Reversal of opinion...Bradley will not be moved

he couldn’t remember which knee was hurt.

Baffled by this logic too…

There is absolutely no market for him other than eating his contract and taking on a bad contract to boot IMO

after considering all aspects of performance, intangibles and team chemistry, the Cubs are expected to be worse off without Bradley?

Here’s where it gets interesting and germane to both sides of this great divide, assuming everyone plays nice.

Let’s say the Rowand and Burrell deals were on the table and close to happening. Given the chatter and sources involved, I think that’s a reasonable assumption to make. Yet, they didn’t happen – at least not yet.

Why do you think they did not happen? And this isn’t an exercise on whether or not BCBers liked or didn’t like the deals. This is an exercise in trying to think like Hendry, Sabean or the TB GM.

I think Hendry backed out of the Rowand deal – too much money to take on and still believes he can do better with Bradley somewhere else.

I think TB backed out of Burrell deal – they wanted Cubs to take on more money.

almost anything proposed for Bradley.

I didn’t say every trade proposed or talked about would not satisfy us! I said the majority of them proposed wasn’t like by the majority of this blog.

I’m surprised so many took it seriously.

I’d compare Bradley to Jose Guillen who had a similar situation in Anaheim and has been employed on other teams since and had productive seasons since.

If I’m a GM in a medium market with an opening at DH, I am talking to Hendry, and hoping he’ll give me MB for free. I’ll wait a few weeks and hope he keeps calling back, but eventually, I’ll make a move because I want to get MB at half price before TB does.

Because if he such a big headache, then why would we keep him?

Is following above average performance with below average performance. That’s why it is the “average.”

My numbers are a little low, but throw out the “playing for $” years and Bradley is .268/.353/.425 hitter. Whatever the reason for those performances, I believe that Bradley’s 2007-2008 years are the unrepeatable outliers.

Because the way to test the projection, it’s a fixed answer.

Consider when you say “accurate” you are generally talking about an answer to a test or something like that. There, the correct answer is going to be the same 100% of the time.

However, projecting baseball players isn’t going to be accurate, because there are an infinite amount of possible outcomes once the season starts. If CHONE projects a .850 OPS, he’s really saying that there are a number of possible outcomes, but an .850 OPS is the most likely (by CHONE’s projection).

That doesn’t mean the projection is worthless, simply that it’s impossible for a projection to be 100% accurate, or even reasonably close to that.

Back to your little bit of snark at the end, yes, you missed the point. CHONE is a pure statistical projection system. If another player had put up numbers like Bradley the past 3 years, in the same park and the same age, he would have the exact same projection.

However, since we know that Bradley is unique (just like all players), we should adjust the projection. However, you can’t just adjust it with a WAG, you have to have some basis behind the adjustment. Maybe, you can show that Bradley took advantage of Texas more than the average player for some reason, thus the park adjustment isn’t enough. Maybe you can show that Bradley’s style of game isn’t suited for Wrigely. Can you show those things?

The reason people put more stock into CHONE’s projection than your WAG, is that his projections are not a WAG. They are a statistical model that has been shown to work for the majority of major league players. Like I said above, you can adjust the projection if you think that Bradley isn’t like the majority of major league players; however, you have to have a reason.

Still kinda bummed that you didn’t comment on the “generalities” response in the Phil thread!

I guess you’re trying to argue park effects and I’m trying to make a point that Sosa in 07 has zero bearing on his 05.

Sammy Sosa took two years to change vitamins, diet, swing coaches and learn to move back into the box. How he performed in 2007 has no relation to any assumption anyone could make on how he’d hit for a team other than Baltimore.

I tried tongue in cheek, with obvious failure, to point to MB’s last year in Arlington having no bearing on his 2009, park factors or not.

and it saves $7 million. The ugly truth is that the $21 million due Bradley is a sunk cost – the money is already gone. Any improvement the Cubs can make – lowering $ or adding a player they can use for the same $ – is a net improvement.

comment intelligently on the outfield situation of StL, but I believe VEP would indeed jump at the chance to acquire MB on the cheap.

I’m a Cubs fan. I want Bradley on the team in 2010.