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Is Dunn in better shape? I generally think that a player at age 27 is entering prime. However Dunn has looked to not be in great shape the last couple of years. .230/.375/.490

I actually liked the "will to win and willing his team to win." I think this is a measurable stat. He has only been on one winning team.

Dude if I had these horses I would have won 95

I think the whole division is going to be kind of a crap shoot. What will probably make a lot of the difference will be "surprises". Who will be some of the upside surprises in the division and who will be some of the downside surprises? I think the Cubs could win the division if Murton and Hill continue to progress, core group of players is mainly healthy and noone else in the division wins 95+ games. If Hill and Murton suck and Lee and Zambrano get hurt the Cubs could easily finish last again.

I agree. We have a manager who will play the best performing player. Not the one with the better past, etc. We have a manager who has been saying lately that he will play the best performing player, in stark contrast to his actions on the last team he managed. Let's save the absolute comments until we've actually seen him work during the season. I like what he's said just as much as anybody here, but he's yet to follow through on any of that (through no fault of his own, granted). Let's remember to not get too worked up over a couple of sound-bytes, alright? YES SIR!!! Sarcasm duly noted. I just find the disconnect between his old ways and his new soundbytes troubling... especially so when he is leaning towards Miller as the last man in the rotation and the historically pathetic Tomas Perez seems to be grabbing that 25th man spot. If wearing rose-coloured glasses makes your time with the Cubs more palatable, go for it. Forgive me for trying to keep everybody's expectations where they should be, though. I always enjoy my season more when unexpected good things happen, rather than expecting too much and not coming close. I agree with you. I am very concerned about why Tomas Perez. I do understand the Miller one better but I would just let Guzman have the job myself. I do however believe that as long as Theriot is playing well he will get plenty of playing time. It may be at several different positions but he should get a lot of ABs. I dont think this would be true with our past manager.

So after today is the race between Guzman and Miller closing again. Miller wasnt very good today according to the box score. I dont know about the defense behind him though?

I am not concerned who is the starting 2nd basemen in Cincinati on April 2. I will become concerned if there is a player on the bench outplaying a regular and our manager says that the regular is a veteran and brings more to the game than just numbers. If that happens I will be concerned. As long as Theriot performs he will get the opportunity to play.

This is backward thinking. If its close it should go to Guzman. Miller should only get the nod if he is clearly better. I fear this is going to be another case of the Cubs stunting the progression of a young player for the opportunity to give a mediocre veteran with no upside a chance to improve. It's not just those two players in a vacuum though. If Guzman wins the job: Miller is traded for not very much If somebody goes down or is ineffective, then the next pitchers in line are Prior (if he's healthy by then), Cotts (who hasn't been effective at all), Marshall (who is well behind and not might be ready to pitch at all, let alone be effective) and Mateo (who is not major league ready) If Miller wins the job: Miller either gets the chance to increase his trade value or he is ineffective and released after a while-not much loss if we didn't get much for him in the first scenario, and a possible gain. If somebody goes down or is ineffective, Guzman is waiting in the wings to take over. If they are similar pitchers, it's better overall for the Cubs this year to go with Miller to start off with-it gives you much more of a margin for error. On the surface I wouldnt disagree with anything you post here. However you dont show any downside to sending Guzman down. At some point a player is going to have to pitch and probably struggle at the major league level. If there is a good chance that Guzman will be better than Miller(certainly more potential) and has already reached a level of success at the previous level(Guzman had a solid AAA season when there), you will end up risking that you MAY stunt his development. You will probably not make him more major league ready by sending him down. The only thing that will probably help him progress to the next level is to go through growing pains in the major leagues. I would say the sooner the better. It would be better for the Cubs longterm to start Guzman now. Secondly the only way that Miller gets any real trade is if he performs at a level that we wouldnt trade him anyway. So the trying to increase his trade value arguement is really not important

This is backward thinking. If its close it should go to Guzman. Miller should only get the nod if he is clearly better. I fear this is going to be another case of the Cubs stunting the progression of a young player for the opportunity to give a mediocre veteran with no upside a chance to improve.

I don't understand how people don't see what the problem is. I certainly see that it's a problem, but I don't think betting on baseball is worse than many other things that go on in the game today (PEDs). Maybe it's just me, but Rose betting on his team to win just doesn't bother me that much. This is still an apples and oranges arguement. The reason that baseball has had no major gambling scandals or even hints of gambling scandals except for Pete Rose is because it is a bannable offense in baseball. I believe it is right to keep the ban and would be against anyone who has been banned getting back in.(Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe or Buck Weaver). If baseball would create a lifetime ban for PEDs than I do believe that scandal would clear itself pretty quickly also. However to compare players today on PEDs to gambling are different arguements. Pete Rose was well aware of the rules and the potential ban when he did what he did. Until last year there were no PED rules and still no lifetime ban.

I think this is the most sensable solution. My first thought is that the Cubs will not win the WS this year so go with Pie, But this solution is better yet. I do believe however that Angel Guzman should be the 5th starter. He probably is the best option now and certainly not so much behind that it is worth going with Miller

I noticed that Cedeno has had a solid spring. I hope he goes to Iowa though instead of sitting on the bench. I believe the final bench spot will have to go someone who is a good outfielder. I like Coats but think it will be Pagan.

I dont think Bill Madlock was a player that stat people would like. I remember after he was traded my dad saying "there the Cubs going trading a good black player for an over-rated white one" or something along those lines. Seems like most bad Cub trades seem to have that in common.

I would trade Jones and maybe Marshall. I would offer Marmol or Mateo first though. I think if Ichiro could be added for basically Jones it is a good move. I wouldnt even consider trading Murton for Ichiro straight up.

While driving home from work this deal was announced on Mac/Jurko/Harry. All 3 of these guys went on the denounce the signing and they also brought up Darren Erstad and were not kind. The very first White Sox fan who called up went into some thing about the Cubs signing Lily and Erstad being better than Floyd. You know if my team had won the World Series a couple of years ago, I wouldnt be nearly as self-conscience of my team as most White Sox fans seem to be. I mean I agree that the Cubs signed Lily to a bad contract and he isnt any better than Vasquez. To say that Erstad is better than Floyd is just stupid. Even with all of that it doesnt matter what the Cubs did if you are a White Sox fan. It should only matter that your GM and manager are not making your team better.

Or until there's a "one strike and your out" policy, giving out lifetime bans to anyone caught using. I still think the teams should hold some sort of accountability. GMs and Managers certainly know some of what going on. Teammates who are clean probably know more than they are saying. If team games were on the line, there would be a lot more people trying to make sure the players are clean. Personnally I dont think most people in pro sports care. I think the only reasons that there is even testing and suspensions is for public relations.

When are we going to finally come to the realization that steroid/HGH use is rampant in pro/college athletes. I have said before and will say again, until games are forfeited for using players that use, they will never stop the problem.

I was a Bill James reader back in the early 80s. I have not totally embraced all of the newer stats though. I like OPS, OBP and WHIP. All of these stats are still rather simple to figure and I can easily explain them to people who have no idea what they mean. Some of the more advanced ones are not necessarly beyond me but they are hard to explain to not knowledgeable people so I dont use them most of the time. Maybe this is just because I am older but I do believe there is a part of baseball that stats do not measure. I dont know if it is "Clutch" or "Baseball Sense" or being a "Heady Ballplayer". I just think that a player like Pete Rose has more value than stats can measure(I dont mean gambling profits). I dont know what this means to overall team performance but I have played baseball, softball, football, basketball and hockey with guys like that and they make the whole team better.

A lot of the problem with this whole arguement is that "hustle" boils down to perception. Some people no matter how hard they try will never appear to be hustling. Some will always look like they are hustling. I used to have a kid who worked for me who looked like he was goofing off half the time and didnt care. At the end of the day he had more work done than almost every other person. We had this other guy who was always sweeting, always moving looked really busy. He didnt have a lot of work done at the end of the day. What he was really hustling on was work that didnt need to be done. So he was spending a lot of time working on none work. In the terms of "hustling out grounders" In theory this is working at none work. You are going to be thrown out 99% of the time no matter what. If by chance there is an error you may have lost a chance to go to 2nd. This is extremely rare though. If 2 players are equal I would rather have the one that ran out grounders. I am guessing that hustling is even worth .025 of OPS so it wouldnt take much for me to prefer ARam over a hustling David Eckstein

1b Who cares its 1b 2b Ryno ss Omar Vizquel or Loiue Aparicio(the anti-Ozzie vote) 3b Brooks LF If we are actually using LFers Barry Bonds CF This is actually a really great position. Too bad someone like Cesar Geronimo or Amos Otis wont even get on the ballot. I predict Griffey jr wins. I didnt see Willie Mays play in his prime. I think there are several CF who were better than Griffey but wont make the cut. RF Clemente. Again I only seen him at the end. even then he was great. I think he is widely regarded as the best defensive RFer ever though C Bench was great but IRod is better. P Jim Kaat. While going over this a little I forgot how good the Big Red Machine was defensively up the middle. Bench, Morgan, Concepcion and Geronimo. That was probably the best group on one team that I could remember.

These are some things that will have to go well, but if a couple of these things do work out I could easily see the Cubs winning 90 games. 1. Healthy and close to 05 DLee. 2. Murton and Floyd putting up a OPS of close to .900 3. Iszturius having an OBP of .330 4. Hill wins 17 games 5. Prior or Miller pitching well in the fifth spot or better both of them pitching well enough to run Marquis to PH role. If all these things happen the Cubs will be a playoff team. If a couple happen then they will contend. If none happen then lucky to be .500.

That would depend on who was the worst compared to expectations/salary or who was literally the worst. He's factoring salary and expectations into matters, which is why I chose those two. You could make a pretty good argument for Neifury, but the only people who thought he'd do well were kidding themselves. Come on, the guy put up a negative OPS+ (which I didn't even know was possible until I looked him up) in his first 45 major league ABs. That has to tell you something. How about Bobby Murcer? Salary/Expectations/got for Bill Madlock/Not very good for 2 years. Edit: After looking up his numbers after I posted(which I do way to often) Murcer wasnt as bad as I remembered. I was actually trying to point out that the Cubs have been bad for along time and there have been a lot of guys probably more suited to be worst Cub ever than Todd Hundley or Latroy Hawkins. Hundley was terrible and a terrible signing. I cant imagine him not being in Top 5 though.

I think Dusty will get a job again and may be semi-successful. If things start to go wrong with a team, Dusty obviously is not the guy to straighten it out. If things are going well Dusty can help a team capitalize on their success. Though I think Dusty was a terrible manager with the Cubs. I think he was predictably not the right guy for the job. He also was not the only reason the Cubs lost 96 games last year. He was another case of the average fan being mesmerized by a big name.

I think Brian Giles was a decent example of a player like that. I think Brian Giles was just stuck behind good talent in Cleveland. It wasnt that they didnt think he could play.

I dont think Bobby Hill is going to make the team. I have mentioned this before in other threads. In the late 80s after Ken Phelps was given the starting DH job for Seatle he had a monster year. Bill James had been touting this guy for several years. Anyway in the next years Abstract Bill James had a "Ken Phelps All-Star" team. It was a bunch of players in their late 20s who had never been given a chance for what ever reasons like, KOs too much, too slow to be a middle infielder. Things like that. James thought if he could make his team of misfits it would be a .500 team. Randy Ready is the only guy that I remember being on the team. If I was going to do a modern one I would consider Bobby Hill being my 2nd basemen, actually him and Fontenot both. Without looking it up I am guessing there are starting major league 2nd basemen not as good as these guys.