Good morning, campers! Rise and shine, up and at them, brighten up your eyes and bushy up your tails and all that. It's time for your Friday headlines!
The "DUH" moment of the morning, Paul Sullivan informs us that large, backloaded contracts are hampering the Cubs' ability to make big signings this off-season:
General manager Jim Hendry conceded Thursday that money was a factor in the decision to trade veteran reliever Aaron Heilman to the Diamondbacks for a pair of minor-league prospects. Heilman stood to earn around $2 million in arbitration this offseason, and probably would have been nontendered next month because of his salary and the belief that relatively inexpensive relievers Angel Guzman and Esmailin Caridad can handle the right-handed setup roles.
Other arbitration-eligible players also may be traded before the end of the year."
By all means, let's get rid of all our arbitration-eligible players. Because God knows the arbitrators would have given John Grabow even more than the 2 years, $7.5 million we gave him. (Julie's head explodes). Oh, and by the way, if the amount of cash Heilman was to earn was in any way MORE of a factor than his craptacular play last season, we're in more trouble than I thought.
Speaking of Grabow, Dave Cameron over at Fangraphs says more eloquently than I did why I think the Grabow signing sucks:
Once again, we're witness to the power of ERA as a negotiating tool. Over the last two seasons, Grabow's thrown nearly 150 innings and posted an ERA of 3.09, giving the impression that he's a high quality LH reliever. Yet again, ERA misleads.
Grabow's FIP the last two years? 4.37, thanks to an atrociously high walk total. The entirety of his low ERA over the last two years is driven by an 82 percent rate of stranding runners, which is just not sustainable. He's succeeded by putting men on base and then wiggling out of jams, but that's not the same thing as pitching well.
It would be one thing if Grabow had developed this knack for stranding runners by elevating his strikeout rate, but he's not any different now than he has been for his entire career.
Can I get an "Amen?"
If you're on Twitter, it's worth reading through @keithlaw's feed to find the hilarious posts sent to him by Cardinals' fans regarding his Cy Young voting. They include one fan calling him an "idoit," and another wondering how he can possibly quantify numbers. Good stuff.
If you wondered whatever happened to that fabulous thong we gave away as the grand prize for our 2010 Cubs motto contest, LOHO reader/contest winner herlihy was kind enough to provide us with a photo. The fact that he's turned it into an ascot is just one example of why LOHO readers are so fantabulous---fashion sense and creativity, people.
For those of you who are super-sleepy because you stood in line at midnight to see "New Moon" last night (Aisle424 and Matt, I'm looking at you two), I decided I'd give you something fun this morning. Please enjoy this gallery of tweens whose hormones shoved them into poor decisions they are bound to regret later in life. There is nothing your future husbands are going to love more than a giant tattoo of Robert Pattinson on your back!
We haven't done a "5 songs on my iPod" last lately, so here we go:
1. Swim--Jack's Mannequin
2. Designs on You--the Old 97's
3. California Stars--Wilco and Billy Bragg
4. I Wanna Know What Love Is---Foreigner (?) Hee hee.
5. You Are The Everything--REM
We'll have some free-agent fun starting this afternoon. Until then, make sure you keep the bottle hidden in a drawer or under your desk. The weekend begins. . . . .now.
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