Cubs ship Lilly and Theriot to Dodgers

Baseball Betting Lines

07/31/2010 - Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Chicago Cubs have traded pitcher Ted Lilly and infielder Ryan Theriot to the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for infielder Blake DeWitt and a pair of minor league pitching prospects.

Chicago also sent cash considerations to the Dodgers and picked up right- handers Kyle Smit and Brett Wallach from LA.

Lilly had been rumored to be on the trading block all week leading up to Saturday's deadline. He is just 3-8 with a 3.69 earned run average in 18 starts this season, but has been a double-digit winner in each of the last seven years.

The 34-year-old lefty was 47-34 with a 3.70 ERA in four seasons with the Cubs and has also pitched for Toronto, Oakland, the New York Yankees and Montreal. He owns a career record of 106-92 with a 4.21 ERA in 298 games, all but 25 of which have been starts.

"We've been looking to improve our rotation and with Ted, we feel like we've got a very good group of starting pitchers for the stretch run," said Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti. "Ryan is versatile and can help us in the middle of the diamond as a nice complement to our existing infielders."

Theriot had spent his entire six-year career with the Cubs and this year was batting .284 with one homer and 21 runs batted in through 96 games. The 30- year-old Louisiana native is a career .287 hitter with 15 homers and 174 RBI in 609 games.

DeWitt was in his third season with the Dodgers. In 82 games this season, he was batting .270 with a homer and 30 runs batted in. After hitting .264 in 117 games as a rookie in 2008, he struggled and spent most of 2009 in the minors. In 31 games with the Dodgers last year, the 24-year-old batted a mere .204.

"Of all the times I've had to tell a player he was traded, this was one of the toughest telling Blake DeWitt," Colletti added. "His professionalism, his passion and who he is made doing this one of the toughest moves I've made."

Smit has split this season at Single-A and Double-A. The 22-year-old is 5-3 with six saves and a 2.35 ERA in a combined 37 appearances.

Wallach, the 21-year-old son of former major leaguer Tim Wallach, was 6-0 with a 3.72 ERA in 17 starts for Single-A Great Lakes this season.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

NFL Betting Lines

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