nilodnayr

The union might have something to say about that too. I don't think the union would have the right to complain. If he chooses to opt out he's voiding the remainder of his current contract and whatever he negotiates with the Cubs (or any other team) would be a completely new contract, not a renegotiation of an existing contract. Regardless of his current contract, the union is in the business of not letting players sign contracts for significantly less than they are worth because it negatively affects other players in their contract discussions.

Or he can just go play for the Marlins or Devil Rays. he'd probably cost more than all of their other players put together. On BOTH teams.

But usually where there's smoke, there's fire, right? I'm just shocked that I can't find a link anywhere, even if it's just speculation. Not when the smoke is coming from sports talk radio.

The union might have something to say about that too.

That is a better deal for both teams. Joe Saunders and Eric Aybar might be enough to get that deal Dunn (Ha, Ha) Dunn is the perfect example of how overvalued OBP really is. Don't misunderstand, getting on base is important but it does not trump all other offensive stats. There is a reason that for nearly 100 years the only stats that people would recite about players were BA, HR & RBI. Dunn has some things going for him but not a lot. He can hit the Ball VERY far when he connects but is ultimately the 4th best HR hitter on the Cubs should he be picked up. Does 1 team really need that many HR hitters? 4 Solo HR is the same as 2 2 Run HR. Finding a good balance through the entire order makes better sense. See the Red Sox, Brewers & Angels this season as an example (although there are some holes on each team). You're not seriously arguing that we should do things the way they've been done for 100 years purely because they've been done that way for 100 years, are you? Theres a reason people lived for millions of years without electicity. Electricity is the devil!!!

Joe Morgan commenting on the HR derby...."Its not a homerun type of day"

She did like the Latins...

The entire PCL's numbers are a little askew this year it seems. The PCL has 15 eligible hitters with OPS > .900. In the SL there are 4. Adjusting for the difference in the number of teams would only raise that to 6. Does anyone know of a site that tries to equalize minor league stats? Sackmann's http://www.minorleaguesplits.com and BP's PECOTA both provide MLEs, but only in previous seasons.

http://www.fangraphs.com

I don't think the Twin will be sellers at the deadline. In fact, they might be closer to a playoff spot than we are. If that's the case they won't be looking to deal Hunter. Yeah, but it sucks for them that he'll sign with Texas and the Twins won't get their first round draft pick.

When the mets inquired, didnt Bowden ask for Milledge for either Cordero or Rauch? He wont be had on the cheap and wont noticably improve the team.

From the Baltimore Sun.

Agreed, now that we have Bowen, Hill is extremely redundent. House could be a big right handed bat off the bench for late inning double switch situations on days he doesnt start.

I had that thought the other day when somebody was talking about the Sox calling it a year. What would they want in return? Pitching? IF, OF? Do we even have anything they're interested in? They asked SD for Greene and Linbrink in return for Dye. I wonder if they like Theriot. Hes the epitome of grinderball.

Izturis, Jones, and Eyre to PHL for Burrell. Gillick gives us the difference in Burrell's salary for next year so that the $$ washes. The problem is Jimmy Rollins and Michael Bourn...if you are evening out salaries they are probably going to want something that they will use in return.

I hate LoDuca and hes horrible, but unforutnately he'd be an upgrade for us. The Mets hate him, so it's a plausible idea.

As far as I can tell he was still catching for Norfolk this year where he hit 296/359/446. Las year he hit 345/392/521 splitting time between AA and AAA.

Wouldnt be a bad idea to take a flyer on him. Hes always been a good hitter.

How about trading Demp to the Yanks? They could use the insurance with Mo's arm issues this year.

Bruce didn't address this specifically, but can the cubs take on money not only this year, but in future years in trades?

This is a wonderful idea. Honestly with the trade market the way it is, there really arent many options that are discernably better than what either of these guys can produce. Give them a couple weeks (albeit small sample size) to prove whether or not they can acclimate to big league hitting this year. If so, you got your upgrade for free. If not, they can't hit any worse than the current production.

I'm weary of Escobar. 341 BABIP this year with only an 18.6 LD%. Add in a 4.9 BB% and hes sure to regress. He did have a good BB rate in the Southern League last year, but that was all he had that was good. Other than that he was horrible and his BABIP was even above league average. His MLE was 232/310/293 according to Jeff Sackmann, although BP has it at 272/356/368. Hes crazy toolsy and could be decent in the future, but if you look deeper into his numbers this year and last, I think you will find that hes not going to be the guy who puts us over the edge. Good acquisition for long term? Sure The extra piece of the puzzle who will get us in the playoffs? Don't think so.

Ding, you win I think it's in a little better shape than you are making it out to be. No...it's not. It's pathetic. Agreed. Seems terrible to me, position-player wise. All we have to show for ourselves at the moment are a couple of admittedly eager college prospects with pretty low ceilings and another "toolsy" CF who is, not suprisingly, floudering at the plate. Others we have recently tried out, such as Cedeno & Murton, seem to be close to tanking. And it's been this way for 20 years. I don't see how it could be classified as anything else other than bad. I look across the Illinois/Wisconsin border, and I see a farm system up there that makes us look like idiots. While I won't argue the Cubs have been better at developing players than the Brewers have (because I don't believe they have) looking at position players only obscures your point. In pitchers, the Cubs have a key advantage. Z, Hill and Marshall in the rotation plus Wuertz, Marmol, Ohman, and Gallagher/Petrick in the bullpen compared to Sheets and Gallardo for Milwaukee. That still doesn't make up for the Brewers advantage in position prospects, but it makes up ground (and a large part of the remaining difference has been problems with injuries for the Cubs-Patterson, Wood, Prior, and Guzman having major injuries really hurt the farm system record of success) Carlos Villanueva? And the big difference between the two has been sell high trading vs sell low trading. Acquiring Jorge De La Rosa, Chris Capuano, Chad Moeller, Lyle Overbay, Craig Counsell and Junior Spivey for Sexson, then flipping Overbay for Dave Bush, Gabe Gross and flipping Spivey for Ohka. Also Davis for Vargas and Estrada. A lot of those guys aren't rocking the world, but they are providing good solid production for guys who were close to their walk years.

Just because he already throws a slow pitch doesnt mean he doesnt need a change up. The beauty of the change up isnt its speed, its that it looks like a fastball coming out. IMO, whatever 3rd pitch he uses, he needs to have confidence that he can get it over the plate. A big part of his problem is that hes predictable and that he can get wild with his fastball and not have confidence in it to get over the plate. So he becomes even more predictable having to rely on the curve in counts where he has to throw a strike. Does Rich throw a two-seamer or a four-seamer? If he can control it, I'd like to see him work on a two-seamer with some sink down in the zone to induce grounders.

Definitely one of the most (if not for sure the most) talented Cubs teams I've seen. That team should have ripped through the league after the trade deadline And the most depressing thing looking back at the end of '04 is the starting pitching. Zambrano and Prior were unhitable. Rusch was even pitching out of his mind... but that bullpen :( I remember listening to a game against the Reds from September '04. Prior was flirting with 20K for the first half, kind of lost steam with the K's near the end but ended up with 16 or 18. Gave up a solo home run somewhere in the later innings and left after 9IP with a ND, and of course the Cubs lost it in extras. EDIT - Just looked it up, it was his last start of the year, sept. 30th, so I think the season was all but officially dead at that point. 9.0IP, 3H, 1R, 1ER, 1HR, 1BB, 16K Sosa had a solo HR Kearns had the HR against Prior Javier #$%^&^ Valentin doubled in the winning run.... Adam Dunn (who set the major league strikeout record for season that day) And a Rusch start where the only offensive support he got was a solo home run... that he hit. I was at that game, on a rooftop with work. I had just started there in June. You are right, the season was all but over, but being a cubs fan, there was still a glimmer of hope. That was the final nail in the coffin. Druing the game I ended up drinking 15 labatts eating absolutely nothing , blacking out just after the game, proceeding to Barleycorn to drink up a storm in mourning, throwing up on my practice leader, and things go worse from there...