goonys evil twin

I would say that 27 is the beginning of many position player's prime years, but it's certainly not the peak. I don't know if anyone's ever done a study, but I highly doubt that 27 on average is the most productive year for most players out there. That's actually exactly what somebody did. 27 is the average prime year. That doesn't mean guys fall off cliffs at 28 or 29. What usually happens is players reach their peak at 27, but they can stay relatively close to that peak for several years after, a sort of plateau after the highest height.

The Cubs have 3 times as many injuries to pitchers as the Cardinals?? Unless Brown can play RF I don't see how he fits on the Cubs roster. If it comes to July and the Cubs want to add somebody to their 40-man roster, Brown would fit perfectly on the 60-day disabled list to open a spot.

Wasting a AAA slot? It's one thing to waste a 40-man spot on Jose Macias. But signing a guy like Kelton to a AAA contract is hardly a waste of space. I think that Kelton has zero chance of being a good major league regular. But, I think he can provide you similar numbers to his 2005 AAA season, .283 .329 .420, from the bench, and at the minimum for a couple years, that's decent production. There's a good enough chance that he'd end up with significantly more SLG than that as well. He could sub in at any OF position, 1B as well as some emergency duty at 3B. What the heck is a waste of AAA slot anyway? When guys like Hubbard, Echevarria, Calvin Murrary and the rest of taking slots, Kelton is hardly a waste.

Which is why I found it so odd when Carrie Muskat described Macias as a Cubs outfielder in her most recent Cubs.com article. If anything he's a utility player. If you have to define him as IF or OF though, he's clearly IF.

Neifi did suck. His inability to hit wouldn't hurt a team that used him properly. But the Cubs inability to use him properly hurt them. I've been saying what I said in that post for a while. I did not take any of your thoughts and simply turn the words around. Oh, come one....this is alot more simple to figure out than what you're making it. The misuse of Neifi DID suck. That doesn't mean Neifi sucks, right? It's that simple, Captain Comprehension. Neifi sucks. It's not hard to understand. He can't hit. But you can find a use for him if you don't let him hit much. Unfortunately the Cub found a way to hit him far more other than they should have. I know it's that simple, because that's what I wrote, and what you decided to blast as completely wrong.

Let me point something out, having a high post count doesn't allow you the luxury of personal attacks. That is not a personal attack. I clearly laid out how Neifi's presence in the linup hurt the team. Then the other guy tried to tell me how wrong I was for blaming Neifi. I didn't blame Neifi, I blamed his presence in the lineup. Neifi performed as expected. Unfortunately, Neifi as expected is an awful option for a starter, especially atop the lineup. The fact that he felt the need to point out how wrong I was put the responsibility on him to actually criticize what I really wrote, and the fact that he so blatantly misrepresented what I wrote is completely his fault.

Neifi did suck. His inability to hit wouldn't hurt a team that used him properly. But the Cubs inability to use him properly hurt them. I've been saying what I said in that post for a while. I did not take any of your thoughts and simply turn the words around.

You still lose. Burnitz wasn't the problem either. Take a closer look at LF and CF before you point fingers at RF. You'd rather of had Sosa? Why don't you? The Cubs ranked 15th in the NL in OPS from the RF spot. They were 16th from CF and 12th in LF. RF was an enormous hole that needs to be filled.

Let me then point out what is not so great about your reading comprehension skills. I repeatedly said that Neifi's presence in the lineup was the issue, not Neifi himself. I'm not blaming Neifi. I'm blaming the fact that he got 600 PA, over half of which were in the 1 or 2 hole. Can you please take the time to think about that? Neifi is fine on the bench. I said that, and I repeated it to make it very clear that I am not saying Neifi is completely worthless. If you signed Neifi to a 1 year $500,000 - $750,000 contract to be a backup middle infielder, and did whatever you could to not start him very often or let him leadoff or hit 2nd, you would be making a good decision. Perhaps a small market team would be better served finding another all glove no bat shortstop for half that price, but the Cubs can handle it. Take for instance the Dempster issue. Dempster in the rotation was a bad thing. It took a good bullpen arm out of the bullpen (putting excess pressure on lesser bullpen arms) and put a mediocre starter into the roation (when there were several similar starters who could have done the same job). Dempster starting? Bad. Dempster relieving? Good. That doesn't mean Dempster is sometimes a bad guy and sometimes a good guy. He's an unreliable mediocre starter (or worse) and a pretty good reliever. If you have him starting, and he just "does his job" your worse off than if you had him relieving, and he just "does his job". By your logic, you can't blame Burnitz for sucking in RF. He just did his job. If you look at his numbers the past couple years when he was not playing in Coors, it was pretty easy to predict what he would do in RF for the Cubs, and he did just about that. However, JB in RF and in the middle of the order did indeed severely hurt the Cubs. The Cubs got next to no production out of RF and had poor production from his spot in the order. Now, put that same guy on the bench, pay him half of what you paid him, and all of a sudden you got yourself a pretty good 4th OF. Field yourself a decent lineup with a real 3, 4, 5 and solid production out of your corner OF spots, and JB is suddenly an excellent role player. He's still the same guy. But it's the usage that matters. JB starting in RF and hitting 4th/5th? Bad. JB on the bench, occasionally starting and hitting 6th/7th? Good. Neifi's regular presence in the Cubs starting lineup, and his spot at the top of the order played a significant role in the team's failure in 2005. There is no avoiding that simple fact.

Clement would matchup well against a team like the Cubs. His biggest problem is he walks people. But the Cubs don't let guys with control problems walk them. He could easily avoid the big 30 pitch innings and scores of 3-2 counts against the Cubs, allowing him to go deeper into games than he would against a team with a decent approach at the plate.

What am I to say to this? Neifi sucked. The fact that he had to play so often hurt this team. The fact that he hit atop the order hurt this team. There were other reasons as well. SS and the OF (the entire OF) were useless, the bench was worthless, the manager was stubbornly anti-objective. Starting pitchers failed to live up to hopes and parts of the bullpen stunk. But there is no possible way to gloss over the fact that Neifi at SS was a bad thing last year. Cedeno was no guarantee to be good, but given his 2004 season and the start to his 2005 in AAA, he was an infinitely better option than Neifi. Neifi is fine for the bench at minimal cost (not necessarily the minimum, as it's hard to get any veteran to play for what the kids cost - $500k-$750k is about what he's worth). There is nothing wrong with having somebody like him on your roster, at the end of the bench. But there is something terribly wrong with giving him 600 plate appearances and letting him hit at the top of the lineup in more than half of those at bats. Neifi's presence on the roster didn't lose games, Neifi's over abundant presence in the lineup did.

The suckage in RF was just as damaging as the suckage in CF. The Cubs got the worst OPS out of CF of any NL team. But they also got the second worst OPS out of RF, and the RF normally hit in an important RBI position where he failed more than anybody in the league. LF was actually rated the highest against the league of the three OF positions, 12th. Poor personel decisions by Hendry have to go in that list. He chose that brutal OF, which many, including myself, predicted to be bad (although admittedly not that bad).

by no means am I defending that Neifi was worth that money.... but he had aboslutely NOTHING to do with us not making the playoffs last year, and to claim that he sucks because he didnt carry us to the playoffs is the most absurd thing Ive ever heard. The fact that Neifi played so much at SS and hit so often at the top of the lineup had a whole bunch to do with why the Cubs didn't make the playoffs. He's not good enough to start on a playoff contender that already has offensive issues, and he's a brutal top of the order candidate. You can't blame Neifi for not carrying this team to the playoffs, he doesn't have the talent, skills, abilities or production to be relied upon for such a task. He's a 25th man. And you don't let your 25th man leadoff or give him $6 million. Also, he's not the savior so many tried to paint him as last year. How many "where would we be without Neifi" comments did we have to hear before the truth was spoken about how handicapped this team was by his presence atop the lineup?

because our organization steers clear of guys who get on base, as a rule. hendry won't sign him because we might win with him, which would make his previous philosophy look worthless. GM's like hendry don't all of the sudden change their "conventional" ways for ways that are proven better, they just go out after guys who "can catch the ball", pitch one inning of relief, bunt, and/or steal bases and call it a day. if we make any trades, they won't be for abreu, who actually steals bases well. Seriously though, how do they not see him as "toolsy"? He's kinda fast, right? Good at defense. I just don't get it. He can't field. He does have at least 3 of the 5 tools, with decent speed (possibly being 4), although I don't think that is enough to qualify him as "speedy." I've actually thought the Cubs organization as a whole has greatly admired Giles for years. I just never understood why they didn't seem to get in on the talks when Pittsburgh was looking to move him despite having about the most team friendly post-arbitration contract in the league. And I can't understand why they wouldn't be interested now. Talks of a 5/$50-60 are legitimate reasons to stay away from Giles. But he is much better than Alou was when Moises signed and a 3/30 is completely rational.

Actually, last year Mabry hit .240 .295 .407 while Macias was .254 .274 .316. Mabry was no good, but he was significantly less terrible than Macias who was absolutely pathetic. And with Mabry, you at least have a chance of pretty decent production, as he's been over 800 in the OPS department before, and has a career .325 OBP, compared to Jose's .298. I don't want Mabry at all. He's not very valuable, is a pretty large downside risk, is old and exactly the type of player Dusty would give far too much playing time to, even if he was in a down year. But Mabry would be an improvement over Macias, and that just goes to show you how truly awful Jose is, and how truly clueless Hendry and Dusty have been with regards to Jose's employment and usage (and many others things).

It's not a matter of placing blame on Favre. It would be done so the team could hedge their bets against Brett's annual will I or won't I retire drama, and to get their first round draft pick QB some playing time, which is the only way to develop a QB.

name dropper

seriously though, spoiled brat Cubs fans? This is hilarious. It's like depression era people calling ethiopians overfed in the 80s. Spoiled? You feel spoiled by an 88, 89 an 79 win season? Do you feel obligated to give some of those wins back? I mean geez, those poor Pirates didn't come close to that, I feel like an Enron executive with all this pillaging. Spoiled. My goodness. A century of ineptness does wonders to lower some standards.

Oh goody. Personally I'm disgusted by the attitude that since the Cubs are better than they were 10 years ago, we should just be satisfied with where they are now. My distaste for Hendry can be summed up pretty easily: A top 5 payroll has produced 88, 89 and 79 win seasons. To me, that's failure. Hendry inefficiently manages his payroll, completely ignores anything resemblind modern objective analysis, and relies too heavily on old school conventional wisdom that has proved to do nothing good for this team.

Only if Macias was young, talented and earning the minimum (and was not Dusty's favorite weapon).

You seem to think Howry has turned a corner in his career at age 32. No one here disputes that Howry had a career year, but do you actually believe that one year represents what he is likely to do in the future? Yes, I do. 2005 was a career year, no doubt, but look at 2004. 44IP with 2.74 ERA. Far above average. Then the next year he further improves. If you can get anywhere in the ball park of his 2004 numbers, you'll have a very successful relief pitcher. He pitched 79 games at a 31/32 year old, so I hardly think he is wearing down yet. As far as the contract situation: Howry simply was a benifactor from a market that desired relief pitching. It would have been the same no matter who you went after. You could have gotten a pitcher for lesser money, but it would have been a lesser pitcher. It just seems no matter what happens, something negative is always found in it. I'm not just saying this situation, because there are some real reasons for complaining, but this isn't the only example. It's not like the Cubs just made a move and people decided to think of something negative. Relievers have short-shelf lives. Outside the best of the best (Wagner, Rivera, Hoffman etc), your typical reliever's career is extremely up and down. They don't get 3 years until after they've had some success, but then after they've had some success, their peak is probably already past. The Cubs are paying guys for what they did before as opposed to what they are likely to do for them in the future. You may be annoyed by all the perceived negativity, but I for one am quite annoyed at all the pleas for people to just be happy with whatever they do. It's been explained over and over why there are drawbacks, and why those drawbacks can't be ignored. This is a very risky move without a ton of upside. It's not like they are overpaying potential superstars. And while it's fine to pay a guy like Howry what they are supposedly paying him, it's not fine to just do that with several players, as the Cubs have done. If $5-6m of your payroll goes into overpaying role players, then that is $5-6m you can't spend on a player who can be an actual difference maker. And we Cubs fans are all too familar with the Cubs tendancy to fall a few million short of signing or otherwise acquiring difference makers.

I think it's good for Philly too, but I wouldn't consider their Howard production as being cheap. They are basically paying him what they are paying the WS for Thome. It kind of eliminates much of the benefit of pre-arbitration production. That's pretty much what I meant. Basically, they are paying Thome the money that Howard may very well deserve by the numbers he puts up. Okay, I just took the next to nothing comment as meaning something else. After all is said and done, they didn't get rid of a contract, just part of it, and they're still in need of some serious upgrades that will cost them elsewhere.

I think it's good for Philly too, but I wouldn't consider their Howard production as being cheap. They are basically paying him what they are paying the WS for Thome. It kind of eliminates much of the benefit of pre-arbitration production.

Nothing is a lock until the deal is official, but Thome was quoted as saying Chicago and Cleveland were places he'd be willing to play.

Speculation was Thome DH, and they could still keep Konerko for 1B. If Philly ends up paying a lot for a guy who is no longer playing for them, they might be more likely to trade an expensive player to cut costs and allow for actual improvements to the team. They will not stand pat with what they've been trying for years.