| Cubs Overpay for Soriano and DeRosa |
| The Cubs just signed two guys coming off of career years. DeRosa's basically just a utility guy who got at-bats and saw some hits fall in. Soriano upped his walk rate, and became a good, but not great hitter (.277/.351/.560 is good, but not great for a corner outfielder). And the Cubs give him an eight-year, $136 million deal at age 30? Best case scenario, Soriano stays as good as he was last year through the duration of the deal - (highly unlikely) - even then the team's only getting market value. When your best, unrealistic hope is to merely get fair market value on an eight-year deal for a player in his 30s, that's a horrible signing.
Jim Hendry did a good job spotting talent as the head of their minor league system, but he's made some stupid signings (Dempster, Howry, Eyre, DeRosa, Soriano) as GM.
Posted by Chris Liss at 11/21/2006 9:17:00 AM |
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| Kasten dropped the ball big-time |
We all saw it coming a few weeks ago, but Alfonso Soriano is officially not going to be a Washington National next season after signing an eight-year, $136 million contract with the Cubs. Which begs the question: why didn't Stan Kasten and the new Nationals ownership trade him when they had a billion teams lining up for him at the deadline last season? The Nats were clearly out of the race and have one of the worst farm systems in the majors. Soriano could have landed two or three prospects, including at least one blue-chipper, that would have breathed life into the rebuilding franchise. Or, in the alternative, they could have worked out a deal to re-sign Soriano. Instead, they let him go for a couple of measly draft picks (awarded under the CBA). In the end, they needed to put their machismo aside and back off trade demands in order to get something of value back for Soriano. The argument that the fan base would have revolted is hogwash -- certainly, the new ownership group would have some leeway to trade the star player in a rebuilding effort. If Kasten knew he wasn't going to re-sign Soriano, given his disdain for no-trade clauses, this is a gigantic blunder.
Posted by Bret Cohen at 11/19/2006 9:37:00 PM |
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