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Sold. And where would Dunn play? Please don't say RF. And please don't say move Soriano to RF for Dunn in LF. So basically don't say anything. kthxbye. I doubt Dunn would be any worse defensively than Floyd has been in right. Floyd is brutal out there. My 2-year-old runs better than Cliffy at this point.

Sold. And where would Dunn play? Please don't say RF. And please don't say move Soriano to RF for Dunn in LF. So basically don't say anything. kthxbye. yeah, we wouldn't want to do anything to disturb this tremendously productive outfield situation we've got set up. Nice sarcasm there. Soriano and Floyd are putting up the #'s. At MOST, you're going to get someone to platoon with Floyd. Pie needs to be playing most of the time and adding another OF means he's likely demoted. And I don't want to see that. Catcher or SS is a much better position to focus on. Soriano should be in RF so that if we can add a big bat/no glove OF, we can put him in LF (or so that Murton can be brought up to play LF). Floyd's giving us a good OBP, but his SLG is nothing that can't be replaced and/or exceeded easily.

Steroids don't magically give you talent... I would bet a vast majority of the players that did/do roids suck I don't know about "vast majority" - I bet a lot of good/great players are or were doing some stuff too, but I agree that a lot of average or worse players were using them in hopes of making it to the majors or staying once they got there.

Alex Sanchez waves

The most highly optimistic view would be that the Cubs really do value Murton highly, and see them as part of their future, but sent him down for two reasons: 1 - to get consistent ABs, and 2 - to get himself comfortable in RF someplace other than in the bigleagues. Now whether that interpretation has any validity is anyone's guess. But just because a young guy gets sent down, and a lesser player assumes his spot on the big club, doesn't automatically mean that the team doesn't value that young guy. What does Murton need to work on? The idea that RF is *that* much different than left is balderdash. The difference is longer throws to third and a different POV on the game. Murton doesn't have a great arm so he seems more suited to LF. The problem is the Cubs think they need to get a run producer out there. Maybe they do, but they also need guys to get on base too. Although I don't think the Cubs will do it, Soriano seems much more suited for RF and Floyd/Murton seem better suited for LF. I guess they don't want to switch Soriano again. Which brings me to my last point, Murton doesn't really have that much trade value as a stand alone. He's not going to be an elite outfielder and most teams want power from the corners. A team like the A's, Boston, or San Deigo might value Murton's skills but they are not likely to want to give up much to get him. I think the Cubs will have to package Murton with some other talent to get any value for him at all. I never played anywhere near ML level, but I spent time in all 3 OF positions in HS and I think the difference between LF and RF is significant. If you can play LF well, you should be able to handle RF, but in my opinion, they're not interchangeable.

You mean as a replacement for Hill? If so, I take back my compliment above.

JJ, Floyd, Izturis, Eyre for Beltran and Reyes. 4 is more than 2 - so that's a great deal for the Mets.

I like that the injury is described as "arm" - not "shoulder" or "elbow" or "forearm," etc - the whole damn thing doesn't work.

it all comes back to the pointless Cliff Floyd signing. floyd has been pretty good. He won Tuesday's game for us. And Neifi beat the Cards with a grand slam a few years ago. Bring him back!

I really don't know where to begin with this.... Ignore it. You're full of excellent advice. Is that sarcasm? Either way, it is great advice.

Sounds more like another entry into the Dunn/KGJr sweepstakes than a dumping ground for JJ.

I'm in favor of public stoning, but I don't find a lot of support.

That is a better deal for both teams. Joe Saunders and Eric Aybar might be enough to get that deal Dunn (Ha, Ha) Dunn is the perfect example of how overvalued OBP really is. Don't misunderstand, getting on base is important but it does not trump all other offensive stats. There is a reason that for nearly 100 years the only stats that people would recite about players were BA, HR & RBI. Dunn has some things going for him but not a lot. He can hit the Ball VERY far when he connects but is ultimately the 4th best HR hitter on the Cubs should he be picked up. Does 1 team really need that many HR hitters? 4 Solo HR is the same as 2 2 Run HR. Finding a good balance through the entire order makes better sense. See the Red Sox, Brewers & Angels this season as an example (although there are some holes on each team). You're not seriously arguing that we should do things the way they've been done for 100 years purely because they've been done that way for 100 years, are you?

If Lou makes determinations on who brings what to the table based on a handful of ABs this year rather than a year's worth of starts in the majors last year, he's a total idiot.

I generally agree, though I think I'd give Cedeno the full time job to see if last year was just a bad year. But didn't I see somewhere that Hill is out of options? Or did I make that up?

Maybe they feel, as many on the board do, that consistent at bats is what he needs to break out of the funk. They couldn't give those to him at the major league level with Floyd doing as well as he is, so they sent him down. This is what I don't understand. Floyd this year is worse than Murton was last year. What is it about Floyd that says he's doing so well that you can't give those ABs to a 25-year-old? At best, Floyd this year is going to give you what Murton gave you last year (or maybe just a little better), but if you're so high on the kid, why would you bring in not 1, but 2 guys that play his position in the off-season? JH is an idiot. Floyd was brought in primarily as a backup and Soriano was supposed to play in right, then center. Problem is, the defensive change was hurting Sori's offense so he moved to left and Murton began the year pitifully. Tracking Matt's at-bats, he began the year getting the majority of at-bats, but as his slump worsened and Floyd improved, Murton began to get fewer at-bats. Thus, I think Lou and Hendry came to the conclusion that Murton would be more likely to break out of his slump the quickest in the minors - and we could afford to do that because Floyd is producing well. You may disagree, but I think Murton would be starting and getting 70-75% of the at-bats over Floyd if he hadn't hit that horrible slump at the same time Floyd began to heat up. We never tried Sori in RF though. He went from CF to LF. Murton is not acceptable defensively at RF but could be in LF. I think Soriano could play RF without any problems. A few months ago, I really wanted to see the Murton, Pie, Soriano OF (L to R).

Maybe they feel, as many on the board do, that consistent at bats is what he needs to break out of the funk. They couldn't give those to him at the major league level with Floyd doing as well as he is, so they sent him down. This is what I don't understand. Floyd this year is worse than Murton was last year. What is it about Floyd that says he's doing so well that you can't give those ABs to a 25-year-old? At best, Floyd this year is going to give you what Murton gave you last year (or maybe just a little better), but if you're so high on the kid, why would you bring in not 1, but 2 guys that play his position in the off-season? JH is an idiot. Floyd was brought in primarily as a backup and Soriano was supposed to play in right, then center. Problem is, the defensive change was hurting Sori's offense so he moved to left and Murton began the year pitifully. Tracking Matt's at-bats, he began the year getting the majority of at-bats, but as his slump worsened and Floyd improved, Murton began to get fewer at-bats. Thus, I think Lou and Hendry came to the conclusion that Murton would be more likely to break out of his slump the quickest in the minors - and we could afford to do that because Floyd is producing well. You may disagree, but I think Murton would be starting and getting 70-75% of the at-bats over Floyd if he hadn't hit that horrible slump at the same time Floyd began to heat up. I don't disagree that Floyd hitting near .300 and Soriano's inability to play CF were significant factors in Murton being sent down. I just disagree that Floyd's play has been so good that he should be starting over Murton. He's been fine, but he certainly hasn't been so great that you just have to get him in the lineup. He hasn't shown much power at all (one of Murton's biggest flaws, apparently) and it's not like he's a young guy that's just hitting his prime. The decision to play him over Murton is just idiotic to me (let alone the decision to sign him in the first place). I'm still not sold that Soriano's place in the OF was hurting his offense (he moved from 2B to LF last year, which is a much bigger change that LF to CF and had a career year). And I think Soriano should be put in RF or CF, b/c those are positions where we don't have a ready replacement (esp CF as Pie has been really struggling) and he's athletic enough that he should be able to handle it. A handful of ABs to start the season isn't a fair sample on which to decide whether playing CF will destroy his offensive output.

Maybe they feel, as many on the board do, that consistent at bats is what he needs to break out of the funk. They couldn't give those to him at the major league level with Floyd doing as well as he is, so they sent him down. This is what I don't understand. Floyd this year is worse than Murton was last year. What is it about Floyd that says he's doing so well that you can't give those ABs to a 25-year-old? At best, Floyd this year is going to give you what Murton gave you last year (or maybe just a little better), but if you're so high on the kid, why would you bring in not 1, but 2 guys that play his position in the off-season? JH is an idiot.

On the bright side, his ERA has dropped considerably each of the last 3 years. 54.00 to 9.10 to 5.40...

Just a guess, but it might be the fact that he seemed to strike out 8 batters per inning in the minors.

Lee can only move to 2nd, if you're going to move him at all. But if you take him out of 3rd, you have to put Soriano or some to-be-acquired hitter there (KGJr-esque). You don't move Lee out of the 3 spot b/c he's not hitting enough HRs and replace him with DeRosa or Cliff-freakin-Floyd (he of the 4 HR, 9 XBH, .400 SLG). I realize Lee isn't hitting HRs at the pace we wanted, but he's not likely to hit 46 HRs and SLG .660 again. We need to correct our expectations (30 HRs, .500 SLG, .900 OPS). He's not likely to hit 30 HRs this year, but he's still the 3rd best source of power on this team. If we refuse to move Soriano out of first, you have to leave Lee at 3rd.

I said he's my favorite, and he is good he just needs more playing time, something cedeno had plenty of last year and still sucked while murt led the team in BA Yeah, and then Murt completely blew during 2007 in the majors. Why does he get room for aches and pains and Cedeno doesn't? And honestly, how good do you think Theriot and Murton can be? I wanna hear this. good to close to great starters, neither will be great. i never made the aches argument for Murt. What in the blue hell has Theriot done to make you think that? Murton I can understand, kinda. Theriot though. Tell me why he's going to be anything more than a decent utility player. Tell me why he didn't get a regular stay in the majors until his age 27 season. Bad scouting, good hitting gives me the idea that and speed and D Is his hitting, speed, and D better than Cedeno's? I realize Cedeno is "only" a minor-leaguer right now, but that's only b/c Hendry can't find any way to get rid of Izturis and not even Jim is dumb enough to carry 5 middle-infielders.

He did put up .297 and .365 in a full year as a 25-year-old. Really that hard to believe that he could come close to .320 and .400 during his peak? Maybe he gets there maybe not, but it's certainly possible.

you mean idiotic, more proof of your lack of intelligence. That's not a fact. Not even close. ah so you're trying to say theriot isn't a ml'er. my you're dumb Enough with the name-calling and insults. Murton1, you're new here, I suggest you check out the NSBB Member Guidelines which is the link in my sig. Consider this a warning. Not that he doesn't deserve a warning, Raisin, but Vance (for all intents and purposes) called him an idiot in the first post you quote. I'm not defending murton1 or attacking Vance, but it just seems like murton1 isn't the only one out of line in this thread.

DeRosa's been better than expected. The only thing I have against that signing is he doesn't really fill a need on this team. We have guys like Theriot, Fontenot (Cedeno?) would could play 2nd and possibly give us the same OBP. His power has been the real pleasant surprise, esp given the lack of power we've had from Lee and Barrett. If he can keep that up, he will battle Lilly for best performance by a FA. Until the last month or so, Soriano's a disappointment - we're not paying him for a sub- .900 OPS (even if barely sub-.900). But his June was fantastic and maybe by September, his dismal April will be forgotten. It'd be nice if he could play CF or RF (and I'd like him hitting elsewhere in the order, but there's no need to debate that here again). Floyd's been fine. But one of the common complaints about Murton was his relative lack of power for a corner OF and it's not like Floyd is ripping XBH's (he has fewer than 10 at the halfway point). I appreciate the OBP, but I still think Murton matches/beats those numbers if given the everyday job (he did last year), so Floyd's a waste of $, imo. Ward's been a solid backup. Can't really play anywhere other than 1B and I guess I was thinking we'd get at least a little pop from him, but he's been an effective PH, which is nice. Lilly's been great. Marquis - meh. His inability to go 6+ on a consistent basis isn't really helping this team. If he can match his sub 3.50 ERA and 1.20-ish WHIP all year, I'll be thrilled (and shocked). I think the June version is closer to what we'll get than the April/May version. Overall, a bad offseason. What we really needed coming out of last year was a SS, CF, and RF, and some rotation help. Hendry signed a good SP and a bad one hoping for a turnaround. But he also signed 2 LFs, and a 2B (and a backup 1B, which is fine). So we've blocked a cheap source of production in LF (Murton), a good possibility for cheap production at 2B (Theriot or Fontenot) been forced to play Pie when he doesn't look ready at all, and put Floyd or JJ in RF. Most days, we have 4 spots in the order that are giving at or lower than .300 OBP (Izturis, Pie, C, and P). If JJ is in RF, it's 5 spots. Pagan's been a pleasant surprise so far, but his history doesn't make one hopeful that it will continue. What a horrible way to construct a team.