Amazing_Grace

Before the season, I'd have definitely said Marquis with Izturis being a close second. Now, I'm going with Jones. He's stunk out loud this year and is paid about as much as Marquis, and he's currently blocking our best prospect. We'd be better off just playing Pie. Izturis's OPS is higher than Jones's at this point (they're still both behind Zambrano and Marquis in OPS). Can Theriot play CF?

5 games back in May and the season is lost? Umm... huh? 5 games back but four games under .500. That's not very good. If we were in any other division, we'd be 6 or more games out with at least 3 teams ahead of us. The point is they are not in another division, though. And that's why the Cubs are still contenders. And again, the Cards were not a good team last year, record-wise, but won it all. I don't care how it's done, just get into the playoffs and take your chances. The Cards were the exception and not the rule. If you go back to 1994, the strike year, after which the WC was implemented, only 1 other team won the WS after winning fewer than 90 games in a season. That team was the 2000 Yankees. The Braves won in 1995 with 90 and the Marlins in 2003 with 1991. Running the team to "just get in the playoffs" and hope isn't a good long-term strategy. The division won't be weak forever and even this season Milwaukee could still easily run away with it. They've lost what, 6 straight, and the Cubs have made up just a couple games.

Seconded. It won't happen, because the Trib is a stupid organization that follows the "just because we've invested this much money in something we should see it through to the end no matter what" logic. Perhaps they run the rest of the Trib like a bunch of stubborn old mules also and that's why the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and was sold.....Hmmm.

Wait, when did we trade for Brandon Wood? This is great news.

RELEASE....SCOTT....EYRE.....IMMEDIATELY

Oh please no.

I don't think it's too late for 2007. I still believe that the Cubs will win this division if they stay healthy. The division is very weak as we've seen. I see a repeat of the 2003 regular season - Piniella's team will grind it out in the second half and win the Central with less than 90 wins and no more than a 3 game margin. As for GM, it's going to be a tough job. I always approach it from the point of view that next year's payroll will go up by $5M. So, as I see it, the Cubs will have $11M to spend - that's not much wiggle room. Even if the Cubs don't resign Zambrano, Barrett, Izturis, Wood, Miller and Ward, they do still owe hefty raises to Soriano, Ramirez, Lilly, Jones, Dempster, Marquis, DeRosa, Ohman, Eyre and Blanco. Net net is $6M saved. Add in the additional $5M payroll boost, and there's $11M. $11M to spend, but 3 or 4 big holes: SS, C, maybe a starter and maybe a CF (if Pie is not ready). Tough job. Best bet is to trade Jones, Dempster and Eyre. Combined they will make around $15M in 2008 - even if you have to eat $10M of that amount, you still get another $5M to play with. $16M is not great, but it does give a GM a chance to make one major splash and one minor one. Hoops The Cubs will need to spend more than 11M to be good in 2008. The whole problem is that someone has to basically undo what Hendry did, and it's going to cost about the same to get out of the mess as it cost to get in the mess in the first place. Personally, I've resigned myself to the fact that the new GM will need at least until after 2009 (when a lot of our big contracts are off the books), before a serious rebuilding can occur. For the Cubs to fix what Hendry's done in 1 or 2 years, they're going to have to push payroll to around 120M. The way I see it, the Cubs need at least one more very good hitter to go with Lee, Ramirez, and Soriano, and that won't come cheap. They also have to maintain the pitching staff at no worse a level than it is right now, which probably means either resigning Z or trading a lot to get a younger player. The best thing the Cubs can do for the future is trade Zambrano during this season for 1 or more pitching prospects, with at least one being ML ready with a fairly high ceiling. If they can keep the cost of the staff down, they can use what cash they have to work on the offense.

5 games back in May and the season is lost? Umm... huh? 5 games back but four games under .500. That's not very good. If we were in any other division, we'd be 6 or more games out with at least 3 teams ahead of us.

3 things: 1) With Milwaukee playing so poorly, it seems a bit premature to give up on the season right now. If the Cubs bullpen shakes out a little bit of the dead weight and they put the arms in the proper order, this team will be right in it. 2) Cabrera is not a free agent until after the 2009 season. 3) Aramis has a NTC. Oops. I didn't realize that about Cabrera. So he still has 2 years of arbi after this. Well, the Cubs probably won't be able to match some other teams in terms of putting together a trade package *cough*Anaheim*cough*. Aramis would probably waive his NTC to be traded to a contending team. The Cubs problem historically has been getting guys to waive NTCs to come play here, not the other way around. If the Cubs contend, it will probably be because everyone else is playing the same mediocre around .500 baseball that they are.

You could add an awful lot of guys to that list. John Rocker, Heathcliff Slocumb, Joe Borowski.

I think the first thing I'd do is concede that the season is lost. Trading Zambrano becomes the obvious choice in that case. The key would be to get a pitcher who is young, cheap, and likely to be effective so the Cubs wouldn't have to spend money on another FA pitcher. I'd like to see Zambrano and Jacque Jones for Philip Hughes + other prospects if the Yankees would bite. There is one big name FA this offseason that will have a huge impact on whatever franchise he signs with, Miguel Cabrera. I think the Cubs use the money they would have thrown at Z to go after Cabrera. If necessary, I'd even deal Ramirez to free up more cash, hopefully for a good to decent RF or catcher. Beyond that, it would depend on who's available this offseason.

I find it a bit unfair to say that 4 runs is a poor offensive outing. I'd call 4 or 5 runs average (the league average is 4.58 by my calculations), 6-8 runs good, and 8 or more runs a great offensive outing. To me, if your pitching staff is about as good as everyone else's, you ought to win about as many as you lose in games you score 4 or 5 runs.

Ya, and those 2 bad seasons he had...one he was an all star in and he played hurt for over a month and the other was attributed to him coming back from TJ which takes 18 to 24 months to recover from. .274/.336 may not set the world on fire, but its no reason to consistently flame a SS that does well in the field. He is 6th in average of SS with over 100 ABs and 7th in OBP for the National League. As for Myers, i will wait and see what the doc says. he says he has strength in his shoulder, so it wont be a complete tear of anything. I'll concede Izturis has been OK as a SS offensively. Nevertheless, Theriot is better, and he's enough better offensively that he should start most of the time despite being just average with the glove.

I think this thread is a little premature. I think you need more than 2 months to evaluate a manager's tenure. Every manager is going to make decisions that we, as fans, disagree with. I personally would have pinch hit for Izturis last night also, but I can understand why he waited. We had a 1-0 lead and Lou thought he needed Izturis's defense. All Izturis has to do is hit a chopper or a fly ball and the run scores. Worst case, he strikes out and you bring in the PH for Marshall, who was due up next. You don't expect Izturis to ground into a DP. Lou may very well have been saving Theriot for the bases loaded 2 outs scenario, thinking they would leave a tired Wells out there rather than bring in a right hander who would then have to face Jones/Floyd/Ward. Lou hasn't abused the pitchers with big 120+ pitch outings, so he's already corrected what was, by far, the biggest problem with Dusty's tenure. He recognizes splits. He has tried to sit Jones against lefties, though Hendry's personnel decisions and having Soriano have to move to left haven't made that easy. He's played Theriot at SS or 2b most of the time for the past 3 weeks. Dusty would NEVER have benched Izturis at all. He's had enough sense to put Jones in CF rather than keep him in left to try to get his best possible lineup, again, trying to make the best of Hendry's stupid offseason moves. He has kept Wade Miller out of the starting rotation after it became apparent his ST success would not continue. He seems to appreciate the need to have guys get on base at the top of the lineup; why else would he have put Theriot second and then leadoff when Lee was injured. Dusty would have had Pagan or Izturis leading off (or he wouldn't have moved Soriano). To say Lou is a worse manager than Dusty is extreme overreaction. He has his faults as all managers do. His handling of the bullpen has been questionable, and I don't agree with the decision to move Guzman to the pen. Howver, blaming a guy who's only been the team's manager for 6 months, only 2 of which have been regular season, is unfair. Give him a season before we come down too hard on him. If you want to know why this team is bad, look at who has been making personnel decisions for the past 5 years.

Well, at least we know Jones is better than Patterson and Pierre, two former Cubs CF. Small consolation but if we didn't look on the bright side, we wouldn't be Cubs fans.

This is just sad. Sad sad sad sad sad.... The consequences of Jim Hendry's incompetence will long outlast his term of employment with the Cubs organization.

Lack of patience is the culprit here. Against a pitcher you haven't seen before, it helps if, as a team, you take a few more pitches, even strikes, the first couple times through the order both to tire the pitcher and give yourself and your teammates a chance to see his stuff and learn what he throws and in what situations. The Cubs have been, up until this year, the least patient team in MLB. As a result, young pitchers and guys they haven't seen much of give them a lot of trouble. EDIT: On a side note, does anyone know a site that has peripheral stats like P/PA and BABIP and such. Neither MLB nor ESPN has them, at least not for teams.

I'm hoping Izturis will be traded at some point, making Theriot the SS with DeRosa as backup SS. It's not like he's going to get many starts, and he's better defensively at 1b than either Floyd or Ward.

I still wouldn't mind seeing the Cubs pick up Walker. He can play 2b, 1b, and LF in a pinch. If Theriot takes over as the full-time SS, then Walker would be a better bench option than Izturis, and we could still call up Cedeno if Theriot did get injured. He usually posts a decent OBP/SLG as a part-time player.

They've got top men on it. But who? TOP...MEN

Hendry's extension? That's number one on the short list. Signing Baker? That's on there too. Nolasco and Mitre for Pierre? Don't forget Pinto who has been better than Nolasco this season. Wow, Mitre's been solid this season...I just looked at his numbers. :( Good point. What an awful trade.

Hendry's extension? That's number one on the short list. Signing Baker? That's on there too. Nolasco and Mitre for Pierre?

My head exploded the first three times I read this thread. Dempster starting is in the "galactically stupid" category. This is worse than bringing back Wade Miller. I could sort of understand using Guzman in the pen and bringing up Marshall. It wouldn't be a great choice, but Guzman has been better than some of our bullpen options (Eyre, Howry, Ohman). This whole scenario makes me wonder if Lou's hands are being tied by Hendry with regards to cutting Eyre/Howry/Ohman loose. Maybe Lou really doesn't want to use certain guys in pressure situations and wants to get rid of them, but Hendry isn't letting him, so he is trying desperately to find a way to get somebody reliable in the bullpen.

This is dumb. If we really wanted to improve our bullpen we'd cut the guys that are stinking up the place, Howry and Eyre. But, oh wait, they're being paid several million dollars, and by the business rule of "I've-invested-so-much-in-this-thing-I'm-going-to-get-my-money's-worth-out-of-it-and-see-it-through-to-the-end-rather-than-cut-my-losses-because-that-will-somehow-justify-all-the-money-I've-already-wasted", the Cubs refuse to do this. This is just stupid. Let's take a promising starter and make him into a reliever because we need more reliable people there and we can't get rid of the guys we have because of their contracts. It's another case of the Cubs being unwilling to bench/trade guys with big contracts. Suck it up, admit you made a mistake, and do what's best for the team. DFA Eyre, trade Howry even if it means eating part of his contract, and use Rocky Cherry and Carlos Marmol to replace them. That will improve the (choose your expletive) bullpen.

Yep, Lou said Guzman was going to the bullpen. Well, my opinion of Piniella just went down a notch. If the 5th starter is going to be Wade Miller again, it will go down another notch. If they use Marshall, he at least has a shot to be decent. Miller with an 89 mph fastball is worthless anywhere for any role.