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One of the few positives of this year is that we've found some potentially capable back-ups for next year (Riot, Pagan, Bynum, etc.). I would agree with that-the one thing though is that you can't have Theriot, Cedeno, and Bynum on the same bench-I'd like to trade Cedeno though-I'd be fine with Theriot (who has been good since he came up) Pagan (who has been up and down but ok) and Bynum (who has been good at the plate since that awful start for him (April and the first part of May)) all on the bench. Add those 3 to a Platoon Partner for Jones, and a good bench bat that can back up the corner infield, and your bench is decent with very little cost.

We've actually gotten really good production offensively out of the Bynum/Theriot platoon so far in September-I'm glad to see they are both doing well at the plate, but I hope it doesn't mean that we try that platoon at the start of the year next year.

why are you posting this all in the Cubs free agent thread? Haha. Thanks for pointing it out. I thought I was in the game thread. In my defense, the game threads are sparsely attended these days. :oops: No need for a defense-I understand completely, I just was confused :D

why are you posting this all in the Cubs free agent thread?

I'm giving him credit for 2 errors made up for with his 2 hits already..now he needs at least 1 more, and possibly 2 to make up for the other 2 misplayed balls (although he has a little credit left over from last night also with getting on 4 times last night).

I'll lay money 2 of them are our starters next year. If I were a sports betting man, I would take that bet-I think only 1 of those players will be a starter next year (start at least half the games for the team next year)

Sure...Duke was 43-17 with a 2.38ERA and Rich Hill was 19-19 3.90ERA. Why can't you compare the two again? So did you not read what he said, or did you do that on purpose? Duke had a Minor League K/9 of 7.25, Hill's is an obscene 12.59. I didn't read the K part...Sorry 'bout that...I thought it said look at their minor league stats... I'm just saying you can't rely on a guy to be your 2-3 starter that has had a good 2 month run. So are you siding with Goony and saying we have to go out and sign a #2, #3, and #4? Regardles if you think Hill is a 2,3,4, or 5th starter you still need a 3 more starters right? Unless you are counting on Prior to be healthy... Yes, but the difference is that if we see Hill as a 3 or a 4, we can hold an open competition for the 5 spot between the rest of the young pitchers. That makes one less veteran pitcher you have to go out and sign-if Hill is only a #5, suddenly you have to go out and fill another slot with your available budget.

as if thats good Carrie... :roll: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060911&c ontent_id=1657178&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc With a 1-2 lineup like that the Cubs are assured of picking 1 or 2 in the draft. Where did the Dodgers bat Izturis? In 2004, Izturis batted about 2/3 of the time at leadoff, and about 1/3 of the time in the 2 spot. In 2005, it was just about all at the leadoff spot. I'm thinking that they batted him primarily in the 7 spot when he came back to the team this year, but I don't have the splits with the Cubs and with the Dodgers in front of me here.

Oh boy, was I rooting against that late last night. I was tied with my opponent in one of my fantasy leagues going into last night, and I was done and he had Sebastian-I thought all hope was lost. As the game progressed, I thought there was a chance of them shutting them out, and then when I saw the Raiders calling timeouts against the Chargers backup defense I was upset again. I thought the guy had scored on the last play of the game, and when I saw the ref rule him out of bounds on the 2 I couldn't believe I had pulled out the tie.

It is actually impossible for the Bears to win this poll now-all they can do is tie with the Cubs having 3 wins in September now.

well...if he tries, then i don't mind that he's not very good. as long as he tries. To answer the first part I think Baker was talking about his work ethic and also the fact that he is healthy. He lets the first pitch go by and then swings at the rest. The problem is pitchers aren't worried about throwing strikes to him because they know he can't do any damage power wise. It's absolutely foolish to walk him, it's like pitching to a pitcher. That is actually very true, and is sort of what Baker was trying to say. The pitcher knows that Pierre is going to look at the first pitch, and most of the time it is a strike. After that, it does not usually help Pierre to take many pitches, because the pitcher is looking for him to hit the ball into play. So I would agree that it is harder for Pierre to amass the walks like some other hitters-but pitchers not being afraid of him to that point is still a big detriment to Pierre, and the low walk total is one bad symptom of that.

not very many. Like I said, I could point to you at least a dozen outs since he's come back that Lee made that the other first baseman wouldn't have made, due to Lee's quick feet and his ability to stretch out for balls. Don't you think that saves us some runs? You're exaggerating. I really am not..I believe, for example, that the 1st and 3rd outs of the Braves 6th inning are not made by John Mabry (and that's not counting the stretch in the 2nd where he should have had the out called on the stretch of Ramirez's throw). I've seen multiple plays like this in several other games as well since he's come back. so you're not only assuming that other 1b wouldn't have made those plays, but you're also assuming that they wouldn't have made those plays AND their inability to make them would have led to runs. not to mention the fact that you're somehow crediting him with preventing a baserunner that actually reached base by citing to ramirez's error. Like I said, I didn't count Ramirez's play-even though it should have been, it wasn't-so it doesn't go into my count. Second, I know they are not always going to lead to runs-just like every hit or walk is not going to lead to runs, but we'd love to see somebody get 12 more hits or walks over a few week span, and Lee preventing hits has the same result for his pitchers-Lee has decreased the opponent's OBP with his great defense over there.

not very many. Like I said, I could point to you at least a dozen outs since he's come back that Lee made that the other first baseman wouldn't have made, due to Lee's quick feet and his ability to stretch out for balls. Don't you think that saves us some runs? i highly doubt that. And not all of those outs would have led to runs for the other team. Well, I agree with that-not all of those would have resulted in runs-but that's still 12 hits taken away in a short span of time-BTW, that was at least play #3 tonight-without Lee being so tall, the runner is safe at first.

not very many. Like I said, I could point to you at least a dozen outs since he's come back that Lee made that the other first baseman wouldn't have made, due to Lee's quick feet and his ability to stretch out for balls. Don't you think that saves us some runs? You're exaggerating. I really am not..I believe, for example, that the 1st and 3rd outs of the Braves 6th inning are not made by John Mabry (and that's not counting the stretch in the 2nd where he should have had the out called on the stretch of Ramirez's throw). I've seen multiple plays like this in several other games as well since he's come back.

not very many. Like I said, I could point to you at least a dozen outs since he's come back that Lee made that the other first baseman wouldn't have made, due to Lee's quick feet and his ability to stretch out for balls. Don't you think that saves us some runs?

I can't even begin to imagine how many runs Lee saves us with his glove. From fielding balls that are singles or doubles into right field to being able to prevent many throwing errors (he probably should have had that call on Ramirez'z throw tonight), not to mention the slightly smaller amount of time it takes to get to his glove because he stretches out so far. I've been thinking about this ever since he's gotten back-he's made at least a dozen plays that I've seen that other Cubs first baseman wouldn't have made over there since he was activated.

yeah, if you've already let him go to 110 and you've got 2 outs, it'd be silly to yank him in the middle of an at-bat. Exactly..he was at 109 at the beginning of that at-bat. I believe the entire time that they were planning to bring him out after that at-bat if it be a hit or not, they just didn't expect that at-bat to go 11 pitches.

Bynum has actually been pretty good at the plate since his disasterous start in the major leagues-since May 8, here are his numbers: .282/.330/.482 If I was sure that could continue, he'd be a good bench option-I'm not sure it can, but still he's been better then we'd like to give him credit for most of the time.

I never can stand how Michigan State does that to us. Many MSU players have had their career days against ND the last 10 years, and unless you see the ND-MSU game it just looks like ND lost to a 6 win team. Just like last year, when MSU started red hot including beating us, and then just absolutely collapsed.

I agree with that. I wish Izturis had a little more than a couple weeks left in the season, as he is just likely to be getting back into the flow of the game when the season ends. I would have liked to see more of an indication of what he is going to do in 2007 (which could have been partially done if he had played everyday in August and September), but the injury has really made him a question mark for how he really is after his surgery last year. The one thing I personally do not question is his defense-after the first couple of games with the Cubs where he was shaky (although not as shaky as Cedeno has been many times this season), he was great defensively the next 15 games before he went down with the injury.

LA's average park factor for 2001-2006 is .900 and Seattle's is .883. Safeco has been (marginally) a harder place to hit for the last six years. Six years is a little subjective. LA was tougher last year (which is where I got my info), Safeco was tougher in '04, LA in 03, etc. Some date ranges favor them, and others LA. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor Any time frame is subjective, but going with six years is better than going with one year. Why did you pick last year instead of this year, when LA is actually the 5th best hitter's park in the league? As for Beltre, I'm not so naive as to believe that there's a 0% chance that he had used PED's, but PECOTA projected him to decline, just as I imagine it will predict Soriano to decline this year. It's not unusual for a player to have a career year and never come close to it again. Which, by the way, is another reason Hendry really failed this past offseason. If DLee repeated his 2005, the Cubs had a shot at being a .500 team, but the odds are that Lee, while being a very good player, will never have a year like 2005. I'm afraid that Hendry will expect similar numbers from Barrett next year, for example, when making decisions. Chances are that Barrett will be one of the better offensive catchers next year but will not be as good as he was this year. I would agree that Soriano, Lee, and Barrett would probably never reach their career year-but I think that Lee, and then Barrett has a better chance. Why? They have both made adjustments to actually how they approach the at-bat. The change of stance for Lee was the biggest cause of his numbers. Because of that, he is far more likely to come closer to 2005 than other players when he has overcome his biggest weakness. This can compare to Sosa who overcame his biggest weakness (improved pitch selection) and had several years of career numbers. Barrett has been a much better hitter this year for a good reason. When he came to the Cubs he was a dead pull hitter-everything was right down the third base line. He has really worked on hitting to all fields, and that has made his numbers go up each of the last 3 years, including his height in 2006. I think that will probably be his best year, but I also think he has the approach needed to put up a few more years close to his 2006. As far as I know, Soriano has not changed anything in his approach, but instead is just having an amazing season (same as Beltre did). These examples are far more likely to regress to their previous norms-the only thing that gives me hope for Soriano is that it is not all tied to his hitting this year, but still I believe Soriano is much less likely to come close to his career year than Lee or Barrett are.

Wow, I didn't realize that Smolt'z splits were that extreme this year. Left Handers: .277/.347/.446 Right Handers: .217/.236/.343 That's the only thing I'm worried about Murton. I wish Dusty would play him against some of these guys who are extremely effective against right handers to see if he can hit them or not. Instead, we will go into next season not knowing if Murton's numbers have been artificially inflated by not playing against the toughest pitchers, or if he can come close to his season production against these pitchers.

It's close, but considering the Bears only have two more possible wins in September, I still have to give it to the Cubs-they will pull out a couple before the end of the season. The only way the Bears can win this poll is if they win their next two games and the Cubs lose every game for the rest of the season.

Regarding the PSU-ND discussion yesterday-what are the Bears doing throwing 2 passes with their starters up 26 with just a few minutes left? They must just be trying to run up the score :D Seriously, good game by the Bears.

...and said this... bynum hasn't outproduced theriot (or anybody, for that matter) in any way. Well-I wouldn't say anybody-he's been quite a bit better than Cedeno at the plate, but I do hope that they give Theriot at least most of the starts at second the rest of the season, as they have the last week or so.