octoberdreamin

After significant thought and consideration, I'll go for #2!

Those come from behind wins against the Cards weak bullpen are even sweeter right now. Just imagine if the Cards pen had held the leads, the Cubs would be facing a 1-3 home start and 2-4 overall record after this fiasco!

It is only the second game of the season but neither Cub starter made it through the 5th inning this series. That was one of the many problems the Cubs had last season, high pitch counts vs. too few innings pitched, thus constantly straining the bullpen. Let' s hope the starters make it into the second half of the game against the Cards or it could be a long weekend for the Cubs.

I actually enjoy these types of excercises in "what ifs" when they include actual numbers to back them up. That is where I can give credit to the Card's troll (I mean fan), sorry, for giving some very sobering numbers. However, the biggest problem for the Cubs is that even if Lee settles into an an "average" of his vastly over-inflated '05 numbers and his career numbers, the Cubs will still need to make up that loss in production-most of which will be his not getting on base as much due to his OBP last season being .417 and his career and '04 being around .360. I don't think he will revert to the "career numbers" Lee but hopefully he'll have at least a .290-300BA, 35-40HR, 90-100RBI and an OBP of .380-390 season. Again, however, those numbers will need to be made up somewhere else and unfortunately with the moves "to date" this offseason, I see the Cubs OF struggling to consistently score runs just like last season.

Jones has seriously slumped over the last week and a half. Unless he hits four or five more HR's before the end of the season to grab the attention of the writers, his now .267 BA and .351 OBP are just too low for his huge advantage in HR's and RBI's to compensate. Pujols has proven himself to be the most consistently high performing hitter in the NL this season. Lee's drop off in numbers following the ASB while the Cubs fell out of post-season contention, doomed his MVP hopes. As stated above, Jones continuing poor hitting other than HR's is rapidly taking him out of the MVP consideration so my bet would be on Pujols for MVP. Regarding the Cy Young, I'm still not sure. I think it depends on the last few starts of the three main contenders. Which ever of the three pitches the best probably will be the winner. If it's a draw I would bet on Carpenter due to his W-L totals and over all other numbers.

A dose of reality. After tonights loss, the Cubs must play .667 ball to finish the season with a record > .500! losing any more games to the Cards this weekend would pretty much end any hopes of that happening :(

Just remember that fan bias works in all directions. I can think of a few games this and last season when Lee was very uncharacteristically bad on more than one play in the field. Now, any non-Cub fan only seeing those games might have a different oppinion of Lee's abilities. As much as Edmonds is despised by Cubdom, as a baseball fan, I can only say that I would have signed/traded for him in a minute any time over the past six years that he's been a Cardinal. Because, as a baseball fan, I realize that he is one of the best CF's defensively while arguably being the best offensive CF in the game the past six years. I really don't care how he looks when he makes catches because in the end he makes the catches, throws the runners out and plays shallow forcing the opposing team to hold runners at third. Also, any of us Cub's fans should realize that with 105 victories last season and maybe heading for nearly the same this season, no argument can be made saying that Edmonds' defense has hurt the Cards as a team.

One thing I've learned in my two plus decades as an avid baseball fan is that any one stat can be used in multiple ways(including entirely contrary ways). This year provides a good example. The Cards have <.500 record against teams over .500. This stat in itself could be used to backup an argument that the Cards are overated, beating up on the weak teams while not matching the competition of the other top clubs. However, (this is where the props to the Cards comes) if you look at all stats, OF-D-Pitching, it's truely amazing how overall dominant this team is! They currently lead the MAJORS in team ERA and are in the top 5-10 in most other pitching categories. They lead the NL in BA, RS and are near the top in most other OF stats as well. I haven't seen their defensive stats as compared to all other teams, but I know they are at least better than average. It just makes me frustrated that this team is and has been such a good example of dominance while the Cubs basically haven't been anything but disappointing in not living up to their expected playing abilities.

thanks.....forgot about that, got going and just vented.......feel much better now though.

yeah, this makes me feel soooo good :roll: especially when the Cubs just fell 11.5 out of the division and 5 out of the WC. Meanwhile, the team OBP is .325 even with Lee's .451 and the Cub's staff has an ERA of 4.30 resulting in the team being outscored for HALF a season......no more excused about small sample size, 81 games and they have a run differential of -1! Basically, who gives a flying you know what about Lee's plans for All-star weekend when the Cubs are looking like they could be folding for the season. This BS reminds me of the Sammy years.........Cubs 17 out at the break, no problem, Sammy's starting in the All-Star game and hitting a ton of HRs.......big hairy deal!!!!!!! :evil: