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I don't know if I'd call it scapegoating because it was Hendry's decision and I don't blame Miller for signing. The Cubs don't need him on the roster, that I'm not 100% sure off. Why, because I like to have the most options possible and this would have given the Cubs another positive option. It could have allowed the Cubs to trade Eyre(+) and get a SS or another player that could help. Who do you think the Cubs could get more value for right now, Campusano or Miller? Some of your feeling on this is hindsight. The Cubs signed him last year before a number of our pitching prospects got their feet wet at the ML level. One could argue that one or more of the prospects could out perform him (and probably be correct). However, after taking the flier on him last year, and knowing that guys usally recover in their second year removed from TJS, I totally understand why the Cubs resigned him. They would have hated to pay him to sit for a year only to watch some other team reap the potential benefits this year... I still think Miller has more value, right now, than Campusano. Wade Miller may still be effective if he learns to change speeds and hit his spots (that doesn't mean he's right for this team). I'd be willing to bet that more teams would gamble on him, right now, for $1M than be forced to keep (another gamble) Rule 5 guy on their 25 man roster. If Miller is stuggling to reach the mid 80s with his fastball, changing speeds won't matter one bit. Neither will location. It's not that hard to adjust to off-speed pitches when I guy throws that slow. In fact you could look off-speed and still catch up to the fastball. Now if he can get some arm strength back and get back intot he low 90s mid 80s consistently he may have some value. He didn't show enough to me at the end of last season to warrent resigning him. What was his problem at the end of last season besides control? He certainly wasn't a low strikeout pitcher-20 K's in 21.2 IP. He gave up 19 hits, which isn't awful, and the only huge problem was that he gave up 18 walks. Control the walks, and Wade becomes a very effective pitcher. Put the hits and walks together and you get WHIP. To me WHIP is more important than ERA when projecting into the future. http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=568&position=P&page=6&type=full Edit: In additon checkout his BB/9 and K/BB The thing was, he was still rehabbing. The thing that takes the longest to come back is control. He did prove that even with an under 90 fastball though that he was still able to strike people out at a high rate, so the speed of his pitches is not going to be the problem, but the command. The fact that he has not recovered his velocity then is not the problem, because his only problem was a lack of command that led to a high walk rate, which if he controls it better this season will lead to a much lower statistics of all those that you mention.

I don't know if I'd call it scapegoating because it was Hendry's decision and I don't blame Miller for signing. The Cubs don't need him on the roster, that I'm not 100% sure off. Why, because I like to have the most options possible and this would have given the Cubs another positive option. It could have allowed the Cubs to trade Eyre(+) and get a SS or another player that could help. Who do you think the Cubs could get more value for right now, Campusano or Miller? Some of your feeling on this is hindsight. The Cubs signed him last year before a number of our pitching prospects got their feet wet at the ML level. One could argue that one or more of the prospects could out perform him (and probably be correct). However, after taking the flier on him last year, and knowing that guys usally recover in their second year removed from TJS, I totally understand why the Cubs resigned him. They would have hated to pay him to sit for a year only to watch some other team reap the potential benefits this year... I still think Miller has more value, right now, than Campusano. Wade Miller may still be effective if he learns to change speeds and hit his spots (that doesn't mean he's right for this team). I'd be willing to bet that more teams would gamble on him, right now, for $1M than be forced to keep (another gamble) Rule 5 guy on their 25 man roster. If Miller is stuggling to reach the mid 80s with his fastball, changing speeds won't matter one bit. Neither will location. It's not that hard to adjust to off-speed pitches when I guy throws that slow. In fact you could look off-speed and still catch up to the fastball. Now if he can get some arm strength back and get back intot he low 90s mid 80s consistently he may have some value. He didn't show enough to me at the end of last season to warrent resigning him. What was his problem at the end of last season besides control? He certainly wasn't a low strikeout pitcher-20 K's in 21.2 IP. He gave up 19 hits, which isn't awful, and the only huge problem was that he gave up 18 walks. Control the walks, and Wade becomes a very effective pitcher.

Russell was absolutely amazing against the weaker opponents of LSU this year-the problem is, is that enough of a sample size? This is his first great year, and he still struggled a great deal in 2 of the bigger games of the season for LSU. If he had mutliple years of good performances, or if he had more great performances against great teams, then he would be better in my eyes. He had 5 big games this year-Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, ND Auburn-his numbers look all right, but his team scored 3 points, so he couldn't have been amazing. Florida-he was terrible Tennesee-he continued to let Tennessee back in it in the second half, but then came back with the game-winning TD pass at the end. Arkansas-he played well in leading the way to an LSU victory over a good defense. ND-He played very well against a bad defense in the blowout win. Russell makes for a very interesting case-did he mature into a different QB this year? My big concern about him is his tendency to throw into coverage, which he's going to have to do a lot more in the NFL than in college. not to make excuses for him, but a lot of QBs looked terrible against Florida...also, while I'm by no means comparing the two...I don't think anyone would have considered Jerry Rice fast by today's standards either. True-but then the question becomes, what about Russell makes him better than Quinn? I don't think either of them are worth the number 1 pick in the draft (not a normal draft anyway-maybe if this draft turns out like the Alex Smith draft, but I don't think this one is that bad), but I just don't see how Russell is supposedly better now than Quinn.

I don't know if I'd call it scapegoating because it was Hendry's decision and I don't blame Miller for signing. The Cubs don't need him on the roster, that I'm not 100% sure off. Why, because I like to have the most options possible and this would have given the Cubs another positive option. It could have allowed the Cubs to trade Eyre(+) and get a SS or another player that could help. Who do you think the Cubs could get more value for right now, Campusano or Miller? If Miller even pitches decently in spring training, you could definitely get more value for Miller.

Playing time in college > practice time in the NBA. It's not highly unlikely he won't get much time in the NBA. He's not a very good offensive player right now and he would benefit from playing another year in college. I don't think he will stay, but it would be better for him. Yes, something bad could happen to him, and people always throw this out there, but it's highly unlikely. This isn't football. He'll get 25-30 minutes a night in the NBA. He's going to go to a bad team, and they are going to stick him out there for ticket sales alone (and I think they would put him out there because he would still be one of their 5 best players). Even if he went to a good team, they would have him out there just for his defensive prescence-there are plenty of post people in the NBA who get minutes who can't score but are just asked to play defense and rebound. Oden's offensive game is actually slightly more refined than most of those players, although I would agree that he has a great deal more of refining to do on that. His defense alone will get him to play, and if the player is mature enough, playing in the NBA almost always develops a person faster than going to college.

He's 30 years old right now.

Russell was absolutely amazing against the weaker opponents of LSU this year-the problem is, is that enough of a sample size? This is his first great year, and he still struggled a great deal in 2 of the bigger games of the season for LSU. If he had mutliple years of good performances, or if he had more great performances against great teams, then he would be better in my eyes. He had 5 big games this year-Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, ND Auburn-his numbers look all right, but his team scored 3 points, so he couldn't have been amazing. Florida-he was terrible Tennesee-he continued to let Tennessee back in it in the second half, but then came back with the game-winning TD pass at the end. Arkansas-he played well in leading the way to an LSU victory over a good defense. ND-He played very well against a bad defense in the blowout win. Russell makes for a very interesting case-did he mature into a different QB this year? My big concern about him is his tendency to throw into coverage, which he's going to have to do a lot more in the NFL than in college.

I think the 25 steals was an aberration-my guess is that with the hamstring injuries, he wouldn't have more than 10 this year. The only thing he would give you is possibly average, which is not enough for a fantasy draft unless in a pretty large league.

Considering his shoulder is degeneratively arthritic, he's going to have to deal with injuries for a while. And it doesn't matter why he's bad. The fact that he's likely to be bad is grounds enough to want to see a better player at that position. I'm saying that it's decently likely that he won't be horrible this year. If he is, then he will be replaced either during the season or after the season-a closer look at his numbers shows though that he has a much, much better chance of putting up an average season for a SS than his career numbers would indicate. From that analysis, I have high hopes for Izturis, but I will want him pulled if he is not getting the job done at mid-season.

And again, improvement from career numbers takes him from one of the worst regulars ever to simply well below average. But better than Neifi, which was the point of our conversation. Page 4 of this link. viewtopic.php?t=38595&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45 No. The point of this conversation was to say how terrible Izturis is. I was using Neifi as perspective on his awfulness. Being better than Neifi isn't anything to write home about. Many metrics have Neifi in the team photo of worst regular ever. So basically, if he improves, he's slightly better than Neifi, but he's still terrible. How is that impressive or acceptable? This team has the payroll and the players internally to not have to deal with such a terrible everyday flaw in it's lineup. People can rationalize Izturis all they want. He's either going to suck, or suck and then get hurt. His glove isn't going to change his suck at the plate, and he'll be lucky if his hamstring and back and shoulder injuries don't take him from being a good defensive SS to a slightly above average one. And then what do you have? An expensive, crappy IF who can't stay healthy and can't get on base or slug. From breaking down the numbers, I can't see how you would think there is absolutely no chance that Izturis will be just fine for a SS this year. Is there a pretty decent chance that the injuries will hurt him and cause him to be well below average? Definitely-but if not for Izturis's injuries, he would already be an average to above average shortstop with the way he was developing. His numbers said that his bat was etting continually better every single year of his minor league and major league career before the injuries with no hiccups or setbacks-the first huge setback was the big injuries, and it will have to be seen if that is going to cause him to lose his development or if he can resume where he left off.

i agree. he need a full year starting in iowa imo. he has never had a full season pitching in the minors so it is not reasonable to think he could make 30+ starts in the ML. Why does he need more minor league time when he's major league ready and better than a few of the potential starters already? Not the best of news on Gallagher. Not too surprising since it's his first major league invite. because last year was the 1st time he broke 100 ip and even then he only had around 120. to expect 200 quality ip after being injured his whole career is not reasonable. having better stuff doesnt mean he's a better pitcher btw. maybe he should get his 1st ML win before he is compared to pitchers who have actually had success in the majors. Come again? Angel had 156 IP in 2002 and 131.2 IP last season. I don't expect 200 quality IP, if he's one of the five best starters amongst the big leaguers (and I think he is), he should be starting with the big league team. They'll be real careful with him if he's at Des Moines or Wrigley, if he's good enough to pitch in the bigs, I don't see why he shouldn't pitch there. It's not like they won't be monitoring Angel carefully if he's in the big leagues. The only concern I have about that is that if the major league club is real careful with Angel and real careful with Prior and Lilly doesn't go all that deep into games on a routine basis-that means that Z and Hill will almost be forced to be workhorses on the days that they pitch, and that may be a problem. I guess I'm just a little worried about tiring out the bullpen with all the starters that the Cubs would be trying to limit in that scenario.

seriously, from the interviews that i've heard so far, he sounds like the master of cliche. that might just be until he gets a feel for the team, though. ps-bruce, you should be on the score more. mully and hanley at least seem like they're beginning to get it. murph has his moments but seems to forget that he's had guys like steve goldman on his show. I think it's all the jokes that Piniella throws in there that makes him a great interview, not necessarily the baseball concepts he brings up.

And JaMarcus Russell is a sure thing? Close to one, but look towards South Bend for another Russell is far from a sure thing. The hype machine really started rolling around him because of one game - the Sugar Bowl against a bad (sorry Andy but it's true) Notre Dame defense. He decided to go pro because the media was going crazy over his performance. Personally, I think Brady Quinn is the better QB and will be the better QB but I'm not sure if he's worth the number 1 pick. Don't worry-I doubt any ND fan is going to argue with you about that-I'm certainly not. I agree with you about Russell-he was seen as ok with great physical skills but underachieving most of the year, and then suddenly after one great game he's the top QB-I'd sure liked to have seen more consistency out of him before I would be ready to draft him number 1 overall. I agree also with the sentiment that if you want the player who's most likely to be a great player, it's Calvin Johnson.

If the Mets acquire some pitching, then they look like the team to beat in the NL. Marshall for Milledge? I dont think the Mets would bite on that. After all, their asking price for Milledge at the break was Barry Zito. I thought the asking price for Blanton was Milledge. I never heard anything about Zito/Milledge. The asking price for 1/2 a season of Zito was indeed Milledge. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/lastings_milledge/index.html Looks like towards the deadline more of the rumors were around blanton and haren than zito. Milledge for Zito was widely reported on ESPN the week befoe the deadline-was it legitimate? I don't know, but it was widely rumored in that week.

89 mph is being kind. Reporters are saying he didn't reach the mid 80's Maybe so-I'm just taking the results from the gun when he was up at Wrigley that I saw, but it's possible that the gun was a fast one. He definitely was getting it up to 89 and sometimes 90 on that particular gun in his starts for the Cubs at the end of last year though.

I'm not so sure Wade is completely done-even with his fastball only hitting 89 or so on the gun when he came back, his K rate was still high. If he keeps that up and his control gets better, then he could still be very effective.

This is good, as long as you're looking at the right things. This doesn't look like a very good start to me. It looks to me, other than the one quote from Lou (which, admittedly, I'm not enamored with), that Paul Sullivan is the one looking at all the wrong things there. I'm doubting that Lou said anything referencing how Eyre or any pitcher has done against a particular team. That's just absurdly stupid logic, pretty much what we've come to expect from Paul. That doesn't mean I trust that Lou will be looking at the right things himself, though. That's true, I didn't pay close enough attention to the quotes. Still not a huge fan of "throwing a little more speed" out there though, unless the catcher/pitcher/both is truly awful, and even then it's probably not worth it. Well, with the way our bench is currently, especially if Pagan does not make the squad, that might just mean that Murton plays instead of Floyd and Theriot plays instead of DeRosa-I mean, Ward, Floyd, or Blanco are not going to win any speed competitions anytime soon :D

True, and it's also about using those sample sizes to determine at-bats between similar players, or determine at-bats between vastly different offensive players that the weaker player just happens to have a few hits off some pitchers. I like the former a lot, and I'm not that big of a fan of the latter

I disagree. Look at who they have brought in...Izturis, Soriano, and DeRosa. Izturis is ALL glove. Soriano was above average in LF last year and that was just his first year in the OF. I'm not sure of DeRosa's metrics, but I believe he's been just fine and can play a lot of positions usually which shows defensive proficiency. Its not like we brought in Adam Dunn or anything. For it to be Hendry's philosophy though, he would have to be bringing in people to fit his notion of good defense-I doubt he's putting that much value in defensive metrics. Izturis I agree with you about-Soriano was seen as average around the league, and he's moving to a new position. DeRosa's reputation is that of an average or above average defender. You forgot the 4th person though-Cliff Floyd. The more Floyd plays in the OF, the more the OF defense is going to suffer because of it. If you look around at many of the people writing articles, they all are saying that the Cubs are going to suffer defensively-could they be wrong? Sure-but their method of judging defense is likely the same one as Hendry's, and so he wouldn't put a team out there with this bad of a reputation defensively if he really wanted a team that could "catch the ball" Except that Floyd will take time away from Murton who isn't thought of to have great defensive skills (regardless of whether or not that is true). No, he didn't go out and get Covelli to replace murton, but he didn't downgrade. I still think it's a downgrade, although it is seen as going from below average to absolutely terrible (although I think Murton is average defensively, and not below average). The last thing I'll present for my case is that they didn't know what position Soriano was going to play, and said that they were going to sign people first and figure out what positions they were going to play later. I don't see that as a huge emphasis on "catching the ball", although I do still think that they do think defense is important. It's just that they seem to stress defense at certain positions, which is why Izturis is at SS and Blanco got signed for so much to be backup C, while other positions don't mean as much defensively.

Yeah, I agree. I especially like discussion on pitching mechanics since I know much less about them than hitting. I appreciate it as well, and from seeing the pictures of Reyes and then comparing it to some of the other pitchers that are pictured in this thread, I can see what he's talking about as well. I don't know how much that will likely cause injury for him, but I certainly can see how that would cause strain on his arm.

And the Dodgers have since said they weren't going to trade top prospects for Maddux. B prospects or Izturis seems like the choice. Hendry went with the ML ready option, for better or worse. People can complain about Izturis all they want, but at least he's good enough to make the majors, which the vast majority of B prospects won't ever sniff. The other part of that trade was that it pushed Neifi into a backup role (with the trade of Walker, it would have been Neifi and Cedeno as the starters at short and second) which allowed Hendry to trade Neifi a couple of weeks later. It may not have been planned that way, but it is much less likely that Hendry is trading Neifi if Neifi seems like the only option for a starter at the time, so I connect those two deals especially with them being so close in time as well. It pains me to write it, but I'd rather have Neifi than Izturis. Well, I guess we'll have to see which Izturis shows up this season-at least there is a small possibility that Izturis will be ok this season, while Neifi passed ok a long time ago and continues to decline from his terrible level last year in which Neifi was worse than Izturis and Izturis was just coming back from the injury, while Neifi was healthy all year. I don't really understand why'd you take Neifi over Izturis, but that's just me. Two reasons: money and proximity. Izturis probably wouldn't get so much criticism here if he was on a major league minimum salary, but for a player who has been as bad as he is to get paid a substantial salary is not justifiable. Also, we haven't cringed at one of Neifi's plays as recently as we have with Izturis, and there is less of a threat of Neifi actually getting an AB as a Cub again. The grass is always greener on the other side. Overall, it seems likely to me that Izturis will have a better year than Neifi, but we'd probably be better off without either one. I would agree that the Cubs would probably be better with another shortstop. I do understand the grass is greener on the other side, and yes, Izturis does make about 1.8 million more than Neifi, which I think is justified for the much better possibility of production and optimism with Izturis. Like my post on page 4 spelled out, Izturis was aggressively promoted much faster than his bat developed, and his bat wasn't nearly ready for the major leagues. Looking at his numbers though, his bat has improved ever year from age 17 all the way through June 2005 when he started getting hurt. The only reason his numbers stayed low is because he was promoted way too fast. Now, the obstacle is the injuries-if he's truly healthy, from the pattern of his numbers I see it as somewhat likely that he has a below average to average for a shortsop offensive season (I actually see it as pretty unlikely he's below 650 if he's healthy, and a decent chance that he's at least somewhat higher than that). If he's not healthy, well, then the Cubs will put another shortstop in that will likely produce ok numbers as well. Either way, the Cubs SS position should be a decent upgrade this year, and Izturis will either be all right or gone after the year.

And the Dodgers have since said they weren't going to trade top prospects for Maddux. B prospects or Izturis seems like the choice. Hendry went with the ML ready option, for better or worse. People can complain about Izturis all they want, but at least he's good enough to make the majors, which the vast majority of B prospects won't ever sniff. The other part of that trade was that it pushed Neifi into a backup role (with the trade of Walker, it would have been Neifi and Cedeno as the starters at short and second) which allowed Hendry to trade Neifi a couple of weeks later. It may not have been planned that way, but it is much less likely that Hendry is trading Neifi if Neifi seems like the only option for a starter at the time, so I connect those two deals especially with them being so close in time as well. It pains me to write it, but I'd rather have Neifi than Izturis. Well, I guess we'll have to see which Izturis shows up this season-at least there is a small possibility that Izturis will be ok this season, while Neifi passed ok a long time ago and continues to decline from his terrible level last year in which Neifi was worse than Izturis and Izturis was just coming back from the injury, while Neifi was healthy all year. I don't really understand why'd you take Neifi over Izturis, but that's just me.

I think Lilly's going to need a long man more than Marquis-even last year, when Lilly was much better than Marquis, Lilly got pulled before the end of 5 innings 5 times, while Marquis only got pulled 3 times. In 2005, Marquis got pulled 5 times before 5 innings were completed, and Lilly got pulled 8 times. I would think a DH-less lineup should help Lilly stay in games longer in the NL Yes and no-his pitching might be a little bit better, but he also might have to be pulled for a pinch-hitter if the Cubs are behind.

And the Dodgers have since said they weren't going to trade top prospects for Maddux. B prospects or Izturis seems like the choice. Hendry went with the ML ready option, for better or worse. People can complain about Izturis all they want, but at least he's good enough to make the majors, which the vast majority of B prospects won't ever sniff. The other part of that trade was that it pushed Neifi into a backup role (with the trade of Walker, it would have been Neifi and Cedeno as the starters at short and second) which allowed Hendry to trade Neifi a couple of weeks later. It may not have been planned that way, but it is much less likely that Hendry is trading Neifi if Neifi seems like the only option for a starter at the time, so I connect those two deals especially with them being so close in time as well.

That was the strangest part of the whole thing-since then, Bruce has confirmed multiple times that the Dodgers said no to prospects. Could Hendry have had an agenda? That whole situation on if the Dodgers actually were or were not willing to give up prospects is just very strange.