CubColtPacer

Ok, going in most people said that the Cubs needed a big bat, a second baseman, a possible shortstop (only possible because very few were on the market), and starting pitching. Not many people really wanted a good center fielder because nobody wanted to block Pie for too long, and several people wanted Pie to start in the majors from the beginning of they year. Here are the candidates-I'm going to put board favorites (who the majority of the board wanted, not necessarily everybody) in italics and Hendry signings in bold: Big Bat: Alfonso Soriano-.305/.353/.542-8 years, 136 million Carlos Lee-.296/.349/.522-6 years, 100 million J.D. Drew-.257/.371/.392-5 years, 70 million Remember also that Soriano was signed as a RF originally. Second Baseman: Mark DeRosa-.286/.363/.452-3 years, 13 million Ray Durham-.253/.321/.405-2 years, 14 million Marcus Giles-.252/.325/.346-1 year, 3.2 million Adam Kennedy-.212/.283/.256-3 years, 10 million Ronnie Belliard-.290/.329/.381-minor league deal Todd Walker-.271/.288/.292-minor league deal Also note that Durham and Kennedy (and Walker) were all type A free agents, while DeRosa was a type B because he was listed as an OF. Shortstop: Julio Lugo-.189/.260/.281-4 years, 36 million Alex Gonzalez-.253/.301/.456-3 years, 14 million Royce Clayton-.231/.281/.327-1 year, 1.5 million Not a lot of options there-I'm glad the team avoided the Lugo disaster though. Starting Pitching Jason Marquis-3.31 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 133 ERA+ (3 years, 21 million) Ted Lilly-3.84 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 115 ERA+ (4 years, 40 million) Barry Zito-4.61 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 93 ERA+ (7 years, 126 million) Daisuke Matsuzaka-3.80 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 117 ERA+ (6 years, 52 million, plus 51 million posting fee) Jason Schmidt-6.31 ERA, 1.79 WHIP, 69 ERA+ (3 years, 47 million) Gil Meche-3.26 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 143 ERA+ (5 years, 55 million) Miguel Batista-4.63 ERA, 1.60 WHIP, 93 ERA+ (3 years, 25 million) Adam Eaton-5.75 ERA, 1.50 WHIP, 77 ERA+ (3 years, 24.5 million) Kei Igawa-6.91 ERA, 1.56 WHIP, 61 ERA+ (5 years, 20 million, plus 26 million posting fee) Mark Mulder-hasn't pitched yet this year (2 years, 13 million) Tomo Ohka-5.79 ERA, 1.61 WHIP, 78 ERA+ (1 year, 1.5 million) Vincente Padilla-6.69 ERA, 1.81 WHIP, 68 ERA+ (3 years, 33.75 million) Jeff Suppan-4.90 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 87 ERA+ (4 years, 42 million) Jeff Weaver-6.75 ERA, 1.68 WHIP, 62 ERA+ (1 year, 8.325 million) Kip Wells-6.30 ERA, 1.59 WHIP, 67 ERA+ (1 year, 4 million) Greg Maddux-3.66 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 110 ERA+ (1 year, 10 million) Woody Williams-5.47 ERA, 1.49 WHIP, 79 ERA+ (2 years, 12.5 million) Randy Wolf-4.33 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 101 ERA+ (1 year, 8 million)-note on Wolf-he turned down multiple 3 year deals to go home. And one trade target discussed quite a bit: Jake Westbrook-6.10 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, 71 ERA+ Well, there were tons of horrible contracts handed out to pitchers as you can see. Bench Daryle Ward-.319/.448/.404 (1 year, 1.05 million) Craig Wilson-.172/.304/.259 (1 year, 2 million) Henry Blanco-.194/.231/.250 (2 years, 5.25 million) Cliff Floyd-.295/.364/.404 (1 year, 3 million) Trot Nixon-.244/.341/.329 (1 year, 3 million) Jose Cruz Jr.-.256/.336/.396 (1 year, 650K) The bench is a mixed bag. Ward has been a success, and Blanco has been a flop. Signing Wilson or Nixon wouldn't have helped at all, and the Floyd signing is still up in the air. I think Hendry did a very good job this year of avoiding the awful contracts. I remember plenty of people saying how smart the Red Sox were to sign Drew and Lugo for the same money as Soriano and DeRosa like the Cubs did-I think you can realize how bad this team would be now if that had been reversed. Same if the Cubs had gone with Schmidt, Padilla, or Westbrook.

Sounds good to me. I knew another Ramirez day off was coming soon, and this seems like the best day to do it (and the Cubs got lucky-it gets even better compared to other days when you consider that Aramis has not been good against Redding). Hopefully this is his last day off before the break.

Well, the Cubs are no closer to the lead in the WC, but the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place team all lost. So the Cubs remain 5 out of LA, 3.5 out of Arizona, 1 out of Atlanta, and now are tied with Philadelphia for 4th. A Cubs win today and they will either move within 4 games of the WC or be in a tie with Atlanta for 3rd.

I agree. If we have to lose him, there is no better time than now (not that he's been contributing anyway) The Cubs still face 3 left-handers this week. I'd rather put Ward in against mostly right-handers (the dropoff from Lee to Ward against right-handers is not all that much, against left-handers it's huge). If you look at the Cubs schedule, there will be plenty of places where the Cubs face bad teams (3/4 or so of their games left are with teams under .500). Lee can miss some of those games instead, and hopefully the team won't face 3 left-handers that week (which is abnormally high). I know this is a longshot, but what are the odds that we see Hoffpauir during the time Lee is out? It would probably help if he was a righty considering that Ward bats left as well. OK I just wanna see Hoff in the majors... he's really tearing it up at Iowa with 73 RBIs. I see it as extremely unlikely. The Cubs don't even have enough roster spots to have 12 pitchers right now. How are they going to find a roster spot to bring Hoffpauir up? I'm sure they'd at least consider it if it weren't for that issue, but there simply won't be any space for him.

I agree. If we have to lose him, there is no better time than now (not that he's been contributing anyway) The Cubs still face 3 left-handers this week. I'd rather put Ward in against mostly right-handers (the dropoff from Lee to Ward against right-handers is not all that much, against left-handers it's huge). If you look at the Cubs schedule, there will be plenty of places where the Cubs face bad teams (3/4 or so of their games left are with teams under .500). Lee can miss some of those games instead, and hopefully the team won't face 3 left-handers that week (which is abnormally high).

They delayed his hearing until after the All-Star break.

The Phillies loss moves the Cubs into a tie with them for 4th place in the WC. The Diamondbacks loss moves the Cubs to within 3.5 games of them.

Because the pitching in AAA absolutely SUCKS. Seems like most teams anymore put their best pitching prospects in AA, and when they're ready, promote them straight to the bigs. Not an absolute rule, of course, but it's happening much more frequently than in the past. The net effect is that the quality of AAA pitching is significantly diluted. Look at the Cubs recent young pitching promotions as one example. For all practical purposes, Sean Marshall, Carlos Marmol, and Billy Petrick made the jump straight from AA. Only Rich Hill and Mike Wuertz saw significant AAA time in the minors. And look at the Cubs minor league rosters right now. Until Sean Gallagher's recent cup of coffee in Chicago, for which he earned a roundabout promotion from Knoxville to Des Moines, the Iowa staff "featured" the likes of Les Walrond, John Webb, Ryan O'Malley, JR Mathes and Ben Howard; yikes. Meanwhile, AA has had Sean Gallagher, Donnie Veal, Billy Petrick and Mark Holliman, amongst others. This is a good point. The PCL has been a huge hitters league this season (the 8th best hitting team in the PCL has a better OPS than the 2nd best team in the majors, and that is with only 16 teams to choose from rather than 30 like MLB). Cedeno absolutely kills bad pitching-he has the swing to hit mistakes very hard. It's just the good pitchers who know how to pitch to his weaknesses that can get him out consistently. I still think he should get a shot, but that's a big warning sign to me.

I'm not too concerned at the moment (any more than any game). I think it will end up being a game where the game thread feels like the Cubs are losing with all the comments about why can't the Cubs score more off Redding, and in all actuality the Cubs will be winning throughout and win 4-2.

I can understand why they wanted to get Howry in. He hadn't pitched since Friday, so they wanted him to get some work. He obviously showed why he needed the work, as he was quite rusty. Hopefully he shook off the rust tonight to be ready for a save situation tomorrow.

The ERA for that Pirate reliever just went from 2.53 to 7.94.

The Brewers get out of it-still 3-3 going to the 6th. Suppan has 106 pitches though through 5.

That's what I am hoping for-let's get over half their bullpen in the game tonight, and then they won't have as many available when Redding pitches tomorrow. That was just 37 pitches by Traber in the last inning-he can't last much longer if at all. I'm also hoping for a complete game from Lilly. That would give everyone in our pen except Marmol two days of rest. Yeah, like others have said, that probably will be too much to ask for with Lilly's pitch count. Hopefully the Cubs can keep it a blowout and Eyre can come in and mop up though. Also, Z is pitching tomorrow, so the bullpen probably won't have to go that long with how deep he has been going in games.

That's what I am hoping for-let's get over half their bullpen in the game tonight, and then they won't have as many available when Redding pitches tomorrow. That was just 37 pitches by Traber in the last inning-he can't last much longer if at all.

I think hes stuck on the bench for the foreseeable future until he has a good game or two. :( Tough to have a good game from the bench. Tough to develop when you're on the bench too. I also love how we are willing to accept crap offense from our Catcher and Shortstop for the sake of defense, but we can't do the same in center field. From all his quotes, I truly think Lou believes that he is doing the best thing for Pie long-term. If what he is doing right is very questionable, but I think his intent is good.

It may just be me, but it seems like lineups for Cubs games always come out later than lineups for other games. Most of the time they do-the Cubs lineups are almost always one of the last ones to come out. I guess Lou likes to tinker with it until the very last moment.

At least the Brewers see two decent pitchers against Pittsburgh Yes but Gorzelanny gets negated by the fact that he's a lefthander (which the Brewers KILL) and the fact that he is going up against Sheets. Yeah. I think tonight and Wednesday nights are the two best chances for the Pirates to steal a game (Wednesday night the best one). For the Cubs, their hardest games are going to be Thursday (where Bergmann has been quite good going up against Marshall) and then probably Wedensday (a left-hander (Chico) against Hill))

I would agree with that-although they are playing 7 games this week. They need to win 4 at the very minimum, and 5 definitely shouldn't be considered a stretch. The thing is though-these are the type of teams that the Cubs play most of the rest of the season. Other than the occasional series against a good team, most of the rest of the year is filled with series against the Pirates, Reds, Astros, Cardinals, Nationals and Giants. 55 of their last 82 games are against those 6 teams, and those are the teams they need to beat up on the rest of the year if they are thinking about the playoffs.

Another silly list from SI-what a surprise :D It's hard to rank the owners, sure. But Dan Snyder ahead of people like Dan Rooney, Jim Irsay, or Jeffrey Lurie? If Dan Snyder is the 5th best owner in the league, then the league is in serious trouble. Also, just reading through farther, he mentions that Arthur Blank got nothing in the Matt Schaub deal (when most people thought that Atlanta got the much better end of that deal) and should just go ahead and cut Vick. There are ridiculous statements all over the place-I have no idea how this guy is an NFL writer.

LOL-you at least let him throw the pitches he wants for a while and see if he has success doing that before you release him. The Cubs don't seem to care about his numbers right now-they are convinced that his secondary pitches are going to come around, and they don't care how bad statistically his first year is as long as they develop. I'm greatly concerned about their progress though-I would think one of his pitches would be getting better by now (which it is possible that it is without showing results yet, but somewhat unlikely).

Well, a team like Florida did want Jones-they even wanted him to be a starter. They just didn't want to pay him very much (or couldn't afford to on their budget).

Hadn't heard that.... but my friends at ESPN didn't get the memo either. They still have Duke listed as the starter for next Sunday. Yeah-leave it to ESPN to be late. One last note on Youman-he was also on that LSU championship team with Theriot, Fontenot, and Brad Hawpe.

Here's what I've got..... but you know how fast things can change...... Gm# Date Opponent Score Starter Opp Starter 81 Mon 07/02 @ Washington - Lilly Simontacchi 82 Tue 07/03 @ Washington - Zambrano Bowie 83 Wed 07/04 @ Washington - Hill Chico 84 Thu 07/05 @ Washington - Marshall Bergmann 85 Fri 07/06 @ Pittsburgh N - Marquis Maholm 86 Sat 07/07 @ Pittsburgh N - Lilly Van Benschoten 87 Sun 07/08 @ Pittsburgh - Zambrano Duke Duke was put on the DL yesterday (good for the Cubs-never like to see a player get injured, but the Cubs have been just awful against him). It's likely to be Shane Youman on Sunday (he got called up from the minors and will be taking Duke's slot tomorrow night against the Brewers). Youman is a left-hander who does not have good numbers at all on the season, but 3 of the last 4 starts have been excellent. It's too bad it's not Chacon-look at what Ramirez has done against him. 9/15, 5 HR, 3 2B, 1 BB

Well, if you're looking for a team to rip off in a trade, Texas is the most likely option to agree to it.

Marshall has been in the majors for about a year-4/5 of a season last year, and 1/5 of a season this year. Only the 1/5 of the season this year has been good-I'm not sure how you can call him consistent yet. Z is the only pitcher in the major leagues to be in the top 15 of ERA every year for the last 4-how much more consistent can you get than that? With the way he's pitching lately, he could make it 5 in a row. i didn't say marshall was consistent i said he's more consistent than z And like I said, Z has been one of the most consistent pitchers in the major leagues the last 4 years. He gives you almost the same production every single year. except this one i suppose This year is only half over, and the way Z is pitching it seems likely that it will end up being a very similar year to his previous 4.