wastra

I know that part of this is just being gun shy from year after year of the worst case scenario coming true, but the more I study this roster and the more I think about it, the less hope I have that we'll see the post season this year. I know spring training isn't the greatest predictor, but Pierre looks lost at the plate. He just looks slow with the bat. That's usually not something I see in ST...I see timing issues where guys keep guessing wrong on pitches, or swining at bad ones, but Pierre just looks slow. I can only hope he's been battling the flu or something. I'm pretty much sold on Murton- the guy has been awesome at every level he's been at. But then there's shortstop. I'm real worried there. Not only might SCedeno struggle, but if he struggles the first 2 weeks, will it be the Neifi show again all year? And Second base- Walker on the bench? Gimme a break. I understand the need for strong defense, but our offense might wind up being dismal with our 3rd or 4th best hitter seeing only 1/3rd of the at bats at 2nd. And I'm going to go ahead and write Jones off as Burnitz II (without the solid arm). That brings me to another point...our outfield might track down a good number of balls this year, but there's not a good arm in the group. And with Prior and Wood out, and Maddux and Rusch in (why can't THEY be hurt instead?), I see us with a real real tough start to the season. I'm looking for hope here. What am I missing? Where is this $100 million payroll going to pay off for us? In the field, aside from 1st and 3rd (and catcher), are we fielding any really good players at any position?

While I disagree that this roster is not plainly better than at least Cincy and Pittsburgh, I do think he makes valid points that our organization doesn't seem to be taking any meaningful steps forward.

WOW. This is just an amazing negative post. I understand that there is a certain truth to some of these statements, but I can't agree with the absolutes in that post. This is not the greatest pitching windfall in Cubs history, and he didn't "squander" anything. He did what a GM is supposed to and set up a team for sucess. Unfortunately, it didn't happen but saying that Hendry is a bungling GM is far from the truth. I think given our inability to field a consistant offense in the past 4 years despite one of the highest NL payrolls, have mightily bungled the 40 man roster on mutliple occassions that cost us blue-chip prospects, have produced, apparently, only one major league position player on our 25 man roster (unless Theriot makes it), and the fact that we have yet to capitalize on what should have been the best stretch of starting pitching we've had in back to back years or more in my lifetime is indeed grounds to say that Hendry may have bungled the job. It's not just negativity to say that where the Cubs are as an organization is a major disappointment compared to where it was headed 3-4 years ago.

OBP should be better this year- but still mediocre overall (from bad last year) barring lots of surprises. But it's important to note the difference between patient hitters who take lots of walks and guys who just make great contact. Our guys tend to be swingers who don't walk a lot, meaning their OBP is mostly tied not to patience, but to how often the balls they hit don't find a defender. The result is the same at the end of the year, but during the season, it lends itself to inconsistancy. When your ability to get on base is tied mostly to your ability to get it where they ain't with little reliance on making the pitcher throw strikes, it means that when the hitter slump (as every single team does during the season), there's no one on base. It's the same issue we had last year where we might score 10 in a given game when the hits are falling, and then 1 the next two games because we're just not making solid contact. That means we should see some improvement, but we'll still be likely be subject to maddening periods of offensive ineptitude agaisnt junk ballers who force us to put the ball on the ground. Again, almost to a man, our team is full of guys who swing hard and are dead-red fastball hitters. They're tougher to strike out than other swingers, but they CAN be shut down for fairly sizeable stretches by limiting their ability to drive the ball, whereas someone who takes walks with regularity can still get on base consistantly even if he's not hitting well. We COULD range anywhere from gawd-awful to very good with this offense. There are a lot of 'maybes,' 'ifs,' and 'hopefuls' up and down the order. MAYBE murton can be as good as he looked in his short stint. MAYBE Lee can duplicate a career seasone unlike anything he'd ever had before HOPEFULLY Jones and Pierre's poor 2005 seasons were aberrations and they can return to their numbers for 3-4 years ago. IF Cedeno plays more often than Neifi and HOPEFULLY can hit better than in ST IF Ramirez can stay healthy for a change. These are different than saying something like "If Pujols stays healthy" or "If Edmonds drops off" because Pujols has shown a track record of playing healthy and Edmonds, despite age, is still a really good player in his most recent season, whereas our ifs are all on the negative side (all the recent performances are sub-par), or without track record (Murton and Cedeno have no similar major league track record). That SHOULD lead to some concern for a knwledgeable baseball fan. It doesn't mean you can't HOPE for better or even EXPECT better, but anyone who has followed baseball for many years SHOULD udnerstand that the law of averages in baseball is usually not good for the teams with multiple question marks. to ignore them, or brush them off as "pessimism" is to deny reality. they are legit concerns. Baseball roster-building is most definitely the perfect example of needing to "prepare for the worst, but hope for the best." hendry, on the other hand, prepares for the best, and hopes for "not the worst" by consistantly fielding teams that will require lots of luck and career seasons/career resurgent seasons to get us to the world series.

I'm not sold on this offense at all. I'm not bashing it as a failure prematurely either. But I have deep reservations. Generally, when you go into a season with 2-4 "ifs" in the lineup, a lot of thos "ifs" don't work out the way you'd hope. Lee and Ramirez (and probably Walker) are truly the only givens in this entire lineup. We have two guys coming off horrid years compared to what we're expecting/needing from them (Jones and Pierre). We have two youngsters with under 200 career at bats who MUST produce (Murton and Cedeno), and a Catcher who has indeed battled some serious injuries in his career. If they should fail, our bench (while solid enough as backups) aren't likely to be the type of "answers" we'd need for long term either. Grissom/Restovich/whomever the other outfielder is/Mabry aren't exactly every day players or guys you'd want filling in more than a game a week. Perez is...well...we all know how he fares. Hairston is a bit of a wild card. He's anotehr guy coming off a poor year by his standards, but if he's close to what he was before last year, could be a nice sub in the OF and IF. And we're very one dimensional still aside from (hopefully) Pierre. We don't have guys who work the count and just get on base a lot. We have guys whose OBP is morea product of their quick bats and difficulty in strikign them out (RAmirez) and intentional walks (Lee). This is fine, except that all hitter slump. This means that on days we're not making good contact, we won't get on base at all, leading to lots more 2-1 snoozers. So there's potential to be solid, but equal potential to be horrid. I'll reserve judgement. We COULD be pretty good if Murton and or cedeno pan out, and Pierre and Jones return to the form they had years ago.

I like the thought of Restovich being our right handed corner outfield bat off the bench. He has far more potential than Grissom, I think, LOL. He;s not a prospect, but he looks like he could be coming into his power.

And as has already been said in so many words: It's bad management to throw all your eggs into one basket (starting pitching) when that basket has a LOOOOOONG history of injury risk, and you back it up with mediocre defense at at least 2 of 3 outfield spots and 2 of 4 infield spots AND at the starting catcher. This team lacks a strategy. The Sox last year were built to hit and run, pitch well, and plays great defense. The whole roster was geared for that. Ours has no rhyme nor reason. What we're going for with the pitching staff isn't reflected in the roster that will hit and field for them. And I applaud Hendry for the bullpen signings. There was a stretch last year when there wasn't an arm in the pen I wanted to see warming up. At least gettign a strong pen fits into the pitching strategy.

This is a very unbalanced offense with TONS of question marks. Anyone confident about it placing their confidence in little mroe than hope. Pierre and Jones are coming off pretty poor seasons- Jones may actually be a downgrade in right from Burnitz if he doesn't bounce back. Cedeno is unknown- although since we didn't have Nomar much at all at short, it's probably a wash at worst. Murton is actually the only player I'm fairly certain will be an upgrade, and I still have to caveat that with saying he's only had a couple hundred major league a t bats, so it's risky to think pitchers won't find a weakness. Lee and Barrett had career years- Lee by a wide margin. Will he repeat? Will Barret stay healthy? To be fair, the only positions we can be fairly certain of getting solid production are 1st, 3rd, and second, with Barret being a likely 4th. The other 5 positions stand a chance based upon what we know, of all being below average.

I love the idea of spreading the round robin rounds across several months. It isn't as big a time difference, and it doesn't force these teams to play all the games before pitchers have got their "stuff" back. Plus, owners should be less worried about losing one or two of their players for one game per month or so tops, especially if some of the games are played in the offseason and ST. Just allow a 40-45 man roster with 30 active players to allow for injuries over the course of the year. 10-15 are alternates who only suit up if one of the others can't play. Have a spring weekend where teams play 2-3 games in one weekend, a summer (like around the all star break) and then the tournament at the end. It would kinda be like a season within a season.

Well he did suck and failed miserably at running the Texas Rangers. Actually, financially, he did very well running the Rangers. He's primarily responsible for getting the new ballpark together, which was the catalyst for the Rangers' run of strong play in the mid-late 1990s. Attendance and revenues were the highest in team history in the final year of his tenure. The value of hte franchise rose as well- his $606,000 ownership share was worth almost $15 million by the time he sold it in 1994. Really, He did a pretty solid job-one could argue an outstanding job based upon previous Rangers' owners- as managing partner of the Rangers- granted, I think the qualities needed for that are far different than those needed for President. He was a great lobbyist for baseball in the state and nationally, and the players association and the owners were both very complimentary of his attempts to avoid the work stoppage in 1994- some of the MLBPA board even calling for him to become MLB commish if he lost the Texas Governor race he has resigend in order to pursue. Actually, I think being MLB commish might be a better role for him than President- conservative/liberal/religious doesn't matter so much in baseball. He can't deficit spend as MLB commish, nor can he send ballplayers to war. As for throwing out the first pitch- Baseball games are no place for politics, so I think it's great the President (whatever his name or party might be) is throwing out the first pitch at America's National Pastime. That's an instance where I applaud the position, not the man. Granted, If he tries to give a speech, I might change my opinion, LOL! I can hear it now: "It's an honor to be here in Cinshinastickti. [insert cheesy grin] As many of you can rememberate, I was involved with the sport of basebulb for many years."

I'm not real concerned with predicting OBP/SLG numbers per position. I don't care if we have 8 sinkholes in the lineup if we win games. Overall, I see the main strength of this team being the bullpen, which is a nice upgrade over our setup issues last year. The rotation is only a plus if Wood and Prior pitch soon and stay healthy. otherwise, it will be a weakness for us this year. Defensively, I don't think we improved any. Burnitz and CPatt were fine defensively, and Murton didn't exactly look likea gold glover out there. Pierre and Jones can both run and catch, but neither has a good outfield arm, so I think we'll actually be a bit worse than last year in the outfield defensively. In the infield, we'll be pretty much the same except that Cedeno and PErez are far superior defensively to Nomar and Perez. Our bench is slightly upgraded with Mabry, and I hope they take Restovich as the Righty corner outfield bat off the bench rather than Grissom and let Hairston be the backup CF in addition to seeing time at 2B. I think Restovich has got potential to hit for power, too. Offensively, it's very hard for me to be ecited about this team. We'll have many of the same issues as last year, and we're counting on a lot of "ifs" as well. Both Pierre and Jones are coming off career-worst years in terms of BA. Lee looked great last year, but I don't think we can expect him to maintain the same level. Cedeno is a big question mark. Actually, the only 4 people who don't worry me right now on offense are Lee, Ramirez, Barret, and Murton, and I don't really consider that a big-time offensive core. And more importantly- I think we did not address the OBP problem. Not that we didn't get a leadoff hitter who'll be an improvement over Patterson- I think that's clear that we did even if Pierre just repeats. But we don't have any real "consistant" obp guys on the team at all...they're all pretty much all or nothing, and thus very streaky aside from Lee and maybe ARam and Gawd knows about Murton (yet). And every time PErez and Blanco start, we lose two more potential OBP guys to some degree (I doubt Cedeno has much over a .310-.320 OBP this year anyway). And our team is almost completely filled with dead-red fastball hitters. So the problem will be, IMO, that our runs will come in bunches...perhaps a few more bunches than last year, but I still see lots of lineups with lots of futile swings and lots of scoring droughts against bad pitchers. So: my prediction is on wins. Fairly healthy rotation (By May, Wood and Prior are healthy from then on): 81-88 wins. More injuries to the rotation (again): 72-81 wins.

That's pretty much the reality of the situation. As a Cub fan, it's not a whole lot of fun to be on the other end of the lies. I don't think it's too much to expect honesty for the money we give to this franchise. If they want to protect injured players' rights to privacy, I'm fine with that. Make a blanket policy statement: We will not discuss player health unless league rules dictate we must. Don't come out on the radio & in the newspapers with blatant lies: "He's fine" "There's no injury, he's just building strength" yada yada yada. Just report the truth, or state it is not club policy to disclose. There's no excuse for lies, over & over. Other teams don't do this. Pretty much it's only the Cubs who have institutionalized lying about player health. Or, of course, there is the possibility that he really wasn't hurt and they were just using a gradual buildup program like Rotschild had been saying he would do this year since last ST. But I guess since you have decided that them lying is the "reality of the situation" it is since you have so much proof that he was really injured. I love conspiracy theories but this one makes no sense because no one involved in the so called conspiracy had anything to gain from a cover up. I'm not sure they have nothing to gain. Keeping injuries quiet prior to selling tickets is a good reason, even if Wrigley is usually a good bet to sell out. Keeping additional heat off of a management which has been racked with questions regarding its forthrightness and early identification of injuries is certainly another advantage. The Chicago Cub management over the last 3 years or so has been inept with every aspect of injuries to its players. Keeping that discussion out of the papers is beneficial to everyone involved. For anyone to even suggest that the Cubs have been competent in the area of injuries is ridiculous. I don't understand the argument. In order to avoid the "heat" regarding early identification of injuries and to keep that discussion out of the papers you are accusing them of supposedly conspiring in holding back on reporting the early identification of an injury and in the process generating an enormous amount of discussion about that in the papers? How do they gain from that? A lot of it has to do with money. THey don't want people not buying tickets (season or otherwise) or TV stations dropping games if they know some AAA callup is pitching instead of Mark Prior. Fan happiness is important to baseball franchises. The marketing firm I worked for years ago handled marketing for the Louisville Riverbats (now just the Louisville "Bats"), AAA Cincy franchise. We used to help write and submit PR releases for them, and their PR department used to tell me that they'd always delay possible injuries to marquee players because there were always certain segments of fans who came to the park because of that one player- or becuase they wanted to see a certain pitching matchup. By waiting until the last moment to release such news, he used to say that "they'd never get pre-empted by the cow auctions" on the radio, lol. (An exagerration, since they had a radio contract, but you get the point.)

Wuertz has the clear-cut inside track of all our homegrown guys to make the roster just because for most of last year, he was the ONLY righty setup man we could rely on at all. That's big when talking about spots up for grabs...muich bigger than how he fares in ST, IMO. Contrary to popular belief, ESPECIALLY with this club, rarely do multiple guys actually win spots in ST. IMHO, the only person who CAN this year is Marquis Grissom among position players. 13 position players: Lee Ramirez Barrett Cedeno Walker Hairston Perez Mabry Murton Pierre Jones Blanco Grissom? (5th outfielder/UT.) 12 Pitchers: Zambrano Rusch Maddux Prior* Wood* Williamson Howry Eyre Ohman (close to a lock, given we don't have a ton of other lefties for him to compete with) Dempster Wuertz/Novoa (Novoa should be his only competition right now...Wlly, despite his electric fastball, has never been consistant enough to bump either. BOTH if we carry 12 pitchers, which I think likely.) (assuming Prior/Woody are DL'd): *Hill *Williams both in rotation Really, IMO- the only question marks are Wuertz, Novoa, Hill, and Williams with Grissom or a Greenburg type on the position side.

Dopirak had to be added to the 40-man roster. All players on the 40 man are invited to ST. Patterson hasn't been in the system long enough to necessitate his being on the 40-man. He'll get called up from minor league camp to appear in some games, but he isn't training in major league camp. That, and we already have 3 potential 2Bs in ST already, not counting some of our potential utility/infield guys at AAA who are in camp. EP would have had a very very hard time getting at bats what with the "competition" between Walker, Hairston, and Perez.

If that Cuba/Panama game and now this US/Canada game can't get people hyped about the WBC, nothing can. Varitek hit the snot out of that ball!

Fantasy scoring is not based on metrics or averages. it's based on raw production totals. OPS has little bearing if the player doesn't get tons of at bats because a lesser OPS with double the at bats of a better actual hitter can produce more raw totals. hence, an .825 OPS guy with 400 at bats might produce fewer hits, homers, rbi, etc than a .780 OPS hitter who gets 600 AB. Fantasy BB is scored (usually) on those totals, not the metrics that produced them. Playing fantasy isn't about finding the best "player", it's about finding the most "numbers." So an additional consideration in setting a lineup or drafting players is exepected playing time. A great rookie who is expected to platoon might be worthless in fantasy baseball.

I am VERY excited about the classic. Folks, I love the Cubs, and I love MLB but I just LOVE baseball. And I have never seen ANY competition in a sport that is international, where teams play for national pride, where it wasn't among the most exciting games those sports play all year. The olympics, Ryder cup, world cup, etc- they're all so passionately played, and all mean so much to those playing that I can't help but share in their excitement. Now- that being said, I understand the risk it entails and why that is not a good thing. I think the WBC should be only an every-other year type thing, or every 4 years like the olympics. That's one reason those other events are so special- they're rarer than a regular season event. With all of that in mind, Ramirez is a good example of a player who probably SHOULDN'T play in this thing, and I'm relatively glad he isn't. he's always worn down in the season, and his injuries tend to be less freakish (ala Nomar's) and more "wear and tear" type of problems that only rest and excercise cures. So in HIS case, I'm glad he's sitting this one out.

Well, I think Murton will get the bulk of the left field at bats at least through the first couple months. I'm no fan of Baker, but I really think that any fool can see that he has little choice. HOWEVER, I think it is highly likely that Mabry and Grissom will get 30-40 outfield starts EACH this year. If that is on occassion spelling Jones in right against tough lefties, that's not necesarilly a bad thing. In the first 30 games, I'll put the over/under on starts (could include infield starts for Mabry): Mabry: 7 Grissom: 7 Murton: 20 I will, however, say that it wouldn't SHOCK me to see a situation in which Murton is only getting about 55% of the at bats in left with Grissom/Mabry in far too often. I don't EXPECT it, but it wouldn't be all THAT much out of character for Dusty. As long as Grissom and Mabry are used for defensive purposes and to keep Ramirez rested at third, I don't mind seeing a few at bats from them assuming we're already up when they come in!

Dusty can talk all he wants. The bottom line is that with very very few exceptions, when given the option, he's almost ALWAYS taken the bad veteran over the youngster with more potential, and he's used the bad veteran incorrectly almost 100% of the time. Neifi is the perfect example. No matter what he says about playing Cedeno or Walker, until he shows us that he's no longer infatuated with this ineffective player, we're not buying what he's selling.

As a traditionalist, I like the road grays. But I also like the red bills on the road caps. They're easily my favorite Cubs caps. Our blue unis look like BP unis to me. I'm happy with the pinstripes at home and the traditional road grays. I wouldn't mind seeing a new look to the script/design of the grays- they're just a little plain as-is.

I'm not worried about Cedeno not having good OBP. He should have anywhere from .350 to .380 OBP. Murton can match or even surpass that, but his higher SLG% is better suited for driving in runs. I think if you're expecting an OBP in the range you mentioned; you're going to be disappointed at seasons end. That would pretty much make him one of the top 7-10 Shortstops in the game, wouldn't it? I thinks that's INCREDIBLY unrealistic, fwiw.

How about the "Tampa Bay Mismanagements?"

I don't hate Neifi at all. I think He is vastly overvalued by the Cubs' brass and Dusty, and I think that over-value translates to too many dollars in his contract and too many minutes on the field that wind up hurting the team in other areas. He's apparently a good clubhouse guy. He'd make a fine 24th or 25th man on any roster. The problem is that he's going to be getting 250+ at bats (bank on that) this year and offensively, he's just not good. If he were our late inning defensive replacement, and got the occassional spot-start every couple weeks, he'd be fine. The biggest issue is that we have a manager who beleives in getting as much work from our bench as possible. With that in mind (and I'm not criticising that philosophy), you MUST make sure you have an above average bench. We don't. We have a terribly imbalanced bench of questionable value (at best) in a starting role.

It's not as if he's putting all his eggs in the pitching basket and doesn't have the RESOURCES to get a good lineup, too, though. Hendry is spending lots of money on mediocre guys who can't get on base INSTEAD of spending the same amount of money on guys who can do so at a better clip. He doesn't get a pass for not fielding a good rotation AND a good lineup because he's had the resources to do just that- yet he's failed miserably to do so. With the top payroll in the NL, or even top 3, there's no excuse for not being well above average in pitching AND offense. We might not be #1, but 3 years or so of ranking around 7-10 in offense is ridiculous with the salary and payroll he's working with- commitments to pitchers' salaries not withstanding.

Offense is about not making outs. period. All else beign equal, if, over the course of a season, you send your guys to the plate thousands of times, and make significantly fewer outs per PA than your opponents, you'll likely outscore them. I think that's pretty logical. Hence, OBP directly relates to not making outs. Next is slugging, because it determines whether or not you're jsut dumping a single to right every inning or actually hitting it hard. OBVIOUSLY, if given the choice between two otherwise identical players, a manager/scout/person would take the one with better speed and better fundamentals. But things are never equal in baseball, so we take into account the most vital offensive statistics FIRST, then look to the others if we need a dealbreaker.