BigbadB

After yesterday's fiasco, pretty much needed a fresh arm in the bullpen. I thought they might call someone up.

Perhaps by being more aggressive, and making things happen while putting the pressure on the defense? Proactive would be to put the best 8 guys on the field rather than feeling sorry that Izturis and Jones suck, and giving them some playing time to make them feel better.

This sounds like something you'd hear in a business meeting about Global Integrated Business Solutions. You were at that meeting too? :P

It would have been much easier to attempt to rally against Jason Davis or O'Flerety rather than JJ Putz, who hasn't blown a save all year. This game is a pretty good example to explain why this team is where they are in the standings. They seem to just sit around waiting for the other team to do something before doing something themselves. This team needs to learn to be proactive rather than reactive.

hehe. Yeah, if that's the way you describe a throw that bounces twice before it ever makes it to the infield.

I'd also like to add that I'm not being a Barrett apologist. He's been pretty bad behind the plate this year. I have never seen more balls get by Barrett than I have this year. Many seemed like fairly easy balls to keep in front of him. But, if you want your catcher to have a decent chance of tagging a runner out at home, you have to give him something he can catch. Jacque Jones obviously went to the Juan Pierre baseball academy on throwing.

I'm just going to have to disagree with you on that one. The catcher has a guy barreling for home. He's trying to block the plate, prepare for a possible collision, field a throw and apply a tag. He's wearing a glove that was not designed to field slow rolling ground balls. Jones was in shallow RF when he fielded that ball. That throw should have made it on the fly. Instead, it bounced and bounced to the point it was a slow roller by the time it got to Barrett in the fairly thick infield grass. Significant time was lost on a slow rolling throw in comparison to a throw made on the fly. Couple that in with the fact the runner was slow and even hesitated on his turn at third, and all the blame lies on Jacque's throw. It was pathetic even though it was online. A lollipop throw would have gotten to Barrett quicker than the worm burner he actually threw.

It was either double-switching Hill for Barrett, double-switching Jones for Pagan, or letting Howry hit for himself as the 2nd hitter in the 10th inning. Pick your poison. Well I could do the 'hindsight is 20-20' thing and say that if we chose Hill, then he probably catches the throw from Pagan/Jones in the 13th. Plus Hill would not have been up with 2 outs in the 13th with the bases loaded. The throw sucked. Very few catchers in baseball would have been able to pick up a slow rolling throw from the outfield, make a quick turn and apply the tag in one quick motion. Catcher's mitts were designed to catch balls thrown in the air, not to field grounders.

Come on. If David Eckstein is a guaranteed HOF inductee, Biggio is a lock to go on the first ballot.

Nah. Gotta tip your cap to the pitcher. :D

Yeah, and maybe the outfielders will eventually quit rolling the ball to home plate. The blame lies completely with Jacque Jones on that play. While his throw was on line, it was a worm burner. Jose Vidro was the runner, for crying out loud. If you can't gun down Jose Vidro (nevermind that Vidro almost came to a complete stop halfway between 3rd and home) on a shallow single, you have no business playing an outfield spot. Vidro doesn't run much better than Jim Thome.

Haha. Good one.

Verlander had an okay day, eh?

I agree with the other names (especially Guerrero and Beltran) but Magglio Ordonez? 7 years, over 100 million dollars, and he put these 2 lines up his first two years in Detroit: .302/.359/.436 (in only 82 games) .298/.350/.477 He wouldn't have been able to put up his monster season that he is this year in Chicago, because people would have wanted him traded already for making that much money for that little production. In fact, Burnitz's 2005 and Jones's 2006 are roughly comparable to Magglio's first 2 years, and they cost 20 million dollars less over that time. Magglio is also 33 with injury problems, and so the later years of that deal will not be pretty. So Vladimir and Beltran-yes, the Cubs should have gone after one of those. Magglio? It would have been a terrible signing, amazing year he's having so far this year or not. Who is to say that the Cubs would have been forced to give Maggs a 7/100m contract? From what I recall, he was going to give a significant discount to the Cubs if he didn't have to move out of Chicago. Detroit was overpaying for everyone at that time. They paid ridiculously for Pudge, Vina, Percival and Urbina, also. Detroit entered the Maggs sweepstakes quite late, IIRC. If the Cubs were interested, they could have potentially landed Maggs at a much shorter term on the contract and significantly less money. And another IIRC, wasn't Maggs' injury in 2005 unrelated to the injury troubles he had in 2004? Could that injury have just been a fluke injury that he may not have suffered if he was wearing a Cub uniform that year? Well, considering the incredible injury history with anything Cubs, that last paragraph is kind of funny. But, you probably understand my point. Maggs wasn't signed until February 7th.

I can't believe how all of you ignore Izturis' value to this team. It's pretty clear that his value to the team is to play like he plays, thereby making everyone else on the team look much better than they actually are.

he screwed the pooch when he failed to show any interest in guys like: Magglio Ordonez Carlos Beltran Vladmir Guerrero Miguel Tejada

What's a better trade off? 1) Keep sending the same hack out there and falling even further under .500 in hopes that the hack increases his trade value. 2) Eat the salary, dump the hack and put a better hitter in his spot in the order, increasing the chances of winning more games than you lose. I've always been under the impression that baseball is played to win games, not to improve someone's trade value.

that would definitely reward people with EI. Why not do the same with hitters? I have yet to see a hitter have a -20 point night. I was only joking, Juan.

I'm "apoolgod" at Yahoo and I'm BrianSDAPA at AOL.

New rule: A player can be dropped from a team the moment he starts really sucking on the mound, thereby limiting the damage. Whaddya think? This is two weeks in a row that my first pitcher has blown chunks.

I have no doubt Minaya loves Z very much. But, not that much. There are 3 options at this point. Option 1) Sign Z to a long term contract Option 2) Let Z walk at the end of the year Option 3) Trade him Considering the Cubs organization is somewhat in limbo due to the sale, signing him is probably not likely. Considering what Z will command on the market if he becomes a free agent and how much the Cubs already have stockpiled in guaranteed contracts, some other team will easily outbid the Cubs for Z. Z has expressed loyalty, but money talks when the bidding starts getting serious. If you let him walk at the end of the year, the return is probably 3 or 4 years down the road, and the potential for no reward on that return is high. Trading him makes sense. If you want to be stubborn and hold out for Jose Reyes, expect Option 2 to happen. There are trade partners right now. Anaheim and NYM seem like the best candidates. Colon has been horrible and Anaheim looks like a serious threat to make the playoffs. They will likely show lots of interest in Z. Moreno, IMO, would be VERY intersted. They have many prospects worthy of a close look, like Mathis, Adenhart and Brandon Wood. The Mets have some really good looking prospects as well, like Pelfrey, Martinez, Gomez and Milledge. There probably isn't a person here who wouldn't trade Z for Reyes straight up right this very minute. However, it takes two to tango, and the Mets won't be on that dance floor. Z has a ton of value in this market. But, he's a free agent at the end of the year. That decreases his overall value. His workload over the last several years also weighs heavily on his overall value. A team is just not going to trade a franchise player for a 1/2 year rental that's not performing at his highest potential. They might mortgage their future for a shot at the World Series by trading some really quality prospects, and that's the most likely scenario. If you are going to hold out for Jose Reyes, be prepared to watch Z walk at the end of the year with compensation picks as the lonely return.

What drove me nuts for years with Dusty at the helm was creating line ups that had crappy hitters at the top of the line up. Neifi Perez should never have hit at the top of the order. With that said, Soriano is not your prototypical lead off guy. However, I'll take a premium type hitter hitting at the top of the order all day long over some weak OBP hack that shouldn't ever be in the line up, period. A typical box score from 2005 and 2006 would have Neifi going 0-5 and Derek Lee going 2-4, with Neifi making the last out in the game. In what screwed up universe should Neifi come to the plate more often than Derrek Lee? Soriano's OBP so far this year is .369. While that is certainly not great for a power hitter like Soriano, it's excellent OBP at the top of the order. It's also on par with his OBP last year when he hit lead off. What you want more than anything from a top of the order hitter is a guy who doesn't make a lot of outs. Soriano currently meets that objective.

The Indians are building a team that rivals the team that dominated their division from 1995 to 2001. Even though they were a bit young and inexperienced this year, I picked them to win their division.

I don't have any complaints about the draft so far. They need position players.

Hey, 2 more outfielders and a 1b and we'll have ourselves a whole team. :D