CubinNY

Wasn't there an incident with Murton earlier this year where Zambrano showed him up? I can't recall what exactly happened, but I do vaguely remember something taking place. I can remember one with Murton and one with Walker. I think there have been others as well. Zambrano, as much as I've liked him, is a punk. His bravado is fun and entertaining when he's going well, like his predicting the Cubs will win 110 games or his claiming he'll win the Cy. But when things go bad, he's an immature jackass. Barrett's an emotional player as well. We've seen this with Oswalt and AJ. The difference is Barrett is usually taking on the other team and not his own. That behavior may not be good, but it's world's better than pouting and blaming your own teammates. Zambrano was acting like a baby and Barrett called him on his prima donna attitude. Maybe if Zambrano started throwing the ball better and quit trying to act like Kent Tekulve he'd get more outs this year. I basically agree with you here. Barrett should not have started round 2, if indeed he did. I'm withholding judgement on round 2 until I know more. While Barrett went into the clubhouse, right now we don't know what happened to re-ignite things. Barrett may have gone in there to continue the fight, or he may have gone there to ask Z wtf was his problem. I don't know...and right now none of us do. We might never know. But from what I saw on the tape, it was clear this was more a cause of Zambrano acting like a complete prima donna ass, and Barrett simply pointing that out. Don't excuse Barrett. He's an ass that can't catch and hase gotten into altercations before. There is no excuse for following Zambrano back into the lockerroom. None. I've said this before, Barrett is a terrible catcher. Just terrible. He hops around behind the plate, sets up late or sometimes not at all, and gets crossed up far too often with too many pitchers. Zambrano shouldn't have started this whole thing. IMO, he is the most to blame. However, all Barrett had to do was walk away. Instead, he pointed to the scoreboard. Then he goes back into the locker for whatever reason. He's an ass.

Sometimes you have to own it. First Barrett calls for a pitch and gets crossed up Then he makes a really stupid play to compound the already stupid cross up. I looked to me like Z was telling Barrett to use his head.

Right. I takes 2 to make a fight. Z was wrong for talking to Barrett. Barrett was wrong for point to the scoreboard. They're both dunces. This goes in the lowlights of the 100 year drought. Yea Cobs!

Its about time he said it! The thing is though, he's got every single outfielder playing out of positon except Soriano. He's got Theriot everywhere. Obviously the guys need to catch the ball. However, aside from Barrett's bone headed playes most of the errors have been physical not mental. I think I'll assign blame thusly 33% to the players 33% to Lou for playing them out of position 33% to Hendry for putting together a team of players that don't fit The Cubs are less than the sum of their parts, sadly.

No, that would be the smart thing to do. Very un-Cubs-like

Back and to the left, back and to the left, back... and to the left.

And Joe Girardi would have been the perfect skipper for that process. Too bad he wasn't available. Oh, wait. Joe Girardi sucks. I'm sick of the "Joe would have been better". He's an old school, bunt-the-man over, double-switching moron. He's already ruined one of the more promising pitchers in baseball. Let him damage some other team's players. Lou might suck, Girardi swallows.

He threw in the mid 90's in high school. I doubt he'll be able to reach that again, but the Padres have to salvage something. Was this the worst #1 pick in professional sports over the last 10 years? Depends on how you view it. In terms of talent, there's a good argument that he is. However, compared to the contracts #1 overall picks in other sports compared to him, I'd say probably not. Some other candidates to consider... Kwame Brown (NBA) Michael Olowokandi (NBA) Bryan Bullington (MLB) Josh Hamilton (MLB, Arguable) David Carr (NFL) Courtney Brown (NFL) Tim Couch (NFL) If Ryan Leaf and Tony Mandrich weren't taken as the second pick they would be neck and neck in this debate and everyone else would be a distant third.

As per usual he's right on the money. He also gets in some nice digs at our favorite GM http://www.dailyherald.com/sports/cubs.asp

JP Richardi, Paul Depodesta Please no re-treads. By that I mean A Baseball Man who knows The Game.

Do you know what sucks? In relation to the Chicago Cubs National League Ball Club, the draft is all we have to look forward to this year. Even September call-ups can't get me fired up.

First, most hitters pull the ball. Second, the ball will slice towards his glove hand (LH for soriano) off of a right handed hitter. If the ball is pulled from a left handed hitter same thing. In left field just the opposite is the case. Either way the difference in positions is negligible to the point of absurdity.

You might think its complete and utter nonsense, but it's fact my friend. They are that much different. Maybe you denying it is complete and utter nonsense... What is a fact? The ball comes off the bat different? That's not in dispute. Soriano is supposed to be this uber athletic stud. He's played one full season in LF, the rest of the time he's been an infielder. He made the jump from 2nd to LF ok, kind of. He should be able to adjust to RF. Sammy Sossa held down the postion pretty well as did Jeromi Burnitz and many other medocire fielders. BTW> In RF the ball will be slicing to him off of a RH batter, not away from him.

Why not? Because it makes too much sense. It just makes too much sense ...? Maybe if we pretended there was no difference. That more or less is "why not." Murton isn't a rightfielder either but he does get better reads and handles those better. It's becoming a pet peeve of mine that people refuse to acknowledge a difference between left and rightfield. I think what you've written is complete and utter nonsense. The positions are not that much different. Nothing that 10 or 12 hours of fungo practice wouldn't take care of anyway.

That at least has as much validity as uncontrollable cramps. Probably more.

You cannot compare stats over two seasons. Those are not consecutive starts nor are they consecutive appearences. This is so much like the Rich Hill saga from last year. He's up, he's down, he's in the pen, he's starting, he's in the pen. They haven't given him enough time to go much over 75 pitches. What I'm saying is that he couldn't do it last year, even when he had about 16 consecutive starts. Why was Dusty willing to throw Marmol out there for a ton of pitches but not Guzman? Even Mateo, who Dusty had the quickest hook on, was allowed to throw a lot of pitches in some games, but not Guzman. In the last two months of the season, Dusty ran every starting pitcher into the ground, but Guzman only broke 85 pitches for him once. I find that strange. I would agree this year they haven't given him many chances to go above 75 (although they have given him a little bit of a chance, the last start he made was his 6th in a row, he should be fully stretched out already). I would have liked to see that he proved that he couldn't throw that deep into a game before I sent him down to the bullpen, but apparently the doubt about that (which I fully understand) was enough to make Lou act. If Marshall pitches at least decently, it shouldn't be too bad of a thing for the team-because while Guzman has the stuff to be a decent to good starter, his stuff gets a lot better in the pen with the extra velocity on his fastball. If Marshall is terrible as a starter, then Guzman to the pen is an awful move, because the 5th starter is more important than a reliever. Guzman NEVER made 16 consecutive starts with the Cubs. http://www.fangraphs.com/statsd.aspx?playerid=2145&position=P&season=2006 He pitched in 4 consecutive starts in April. In June he was used in the bullpen. Then sent down. Then in late August and Early September he made 5 consecutive starts and was again moved to the pen. This year he started in the pen. Then was sent down. Then brought up and made three starts. Now he's in the pen. You see a pattern?

Quite. So I guess the Aardsma trade was a net win for the Sox? He's at least still around, and I don't hear a lot of negativity over him coming from the South Side. Just wait until Cotts is starting witht he big club. They'll have four lefties and Marqius by the end of the year.

You cannot compare stats over two seasons. Those are not consecutive starts nor are they consecutive appearences. This is so much like the Rich Hill saga from last year. He's up, he's down, he's in the pen, he's starting, he's in the pen. They haven't given him enough time to go much over 75 pitches.

How is he continually taken out in the 4th? Well, if he cramps up around 60 pitches then I'm sure there would be multiple times where he wouldn't make it out of the 4th/5th inning. I'd rather not have a starter who cannot make it past the 60 pitch mark. I saw Guzman pitch here in Memphis when he was getting "stretched out" to become a starter and he threw almost exactly 100 pitches and they took him out. He looked pissed. Let's not try to make too much out of his cramps. I would think any competent medical staff could aleviate this problem. Not quite 100 pitches-Guzman threw 76 pitches that night in Memphis. In fact, he hasn't thrown above 85 pitches since last August. And when he's started he thrown more than 60. Guzman is suffering from the same problem that almost every Cub prospect has suffered from for the last several years. Inconsistent useage patterns.

How is he continually taken out in the 4th? Well, if he cramps up around 60 pitches then I'm sure there would be multiple times where he wouldn't make it out of the 4th/5th inning. I'd rather not have a starter who cannot make it past the 60 pitch mark. I saw Guzman pitch here in Memphis when he was getting "stretched out" to become a starter and he threw almost exactly 100 pitches and they took him out. He looked pissed. Let's not try to make too much out of his cramps. I would think any competent medical staff could aleviate this problem.

Yes, yes, yes. Subjective evaluations are often correct, but their reliability at any given time is unknown. The farther out from professional baseball the evaluation, the less reliable it will be.

I thought that was the same guy. He was like a can't miss. I think he was drafted third or something like that. He only got like 24 PAs in the the bigs in 2004 and now he's in AA. What gives? .738 and .640 OPS at AAA in the 2 years after his MLB cup of coffee did him in. Yikes! That will do it.

I thought that was the same guy. He was like a can't miss. I think he was drafted third or something like that. He only got like 24 PAs in the the bigs in 2004 and now he's in AA. What gives?

I'm way inland and it's thick as heck here too...I haven't seen the sun in 3 days. There won't be many runs in the Dodgers series too. We had sun yesterday for about an hour. By the time the sun burned off most of the marine layer, it was starting to set and it just built right back up again. This will be a good game to play some small ball. BBB, are you going to any of the games? My wife and I are "attending" an academic conference in SD over the weekend and wll be at Thursday's game.

They aren't his numbers becuase he doesn't get to play on a consistent basis. The people running the Cubs are traditionalists. They want a Slugger in the corner outfiled spot. I called this as soon as Hendry went ga-ga over Soriano. Then they went out and got Floyd. Hendry and crew are clueless. It's a shame. I disagree that the only thing lacking is consistent play. I think there's a little more to it than that but that's impossible to argue so we'll just leave that up to be determined. It's not quite as simple as the Cubs wanting a slugger there either. The problem is he'd have to be better in every other area -- defense, speed, discipline -- and he's just not. He's below average defensively in right field and does not have significant speed. He has good discipline at the plate but this is another thing that's always been exaggerated for him. He is not an elite walker; he doesn't even have great patience. He's just a little above average when the Cubs have been so used to players below average. A breath of fresh air, no doubt, and personally I think Murton will come around to find some power but he's out of place here now. Unless you move Soriano to rightfield and he adjusts well there, you cannot imagine any longterm future for Murton with the club without serious improvements. Now if he's traded for a middle reliever - I'm pissed. But let's not treat it as if the only acceptable trade is for Miguel Cabrera because that's just nonsense. It's sensless what the Cubs are doing. To try to portray it as anything else is just silly. Hendry & Co. should have asked themselves: What do we have and what do we need? They had a cheap LFer who produced at a good rate and looked to be improving They had JJ comming off a career year and were looking to trade him. They needed a CFer They needed people who could get on base They got nothing that they needed (offensively) and allocated a lot of money and a lot of years to do so. I'm willing to bet a year's worth of premium that if Murton gets regularly playing time from 2008-2010 he will have better three year numbers OBP/OPS+ than Soriano.