bukie

Nearly any manager should've been able to win with the Cubs in 2003 and 2004. They had a solid lineup 1-8 and the best rotation 1-5 in baseball. Dusty turned what should've been a budding Cub dynasty with a stacked farm system of pitching into crap in just 3 years. At least Piniella can say he managed the Cubs to be easily the best team in the NL in 2008. I don't know if we can call the 2003-2004 team a budding Cubs dynasty. Maybe by 2004 since Lee, Ramirez, and Barrett had shown up, but that 2003 team was going to need almost all the major offensive pieces replaced very quickly. And the farm system was not nearly as stacked as had been thought. Dusty ruined the young pitching which was a huge blow, but the Cubs were still going to have to make a lot of good moves to become elite going forward. In 2003-2004, they had a rotation of mid-20s pitchers in Prior, Wood, Zambrano and Clement, along with a pen of young arms in Farnsworth, Wuertz, Cruz, and even Todd Wellemeyer, Francis Beltran and Jon Leicester. Their oldest arm in the pen was LaTroy Hawkins, who was totally unfairly remembered on that squad and possibly the best reliever they had. On the offensive front, they had quickly morphed from a team with Sosa and Alou and little else by trading for or signing Ramirez, Lee, Barrett, Todd Walker, and a 30-year-old Nomar Garciaparra. Patterson getting injured and coming back slowly had killed them in CF, but they still had guys like Murton waiting in the wings. Poor positional drafting probably hurt them long-term more than anything on the offensive end, since the players they acquired to take over for Alou/Sosa/Patterson either were expected to be something they weren't (Murton, Jones, Soriano, Fukudome) or just old and/or bad from the start (Hollandsworth, Burnitz, Grieve, Lawton, Pierre, Nevin, Floyd).

Nearly any manager should've been able to win with the Cubs in 2003 and 2004. They had a solid lineup 1-8 and the best rotation 1-5 in baseball. Dusty turned what should've been a budding Cub dynasty with a stacked farm system of pitching into crap in just 3 years. At least Piniella can say he managed the Cubs to be easily the best team in the NL in 2008.

It's reasonably arguable that Jeff Samardzija is the second-best reliever on the Cubs this year.

that's fine if that is your position, but you're never going to get any good relief pitchers to come pitch for you... well maybe the guys who are coming off injury or terrible years and are looking to prove something, but not the guys who have been consistently good for a few years. My position is more that middle relief should be the last thing to focus on for a team. If a team has above average players at every spot and a boundless payroll, sure, then you can overpay for middle relievers like Boston or New York. There's no reason to think the Cubs can't get there at some point, but they have to build the rest of the team first, IMO. And if that means spending more on position players and starting pitchers, and using young fringe prospect fill-ins for middle relief, I'm good with that.

Hendry's worst moves that aren't hindsight only: 1. Hiring Dusty Baker - Taking on the manager that had somehow botched a team that had a player a full league better than anyone else in baseball and only made the playoffs once, and already had a terrible reputation for handling pitchers. It was a bad move ahead of time, and it turned into a nightmare move when a Cub farm system full of young strikeout pitchers were subjected to him. 2. Trading for Juan Pierre - It was a terrible move from the get-go, trading for a lineup spot. Even worse, they traded for a player whose only tool was useful as a pinch runner. Even worse than that, they gave up three players who each have been more valuable than Pierre since that time in Mitre, Pinto and Nolasco. 3. Signing veteran relief pitchers to 3-year contracts - John Grabow, Scott Eyre, Bob Howry, Mike Remlinger. Remlinger probably worked out the best, but there's no reason to ever sign free agent middle relief to more than a year. They're middle relief for a reason, and the most volatile of a volatile position. 4. Fixating on absurd non-issues during each offseason - It's as if he tried to implement his own version of Moneyball, but instead of using statistics, he used Dusty Baker's hunches and psychics to find an underappreciated skill. Various offseasons were focused on clubhouse morale, catching the ball, becoming more left-handed (although this one isn't totally unreasonable), and finding leadoff hitters. Hendry was at his best when he was simply trying to make the team better, and not focused on one of these absurd fixations. 5. Trading for Cesar Izturis - Not that they needed to keep Greg Maddux at that point, but the insane desire for Izturis was mind-boggling, even at the time. Trading Maddux for nothing would've been a better idea. Other than that, everything has been defensible to some extent, even things like signing Milton Bradley and Soriano.

Well . . . Brazil missed all four today in the Copa America . . . This makes me very very happy. Argentina and Brazil out in the Quarters is pretty shocking. A Peru-Venezuela final would be really weird.

If you're aching for basketball to follow, the U20 European championships are going on right now, and the Bulls first round pick, Nikola Mirotic, is basically torching the competition. Spain won today 120-47, and Mirotic scored 28 and got 7 rebounds in 16 minutes.

This is my view on bunting: Outs are the most precious thing in baseball, the limiting factor in a game that isn't timed in any way. You have, in 99.9% of cases, 27 outs to work with to win the game. In almost no situation does it make sense to voluntarily trade an out for a base advancement. Trading an out for a run straight up is more sensible (i.e. a sac fly or squeeze play), but even then if you ask for that in advance you're still basically instructing the hitter to try to give away a set part of your scoring opportunity in a game. That is why purposely making an out to advance a base is nearly universally statistically inefficient. There are basically two cases in which trading outs for base advances is viable: 1) When the batter has a less than 10% chance of success at the plate (i.e. a pitcher) 2) When one run will win the game, and one out won't lose it, and the batter doesn't have a significant chance of driving the runner home from first himself. So, for example, tie game, bottom 9, runner on first, Koyie Hill batting.

I can get on board with that. Rose was a good rookie PG in his rookie year, but he wasn't more than average overall in the NBA. He improved to top 50 in the NBA his second year, and top 5 in the NBA his third year. EDIT: Oh, that's a projection for next year, and not a weighted average of the past 3 years? I think that's a little low for him, but it was a big jump this year.

So...I just got home and lo and behold, DVR didn't record any of the game. Is there a rebroadcast planned for later today?

So when's the last time the Cubs allowed 7 runs in an inning and won?

Sharapova has 8 double faults in 6 service games...and leads 6-4, 2-0. Not a very pretty match.

While poor Nick Leddy wastes away.

I'm just going to take complete responsibility for Pena's resurgence, based on the timing when I dropped him.

Well it makes me sad about Demetri Mccamey...he's not a bad guy, he just regressed heavily as a player. I dunno, it happens, he has a very odd mindset, and I don't think Weber is blameless in this as well. Jereme Richmond...well yeah he brought this all on himself. I don't see how it's Weber's fault that McCamey decided in January that he'd done enough to get drafted and then coasted for 3 months. Should he have benched him more?

Both McCamey and Richmond go undrafted.

The Bulls didn't draft Lee. Minnesota did. The Bulls got Mirotic and Butler.

Best I can tell, here is the draft and what team each player actually ended up with tonight: 1. Cavs - Kyrie Irving, Duke 2. Wolves - Derrick Williams, Arizona 3. Jazz - Enes Kanter, Turkey 4. Cavs - Tristan Thompson, Texas 5. Raptors - Jonas Valanciunas, Lithuania 6. Wizards - Jan Vesely, Czech Republic 7. Bobcats - Bismack Biyombo, Congo 8. Pistons - Brandon Knight, Kentucky 9. Bobcats - Kemba Walker, Connecticut 10. Kings - Jimmer Fredette, BYU 11. Warriors - Klay Thompson, Washington St. 12. Jazz - Alec Burks, Colorado 13. Suns - Markieff Morris, Kansas 14. Rockets - Marcus Morris, Kansas 15. Spurs - Kawhi Leonard, SDSU 16. 76ers - Nikola Vucevic, USC 17. Knicks - Iman Shumpert, Georgia Tech 18. Wizards - Chris Singleton, FSU 19. Bucks - Tobias Harris, Tennessee 20. Wolves - Donatas Motiejunas, Lithuania 21. Blazers - Nolan Smith, Duke 22. Nuggets - Kenneth Faried, Morehead St. 23. Bulls - Nikola Mirotic, Spain 24. Thunder - Reggie Jackson, Boston College 25. Nets - Marshon Brooks, Providence 26. Nuggets - Jordan Hamilton, Texas 27. Celtics - JaJuan Johnson, Purdue 28. Heat - Norris Cole, Cleveland St. 29. Spurs - Cory Joseph, Texas 30. Bulls - Jimmy Butler, Marquette 31. Wolves - Bojan Bogdanovic, Bosnia 32. Cavs - Justin Harper, Richmond 33. Pistons - Kyle Singler, Duke 34. Wizards - Shelvin Mack, Butler 35. Kings - Tyler Honeycutt, UCLA 36. Nets - Jordan Williams, Maryland 37. Clippers - Trey Thompkins, Georgia 38. Rockets - Chandler Parsons, Florida 39. Bobcats - Jeremy Tyler, The World 40. Bucks - Jon Leuer, Wisconsin 46. Lakers - Andrew Goudelock, College of Charleston 47. Clippers - Travis Leslie, Georgia 48. Hawks - Keith Benson, Oakland 49. Grizzlies - Josh Selby, Kansas 50. 76ers - Lavoy Allen, Temple 51. Blazers - Jon Diebler, Ohio State 52. Pistons - Vernon Macklin, Florida 53. Magic - DeAndre Liggins, Kentucky 54. Cavs - Milan Macvan, Serbia 55. Celtics - E'Twaun Moore, Purdue 56. Lakers - Chukwudiebere Maduabum, NBDL 57. Mavs - Tanguy Ngombo, Qatar

From what I've heard, it wasn't so much his call to leave Illinois, though.

Just 10 picks left and Moore, Richmond and McCamey are all still on the board, along with Greg Smith, Isaiah Thomas and Scotty Hopson.

Selby finally goes with the 49th pick to Memphis.

Also, Minny finally gets a pick of their own and they take a PG. :)

Feel-good Jimmy Butler story: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2011/columns/story?columnist=ford_chad&page=Butler-110618

I think Hamilton went to the Mavs, then Portland, then Denver.

Hamilton to the Mavs. :(