Nobody youd want to know

Burnett looks like he just woke up and dragged himself out of his doublewide. Maybe he WOULD be a better fit for the Cards...

Player AB with runners on ABs with RISP Total Abs % Abs w/ runners on % Abs w/ RISP DLee 196 112 498 39% 22% Jones 256 160 502 51% 32% Pujols 229 118 509 45% 23% Clee 253 155 525 48% 30% Burrell 234 144 467 50% 31% Cabrera 285 158 519 55% 30% Delgado 207 124 434 48% 29% Those are oustanding stats, nilodnayr. Where did you get them?

Player development, I trust Hendry. Best brand of toothpick, I trust Baker.

I agree with many of the posters that Neifi actually had a fairly good year, compared to expectations. 100% of the animus against him can be traced to Dusty's use of him. He's never been a leadoff hitter, yet Dusty trotted him out there 93 times, to the tune of a .253 OBP. Ugh! Batting second (207 ABs), his average and SLG were actually OK, but his OBP was again a putrid .312. He also batted twice in the 3-hole, and twice in the 5-hole (must've missed those games; probably were as a result of a double-switch). He's obviously most comfortable in the 7 or 8 spot, where he clearly belongs. In fact, on the aggregate, he batted .315 there, with an OBP over .350! Had Dusty just left him there, we'd be singing a much different tune about him.

Because he does it for a living? Because he, and his staff, are the closest people to the players, and presumably have a lot more institutional knowledge than anyone on this board? I don't know why people operate under the assumption that because a GM makes some mistakes, he doesn't know anything. Name me a GM who hasn't made mistakes. They're dealing with people, and people are extremely variable in their abilities and their reactions to new and stressful situations. I think Hendry is a very good GM, even while admitting he's made his share of mistakes. But whose opinion do you trust more, someone whose staff works with the players every day, or someone on an anonymous internet message board who probably has never had contact with the player in question, much less run a sports organization?

Well, Jim Hendry thinks he's ML-ready. I bet Oneri does too. Can you explain why you don't want him in the ML next year? I humbly disagree. What most posters here fail to acknowledge is that the current Cubs offense is one of the best in the NL. And what I've proposed takes nothing away, and adds OBP and much better defense. For example, in the outfield, I think Sing will easily equal the pathetic numbers our LFs have put up this year, and draw twice as many walks. Giles is a lock to better Burnitz's numbers, with a much better OBP. And Pie can't do any worse than Corey's .225 BA. In the IF, the only change is at SS, and I'd bet the farm Cedeno can do better than Neifi's .701 OPS (Cedeno's at .702 right now). Plan A sounds good--I like Murton a lot, I just think he's a little bit of a 'tweener--not enough power for a corner IF, not enough fielding for CF. As for Plan B, those who like Nomar don't realize he's part of the problem--even when healthy, his OBP has hovered around the .320 mark, and his defense just stinks. And Burnitz is a classic Cubs FA signing--getting old, but showing just enough to not be considered a flat-out bust. Now that's a great team... um... I think...

Over the last few weeks I've convinced myself that what the Cubs need more than anything is 5 very good starting pitchers. No more Glendon Rusch; no more flavor-of-the-week Koronka/Mitre/Hill/whoever. Five solid guys who you can count on for 90% of your starts in a season. To get that means you're going to have to pray that your low-paid rookie hitters can do the job. I know most of the posters on this board think the Cubs' offense already sucks, but statistically it's actually top 5 or so; get some OBP out of your rookies and I think we're as good if not better. So here we go: First you sign AJ Burnett. If so, tho, Wood becomes the closer; between the two of them there's too much of an injury risk in the rotation. Then you pry Barry Zito out of Billy's hands; I think a package of Murton, Mitre + another arm would do it. I'd hate to get rid of Murton, but he's got trade value right now, and we have a guy in AA who has the same plate discipline, but better power, in Brandon Sing. That's a rotation of Prior/Zambrano/Zito/Burnett/Maddux, which, conservatively speaking, would kick *ss. Now, for the risky part--the offense. I think we go all-out for Brian Giles, and sign a backup veteran LH left-fielder to spell Sing. And we let the rookies play. The lineup: SS-Cedeno 2B-Walker RF-Giles 1B-Lee 3B-Ramirez LF-Sing C-Barrett CF-Pie Cedeno's not a prototypical leadoff guy, but I think he can easily hit .270 with an OBP of .340, at least. Defensively, he upgrades the INF significantly. Sing needs to be brought up tomorrow and put in LF. If he can handle it, he's at least a platoon guy, at best he gets the majority of ABs, and hits 25-30 dingers. As for Pie, I worry about bringing him up so early, but he's ready defensively, and that's what the Cubs need most. I'd tell him not to worry about hitting, just learn. I'd make one other FA move if possible--sign Ramon Hernandez and trade Barrett. I like Barrett's bat, but not his defense. Ramon brings outstanding D and he hits almost as well as Barrett. That's a winning ballclub. Have at it.

I'll agree with that, and that's a function of bad plate discipline. Home runs seem to come in streaks, but without a halfway decent team OBP you're not going to 'manufacture' a lot of runs. I haven't run any statistical studies in years, but I'd bet a million bux runs scored correlates better to OBP than BA. So what the Cubs need to do is replace their low OBP players (Neifi, Macias, Patterson, Burnitz) with average or high-OBP guys, while getting better on defense. An offense with 3 .400-OBP guys (Lee, Giles, Murton) would have no problem manufacturing a run or two per game.

No offense to you, nick23, but that's a widespread misperception on this board. The Cubs are first in BA in the NL, second in HRs, lead in total bases, and are 6th in runs scored. That's hardly 'no offense.' The Cubs' problem is that they allow more runs than they score. Period. That's a function of bad pitching, bad pitching, bad pitching and bad pitching, with some bad fielding thrown in. Stand pat on the hitting, improve the fielding (especially up the middle) and add one good starter, 2 good relievers and one great closer, and I guarantee you the Cubs will be a playoff team. That having been said, I agree with you about Furcal. He makes this team better with his defense alone.

Actually, the Cubs org is more guilty of HOLDING ON to someone, like Sosa or Patterson, until they have almost NO trade value, then getting nothing for them.

Um, OK. Nice reasoning there. How about, why not?

How about: Lee to the A's for Zito + Kotsay?

Contemplate that, if you will.

I could get behind that move. And he probably won't cost any more than Barrett. On the other hand, losing Barrett's .356 OBP will hurt.

15, which is actually middle-of-the-pack. That I can't tell you, but I can say the Cubs have a lot of players who seemingly aren't real baseball-smart. We could stand getting more guys who are. This is where I disagree. I think the Cubs need a LITTLE help, and mostly in the OBP and pitching area. They could stand pat with their run-producers, as I think the stats I found today have suggested, and be a very good team. Well, yes, that would be nice, but a) it won't happen, and b) it doesn't NEED to happen. Walker and Murton, to name two examples, both are high-OBP guys with a little pop, which would fit in well in the Cubs' 2006 lineup. Neither impresses me with their defense, so we'd have to make that up at other positions. I think we need a high-OBP, good-defense CF, a high-OBP, good OPS corner OF, and a high-OBP, excellent defense SS. I'd take Ronny Cedeno at SS, and someone like Chone Figgins (tho I think he's arb-eligible) at CF. And I'd love Brian Giles in RF. Throw all the rest of the Cubs' money at the pitching staff.

And another thing: Why? The AL is a HITTING league, yet the Sox's starting corner OFs have OPSs of .685 and .790. And the Sox lead the league in wins. HOW CAN THAT BE? Pitching and fielding, obviously.

What's the difference? What they need is OBP, so the sluggers the team has can knock them in. If you can replace Neifi's (.300), Corey's (.260), Burnitz's (.324) and Holly's (.305) OBP's with league average ones, while still maintaining their slugging level (which shouldn't be too hard, it's at ~.400 aggregate), you'd have a pretty good team. But if you replace those players with defensive upgrades and maintain their OBPs, I'm betting you have a much better team. And if you add a couple of pitchers who have low walk rates, I'm betting you have a GREAT team. (And if you replace the manager with one who knows how to use his players, you have a potential World-Series winner.... but that's a topic for another thread)

There's been a lot of bandwidth wasted on NSBB about how much the Cubs need a slugging corner OF in order to compete. Well, lo and behold, today the Trib tells me the Cubs are not only tied for 1st in batting average in the NL, and tied for 4th in all of MLB, but they're 2 dingers short of second place in total bases in ALL OF BASEBALL. Hmmm... Digging a little deeper online, I find that while they're middle of the pack OBP-wise, the Cubs are 5th from last in walks taken. Matt Murton, anyone? So why do the Cubs suck so bad this year? Well, pitching stands out. They're 10th in team ERA in the NL. Interesting to note that the team ahead of the Cubs in total bases--Cincinnati--is 2nd-worst in team ERA, ahead of only the Rockies. Thus their .464 winning percentage. Even more interesting, the team with the second-best record in all of baseball is third from LAST in OBP. Not coincidentally, they're first in team ERA in their league. I'm speaking of the White Sox, of course. Seems to me the Cubs' offseason acquisition plans should include pitching, pitching, and more pitching. In that order. (Side note: although the Cubs team ERA stinks, their BAA is actually fifth-best in all of MLB. So how do we account for all those runs? Being third-worst in walks allowed in all of MLB, and second-worst in HR allowed probably goes a long way toward explaining it, but I'm betting there's a defensive component as well, one that isn't showing up on any stat sheets...)

With Lugo leading off, why would we even need Lawton? I think Murton could put up numbers comparable to Lawton's, or even better, out of the 2 hole, and I'd bet the farm he'd play better D in LF. Plus he'd be about $6 million cheaper.

Yeah, but they had a few high draft picks to use on those guys. Likewise the Nationals. The team that impresses me is the Yanks, who amassed their talent picking near the bottom of the draft order, for the most part.

Didn't I read somewhere that Greenberg's back in Mesa, still recuperating from the beanball? I feel really bad for him, and hope he recovers soon...

I wonder how much of that is due to the bullpen giving up late runs... Anyone have any stats on that?

If you want a guy like Ryan Church playing OF, you may as well keep Sing. Here are their respective lines, Sing's from this year, Church's from 2003, when he was in AA: Church: 261/325/429 Sing: 284/396/556 Now granted, Church is producing in the Bigs this year (294/352/480) while Sing's still a prospect. But for all the overhype some spout about Cub prospects, Sing seems like the real deal. He's quietly put up some excellent numbers that seem almost sure to land him in Chicago in the near future. If I were Hendry he'd be untouchable.

Mark Loretta, anyone? I had looked him up and found that he's a FA after this season. Only two years older, durable, leadoff caliber with the bat, decent fielding 2B. The Padres have an option on him that vests in ~30 or so plate appearances. I like him too, and he's just as versatile as Macias in the field. I doubt the Pads would trade him...

I have no confidence in Dempster. Take last night's game as an example: Wood comes into the game in the 8th and I KNOW nobody's going to touch him. THAT'S what you want in a closer. Then Dusty trots Dempster out there, and I start sweating. He got the save, but he just as easily might have walked 2 or 3, if the Astro hitters had any plate discipline. And the flyout to CF was a screamer that, 10 feet to the right, would have been a double easy. When Dempster misses with his fastball, at least lately, he misses high in the zone, and a good hitter's going to sit on that and hit it a million miles. Think of it this way: would you rather have Wood as a starter for part of a season, or have him for the whole year as a positively lights-out closer? I'd take him as a closer--something the Cubs have been desperate for--anyday.