LuvChicagoSports

Jim Rome just made a funny comment on the hiring. He was basically debating the Padres position and had this to say: "Hmm, let's see... should we hire Bud Black or bring in Dusty Baker to shred Peavy's arm with pitch counts of 140 every outing?" Hammer, meet nail. did he follow that up with 30 seconds of silence, which was then followed by him saying the exact same thing but worded slightly differently, which was followed by 30 more seconds of silence? I hate the long pauses from Rome. A lot of times he has some interesting points to make, but in the end I can't listen to the guy.

Well if it is an early indicator of what Sweet Lou wants to bring to the table offensivley I am all for that. Looks like a guy like Murton would be appreciated by the new staff rather than scolded like he is doing something wrong. Hopefully the previous quotes are something we can look forward to.

nice someone in the marketing department really screwed that one up. I have the same e-mail as I am sure hundreds of thousands of others do as well.

Like I was trying to say this isn't all the ideal moves I would want the Cubs to make. It's a mix of things that I am taking into consideration like the fact that I don't think Hendry is going to let Pierre go even though I would like that. Also, I do not view Meche or Eaton as a good 3rd or 4th starter, but something that would be viable addition for the next couple of years as we try to get back to being a competitive team. Also the reason I don't make changes to the bullpen is that we already have too much money wrapped up in the pen. Sure it would be nice to get rid of a guy like Novoa, but we already have so much money wrapped up in the pen that we can't justify spending more when we can't even get a lead to allow the bullpen to really do it's job in the first place.

Look at the Cardinals. They have Jason Marquis and Jeff Weaver in their rotation and they are competing. You do not have to have frontline guys 1-5 to be good. You just have to have guys that can keep you in the game and be effective. Not everyone on your team is going to have a sub 4 ERA that is just part of the game. They also have Pujols, Rolen, Carpenter, and the good fortune of playing in a super weak division in a horrible league. Adding mediocrity just because there's a perception it's working for someone else is a bad idea. I totally hear you on that one, but simply put the Cubs are a train wreck right now and I don't really see being able to fix the whole thing in just one off-season. I'm not advocating putting a lot of faith into a guy like Meche, I just think it could at least give us someone who would consistently give some innings and at least a chance to win. I don't want the Cubs to just be ok I want them to be good, but I think it is going to be a process of a few years before things could take a dramatic change.

Look at the Cardinals. They have Jason Marquis and Jeff Weaver in their rotation and they are competing. You do not have to have frontline guys 1-5 to be good. You just have to have guys that can keep you in the game and be effective. Not everyone on your team is going to have a sub 4 ERA that is just part of the game.

Ok, a lot of what I am going to say has been said by other people in topics all over. From news reporters to you guys that are on here everyday, but I have yet to see everything brought into one topic that covers all of this. Heading into this season I for one did not want to see Dusty Baker back to manage the Cubs, but given the instability at the manager postition for the Cubs I can totally understand why Hendry decided to keep him around. I know many other fans wanted to see Baker get the boot as well, but given the fact that he did actually have a respectable first two seasons with the Cubs (I believe other managers could have done better) Baker was retained. If anything this allowed for some stability in an organization that has had very little in the recent past. The biggest isssue with the relationship between Dusty Baker and Jim Hendry is that they see eye to eye on everything. Given the fact that I don't think anyone in baseball can have a perfect outlook on how to build or manage a team, I think it is vital to have people who can work well together but have different opinions on how things should get accomplished. Hendry doesn't see the importance of obp. as we all know and hate, but if he had a manager who believed in getting on base, then the players Hendry brings in could be coached to have better dicipline and work for a pitch that could be driven rather than having a free swinging approach. On the other side, if Baker was the manager, and Hendry only brought in guys who naturally had good plate vision and would not swing at bad pitches (e.g. Derrek Lee) even when the coaching staff taught players to be aggressive at the plate, then the you would see a more evenly balanced team. The problem with our whole management team, is that everyone believes in aggressive hitting and not letting the pitcher dictate the ab's by trying to be aggressive early in the count. As we have seen this philosophy is actually very flawed because pitchers do dictate most ab's because they get the hitters to swing at pitchers pitches which lead to easy outs. As with everything just knowing the problem doesn't do much for anyone. Having a solution for that problem is the hard and most important part. Obviously none of us can have a say in fixing the team that we love so much because other (quite possibly less capable) people are chosen to do this task for us. Nonetheless, it is part of being a fan to try to share your vision with others and discuss ways to make your team better. The best thing in my mind to do would be to blow up the entire management operation all the way up the ladder, but since that is obviously not going to happen, let's look at what we could do with what is currently in place. At the end of the season, the Cubs will part ways with Dusty Baker in what will be said to be a mutual agreement. Andy MacPhail will remain team president and Jim Hendry will remain as the GM of the team. Ideally we will see a manager brought in who understands the benifits of stats like .ops and how to properly teach players to work at improving .obp and slugging. Managers that have been brought up include; Joe Girardi, Larry Dierker, Lou Piniella, and Fredi Gonzalez among others. Joe Girardi might be a favorite choice among fans and local media because of his ties to the team and what he has been able to accomplish with a young team in Florida. Lou Piniella is the opposite of Dusty Baker as far as not being tolerant of poor fundamentals and he's somewhat of a loose cannon which some people want after watching the way the Cubs play on a daily basis. Dierker would be appealing because of his philosophies. He believes in the use of stats and understands how they can be important. He has a good mangerial record although his poor showing in the playoffs is somewhat of a concern. That aside, his managing put a Houston team, that was certainly not the most talented every season, consistently into contention. Gonzalez is attractive because he comes from a good coaching pedigree. Right now he is the third base coach for the Braves and has gone through an extensive coaching career to get where he is now. Personally I feel the best choices for the team are Fredi Gonzalez and Larry Dierker, but arguments could be made for all 4 of the candidates as well as others. The next major issue with which the Cubs would have to deal with is what to do with personnel and who to try to have on your team come the 2007 season. The Cubs currently have some important pieces already set for next season. Derrek Lee will be back at 1b and Carlos Zambrano will be throwing off the mound as usual. There are some major question marks at other places on the team however, and hopefully we can make some things happen to improve both the pitching and offense before we head into Spring Training next March. I would like to see a few things happen. First, I want to see the Cubs take care of things to keep Aramis Ramirez around for the forseeable future. I think it is imperative that the Cubs land either Jason Schmidt or Barry Zito. We need another frontline starter to pair with Carlos Zambrano. I also would like to see them add another starter like Gil Meche or Adam Eaton. If you could land two of the four that would give you a potential rotation of: 1. Carlos Zambrano 2. Barry Zito/Jason Schmidt 3. Gil Meche/Adam Eaton 4. Mark Prior 5. Sean Marshall/Rich Hill/Angel Guzman/Carlos Marmol Let's assume that Prior gets hurt and you have to insert one of the four young guys into his spot in the rotation. That is still a solid rotation and would give the team a chance to win if a decent offense can be put together. The bullpen is just about set already but here is a look. Cl- Ryan Dempster Bobby Howry Scott Eyre Michael Wuertz Will Ohman David Aardsma/Roberto Novoa to close it out maybe you sign Kerry Wood to an incentive laden deal, but personally I would just rather see the Cubs move on and wish the best of luck to Kerry. On offense I think the Cubs should let Juan Pierre go, but I believe Hendry is going to sign him as a justification for trading away three prospects for him unless Pie can come up and play extremely well in this last month. Either way I think the Cubs should make a very strong play to sign Alfonso Soriano. His bat would be a great addition to the Cubs lineup and could help the Cubs power numbers in a home ballpark built for offense. I also think the Cubs should go after Frank Catalanotto to play LF for us and then we could platoon Murton and Jones in RF. That would give us an opening day lineup of. 1. Juan Pierre CF 2. Frank Catalanotto LF 3. Derrek Lee 1b 4. Aramis Ramirez 3b 5. Alfonso Soriano 2b 6. Jauque Jones RF 7. Michael Barrett C 8. Ceasar Izturis SS I think that lineup could do much more damage and consistently score runs. I don't know what the money would be and if this is even feasable, but getting rid of the contracts of Kerry Wood and Greg Maddux should help out some with more money being free to bring in some players. I love the Cubs and desperately want to see major improvements soon. I'd love to get opinions from you guys on everything I've written.

Moises Alou (watching he and Jones run the bases together would be quite laughable though)

Man his bat sure makes up for his glove.

I'm out boys have a good one

TODD IS THE MAN

Walker is gonna say that he didn't give up the grand slam. You gotta talk to Sean on that one.

Damn beat me to it. I came on to say the exact same thing.

Indirectly? His comments sounded direct to me. And that was another stupid thing Baker said/did. And that should explain Walker's angst and defensiveness. I don't know what kind of work you do, but put yourself in Walker's position. If my school had a poor performance score and in the newspaper my principal pointed the finger at me directly, I can almost guarantee you, I'm not going to humbly accept it. and yes, someone likely would be thrown under the bus when I'm asked about it. But don't we always complain about this organization's (including players)not holding themselves accountable? In my opinion, Walker was wrong for even bringing up Brenly's name. And, yes, had I been Walker I would've simply said I didn't bobble it and leave it at that. Our department is criticized a lot at my job. Do I "drop a dime" on my team to save me from criticism? Nope. As I've said, I have no problem with Walker denying he bobbled the ball or had trouble getting the ball out of his glove, but there was no reason for him to complain about Brenly's call or for calling out Cedeno. But Walker is not only being called out, he's feeling pushed out the door. In his mind, he's really not "part" of the team anymore so looking out for the team is no longer in his mindset. ok, so you're saying it would be ok if the principal of your school found out he/she was going to be let go at the end of the year, that it would be acceptable for him/her to then start throwing teachers and other administrative employees under the bus. It's absolutely wrong for Walker to place blame on Ronny. Walker is supposed to be the vet. Just say you didn't feel like you bobble the ball period. To bring up Brenly's call especially given the recent history with players and announcers on this team is not only childlike, but flat out ridiculous. Also I want to say that professional sports is very unlike any other profession. You keep bringing up being a teacher, but you fail to look at the reality that athletes are expected to deal with the media on a constant basis. Teachers or other professionals may have a few dealings with huge media sources, but it is certainly not a daily thing. You can't talk about how a teacher or other professional talks about fellow employees at the lunch table and compare it to an athlete saying something about a teammate to a national media source.

I'm gonna second that. It's like we are playing .500 or something with the approach this whole group takes. They refuse to admit how bad the team is and how poorly they've been assembled.

I thought the same thing about Gary Matthews, Jr. :oops: Gary Matthews Jr. is having an outstanding season. So your point is moot on that. Guys on the Cubs fail to succeed for a number of reasons, but over the past 4 years it has been because of a poor approach to hitting that is taught to them from inept coaching. Just look at Patterson and it's clear as day that the coaching staff here can only be successfull if they are given players with great plate vision like Derrek Lee. Lee is able to be agressive within the strike zone because he has a good concept of the strike zone. Hendry and Baker have a hard time co-existing because they do not work together. I hate the hitting approach personally but it Hendry would bring in the type of player that would take well to this hitting approach like Lee, then the team would be much better offensively. Instead he brings in toolsy players that don't have a concept of the strike zone but are fast and have immense amount of talent if harnessed.

Yeah the stats definately point to a typical Hendry guy, but watching him play is different. Like I said before it doesn't mean he will be good as he probably won't because let's be realistic what young player is ever good for the Cubs, but I just like watching the way he plays.

the thing I like about him is that he just seems like a "baseball player" as opposed to the usual toolsy guys the Cubs bring in. I can't exactly put my finger on what it is, but there is something a little different in his makeup. It doesn't mean he'll be good or anything, but it is nice to have a different kind of player on the team. I know saying a baseball player seems like a "baseball player" is [expletive], but there are too many guys in baseball that are more just athletes and not ball players.

I like the idea of this post good stuff.... C- Jason Varitek 1b- Derrek Lee 2b- Josh Barfield (i just like him) and Marcus Giles SS- Edgar Rentaria and Jose Reyes 3b- David Wright LF- Manny CF- Curtis Granderson RF- Vladdy DH- David Ortiz SP-Big Z SP-Johan Santana SP-Scott Kazmir SP-Pedro Martinez SP-Jeremy Bonderman CL- Bobby Jenks

it is fine to boo bad plays, but idiots that boo a player for popping out are stupid. The player made contact and hit the ball in the air.....it happens. There are too many people there to party that is it and it gives the rest of us a bad rep.

better than I do when I play games, I either just do a fantasy draft or trade almost the entire team as they infuriate me during the season. Prior was gone in MLB '06 the Show for me as soon as he was injured in Spring Training. Woody went soon after.

Here's the real question. Did you do a fantasy draft to start the season? If you didn't how many Cubs players do you still have?

That would be awesome

Dusty goes and has a word with Cedeno about his steal attempt and clearly Dusty was upset. So he will now tell the media he does hold people accountable for mistakes. Too bad the vets are the one that run the team. Dusty lets them do whatever they want and will look for any reason to make a young player look bad.

Maybe the fans were booing the whole team because Jones has clearly been one of our best hitters this season. :wink: LOL, isn't that a sad thing to think about. A guy that really nobody wanted as a free agent who has been better than expected, but is still just an average player is the best hitter on this team (except Lee). Also, I haven't seen a replay since getting home and the only one that I saw I had to turn around and look at the section behind me as I was in Upper Deck Box. Good to know that he was out, but at the same time I think it is unimaginable that Baker would not go out and argue for a player on such a meaningful play (for the game certainly not for the season).