Tracer Bullet

What do you mean? Unless the O's pick up his option, I think Sammy's available. :P

IMO, Maddux is clearly the better of the 2 (and one of the best ever) but most of his accomlishments (most of his CY's, WS, Gold Gloves, etc) came with the Braves. So Maddux is the best pitcher to ever wear any Cub jersey, but Fergie did the most while actually wearing #31 in Cubbie blue.

Your signature was said on my 18th birthday! Happy Belated Birthday.

Would this be the worse defensive lineup in baseball?? Lee - good fielder Walker - subpar Nomah - just back from injury so don't expect much Aram - subpar Murton - ok I guess Burnitz - worse fielding cf last year. Ever watch Edmonds steal doubles and triples to end rallies?? Lawton - subpar Barrett - alright, I guess. You gotta field, pitch and hit to win games. The Cubs would do 1 of the 3. People really overvalue Cub pitching. It's not that good. Whereas the Cubs are 5th or 6th in runs scored. The Cards are good for more reasons than they take walks and have Pujols. That team has a good defense, which helps the pitching. So what's the alternative (this season)? Blanco for Barrett, Patterson in CF, Neifi for Nomar (Hairston for Walker? I really don't know which is better defensively). So are you advocating this: Lawton - LF Walker - 2B Lee - 1B ARam - 3B Burnitz - RF Patterson - CF Neifi - SS Blanco - C P Defense is important - but I don't think you run out 4 guys a night (including the P) who can't get on base more than 30% of the time. Sure, if we can upgrade defense and not lose much offense this winter - go for it. But if you have Nomar, Barrett, and Murton - I think you have to play them. The few runs saved by the 6-8 hitters above will be offset, imo, by their combined .280 OBP (that's an estimate, btw).

I say only bring Burnitz back if you can't get Lawton to resign at a reasonable amount. Lawton is the lead-off hitter we need. I think Burnitz is easier to replace, though he's been a pleasant surprise and I wouldn't mind having him. With Lawton, if CPatt is still around and actually performing next year, that leaves only 1 OF spot and I hope Murton is given a real shot in LF. He's earned at least that much this year. But, if Lawton jumps ship or demands too much money, sign Burnitz to another 1-year deal (and hope to stumble upon a leadoff hitter).

So your starting OF is Lawton, Hairston, Burny (left to right)? Personally, I hope Hairston goes back to the bench and we have Murton, Burny, and Lawton (left to right). I'm glad he was given a chance to leadoff, but he didn't do so hot. He's got a .302 OBP in July, and .268 since the ASG - take away the 2/3 we took from StL and we've been a horrid 8-7 against 4 teams with losing records - 3 of which are among the 4 or 5 worst teams in the NL. He apparently isn't the spark at the top that we needed and if he's not getting on base, he doesn't do enough to warrant starting (whereas Murton deserves a chance to play every day). I hope we DFA Macias and bring up Fontenot or Grieve (and Neifi can backup 3B - I believe someone pointed out that Neifi can and has played 3B before, though not often). That also gives us Hairston as a righty PH in addition to Perez. I guess I'd still rather have Grieve than Fontenot b/c he's shown some ability to PH at this level, has some power, and takes some pitches. Just not sure how well Fontenot would do as a PH.

Your topic name is a tease. I thought WGN was going to have all Cubs games next year.

so what? Things were better in his day. No kidding. I get so tired of guys going 0/3, then in thier last AB hitting a 325-foot homerun over a short porch and admiring the ball before trotting the bases. I'm not saying guys have to be Mickey Hatcher and sprint around the bases, but the fact that so many guys hit so many HRs makes it less of an accomplishment to me.

I see Hendry taking more control of the roster now that it is crunch time. I haven't figured out, though, if Macias is Dusty's boy or Hendry's boy. At any rate, here are the moves I'd make by next weekend: Subtractions: Mitre optioned, Wuertz optioned, Remlinger DFAd, Cedeno optioned, Macias DFAd. Additions: Wood activated, Williamson activated, Garciaparra activated, Fontenot called up, McClain called up. I suggested almost the exact same thing last week in the "what happens when Nomar returns" thread. Only differences were I kept Wuertz and brought up Grieve, instead of bringing up Fontenot and McClain. I wouldn't mind seeing Fontenot instead of Grieve though. But as inconsistent as our starters have been, we may need 12 pitchers for a while.

Mine: Lawton (RF) Murton (LF) Lee (1B) ARam (3B) Burny (CF) Nomar (SS) Walker (2B) Barrett ©

BTW - I saw that article, too, but it is no longer on the Cubs.com front page. The link still works, though... Right, I'm agreeing with you. Interesting that they had that up right away (note the time stamp says 4:00 PM - right at the deadline). Appears that they posted it too early and took it off (hoping no one would notice?).

BTW - I saw that article, too, but it is no longer on the Cubs.com front page.

Don't see a link on ESPN.com confirming we got Lawton & Neyer in his chat said he is trying to confirm. Anyone got a link?

The transcript is free until Aug 3. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/chat/chat.php?chatId=140

I like Soriano's power, but we still don't have enough OBP guys. Soriano may hit 15 dingers over the last 2 months, but if he's in Chicago, chances are 12 of them will be solo shots. I don't think this solves our problems.

If Macias gets any votes, we have to assume it's Dusty visiting the board.

Keep Johan, but trade Hermanson for Hill.

I noticed ARam did the same thing this weekend (can't remember which game). Hit a blooper that dropped, but then also skipped past the LF and the CF fell down before throwing the ball back into the infield. The camera pans to first and ARam is just getting to the bag. Even if he runs at average speed and makes the turn as if it were a single, he could have been standing up at 2B by the time the ball got there. Drives me crazy. I don't know, but I'm guessing this happens more on some teams than others. And with a "player's coaches" like Dusty, I think it happens as much with the Cubs as any team.

Speaking of interesting moves last night - why was Macias brought in for Hairston? I'm too lazy to read through the 70 pages of the game thread.

So we should keep him because of one good outing? In just under 30 innings Remmy has a 1.10 WHIP, and is striking out around 7.5 batters per 9 innings. I say keep him unless you have 6 relievers better than him, which we don't right now. He might be OK if Dusty used him correctly, but he continues to use him as a LOOGY which he doesn't succeed in. We already have Ohman who can handle the LOGGY role, as evidenced by his .213 BAA against lefties. Remlinger has 29 IP this year, 20 against RH, 9 against LH. Link I'm not saying Remmy's awesome, but we could do worse right now. Like I said before, unless he's the worst reliever out there(he's not right now), I say we hold onto him. He's great against righties, but Dusty leaves him in to face lefties too. And he's absolutely getting killed against those lefties (.390 OBP/.500 SLG). If he was a righty specialist (if such a thing exists), that's one thing, but Dusty seems to bring him in for an inning or 2 and leave him in to face whoever comes up. He may not be the worst option out there, but if Wood comes back to the 'pen and Williamson is up soon, we'll need to send a couple pitchers either down/out. Mitre and/or Hill will probably start and hopefully the other one goes to Iowa to start. That leaves Dempster, Wood, Ohman, Rusch, Wuertz, and Williamson in the 'pen. If we're keeping 12 pitchers, I'd rather have Novoa than Remy. If you'd rather have Remy, I can understand that, but his numbers against lefties scare me.

As much as I hate to see Macias in a uniform, I hope Cedeno gets sent down when Nomar returns. Nomar is hopefully going to start 4-5 times a week and Neifi is going to start the other games, be the defensive replacement, and likely be the first PH off the bench (against either RHP or LHP). I'm glad Cedeno got some time in the bigs, but he needs to go back to Iowa and get some ABs. Let Macias rot on the bench and be the backup 3B and emergency backup at all the other positions he can "play" (at least according to Dusty). Or, since we have a backup for each position, we could release Macias and bring back a guy who can actually hit and will take a walk (Grieve comes to mind) but what are the chances? What I'd like to see: Nomar, Williamson, Grieve, and (eventually) Wood to the Cubs. Cedeno, Mitre to AAA. Remy, Macias to the curb. That would leave us with 6 OFs, which is a lot, but Hairston can backup 2B (and short, if necessary) and Perez can backup 2B, SS, 3B and Walker/Holly backup 1B. Besides, Grieve seems to have done as well as anyone as a PH. When you're talking 25th man, I'd rather have one that can PH than one who plays 6 positions poorly (and can't hit).

It's also on Cubs.com that Hill is starting. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050724&content_id=1143940&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

I agree with all of this. I have no idea whether Kerry wants to stay in Chicago or not, but the fact that his wife is from Chicago and they built a house there doesn't really convince me that he does. As for the no-trade clause, I generally agree, but sometimes getting player approval is a very tough task (See Nevin, Phil).

I vote Nomar returning. It's unlikely we'll acquire an impact bat for LF at this point (and Holly's actually not playing that poorly right now). And I have even less faith that Wood will be healthy the rest of the way. The return of Nomar has the added effect of getting Neifi and his sub-.300 OBP out of the lineup. Of the choices above, Wood "pitching well the rest of the season" would have the greatest impact - if "pitching well" means "pitching like an ace every 5th day" - which I think it should in his case. But it's hard to believe he'll be healthy and throwing well for 2+ months when he has had shoulder trouble all year. I can't blame people for wanting to trade Wood or move him to the pen. Frustration really takes its toll, especially after 7 years of waiting for a healthy season. I've been a huge Kerry fan since 98, but his continued inability to stay healthy has pushed me off the bandwagon.

Already posted in the "Looks like Kearns would like to be a Cub" thread.