope they rarely win championships . The Yankees have gobbled up virtually every big free agent in recent years and still have not won a championship since 2000. I dont think the Yankees are a much better team than they were last year . WRONG! With CC Sabathia they now have something they didn't have last year, a one-two punch, AJ healthy or not, Wang and CC are a great combo at the top of any major league rotation. I'll take Lincecum/Cain (especially considering age), Dice-K/Lester, and Webb/Haren for sure. And possibly Shields/Kazmir, and Dempster/Zambrano were better last year. Wang is not very good. http://mlb.mlb.com/stats/player_locator_results.jsp Which year is impressive, 2006? Sure he was 19-6. And a 3.63 ERA is nice in the AL. But 233 H in 218 innings? 76K-52BB? He's been more a product of the Yankees offense getting him wins + the New York media than anything else.

Mystik, there's several stories out there and what is happening is, I think, they are being combined as the rumor-mill churns along. There was the Ramirez for a pitching prospect, Thompson or Tucker, and one that was Hermida for Salty, which morphed into Hermida for Ramirez with Hermida creating enough depth in the outfield another player could be moved for pitching elsewhere, so God knows what the real story is... yeah, these things happen. That said, if it's Hermida + pitcher for Max (and not even Salty!) that would not be good at all.

I had to flip the channel with all this Tim Tebow praise. I think ESPN worships him even more than they do Brett Favre, and it's getting a bit "vomitacious."

Hermida and either Tucker or Thompson for Ramirez is too much. Hermida and Tucker is too much. I'm not sure if Hermida and Thompson is, after the big hit he took this season. But I think Hermida and Hopper or someone like that is more fair for Ramirez. Where are you reading that we need Hermida + one of those guys? On the Ramirez thread (where this talk belongs lol) it says just Thomson or Tucker, not with Hermida. It'd be insane to trade two of those guys. Does Ramirez really have that much more upside than Hermida? Don't forget that Ramirez is only 9th months younger or so.

He can handle catching in a platoon role for a few years, and his bat projects positively to a corner. He's perfect if it costs Tucker. Backup on 3rd Base some while he learns behind the plate with Baker platoon. I love it, specially his bat off of the bench too. He is an athletic kid that was a 3rd baseman at one point. :thumbup It also opens the door a little further to trade Cantu (without sustaining as much loss of production), or to let Cantu start every day at 1st, while having Max/Dallas split time at 3rd, and Gaby Sanchez can come off the bench or start the year in AAA. To be fair, though, the flaw in the logic of him as the backup at 3rd (against LHP, presumably), is that he'd be starting at catcher those games as Baker's back-up/platoon partner. So we kinda ought to drop that idea - Helms still figures to be Dallas's platoon partner if Cantu starts at first every day.

Glad to hear we'll hang on to Allison, and we didn't really seem to lose anyone else who anyone on here was worried about. And that lefty seems promising, so I say this seems like a win for the fish.

For the record, I think our Sean William Scott would have been Mike Jacobs, but Hermida might be a decent pick now that he's gone. Maybe Logan Kensing, although who knows if the makes the ML roster even.

I personally think it's really cool that CT is at the winter meetings that's someone a lot of us would love to be around, let the guy enjoy it because you know you'd be talking about it if you had the chance. Fair, but I would just say "Yay, I'm at the winter meetings. I hope I run into a couple of baseball guys and maybe I'll end up with something interesting to say." The guy raised expectations (albeit not by a huge amount), and he failed to come through, seeing as he hasn't even posted since monday afternoon/evening.

and his extremely low BABIP in AA helped his numbers. which evened out would have had him giving up 13 more hits, a 1.25 WHIP. I like Tucker, but I ultimately agree that he's very tradeable if the return is MaxRam. Don't forget that we figure to have the ammo to pick up several young arms just like Tucker when we trade Ross, Uggla, Cantu, and maybe even Hermida over the next 1-3 years.

Hey everyone! I am checking in from LAS VEGAS site of the 2008 Winter Meetings. I have already lost over $100, but I'm not here to gamble, so I'm going to stop while I'm behind. Over the course of the next 3 days (I have to leave town Wednesday night to attend to personal matters) I will be posting from the meetings in this thread. I will be reporting on Marlins acton here if I can find stuff out. Other stuff will be going in the general MLB section. Enjoy! I will be reporting on Marlins acton here if I can find stuff out. Other stuff will be going in the general MLB section. Erick, CTs statement about posting inside information was clearly conditional on him being able to find things out. Its not like Beinfest is strolling around looking for people to share "inside information" with. So let me ask you: Whats is more ridiculous? The fact that he hasnt heard anything worth posting? OR the fact that you were apparently naive enough to think that his presence in Vegas would a) somehow cause the Marlins to suddenly make deals AND b) automatically provide CT with an opportunity to hear about it before the press does, even though they are also in vegas and break reports for a living. :thumbup No one expects your a) and b) to happen. Of course they wouldn't happen - not to mention, a) makes no sense. He wouldn't need to be the catalyst in the Marlins making deals in order for him to get information.... However, I bolded the key portion of CT's post. He said he would post info from the meetings. Meanwhile, he hasn't made a posting since the first night of the meetings. Also, he has given virtually zero information. And that is absolutely fine. But if you aren't going to actually keep up with this thread and post updates (however futile your attempts to garner info may have been), then don't make open a thread and make such a post in the first place. He didn't even keep his promise to post "from the meetings," let alone finding out any interesting information.

You guys really ought to learn to link your info. You can't just take credit for that stuff without mentioning sources, plus I don't know how much that is being said is just speculation or otherwise.