Rob

I don't believe it's reasonable to believe that a player will improve upon his past season minor league numbers in his first season of professional baseball. Pie's OPS by month: .862, .676, .630, .771, .930, 1.389 Well, if he goes .676 .630 in 2 consecutive months and the Cubs are losing ground, will Lou "let him play through it"? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for giving young guys their shot, but I don't think the timing is right this year. Juan Pierre's OPS by month: .622, .557, .733, .876, .770, .735 I can't speak directly for Sweet Lou, but the Cubs organization sure doesn't seem to take up issue with speedy left-handed CF's taking their time to start producing. are you talking about pie? if so, the guy is only 21 and was in aaa last year. how is that in any way "taking his time to start producing"? Read what I was quoting. I was responding to a hypothetical situation, not the real one.

If memory serves, I seem to recall him saying he tried steroids very briefly and couldn't discern a real benefit from them.

Lilly signed before Zito. Does that make Lilly more highly thought of around baseball than Zito? Of course not... such an assertation would be ridiculous. The order in which people sign has very little correllation with how good of a player they are. I think part of the board's infatuation with Craig Wilson was that he was undervalued for his performance. This signing certainly does nothing to disprove that.

I'm so glad we sank over 100 mil into Soriano, when 2 mil for Craig Wilson + Jacque would have given us about the same production in a nifty platoon.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. I was timid about Barrett in 2004 as well, but now I'm worried about the fact he's a catcher on the wrong side of 30. His production is just about about as likely to drop off a cliff as it is to stay at his current established level. I suppose I do expect more from Ramirez now, but I can't fathom how people expect a huge line from DLee this coming season. Yes, 2005 was amazing, but he's coming off a serious injury and even if he weren't, we would still most likely be dealing with regression to the mean. I can't really expect more out of him now than I did back in 2004. Though I suppose you are right about Gonzalez being better than Izturis. As for Sosa versus Soriano... Interestingly enough, they're both coming off seasons with a .911 OPS. The difference is that the two seasons prior to that, Sosa had put up OPS marks of 1.174 and .993... whereas Soriano had put up .808 and .821. With both players now on the wrong side of 30, I'd be hard pressed to expect more from Soriano than I did of Sosa.

My point was that heading into 2004, we had every right to think we would have a very productive offense. Things rarely work out just like they're supposed to, though. It'd be foolish to assume they will, or that the odds we get a ton of career years from people is more likely than getting injury-plagued half-seasons from important players. So comparing positions, based on the preseason expectations, we would have ended up with this. Pos 2004 vs 2007 C Barrett = Barrett 1b Lee = Lee 2b Walker >>> DeRosa SS Gonzalez = Izturis 3b Aram = Aram RF Sosa >>> Soriano CF CPatt >>> Jones LF Alou >>> Murton You can make the argument again that 2004 didn't turn out well... but that's kinda my point. We had a much better group then and didn't get near the production we were looking for. Do you really think this ragtag bunch of misfits is more likely to give us that production than the 2004 group was?

I don't believe it's reasonable to believe that a player will improve upon his past season minor league numbers in his first season of professional baseball. Pie's OPS by month: .862, .676, .630, .771, .930, 1.389 Well, if he goes .676 .630 in 2 consecutive months and the Cubs are losing ground, will Lou "let him play through it"? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for giving young guys their shot, but I don't think the timing is right this year. Juan Pierre's OPS by month: .622, .557, .733, .876, .770, .735 I can't speak directly for Sweet Lou, but the Cubs organization sure doesn't seem to take up issue with speedy left-handed CF's taking their time to start producing.

Really? CPatt Walker Sosa Alou Ramirez Lee Barrett Gonzalez CPatt had put up a darn good half season in 2003, Walker was Walker in 2003, Sosa was still a damn good ballplayer, Alou was coming back to life, Ramirez was talented as all get-up, Lee was Lee, Barrett was a question mark, and Gonzalez was coming off a 20 HR season. Going in to 2004 was much more exciting for our offense than going in to 2007.

This is disturbing to me. Bringing Pie to the majors in this situation is bound to put a lot of pressure on him. For a club that's declared itself in "win now" mode, this is a confusing decision. Goony is right. We DO need offense out of CF since we'll get nothing out of the SS position and DeRosa is no guarantee to repeat last year's numbers. Furthermore, Barrett probably will sit in about 1/3 of Cub games, as most starting catchers do. When he's out, we have a no-hit backup in Blanco. There are days when we'd play 3 guys with OBP around .300 or worse. That's a sure loser, and that's assuming we're completely healthy, which we won't be because no one ever is. Our pitching is improved, but it's not the kind of rotation that will win a lot of 2-1, 3-2, type games outside of Z and maybe Hill. Further, one has to question how long Lou will stick with Pie if, in fact, he does put up a line something like .250/.300/.400. If he's juggled between AAA and MLB and not given consistent at bats, it could hamper his development as a player. Young players need to play and get consistent AB's. Counting on Pie to be the 2007 CF is a bad decision from a put the best team on the field to win today standpoint, and a worse decision from a player development win tommorrow standpoint. Was Hendry even paying attention during the 4+ seasons of Corey Patterson? PECOTA sees a .280/.342/.480 line from Pie with plus defense next season. Given the other current options out there, I don't see how you can say this is a bad decision from the "win today" view.

Any evidence of this? Fiddling around with the Lineup Anlyzer seemed to indicate otherwise. That's assuming universal health. If the lineup has nothing but .300 EqA's, the production would be easier to replace if somebody went down to injury.

Or Ohman. Why would we want to trade the less expensive, more effective one? Especially when considering the fact that Eyre's market value is well above his actual value, trading Ohman instead of Eyre would most likely be foolhardy.

Brewers look significantly better, and the it's hard to bet against the defending WS champs. Astros look like they've fallen off the face of the earth though, which I'm loving.

While it's just a minor league contract and an invite to ST, this move is indicative of the failure of the front office to recognize what constitutes a good ballplayer.

I knew somebody would respond like that, and I had no idea how I was going to respond. Still don't.

For amphetamines. http://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/816866/detail.html?dest=rss| I love that he tried to blame it on Mark Sweeney.

Barely major league material? Last I checked, he's been better than Marquis recently.

I'd rather have the Big Mac than any other Cards' HOFer not named Gibson, Hornsby, or Musial.

If Aramis looks like he might be out for a few days, I'd imagine they'll bring Moore up from AAA, so I'm not too concerned with the lack of middle infielders. At any rate, I'm just happy we don't have 8 second basemen on the roster (yet)

I find it quite ironic that his parting line is the exact opposite of what Branch Rickey (a sure baseball genius) used to say. It's like he's trying to enforce that he's a dumbass.

I'd rather have nothing, thanks.

Seeing as how his value to the rest of the league is so minimal, and for us he's a very low-risk, very high-reward proposition... it'd still take a ton to pry him out of my hands. To DFA or cut him (which I've heard people propose here before) is perhaps one of the single dumbest moves that could be made in this situation.

I'm all for DLee batting second... anything to keep Izturis from batting there.

I don't really either, except for the handful of guys I like to think of as "clean". Finding out John Smoltz, DLee, and Griffey were juicing would be a heartbreaker.

Just because that's the average market price doesn't make it a good idea. The idea is to go cheap at certain spots by using young guys so that you can spend the extra cash on real difference makers. Suppan is not likely to be one of those.

Could it be the best rotation in the NL Central? Almost certainly... unless Mark Prior is ressurected, Zambrano's arm stays on, Hill pitches like he did the last few starts of last season, and Marquis and Lilly regain their 2004 forms.