TruffleShuffle

I really wish we could trade back one of our D-players at midseason. Jonny Gomes is completely worthless.

One of the more egregious examples of Hendry just throwing money away. Blanco puts up an OPS+ of 80 and people think of it as a pretty big surprise on the upside. He's just brutally awful, and Hendry has now given him 2, 2-year contracts. Completely unnecessary nonsense. Soto's OBP in the minors is .344, and has been around .355 at Iowa. Blanco's OBP in the minors was .325, and in the majors it has been .290. Assuming Barrett stays healthy, Blanco isn't going to see more than 150 ABs this year. Soto may well be a better player than Blanco already, and even if he were worse, the difference can't possibly justify the difference of more than $2M in salary. For comparison, Doug Mirabelli is considered one of the better backup catchers in the game, and he's making $750,000. Blanco will make an average of $2,675,000 over the next two years, while blocking a guy who is probably major-league ready and could be making the league minimum. Way to go Jim. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this organization will make no real forward progress until he is gone.

Murton needs to play regularly to get comfortable, rather than being jerked around with pinch hits and spot starts. and how long do you put a guy in and watch him flail away? How long did we let Izturis start? not very long obviously, since he's been benched already

I like what Lou is saying, but he has to find a way to make the players embrace the idea of improved discipline. Here are the leadoff ABs from each inning last night: 1st inning: Soriano, 7 pitches seen, 6 swings, groundout on 1-2 count 2nd inning: Barrett, 6 pitches seen, 1 swing, strikeout on full count 3rd inning: Lee, 1 pitch seen, 1 swing, groundout 4th inning: DeRosa, 2 pitches seen, 1 swing, fly out on 1-0 count 5th inning: Soriano, 4 pitches seen, 3 swings, strikeout on 0-2 count 6th inning: Murton, 2 pitches seen, 2 swings, groundout on 0-1 count 7th inning: Pie, 1 pitch seen, 1 swing, groundout (bunt) 8th inning: Murton, 2 pitches seen, 1 swing, groundout on 0-1 pitch 9th inning: Jock, 5 pitches seen, 2 swings, groundout on 2-2 pitch That's horrible. One hitter got into a somewhat favorable hitter's count (Barrett), and five of the ABs were finished with in the first two pitches. Soriano hung in a little longer, but he was flailing away as well. The Cubs left a lot of guys on base last night, and a big reason was because all the good scoring situations were coming with two outs. If they keep using this approach at the plate, they'll lose a lot of games this year. End of story.

Murton needs to play regularly to get comfortable, rather than being jerked around with pinch hits and spot starts. and how long do you put a guy in and watch him flail away?

And since a lot of arrestable offenses are published in local papers, there's a good chance the kids/parents will know about the DWI.

no, but they will win the division

saran

Maybe not quite a Yogi-ism, but a valiant effort. shouldn't he have said "If we start hitting with a little more consistency..."

i finally got to see some video from the game, and wow that hook that hill dropped on duffy was a beauty.

oh gee, the devils played another low-scoring snoozefest? didn't see that coming. 2-1 leads for the sabres and sens... hope they can both finish off the rags and debbies. Then I can go back to rooting against that prick Lindy Ruff.

nice to see chelski not able to buy a title this year, though Man U winning is pretty much like the Red Sox beating out the Yankees just took at look at the standings... Leeds is in danger of being relegated again? what the hell happened to them?!?

don't bother. I think the Cubs win like 10-2, then lose by a run on Wednesday.

thanks a lot, i'd blocked out those two memories

The Why is easy. On an 11 man staff you have 5 starters and 6 relievers. Last year the avg NL pen ate 504 IP or 84 innings per reliever. Grant it, the number is moved around a bit b/c of roster moves, trades, and Sept callups, but that is the pace they are on. If you have a Loogy, they only will throw in the neighborhood of 40 to 45 innings per year. That means that the other 5 guys in the pen go over 90 IP on average. That number is important because most people consider 80 to 85 appearances or 90+ IP for a reliever as keys to major arm problems. There have been a number of studies done on pitchers showing poor performances the years following from tired arm syndrome b/c of abuse in IP as a reliever and in the number of appearences they make. On 12 man staffs where you have 7 relievers, dividing that out is 72 IP per person. Subtracting the 40 to 45, you are on a pace for about 77 IP per pen person, which is more manageable. However, that 12th pitcher comes at a cost b/c you are giving up a position player that can help out if your team is positionally challenged, injury prone, or needs help in the late innings with specific PH duties. The Cubs are pretty well set with versatility in positions. Likewise they have Z and Marquis who can PH in x inning games. The problem for the Cubs are the number of day to day injuries they manage to pile up, the most recent examples being DeRosa, ARam, and Soriano. If you have 1 or 2 people with nagging injuries + 8 you put on the field + the back up catcher, then you only have at most 1 player to pinch hit from either side- which makes the situation to be absolutely perfect for you to use him. If it doesnt work or isnt the right situation, then you have to deal with the consequences. Also double switching or defensive substitutions are very limited. For some 11 is the way to go. For others its 12. I prefer 11 pitchers and 14 hitters. I also think that 3 lefties in our pen is way way overkill. I understand your point, but seriously, there are no other good options for the bullpen. Ohman pitching well against lefties and mediocre against righties, will still be better than anyone the Cubs could call up. Unless you're holding your breath for Kerry Wood to pitch this year.

NTC or not, I can't imagine that anyone wants Eyre, considering that he sucks and has an albatross of a contract. Just one of many albatross contract's on this roster. Was it Eyre that I heard on ESPN1000 say that his agent didn't even offer a counter offer to Hendry's contract proposal? Way to know the market Jimbo. I heard that it went down like this, Hendry called him and made his offer. Eyre's agent replied with "that's an interesting offer Jim, we'll certainly...wait, did you say million?" Reports have it that the contract was signed, sealed and delivered before Hendry had finished his sentence. I believe that you also described negotiations with Jason Marquis, Henry Blanco, Neifi Perez and Jacque Jones.

Soto continues to hit fairly well at AAA, and I continue to become more pissed off at the decision to sign Blanco for 2 years and $5.25M. Jim Hendry really needs to be sent to the unemployment line.

the best part about this season so far is that there may not be any more Hendry in the offseason

I'm trying to think of something that applies to this team's ability to lose close games with astonishing consistency. I'm failing so far.

The law of averages also suggests that any MLB team in continuous existence should have won at least a couple of World Series titles since 1908. When it comes to the Chicago Cubs, Murphy's Law supersedes the Law of Averages.

note - that circus song they play when a guy is riding a unicycle is not allowed, as that is the theme song for the cubs organization

Cubs also seemed to get in good scoring situations with 2 outs, but not earlier in the inning. I guess this makes sense since the leadoff hitter of each inning was a solid 0-9 tonight.

Now accepting nominations... first idea I had was "Road to Nowhere" by the Talking Heads

NTC or not, I can't imagine that anyone wants Eyre, considering that he sucks and has an albatross of a contract.

A-Ram doesnt get full blame. At least he had an RBI. Look at Soriano... the $136 mil we're paying for our leadoff man... He only has 1 lone RBI this month... or Murton, who has totally lost his patience and discipline and Duke was the guy he could show himself off against like he's done in the past. yeah, a good hitter hits .300, so it's not like you can expect anyone to deliver all or even most of the time in that spot. There were other opportunities lost, the only player on the team to draw a walk was Theriot, Soriano continues to not produce, Murton looks bad, and everybody continues to put balls in play on the first or second pitch.