BigbadB

Playing only against righties would hardly make him a part-time player. He'd still play in most games. And you woudn't need to pay a player who only plays against LHP 6 million a year. You can find productivity against lefties for much less than that. 5-6 million for Jones (and I think it's less than that in later years because of the signing bonus) really isn't very much if he's used properly and continues to do well against righties. His salary shouldn't be a hindrance to putting a good team on the field. The number of left handed starters in the NL Central is well documented. If they platooned him like they should, he should only be playing a little more than half the time. Agreed on the amount paid for Jones. It was a ridiculous amount all things considered. The amount didn't really anger me as much as the length of the contract.

How many platoon players (or players that should be platooned like Jones) make 6m a year? How many of them recently signed a 3 year contract? Did the Cubs feel like 6m for a part time player would really be good enough? Why not another 6m for the guy who could provide the same numbers against LHP so that you had a productive position in 162 games instead of half of them?

correct. He watched too many episodes of Baseball Tonight and decided that he had to go get speedy, gutsy, crafty, gamers instead of, oh, guys who can hit, get on base or pitch I will admit that I enjoy watching "Web Gems" moreso than whatever they call the home run segment of their show on ESPN. But, that doesn't make me want to go get a bunch of guys who can catch the ball over guys who can hit a home run.

Wouldn't it be more beneficial if he got himself kicked out of a close game? Yes!

Any explanation for why W's approval rating has gone from high 50's to 29%? In the famous words of Janet Jackson: "What have you done for me lately?"

Barrett should be getting pissed at the Cubs inability to assemble a decent team, not what the other team is doing. When you have a catcher that can't throw anyone out, you run on him. You exploit their weakness. Last time I looked, a 3 run homer only takes one swing of the bat. Putting yourself in the position to score on an infield single, past ball, wild pitch, balk, a hard hit line drive single to an outfielder, etc.. is good baseball in many situations. Not only does Barrett have a poor success rate at gunning out runners, but he lets a lot of balls get past him. If the score was 10-0 or 14-2 or some other unreachable score, then yes, Roberts could be accused of padding stats. There was absolutely nothing wrong with what Roberts did. If the pitcher wasn't holding him on 2nd, and he had a a good jump, why not take 3rd?

Or 2b when the Cubs trade Prior for Cano. :D

I believe the Oswalt thing was in 2004, not 2005.

I can't agree with this. What Williams did was take a team that rode their way to a World Series via the starting pitching, and give the team another dynamic that doesn't force the starting pitching to carry the team again this year. In other words, he took a team that was heavily pitching oriented, and gave them balance without weakening the pitching staff. For that, Williams definitely deserves credit. If you're looking at only 2006, sure. But Williams became GM in 2001, and the only pitching carryovers are Buehrle and Garland. Vazquez, Garcia, Contreras were all added to the team since then, and Buehrle and Garland have resigned. What GM can step right in and institute their philosophy of how a team should be put together and then make it happen within a year or two's time? I believe the going rate is approximately 5 to 6 years. If that's the case, Williams accomplished his mission within a normal time frame. DePodesta got fired within a years time in LA. He got horrible results from his first year. Sometimes it takes a huge turnover to mold a team into what you believe will be a winning team. Everyone slams on DePodesta being a horrible GM, but in reality, he just wasn't given the necessary time to prove whether he would be a good GM or not. Whoever takes over for Hendry once he's gone will have a mammoth undertaking if they they want to change the approach that Hendry took with building this team.

I've always hated everything White Sox. Unfortunately, I can't hate Jim Thome. He's from my hometown and he's a likeable player. So, outside of Thome, I hate everything White Sox. But, Kenny Williams has done an outstanding job putting together this team. I didn't like what he originally did with the team, and I don't think last year's team was really "that" good. But, they are "that" good now.

If I want to see a Bufoon I'll watch Sean Hannity on Fox News. I wish they would put people on who could analyze games and tell us things we don't know. Instead the show is 18 minutes of garbage and 12 minutes of crappy Coors light comercials. On a tangent. I wish Pete Coors would stop trying to be a polititian, at least his adds can be entertaining even if his beer is terrible. Hey! If it weren't for bad beer, what would you compare good beer to to come to the conclusion that it is good beer?

So, Javier Vazquez and his 4-1, 2.88 ERA would have zero wins without Thome in the line up? The Sox have a .358 OBP as a team. They would be scoring runs with or without Thome in the line up. Freddy Garcia has 5 wins, and he hasn't been effective at all. I agree that not having two of your best pitchers and your best offensive player weakens a team, but management has to take these things into consideration when putting together a team. Depth! It's important.

Sutcliffe slurs his words on EVERY broadcast! I would have loved to have heard this... Almost as good as Joe Namath and Suzy Kolber...

I can't agree with this. What Williams did was take a team that rode their way to a World Series via the starting pitching, and give the team another dynamic that doesn't force the starting pitching to carry the team again this year. In other words, he took a team that was heavily pitching oriented, and gave them balance without weakening the pitching staff. For that, Williams definitely deserves credit.

Better than 2 out outs.

I remember another famous quote by a former Cub manager. "Nice guys finish last."

I don't want Dusty fired. I want MacPhail, Hendry, Dusty and all of his coaches (except maybe Speier) fired. It's not all Dusty's fault by a long shot. But, he's definitely part of the problem. A new manager probably won't do any better with this team. But, there have been managers who have. We need a manager who will not reward poor fundamentals. Firing people makes a statement to the players and the fans that losing is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

Why not add both of them? Millar is a good bench guy anyway. When Lee comes back, you have really good bench depth. Send Bynum packing and send The Riot back down. You still have Neifi and Hairston to back up 2nd. Hairston can also play CF.

I agree with Chocolate Milk. Pittsburgh had a good ball club many moons ago. Don't know whether it was the chicken or the egg, but the Pirates sell off all their good players and the fans don't come to games anymore. It seemed to me that if the fans got loud enough, management would do something. Baylor finally got fired in the middle of a season.

Conine isn't enough to make a bad offense mediocre, but it is better than what they currently have. I do like the fact Conine can play OF, something other names cannot (Clark, Nevin, Sweeney, etc....)

Concessions has to be a ridiculous profit. a $.20 hot dog sells for what? $3.50?

While I'm not completely opposed to Nevin, I'm not a big fan of bringing in someone who can only play 1b. Nevin is horrible anywhere else defensively. What good is a guy who can only pinch hit once the regular is back to play everyday? I know you probably follow the Padres a lot closer than me. (I follow the Angels pretty close.) I saw on ESPN that Nevin's played some rf in the last few years. Has his defense just become horrible? I guess they could always put Murton in RF and hide Nevin in LF versue lefties. If you thought Jason Dubois was bad in LF, multiply how bad he was x 2 to get Phil Nevin's outfield defense. The Padres put Klesko back in the outfield so that they could put Nevin at 1st, and Klesko looks a lot like Adam Dunn defensively in the outfield. In Klesko's defense, he's not a bad 1b, but if Klesko is at 1st, where did they put Nevin?

We actually have 2 capable backups this year: 1997 National Championship Brian Griese 10-5 as a starter Kyle Orton <--- never seen a 10-5 QB hated as much as Orton was most of last year. He wasn't hated, he just wasn't any good. But, he was just a rookie. Compare it to the current Cubs. If the pitching was throwing shut outs everyday and the offense was putting up 1 run a game, do you say the offense is doing great because they are winning every game? I'd say the pitching is doing great and they need to get better hitters to improve the offense so that they can keep winning games.

A Todd Walker double mixed with some single's for an OBP of .350+ is far better in the lead off spot than Juan Pierre's rare single's and stolen bases to the tune of a sub .300 OBP. Granted, it would be nice if Walker had Cedeno type speed, but I'd sacrifice the speed for better OBP.

Quite frankly, you could just ignore threads you have nothing of value to offer. :wink: