mg420

he might be arrogant in person and sometimes comes off as a know it all but i would love to see him back in the tv booth for the cubs.

some article (Daily Herald?) said Prior was ahead of Miller, who is in the long-toss phase of his rehab. didnt say where prior was, though. how is miller rehabbing? he was pitching in the big leagues in september? But not at 100%. few pitchers pitch at 100%. as far as i know teams dont rehab players (especially pitchers) in the majors.

Yeah, I hate it when GM's trade away those all-too-valuable undersized righthanders who throw in the high 80's not much lost in ryu imo but he is not really undersized at 6-3 220.

That's where you're wrong, though. He is horrible. He has one skill. He's fast. His one skill doesn't provide him much benefit, though. He can't get on base enough to use it to steal bases, and he's not fast enough or skilled enough at stealing bases to have a SB% above 80%. He isn't a good defensive CF; his speed doesn't help him track down as many balls in the gap as it should, and that's not even factoring in his arm, which has all the strength of an 11 year old girl. He doesn't take walks, has no power at all, and excels at making outs-more outs than anyone in the league by a wide margin. He's a bad, bad baseball player. You could make a good argument that Cesar Izturis is the superior player based on his defense alone. completely agree, pierre is just a guy. someone once pointed out to me that pierre doesn't walk because pitchers generally go after him because they don't want him on base. well, if he could hit for any power whatsoever, maybe he could burn pitchers for throwing him meatballs. some of the pitches that were thrown to pierre last year, i could have hit out of the park, there's no excuse for beating them into the ground like he did. too many people learn all they need to know about baseball from the movie "Major League" and insist that fast players hit ground balls and try to leg out hits. if you're a major league player, you should be trying to drive the ball every single time up, no matter the situation, no matter your place in the order, no matter how much speed you have. when you aren't trying to drive the ball, you're cheating yourself and your team and ultimately driving down final production numbers. this is no more evident than in a player like juan pierre. i find this very amusing. do you really believe you can hit professional pitching at any level let alone the major leauges? i may be able to hit in the major "leauges". what color is the sky in your world?

That's where you're wrong, though. He is horrible. He has one skill. He's fast. His one skill doesn't provide him much benefit, though. He can't get on base enough to use it to steal bases, and he's not fast enough or skilled enough at stealing bases to have a SB% above 80%. He isn't a good defensive CF; his speed doesn't help him track down as many balls in the gap as it should, and that's not even factoring in his arm, which has all the strength of an 11 year old girl. He doesn't take walks, has no power at all, and excels at making outs-more outs than anyone in the league by a wide margin. He's a bad, bad baseball player. You could make a good argument that Cesar Izturis is the superior player based on his defense alone. completely agree, pierre is just a guy. someone once pointed out to me that pierre doesn't walk because pitchers generally go after him because they don't want him on base. well, if he could hit for any power whatsoever, maybe he could burn pitchers for throwing him meatballs. some of the pitches that were thrown to pierre last year, i could have hit out of the park, there's no excuse for beating them into the ground like he did. too many people learn all they need to know about baseball from the movie "Major League" and insist that fast players hit ground balls and try to leg out hits. if you're a major league player, you should be trying to drive the ball every single time up, no matter the situation, no matter your place in the order, no matter how much speed you have. when you aren't trying to drive the ball, you're cheating yourself and your team and ultimately driving down final production numbers. this is no more evident than in a player like juan pierre. i find this very amusing. do you really believe you can hit professional pitching at any level let alone the major leauges?

why? to get a better return. maybe we can get something for marshall before anyone realizes that he's just not any good. i see. i guess i should have know better than to ask.

why?

there is still the possibility of a trade too. i would like to see rapada get a shot in the bullpen along with cotts & ohman and trade eyre. i wonder what a package of eyre & novoa would bring? if floyd can stay healthy (a VERY big if), jones will be on the block too. assuming prior will be in the minors to start the season & wood will be healthy, that leaves a rotation of z, hill, lilly, marquis & miller with a pen of ohman, cotts, rapada, wuretz, wood, howry & dempster.

. Seriously? Z for me, Sheets is Prior's cousin! Assuming health. (I know cub fan's of all people know you can't do this) Actually I have an unfounded gut feeling telling me Zambrano is going to get hurt in the not too distant future. i would say the chance that sheets gets hurt again is greater than the chance that z does. z does walk alot but he makes up for it by striking out alot of batters and being very hard to hit. if he can keep his walks down he is an easy 20+ game winner & cy young canidate. he is also 3 years younger than sheets.

so a career 3.83 era in 1088 ip is better than a 3.29 in 977 ip? i think their whip's might be close but i bet zambrano has a much better baa. without a doubt advantage Z.

Why are the backups even being compared here? Even so, I'd much rather have Blanco, so that point's null. That's my only complaint. The rest is at least semi-debatable. I read the rest, but I had a hard time after that first one-to give the catcher edge to the Brewers, which is one of the positions that the Cubs have the biggest edges at made it extremely hard to put value on the rest of it, although I do agree with many of the other positions (although certainly not all of them). i thought the same thing. barrett & blanco had ops's of .885 & .723 compared to .772 & .712 from estrada & miller.

agreed. i think colvin will also be in this catagory.

boy, they really were right on about soriano & howard. they even managed a dig at the 2006 AL MVP. what a great judge of talent they are. hopefully they'll put a few cubs on the 2007 list when it comes out.

i would have trouble watching a basketball game even if i were paid to do so. it's right up there with soccer & hockey in my book.

sounds like the deal's dead for now: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070129&content_id=1789306&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070130&content_id=1789456&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

marmols stuff kind of reminds me of dotel except for the 3/4 delivery.

here's game 6. dont know if they offer games 1 & 7. http://www.ioffer.com/i/2003-NLCS-Gm-6-Marlins-Vs-Cubs-DVD-Steve-Bartmann-14642613

i cant share in the enthusiasm for the bears because i have zero interest in football so these clips really get my blood flowing! cant wait until opening day! GO CUBS! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4B2F9vF-LQ http://youtube.com/watch?v=36AI4F6crB4

HIs 2004 was an abberrational year. He's not good at baseball. No team with any sort of minor league system should ever sign a player like Erstad to sit on the bench. He's a waste of money and a roster spot for any team. That said, thanks are in order to Kenny Williams for taking a player I was afraid Hendry would target. i would have to say that anyone that makes it to the majors is "good at baseball". he has a career .756 ops and played very good defense before he was injured. williams signings & trades have done pretty well in the recent past (including podsenik whom you most likely put in the same catagory as erstad) and perhaps he knows a little more about baseball than we do. I love the whole "he knows more about baseball than we do" argument. It's probably the weakest argument ever used around here and elsewhere. Erstad is a 32 year old who hasn't had above a .750 OPS in 6 seasons. He hasn't been good at baseball since 2000. Just because he has a "hard nosed" reputation and a name people have heard of doesn't mean that he's any good anymore. i guess you know more about baseball than kenny williams and billy beane. http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070112&content_id=1778276&vkey=news_oak&fext=.jsp&c_id=oak Again: Debunking an argument by attempting to belittle the posters knowledge of baseball when compared to GM's or people who "played the game" isn't an effective method of arguing your point. He's an injury prone, ineffective, overpaid baseball player who has gotten by for the past few years on the reputation of tenacity and toughness more than the quality of his play. He's not a good baseball player, and unless he signed for an incredibly low amount of money, will be vastly overpaid for what he brings to the table. Can you offer any supporting evidence to contradict my argument, other than the fact that I'm not a major league GM? ok. you win. erstad is bad because you say he is. he is guaranteed to have a bad season and be a complete waste of payroll. even if he hits .280 with a .745 ops he'll be horrible because he didnt reach .750. unless a player wins the gold glove and silver slugger they are just bad players with no chance to contribute.

HIs 2004 was an abberrational year. He's not good at baseball. No team with any sort of minor league system should ever sign a player like Erstad to sit on the bench. He's a waste of money and a roster spot for any team. That said, thanks are in order to Kenny Williams for taking a player I was afraid Hendry would target. i would have to say that anyone that makes it to the majors is "good at baseball". he has a career .756 ops and played very good defense before he was injured. williams signings & trades have done pretty well in the recent past (including podsenik whom you most likely put in the same catagory as erstad) and perhaps he knows a little more about baseball than we do. You're not going to win any arguments around here if you try to portray career numbers as being indicative of the future performance of a player who is obviously way past his prime. Also, you'll have trouble convincing anyone that a GM of a winning team is incapable of making a plainly dumb move. Case in point: the Tigers made the World Series and were still dumb enough to acquire Neifi Perez and his $2.5 million salary. i thought the point of this board was to discuss baseball and peoples opinions on it. hindsight will tell if it was a good move or not. it's kind of difficult to judge a player or a team in january.

HIs 2004 was an abberrational year. He's not good at baseball. No team with any sort of minor league system should ever sign a player like Erstad to sit on the bench. He's a waste of money and a roster spot for any team. That said, thanks are in order to Kenny Williams for taking a player I was afraid Hendry would target. i would have to say that anyone that makes it to the majors is "good at baseball". he has a career .756 ops and played very good defense before he was injured. williams signings & trades have done pretty well in the recent past (including podsenik whom you most likely put in the same catagory as erstad) and perhaps he knows a little more about baseball than we do. I love the whole "he knows more about baseball than we do" argument. It's probably the weakest argument ever used around here and elsewhere. Erstad is a 32 year old who hasn't had above a .750 OPS in 6 seasons. He hasn't been good at baseball since 2000. Just because he has a "hard nosed" reputation and a name people have heard of doesn't mean that he's any good anymore. i guess you know more about baseball than kenny williams and billy beane. http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070112&content_id=1778276&vkey=news_oak&fext=.jsp&c_id=oak

it would be amazing if he were better than himself.

barring an unexpected trade or injury, i have think the roster is set for 2007.

HIs 2004 was an abberrational year. He's not good at baseball. No team with any sort of minor league system should ever sign a player like Erstad to sit on the bench. He's a waste of money and a roster spot for any team. That said, thanks are in order to Kenny Williams for taking a player I was afraid Hendry would target. i would have to say that anyone that makes it to the majors is "good at baseball". he has a career .756 ops and played very good defense before he was injured. williams signings & trades have done pretty well in the recent past (including podsenik whom you most likely put in the same catagory as erstad) and perhaps he knows a little more about baseball than we do.

sounds like it might be soriano in cf after all (at least to start the year): http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070123&content_id=1784608&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc