nick23

Didn't they get him in the Swisher deal? I think he's a pretty decent prospect.

Mike Sweeney singles up the middle. 1st and 2nd 1 out.

Wow, this play by play guy is awful. Theriot grounds out to 1st. Fukudome K's looking Lee grounds out.

Pff. Don't you have some NSBB thread to summarize and pawn off as and original thought of yours on your web journal? Anyway, it doesn't matter if it's an inside joke or not. My friends and I have tons of inside jokes that would probably be pretty offensive if I said them to anyone else. But I don't. That's why it's an inside joke. However, it stops being an inside joke when you say it to the media. And when your inside joke smacks of racism, well, there you go. Yeah you're not overreacting about this at all. Did Theriot sleep with your sister at LSU or something?

I think you're missing the point. No one is saying that posting something on a message board is overblowing it. It's the fact that you're calling him a borderline racist. That's overreacting/overblowing.

I bet if Fukudome told the reporter "Well, I'm not going to challenge him to a crawfish eating contest" people wouldn't overreact quite as much.

I thought it was pretty funny. But before you think i'm racist, I want you to know that I own a Japanese TV. Or maybe it's a Chinese TV. Who knows, they all look alike to me. TV's that is.

2 RBI double for Soto

Basehit Colvin.

F-BOBM

Pie lines out to Hall.

Just walked in a run.

Oh my!

100% no.

I though starting pitching was excactly what this club was deep at. Well starting pitching and middle infielders.

The Mets. I think most of us have a problem with the fact that the Cubs, given their market and payroll situation, should be one of those head and shoulders better teams, rather than maybe the best of the mediocre bunch that is the NL (after the Mets). I honestly don't think the Mets are that much better than us. They difinitely weren't before Johan fell in their laps. The right side of their infield is on a pretty steep decline. Alou can't stay healthy. And who knows what their going to get from Pedro and El Duque this year. I would say they're better but not head and shoulders better.

I used the Lineup Analysis tool at Baseball Musings: http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py If you take the Cubs splits from 2007 for the 2nd through 9th spots in the order and plug in Soriano's numbers in the leadoff spot, you get 4.712 runs per game, which equals 763 runs over the course of a 162 game season. It's not that far off considering the Cubs scored 752 last year. If you take the same splits for the Cubs but substitute Roberts' numbers for Soriano's, you also get 4.712 runs per game. Probably a bit of a crude method, but to me it shows that a .377/.432 line out of the leadoff spot is not going to yield a significant number of runs over what a .337/.560 line would, even if you factor speed into the equation. So what do you get when you plug Roberts into the leadoff spot and plug Soriano's numbers into the 2 thru 9 position? My response was to his claim that Soriano only scored more runs due to a superior lineup. I used the Lineup Analysis tool to show that there isn't much of a difference between Soriano leading off and Roberts leading off. Soriano's clear advantage in slugging pretty much makes up for Roberts' advantage in OBP. The question remains, would Roberts leading off and Soriano in the middle of the order be better than Soriano leading off and Roberts batting second? Probably, but I doubt the difference between the two lineups would be very big. I think it would be a nice dilemma to have. I know Sorianio's numbers have been a little better from the leadoff spot and this could be debated forever. If he hits 40 homers from the 4-6 spots he's going to have more RBI's than if he hits 40 homers while batting leadoff. I guess it depends on whether you believe he'll hit worse from down in the order. Personally I think if he was moved down and left there he would be a force and I would not mind seeing him hit between Lee and Aram. Pitchers would have to throw hittable pitches to one of them. If we don't get Roberts, and I don't believe we will, I'd leave him in the leadoff spot because without Roberts there is no one else nearly as good at it as he is. This is all just an opinion though. No sources to prove any of it. There's a good article on BP right now explaining how dumb it is batting Soriano leadoff. It's free also. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7184

Nothing funny at all about the idea of Dempster pitching 200 innings for us this year. :banghead: It's actually a little concerning that he thinks he's going to pitch 200 innings this year.

double post. sorry

If you think Jeff Francoeur is one of the worst RF in baseball....remind me to never take anything you say serious again. Let's look at the projected starters in RF across the majors: .305 Magglio Ordonez .303 Kosuke Fukudome .301 Vladimir Guerrero .298 Bobby Abreu .296 Milton Bradley .296 Jeremy Hermida .295 Corey Hart .290 Travis Buck .287 Nick Markakis .287 Matt Kemp .284 Hunter Pence .284 Michael Cuddyer .284 Alex Rios .283 Ryan Church .282 JD Drew .282 Jermaine Dye .282 Brad Hawpe .280 Austin Kearns .277 Brian Giles .277 Rocco Baldelli .276 Ken Griffey .276 Franklin Gutierrez .275 Mark Teahen .272 Xavier Nady .271 Brad Wilkerson .271 Geoff Jenkins .271 Jeff Francoeur .270 Randy Winn .267 Rick Ankiel .267 Justin Upton I like Winn and Upton's defense over his and I thought about listing Rick Ankiel though. And now regarding Eric Byrnes: .307 Ryan Braun .306 Adam Dunn .303 Pat Burrell .302 Manny Ramirez .295 Moises Alou .295 Matt Holliday .289 Jason Bay .289 Carl Crawford .289 Josh Willingham .288 Carlos Lee .286 Alfonso Soriano .285 Raul Ibanez .283 Chris Duncan .283 Johnny Damon .282 Wily Mo Pena .282 Delmon Young .280 Scott Hairston .280 Luke Scott .279 Carlos Quentin .276 David Dellucci .273 Jose Guillen .272 Matt Diaz .269 Marlon Byrd .268 Garret Anderson .267 Eric Byrnes .264 Dave Roberts .260 Emil Brown .253 Reed Johnson .253 Jacque Jones .247 Juan Pierre Below Byrnes are Roberts and Pierre as the only guys with fulltime gigs. Although Roberts will probably be out eventually. Jones, Brown and Johnson are platoon guys. So yeah, Byrnes and Francoeur are near the bottom of their respective positions. Francoeur is a bit of an enigma. He burst on the scene for two months, and has hit like crap since that September getting progressively worse. Still he has quality tools but like many toolsy guys before him he's hackprone I stand somewhat corrected. The only argument I have is some of the guys above Byrnes have been primarily platoon players in the past. Duncan, Dellucci, and Diaz come to mind off the top of my head. I doubt they could put up the numbers Brynes does over a full season. Luke Scott being another one that has platooned in the past.

If you think Jeff Francoeur is one of the worst RF in baseball....remind me to never take anything you say serious again. Yeah, pretty ridiculous. I don't understand the Eric Byrnes one either.

Old baseball players are like crack to GM's.

No but I'm sure they love being a small market team burdened with a horrible GM that can't draft or can't produce major leaguers from their system. I thought their new GM was supposed to be pretty good?

Batting him 2nd is an awful idea. Why would you put someone that's going to struggle getting on base that high up in the order? If you want him in a non pressure situation the 8th spot is perfect. I think the whole seeing fastballs in the 2 spot is a dying myth. Why would a pitcher throw Pie a fastball when he can get him out with breaking balls? No matter where he bats in the order Pie will see plenty of breaking balls.

I'm sure this has been said but what does Robert's contract look like?