CubColtPacer

The problem is that Ramirez doesn't know when his home runs are going to go out or not-I have no problem if somebody stands there for an obvious home run, but if it's questionable, the player has to run in order to avoid what happened to Ramirez multiple times last year. Again though, if Ramirez is the worst hustler on the team, then the Cubs have a good hustling team, because his possible hustle issues are much smaller than several around the league. Please, "multiple times"? You think Aramis has the speed to turn an obvious double into a triple? Please, let us find some other nits to pick. Aramis is fine. He didn't get a double on those plays.

The problem is that Ramirez doesn't know when his home runs are going to go out or not-I have no problem if somebody stands there for an obvious home run, but if it's questionable, the player has to run in order to avoid what happened to Ramirez multiple times last year. Again though, if Ramirez is the worst hustler on the team, then the Cubs have a good hustling team, because his possible hustle issues are much smaller than several around the league.

500K is a lot more than league minimum? Chase Utley inf 7 years/$85M (2007-13) signed extension 1/07 $2M signing bonus 07:$4.5M, 08:$7.5M, 09:$11M, 10:$15M, 11:$15M, 12:$15M, 13:$15M I'm guessing CubColtPacer was using 2006 to come up with his average salary base. 500K is what Utley made last year. What he'll make for the next 15 years has no bearing on this discussion. He said "is" and "makes", that's present tense. I don't see how Utley's current salary has no baring on a discussion about current 2B salaries. What is the discussion anyway? I said is and makes because no one has calculated the numbers for 2007 yet. The discussion is if Todd Walker has been underpaid for his work the past few years, and if so, how much so.

Lou has a lot of history managing and I'm curious on what he's done in the past regarding this issue? From what I heard from a Mariners fan that I trust a great deal, Lou is not typically one who will stubbournly stick with a guy-if anything, he's a person who pulls a person too early that is struggling.

I blame the manager for that. Dusty rewarded plays like that with continued playing time. Moises Alou was too lazy to reach down and pick up a baseball, instead electing to kick it into the ivy to give the appearance it was hidden and a ground rule double, which turned into an inside the park home run. Alou was rewarded by staying in the game and playing the next game as well. Dusty seemed to embrace that kind of sloppy play. Unless a rookie did it. Well, I would agree that it is both of their faults-Ramirez for doing it, and Dusty for allowing it to continue-it's a small issue right now, but I bet in short order it won't be a issue anymore with Lou at the helm.

And what was the average salary for 2b's when you exclude the guys making league minimum, like Josh Barfield, Richie Weeks, Dan Uggla, Robinson Cano, Jorge Cantu, Chase Utley, Jose Lopez, Brandon Phillips, Jose Castillo and Aaron Hill. You have to admit that this is a pretty extensive list of minimum payroll talent. 1/3 of the major league teams worth. Of course-that's part of the reason why other second baseman's salaries are being driven down. There are too many second basemen on the market, and so nobody is in desperate need to sign one of them because they are so similar. That's how people like Belliard put up a .725 OPS last year (which is less than 30 points behind Walker) and is making less than a million dollars next year. People are always looking for some of the other positions that are much more rare, but second basemen are usually a dime a dozen unless they are something special, which Walker is not.

Well, Bracketology has OSU as a 2 seed right now-if they lose to Wisconsin, I don't see any way that they climb their way back up to a number 1.

The first one of those two scenarios, I hope Lou does for the first part immediately-the second one of those, I'm willing to give him a little time and see how things unfold first, and then see if he makes a change if a change is warranted.

Again, I'm not on his case very much, but Ramirez did multiple times stand at the plate watching a hard hit ball thinking it was a home run and have it hit off the wall and cost him bases. There have been some hustle mistakes that have cost the Cubs at times, but the issue for Ramirez himself is way overblown.

Possibly, but it sounds like Schilling wants to leave-I think Boston would have to knock his socks off with an offer after the season in order to stay: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2007/news/story?id=2774965 I don't see the Cubs being in a position to knock Schilling's socks off. Boston is pretty famous for knocking people's socks off. Assuming Zambrano gets his long term deal, that pretty much puts Zambrano, Lilly, Marquis, Prior in the rotation with guys like Guzman, Gallagher, Veal, Samardzija, Pawelek, Marshall and few choice others vying for the last spot. The Cubs will already be very close to 100m in committed dollars to only about 12 roster spots (Soriano, Lee, Ramirez, Zambrano, Lilly, DeRosa, Marquis, Dempster, Howry, Eyre, Jones and Blanco). That still leaves Wood, Prior, Barrett and Izturis as players that will expect raises from their 2007 salary if they are kept around. Oh, let me claify-I'm not saying that the Cubs will go after Schilling or should, I'm just saying that I think it's less than 50/50 that he stays with Boston at this point.

Possibly, but it sounds like Schilling wants to leave-I think Boston would have to knock his socks off with an offer after the season in order to stay: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2007/news/story?id=2774965

DeRosa makes more and was a more attractive signing for several reasons. He had a much better season last year than Walker did, he has the flexibility to move positions to help the team at a later date (they are not resigned to playing him at 2B for 3 seasons), and he also was a class B free agent (because he was listed as an OF) while the other 2B were class A's. Walker also has a problem because of his reported problems in the clubhouse. Now, I don't support trading a player just for that like what was being rumored last year, but when deciding between several similar second basemen on the market (and many of the 5-6 second basemen on the market this year were very similar in terms of overall worth) that issue could be a tiebreaker with some teams, and that could be why other people got jobs in free agency and Walker didn't.

Agreed. He did do that. Just pointing out how underpaid he was for his production. Neifi Perez at 2.5m, Walker at 2.5m and Pierre at 5.5m. Who provides the most production per dollar of that group? Walker in a landslide. That's a good point-but remember, Walker signed his deal before 2005, while Neifi was before 2006-also, Pierre was in arbitration which looks at completely different statistics then some teams do in free agency. Also, what position they played has to be taken into account. The average salary for an outfielder is 4.88 million, for a shortstop it's 4.06 million, and for second basemen it's 2.79 million. Finally, if you would argue how underpaid he was by comparing him to those two, you assume that those two are being paid fairly-when they are likely both being overpaid for their production.

I agree but look at this, I stole it from one of the illiniboards. Look at our 9 losses. At Xavier(They are 16-1 at home). At home to Maryland(They are 1 of only 3 ACC teams with a winning road record). At home to Ohio St. & Wisky(Aren't they #1 & #2 in the country?) At Indiana(Hoosiers are undefeated at home). At Mich. St.(They are 18-1 at home). At Purdue(They are 16-1 at home). At Mich.(They are 16-2 at home). At Arizona. If there is such a thing as quality losses, this is it. We are like fiftieth in the polls, that's ridiculous! Winthrop, Drexel, Akron, BYU, Creighton, Appalachian St, are you kidding me? They are all ranked ahead of us, way ahead. We should be in. Thanks UIloyalfan The problem is the lack of impressive wins for the Illini. Sure, all their losses have been quality, but 9 losses with only a couple wins that can be considered quality is a bad combination. Illinois is still right on the edge of the bubble though, and if they can finish really strong they will be in-if they are average, they'll be one of those last teams sweating on Selection Sunday.

Well, at least one of those years was Todd's fault-in 2004, he decided to come to the Cubs as a backup rather than possibly be a starter somewhere else.

Well, that's certainly likely-my post was assuming his health, but I do see at least one DL stint as very likely for him this year.

I'm not sure about that-I think Piniella really emphasizes defense at the SS position. If Izturis is playing very good defense and batting how he has recently (.250/.300-which I think is reasonable, but I think it will be more likely he'll be more than 10 points higher than that then more than 10 points lower than that)-he'll keep playing him.

Uh-like Detroit last year, who was also 44-9 and did not win the title?

I liked Todd Walker, but there was no way that I was giving up a draft pick to acquire him this offseason due to his being a type A free agent-you have to wonder if there was any consideration in Hendry's mind that DeRosa out of all the potential second baseman was a little more valuable also because he was listed as an outfielder and therefore a "B" who the Cubs wouldn't have to give up anything for-it certainly would be an interesting question.

I sure hope we win our last two games then at least one in the Big Ten tourney Man, it's been a long time since we've entered the big dance as a #11 or lower seed, but if we lose two of the next three (one of the last two and the first B10 tourney game) we may be lucky to get that. We should be back ahead of Purdue after their loss to Iowa tonight, but we'll have to win at Iowa to stay that way. Winning those last 2 regular season games should put us as a 3 or 4 in the Big 10 tourney. (I'm not sure how tiebreakers work. We split with IU, so if it then becomes total record, we'd have it) . In case of tiebreakers, I beleive it defaults to the team's record against the first place team. Yup, that's it. Both Indiana and Illinois went 0-1 against OSU, so then it reverts to their record against the second place team. IU was 1-0 against Wisconsin, while Illinois went 0-1-so IU has any tiebreaker for Big 10 tourney seeding purposes. In fact, IU has tiebreaker advantages with all the teams behind them (because they only played OSU once, that helps them against teams who lost to them twice like MSU), and so would have to lose 2 out of their last 3 in order to get lower than 3rd.

Actually, in the winter they're only two time zones away (stupid Arizona :roll:). I am glad that Indiana finally changed their policy on that last year-for those who have never lived in a state that didn't change times, there are certain pitfalls you don't realize. If you have a schedule where you watch shows on cable at a certain time (say before or after work)-the rest of the country changes time, and suddenly your show on cable changes time with it, possibly putting it outside your schedule (thankfully, they put the local shows on tape delay the half of the year the state was on Central Time so that at least local shows could be shown at the same time regardless). There were also numerous other headaches that you wouldn't think of for both businesses and individuals alike. I'm so glad it's changed now.

You can offer your own free agents arbitration. If they decline, that's where draft pick compensation comes into play and the team who loses that player will get a pick or 2 if the player is rated at a certain level of all MLB players. huh? :? Think of the draft pick that the Cubs got for Pierre because they offered him arbitration. Any free agent you have the club can offer arbitration-the free agent can decline like Pierre did and sign with another club (Soriano was another one that was offered arbitration) both clubs will get draft picks to make up for their loss from the club they signed with. Clubs don't offer everybody arbitration though because the player controls all the power-if he thinks he can get more money in free agency, he declines arbitration-if he thinks he can get more money in arbitration, the player can just accept and effectively force the club into paying him that amount in arbitation. So usually clubs only offer arbitration to people that either 1) they know are gone anyway or 2)they don't mind keeping or losing.

if you're swinging at a pitch where you can hit a ground ball, you're swinging at a pitcher's pitch, and should just probably take a walk if the pitcher won't throw you a strike. A pitcher's pitch can be a strike as well-not all strikes can be driven well-if it's a ball, I want my hitter taking it yes and waiting for a strike that they can either drive or if it's a strike that's a pitcher's pitch hitting the ground ball to score the run. if a pitcher is good enough to throw you bad picthes for consistent strikes, then he's very good and trying to hit the ball weakly wouldn't be any more productive. The only thing I think is that this will decrease the strikeout rate for that hitter. In most situations, decreasing the strikeout rate is not necessarily a good thing (I do agree with you that in most situations putting the ball in play only to put the ball in play is a bad strategy)-in this scenario though where most of the balls that the hitter puts into play will likely result in a run (I'm talking mostly early in the game where the infield is conceding the run) then anything that decreases the stikeout percentage against such a good pitcher is a good thing. there's no way that you can say that. i could say that putting the ball in play just to put the ball in play would increase the likelihood that the hitter would get out in an unproductive fashion and be just as correct. if you try to go back up the middle, bam, the pitcher grabs it easily and starts an instant run-down. There aren't many scenarios that could cause an unprodctive out in this scenario. A pop-up to the infield or short outfield and a grounder to the pitcher are the only two likely ways-it's much, much more likely that a person is going to make an out in another way than that if the ball is put into play.

if you're swinging at a pitch where you can hit a ground ball, you're swinging at a pitcher's pitch, and should just probably take a walk if the pitcher won't throw you a strike. A pitcher's pitch can be a strike as well-not all strikes can be driven well-if it's a ball, I want my hitter taking it yes and waiting for a strike that they can either drive or if it's a strike that's a pitcher's pitch hitting the ground ball to score the run. if a pitcher is good enough to throw you bad picthes for consistent strikes, then he's very good and trying to hit the ball weakly wouldn't be any more productive. The only thing I think is that this will decrease the strikeout rate for that hitter. In most situations, decreasing the strikeout rate is not necessarily a good thing (I do agree with you that in most situations putting the ball in play only to put the ball in play is a bad strategy)-in this scenario though where most of the balls that the hitter puts into play will likely result in a run (I'm talking mostly early in the game where the infield is conceding the run) then anything that decreases the stikeout percentage against such a good pitcher is a good thing.

if you're swinging at a pitch where you can hit a ground ball, you're swinging at a pitcher's pitch, and should just probably take a walk if the pitcher won't throw you a strike. A pitcher's pitch can be a strike as well-not all strikes can be driven well-if it's a ball, I want my hitter taking it yes and waiting for a strike that they can either drive or if it's a strike that's a pitcher's pitch hitting the ground ball to score the run.