Hacking Out Machine

I think old Ned was a bit too smart for his own good. Thought he held all the cards and ended up getting jack as far as pitching is concerned. Note to Ned...you can't win when facing non-Neandertthals in trade negotiations.

Also, keep in mind that Myrtle Beach is among the most extreme pitchers parks in the minors. .285 .356 .421 are pretty good numbers considering that. As others have mentioned, he's barely 21 and a string bean who hasn't filled out yet. i think he looks pretty promising.

This was a great documentary. The parts about the aftermath with the other fans and the Cubs perrsonnel was awesone. The replays showing when Bartman looked back and asked the other fans if he did anything wrong and their recollection of it was really interesting. Someone was mentioning earlier in the thread that "many fans will avoid interfering with the home team", as if Bartman should have done the same. How astute of a fan would you have to be to look at your seat, look down at the field, think to yourself "Ok...I'm well above the field, but I'm only about 9.5 feet above the field of play, and if the ball comes right to my seat, the left fielder might have a play." Then, when the ball is coming straight toward him, in a packed house with nowhere to go, he realizes that there might be a play on it, and hits the deck? There was no conscious decision made by Bartman or anyone else to try to catch the ball at the expense of Alou trying to catch it. It never would have occurred to 99.9% of fans in that seat. If it happened at field level down the 1st or 3rd base line, maybe, but not in those seats. He didn't even reach into the field of play. Every meathead jackass that yelled "a-hole" or threw beer on him or took a swipe at him as he left the stadium would have done the exact same thing, and there would have been nothing selfish or malicious about it, just a reaction. Also, if Alou just had a mild reaction to the play and returned to his position, it would have been an afterthought. People might have talked about it the next day, but there certainly would not have been the ugly scene at the ballpark that night. Not that I'm blaming Alou, just pointing out that his reaction was what incited the whole thing. Many fans at the park mentioned that they didn't even notice there was interference until Alou reacted.

Yeah, me too. It's pretty much a given that he's the dream hire. I'd be on board with Hahn, Ng or Preller too. Not Ng. She's been in the same room with Ned Coletti a lot. I'd be afraid she might have retained something from him. Even if only by osmosis. It's enough for me to run away screaming.

I thought Ricketts killed it today. I am officially back on board with this team. When the sabermetrics question was asked, I thought he made it pretty clear that that's probably the most important piece with the new regime. He tempered it by saying it's just a piece, but of course he's going to say that. Any of us who lean to the stats side, if put in a press conference scenario would have worded it the same way. He understands that the Cubs current culture of hacking at everything and focusing on athletes is not and has not been working. That's why there are no internal candidates, and that's the way it should be. He wouldn't make silly blanket statements such as "the candidate will ned to have GM experience" because he is probably interested in our buddy Ben in Boston or Mr. Forst in Oakland in addition to the Freidmans and Daniels of the world. (though i know Daniels is not likely going anywhere). Bravo Tom Ricketts. As a Cubs fan fed up with .279 .303 .362 hitting lines throughout the organization, I salute what appears to be your vision of the future direction of the Cubs.

2 years ago, I told a Cardinal fan friend of mine that if I was Hendry, I would offer any team willing to take Soriano and his contract any 4 players in the Cubs organization for nothing. He said he wouldn't do it.

That's pretty much how Hendry rolls.

70 wins is looking like more and more of a longshot at this point. Normally, when the Cubs aren't good....they crater.

Oh yea that reminds me, Fire Hendry too. What...you're not looking foward to Soriano in his age 39 season? You've given up that Samardzija's wide receiving skills will ever morph into useful pitching skills? You don't like constantly overpaying for middle relief mediocrity? You don't yearn to watch guys make outs prodigiously?

Yeah, then the Cards would only win the division by 12 games instead of 18.

All I can say is that I am very thankful to have Alfonso Soriano locked up for his age 35-39 seasons for 90 million. He seems to be getting better with age. Thank goodness Hendry was able to sell him on taking the money.

I know what you're saying, and I don't mind the hits either....as long as they're singles. You can't give up homers in the closer's role, and this guy is addicted to gopher balls. I'd like to know what Gregg's SLG against is this year. It's gotta be over .500. How many homers is that for Gregg? 12? The two things you cannot do as a closer is walk people and give up home runs, and Gregg has been doing both all year.

I'd say it's more the frustration of Gregg blowing two consecutive games, though the Cubs did come back to win on Saturday. If these two appearances were sandwiched around something like 10 straight scoreless outings (just throwing a number out there), I don't think it would be that big of a deal. I'm sure a bit of it is the lack of offense on Sunday, but I think a majority of it is Gregg laying an egg on two straight days. I don't know about everyone else, but my biggest frustration is Gregg's inability to stop breaking the cardinal rule of closing, which is: "Keep the other team in the park" If you do nothing else as a closer, this is essential. Gregg is giving up homeruns at an alarming rate, as pointed out earlier in the thread. As much as he is probably their best option for closer among their staff right now, they absolutely CANNOT afford to have him out there if he is going to give up home runs. You can have patience with a guy if he goes through a streak where he gets nickeled and dimed a couple times in a row, but you can't with a guy who keeps proving to you that he's going to give up long balls. Those are immediate daggers.

Definitely. Wasn't Jimbo the director of the farm system at one point? For a brief period when the Cubs system was ranked near the top? Yeah, let's get a new GM and let him do that again. Not sure a farm system of nothing but starting pitching and .295 OBP athletic position players is the way to go again. Hendry's strength is starting pitching. I wouldn't let him touch any other aspect of drafting. I think this is one of the better snippets in this thread. Hendry's(and now apparently Wilken's) love affair with "toolsy" types instead of guys who demonstrate an actual ability to have some sort of clue at the plate has always been the biggest detriment to the Cubs ability to develop useful position players. As another poster has mentioned, it's forced them to the free agent market, and into some albatross contracts. Having said that, Hendry has started to show some evidence that he understands OBP and SLG are important as Bradley and Fukudome attest. (Now if they'd just perform as their previous numbers would suggest!!!). Drafting of guys like Tony Thomas in recent years indicated that as well. Now if we could start seeing more of a tools/approach emphasis on position players early in the draft rather than just tools, that would be great.

Oh, I definitely agree with what you're saying here..my point from my original post a few spots up was that Gregg violates the cardinal rules of closing, and as a result, he's probably among the 3 or 4 least effective closers in baseball. I focused on last year to give him the benefit of the doubt. I certainly noticed his shortcomings in the previous years, but when you aren't closing, you find yourself in a lot more low leverage situations that lend themselves to just getting the ball over to get the game over with. It happens with closers too, but not nearly as often. Gregg in his Anaheim career was about 4th in the pecking order behind K Rod, Donnelly and probably Shields in those years, so he was in a good number of mop up scenarios. Just trying to compare apples to apples. Your overall point(and your assertion about Pro Player), however, can't be disputed and I strongly agree with it....At this point in his career, Gregg is what he is. That means he is not and probably will not be a good closer until he stops walking people and giving up long balls. And that's a longshot.

It doesn't make him good, but nobody's arguing that - I don't think. He's a pretty average closer, no more, no less. Well first, I'm not sure what I was looking at, but I was wrong...he's 12th (out of 16) in the NL in save percentage, not 10th. And would be 12th (out of 14) in the AL as well, not 11th. Now maybe he's average in some other stats, but those are definitely below average. But stats like that are almost worthless. Before one pitch yesterday, where did he rank at 11 of 13? The sample size is essentially meaningless, not to mention the fact that the stat itself isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Anyway, closers don't need to be great pitchers. They just need to be able to get 3 outs without giving up 1-3 runs. Personally, I wish the role itself didn't even exist, but nothing's going to change about that. Stats that aren't worthless for closers are: 1.Walks allowed and 2. Home Runs allowed. Those are the two things that will kill leads. If a guy walks too many people and can't keep the other team in the park, he's going to fail as a closer. You say they don't need to be great pitchers and you're right. As is evident, getting three outs without giving up 1-3 runs is easiest when guys aren't consistently blasting moon shots after you walk someone. (As Gregg did for Tuesday night). Obviously, keeping people in the park is paramount...avoiding walks a close second. Perusing the stats of the MLB pitchers with 8 or more saves, you'll find only 1 or two guys who have been worse than Gregg in his combined allowance of walks and HRs. He's given up 6 HRs already. Only Brad Lidge has given up more. Several guys have given up 5, but almost none of them have walked many guys. (Bobby Jenks has only walked 5, Mo Rivera 3 and Huston Street 9) Gregg has given up 15 walks. There's guys who have walked a bunch, but only Kerry Wood and Lidge have had trouble with the gopher ball as well(a departure for Wood, who had very little trouble with the HR ball with the Cubs last year). My point is that Gregg has broken the Cardinal rules of closing much too much this year. If you look at a guy like Trevor Hoffman, he's only blown 1 save because he's walked only 4 and given up zero homers. If you're going to beat him, it takes 3 singles to get a run, and this Cubs team is as good an example as any to illustrate that doing that is a lot tougher than waiting out a walk and crushing one of several hanging sliders a guy might offer up. Lookng at his career numbers, Gregg's walks are about in line with his career norms, unfortunately, but he is way high on HRs allowed compared to his previous two years as a closer. Last year he only gave up 3 in 71 IP. He's alreay given up 6 in less than half that this year. I'd just like to see them get someone in that role who can make people earn their way on and keep the ball out of the seats. Not easy, but that's the key to getting the job done.

I agree. This is definitely a tough break. And as someone pointed out they miss both Young and Peavy. Anyone know what Milwaukee's record is since the ASB against teams other than the Cubs?

Lots of home runs allowed, tons of hits while not striking people out. I wouldn't DFA him though. Offer him to Ned Coletti in a trade. He's very "veterany" so Ned will probably bite. Talk up how these kids these days just don't "play the game the right way" then ask him for Matt Kemp striaght up. See what happens.

(For the original poster) Giordano's is good. There's a million good pizza joints in Chicago though. Aurelio's is great too. If you like super thin, D'Agostino's on Southport and Addison 3 blocks west of Wrigley is a nice one. Asking what some of the best restaurants in Chicago are is like asking who some of the better looking chicks in LA are. You can literally trip over about 5 or 6 great restaurants on every block between Wrigley and downtown. Inside Wrigley, go with the Calzone (a fancy name for a pizza puff) if you can find it. One of the stands on the third base line and the one in the upper deck close to home plate on the 3rd base side has em I think. It will probably stop your heart, but at least you'll die with a smile on your face. (For Bernie) The bathrooms are fine. Grow a pair.

Not sure. Looking at the team, who could you replace? We could add a starter, but Marquis has pitched at least adequately enough not to make that a major need. Zambrano, Harden, Dempster, Lilly, and Marquis is as good as any rotation. Lee and Ramirez are slumping, but you aren't going to trade for a 1st or 3rd baseman. DeRosa and Fontenot are handling second fine. You aren't replacing Soto or Soriano. You could add an outfielder, but there likely isn't a CF that would out produce a Johnson/Edmonds platoon. The only thing I could see doing in the OF is adding a LF, sliding Soriano to right, and having Fukudome join the Johnson/Edmonds rotation in CF. A bullpen arm would be nice, but teams typically overpay for the better ones and the others you never know what you're going to get. Wow..that would be rash. A 12 million dollar third of a platoon. And one that cuts into the playing time of a guy slugging over .700 since he joined the Cubs to boot. I was considring looking to see if we could add a right handed stick to help against lefties, considering that Reed Johnson was our 5 hitter against Scott Olsen the other night, but who would be sent out? There really isn't a candidate. I would call Ned Coletti, talk up Bobby Howry's "presence", "experience", "character" and the fact that he's a "gamer" and see if I could get one or a couple of the 50 prospects the Dodgers will find a way to block as long as he's there.

I caught an artical earlier in the season on Kendall. Seems he has lazer eye surgery in the off season. Not sure if he knew he has eye problems or not, but it sure seems to have helped. I don't complain about Geo, but I do wish he was a little better on that. He's young though, plenty of time to learn.. Part of Sotos problem is Marquis completely forgets about runners all the time(not sure why when there are so many of them) and Lilly is extrememly slow to home. Id be interested to see a stat showing how many non throws Geo has had because he had absolutely no chance at the runner. I don't think anybody is trying to convey a dissatisfaction with Soto. In my case, anyway, the thought isn't "Why can't Geo be that good", it's "Why in the hell was Kendall such a basket case tryng to throw out runners for us?"

well i think it's very clear cut, though this is a cubs board and i suspect that there will be enough homers that disagree with me. anyway, i've presented my argument, so i'll leave it up to the reader to decide. Well, for what it's worth, this reader read your last two responses to TT and will likely remember your pompous attitude about it much more than any logical arguments you might make in the future.

Sosa's 2001 season is one of the more underrated seasons in baseball history. It was the same year as Bonds's single season home run record, and when people think "great season" and "Sammy Sosa" they think of '98. Sosa's 2001 season was vastly superior to his '98 season. It seems like a lot of people forget that season. I'll never forget his HR in the first game back after 9/11/2001 against Houston when he pulled a mini US flag out of his pocket as he circled the bases. 1998 .308/.377/.647 66 HR 20 2B 0 3B 73 BB 171 K 2001 .328/.437/.747 64 HR 34 2B 5 3B 116 BB 153 K

this isn't constructive or valuable in any way Thanks for your concern.

Maybe petition the league to see if he can wear the pinstripes on the road???