BigbadB

Didn't the Cubs set a strikeout record for a season (as a team) in 2003 when they made the playoffs? I'm not worried about Dunn's strike out totals. The production you get from him when he puts the bat on the ball is worth the trade off.

I just don't think the Reds would deal him in the division unless they are convinced that Mitre and Williams would make them competitive. Can you imagine selling that trade to the fans in Cincinatti? Trading your most valuable commodity to a divisional foe for two less-than-exciting pitchers and a middle reliever? That's part of what makes trading for Dunn so hard-we can't give them an impact "name". What makes you think that this trade wouldn't make them competitive? Cincinnati doesn't have problems scoring runs. They are way ahead of us in that department. They are 2nd in the NL in scoring runs. Where they are completely lacking is in the pitching department. They are dead last in pitching in the NL, and only trail Tampa in all of baseball. That makes them worse than Colorado. Think about that. To trade Dunn still gives them Griffey, Pena, Kearns and Freel, which is a very adequate offensive outfield. Losing Dunn, but gaining 3 arms that they can immediately put in their rotation or bullpen only makes their biggest weakness stronger. It's probably too late for them to do any damage this year given their current standing, but there is no no reason for them to start building on next year. Will they be able to attract quality pitching via free agency this offseason? Doubtful. After watching the guys they signed via free agency this year implode, what would it take for them to lure someone to Cincinnati. Their best chance to grab some quality arms for their rotation will come from trading off talent. Honestly, what team is so deep in pitching that they could afford to trade off their best pitching prospects for Adam Dunn? Most teams wouldn't trade their quality pitching prospects because they know they will eventually need those guys to fill out their own rotations. Granted, there may be a team or two that could make an offer that compares to the Cubs offer, but the Cubs could add even more prospects to make it even more appealing to the Reds. Yes, to trade within the division doesn't make a whole lot of sense to Cincinnati. But, do you take less from a non division rival simply because they are a non division rival? I think you make the best deal possible regardless of what division the team plays in. If they traded Dunn to LA, LA could beat out Cincy for a wild card spot someday. The wild card allows you to trade to a team within your division a little easier, because the wild card allows two teams within the division to possibly make the playoffs. They would make the Cubs a stronger team, but I think Cincy ends up being a stronger team with the balance of quality hitting and pitching, rather than the dominating offense and extremely weak pitching they currently have. Cincy could also see that trading a player like Dunn to Chicago gives Chicago a whole new problem to deal with. And that is how to afford to keep all that talent that currently resides on the roster. Dunn could leave via free agency and Cincy would still have 3 young pitchers in their rotation. The question really is how much Cincy will want in return from Chicago. If I'm Cincy, I want pitching, pitching and more pitching. I want sinker ballers and more sinker ballers to counteract the offensive explosion that Cincinnati's ballpark provides. If I'm Chicago, I decide just how much an impact bat like Dunn's would be worth. Will it take Mitre, Williams and Welly, or will it take Mitre, Williams and Hill? Could we offer up Jerry Hairston along with the prospects to get Freel added to the deal? If I'm Hendry, this is the one deal I'm focusing all of my attention on, because a middle of the order that featured Lee, Dunn and Ramirez could be an extremely powerful middle of the order for a very long time.

With Adam Dunn in the Cubs line up, the Cubs offense becomes one of the most dangerous in baseball, period. Sergio Mitre was built to be a starting pitcher in a hitter's paradise. He throws ground balls. That has to be very appealing to the Reds. Jerome Williams is another quality arm that has seen the major leagues already. Basically, you have two ready made arms for the big league club that may or may not ever have room to fit into the Cubs rotation. If you add Wellemeyer to the trade, Cincinnati could be filling in 3/5 of their rotation for a player that they will eventually lose for next to nothing anyway. I think the only team that could even consider competing with the Cubs for Adam Dunn would be Los Angeles. They have a lot of quality arms that are close to major league ready. Make this trade and the Cubs easily take the wild card, and potentially give themselves a huge advantage to win the World Series, barring further injuries. I would do that trade without blinking an eye.

Kotsay does sport a cannon for an arm. If he's a free agent at the end of this year, he's pretty high on my list.

I wouldn't have minded seeing the Cubs get him before the season started, but I really don't see a need for him now. Hairston Jr. is younger and arguably his equal.

Everyone knows that Hairston Jr. is just a big ole base clogger.

http://fantasybaseball.rotoworld.com/content/clubhouse_news.asp?sport=MLB&majteam=CHC Out of curiosity, just exactly how well did Carlos Beltran know Wrigley Field before he decided to crush the ball every time it crosses the plate there? The Enrique Wilson experiment not only didn't work, but the fact he is still on this team is very disappointing. Was it my imagination, or did I watch Rothschild go to the mound and instruct Wuertz to 4 pitch walk A-Rod to load the bases to get to Matsui, only so that Dusty could replace Wuertz with Remlinger for the lefty/lefty match up? When I saw Dusty motion for Remlinger, I got up, started getting dressed, hollered at the wife to put hers on, and right after Remlinger gave up the double, I turned off the tv and took the wife to dinner. I knew it would no longer be worth watching. I knew Remlinger would serve it up on a platter. Not only is Remlinger bad against lefties, Matsui kills lefties. Did Dusty not notice what Matsui did to Ohman just an inning earlier? Did he wake up this morning and think to himself "Hey, today is a new day, Remlinger will no longer be horrible against lefties", and then imagine that it must be true because he thought of it? This is one of those games that I hang the loss on the manager. I'm not at all pleased that he feels so comfortable with the Cubs position in the standings that he feels he should play such a huge role in whether the team wins or loses. Someone fire him now, please!

last i checked we were still in the WC and even the division race. Why would we trade one of the guys in our rotation for a prospect? It doesnt make sense. I'd only trade Maddux to San Diego if we could get Giles :P Yes, we are still in a wild card race. When Prior and Wood make it back and prove healthy, we will have a glut of starting pitching and we may still be hurting for an extra bat offensively. If you pencil in Zambrano, Prior, Wood, Rusch and Mitre, Maddux can be expendable. Will Maddux be a more effective pitcher than Rusch or Mitre over the course of the rest of the year? No one knows. I'm not saying to trade him now. I'm saying to look at this situation when Prior and Wood are both back and healthy and at the trade deadline when another bat might mean the difference in the playoffs or sitting and watching the playoffs on tv.

He just hung a couple of breaking pitches. He did plenty of fooling of opposing hitters as well. I liked what I saw, what little there was to see. To his benefit, the Marlins bats were hot today and they made many other Cub pitchers look bad.

I'm telling ya, San Diego is a perfect fit for Maddux. All those fly balls he serves up that clear the fence these days would be long fly ball outs in Petco. Maddux could get his ERA back down to 3.00 or even lower pitching in such a pitcher friendly park so regularly. The Padres could give up a decent prospect in return for us picking up a portion of the salary due Maddux in 2006 and everyone ends up happy. It's not he would be getting dumped. He'd be going to a team he considered signing with, a team that is also in first place, a team that has a ballpark that is designed for his style of pitching, a team in dire need of starting pitching, a team close to where he lives. The Cubs have plenty of pitching when everyone comes back. At that time, I'd definitely consider moving Maddux and hopefully Maddux would approve of the move.

I just changed who I'm voting for at 1st base in the All Star Game. Sorry Pujols, Lee is out of control!!

You can add a 2003 autographed pocket schedule by Dusty Baker as well. :P That can be a booby prize for whoever finishes dead last in the contest. :D With the way this season is going, the person who ends up in dead last could be the person we were hoping would end up with the best score.

I saw him in action, and I loved every second of it. I made a nice little image last year, and pm'd it to Modzilla. I wanted him to use it when he banned someone, or maybe just as an avatar, but no dice. Oh, we were gonna let Modzilla use it. Unfortunately, he ate it before it could be installed. But, rest assured that your image was put to good use. :wink:

I will remind everyone that I am and was not busting managements chops for not not protecting Sisco. I was surprised he was drafted, and I'll be even more surprised if he kept a major league job all year. I would have figured he'd be returned like Hagerty did. Any team but the Royals. #-o

Probably not. If he falters, he'll just be another crappy player on a crappy team. Why not waste the roster spot all year and retain his rights for when he becomes a good pitcher?

With all due respect, I voted for Albert Pujols. Not just based on how they have played so far this year, but also based on how the two of them performed after the all star break last year. Afterall, when exactly does the 2nd half production that might propel you into the playoffs have any reflect on who gets voted into the all star game? I think it's more important to look at that than at 1st half production. Pujols after the all star break: .361/.433/.721/1.154 51 XBH's, 63 RBI's Lee after the all star break: .249/.334/.491/.825 30 XBH's, 49 RBI's There's no way Derrek doesn't get into the All Star Game. But, voting for Derrek over Pujols because of a hot month and a half is complete homerism. And that's all well and good, but let's make sure we are voting him in because you want a Cub player on the roster and not because you think he's the best 1b. Derrek is awesome, but he rates 3rd on my list of awesome 1b's, and probably 4th if Thome is healthy. 4th is still pretty good considering that is still ahead of Carlos Delgado and some other pretty decent 1b's in the league.

The Padres did the same type of stupid thing the other day. Tim Redding was stinking up the place in the first 3 innings. Bottom of the 3rd, Redding's spot is up with the bases loaded in a close game. Instead of using Woody Williams or Adam Hyzdu to pinch hit for him, he k's ugly to kill the rally. Top of the 4th, Redding loads up the bases, and THEN Bochy goes to the pen. :roll: I knew he had nothing after the first 3 innings. Most everyone else should have seen it as well. Why waste a golden opportunity to score some runs and get a semi effective reliever into the game to attempt to win it?

You lasted longer than I could, Tim. And I thought I gave him the benefit of the doubt for too long. :wink:

So, I'm going to be in Peoria in July for 4 days, just in time for the Chiefs to head on a road trip to Burlington. :x

It sure didn't look good.

:hail: EPatt!

You'll love it even more with Premium! :wink:

Right you are Vance. I'm no MD but after looking at the reply several times yesterday it looked to me like a hyper-extension. Usually that does not mean torn ligaments. MCL and ACL tears usually come fron twisting movements. However, I hyper-extension if it is bad enough could put him out for seveal months (if not the entire season). I know Hariston had a good spring but to me he doesn't have the skills of Walker. That said I hope he can ignite the offense at the top of the order and at the very least makes the line up more ballanced at the top (R,L,R,R,L). I'm no MD, either, but I HAVE experienced the joys of a severly hyperextended joint. I had it happen to my elbow when I was in college. I think it took a month before the swelling went down enough that I could start physical therapy, and it took another four or five weeks of PT before my elbow felt strong enough to be back to "normal." Of course, I wasn't nearly as conditioned as a professional athlete, and I had other responsibilities to tend to besides getting strong enough to get back on the field. If nothing's torn, and he doesn't need surgery, I expect he'll be back this year, but it'll be several weeks. I would guess that a knee takes a whole lot longer to heel than an elbow with the same injury.

IIRC, the incident had something to do with how much money they make. A little nose rubbing gone haywire.

Corey hits lefties pretty decent. I'm not going to harp about him hitting 2nd. The fact he can lay down a bunt to get on base in front of our two premier right handed hitters is just that much more of a plus, in my opinion. Now, let's talk about Dusty's poor non decisions yesterday, like not releasing Macias. :D