Laura

It actually is a pretty good site. I visit it daily. He doesn't too much of the rumor thing. But again it's just a rumor, although dones't seem like a far fetched one. It's a good site for following Wrigley happenings. His recent transaction rumors haven't panned out. This season it's been 1) a trade for A-Rod, 2) TWalker to the Giants was 'imminent' (the Hillenbrand debacle supposedly kiboshed that at the last moment), and 3) Maddux would not be traded at the deadline. Not sure if I've missed any.

Hope you feel better, Fred!

He can't leave soon enough for me.

Thanks, Bruce! I liked your article on Dusty this morning. Wish it could have ended with at least a trip to the Series behind us. And yeah, the high point was that September '03 series vs the Cardinals. Wasn't that when he said LaRussa was trying sell 'wolf tickets' after they had that dugout-to-dugout shoutfest?

And so it begins!

For people driving in from the burbs or beyond, it's really worth the $6 or whatever it is now to park someplace you know and take the shuttle in. If you want to go out afterwards, you easily cab back there (if you don't want the 15-minute-or-so walk). It might be boring, but sometimes it's worth avoiding any extra hassle.

It's big enough for this weekend. You won't have a problem if you show up by the first inning.

He seems to like Hillman because of his maniacal attention to details and workouts (though it's unclear how much of that is driven by the fact he's managing in the Japanese Leagues). I'd be interested in finding out more than one throw-away line about what kind of manager he was in the Yankees' system and what kind of farm director he was for Texas. Sometimes the pendulum swings too far. Baylor supposedly couldn't relate well to enough players ... and the Cubs ended up with a players' manager. Just because Dusty flopped doesn't necessarily mean we need a martinet to replace him.

Except that I think the Tribune Company does have to figure out how to provide a few hundred parking spaces as part of an agreement they made with the locals for more night games and expanded bleachers. I don't know what the drop-dead date for the expanded parking is.

I think teams that open on the road should close at home (and vice versa).

There was some discussion of Clement in Transactions, but I couldn't find the thread.

And if Cesar is the starting SS, the backup MI will likely see a lot of playing time.

I thought Barrett was the only catcher who pitchers wouldn't listen to! :wink:

I figure that's why I haven't read any posts suggesting they would be traded for each other straight up.

Gallagher's West Tenn/AA pitching splits show that he walked LHBs at double the rate of RHBs. This wasn't the case in Daytona or in Peoria. Reports indicate that his changeup has come a long way since last season and he's working on a cutter -- so I tend to think he'll settle on a workable out pitch to the more advanced LHBs he'll be facing from here on out. And yeah, he's one of my faves, too. And now back to the scheduled Carl Crawford discussion.

He dominated in high-A, his BB rate went through the ceiling in AA, but he kept his K rate up and was able to improve on the BB rate (still too high) by the end of the season. He was young for the league, as in the 3rd youngest pitcher after Bailey and Gallardo. That said, I'm a Gallagher fan but would swap him in a Crawford deal. However, as Rob said, I'm not sure he has much value on his own and unlike some of the other pitchers mentioned, he was a 12th round pick.

In NW Indiana, Comcast has been showing the Emergency Alert warning instead of the game. (there is no actual warning issued) I'm probably the only person in NW Indiana who was vaguely interested in having the game on.

It seems to me that owners have two main roles: 1) hire people to build and run the team, and 2) operate the franchise financially (fund it, profit from it). The Tribune has hired the right financial people. They just can't get over the hump of hiring the right baseball management people. As reprehensible as Pohlad's and/or Loria's actions have been, they have been more successful at fielding championship teams than the Tribune Company has been, especially if you introduce the financial aspect into consideration. If nothing else, if I were a Trib stockholder or executive, I'd want someone to explain how so much money could be spent on such lousy teams, even given the profits ... and I certainly wouldn't want to keep pouring money into such a futile enterprise, especially when the people deciding to spend the money don't change. Keep the financial people -- even assuming that's MacPhail's 'real' job now -- since they're doing their job and can the baseball people, or soon we won't even be able to take cold comfort in the Trib continuing to throw money at their team.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting it, but he's saying the decision either way was one that should have been made earlier and that the careening about from person to person and idea to idea is part of the franchise's problem. But re-reading it and thinking back to the past off-season, it would seem likely that the end result would be Dusty getting his extension, so it is fortunate that didn't happen. I appreciate that recently they have spent the money needed to win and agree that the problem is bad money management (bad management in general) vs cheapness. My problem with ownership is that whether they spend the money or don't spend the money (and both have been the case under Trib ownership), they don't get the results that I care about -- consistent winning. They may care or they may not care; I don't care whether they care; I only care whether they can construct a winning team. Twenty-five years of Tribune Ownership demonstrates that they cannot. Maybe it's my fault for rooting for a team run more on marketing savvy than baseball savvy and with a ballpark that is run like a theme park. I concede that. Part of it is who they hire; part of it is that winning doesn't seem to be the main criterion for maintaining one's job; and part of it is the aforementioned lack of knowledge of how to build a winning team (the philosophical problem). A new owner may not invest as much money in the team. But a new owner may herald a change in philosophy, and I see little chance of that happening under current ownership and the current front office. I'd be thrilled if there was an abrupt turnaround this off-season and MacPhail and Hendry embraced OBP over gritty grinder players. I also don't have a problem with an owner making money hand-over-fist. As a fan, I just hope that winning is also part of the package. I don't know whether Rogers has been in support or against Dusty throughout his tenure. I got the impression more that he's taking MacPhail to task for not being accountable, and for that I agree. He also seems to be saying that Hendry has broad decision-making authority but is somewhat operating in a mangement vacuum with little input from above and with limited job security through '08 -- like a puppet with no one operating the strings. If so, that's another organizational problem that MacPhail created, whether it's because he hired the wrong guy or isn't providing that guy with the organizational support (and sometimes that means a 'no-man' in addition to a 'yes-man') to do his job. And yeah, Dusty should go, but it would be nice if he gave the front office guys a ride out of town while leaving.

Yup. I wonder what "terrible shape" means. I watched him pitch on Boise's on-line feed early on and he didn't look like he was fat or had gained a huge amount of fat-weight (that was early on). He's Mormon, so it's tough to think that he's taken to chain-smoking and boozing. Did he just waste away over the off-season? :?

Sounds like Gonzalez won't last long if the Marlins can Girardi.

Excellent work!

The quotes above are from today's paper.

Rogers doesn't use the best examples, but he does lay the Cubs' problems at the feet of dysfunctional management and it's clear he believes the blame for the organizational failure should lie with MacPhail. That makes sense to me unless you take the next step and say the problem also lies with ownership, which I also believe, but it may be a bit much for a Tribune writer to say so. I understand and agree with what you're saying about the failure of organizational philosophy, but at this juncture, the two failures (organizational & philosophical) go hand-in-hand. There's no evidence that the people in charge are willing to consider "new" philosophies, so as long as they are in charge, I'm not expecting much other than the flukish playoff appearance once every decade or so. Corporate ownership is conservative and I find it hard to believe that MacPhail/Hendry would hire replacements who embrace different approaches than they themselves hold. Rogers isn't saying that he wanted Dusty extended -- he says that the decision needed to be made this past off-season: "I said it then and I'll say it now: The time to change managers or extend Baker was last fall." I don't read this as an apology for Dusty any more than I'll read the celebrations here if Dusty leaves to be apologies for the dismal job that the front office has done. If anything, it's an apology for Tribune ownership, which I suppose should be expected given the source. At least he's not blaming Cubs fans' racism for this mess. I view that as progress.

If you read back through this thread, you'll see discussion of his average pitches/start and pitch counts for specific games. I don't know where to find a per start pitch count for the Japanese leagues.