Amazing_Grace

I'll definitely agree with that. Hendry and Lou have bent over backwards to say they won't ask Alfonso to move positions, so they created this dilemma. Shame on Jim for not planning what to do about CF earlier this offseason.

Well, it's the same situation. It's fairly easy to find decent offensive corner OF in MLB. It's certainly much harder to find decent offensive CF. It just makes very little sense to me to move Pie to right so Soriano can play there just so we won't have to sign Erstad or Finley to a 1 year deal. If Cubs management is dead set that Pie is going to play mid 2007 or 2008 at the latest, they should get some kind of stop-gap that doesn't block him and quit fiddling with the Soriano in CF business. Pie's value is maximized in CF whether he plays for the Cubs or whether he gets traded. If the Cubs are thinking about the future payroll and worried about being unable to afford a FA RF, then they should just sign or trade for a stopgap CF and wait til Pie is ready and Lou is ready to play him.

If Soriano does become the everyday CF, he'll probably not be moving positions (per comments from Lou and Hendry) so he will definitely block Pie. Pie's value as a corner OF, much like Soriano's, is somewhat lower. In my mind, if the Cubs do go this direction, it makes sense to trade Pie (probably not now, but rather at midseason) to fill some other need. Right now, SS stands out as the most glaring need for an upgrade, but there's also backup catcher, possibly closer, and possibly another starter, depending on what happens during the first half of the season. Pie would be the Cubs most valuable trading commodity this season if Soriano is in center.

If Soriano does play in center and we do sign Floyd, keeping Jones, it gives us a pretty deep outfield in case of injury, and more importantly, keeps the Cubs from having another weak position in the lineup offensively. All the other choices for CF, Erstad, Finley, Pagan, and Pie, would probably be below average on the offensive side. Of course, if we trade Jones, we're then depending on Floyd to be healthy, and that's a bad bet, or we're back to Soriano in RF and likely a rent-a-CF.

Probably about the jerseys or some other meaningless stuff. If it was a major trade announcement, it would already be on the sports news channels, and if it was regarding the possible sale of the team, it would be someone higher than GM making the announcement.

That was absolutely great. I'm making that my new signature. Finally someone not only realizes Neifi sucks, but also takes responsibility for not realizing that Neifi sucks.

No, that's Greg House, and he abuses vicadin not steroids. Easy to confuse :P

Ouch... I didn't realize how bad Juan actually was last year. I knew he was pretty bad, but ewww. Well, I can see why some might think Pie is the best option for CF at this time given both offensive and defensive considerations. I just don't want to see Pie jerked around like Patterson was. I'd rather see him get another year of consistent at bats with AAA before asking him to hold down a big league job. Whether we like it or not, most managers hold rookies to a higher standard when it comes to playing time and I'd rather see Pie playing at Iowa than not at all.

I don't believe it's reasonable to believe that a player will improve upon his past season minor league numbers in his first season of professional baseball. Pie's OPS by month: .862, .676, .630, .771, .930, 1.389 Well, if he goes .676 .630 in 2 consecutive months and the Cubs are losing ground, will Lou "let him play through it"? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for giving young guys their shot, but I don't think the timing is right this year.

I don't believe it's reasonable to believe that a player will improve upon his past season minor league numbers in his first season of professional baseball.

This is disturbing to me. Bringing Pie to the majors in this situation is bound to put a lot of pressure on him. For a club that's declared itself in "win now" mode, this is a confusing decision. Goony is right. We DO need offense out of CF since we'll get nothing out of the SS position and DeRosa is no guarantee to repeat last year's numbers. Furthermore, Barrett probably will sit in about 1/3 of Cub games, as most starting catchers do. When he's out, we have a no-hit backup in Blanco. There are days when we'd play 3 guys with OBP around .300 or worse. That's a sure loser, and that's assuming we're completely healthy, which we won't be because no one ever is. Our pitching is improved, but it's not the kind of rotation that will win a lot of 2-1, 3-2, type games outside of Z and maybe Hill. Further, one has to question how long Lou will stick with Pie if, in fact, he does put up a line something like .250/.300/.400. If he's juggled between AAA and MLB and not given consistent at bats, it could hamper his development as a player. Young players need to play and get consistent AB's. Counting on Pie to be the 2007 CF is a bad decision from a put the best team on the field to win today standpoint, and a worse decision from a player development win tommorrow standpoint. Was Hendry even paying attention during the 4+ seasons of Corey Patterson?

Thanks Bruce, that makes the Cubs decision to offer arbi make a lot more sense to me. Given the decision to spend all out to win this year, you may as well spend a few extra dollars for a high risk, high reward type player rather than get nothing but money saved in the deal.

You have to ask yourself though, how much is a guy worth if there's a 50% chance he'll never pitch for my big league club and a 75-80% chance that when/if he returns, he won't be pitching anywhere close to the level he once achieved. At this point, we're talking about a guy who has pitched more than 200 IP just once in a 5 year career and the next closest season was 166.2 in 2005, where he pitched decently but by no means great. Any team that signs a guy like Prior for more than one season is taking a huge gamble they'll end up eating a lot of money. Someone might give him a better contract for a single season, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle, knowing even if they do he might price himself out of their range in the offseason. Moreover, I don't see a lot of teams taking a big money chance on an injury risk. The market is high this offseason for pitching but, remember what the most important factor in pitchers getting contracts this offseason has been, innings pitched. Wouldn't we have gotten a draft choice if the Cubs had not offered arbritration and Prior left? I forget how that works but depending on how high the choice is, it might have been worth it to let him walk. EDIT: Personally I think he'd get in FA exactly what he'll get in arbi, a 1 year deal worth 3.5M-5M. No one is going to give a guy with Prior's injury history more than a one year deal unless the player's willing to take even less money. The Cubs seem to have unlimited cash this offseason so that may have made it easy to just pay for the slim chance Prior comes back to a semi-decent level, knowing that if we get another 6 GS season we can cut him loose to save money next year.

Well since the Cubs offered arbritration we can't really complain too much. The way arbi works is that the team and player each make an offer and the arbriter (whoever that is) decides which number is the more reasonable and accepts it. In practice, it usually doesn't ever come down to the arbriter actually deciding because one side or the other or both figure they might lose and decide to cut their losses and settle. That said, Prior has no business asking for a raise based on his performance from 3 years ago. If I were the Cubs, I'd make my arbritration offer equal to what he made last season (about 3-4M?). If Prior wants to settle early, I'd offer a 5% raise or let it go to the arbriter. Why did the Cubs actually offer him arbritration anyway? Does Prior really think he can get more than what he's making in FA. He's not much more than a reclamation project at this point.

I definitely agree. If he wants to be gone because of being platooned.. well that's just dumb on his part. If he's afraid of being platooned, he'd better learn to hit LF pitching or lobby like hell to get moved to CF. He isn't likely to find many teams that won't platoon a corner OF that hits in the low .200's against lefties. CF more likely due to the (perceived) lack of players that have the ability to play there.

Wow, it's kind of amazing that Hendry's having so much trouble trading this guy given that contract. Perhaps he's not as intent on trading Jones as rumor suggests. That would be good news.

My bad.

I thought it was 2/12M with this year being the last. Was it 3/18M. If he really has 2 years at 6M per left we should be able to trade him easily and get plenty back given the market this year, though we still probably shouldn't.

As for Soriano blocking Pie, I was referring to the comments Hendry made about signing Soriano to play "1 position" without stating specifically which position it would be but later alluding to RF or CF (it was posted somewhere, maybe the Soriano signing thread). I took that to mean Soriano won't be happy to play CF one season then LF another, and RF still another, and since he's here for 8 seasons, I'd rather keep him happy. I agree with your sentiment about Jones. It is, after all, his contract year, so playing poorly and/or pitching a public fit is probably not in his best interest. That said, it wouldn't be the first time a star publicly feuded with management and caused a stink in the clubhouse despite being a FA within a year or two (Nomar in Boston, Sammy in Chicago, Terrell Owens in football does it every year). I'd probably bet Jones won't make too much noise, but we'll have to hope Hendry knows Jones well enough to make the right call one way or the other.

Count me in the camp that would like to see Jones get a shot to be the everyday CF. The question it comes down to is this. Which is more important, to have a strong offensive or defensive player in CF. Personally, I think offense is more important than defense at almost every position because the difference between the best and worst players on offense is large, obvious, and easily measured (statistically anyway), while the difference between the best and worst defensive players can sometimes stand out in the form of errors, but is not obviously large, and very hard to measure. The worst defensive players in MLB probably won't make more than 30 errors in a season while the best defensive players probably will still make 5-10. How many games will that mean vs. a difference of 100 or 200 points of OPS? Hendry appears to be desperately trying to trade Jones. That means either he sees Jacque as a corner OF only and really would prefer Floyd or just Murton (which would be stupid given Jones has played CF well in Minnesota), OR it means that Jones really wants out of Chicago to the point of demanding a trade. We've heard plenty to support either conclusion, but if not Jones, then who. The remaining FA choices are terrible, that is certain. Hendry views Pie as the CF of the future, but he's a poor choice for the present given that as a rookie being rushed to the bigs, he'd probably have very weak offensive numbers. Soriano could be moved to CF, but that would block Pie in the future, as would any major trade scenario. If the Cubs really want to win now, they should NOT go into the season with Pie or Pagan as the starting CF, nor should they trade Jones just to trade him. If he absolutely demands a trade,were I Jim, I'd explore trading Pie for a long term solution in CF or another corner OF moving Soriano to CF, and failing that, I'd bite the bullet and sign one of the remaining CF free agents. Bringing Pie to the majors now, when his numbers and level don't justify it, right in the middle of a high pressure "win now" mentality is just begging for another Corey Patterson fiasco where a young player is yanked up and down from AAA, gets booed by the fans, and ends up a bust (for the Cubs anyway).

Positive test AND he throws a teammate under the bus to boot. He's closing in on Terell Owens for the biggest jerk in professional sports award.

To answer your specific question, yes. If there is some doubt about whether a player's natural ability and effort alone were sufficient to build HOF type numbers and play at a HOF level, then I would leave them out. Going to the HOF is not the right of any ballplayer that manages to get 500 HR. It is a privelege that can be withheld for any of a number of reasons. Suspected cheating is one of them. Should they be left off the ballot? No, unless MLB takes official action against the player, which they can't and won't because of the union that will go to the mat to protect any player, no matter how corrupt. I think they should not be voted for. That's all. It's not exactly prison to be not inducted into the baseball HOF. They aren't losing any salary they made and aren't getting sued. They should be grateful that's the worst they have to put up with. Also, it's meaningless to hold out for absolute proof. We'll never have access to it, assuming it ever exists. At best, MLB or someone will say that they have proof and take action, the player will deny it whether any punitive action is taken or not. We all have to take the information we have and make the best judgment we can. Now, I see players gain 50 pounds of muscle in a couple of seasons, I'm going to conclude the same thing I conclude when I see it in pro wrestling, but that's me. Rose never admitted to betting on baseball. As far as I know, he was never convicted of anything before any court of law, just banned from MLB. Now, to be sure, there are a lot of crummy to semi-good players that used, probably 10 for every superstar, for no other reason than because there are a lot more crummy to semi-good players than there are superstars. It doesn't really matter though, because leaving suspected juicers out of the HOF has nothing to do with penalizing players. It has to do with protecting the integrity of the HOF. Do cheaters get in? Sometimes. Should they? I don't believe so.

You mean the great Shawn Estes never won ten games as a Cub?!?!? I think Lilly and Hill could both win 10 games easily if they stay healthy and the offense is somewhat more productive than last season.

I don't have any sympathy for people who may have taken illegal drugs to get ahead in their careers. So it wasn't technically in the big book of baseball rules. Are we really to suggest that baseball's rules take precedence over the law and common sense? Are baseball players to be treated like children who shouldn't be held responsible in any way because "they weren't told any different" or "it wasn't really against the rules". These are adults who knew full well what they were doing and the consequences of being caught. Otherwise, why go to such trouble to hide it, even after their baseball careers are done. If a writer plagiarizes everything they write and doesn't get caught until well after their career is over, then they probably don't deserve to be remembered as a great writer. The thing is, regardless of who they were, they were doing something illegal, in secret, to excel in their careers and make more money. If you or I did that, we'd probably never work again if it were ever found out, and we certainly wouldn't be looking for lifetime achievement awards from the organizations we cheated. I forget who posted it and where, but I saw someone post a MLB memo from 1991 that does specifically mention performance enhancing drugs and maintaining the integrity of the game or some such thing. That might be relevant here. All this ignores the fact that it's sportswriters that vote for the HOF anyway. They can take anything into account that they want to, including anything. MLB really doesn't have any checks on the system. IMHO, McGwire and Sosa who had huge offensive explosions at the end of their careers that accompanied radical changes in their build that defied common sense and defined their careers are not worthy of the HOF. At the very least, we can say that the HR is devalued as a stat in the 90's era, and both, McGwire especially, were one dimensional players. Bonds probably does deserve HOF consideration for what he did before he had his noticeable change in build and huge HR boost. I think his career was diminished somewhat by the controversy surrounding him at its end. Had he retired 6 years ago, he'd probably be in the HOF today.

You really think McCarver could figure it out? I don't. McCarver is to sportscasting as Dusty is to managing, only maybe worse. In all seriousness, some people are paid to write serious analysis and some people are paid to write fluffy pieces that are easily understandable to even the dumbest fool that can turn on the computer or pick up a newspaper. I suspect Carrie is the latter and I'd say she does a fair job of it. Nothing offensive or controversial, just fluff for the masses. Like it or not, there's a market for that. Dawson played before I became a Cubs fan, but I think he deserves to be in, as does Santo. Too much emphasis is placed on winning World Series and being on good teams, which is unfair because really a player can't control that much. I think that's why several deserving ex-Cubs get overlooked.