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I think that's ludicrous. The budget didn't change. He blew it. So they were negotiating with Z just for fun then? They got all the way to the point where the contract would be signed, and then Hendry looked at Z and said "Oh yeah, I forgot, I don't have any money to give you. I've known about this for a couple months, but I negotiated with you anyway. Sorry" I think that's a lot more ludicrous then to think the budget changed directly after the sale. Z's contract has nothing to do with the 2007 team. Hendry had over $100m to spend on the 2007 team and blew it, just like the $100m he blew in 2006 and the $90+ he blew in 2005. Yes, he didn't make the roster right. We're conceding that. We're talking about the trade deadline though. Hendry thought he had the budget to add a player at the deadline, and he would have had it, except the budget changed on Opening Day. Therefore, Hendry gets the blame for the 2007 roster, but not the blame for adding nobody of significance at the deadline, because the only guys he could add would be rentals.

I think that's ludicrous. The budget didn't change. He blew it. So they were negotiating with Z just for fun then? They got all the way to the point where the contract would be signed, and then Hendry looked at Z and said "Oh yeah, I forgot, I don't have any money to give you. I've known about this for a couple months, but I negotiated with you anyway. Sorry" I think that's a lot more ludicrous then to think the budget changed directly after the sale.

That's my point. Most GMs operate under a budget and can't just add to payroll. You have to build a winner in those circumstances, no excuses. Now people are trying to excuse Jim's failures because of a perceived handcuffing by ownership, when he's really just operating under the same rules as everybody else. Fair enough, but you said it backwards. "Not being able to add money to the payroll is an excuse most GM's don't get to use." = most GM's are able to add money to the payroll. No, what I said was they can't use the excuse. Everybody knows going in they have a budget. Saying in July that a GM had his hands tied by ownership isn't an excuse for not building a better team in the first place. My point is people need to quit offering up this excuse for Hendry. He's had the benefit of vastly more resources than most GMs during his tenure, now that his hands may be tied (while still using a much bigger budget) it's no excuse for failure. Everybody knows they have a budget, it's just most G.M.s know their budget. Hendry had his budget suddenly change on him by ownership Opening Day.

I can't see how he can make a trade that will be that horrible. Unless he trades with a team in the N.L. cellar, he won't be able to trade anybody on the 40 man, and how many people of value left are there that aren't on the 40 man? Basically, he'd have a hard time absolutely getting fleeced at this point, because he's limited at what he can offer.

Just think of all the years that Soriano's contract will come back and hurt us. I wonder about that. Is the Byrnes contract a signal that the market is not going to trend back down anytime soon, or has it just not happened yet? The 2007 offseason will be very interesting-if it is the spending spree around the league that 2006 was, then all the big contracts around the league won't look as bad relatively.

The strange thing about this game is that if you looked at the box score, you would have thought the Cubs would have scored a lot of runs Theriot: 3 for 5 Jones: 2 for 4, 2B, BB Lee: 0 for 3, 2 BB Floyd: 1 for 4, 1 BB DeRosa: 2 for 5, 1 2B Fontenot: 1 for 5 Murton: 2 for 4 Hill: 1 for 3, 1 BB So of the 8 positional players, every single player got on base at least once. 7 of the 8 players got on at least twice (everybody except Fontenot), and Theriot and Jones got on 3 times each. To have 17 baserunners and only manage 2 runs is very, very hard to do. It takes bad power and very bad luck on when hits are distributed, and the Cubs had both tonight.

It was hit pretty hard to center. In a normal situation, it still would have been a send, but with a 6 run deficit even a 10-15 percent chance of being thrown out is too much to risk.

Pitch Counts: Oswalt-55 Z-31

It was a contact play. With Hill up next, it was the best move to make, but it happened to be one of the easiest ground balls there could be to throw him out at the plate.

I would consider putting Jones in the 2 spot against favorable matchups right now. However, this is not one of them, and I'd rather have put DeRosa there, then Murton tonight. We'll see if it works out or not.

Not really, but you can count them up here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHC/2007_lu.shtml The Cubs are 14-7 when Pie starts in CF since June 3rd The Cubs are 14-7 when Jones starts in CF since June 3rd The Cubs are 8-9 when Pagan starts in CF since June 3rd Kendall has a little more evidence for your contention (the Cubs are 7-9 when Kendall starts) but considering that the biggest problem for the Cubs during those games is bad offense, and considering Kendall brings better offense then either Koyie Hill or Bowen, the switch to Kendall was not the reason the Cubs started losing. Welcome to the board btw.

It's possible nobody knew how bad it really was or that he was trying to hide it for a while (wouldn't you?). I can certainly understand some of his loss of thinking over the last few days because of it though-that has to be a distraction.

At worst it will be tonight-they mentioned who Monday's winner was on the Cubs radio broadcast last night.

Everyone knows what's wrong with him. He has a knee injury that he says won't be 100 percent until at least the offseason. The organization made a plan for him that involved regular days off, and they've stuck to that.

A tough inning there. Only bright side, Williams is at 75 pitches though 3.

I'm not sure about the 10 games part. The Cubs have 14 home runs since the All-Star Break-6 of those have come from Lee, 3 from Soriano, 2 from Theriot, 1 from Ramirez, 1 from Pagan, 1 from Koyie Hill

Maybe that's because he isn't a big leaguer at this point. You try and find me one other team trying to make the playoffs running that asshat out there everyday. You mean like the Dodgers running Juan Pierre out there everyday, or the Tigers running out Craig Monroe out everyday?

They could have gone down 1-2-3. That would have been a lot worse.

He'd only have to pass through 1 team (Pittsburgh) and since Hendry and the Pittsburgh G.M. are friends, my guess is that Pittsburgh wouldn't claim him.

while we do have problems against lefties.... 1. we face way more righties Seems like we're facing way more lefties lately though. There must be more lefty starters in the NL in general now because I don't remember facing this many. The Cubs have actually faced a really small amount of left-handed starters this year. They have only had 28 out of 111, which is small. This week has been really bad for them though in terms of facing left-handers. With the teams the Cubs have left, the number of left-handed starters they face should go down from what it has been recently. (In contrast in the division, Cincy has faced 32, Houston 36, St. Louis 39, and Milwaukee 40).

I was literally just tossing two lineups together. I didn't much think about who played where. A couple points: It's hard to accept people diminishing Soto's ability to at least be equal to Kendall offensively based on major league performances. He doesn't have a big enough sample to draw conclusions. What he does have are stellar PCL numbers that seem to indicate that though he's in a hitters league, he's performing at a high clip even accounting for that. Given that he's also likely much better than Kendall defensively, I see no reason not to give him an extended look. It would be tricky for him to underperform Kendall's 2007 numbers to date. As far as Pie/Jones+Pagan, it's a matter of if you believe Pie simply needs time to adjust to ML hitting. I do believe this. I think what he brings to the table defensively and his potential offensive output are enough for me to not care about the "security" Jones and Pagan bring with their abysmal 2007 numbers. DeRosa is the better option, but he needs some rest soon. He seems to be wearing down. If it were up to me, while Soriano's out we would run Murton in LF and Pie in CF, with Jones in RF. Floyd looks completely awful and Pagan is no everyday player. I'd at the least replace Hill with Soto, although I'd like to replace Kendall with Soto. I'd have Cedeno and Fontenot split time at 2B for a week or so for DeRosa to get a breather. I'd line up like: Theriot Murton Lee Ramirez Jones Fontenot Pie Soto It's not ideal. It's not particularly good. However, I do think it's better that what's being tossed out there right now, because what's being put out there right now is being put out there based on career numbers that peaked 6 years ago. Yeah, if it were me I'd bring Soto up today to replace Kendall. I'd then start playing Kendall 3 games and Soto 2 games through the rotation (since they are both big question marks-which Kendall is the real one, the one in Oakland or the one in Chicago? Which Soto is the real one)? After 3-4 turns through the rotation, they would either remain sharing time like that, or if one is hitting much better then the other one that one should get the time. As for Pie, I really believe that Jones has turned a corner. I think they had him change to a shorter swing that allows him to have a higher average (although takes some of his power out of play). His walks are up, his strikeouts are down (9 walks and 7 strikeouts in his last 77 at-bats, that's very good for a guy like Jacque). I also think Pie just needs time against ML pitching to adjust. If it were me, I would have given him that time earlier in the year. At this point though, I feel that by the time he adjusts he will end up hurting the Cubs offensively. I'd keep Pie down for now, and then bring him up a couple days before September starts (I think Pie could be a very useful bench player on the post season roster and so would like to see him brought up before September 1st). I'd trade Jones after the season, and then install Pie as the primary CF and continue to play him through slumps (although I might platoon him-I'm not sure Pie will ever be good enough to play against left-handers). As for DeRosa, I'd definitely start giving him more days off.

I'll play this game. Imagine a lineup of: Theriot Murton Lee Ramirez Floyd DeRosa Soto Pie vs a lineup of: Theriot Cedeno Lee Ramirez Floyd Jones Pagan Kendall Which one consists of 4 players that are completely useless, with no upside, and which one has 4 players in their place that at least have the potential to be better, and can't possibly be worse. I don't know why you put Cedeno in the second lineup and DeRosa in the first one-it would seem to be the other way around (all the other veterans per se are in the second lineup). As for can't possibly be worse, yes they most certainly can. Jones was having his worst year at the plate before the last month, and Pie was still worse than him. He could be better, but there is a chance that you see that .270 OBP which would kill the Cubs at this point. Soto can definitely be worse than Kendall because Soto has no guarantee of getting on base (and his very limited major league time has been lousy). There is significant chance of upside for both of those players, but both of those players could also be considerably worse than the people they are replacing. As for Murton-Pagan, I would agree with that completely, but the Cubs don't usually put Pagan anywhere but center. The same with Cedeno and DeRosa-DeRosa's the much better option.

Would he have to pass through all the AL teams first? Or just the ones with a worse record than us? No AL teams at all, just the NL teams with a worse record than the Cubs.

How many teams are above us? Right now, the Cubs are tied with L.A. and Philadelphia (have no idea how they handle waiver claims in that case). The teams in front of us are: Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Houston, Washington, Florida, St. Louis, Colorado Florida's out-salary issues. San Francisco and Pittsburgh seem unlikely-what would be the point? Houston and Colorado-probably not. That leaves Washington and St. Louis as the most likely teams to claim him, and I'm not sure the Cardinals have enough salary to make a claim (so basically they'd just be trying to block the Cubs, which I'm not sure they'd do).

I'm 99 percent sure he won't tonight. It sounds like (without considering days off) the lineup against right-handers will be: Theriot Patterson Lee Ramirez Floyd DeRosa Jones Kendall They are going to have the OF alignment be Patterson, Jones, Floyd against right-handers and Murton, Pagan, DeRosa against left-handers.