Gunned

Player B is Hairston, not Walker.

Player A's games played since 2000: 51, 156, 152, 162, 162, 162 Player B's games played since 2000: 49, 159, 122, 58, 86, 114

You know, I'm aware it's not the most sabermetrically-inclined setup -- but you can't deny there would be times it would be a lot of fun to watch Pierre/Furcal at the top of the order. Having Pierre getting thrown out 30 percent of the time stealing isn't as fun, of couse. But for all the hand-wringing about Pierre, if Hendry landed those two, it'd be the best top of the order the Cubs have had in a long, long time. Especially if Pierre's legs are healthy all year long. I'm not saying, I'm just saying ...

God bless Ron and all ... but he's an awful broadcaster and I'm not voting for him.

Furcal appears to be looking for a similar contract to what Jimmy Rollins got. The article also says that both the Mets and Cubs called immediately after Furcal declared free agency to express interest. http://www.ajc.com/braves/content/sports/braves/1105/02braves.html

For those not wanting Furcal, and just for discussion's sake, I'll quote a post made on another message board by a very good, knowledgeable poster: Not a perfect methodology, but it makes a good point that Furcal has additional value beyond just his OBP because he's a smart, effective baserunner.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would want to invest so much money in season tickets after the Cubs' past two seasons.

Any news? Yes. They are terrible.

Fun to think about. I'm been sort of wishy-washy on Burnett, but I'm sure that his pricetag has dipped after his end-of-season troubles. What looked like a lock for at least 4 years/$40 million could be knocked down a fair amount. So what's a healthy AJ Burnett worth? And what is it worth to take the risk that he will be healthy?

I heard that from a source, too. It was called ESPN.

Ya know ... something tells me it wasn't supposed to look realistic.

I think he slumped because he's just not a very good baseball player. Sorry if that seems overly simplistic.

It's posts like this that make NSBB worth visiting every day.

Nope.

Mark Prior.

I haven't scrolled through this entire thread, so maybe this has been mentioned. But it surprised me. A snippet from a Philly.com article: That's just in the tidbits section of the article, which is about several other things. But with Abreu's little post-HR Derby hiccup, maybe his price tag is down a little bit. OK, probably not. But it's fun to think about, and if he's at all available, Hendry should be beating down the door.

I'd rather hit myself in the face with a frying pan for a few hours.

What does that have to do with black athletes?

Kasper did an interview with Desipio a while back (he and Dolan are friends, I guess). It doesn't surprise me that he was on the board -- but I think it's a credit to him that he likes to stay in touch with the fans and be accessible. Certainly a marked contrast to our last PBP man.

Jermaine Dye is hitting .268/.330/.465 with 21 homers. That's not bad -- and I'll give Corey the benefit of the doubt in saying he can match that, since that's similar to what he did last year. Of course, he could just as easily hit .240 and never take a walk, like this year. You mention that Podsednik hasn't hit a homer. But he's also hitting .280 with a .348 OBP. Even the most optimistic among us can't expect Pie to match that ... he's never even played a game at the major league level. He isn't ready yet. Rowand is hitting a solid .286 with a .337 OBP. Once again, Murton COULD match that, yes. But he also could hit .250 once those infield hits stop piling up quite so much. However,out of these three guys, I think Murton has the best chance for success next year. When you think of a Murton/Pie/Patterson outfield you can't just consider what their ceiling is. (And we've just determined that their ceiling isn't much better than the offensively weak White Sox outfield.) You have to consider the floor as well. That's been the Cubs' philosophy over the past few years: hoping for the best with certain players. And then when anything goes wrong (injuries, bad performance, bad luck) it drives down the team far, far below expectations. Good teams like the Cardinals, Red Sox, Angels and Yankees try to drive their expected wins way up there so they can withstand injuries and misfortunes and still compete. There's absolutely no excuse for a high payroll team like the Cubs to rely on Corey Patterson and two rookies in the outfield. As you said, it COULD work out ... but it's just as likely that it'd be a total disaster.

I've never understood that argument, really. What do you mean by "Production?" Home runs? RBI? I think the RBI can be influenced more by where he hits in the lineup. If you bat him 6th he'll have more chances than if he hits leadoff or 2nd. And all runs count the same. A run driven in by your centerfielder doesn't count any more or less than one driven in by your catcher or first baseman or shortstop. And with the struggles at the plate we've had for the last 3 plus years, don't you think you'd want to get away from the high K, high power, low OBP guys? I'm confused. You kind of defended Corey, but then said we want to get rid of "high K, high power, low OBP guys." Isn't that exactly what Corey is?

i think the fact that people still find reasons to rag on him after he has a good game says something about some people and their dislike for patterson. I don't dislike Corey Patterson. I want him to do well. It's just that nothing he has shown me in the past three years indicates he's ever going to be better than a .260/.320 kind of player. And there is nothing wrong with players like that. It's fine, and you can keep him because of his defense. Bat him seventh or eighth. But you can't surround him with two other rookies in the OF and hope to have a prayer of competing. A Floyd/Patterson/Giles outfield would be just fine. But Murton/Pie/Patterson has sub-.500 written all over it, unless you have five Mark Priors and the Texas Rangers' infield.

There's not a whole lot of power coming out of that outfield. I'd love to see Johnny, but we might need a corner outfielder who hit 30+ HR more. No, but theres a ton of defense and both pie and patterson should be 25ish on the homer side. I think that's a pretty optimistic view of things. And I don't like the idea of saying "Well, we're above average in other spots, so we can afford to be below average in other spots." You need to build on those strengths and use them as an advantage. If Pie and Patterson are 2/3 of the starting outfield next year, you'd need 2001 Sammy to bring it just back up to league average.

I think the fact that everyone gets so excited when Corey has one good game says something about the type of player that he is. I think he has a lot of potential, but it's never been realized for more than a few weeks at a time. And if people want to have Pie in center next year, we can't have Corey at a corner spot. Not nearly enough proudction. Someone will still give value for him, based on the very potential you guys speak of.

And his trade value.