Bruce Miles
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Everything posted by Bruce Miles
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On the bullpen issue, I think the Cubs may be a little skittish about the Farnsworth/Mazzone pairing. But on the other hand, Farnsworth is going "home" to Georgia, and that's not always a good thing for a player. Really, it wasn't going to work anymore with the Cubs and Farnsworth, so they felt they had to get rid of him. The Sisco issue is a complex one. There were many conditioning and behavioral issues here, and the Cubs didn't want to send the wrong message to other players in the system by putting one guy on the 40-man and leaving others who may have worked hard and played by all the rules off. We'll see how it turns out in the end. Sometimes business works that way. The Cubs, for better or worse, have done their best to get good "character" guys. You can argue the merits of that, but they've tried to be consistent with that philosophy.
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What does happen and what should happen in Cubdom aren't always the same thing. My guesses _ and they're just guesses at this point _ are that Cedeno will be optioned, Wuertz may be optioned so that he can work on stuff and Remlinger may be designated for assignment. The Cubs probably wil argue that Macias can play third base.
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Just making my usual appointed rounds. I check the Baseball Discussions, Minor Leagues and Transactions sections every day. I'm off to Philly tomorrow. We'll see how Mr. Baker uses Lawton, and I'm most interested to see the flurry of moves that will be needed when Wood, Williamson and Nomar come back. Should be interesting.
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Nothing is hot at the moment. The Cubs would love Kearns, but they can't find a match. The Reds aren't the easiest team with which to deal, especially within the division. Nothing on Pierre. Everybody's looking for relief help. Hendry's got nothing imminent there. Talk to you guys soon.
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I'm working at the game and I can't linger, but I can tell you no such deal has been offered or accepted by anybody. The Cubs would not trade Hill straight up for Dunn, let alone offer additional players. This deal is not happening. But it's always fun to speculate.
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I'll catch up with you guys later. I've got to get downstairs and make my rounds. Enjoy the ballgame.
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Cubs tell me they're at 39 on the 40-man. The Borowski, Wilson, Crouthers and Bartosh moves created some room.
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I hope today to find out about the 40-man.
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Pie would have been up had he not been hurt. The concerns about him are legitimate. That's why I say a real moment of truth is coming for the Baker-Hendry relationship. These young players are bubbling up to the surface. We'll see how they're managed.
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Personally, and it's just my feeling, I don't believe Patterson has a future here. If they can somehow build his value back up, they might try to trade him. I think it would be best for him.
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The off-season moves were Hendry's call all the way. The major problem was that he was hamstrung by MLB's silly (and blame the players association too) Dec. 7 deadline for offering arbitration to your own free agents. At that time, he wanted to keep Alou, but he still had Sosa on the books and the possibility was real at that time they'd be stuck with Sosa. So there wasn't enough money in the budget. Mercker's back was an issue, as was his ineffectiveness. They had had enough of Farnsworth.
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No, I do not believe Dusty is on his way out any time soon. The Cubs believe, with some validity, that the early season record was not his fault, given the injuries. I'm sure the Cubs feel Dusty has turned the attitude around here and has infused an "expectation" of winning (for whatever that is worth _ maybe not much here, but I'm trying to give you some insight as to how the Cubs think. The situation was different with Baylor. At that time, there were people pushing hard for a change. That's not happening here yet.
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We pose tough questions, such as the Cedeno one, to Dusty every day. Sometimes we get a satisfactory answer, sometimes not. One thing I can tell you for sure: he wasn't questioned as hard in San Francisco, and I think this has been somewhat of a culture shock to him. He claims he doesn't read our stories, so I don't think he surfs NSBB.
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There's one axiom that goes that a GM gets one manager to fire. Dusty is Jim's first manager. The key pivot point here may be how Dusty uses the kids. Yes, their futures are tied together, but if Jim at some points feels he must fire Dusty (that time inevitably comes for all GMs), he'll be allowed to do it and stay on. The Cubs value Hendry's overall contributions since he came on board 10 years ago.
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Just shows you that I'm reading the site every day.
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I'm not sure yet. My guess is that Hairston will play center. That's one of the things I'm going to ask during the pregame press conference. To me, Murton must play every day. As I wrote, I liked the way Bobby Cox worked those kids into the Atlanta lineup. It needs to be done here.
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I believe this is just the beginning. Whatever else you want to say about Hendry, one thing he won't do is sit still. I'm running an analysis piece in tomorrow's Daily Herald (shameless plug). I hope we stay dry down here. They're predicting lots of rain for the weekend, but I don't know when it's going to start.
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Thanks for the sentiments but no, thanks. I have a hard enough time with the English language. And my recent forays into sabermetrics have taken me into the dangerous world of numbers. I'll remain your loyal servant and gadfly to the Cubs.
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As of now, the Cards look like a 90-win team, but that could change. I think they were disappointed that Polanco took arb from the Philies. You've hit the Mulder situation on the head.
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Sammy Sosa is a very complex individual. He has been very nice to me over the years. He'll even take time to ask about my family. He's extremely proud, extemely sensitive, and as we've seen, these qualities can lead to difficulty at times. Of course, the Cubs did a lot of enabling over the years that led to some of what we've seen dating to the Don Baylor days in 2000.
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I think he'll hit well for a time in Milwaukee and perhaps lose interest as the team plummets. I didn't see him play much, so I'll take your word about his defense.
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Haven't thought about that one, but I'll ask our favorite GM when I talk with him.
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Yes. Talent like that comes around not very often.
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They might be stuck in Washington as a lame-duck (great political term) team for one year. It could be they end up in Vegas in '06. My guess is that somehow the Washington thing gets worked out.
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I don't think the situation is impossible. Sosa's behavior and the Cubs' reaction to it aside, he is and was going to be hard to move for a number of baseball and financial reasons. The thinking that the Cubs have to move Sosa to get Beltran comes from simple mathematics. But as I said in early posts, that could change with a bump for 2005 with the payroll dropping in '06 when Sammy is gone. I think all sides probably should have handled things better in October.