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They'd have Plácido Polanco still, probably at 2nd. Wouldn't necessarily make them good, but it wouldn't hurt them. Boston would have Hanley Ramirez at shortstop and would have had the services of Jeff Bagwell for all those years. Cards would also have JD Drew and Coco Crisp in the OF. Not great but better than the Cubs

A few years ago, Larry Walker, Cliff Floyd, Pedro Martinez, Moises Alou, and Randy Johnson would have made them pretty good. And they would currently have Grady Sizemore. Also Vlad and Brandon Phillips. The more I thought about it they wouldnt be as good as I thought. Pedro would be a Dodger with these hypothetical terms. It would be kind of fun coming up with what everyone would look like. I predict the Cubs would have the worse offensive team.

How good would the Nationals be?

Even worse when the veterans who are playing tonight are not better options than Murton or Pie. I am not saying that Piniella is as bad of a manager as Baker. This however is one of the reasons that people didnt like Baker.

Would you really rather have Pie in there against a lefty than Jacque? I would. Jones has already established in his career that he cannot hit LHers. Maybe Pie can be taught to. Since it is an automatic out anyway, I would rather go with the youth and better defense. What I find even more troubling is Monroe being in the lineup. Of course I find it troubling that he is even on the team.

Yeah. Funny how Soriano had to move back to LF to be comfortable, yet Lou didnt seem to care how comfortable Murton and Floyd were. Its like he has to bat Lead off to be comfortable. Seems the Cubs are making a lot of concessions for Soriano. It doesnt make a difference if he is asking for them or not. Where I work we like to call these type of people High Maintenance. The Free agent market is mostly a bad gamble. Teams almost always pay more for declining production. The Cubs at some point have to make postition player development a higher priority. Or they will never be consistent winners.

I would prefer Kendall batting lead off and DeRossa batting 2nd myself. Somehow I dont think that is going to happen though. Truth is Theriot and Soriano are only above JJ in OBP for primary starters. JJ is probably closing the gap pretty quick also.

Well, call me a monkey's uncle. Yeah and I remember the Washinton game pretty clear also. I think they played at Washinton in like 2001 and Washington played at Michigan in 2002. I may be wrong about the years.

I actually had a even bigger problem with our "greatest manager in Cub history" going out to the mound in the Top of the 7th after Z had already pitched 111 pitches and had the bases loaded with 1 out. Only to go back to the dugout by himself.

Don't be so sure. I'm sure Michigan will be scheduling them before too long. If this is a slam on Michigans Schedule, I think its off base. Michigan certainly could schedule tougher, but they are not nearly as shameful as others(including most of the SEC). They have Notre Dame on their Schedule and have tried hard to have other quality BCS teams on their schedule. That is 2 quality non-conference games most years. A lot of schools dont have 1. They also havent shied away from playing other BCS schools on the road. Again I am not comparing them to USC, but I could easily name 30 schools that dont schedule as good. I think Michigan played Oregon on the road once before. That's the only out of conference game other than ND I can even remember them playing on the road - let alone home games against decent teams. Yes, I'm glad they renewed the ND series, though. You may want to ask some of the Michigan fans, but I am pretty sure in the last 10 yrs they have also played at UCLA, Washington, Oregon and Syracuse. They have also tried to get Home and Homes with several top SEC schools and have been turned down. How many Top 25 schools even schedule Oregon and Notre Dame in the same season? They scheduled Oregon, Washington and Syracuse when they were a Top 25 team every year also. Again can they do better? Yes. Are they nearly as shameful as some? No

Since it is a proven fact that a vast majority of players do not hit any worse or better in these situations than normal ones. Would it be appropriate to assume that Murton will improve to the norm in these situations. Kind of like it was appropriate to assume that Jones would improve in the 2nd half because he was not nearly as bad as he was in the first half One thing that I find more and more strange as the season has progressed is Murtons complete inability to pinch-hit. Yet Piniella seems to send him up there quite a bit to pinch hit. I havent figured them but I would venture to guess that Murtons numbers as a starter are not really that bad. His pinchhitting numbers probably really pull them down.

Don't be so sure. I'm sure Michigan will be scheduling them before too long. If this is a slam on Michigans Schedule, I think its off base. Michigan certainly could schedule tougher, but they are not nearly as shameful as others(including most of the SEC). They have Notre Dame on their Schedule and have tried hard to have other quality BCS teams on their schedule. That is 2 quality non-conference games most years. A lot of schools dont have 1. They also havent shied away from playing other BCS schools on the road. Again I am not comparing them to USC, but I could easily name 30 schools that dont schedule as good.

I really like Bob Uecker alot. He isnt the funniest man ever, but he is funny but still knows theres a game on. That being said we are in a pennant chase with his team. Its time to throw off the Lovable Loser and boo the opposition sometimes.

We dont like to admit this too much but DLee's 2005 season was way out of context with the rest of his career.

it's important to note that when hendry finally got the chance to go after the Top FA, he gave an 8 year contract to a guy who is OPSing 847 as a 31 year old. It was also a contract that was similar in money to V Guerrero and C Beltran and Soriano is at least a level below Beltran and 2 behind V Guerrero.

I bet Murton wouldnt clear waivers. As opposed to every other OFer on the Cubs.

I mentioned this early in the Monroe thread in transactions. Last year during the playoffs Piniella had some sort of man crush on Monroe. This was actually the main reason I didnt want Piniella as our Manager. I mean if you really think about it a team that is better than the Cubs cast this guy off. His numbers are not good even against lefties to even take a chance on the guy. Not only did we add him, He is batting 5th and 6th. Even at his best he wasnt that good. This is a complete crap addition. I am not saying Piniella is Dusty or as bad as Dusty, but this is a complete Dusty move.

Same as our 5th hitter last night. It would be a bad move to pick up Tomko.

I'd like to look toward Fukudome. Moi aussi. I would be in favor of this also. Will the Cubs have enough payroll to get him though.

I like this move and would support it fully. For some reason I suspect that the Cubs will be looking in the inexpensive veteran free agent bin though. I would have no problem with the Cubs just giving the job to Murton, I just dont think its going to happen.

This is failed logic. If this was the case than the Cubs ought to just get rid of their minor league system and use the saved money for free agents from other teams. Secondly Murton has proven to be a effective Major League player. Lou just runs him to the bench everytime he has a couple of bad games

In the games he started in April he was actually hitting .272 with a .333 OBP. Also noted in May he was .295 .377 .803 for the month which led to his PT getting diminished in late May and early June. To be demoted by mid June. His season also seems to be litttered with a lot of 0 for 1s. 20 of them. He obviously isnt a pinch hitter. So even though he had a solid May his PT was reduced after a couple of bad games. Which again seems to be the case here in August. His overall numbers as a starter are not bad. He just doesnt seem to have a very long leash. He isnt allowed to play through his down times, even though he has EARNED the right after his season last year.

too bad that doesnt apply to murton, considering his season is nothing near solid. I'm quite sure he was referring to last season, which should have earned Murton the starting gig in LF (or RF) to start this year. Or were you arguing that last season he wasn't solid? It did earn him the starting position early this year. Then he lost it on his own. I may be wrong about this but I think Floyd was starting about 1/2 the games within the first couple of games of the season. Also after Murton's nice stretch recently he had a bad series against the Cardinals and hasnt started since. It was just 3 games. I just wonder why a bad series doesnt seem to effect Uncle Cliffy's PT.

I would be interested to know if that is the case. There seems to be some underlying animosity between Lou and Murton. You get the feeling that Lou would rather not play him at all. Granted he has not been performing wonderfully, this year, but he has proven that he can be a midly effective/cheap OF'er. When Murton was hitting well before the Cardinal series a couple a times it seemed Lou went out of his way to praise him in the Pregame show on WGN radio. Also truth was he was given a opportunity while he was hitting during that stretch. I do wish he would let Murton work his way out of a slump though.

When I used to go to work at 5:00AM, I listened to the overnight guys on both ESPN and Sporting News. I really enjoyed it because they actually let fans get on and make arguements as long as they were being rationale. Much better than during the day when you only have 8 secs and not enough time to prove how stupid the host is being, especially when he doesnt want to hear it anyway.