Hacking Out Machine

Big Bad B- Your post is terrific. I agree with you 100%. It's obvious that the Cubs organization is probably the most bass-ackward organization in MLB when it comes to organizational offensive philosophy. They are loaded with players who can't get on base and have no power, and they think this is a good thing. Also, it sure is a good thing the Cubs are among the toughest teams to strike out in MLB isn't it? When you don't walk and don't hit for power, your only way of having any offensive success is if you get 3 singles in an inning, and 4 or 5 for a crooked number. Even teams with GOOD hitters find this hard to do on a consistent basis. You're depending on what is largely a random event for most of your offensive output. Even Allard Baird has an emphasis on OBP in his recent drafts. Unfortunately, the Cubs have stocked their entire organiztion with players similar to the ones they acquired for the big league club. Look around for OBP in the minors. Good luck finding it. SLG for that matter as well. Unless there is an organizational epiphany, I don't think the Cubs will field a decent offense any time soon.

There are a million things wrong with this team offensively, but when you consider their alternatives for a DH this weekend, it really hits home how horrifically pathetic this bench is. How any GM could look at this bench and see anything resembling any offensive usefulness, I have no idea. Generally, as a hitter, in order to be effective, bare minimum you need to be able to do at least one of the following well: 1. Hit for average 2 Hit for power. (The THREAT of a pinch homer possibility is vital) 3. Be able to get on base. Ask yourself if any Cubs bench players can do any of the above. I'm not talking all three, not two, just ONE of the following. Bynum: No to all 3 Perez: A resounding NO to all 3 Mabry: On his best day, he has moderate power. Maybe 1/2 of 1. NO for the other 2. Blanco: NO to all 3. Hairston: Used to be able to walk, but now that he's been influenced by this organization, he is now a NO to all 3. Theriot: Has on base skills(at the minor league level), but certainly is woefully deficient in the other areas. I guess my point is this: Basically, none of the bench players Hendry has collected are worth anything. Every one of them could be replaced by about 200 different guys in triple A. Actually, you could probably IMPROVE the bench by randomly grabbing AAA players, excluding Iowa. I never thought I'd see a bench worse than last year's Cubs bench, but this one has surpassed it in suckitude. When you flood your organization with guys whose only redeeming values are the ability to run 90 feet without falling down and making feeble contact, I guess it's inevitable that your bench is going to stink.

Just wondering....how many lefties are the Cubs scheduled to face during this period? We can always laugh hysterically as Jacque Jones weakly swings at every pitch offered to him in his attempts to improve on his .045 .051 .102 career line against them. We know he'll be in the lineup!

I think Goony is all over this, as usual. It has a lot to do with how they draft. They like tools. They like "red a$$es" who'll hold their breath and clench their fists and scream " I wanna win" until their heads explode a lot better than actual good hitters. Look at the stats of the position players they draft. Ryan Harvey never walked in HIGH SCHOOL. What would make anyone think he'd ever be disciplined in pro ball, especially with this organization? If you look at the stats of the college guys they've drafted, most if not all have OBPs about 20 pts higher than their batting averages and weak SLG%. Hendry and his scouts have proven to be very good at finding the next Freddie Bynum, or the next Jamey Carroll or the next Joe Borchard. They might want to think about drafting guys that are actually good at hitting a baseball, rather than someone who "brings atheticism", or "gives us flexibility" Throw in the fact that the organization obviously doesn't know the importance of the walk and completely overvalues the importance of the single, and you've got a lot of players who have little or no chance of succeeding. Unless of course, baseball changes it's rules to award runs for making weak contact.

I'm wrestling with the fact that I in no way admire the team I root for, or at least I don't admire the way they make decisions, from the top down. Jim Hendry has a lot of great attributes, i.e., his honesty and integrity, and he has made some good trades, but so much of what this organization does is directly contrary to what I for one believe makes sense. I sense that this is the case with a lot of others on the site as well. Does a person continue to blindly follow an organization that employs methods and values players that clearly won't result in success? The alternative would be to find a team that you do "admire" and start rooting for them. Unfortunately, I'm a Cubs fan, and I always will be. Maybe I'll just start betting against them every day, then at least I'll get a few bucks for my trouble.

Why in the world would Towers do this? Is Theo Epstien his little brother or something? I had no idea why the Padres pulled the trigger on Mirabelli/Loretta in the first place, since you'd assume there could have been a better deal out there somewhere if they felt they HAD to move Loretta to make room for Barfield. Now they just clean up Boston's mess for them by flipping him back to Boston for a replacement level guy like Bard? Someone needs to check into this relationship. I know Theo used to work for Boston, but come on! I previously thought Towers was pretty gifted. There must be more to the story. EDIT: There was a prospect included in the deal, so I guess that's the "more to the story"

Hendry seems to like to stock his bench with guys who have absolutely no redeemable offensive ability other than the ability to run without falling down., i.e., can't hit for average, can't hit for power, and can't get on base. Bynum fits the bill as well as anyone, as does almost the entire Cubs bench, save perhaps Mabry, and he probably comes close to fitting the bill as well.

I've always liked Roberto Petegine. He's on Seattle now...good OBP/power guy. He's never really gotten a chance to play. He probably wouldn't cost much at all, and might be a good fill in. Actually, I like Eduardo Perez too, especially against lefties.

By the way, I know that's who they got^^^ when they traded Valdez to the Dodgers, but didn't Valdez come in a trade along with Eric Young back in '99 or thereabouts? Who did we trade in that deal to get those two?

Funny how Hendry just repeated the "everyone says I need bullpen help, so I'll just overpay for the 'best non closer available'" mistake this year by throwing gobs of cash at Eyre and Howry. If these guys DONT end up like Remlinger and Hawkins, I'll be surprised.

Hey, in a perfect world, I want Murton in there every day, don't get me wrong. But unless he hits .400 for the entire month of April, with power, he isn't going to be playing for long. That's a given with Baker, and Hendry has played the role of enabler by having Grissom around as an alternative. I've already made the assumption that Murton will be in Iowa by May 15. Part of me just sees this as such a done deal that I'd almost rather forego the Murton experiment and it's almost certain failure and try to get another contingency plan to Grissom playing every day. Having said that, it's not meant as an indictment of Matt. i just can't forsee him having a week long slump and not being banished to the bench. Here's hoping he's pounding the ball, because heaven help us all if he doesn't.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing Nixon here. He and Jones both hammer righties pretty well. Both are pathetic against lefties, so that's where Murton and maybe Grissom could come in, since both have had good success against lefties. Generally, I am against Grissom coming north, but if Dusty is forced to use him only against lefties, he would have a chance to be useful. Same thing with Neifi.

Not that it isn't true, but I wouldn't put much stock in what Perry says. This guy's got a hard on for several teams, and the Cubs definately aren't one of them. After reading his articles over the last several years, I'm thoroughly convinced he wouldn't like the Cubs even if they assembled an All Star cast. I think I respect him the least of ALL the baseball journalist. Excpet maybe Phil Rogers. Perry is a BP guy. He'll like the Cubs moves as soon as they start doing things that make logical sense. As long as Hendry keeps trading people at their absolute lowest value, acquiring people at an absolute premium, and paying millions for mediocre players of questionable worth who could be easily replicated for half the cost, he'll continue to get bashed by people in that crowd.

Perhaps the answer is for Hendry to start acquiring more complete players instead of two guys taking up two roster spots. I fail to see the scenerio where Baker routinely sits his "speedy" starting RFer who is signed to a multi-million, 3 year contract. I think this move further demonstrates the unlikelihood that CPatt or Walker will be on the 2006 roster, since it assumes Hairston will be primarily an IFer and CPatt would fall to the 6th OFer with the previous addition of Mabry. I'll reiterate what I've said before: this signing jeopardizes Murton's playing time far more than Jones's. If Grissom never sees an AB against right handed pitching, this is an ok move. Grissom can still play an acceptable outfield, and as was pointed out he pounds left handed pitching. However, we all know that Baker won't be able to resist the urge to get him in there regularly, so this is a move that weakens the lineup. As a part time player/late inning lefty punisher, he fits. Interestingly, the same thing is true with Neifi. If you check his stats, he also pounds lefties, and should be used against righties only in emergencies. Unfortunately, the only time our manager rested Perez last year was when a left was on the mound. (BTW Bruce, any way you can subtly introduce Dusty to Neifi's right/left splits, through a question or something??)

My question is:(and maybe this has already been answered, or there is an obvious answer that escapes me): How in the world do you get Mark Loretta straight up for a backup catcher like Mirabelli? What exactly was Kevin Towers thinking here?

I'll tell you what....with his somewhat diminishing power and off the charts on base skills, I would strongly consider leading Giles off, or at least hit him third in front of Lee and Ramirez. I think batting him 5th would diminish his potential value as a run scoring machine if there weren't run producers behind him. Having said that, 10-11M for an on base guy is a bit of a stretch, but the Cubs have the cash...or at least they did before they dumped $6M into Rusch and Dempster's collective laps.

Who do you have in mind? It might be best to buy low. Go after guys who aren't currently having great years. Maybe Uggy Urbina? Felix Rodriguez? I also expect Hendry to sign Dotel, although he won't help much next season. Bullpens are always a crapshoot, and there's no sense in overpaying. Most of the money this offseason should be spent on offense or another starting pitcher. I think this pen would be pretty good: dempster williamson urbina rodriguez ohman rusch That's a bad idea. The worst thing you can do is to acquire relievers who made their reputations 4-5 years ago. Felix Rodriguez hasn't been effective for a long time. Urbina is still somewhat effective, but might soon be a liability. For example, Guillermo Mota still has a reputation as a "proven verteran" closer, and Paul DePodesta got lambasted for trading him. But over the past 2 years, he's been a punching bag. We have barely heard of some of the guys having great years this year. By the time we notice them, they'll have about 1 more year before they get expensive and overrated, a la, Remlinger and Hawkins. Both of those guys were the consensus best set up men in the game when Hendry acquired them, and look what happened. The idea is to find the guys that can get people out that haven't been given a chance yet. Guys like Brendan Donnelley, Mike Gonzalez, Brian Fuentes, et al. about 3 years ago.

:shock: =D> Couldn't have said it better myself. No doubt. =D> The most frustrating thing for me is how petrified he and other managers are about young players making mistakes. Lord knows there are mistakes galore every day in baseball, especially with this team. Why is it for some reason worse when a young player makes a mistake as compared to a veteran? If Jason DuBois misses a cut off man, do they allow the runner 2 free extra bases because he's young? If Murton gets picked off, do they charge 2 outs instead of one compared to someone like Burnitz who has been picked off in 2 crucial situations this year? He's just taking the safe and easy approach. He's so worried about being criticized that he avoids making any ballsy moves. If he goes with Murton and Cedeno and they crater, he'll have throngs of uninformed fans and media types ripping him for going young when they had a chance to win. So instead, he takes the low risk, but very low return option of using proven mediocre to bad veterans. If they crater, he can shrug his shoulders and blame it on untimely "slumps". Unfortunately, as has been mentioned, we'll never know what could have happened.

:shock: =D> Couldn't have said it better myself. No doubt. =D> The most frustrating thing for me is how petrified he and other managers are about young players making mistakes. Lord knows there are mistakes galore every day in baseball, especially with this team. Why is it for some reason worse when a young player makes a mistake as compared to a veteran? If Jason DuBois misses a cut off man, do they allow the runner 2 free extra bases because he's young? If Murton gets picked off, do they charge 2 outs instead of one compared to someone like Burnitz who has been picked off in 2 crucial situations this year? He's just taking the safe and easy approach. He's so worried about being criticized that he avoids making any ballsy moves. If he goes with Murton and Cedeno and they crater, he'll have throngs of uninformed fans and media types ripping him for going young when they had a chance to win. So instead, he takes the low risk, but very low return option of using proven mediocre to bad veterans. If they crater, he can shrug his shoulders and blame it on untimely "slumps". Unfortunately, as has been mentioned, we'll never know what could have happened.

If Baker must play Neifi, at least he is doing it against a lefty. Neifi actually is somewhat useful vs lefties. (.295 .309 .505). He has some power as a right handed hitter and we all know about his range. After seeing about 50 seeing eye grounders get through the infield yesterday, I don't mind seeing him in there. By the way, vs lefties Walker is at .369 .406 .662, so go figure. I'd have rather seen Perez at short tonight, as Nomar's at .219 .257 .219 vs lefties. Actually, as long as Nomar's goal at the plate seems to be to pull everything they chuck up there on the ground, I'm ok with Neifi in there, provided it's vs lefties, and lefties only. I'd rather he was in the 6 hole, though.

I'll challenge the notiion that Macias is a good 25th man. Why agree with someone who says Macias is a good anything? What does he do well? He can stand in several positions on the field. That's great, but he doesn't play any of them well. He can't throw. He can't hit for power. He's not fast, nor is he a good baserunner. He's hitting .290 based on a small sample size reliant on bloopers and seeing eye singles. There are probably 100 superior players in AAA than him and another 100 in AA. It's really even pointless to talk about it, but in order to be a good 25th man, you have to do something well, and Macias doesn't.

I don't know if anyone else has brought this up, but that was a heck of a play by Rollins. Hindsight being 20/20, we all can question Barrett for not running Rollins back to the bag, as I did, but after watching the play again, I changed my mind. After Rollins stopped and began to retreat back to third, his body was facing toward third but he was looking back at Barrett. Generally, in a situation like that, once the player is facing back to the previous base, and the fielder sees his numbers, he assumes the runner has committed back to the previous base. Barrett was obviously excited to get the third out and escape the jam, so he was eager to throw Rollins out. However, Rollins made a quick 180 degree turn rather than committing back to third. Barrett, being excited, started his throw when he saw Rollins turn back to third, only to have Rollins continue his turn all the way back around and dart for home. It was a risky play by Rollins, but a great play. I can see how Barrett would jump the gun there. Rollins was smart enough to play off of that and make a ballsy play. If he doesn't do that, he probably gets thrown out at third. I know Barrett is probably getting hammered for this play, and the right play would have been to run him back, but I can see how he would make the mistake. We should also remember the fantastic stop he made on the wayward Wuertz slider a couple pitches before as well. (I hope this doesn't seem to be too much of a Barrett apology)

I think Hendry did his job. He provided JoBo in '04 and Dempster in '05. JoBo got injured and Dempster was mistakenly placed in the rotation. True, once JoBo went down, Hendry was unable to bring in another closer, but its not like they grow on trees. If a team has an effective closer, why would they trade him? I think that, if anything, the relative lack of return on these two moves(Rem and Hawkins) suggests that paying top dollar for "proven" bullpen guys is the wrong way to go about things. It seems that in the grand scheme of things, GM's tend to be "late" in acquiring relievers. For example, there are probably a lot of people who think that Guillermo Mota is among the best non-closer relievers in baseball, when the truth is that he is very far into the downside of his career. He was however, very useful when he was cheap. This has happened with Remlinger and Hawkins. Hendry just through cash at the bullpen and acquired the two guys who were percieved as the best relievers available after '02 and '03 rather than looking for guys in the minors with good track records. As far as non-closing bullpen guys go, the pecking order is very fluid. In any given year, people haven't even heard of who the best relievers in baseball are until about August. The Angels of the past couple of years are a good example of how to piece together a bullpen. They didn't go get(and pay several million for) the Al Levines or the David Weathers of the world. Instead, they gave guys like Kevin Gregg, Brendan Donnelley, Scot Shields and K Rod opportunities. At this point, very soon, they'll probably let most if not all of them go(save K Rod). Some team like the Cubs will pay 9 mil over 3 years for Donnelley , et al and be disappointed while the Angels bring in another bunch of guys at the minimum who outperform the previous regime. If I'm Jim Hendry, this winter I ask Seattle what they want for George Sherrill,and the Yankees what they want for Colter Bean. That would be a start to a potentially effective bullpen at a low cost. If Tim Byrdak hadn't been called up by the Orioles and done well, I'd try to get him too. Just my two cents. And a very well thought out two cents at that. I couldn't agree more. And I think this year has been evidence that Hendry is thinking along the same lines. Dempster was a reclamation project. Remmy is a holdover from mistakes past, but everybody else is fits what you described. They haven't performed exceedingly well, but Novoa has got some stuff, Ohman can get out the lefties pretty well, Wuertz's slider is sick when its on. Hendry is trying to carry out the plan you just outlined. I would like him to try to pry Crain away from the Twins. He might cost some pretty good prospects, but he is young, cheap and a really good reliever who has already done it at the major league level. I also expect to see Van Buren join the bullpen in September and be one of many possible relievers that fit the young and cheap profile. I agree wholeheartedly about Van Buren. I almost mentioned him in my post. You're also right about Wuertz and Novoa. Like you, I was head over heels for Jesse Crain before last year. He's done a good job, but his lack of strikeouts worries me. Based on his minor league track record, though, those will probably come.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Since first base was occupied and there wasn't two outs at the time of the strike out, Burrell, by rule, couldn't attempt to take 1st on the passed ball. By Reynolds's logic, any time the bases are loaded with less than one out and a hitter strikes out swinging, all the catcher needs to do is drop the ball and step on home for a double play. Obviously this can't happen. The fact that a former major leaguer and media member would so egregiously not know the rules is an absolute disgrace. By the way, that moron Kruk also suggested there was a force at third. What a joke. They both should resign. Seriously. The only "analysts" that should be allowed within a mile of that set are Olney, Gammons, Stark and Kurkijan. All of the former players/managers/GMs are complete imbeciles.

I don't have any stats on this, but it seems to me that Derrek has been struggling with runners on base since Baker finally moved some on base guys to the top of the order. Maybe someone can find evidence of this. I think the biggest reason he won't win the triple crown is because he won't hit well enough. Hopefully, he gets hot again, but I think it's more reasonable to expect his career norms for the rest of the year than what he did in the first half.