goonys evil twin

That's weird, I never said everybody should be dominant, but again, you fail to comprehend the words I wrote. Or you purposefully changed them to make me look stupid or something, but I doubt that. Everybody doesn't have to have a high OBP, but the overall team should. Saying the OBP is fine because the infield has a high OBP doesn't hold water. It's the entire team that matters, the whole lineup. 1, or 2, or 3 guys with solid numbers can't negate the rest of the squad. And the point about non-dominant pitchers is that if your goal is to dominate with pitching, you shouldn't waste millions upon millions on mediocre or bad pitchers, as Hendry has done the past few years. Teams with a great lineup that are just looking for innings eaters can justify spending a little extra on mediocre pitchers, because they don't need dominance. But teams with average to below average lineups can't afford to waste time and money on several guys with 4+ ERAs and no semblance of an ability to dominate.

Hendry's style has been one dimensional in that he's stressed pitching over and above everything else. Pitchers have been drafted all the time, to the point where there hasn't been enough room for the guys. The position players have been baren. Leading the league in K's is nice, but when it's accompanied by high walk rates as well, it's hardly dominating. Besides, I never said "we don't have dominant pitchers". That's just poor comprehension on your part. What I said was if your strategy is to dominate with pitching, you shouldn't poor so many resources into guys like Maddux, Estes, Rusch, Eyre, Howry, Alfonseca and the rest of the mediocrity brigade. If you want to dominate with pitching, get dominant pitchers, not just a couple. But what you should do, is create a top 5 run prevention team and a top 5 run scoring team, which will be a great team. If you settle on so many so-so arms, like Hendry has done, then get a great lineup. If you settle for a mediocre lineup, as Hendry has done, then get a great pitching staff. Instead, Hendry has put all the Cubs hope on a fragile and inconsistent pitching staff, without acquiring any solid reinforcements yet this offseason, and he's maintained the status quo of mediocrity/below average offense.

Oh my lord. The Cubs have been weak OBP wise for years. It doesn't matter if they get it from certain parts of the lineup, overall they are weak, they have been weak, and they will continue to be weak as long as they keep ignoring the value of the walk.

The big picture for me is Hendry hasn't built a great team yet, and he's been awful the past two offseasons. Unlike some fans, and apparantly the Cubs management, I'm not satisfied with mediocrity. It's hard to have a great team when you build the team around dominant pitching only to have your dominant pitchers not stay healthy. Not to mention when two of your middle of the order guys can't stay on the field consistently. If Wood, Prior, and Z each make 30 starts this year and we don't win 90 games then Hendry is to blame. But until we can keep our best players on the field I don't think Hendry is entirely at fault. well maybe if hendry relied a little bit more on building a team with a top 5 OBP, we wouldn't have to rely so much on pitching. I'll take dominant pitching over top 5 OBP always. Dominant pitching wins championships not top 5 OBP. You can take the dominant pitching, but maybe since pitching is so fragile, it's not that wise. Regardless, building a one dimensional team is stupid. And if you are building a team based on dominant pitching, you'd be nuts to sign an aging Greg Maddux, and guys like Estes, Rusch, Howry and Eyre. If you want dominant pitching, get dominant pitchers, not a bunch of wild throwers, mediore or worse starters and middle relievers.

The big picture for me is Hendry hasn't built a great team yet, and he's been awful the past two offseasons. Unlike some fans, and apparantly the Cubs management, I'm not satisfied with mediocrity.

Branyan would be nice, but they really need a RH bat.

What the heck does that even mean? It's just a bunch of cliches. "Old baseball", whatever that is, certainly wouldn't have anything to do with statistical analysis, let alone the perfect mix of statistical analysis.

The decline of the team is due mostly to the pitching, but what is important to remember is that the team wasn't that good back then anyway. And the recent they weren't that good was because hitting held them back. Even with a top pitching staff each year they only accumulated the 4th and 6th highest win totals in the league. All of their success was due to pitching, even as limited as the success was. As unimpressive as that 2003 lineup was, it holds up against the current group. The 2003 OF was much much better than what the OF is right now. And they finished 9th in runs scored, just like the 2005 version, and probably close to what the 2006 version will be. So basically we're counting on a return to glory for the pitching staff, and even then the team is at the mercy of the competence of the competition, because 88/89 wins is no guarantee for anything. So being 1 game away from the World Series = not that good? Can you ever give this organization any credit?? That club was real good after the additions of Lofton & Ramirez. 88 win regular seasons aren't really good. If you want to settle for 88 win seasons, feel free, but don't push that crap off to me and call it really good. When this organization does what it should I will give them credit, thus far they have not. Classic. Figured people would disregard how well the team performed after the additions of Lofton & Ramirez. It was a .500 prior to them. Anything to keep from giving Hendry credit, I guess.... Man, you really got it out for me don't you. Big picture my friend. I don't care about their record over 50 games 3 years ago. Hendry has done a poor job overall.

I don't believe that one. Cedeno was a bench player when he got injured, who was rarely getting starts. I think it's dishonest for Dusty to just say he would have given him more time if he was healthy. Dusty loved playing Neifi last year, and took every opportunity to do so. I don't think he would have bench him for Cedeno for any significant amount of time.

I don't think so. You don't need starters to go 9 to justify going with 6 relievers instead of 7. There are enough off days early on to spread out the appearances. Dusty is a guy who will go with the hot hand everyday until he fails, and sit the last guy for 2 weeks at a time. It makes no sense to go with 12 pitchers, unless you have a great lineup and can afford minimal bench help.

He didn't really platoon last year. He spent most of the time starting in the minors. Then platooned for 2 months and finally started nearly everyday down the stretch. I don't have a problem introducing a guy as a platoon hitter for 20-30 games, especially when he's not an elite prospect.

12 pitchers means 5 bench options. Did they say they would open with 12, or are people assuming because that is what they did last year? I feel they went with 12 partly because Dusty didn't know what to expect from all the kid relievers. I think he might be more comfortable with the 4 veterans (Dempster, Howry, Eyre, Williamson) and the crop of kids being more experienced. He might go with 12, which would of course be stupid, and therefore the likely Cubs option, but I'm not certain he will.

I can't tell by the way you quote this, but if these are your words, I will respond. Pierre is a better leadoff option than Corey. But he's not a much more productive CF, which is what we should really be concerned with. The Cubs were 16th in OPS from CF last year in the NL, dead last. Florida was 15th. Pierre is no guarantee to be a huge upgrade for the Cubs. You can't just count his spot in the order, you have to look at the entire lineup. Pierre fills the "stereotypical leadoff hitter" hole that the Cubs wanted so desperately to fill. But the team needs much more than stereotypical players for different spots in the order. They need overall production.

I would not count out Grissom if Hidalgo is here. Assuming Walker is traded, the bench looks like Hairston/Perez, Mabry, Blanco. That could still leave room for Grissom and Hidalgo, especially if they finally decide to go with 6 bench players, leaving room for another middle infielder. Blanco - C Hairston/Perez - MI Mabry - Corner OF/IF Grissom - OF Hidalgo - Corner OF random middle infielder I could see that happening.

In 2003 and 2004 he hit better vs LHP, and significantly better than Jones vs LHP. 2005 was a huge drag on his LHP split, but it was only 83 AB.

Hidalgo would be a very good bench option and plays very good defense. He would make a great 4th outfielder. He would make a decent platoon option for Jones (he doesn't have tradition LR splits, but hits lefties better than Jones), but also a very easy excuse for Dusty to bench Murton. He'd automatically become the best bench player, which doesn't say much considering how bad the bench is right now.

Do we really have excellent instructors? I'm probably one of the minor league instructors biggest critics. It's getting real old hearing how good so and so is yet seeing guys not reaching their potential. Guys like Choi, Hill, Kelton, Dubois Jackson, etc. I'm still seeing nothing really extraordinary from Harvey. So, our instructors are considered excellent based on.....? I think a lot of people in baseball are very generous in their definitions of really good. Obviously just to make the majors you have to have had a lot of success in your past. But, when you say a guy isn't good, or sucks, you aren't comparing him to the rest of the baseball playing population, but the major league baseball population. Likewise, all these "good baseball men" who have nothing but glowing reports from their peers, aren't actually good in the sense that they are better than others at their level. I think the Cubs might employ a lot of people who know a lot about baseball, but after looking at their history of success finding and developing prospects (or lack of success), I can't see how their instructors could be considered good. Seriously, Jody Davis was just given a manager's position with just about zero coaching in his history. I think the talent pool for minor league instructors is pretty slim. If you want the job, and have a history in the game, you can get a job, for the most part.

I think it's a pretty safe bet that Pierre will have a better line than Eckstein. But with the possibility of Jones or Perez accounting for a significant amount of the 2 hole at bats behind him, I'm thinking Juan could take a dip in the runs scored category. Assuming STL goes with Taguchi/Spivey (both similar to Jones) and Lee regresses enough so that Pujols again outperforms, Eckstein could score more runs than Pierre even if Juan outperforms on his own. If Dusty somehow decides to split the RLR up as much as possible, and goes Pierre, Perez, Lee, Jones, Ramirez, then I would be pretty certain Eckstein will score more (and STL will win more).

I don't have much to complain about Jim Hendry the minor league coordinator. My problem is with Jim Hendry the GM. They are two very different jobs. Although in hindsight, maybe I gave Hendry the minor league coordinator far too much credit for his work in building up a farm system that relied so heavily on toolsy players and seemingly ignored production. But he was a part of the resurgence in the farm nonetheless, and deserves credit. That just hasn't translated to his GM work.

Did I say that? I also consider D. Lee a "speed guy" No you didn't say that, but you responded to a series of posts that began with somebody talking about wanting another speed guy, and somebody else questioning why. And you appeared to be taking the "speed guy" side of the argument. I for one hate all the talk of getting more speed, because like a lot of things with the Cubs, in the narrow minded pursuit of a particular tool, the big picture of production is ignored. When you go gonzo for speed you end up overpaying for mediocre players like Pierre. When you spend all offseason looking for a specific spot in the order, like leadoff, you ignore the overal lack of production on the team. Pierre is a better option for leadoff than Patterson, but looking at overall production the Cubs went from 16th in the NL in OPS at CF to the guy who provided FLA with the 15th highest OPS in the NL from CF. Overall production was ignored for isolated tools. Dusty wanted speed, and that's been his excuse for playing guys like Perez and Macias, they were faster than the other guys on the team. Jones is faster than Burnitz, but he's not any better, and he doesn't help this team get any better. The Cubs didn't lose last year because of a lack of speed. They lost because the pitching was down and OBP remained down, with both sides suffering from a severe lack of respect for the walk (pitchers gave up too many, hitters took too few). This goes back to an organization philosophy that ignores the value of the walk, by constantly acquiring and promoting pitchers who share a trait of wildness, and stressing the need for hitters to swing early and often while also acquiring and playing players with a history of poor patience at the plate.

If you have great team OBP guys won't be left on base too often, they'll score plenty.

Grab any list of free agent signings.

So you think the Cubs need "another speed guy" to pair with Pierre as well? Speed is overrated. Speed is completely worthless without other, more important aspects of the game in your repertoire. Speed is way down the list of necessary ingredients to be a good baseball player. Being an average runner is not a setback in the least. There are a ton of crappy ballplayer's whose speed has hypnotized baseball people into keeping them in the game long past their expiration dates. Speed is nice to have, and all else being equal you'd have to take the faster guy. But all else usually isn't equal, and often times dramatically outweighs the difference speed will make.

Except that other better bench players signed for less this offseason.

Myth? It's been shown to be true over and over with this group. They didn't want to get in a bidding war with Giles. They didn't want to add Tejada with AGonz around, they didn't look at Vladdy because they thought their OF was settled. Compete for the division is not the same as win the WS. It's not. It's a clear difference in strategy. The Cubs want to win enough to be in the playoff hunt late in the season, and hope for the best, instead of try and dominate and maximize their chances for the WS. They want several stable mediocre veterans who they know will give you mediocre performances, instead of aggressively adding difference makers to the roster. This is no myth. It's their stated plan.