jjgman21

I'm not a draft guru, but having followed it casually the past few years, it really seems drafting pitchers first round is not a good idea. so many of them don't pan out or get hurt, it just seems to be too great a risk, especially considering the comparative success rate of positional prospects. the think about the question of Mauer v. Prior is an easy one to ask but more difficult to answer. the same question could have been asked last year with Tex in Mauer's place. furthermore, taking the point I make above into account, Prior was supposed to be beyond that. he was Mr. Perfect Repeated Delivery With Excellent Command of Two Plus Plus Pitches. he was supposed to be beyond such worries as pitcher abuse and injury. now that perfect delivery turned out to blow out his achilles and he can't repeat his delivery twice in one inning, despite leading the Towel Drill League in all catagories. I do not want to diminish the importance of not abusing pitchers, but I'm beginning to think that health of pitchers is due to physical freakishness more than mechanics or physical stature or pitch count or anything else. pitching just doesn't seem predictable enough to continue dumping early draft dollars on it, particularly because of the injury concerns. I think the Cubs should get off the draft pitching early and often philosophy and start drafting more positional players high in the draft in general. if you do draft pitchers high, go for college pitchers and take the health indicators and factors (abuse, mechanics, stature, etc.) into high consideration.

I'd imagine he'd join a contender. RedSox? edit or Anaheim as suggested above.

He's drafted guys who have made the majors. But he hasn't exactly created a juggernaut with his picks. You can't write it off, but there's nothing wrong with criticizing, nor assuming the worst until you've been proved otherwise. nutshell.

now why would you go and acutally update the draftees. I was really enjoying yet another rant bitching about Colvin.

I'm not a big expert on the draft so I can't really project where he'd go, but Horton(the UNC SS) didn't declare because he isn't old enough. He was a Sophomore this year, so if he wants he can enter next year if he wishes. so once you enter college you have to stay until after your junior year?

an aside, but I haven't found another thread to ask this in. probably not the right forum, but oh well. I watched just a little bit of the CWS, but was shocked and amazed at the numbers of NC's shortstop. why on earth did he not declare for the draft and how high will he go when he does?

I have to sell that. Is not winning a world championship the only criteria? My criteria is this: would you rather be a Detroit Lions fan or a Cub fan? Would you rather be a Cleveland Browns fan or a Cub fan? Would you rather be a Tampa Bay Devil Ray fan or a Cub fan? A Pittsburgh Pirate fan of a Cub fan? A Toronto Raptor fan or a Cub fan? I think one is blowing it way out of proportion to call the Cubs the worst organization in sports history. Or either they've forgotten about the Cub history from 1906-1945. History means existence forever, not just the last three decades. You can't really compare playoff appearances with baseball teams as you can hockey or basketball teams since half of their teams make the playoffs. If baseball invited eight teams from each league to the playoffs, we'd have at least two more playoff appearances just since 2001 (2001 and 2004). By the way, none of us here have been Cub fans for 97 years, so I can only count since 1977 when I became a Cub fan. That's almost thirty years. Many, many professional teams have gone 30+ years without a World Championship. And the Cubs haven't played for a World Series title since 1945. That's a bad 6 decades, not 3. Longevity plays a big role in this as well. The Toronto Raptors have only been around since 1995 so they don't count. They Devil Rays fall into this as well. The Browns and Lions are bad, but at 42 and 49 years respectively, they still don't compare to the Cubs. The Pirates have won 5 World Series titles since the Cubs won one including 3 since the Cubs have even played in a World Series.[/b] see my post above about the meaninglessness of this discussion without defining what is meant by "worst." if you want to talk about the past three decades, there are plenty of teams to look at around sports that are much worse than the Cubs. you don't even have to leave baseball. Rangers post season appearances in past 3 decades = 3; Cubs = 4. if you make the list 1.5 to 2 decades, the Cubs are nowhere near the worst in baseball. if you want to talk about baseball history, its' pretty hard to out do the Phillies 90 years of existence with 2 post season appearances before the mid 70's. Cubs post season appearances since the Phillies inception = 16 Phillies = 9; Phillies total post season appearances excluding 1976-1983 = 3 of course you would be well served bringing up the Indians if you are a Phillies fan and their 93 year run with 3 post season appearances in 92 years of existence before the mid 90's. slice it, dice it, frame it, define organizational success as a failure (ie. attendance, market share, etc), put time restrictions on it, and there is no problem declaring the Cubs the worst organization in sports. don't do these things, and its pretty much a stretch.

alot of the favor for players with large IsoD is predictability, but also supposed consistency. Dunn is blowing that notion out of the water. he seems as hot and cold as Jacque Jones.

They were booing the ruling of a hit, not Utley as a player. Not that it matters in any way if they did. Cubs fans are 100% classy as well I'm sure. Booing guys like Pujols every time he bats. Every fan base is like this, there is no use acting like it's isolated to one or that one is better than another. Your vendetta is laughable. now you're just making things up. what vendetta might that be? I simply pointed, in a thread about the obnoxiousness of Card fans, that they committed a pretty tasteless act the other night. what is laughable is your vendetta against me, as evidenced by this post. you make no real point, you just want to attack me and try to make me look bad. I believe I used the word sophomoric once to describe such behavior. maybe it should be downgraded to 'seventh grade-ic.' to me the Card fans booing the official scorer was sort of like republican politicians committing adultery or getting busted for corruption. it is worse because so many of them run around espousing 'holier than thou.' if you don't, fantastic. it doesn't change the fact that a large number of them do. your assessment of booing Pujols everytime he comes up is a figment of your imagination. and even if they did, Cub fans don't run around enmasse saying they are the best fans in baseball.

not sure if this was mentioned anywhere, but it was in pretty poor taste to boo Utley and the official scorer for ruling a single. wasn't too long ago Cardinal fans were patting each other on the back for cheering Griffey's 500th like other fans wouldn't have done the same. glad Utley got another chance and got a cleaner single.

Well, in an informal poll of Cards fans that were friends of mine right after we picked up Weaver...almost to a person we thought that Ponson was better and we were actually downgrading. The only reasoning we could come up with was that Ponson was copping an attitude/he wasn't pulling his weight (hahaha) and management was looking to make an example of someone to light a fire under everyone else. Obviously, it hasn't worked out on any level. I'm hoping he's DFA'd tomorrow or after his next start and Mulder is reactivated. how do the Cardinals continue to make miracle recoveries from injury?

The defensive improvement might not be as dramatic as you'd think. Jones' defense has been declining pretty quickly. That's not to say he'd be a liability, but he's not close to what he was in the late 90's. It's still the type of defensive improvement I'd like, one that comes with good offense. TT had a post a couple weeks ago that showed a metric depicting AJones in the bottom 4(?) I believe of Center Fielders. It said Pierre has been a better CF this year. aside from his noodle arm, I don't think Pierre's performance defensively in CF can be questioned this year. he's been very good. and as for arm, I've said many times that an outfielder's arm is highly overrated. a great arm will get you a few outs and limit a few extra bases, but often will result in lots of extra bases given away by failing to hit the cutoff man or air mailing everybody. an outfileder with a noodle arm who knows his limitations will counter the damage of the later all together by not overthrowing, and the ten outs a year gained by a good OF arm is not of great value in the grand scheme of a 162 game season. that said, give me Jones' 50 HRs in center and defense better than non-existant and I will be happy. sure would be nice to have a big three like that in the middle, with Barrett right behind them. possibly enough slug in the middle to make up for the terrible OBP at the bottom.

wikipedia.com Think about that...Philadelphia organization went from 1883-1979 without winning a TITLE. Then in 1980....BOOM, World Series titles, after 97 years. The Cubs last won the title in 1908. This is 2006. After the year, the Cubs would have gone 98 years without a title, and they will set the record for the longest drought in sports history. Phildelphia was at 97 years without a title. Chicago NL will be at 98 and counting. Doesn't that give you SUCH a confidence that this org knows what the heck they are doing? :evil: (Did you know theme plays) Indeed. However, an organization must also be judged on things like profitability, marketability, fan interest, market share. The Cubs do very well in these categories. I'll stick with an organization who not only loses, but has no fan support as my WORST franchise. #of years since the last championship is only one factor. And that franchise? It is the Blackhawks. it's pretty hard to say that though considering they were Jaromir Jagr away from winning the Stanley Cup only 15 years ago. the the RedWings got serious, and Wirtz gave up.

I'd hardly consider the above two games blowouts. There were others that I wouldn't consider blowouts, but especially these two. If you factor these games in, he's given up 11 runs in 38.2 innings. Still much better than his overall numbers, but not as good as the picture you painted. We're talking about the Cubs offense, down 4, that late, it's a blowout. exactly. at that point of the ballgame they had 4 hits, one by Rusch, against a pitcher they were shut down by (until the late innings) only a few days earlier. they weren't hitting Arroyo that day. as for loogie v. closer mentality, about 30/50 of his appearances have been for at least an inning, I think only 5 or 6 have been for one batter. he's obviously better against lefties, but it doesn't seem that alone would account for it since presumably he's facing righties in alot of those innings he goes 1+ innings.

the man has his critics. I like him. I was thinking about his performance yesterday, and it occurred to me that the majority of runs the guy has given up this year have come in blow outs. looking at his game log confirms it. Ohman's totals after game 1 today 46.2 IP, 26 R allowed (all earned) some highlights from his game log 4/11 came into the game in 6th, down 4-0, gave up 5 runs over 0 inn 4/29 came into the game in 6th, down 10-0, gave up 3 runs over 2 inn 5/4 came into game in 9th, down 5-0, gave up 1 run in 1 inn 5/18 came into the game in 5th, down 4-0, gave up 1 run in 1 inn 6/13 came into the game in 9th, down 6-1, gave up 3 runs in 1 inn 6/26 came into the game in 9th, down 5-0, gave up 1 run in 1 inn 7/31 came into the game in 8th, down 10-3, gave up 5 in 1 inn 8/3 came into the game in 7th down 7-1, gave up 2 in 2 inn I know a pitcher needs to get guys out in all situations, but isn't this just a glaring example of a guy with a "closer mentaility" aka doesn't focus or get hyped or whatever if the game isn't on the line? Ohman's line if taking away his performance in these blowouts 37.2 IP, 5 runs allowed.

what package do you offer up? Atlanta seems to have reversed its course of 10-15 years ago, producing alot more hitters than pitchers. do the Cubs have the goods to swing such a deal? btw, the mods should change the title because the Jones issue is a helluva lot more interesting than Reyes' contract.

the term "worst organization in sports" needs to be defined before this conversation has any meaning. shear incompetence in the acquisitions of players? bottom line monetarily? bottom line championship wise? consistency of reaching the post season/competetiveness? furthermore, there is a chrnological element as well. worst right now? worst in our lifetime? worst since the inception of professional sports? there's tons of meanings to the term. the Cubs are the worst by one narrowly tailored definition with a narrowly tailored view of history.

Hendry said yesterday on the Score670 (in his interview with Mike Murphy) that he has all intentions to bring back Pierre for next year. So it seems he definitely knows what direction he wants to go in terms of CF. Here's a link to the interview for anyone who hasn't heard it........ http://670thescore.com/podspot/pages/murphy/4.shtml time to get a new hobby. if they go into 2007 with Pierre, Cedeno and Izturis in the line up, there won't be a point in watching or posting about the Cubs.

iirc, Harry drove Lewin, Brennaman, and Hamilton out of town.

I thought it has been confirmed before that buyouts are actually budgeted in for the previous year and don't count against that years budget. So its not like we have to worry about it being a 5mil contract, it would be 2mil (or whatever you work out) I was going to say the same thing. I think that's what they said during some recent buyout. maybe Alou?

there may not be alot of luxury boxes, but there is other streams of revenue. they have the rooftop revenue, ridiculous concession prices, 99% capacity at the second highest tickest price in all of baseball. also, if I'm not mistaken, all the licensing for Wrigley Field, as opposed to the Cubs, belongs to the Trib, not MLB. so every Wrigley souvenir, memorabilia, T-shirt, etc. puts a chunk of change in their pocket. c'mon guys, the Trib is a corporation. if Wrigley wasn't generating plenty of money for them, what would any corporation in the country do? no corporation is going to keep an asset that houses another asset because the first asset is "good for baseball."

ARod, Jeter, Ichiro, Ortiz, Utley, Beltran, Soriano, Rolen, Glaus, Aramis and DLee, Vladdy, Abreu and Helton. Webb, Carpenter, Halliday, Lackey, Santana, Oswalt, Zito There's a lot of talent in that age range. But yeah, teams realized that not all prospects are suspects, and that trading for a marginal veterans isn't the answer to your pennant dreams. Yeah, I was thinking the opposite. There's not a lot of talent over 35 anymore. Bonds is not the force he was the last few years, there's no Sosa, McGwire, Luis Gonzalez, Unit, Clemens, Maddux, having great years over 35 like there has been in recent years. Kids are running baseball right now, and their doing it very cheaply. Those are all great players above, but I think this is probably the deepest group of under 26 yo studs and can't miss prospects probably ever. And that's with a couple of weak drafts recently. I think the better way of putting what I was trying to get at is service time instead of age. just thinking off the top of my head and the six to 10 year corp (again, approx) is pretty weak and those that are in that range are naturally locked up long term and producing. a look at the top players in both leagues in OPS+ and ERA+ this and last year, the candidates for this year's post season awards (aside - arguably the top three candidates for the AL CY are rookies! Verlander, Liriano and Papelbon) and the All-Star rosters, pretty much confirms it. maybe that's the natural progression of things, but it seems guys in the 7-10 year range of service time would be at their peak and dominating baseball, but that's just not the case these days.

you couldn't be more incorrect. I used the word "similar". Which means, they have have SOME things in common. Speed, defense, and possibly the same kind of average. They both will strikeout alot also. one has a history of getting on base at a decent clip and hitting for decent power. the other has a history of not getting on base at a decent clip and not hitting for decent power. the former has done so in the majors, the other has done so in the minors. sure there are similarities, but your post in this context really conotates that pagan would be just as good a fourth outfielder as Cruz. I'm beginning to like Pagan actually, but as a fifth, not a fourth, outfielder.

like I alluded to earlier, even if that is the case, they wouldn't have put Walker at first a day or two after Lee went down when the Cubs were in first place. these games are meaningless. put him out there in game action. the change is not that great. difficult turns at 2nd might cost you one out over the course of the next five games. big fricken deal. Walker wouldn't have had a runner coming at him spikes first trying to break up a double play at 1st base. If Cedeno isn't accustomed to turning the DP (and evading a baserunner sliding) at 2B, then I don't think it's a bad decision to let him get a couple of days of work doing so in practice. Conversely, I think we'd likely care quite a bit less about a possible injury related to this type of scenario if we were still in the playoff race. There was no real reason to risk an injury to Cedeno by placing him at 2B a bit prematurely since we are out of the playoff picture. If we needed his bat in the lineup and we were in the playoff picture, he would have played 2B yesterday.....my opinion. you're envisioning an incident that happens once every 10,000 major league baseball games happening withing the next 5 games. with Ronnie's athleticism and familiarity playing around the keystone corner, I'd take my chances. we just witnessed the closer being used four games in a row and in 7 of 8 days in a row, a little over a year after treating another pitcher with a surgically repaired arm, Chad Fox, in a similar way and ending his career. we've seen Kerry Wood go from 50 pitches for a month then up to 85 pitches in a rehab start. we've seen Mark Prior try to pitch through an achilles injury when anyone with any knowledge of the body or access to webmd.com could have told you the only prescription for an achilles injury is rest. please don't tell me the Cubs management suddenly become enlightened about the risk of injury to Cubs players. I'm confused. Are you saying that a 2nd baseman only turns a DP once in every 10,000 games? I must have misread that. no, I'm suggesting that a 2nd baseman gets injured every 10,000 DPs turned. don't know the real number, but it's not an everyday occurrence, particularly with atheletic types like Cedeno. even viscious take outs don't usually cause injury, see White Sox v. Tigers two weeks ago. I just don't see Cedeno sitting there taking a spike to the knee ala Carlos Lee on Todd Walker.

It's no doubt Boston needs a catcher on the news that Tek has a torn meniscus in his knee and will need surgery. That's usually a 6 week limitation to starting physical activity. Blanco is a nice idea given need for a good signal caller and defender. ? I heard it was just a cartilage tear. About the same thing..the meniscus is made up of cartilage. thought it was a tendon.