MPrior

So Lofton is on the decline. We all know this. But 2004 was considered a down year for him, and he still put up .275/.346/.395 like Sulleymon said, which would be great. A .346 OBP out of our leadoff hitter would be fine by me (considering this year our leadoff hitters combined for about a .300 OBP). Also remember that, at most, he's a stopgap cf, meant to temporarily and cheaply fill one of our holes so we can put more money and effort into filling bigger ones. However, in the thread Tim posted, someone suggested looking into Jason Michaels, and if he could be had (I don't think it likely), I'd rather have him than Lofton.

Couple questions concerning Kenny Lofton: 1. Does anyone know what the Phillies are planning on doing with him next year, and if he wants to stay there? 2. If we can get him, what's wrong with him? He's not going to command a multi-year deal anywhere, so it's not as if we'd be investing too much time on an old guy. Secondly, he shouldn't cost more than $4 mill, absolute tops, for a year. Lastly, he's posting something like a .393 OBP, with a career OBP around .370, and he's a CF who can hold the position till Pie is ready. So why not? I would think he'd be a pretty obvious signing. He fills the CF hole, which is a big deal. He addresses our OBP/leadoff hitter hole, which is an even bigger deal. And he does it all relatively cheaply, which I shouldn't have to point out is a big deal.

I'd be pretty fired up about anyone's .900 OBP.

Let's assume for a second that the Cubs have limited opportunities to improve the team this coming offseason; that they will not be able to address every possible shortcoming on this team; that they will not be able to sign/trade for All-Star players at every position (far-fetched, I know, but bear with me). Working off of these assumptions, what do you think our priorities should be? Addressing the team's horrible OBP; Finding a leadoff hitter (and hitting him in the leadoff spot); Filling all THREE holes in our outfield; Getting some much-needed bullpen help; Finding a reliable 5th (and possibly 4th) starter; or replacing the third best hitter on our team (who also happens to be extremely cheap) because he has somewhat below-average defense and talks too much for some people's tastes? You tell me.

So here's what I've got so far: We've agreed (more or less) that we pick up Walker's option (I'm getting to SS, hold on). What we haven't agreed on is whether we keep him or trade him. Regardless, I agree with Vance, Tim, and Roast (and others). I think we sign Nomar if we can get him for 5 mill (or less) plus incentives. His injury this year was kind of a freak accident, but his value will go down because of it anyway, and we might be able to pick up easily the best offensive SS in the NL for very little money. So: if we've kept Walker, we have Nomar and Walker at SS and 2B, with Cedeno backing them up, which I believe is a wonderful thing. If we traded Walker, we have Nomar and Cedeno (or, if we traded for a 2B, whoever we traded for; Marcus Giles has been mentioned), which would also be fine. Under no circumstances should we pick up Furcal. He will cost far more than Nomar, and it bears mentioning that Nomar's career AVERAGE is only 30 points lower than Furcal's career OBP. Nomar exceeds Furcal in just about every offensive category, and if we can get him for much less money and a shorter time commitment, why wouldn't we? And even if we can't get Furcal, let Cedeno, who should put up numbers at least approaching Furcal's, play short, and spend our money somewhere where we need it more.

I hate to break this to you, but after yesterday's games they have the exact same OPS... I think his point includes durability. I know, I was just pointing out that Nomar has been just as productive as Furcal this season when he's been in the lineup. (Despite his slow start and horrific injury.) Looking forward I'm not too concerned with Nomar's health. He's had a rough last couple of years, but more often than not in his career he's been able to put together a full season's worth of AB. Given that he's almost certain to take a cheap/heavily incentived contract this offseason I think he makes a lot more sense than Furcal does. If he's healthy that's great; we should have a very productive shortstop at realtively low cost. If not, Cedeno looks like he'll be at least a serviceable starter in the majors. Either way I like it better than making a huge committment to average production by inking Furcal. Oh, I agree completely. My preference is to go with a MIF of Nomar/Walker with Cedeno as the primary backup in place of Neifi. seconded. i'm also starting to come around and accept murton as the starting lf. Thirded, if that's such a thing. I feel very strongly about this, actually. Why overspend where we don't need an upgrade (where, in fact, we even have a very good and cheap backup) when we have SO many actual holes to deal with?

I think Wood should definitely start out next season in the rotation. As has been said, he's pretty filthy when he's healthy. And he just had surgery, which helped Matt Morris out - so starting him out in the pen next season might be cheating ourselves of a top-of-the-rotation starter. Of course, the first time he goes on the DL for shoulder soreness or anything of the sort, we move him to the bullpen.

Agreed. Hitters do have some level of control over where they put the ball. It's called bat control. If they didn't, a hit and run would not really be a feasible play - it just wouldn't exist.

I've tried a few times to make a point something like this post. For example, if all we do is pick up Walker's option, sign Nomar for cheap (probably less than half of what it would cost us to get Furcal), and get Brian Giles (this basically amounts to signing Giles - that's ALL we'd have to do), we could be a pretty decent team, with a lineup something like: 2B - Walker SS - Nomar RF - Giles 1B - Lee 3B - ARam C - Barrett LF - Murton CF - CPatt Plus, we have Cedeno (who is awesome) backing up Nomar, Aramis, and Walker. And if we could get Nomar to move to LF (no, he probably wouldn't be that good a defender, but it IS left field, and he has a gun for an arm), then we could get Cedeno in there as a starter, in which case the lineup would look like this: 2B - Walker SS - Cedeno (until his production lessens, anyway) RF - Giles 1B - Lee 3B - ARam LF - Nomar C - Barrett CF - Patterson Now, I'm not suggesting we do this. I think both these lineups are decent (in fact, the 1-6s are pretty damn scary), but it still needs some serious upgrading before it's a playoff contender. If we can find someone to play CF and produce even just at league average, and then find some bullpen help (B.J. Ryan, perhaps?), this becomes a contending team. So what's the lesson? GILES SHOULD BE OUR BIGGEST PRIORITY. Just signing him greatly improves this team. Of course, I understand he might be very hard to get a hold of, as I have just moved to Southern California, and I can see why he might not want to leave. But he could be a huge difference maker, as his presence in the lineup would not push anyone important out of it. Furcal, on the other hand, pretty much means goodbye to Walker and/or Nomar, and possibly reduced playing time for Cedeno as well. Those are three good hitters that could be removed from the lineup just because we sign Furcal, who wouldn't make as much of an impact as Giles anyway, and would cost us nearly as much money. Plus, we'd still have an abysmal outfield.

Trading Lee is a bad idea. There are lots of reasons, but here are the two biggest, in my mind; first, if he does produce anything even close to what he did for us this year, we are paying WAY less than anyone else is paying for even roughly comparable production. If we trade him away, someone else might get that underpriced production. Secondly, the sheer number of people a move like that would piss off alone makes it a bad idea; unless the move turns out to be absolute genius (and I don't mean "if it improves the team." I mean it has to look like a WS-winning stroke of genius), support for the team and the front office will go down, and as a result the Trib might be less willing to front as much money as before - I mean, Lee's season has been the biggest of the precious few reasons to even watch the Cubs this year - imagine if we have a similar, or even slightly better, season next year, but without Lee. What do we get? Even less excitement. So: unless we could get something so eye-poppingly astronomical for Lee (I'm talking Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, and prospects), which we won't, there's no way we should do it.

I don't remember who said it, but I agree with them: Let's just hope for the Cubs to finish above .500, so we can have back-to-back-to-back winning seasons (as long as none of the credit goes to Dusty). If we happen to fall ass-first into the playoffs as well (as that's the only way we're gonna do it), so be it. The other thing we can hope for is for Dusty to experience a revelation and give up baseball to found his own religion, and take Macias and Neifi along as his disciples. And oh yeah. Also for Hendry to pick up Brian Giles and (at least) some bullpen help.

At the risk of sounding like Dusty, why play Cedeno over Walker? (DISCLAIMER: It's NOT that Cedeno is a rookie and Walker is a veteran - it's that Walker has proven that he's one of the best hitters on this team. Why bench him for someone we don't know is going to be better?) I personally would love to have Nomar come back cheaply, and play him and Walker up the middle (defense is an issue, I know, but I'd rather have very good, relatively cheap offensive production). With Neifi gone, Cedeno would be the super infield sub, and should start fairly frequently for Nomar. This way he would get decent playing time (as there's no one Dusty can play but him in the SS position if Nomar's not in the game), especially if Nomar goes down again, and we'd have a very potent infield which we wouldn't be paying too much for, which would leave a lot of room for fixing the outfield, which is the real issue. I think Giles should be the priority, as he not only makes the weak outfield more potent, but also addresses, to some degree, the abysmal OBP problems this team has had. He's worth a big (but not too long) contract, even at his age.

I totally agree with you about Patterson and Murton - they might become a rather large hole, especially with the pitcher coming after them. My point was that with only one outside acquisition, we'd have a pretty scary lineup (with the glaring problem of that hole at the bottom of the order). So with all of that money we'd be saving, I think it would be possible to go after someone else to help us out in an outfield position.

First, I think it would be extremely foolish to sign Furcal unless we can get him extremely cheaply (which we won't). There are two far better options: 1. Put Ronny Cedeno in the starting role - he deserves it, he'd cost next to nothing, and he should produce nearly as well as Furcal. 2. Resign Nomar. Okay, so Nomar got hurt, and he seems to be injury prone. But think - his one injury this year was sort of a freak accident. And if we do get him to play most of the year, we'll have a superstar SS in our lineup (Lee, Ramirez, and a healthy Nomar is TERRIFYING). If he doesn't play enough, we'll have bought him for about half of what Furcal would cost, and we'd have Cedeno waiting in the wings - who, as I've said, could fill in admirably (better than Neifi, anyway). Next, under no circumstances should we get rid of Todd Walker. He's a very good contact hitter with good discipline, and he too will be very cheap. Plus his defense, while not good, is better than most people give him credit for. Let Murton play. He can produce - he's proven that much - and, once again: he's cheap. So all of these cheap players would allow us to spend the money we need to get Brian Giles, a career .400+ OBP hitter. I don't care if he's 34, he will still have that good plate discipline as he gets older. So with just one off-season acquisition, our lineup looks like this: 2B Todd Walker SS Nomar (Cedeno backup) 1B Lee 3B Ramirez RF Giles C Barrett LF Murton CF Patterson Yes, I realize it's very righty-heavy, but it's still scary. Anyway, I need to go to bed.

Hill is developing a change and a cutter. And if either of those pitches (esp. the cutter - he could REALLY mess with right handers then) becomes a reliable, slightly above average pitch, he'll be great (and once umps stop selling him short - in his last start, he couldn't buy a called strike). And by "great," I don't necessarily mean top of the rotation starter, but I do mean someone who can consistently hold his own on the big league level. Plus, he has TWO curves, which hopefully will mess with some of those advance scouts a little, make him harder to figure out.

I've been thinking about Murton in the 2-hole for a while now, and would love to see it. Leading off may be a bit too much pressure for him, since we've put so much importance into that position for the past couple years, but now that we've got Lawton it's not an issue. I also agree with you, though, that Dusty probably will leave Hairston in and keep Murton from playing, and if he did allow him to play, he'd probably never, ever bat him second. Mine's pretty similar to yours, except I think that ARam should hit 4th: Lawton - RF Murton - LF Lee - 1B ARam - 3B Burnitz - CF (not much range, but still the best option, probably) Nomar - SS Walker - 2B Barrett - C What Dusty will probably do: Lawton Walker Lee Burnitz ARam Nomar Hairston Barrett Which is stupid. ARam should be hitting behind Lee, period. Hairston, if playing, should bat 1,2, or 8, because his patience will best be used in the top two, and his lack of power will be least likely to be exploited in the 8 spot. And MURTON SHOULD PLAY! At the very least until he proves that he can't handle it.

I absolutely think Lee could use an extra day off. He works so much, and, let's be honest, there's an awful lot of pressure on him to carry this team, and to validate the monster season he's having. I've also noticed that he's begun swinging at some really bad pitches lately - it's pretty obvious that he's tired, and if giving him an extra day off will help right the ship and head him toward the kind of production he (along with the rest of us) has become accustomed to.

I know it's already been pointed out, but the one thing that Williams HAS done for us consistently so far is go 6-7 innings. His last start was less than 6, but that was the first time that's happened. So to say that we have three guys who can't go six innings is a bit of an overstatement - yes, Maddux does have to leave early every once in a while (and he cannot handle Luis Gonzalez, for whatever reason), but he also goes deep his fair share of the time. I think we can rely on Williams for 6-7 innings on average, which isn't bad. And Hill probably does use too many pitches to get the job done, which means he probably won't go deep all too often, but he went six this last time out, which is an improvement over his first - he may continue that trend once he settles down a little.

First off, I apologize if this is an exact replica of an earlier thread (I know people have been getting a bit tired of that recently), but, with the deadline looming, I'd just like to know what people's last-minute predictions are - no holds barred, it doesn't just have to be what people are talking about, it doesn't even have to make sense or have any evidence behind it - I just want to know what people are thinking. So give me your predictions. My reasonable prediction is that Hendry does nothing, or at least nothing of terrible significance. It seems like the whole trade market this season is very thin, with very few sellers, and they're asking for way too much for their players. My entirely unreasonable and nearly impossible prediction is that Hendry gets us Brian Giles. I know he's a FA at the end of the season, but being in Chicago for a bit would help his chances of re-signing, and the guy has a CAREER .413 OBP, and is usually good for .900+ OPS. My slightly more reasonable prediction is that we get Matt Lawton, maybe for a couple minor league pitchers (Mitre and someone else, maybe) - and I wouldn't complain about it.

I've often heard (and I agree) that, in a minor league player, plate discipline is the single best indicator of future success in the major leagues. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, or that there aren't other reliable predictors, but in general, it seems to be the most useful. And Murton has more than proved that he has plenty of plate discipline. Secondly, as was already pointed out but I believe is worth mentioning again, power usually develops a bit later in a player's career. It's much, much easier to teach a player to hit for more power than it is to teach plate discipline (why Patterson struggles so much, I believe, is that plate discipline is a very hard-learned skill). And recently, we've been drooling for a while over a number of players with good plate discipline and minimal power (Juan Pierre most recently, although I don't even think his plate discipline is that great). So now we've got one and we're paying him basically nothing. And the fact that he plays LF instead of CF or 2B isn't a reason not to play him. I understand that I may be preaching to choir, and not entirely addressing the issue, but it's worth pointing out. And lastly, I would never be against Hendry picking up a good LF bat, especially if he can pull it off like many of his past trades (I mean, if you think about it, he's gotten us Ramirez, Lee, Nomar, and - yes - Matt Murton for essentially nothing. That's impressive.)

I saw that article, and it nearly made me vomit. I'm glad that Neifi hit that grand slam, and that RBI single, but that doesn't make him a good player. I mean, if he's coming up with the bases loaded, I doubt the pitcher was doing that great a job to begin with. I hope Hendry tells Dusty to stop playing Neifi so much when we have Nomar back.

Okay: Not that Soriano is a bad player, but the LAST thing the Cubs' offense needs is more home runs (DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying that home runs are bad - I love home runs, who doesn't? I'm just saying there are other things that we need to address first); we have more dingers than anyone in the league besides the Reds, who play in Great American. What we are in desperate need of is OBP guys - because we have very few of them. So why would we trade away one of our best OBP guys who also happens to be a very good contact hitter (and thus can do the little things that people like no. 2 hitters to do) and has a little pop in his bat for significantly less OBP, a good bit more slugging, and even worse defense? Lee and Ramirez will hit the homers. Let's just get the guys on base in front of them.

Hendry has said he's not really looking for rentals at all. Of course, he could be lying, but I like the approach of looking to the future, given where we are right now. We definitely don't want to trade away two of our (supposedly) major league-ready pitchers for a short term solution on a team whose chances of the playoffs - let alone the world series - are debatable at best.

I'd much rather Alou than Schmidt. If there was any way we could get a hold of just him, I'd do it pretty quickly. Schmidt will cost too much for below-normal production. Alou, on the other hand, could make our lineup downright scary: 1. Hairston 2. Walker (or Nomar if he's productive when he comes back) 3. Lee 4. Ramirez (NOT Burnitz - I hate to see DLee pitched around because he's got Burnitz behind him) 5. Alou (I don't care that it's three rightys in a row - it'd be the best way to construct the middle of our lineup) 6. Burnitz 7. Nomar (if he doesn't produce as much as we'd like; Walker or Burnitz if he does) 8. Barrett 9. Pitcher Besides, our need for starting pitching isn't as terrible as it may seem - I'd rather solidify the bullpen. Jerome Williams has been doing a very nice job, always going pretty deep, and hasn't yet really gotten entirely blown out of the water. Rich Hill just got a start, and could fill in real nicely - and I believe that if we're not gonna win this year with our young guys playing, we're not gonna win at all, so we might as well play them. And with a greatly improved offense, if our starter gives up four or five runs, we should be able to keep pace much of the time anyway.

Thanks.