AAApittsburgh

Pitching not too impressive.

I don't know about that. Dusty is pretty loyal. Even if Dempster is struggling, he'll most likely remain the closer.

Don't see this happening. As was mentioned, Giles is worth so much more than Furcal, so I can't see them moving Giles to make room for him.

Lofton was brought to the Yankees to help smooth the transition of Bernie out of CF, but Lofton was awful out there. He is not good defensively anymore. 1 year at $6m for Cameron does not come close to the money that Damon will reportedly get. It's a very weak comparison. Cameron got a $3m signing bonus, and there is a $7m club option for 2007, with a $0.5m buyout. According to this site (I've found that site to be much better than ESPN when talking about contracts) his salary in 2005 and 2006 is $6m. Regardless, whether you call it $6m, $6.5m (counting the '07 buyout) or $7m, he's not terribly overpaid, and it's only 1 year, not the 4-5 Damon will get, and not anything close to a bad contract. its not a comparision but a preference based on need. what damon wants is pure speculation. look at what walker signed for to play for the cubs when other teams offered more years and more $. that said, 1 year of cameron would be an overpriced stop gap and the cubs might be in the same postion next year if pie isnt ready to take over. who knows how the collision will affect his health & play in 2006 (and the cubs would still need a leadoff hitter too if cameron played cf). I think the Cubs will get their leadoff hitter in Furcal anyway. Seems kind of redundant to have 2 players like that on the team. Damon's career OBP isn't much better than Cameron's career OBP. I could definitely see him falling back to his career numbers after he leaves the Red Sox and signs a big contract. He's just not the type of player who is worth that kind of money. Also, Boras is his agent. He's not taking a discount to play for the Cubs.

Geez. Lee should get something. A GG maybe. But then again, maybe it's better this way. He won't be quite as expensive.

Why don't we ask the Mets to give us Cameron ($6M), Floyd ($6.5M) and Glavine ($9.5M) in a pure salary dump move for some prospects? With the $22M they save here, and the $15M freed up with Piazza as free agent, the Mets can trade for Mannys' $20M and Delgado's $16M. We fill the needs for CF, RF and a >200IP/<4.00ERA SP. And, all 3 guys we get are free agents after 2006. Genius. :D

Ugh for a corner OF. For a CF, not really. I'd say he's about average.

Yes. I don't see us getting an elite hitting RF. We may get someone decent like Floyd (hope he stays healthy), so to make up for the production you also have to upgrade CF IMO. Cameron makes the most sense, because I don't think it would take very much to get him and he at least gives you average production from the position.

but the Marlins won a WS and he was there leadoff hitter and hes clutch and he makes pitchers nervous

Do pitchers really get nervous at the thought of a guy slapping the ball around the infield?

I'd like to see King pitch for the Cubs again. He's a pretty good loogy. Just as long as he limits his trips to Fuddruckers to once per day.

Yes, if by Aubrey Huff you meant Jonny Gomes.

That just goes to show that there are a lot of stupid managers in baseball. :wink:

Does Kenny Lofton want to come back to the Cubs? Seems to be a pretty big assumption on your part. The idea of getting Pierre is a big assumption as well.

Pitching! Those teams did well because of there pitching. It wasn't Scott Podsednik, or Juan Pierre, or Tavarez, or Figgins. Lets say the WS pitching didn't overperform this year and they didn't make the playoffs, would you still be calling Podsednik a "sparkplug" ? It motivated Ozzie Guillen to leadoff Posednik too. I want to get away from the smart remarks here. No need for so much hostility. Thus, in all seriousness, would you say the White Sox had a good offense this year? Or that the cause of their good season was their ability to score runs (which, Scotty Po would, no doubt, impact)...? I was just giving an example of baseball cw working out alright. Same goes for Furcal and Atlanta. The White Sox offense is nothing special, and Posednik doesn't have affect on all 9 hitters in the orders. He's a good sparkplug at the top of the order. He definitely helps them and makes them a better team.

1B- P. Fielder 2B- R. Weeks SS- F. Lopez 3B- H. Blalock C- D. Navarro LF- M. Cabrera CF- G. Sizemore RF- C. Tracy SP- C. Zambrano RP- H. Street CL- F. Rodriguez BTW, isn't Figgins 27?

I think they should get rid of goalies. Higher scoring = more fun.

I wonder what corner OFs could be had for a package built around Barrett if the Cubs were to sign Johjima.

I definitely want the guy gone, but I can't see it happening. If what he's done already isn't enough to get him fired, I don't think it's going to happen. However, I don't think the season is over before it even begins just because he's still the manager. You just need a good team. Good teams make bad managers look good all the time. Phil Garner is a doofus and his team is in the WS.

Aren't there other Cards boards? Like Birds on the Bat or something?

Cubs can win with Dusty, but Hendry needs to make the team Dusty-proof.

Well for one thing our SS last year was Neifi for pretty much the entire season, not Nomar. Also Giles is a huge upgrade over Burnitz. You'd still be making an unnecessary change to the middle infield. I don't believe Cedeno is anything special and he'd give us terrible production from 2B even after you factor in his defense. Keep the entire infield intact and upgrade RF and CF, and we have a better team than we did at the start of last season.

How is that lineup much better than what we had this past season? Nomar could outproduce Furcal. Walker can outproduce Cedeno. Giles is an upgrade, but not really big enough to outweigh the downgrades in the middle infield. Plus, Patterson is still in CF.

I think we can get Jenkins actually. And he wouldn't be a terrible option if we don't get Giles. And people want to get rid of Nomar because of injury concerns. Jenkins, when healthy, is about a .270/35/100 hitter. But when healthy. Well, I don't want to get rid of Nomar. And I'd be fine with Jenkins in RF as long as they're still getting good production from other spots like CF. This wouldn't be bad: walker, 2b nomar, ss lee, 1b aram, 3b jenkins, rf bradley, cf murton, lf barrett, c

I think we can get Jenkins actually. And he wouldn't be a terrible option if we don't get Giles.