Illini Iceman

Yeah, i am glad to see him doing well. He was a good guy and had a great 03 season. I hope he continues this success but i don't know if it will happen. Has anyone actually seen him pitch? Anyone know how hard he's been throwing? I was at the game Saturday night against the Orioles and the highest he topped out on any of his pitches was 87 mph. It is not a slow gun there either, because when I was there for a Tigers game Farns put up 99 mph a couple times. It has been a great start for JoBo with the D-Rays but I can't see him continuing the success with that velocity. I think when the scouting report starts getting around he may start having some trouble.

I don't think you can really rip on the guy for pronouncing Latin players' names correctly This made me laugh because it reminded me of Les Nessman in WKRP in Cincinnati pronouncing Chi Chi Rodriguez's name. Probably no one else remembers that, but oh well.

For someone going by OldHappyCubFan you don't seem too happy. :P

I don't think he was a Reds fan(although it's certainly possible I missed it), and it was last night. I would think that Mitre would get the rotation nod before Hill, but nothing would surpirse me at this point. If Wood misses any starts I sincerely hope that they give them to Rusch (not Mitre).

Quite Astute baseball knowledge to use a team stat like Wins to judge a pitcher. Just an FYI almost ALL baseball scholars understand Wins are almost (nearly) worthless as an indicator of pitching performance. WHIP, BB/9, K/9, K/BB, ERA, and .BAA are all above a Team stat like wins. I'm a huge Kerry Wood fan and agree there is no point getting mad at a guy that has been a big contributor to the '98 and '03 playoff teams because he gets hurt. It's not like it is from any lack of effort or desire by him. However, it is incredibly frustrating that this keeps happening. I can almost hear the mantra now: "It is nothing major. We just took him out as a precaution and to err on the safe side. We will reevaluate tomorrow morning and if he is feeling OK he won't miss a start." And then he will be out for 6 weeks.

Jerry Martin was solid! :lol:

IMO if this is going to lead to anything else it is a trade that will move Hairston to a team looking for a 2B and Gerut then gives Hendry an option to play CF if Corey doesn't get it together. Hairston has pretty good value right now, the Cubs still don't seem very high on him, and I believe he is a FA next year. For now, however, I think Gerut is a bench guy because Murton is doing too well to bench and Dusty likes Holly (plus he has been hitting pretty well the last month or so). He may get some starts in CF against RH pitching just to see how he can do out there. I think the logical roster move is Mitre goes down.

That's great. Hollandsworth has 1 good game, and you want to call it a trend. Hey, that's fine. Trends begin and end when they begin and end. This happend without respect to any fixed and arbitrary time reference. What you call manipulating data is nothing more than isolating a trend that your "common point of reference" completely ignores. It was a two game sample, thank you very much. :P I still don't think your 13 AB's prove anything, and definitely feel the :shock: was a bit much considering the sample size. You imply that 6 AB's is too few for a trend but are claiming that 13 AB's is enough. Seems like a pretty fine line. Yes, it's a 2 game sample size. I said he had 1 good game, and I stand by it. You have my sincere apology for the use of the :shock: Never mind was it implied. Concentrate on what was stated. The original assertion was that Hollandsworth has played "real well lately". I assert that he has not. A fine line ? Sure it is. Fair enough. BTW, keep up the good work on the worthless stats before each game! Love 'em! :thumleft:

That's great. Hollandsworth has 1 good game, and you want to call it a trend. Hey, that's fine. Trends begin and end when they begin and end. This happend without respect to any fixed and arbitrary time reference. What you call manipulating data is nothing more than isolating a trend that your "common point of reference" completely ignores. It was a two game sample, thank you very much. :P I still don't think your 13 AB's prove anything, and definitely feel the :shock: was a bit much considering the sample size. You imply that 6 AB's is too few for a trend but are claiming that 13 AB's is enough. Seems like a pretty fine line.

The Reds better trade Randa quick before the value from his hot start is all completely diminished.

Hollandsworth AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS 07/09 - 07/17 13 2 3 0 0 0 3 0 2 2 0.231 0.333 0.231 0.564 :shock: Why pick the 7/9 - 7/17 time period? If you use all of July his BA is .321, OBP is 394, SLG is .571 against RH pitching. That seems pretty good to me. Becuase that's when he turned cold. Why do you insist on tying all trends to the calendar month ?? Players don't get hot and cold on a monthly schedule, ya know. Hollandsworth AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS 07/01 - 07/08 22 2 8 2 0 2 16 4 2 2 0.364 0.400 0.727 1.127 07/09 - 07/17 13 2 3 0 0 0 3 0 2 2 0.231 0.333 0.231 0.564 07/01 - 07/17 35 4 11 2 0 2 19 4 4 4 0.314 0.375 0.543 0.918 OK, then by lately I meant 7/15-7/17. That makes just as much sense as pulling 7/9 - 7/17 out of the air and then using :shock: to make it seem that it proves the statement false. Tying trends to a calender month provides a common point of reference that can be used to avoid having one side manipulate the data to attempt to prove their pre-conceived theory.

I wouldn't complain about another run or two here.

Hollandsworth AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS 07/09 - 07/17 13 2 3 0 0 0 3 0 2 2 0.231 0.333 0.231 0.564 :shock: Why pick the 7/9 - 7/17 time period? If you use all of July his BA is .321, OBP is 394, SLG is .571 against RH pitching. That seems pretty good to me.

With the way the starters have been going lately it seems that the 12 man pitching staff is unnecessary. In the blow out game today Dusty had to use two pitchers in the ninth just to get guys some work. IMO when Greenberg is ready to come back they should be able to send Mitre down to get the staff back to 11. When Nomar hopefully returns at the beginning of August Cedeno may as well go down since he will have no hope of playing time behind Nomar and Neifi. That would leave a bullpen of: Dempster Wuertz Novoa Ohman Remlinger Rusch And a bench of: Blanco Neifi Macias Grieve Holly/Murton (whichever is not starting) Greenberg That seems pretty well balanced though, if he keeps hitting well at AAA, I might prefer promoting Dubois to keeping Greenberg since it would give the Cubs a RH power threat for late game PH opportunities.

Completely idiotic by Farnsworth. He will be lucky if gets a suspension of any less than 7 games. He is also fortunate he did not get hurt. After he lifted Affeldt he got turned around and it looked like he is the one that actually got the brunt of the body slam.

Borowski has looked good in his first couple outings for the Rays. The Cubs waited so long on him to get healthy from the shoulder and then the broken wrist that it would a shame if it turned out that they let him go just as he was getting it back together. I am assuming the Cubs coaching staff saw something (e.g. - lack of velocity, reduced movement on slider, etc) that caused them to decide to just give up and DFA him instead of sending Mitre down and giving Borowski a little more time.

I have to disagree. I think If the managment shuts their traps, and deals with it in house, his trade value is higher. Yes he was in a decline. But He was still Slammin Sammy. Despite the fact he only hit in the low 200's, he still had quite a few HR's. I'm sure alot of teams would accept the lower average for the power. The club decided to make him into CLUBHOUSE CANCER SAMMY SOSA, however, and i beleive that hurt his value. If the team didn't reveal his surly dispossition at the end of the year, another team would have surely investigated why the Cubs were trading him and discovered the truth anyway. In addition, there is no way Sosa drops the next guaranteed year unless he has to eat some value do to his poor reputation. No team was going to give us much value for 2 years of an inflated contract. You also have to consider the business/marketing side of it. If the Cubs just keep everything quiet and trade him there would have been an uproar among the "average" fan who still remembers '98 Sosa. Those "average" fans are who buy a majority of the tickets and an awful lot of merchandise. It may be cold, but business can be that way, and the Cubs needed to "sell" their fan base on the idea of Sammy no longer being part of the team. He just happened to make it very easy for them.

Lamar supposedly offered Baez for Zambrano :shock: earlier this year so there is no way he does a deal for Dunn AND Baez for the package you mentioned. The Cubs are going to have to give him way over value (e.g. - Dope, Wellemeyer and Hill) for Huff since he has another year on his deal at a relatively reasonable salary. It would not be worth it, especially when you consider his Alou like defensive abilities. Huff is best suited to be a DH or a mediocre defensive 1B.

Hey. Mizzou..... you could do worse !! I mean, think of it this way.... you're not having to watch Leicester, Dempster, Rusch, Mitre, or Koronka start, right ?? Yeah, I've seen such Cubs legends as Jim Bullinger, Jeremi Gonzalez and Anthony Young pitch live! Maddux is a HOF'er! I can usually get to Wrigley for one game a year and this season I got John Koronka vs. Dontrelle Willis. Doh!

That was the rumor that Sutcliffe floated last night during the Sox / Yankee game (Yankees interested). I imagine they might be a bit more interested now since Wang, Pavano, and Brown are all on the DL. $60MM for a starting rotation just doesn't go as far as it used to, huh? LOL Look out Gammons, Sutcliffe is scooping you. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2109484

true. the only reason i bring this up is because Felix was going to be called up if he didn't get hurt in the first place. That being said, i think he'll be the next guy they call up once he is 100% healthy. That was the plan, I suppose but the situation is different. By the time Pie is healthy Patterson might have shown enough at AAA to get recalled. If Murton hits it will be hard to justify not playing him. The there's Dubois in the mix. He'll no doubt destroy AAA pitching (like going 3-4 tonight) and perhaps be a better option to rot the bench instead of Pie. Baker has already said that he doesn't want to play Hairston in LF. So Baker either disrupts the lineup that has won 4 straight or he keeps Pie- a rookie that he doesn't want to play anyway- down on the farm. I think the injury cost Pie his chance this year. At last count the Cubs are sitting at 39 on the 40 man roster and if Nomar is on schedule to return Aug 1 per recent reports then that will fill it up. Plus they have Williamson hoping to get back still this season. I can't believe that would use up another spot on the 40 man roster with Pie unless they are sure he is ready to come in and play every day right now. Of course, I am still a little confused why they would bother to add Greenberg as a bench guy when they could have just brought up Grieve who was already on the 40 man, so what do I know.

I can live with that scenario. However, OF needs to be addressed regardless of what happens with SS. Holly/Dubois, Patterson, Burnitz was blatant negligence going into this season. They have to find an impact bat out there, somewhere, even if they do bring Nomar back. Sorry. I actually meant upgrade OF MORE. Maybe go out and get a couple corner OFs instead of just 1 and go with Cedeno at SS. We should have some wiggle room with Sammy's contract off the books for next year. Forgot about that. But raises will go to Wood, Maddux, Prior, Z, Lee, Ramirez, Barrett, and possibly Patterson next year to basically wipe out that amount. The Cubs do have the potential to go league minimum at SS, CF, or LF next year. How much of a raise is Lee getting? And we can have Murton in left, and Cedeno somewhere (hopefully on the bench, not that I don't like him, but I want to hang on to Nomar and Walker). Will Remmy be off the books? There's another 4 million right there. I think I will need to wait and see a little bit more before I feel comfortable with the Cubs penciling in Murton as the starting LF next year.

He has a better case than Ozzie Smith. If he had done a few back flips at 1B he may have given himself a chance. :P

I cannot speak on behalf of all the Cardinal fans, but home field to a WC team is a joke. What is the purpose of winning more games throughout the course of the season if it does not mean anything? For example, I remember a lot of Cub fans complaining that TLR might throw games in order to hurt the Cubs chances at the WC (which was unfounded). Under the current system and the Cards large lead wouldn't it be logical for TLR to rest his older players in order to maintain their health. As long as they are assured home field advantage during the NL championship, that is all he should really care about. Thus, at the end of the season the Cards could be putting out a weak lineup against WC teams in order to maintain their health and stamina. That is not a good situation to be in and could be misconstrued as throwing games. As for last year, the Red Sox already had the momentum of winning 4 straight games against their rival. Then add to that home field advantage. The momentum was clearly on their side. NOTE: In no way do I think that the Home Field advantage cost the Cardinals the WS. Well, to challenge your point just a bit...homefield in the World Series has never in my lifetime gone to the team with the best record. While I'm no fan of the "This time it counts" ASG-incentive program, prior to this season homefield for the WS rotated between the leagues. So, homefield has never really been granted on merit. And your scenario of teams resting players, particularly starting pitchers has always been a possibility based on the fact that homefield in the WS was not dependent on regular season records. And if there were any justice the Cubs would have had home field advantage for the NL playoffs in '84 which probably would have meant.....I'm sorry I can't go on any further, the pain is too great. :cry:

He might be correct, but the assumption that the Rangers would have accepted either one probably is not: Clearly the Cubs gave up the better players in this trade but it did net them a one year wonder in Williams that helped them win the division so it is hard for me to say I would not want them to do it all over again.