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I dont mind him during games. His studio stuff isnt good though. I dont mind Brenly either. After listening to Steve Stone on the Score for the last year I think Brenly is probably an upgrade over Stevie.

What did Mathews and Pierre get last year? I dont think its a stretch for Rowand to get 14 mill Also read somewhere that the Dodgers after they trade Kemp to Minnesota for Santana may sign Rowand and move Pierre to LF.

Are you saying this because you want it to happen or are you serious? As a Red Wing fan, absolutely not. I just threw it out there for fun. I did hear his name rumored with another job this off season. Maybe he is interested in coming back in some capacity. That would suck. In what way. If he went to the Hawks. I think he was rumored to be going to the Leafs in some way. I wish he never quit coaching the Wings. Of course I am sure the Blues, Canadians, Sabres and Penguins fans all feel the same way.

jacque jones to the white sox for darin erstad. i thought that too, but then gordon wittenmeyer showed me the error of that thinking. the #1 priority this offseason is to stand pat with jacque jones in center. He probably never considered that the Cubs could possibly get Erstad for Jones. I think if he knew that this was an option he would openly endorse this trade.

No. I wonder what there grittiness per AB rates were.

He wasn't ever an easy out? The only position players who averaged less pitches per plate appearance than Theriot were either demoted or traded (Izturis, Moore, Fox). Everybody else saw more pitches than Theriot. Theriot made an out 67 times on the first pitch. 67 times! The only other Cub above 50 is Aramis Ramirez with 57 times. On the second pitch, Theriot made an out 69 times. That's good for 2nd on the team behind Soriano (77 times). On the third pitch, Theriot made an out 90 times. That's good for 2nd on the team again behind Soriano (94 times) Theriot has made the most outs on the first 3 pitches on the team (19 more outs overall than 2nd place Soriano). Soriano also had 42 more overall at-bats then Theriot, so Theriot had a much higher out percentage on the first 3 pitches. The leader in making outs early in the count should never be a non-power hitter, and Theriot is way in front in that category. A non-power hitter should also never see the least number of pitches on the team. He certainly isn't what you described when you said that he was never an easy out. Good job with the work on this CCP. I have a question that maybe you could answer. Did this get worse as the season progressed? It seemed early in the year he was doing a good job of working counts. Was I just thinking this compared to Cedeno and Izturius or was it true. After his little hot spell in Aug he really looked like a first pitch hacker the rest of the year.

Are you saying this because you want it to happen or are you serious? As a Red Wing fan, absolutely not. I just threw it out there for fun. I did hear his name rumored with another job this off season. Maybe he is interested in coming back in some capacity.

Scotty Bowman new Blackhawks President

I will say that if the Cubs really want to take a huge step forward, these are the kinds of moves that would have to be made. I dont know if I would do these moves.

holy bajingo, he's huge! My chest hurts looking at him.

hahaha, that is excellent. What is really funny is that Pie seems like a hustly, gritty, BALLPLAYER. Why he is valued so lowly by Whiinhmer and "obviously Lou" while Jones is some kind of winning player is beyond me.

Ivan Rodriquez

Bingo. GMs should never be judge on a year to year bases. They should be judged on how well the team has performed over a period of time and how are the positioned to do in the future. Giving Hendry a lot of money this off season and while only having a year left on his contract probably was not a wise move from Upper management. Truth be told if I had the available funds that Hendry had this off season I probably could have signed Soriano. I dont think anyone is talking about hiring me as GM. 1) Hendry had 2 years left on his deal, not 1. 2) This is exactly what upper management wanted. The last thing that the Tribune wanted before selling the team was to have another sub 75 win team, and they were willing to do anything (including hurting the future) to drive up the sale price. It's as much upper management's fault as Hendry's for telling him to make a splash no matter how much money it took. I did say it was unwise move by upper management.

Bingo. GMs should never be judge on a year to year bases. They should be judged on how well the team has performed over a period of time and how are the positioned to do in the future. Giving Hendry a lot of money this off season and while only having a year left on his contract probably was not a wise move from Upper management. Truth be told if I had the available funds that Hendry had this off season I probably could have signed Soriano. I dont think anyone is talking about hiring me as GM.

If making the playoffs is the goal than it was a good signing.

I agree that either one would be better next year. Will they improve the team enough to win the division, The pennant and the World Series? Probably not. Especially considering both Soriano and Lee will probably decline next year. Than what do the Cubs have in 2 to 3 years? By then ARam would be declining also. If Renteria or Tejada were the last piece needed to get the Cubs over the top, I would say go for it. They are not long term solutions though and the Cubs are not as close to being a World Championship caliber team that some think. I wouldn't bet on Soriano and Lee declining. Plateauing, or a small step back perhaps, but I would not put money on either being significantly worse. No, these teams don't make them elite (although if either Renteria or Tejada plays at his highest ability it might), but I think they do improve them enough to give them a better chance in 2008 than they would otherwise have. And given the fact that they would not be blocking any significant prospects, I'd say go for it. I didnt say they would fall off the earth. What the Cubs would need to be A World Series contender is for them to improve. That is unlikely to happen at their age. I also think its unlikely that either Tejada or Renteria would preform at this highest ability. So whatever resources that it would take to get Renteria or Tejada would be best used in other areas. IMO I honestly think as I have stated in other post is that the Cubs ought to help the Dodgers, by taking a couple of these young malcontents off their hands for a DLee or Soriano. If Frucal has to be thrown in to equal the money for a year I wouldnt mind.

I agree that either one would be better next year. Will they improve the team enough to win the division, The pennant and the World Series? Probably not. Especially considering both Soriano and Lee will probably decline next year. Than what do the Cubs have in 2 to 3 years? By then ARam would be declining also. If Renteria or Tejada were the last piece needed to get the Cubs over the top, I would say go for it. They are not long term solutions though and the Cubs are not as close to being a World Championship caliber team that some think.

There's a good explanation for this. Strikeouts are bad for hitters and good for pitchers. But they are only part of the picture. Many hitters can be productive and still strike out a ton. But it's very hard for pitchers to be any good without striking out anybody. Also to prevent KOs players tend to become hitters that they are not. If Ryan Howard or Adam Dunn were to choke up and shorten their stroke to prevent strikeouts, would they be productive hitters. I would rather they just did their normal swing and drive the ball they way they normally do and have a good chance they get an extra base hit, than shorten there stroke and have pretty much the same chance to get a single.

But the fact that runs have been scored would to a large extent have to do with the players that are around you in the order. If a player gets a 1 out double with no one on and is stranded, that is not his fault that no runs are scored. The best chance to score runs is to increase the amount of chances to score runs. So in the case that a players OPS is 50 points higher, he is giving his team more chances to score.

Because I wrote Bill James a letter in the early 80s and he wrote me back

I agree with the original poster. I think adding Tejada or Renteria would just be adding to our roster of declining talent. Not really the upgrade everyone thinks they would be.

How in the wide, wide, world of sports can you say that? He's been given a handful of sporatic ABs while being a defensive replacement for almost the entire year. [this comment does not pertain directly to DKWG's post] It is the same crap again and again with our young players. A young player gets a handful of sporatic ABs during the year and "they can't hit major league pitching". Thank Soto has mashes the ball so far. I just don't understand the logic. This is the curse of being a Cub fan. I am all for letting Pie be our CFer next season. I am not sure how much more he is going to learn hitting a 1.000 OPS in AAA. He needs to learn how to hit major league pitching. He can only do that playing major league baseball.

I think we are assuming things that we dont know. When Mike Illitch bought the Tigers, everyone there assumed that the Tigers would be an overnight success. He would spend big money and the Tigers would win. Of course this didnt happen. Being a winner is baseball is not as easy as saying "lets get Cuban and spend more money" If that was the case than the Baltimore Orioles would be a contender. After several years of not being successful as the owner of the Tigers, Illitch finally brought in a GM with a proven history of building winning teams. I want our new owner whoever it is to succeed. I think the most important thing that whoever the new owner is, they have to build a productive system that is producing good and sometimes great major league players. Yes this may hurt to watch for a few years.

Maybe if we had missed the playoffs this year we coul talk about trading our franchise players and blow up the organization so we could rebuild the right way. Since we made the playoffs, we are pretty much stuck with making whatever moves we can around these guys and their contracts that will increase. You are right. I did mention that Hendry would never do it. Maybe a new owner will bring a new GM who may be much more progessive. I'm not really even sure it's a Hendry thing. There's not many owners/GMs that would. However it should have been done last offseason, because other than Soriano we had those same trade chips. Maybe the new owner can get Shapiro from Cleveland.

I dont think Ottawa has been crying about Martin Havlat not being on their team. They actually made the Stanley Cup finals last year. He isnt a good team player and as mentioned does have his big baby moments