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Most really good offenses have at least one everyday natural OF who routinely puts up 900+ OPS numbers, and at least one guy who, if he isn't great in the OPS department, does have really good OBP. The Cubs have nobody that fits either bill, and the closest they do have is currently the 5th OF (Murton with the OBP). They could easily go through 2007 without a single OF putting up an OPS+ in excess of 105-110 (above average). The Yankees haven't had an OF reach .900 either of the last two years, although they have had players close. Cleveland had one OF reach .900 in 2006, and the highest OF in 2005 was .832. The White Sox had one OF over .900 in 2006, but both of their other OF's were under .700. The Phillies have had a couple OF's just a little under .900, but hasn't had an OF reach .900 each of the last 2 years. Atlanta didn't have anybody in the OF reach .900 last year, although they had one close. Two of the other 3 OF's with significant playing time though had a .742 and a .727. Texas had a couple OF's somewhat near .900 (although none over and one of them was Carlos Lee for less than half the year). The Mets had one great OF that was well over .900, but the rest were less than spectacular easily being under .800. The Tigers had a good part-time OF at .882, but their best full-time OF was at 827. Boston had a great OF-one guy well over 1.000, one over .800, and the rest between .700 and .800. The Dogers were also pretty good-one a little under .900, and then several between .750 and .900. I see the Cubs as the most similar to a team like the Dodgers. They didn't have anybody spectacular in their OF, but they didn't have all that many at-bats go to terrible players either. There simply aren't that many .900+ outfielders though, especially ones on the better offenses, and there especially isn't that many people who are almost a lock to put up 900 or over.

Then what was with all the "Soriano will play one position all year" talk? I think the plan, once they moved him to CF, was to keep him in CF. They blamed his slow start on the move and used the injury as an excuse to bail on that plan. But I don't think they ever planned on playing Soriano in CF until Pie was ready. You don't give a franchise caliber contract to a guy who you expect to keep a spot warm for a rookie. The Soriano will play one position all year talk mysteriously vanished after Soriano agreed to play CF. The team tried half the winter to not have Soriano play CF, they weren't exactly going to reverse course and have him play CF all year just because he started the year there, and I'm sure that they explained that to him before they accepted his volunteering to play the position.

Anytime you give franchise superstar money to a guy without knowing what position he'll play, and without any reasonable assurance that he'll produce at an elite level regardless of position, you're doing it wrong. Hendry's whole plan for the 2007 OF seems to have been contructed around the idea that Soriano could be a longterm CF, which was never more than wishful thinking. If by long-term you mean three months, then I would agree. They knew that Pie would be up soon, and so they first tried to get a stop-gap CF-but when they couldn't find one of those, they turned to Soriano playing CF-but he would have moved to one of the corners when Pie came up for good anyway. It just so happens that because of the injury Pie came up way early, and before Jones was traded, which has caused the huge logjam in the corner outfield.

Can't they keep all 3? It's not unheard of to have 3 TE's is it? As long as Clark and Gilmore can fill in on special teams this should work. If Reid beats one of them out, fine. But I like having the blocking TE, the all-around TE (Clark) and the pass catching threat in Olsen. Only Olsen will be making serious coin, and his salary cap number can be partially taken from the WR position, since they only have one guy making a lot of money, and Olse's role will be similar to what they'd get from a receiver. It's not unusual at all to have 3 TE's on the roster. Typically, a team will keep 3, and some teams keep 4 occasionally. I don't think drafting Olsen signifies the end for Clark. The Bears will be able to do a lot out of a 2 TE formation, and Clark will be quite valuable in that because he can both stay in and block or go out on a route. The Bears ability to mix up their plays got quite better with the pick of Olsen, and that can only help Grossman.

If Floyd wasn't here and Pie wasn't up, the OF would be Soriano, Murton and Jones, and I don't think many people would be clamoring for another guy. And if it was, it wouldn't be the redundent Floyd. Hendry bashers blame Hendry for the sub .500 record during his tenure because he is responsible for everything. Excusing him for one bad signing because he made another good one makes no sense. Exactly. The Floyd signing was unneccessary because we had sooo many guys that could play the corners. The fact that Jones can play CF made him more valuable so had I been in Hendry's shoes, I'd have passed on Floyd altogether. If you subtract Floyd and Pie, you still have 6 guys that can play the OF in Murton, Soriano, Jones, Theriot, DeRosa, and Ward. At the time though, the team didn't know if Theriot could play the OF or not, and I don't think anyone was counting on Ward to play OF. The Floyd signing looks poor now only because Pie came up so quickly (which was partly due to the Soriano injury). If Pie had been held off until June or July (which looked very possible in the offseason) and Floyd had not been signed, the bench would have been Ward/Theriot/Pagan/Cedeno/Blanco. That's not a strong bench at all, and there would have been plenty of complaints that the bench was not producing whatsoever. When Hendry signed Floyd, it basically was a signal that Pie would not be up until Jones was traded. Pie's hot start, Soriano struggling a bit in CF, and Soriano's injury changed all that.

No, you can be sent back at any time. The Colts did that to a pitcher a year or two ago-their bullpen was very tired and so they pulled up a pitcher from the minors. He got there Sunday morning, went out to the bullpen, and they ended up not using him in the game. He was shipped out that night. The Colts? Can you tell I have been reading up a little bit on the NFL draft? :D

No, you can be sent back at any time. The Cubs did that to a pitcher a year or two ago-their bullpen was very tired and so they pulled up a pitcher from the minors. He got there Sunday morning, went out to the bullpen, and they ended up not using him in the game. He was shipped out that night.

Apparently, Len said Izturis would start in this game-makes sense in that he is 7 for 12 against Armas with 3 doubles, a triple, and a home run-I didn't know that there was any pitcher where Cesar had 5 XBH in 12 AB's.

This was another strange offensive game. The Cubs 1-4 hitters got on 9 times tonight, and that part of the lineup only produced 1 run. That is definitely unusual. Based on the overall OBP and SLG numbers and the hit distribution, the Cubs should have scored somewhere between 3-5 runs tonight. Unfortunately for the team, that didn't happen. After the second run scored in the 2nd, there were still plenty of chances. Theriot grounded out with runners on 1st and 3rd in the 2nd. Murton and Barrett both had chances to drive Ramirez in from scoring position in the 3rd. Ramirez had a chance to drive Theriot home in the 5th. Ramirez had another chance in the 7th with the bases loaded. Pie had a chance in the 8th with Barrett on 2nd. Finally, Lee had a chance in the 9th. So the team had at least one runner in scoring position in the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 8th that they couldn't get home. Finally, they would have had more chances if the bottom half of the lineup had been productive whatsoever-2/16 from Murton, Barrett, DeRosa, and Pie tonight.

Over 600 at-bats, Lee is now on pace for 90 doubles on the year.

fans don't vote for pitchers Which is very bizarre. All Star games are stupid anyway, and I don't really care about the voting. But what is the point of letting fans stuff ballots for hitters and not pitchers? Do they think fans aren't capable of judging what a quality pitcher is? It's all part of making the All-Star game as pointless and archaic as possible. Seriously. Home field advantage. In the Series. Decided in an exhibition game. Idiotic. It's not like deciding it randomly was much better. Well, it wasn't decided randomly, everybody knew which league would have it going into the year. It rotated, that's not random. Yeah, I just used random in the sense that it's not related to anything about the strength of the teams playing in it or the strength of the league. Personally, I wish they'd give it to the team with the best record, but if it's down to either rotating it from league to league each year or having it won in the All-Star game, I like the All-Star game idea a little better.

fans don't vote for pitchers Which is very bizarre. All Star games are stupid anyway, and I don't really care about the voting. But what is the point of letting fans stuff ballots for hitters and not pitchers? Do they think fans aren't capable of judging what a quality pitcher is? It's all part of making the All-Star game as pointless and archaic as possible. Seriously. Home field advantage. In the Series. Decided in an exhibition game. Idiotic. It's not like deciding it randomly was much better.

Strange the different impressions people have of the draft. I don't recall the Bears ranking much higher than C in the past few years, but alas, in the final analysis, the Bears have wound up having some of the best drafts of any team out there. The Lions and Cardinals almost always rate high, then all those great players they draft fail and it turns out they 'drafted' poorly. I think alot of this is what happens from here on out: good teams turn their players into productive components. Bad teams like the Cardinals could turn a crop of all-pros into a cavalcade of bums. I think that's part of what it is. There are 2 other big factors that come into play as well: 1) The good teams often have scouting departments that look a little deeper than the "big name" guys. They often take people that seem like reaches or that people don't really know much about because they realize that this person is great for their particular system. Teams like the Lions and Cardinals draft high talent players, but often they don't fit well into the system that they employ. 2) Good teams draft not only for present needs, but for future needs. Draft grades that go into the draft don't reflect that-often you'll hear a comment puzzled on why this team drafted a person where they are already strong. However, a good team has the replacements for possible FA losses already on the roster before that person leaves, and that comes through in previous drafts-unfortunately draft graders don't think that far ahead, so it always lowers their grade.

At least it's refreshing to see a move made quickly, rather than the Dusty philosophy of letting a horrid player like Neifi start game after game with nothing being done about it. Agreed. I just hope Theriot continues his hot streak and makes it where the only part of Izturis' uniform that gets dirty is the seat of his pants from sitting on the bench. I hope Theriot can find his hot streak again-his OBP is down to .328, and his SLG is similar to that. He needs to hit better than that if he expects to keep starting long-term.

It just underscores what Quinn had to work with, i.e. very little. Yeah, a 1,000 yard rusher at running back, one receiver with over 1,000 yards and one with over 900. It was really Quinn and a bunch of scrubs back there. Just because they aren't pro prospects doesn't mean they weren't great college football players. Rhema Mcknight was a drop machine, and any RB on that roster could have gained 1000 yards. THe only weapon was Jeff S. If their drop machine WR came just over 90 yards short of 1,000 and "any" runningback could have gone over 1,000 yards, doesn't that sort of dispel the notion of having "nothing to work with"? No, it doesn't. For fairness, I want to add John Carlson-other then one bad play in the Michigan game, he was very good all season. Darius Walker had over 1,000 yards-that was entirely because of the passing offense. He's a guy who can get some yards if everybody is spread out enough-when ND needed to run, he struggled. I wasn't even sorry he left-with Quinn and everyone else leaving, Walker would have been awful next year, and probably would have lost his job to his backup. Rhema Mcknight was the quintessential good one play, horrible the next. He got his yards because ND threw deep a ton in order to try to make up points. His statistics are very deceiving-for example, the USC game. Mcknight had 6 catches, 109 yards and a TD. It sounds great-but I can tell you that Mcknight dropped 4 easy catches that cost his team the chance to keep up with USC's offense, and he was the goat. Every receiver is going to catch some balls given enough chances and accurate throws. The only things that could be counted upon last season were Quinn, Samardzija, and Carlson. The line, the rest of the receivers, and the runningbacks were all either incredibly inconsistent or simply horrible.

I don't know how to research this information, but it would be very interesting to know about the HS kids Wilken drafted in (say) the 1st and 2nd rounds in earlier drafts, for context if nothing else. I am not sure overall, but many of his first picks (some of these are when he was a cross-checker, the other ones have been as scouting director) that have really succeeded have been non-college players. Shawn Green, Shannon Stewart, Chris Carpenter, Roy Halladay, Craig Wilson, Vernon Wells, Felipe Lopez, and Alexis Rios were all drafted by Wilken in a 10 year period without going to college. He had some busts, but I think Wilken should probably be given the benefit of the doubt with regards in being able to pick out high school talent.

i find that to be a terrible idea of thinking being left handed is great, but means nothing if you cant hit lefties. Murton's career line vs. Lefties = .329 AVG .404 OBP .512 SLG Jones' career line vs. Lefties = .226 AVG .280 OBP .370 SLG I dont see the argument being made here? He said against RHP, not LHP. Murton will obviously play every time a LHP is on the mound. Also, I don't think he's trying to say what should happen, just about why it is happening. It is probably true that if the Cubs had a left-handed bat in their infield that they would be more apt to play Murton. Whether that's a right approach to take or a completely wrong approach to take, it probably is their approach.

This makes more sense now. Howry has not allowed runs in his last 2 outings and 6 out of his last 7-when he wasn't even warming up for the 8th inning the other night, the speculation was that he lost his job. That didn't make much sense though, because he had part of the 8th and 9th on Monday, and he hadn't allowed a run since then. The fact that he was unavailable for that game clears up that little bit of confusion.

I am almost completely sure that I just saw on the ESPN ticker that the Bears had signed a free agent deal with Chris Leak.

Looking ahead to the whole series using the batter/pitcher matchups: It would probably do the Cubs some good to have 3 different SS's this series. Cedeno on Monday is 7 for 16 against Duke Izturis on Tuesday against Armas is 7 for 12, 3 doubles, a triple, and a home run :shock: On Wednesday, it really could be anybody. Izturis is 3-5 against Snell, Cedeno 2-4, and Theriot 0-2-look for Theriot to get a start here because neither of the others are very definitive. In the OF-Murton and Pie should get the start tomorrow night. Tuesday night, Floyd should start in right, with either Pie or Jones in center Wednesday is again unknown, because none of the hitters even have 5 AB's vs Snell (Murton and Jones 0-4, Floyd 1-3)-my guess is Pie in center, Jones in right. Let's go Hill tomorrow night and get this series off to a good start!

I just looked up a little information-he's about 250, raw, and pretty much purely a situational pass rusher. He had 15 sacks combined the last 2 years.

The Colts continue their Ohio State draft-Roy Hall becomes the 3rd Buckeye to be drafted by the Colts this year.

The report from Chicago this morning was that Angelo wanted Anthony Gonzalez, and then traded down after the Colts took him at 32.

Theriot is now the everyday SS. He has started the last 3 games there. Piniella said that this will continue, even though he had planned to play Izturis there tonight before the cancellation of the game. Cherry replaced Wade Miller, who went on the DL because of back spasms. Guzman has started in Iowa twice, and was scheduled to come up to the majors on Tuesday to take the 5th starter's turn in the rotation-not sure how the cancellation will affect that. Jones/Murton/Floyd are all seemingly playing the same position right now, except for the days that Jones starts in center. Murton was bothered by a bad back early in the week, and then got a start on Friday. Everybody is pretty healthy right now, and Soriano has not homered yet, although he has hit a ball or two off the wall. You pretty much hit the major points though-I can't remember any big things that happened other than that.

Quite a run on linemen going on right now, both offensive and defensive.