sneakypower

Kerry Robinson couldn't even slug .400 in AAA at age 26.

sorry, im trying not to be the oakland a's in the playoffs, but its hard. Indulge me. We like Ronny, despite his extensive failures at the major league level, because he's fared pretty well at the AAA level, but hate Pie, with no reasonable MLB sample to draw from, and who obliterated AAA pitching? Khalil Greene is alright I guess, he'd be worth pursuing as a speculative transaction in case his road splits are more indicative of what he'd provide to the team, but I'm not going to trade my best prospect, at worst a GG CF in the making, to find out. Prior- sure, I'll give it a try.

No, not at all. But when you say "at this point", you bring up a good point. The Cubs are in the position they are in at this point, because of how badly Hendry has screwed up in the past. So even a couple good moves wouldn't be enough to offset the big picture mess that has been the Hendry era. What is "The position they are in"? The team that finished the regular season 55-38 in their last 91 games, one of the best teams in baseball during that stretch? Despite underperforming from the three offensive stars, and disappointing season from the #1 starter. We'll play out next season with a significant upgrade at catcher, and likely upgrades in the CF & RF, all the while losing very little production elsewhere. I guess I don't share the dire outlook that others do. Trade Pie for Greene Oooof. Are we really that down on Pie that we want to ship him out of town for crap like Khalil Greene??

Admittedly, I don't have much to go on for Fuku other than the reports I've read and a few scattered video clips, but all indications he'd be a monumental upgrade over Murton, who's a butcher in RF. “Fukudome is one of the better athletes playing in Japan. He is capable of playing center field and right field...20–30 HR, 80–100 RBI and 10 SB.” - Scout Mike Pagliarulo "He plays very hard; he’ll be strong defensively in right field, where he has a great arm, very similar to Ichiro" - MLB team official Replacing one of the worst defensive RFs in the league with a terrific fielder (trusting the reports) will have a profound effect, especially at Wrigley, one of the tougher RFs to play in the game, and would be a huge benefit for Lilly and Hill's flyball tendencies. Roberts would be an upgrade defensively, but 2B is too unimportant defensively and the gap in talent too marginal to mention. However, the speed difference between the two is about as stark a contrast as you can get. Having Roberts on base instead of Derosa would factor into play different pitches the following hitters will be seeing, as well as easier RBI opportunities when he steals bases and takes the extra base. There's no easily quantifiable area where the replacement of Derosa and Murton with Roberts and Fukudome, but factoring the vastly improved RF defense, significant speed upgrade at 2nd, in addition to half a dozen other smaller but not insignificant factors (reliable production, added speed and power in RF, improved bench, added LH balance to order, we'd be a significantly improved team with the addition of Roberts and Fukudome. Leave it to the guy with the caveman avatar to talk about speediness and lineup balance. I can't say I didn't expect a response like this.

Neither would be a marginal upgrade. The discrepancy in defense, speed, and added lineup balance would be a significant difference for the team. It shouldn't be hard for Fuku to outslug the .430-.440 Murton is good for. They're both significant upgrades over the incumbent players mentioned. I can't believe I'd need to say this, but speed shows up in many more areas than SB.