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Yup-the kids can be divided into several categories right now Turned the Corner Murton Hill Pleasant Surprises Theriot Pagan Jury Still Out Guzman Marshall Needs more time in Minors Mateo Marmol Disappointment Cedeno Most of the kids have been as good or better than expected.

It looks like we may get some news quicker then we thought: Here's the source on that: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060901&content_id=1640058&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

I'll definitely agree with that sentiment.

Can you believe a Dusy Baker led team might be the only team in history to not have any complete games the entire year? That seems like a contradiction in terms.

Well, I certainly hope we could live with him then. If we got all that, we'd be one of the best offenses in the major leagues! I mean, look at this lineup Murton Barrett Lee Ramirez Andruw Jones Soriano Jones Izturis I don't think it will take that much to be able to live with Murton.

I think Hendry needs to sign a starting pitcher (Schmidt) and make a trade for an impact bat for the Cubs to be in contention next year. With Hill, Marshall, Mateo, Guzman, and Marmol all showing some major league potential, the Cubs have what a lot of teams want (young pitching). Put a couple of those pitchers together with Cedeno and you might get someone like Tejada if Angelos finally wakes up to the status of his team. I dream about the Cubs putting together a good enough package to get Cabrera, but that probably won't happen. I am assuming that Prior can come back and be a decent #3 starter. Finally, let's not forget that the Cubs are in the NL Central where contending might mean winning 88 games. I think it takes more than an arm and a bat to take us from 25 under to contending. I don't think people realize how bad this roster is top-to-bottom with only about 4-6 bright spots. Of our entire roster, there are only really a few position players who aren't drags on our ability to score, and most have some large caveats next to their names: Lee (returning from injury, and it's possible he'll never be the 2005 Lee again even if healthy, because that's hard to do). Ramirez (won't do squat the first month of any season) Barret- good offensive catcher, no real issues there. Everyone else is easily replaceable/forgetable at the moment, or just not good. On the pitching staff, you have Zambrano and Eyre who are the only real definite solid pitchers we can count on. howry isn't a major problem either. everyone else is questionable at best. I'm sorry, but no team with only 5-6 guys you can expect to be solidly above average is goign ot cotnend by adding a pitcher and a big bat, I don't care how weak the division or league is, because our competition isn't exactly going to be standing pat this offseason either. This roster is fundamentally flawed on a pretty serious level, and the fact that we've (Hendry) created this mess in a two-year stretch of weak-at-best overall free agent crops is devastating. I don't know that there are going to be enough good free agents to build a real contender even if we got everyone we wanted and didn't have to worry about moving the dregs of our own roster in the process. Jim Hendry has dug a deep and daunting hole for this team. How many can a team like the Cardinals count on? By that criteria, 1 or 2 more maybe? I'd like to see the list of who is good in their lineup, rotation, and bullpen. They really don't have all that much more than we do.

Barrett has really struggled since coming back from when Eckstein crashed into him. I wouldn't mind giving him a couple days off-not sure he's 100%. The good thing is, there's not really any pressure on him to have to get hot right away-we can go slowly with him.

Another double for Theriot in the corner. He has had several balls hit the chalk already in his major league career..he must have exceptional bat discipline :D

They said that no official decision has been made on if he will be called up or not.

It was a one pitch groundout to short.

Izturis's contract runs through 2007 with a team option for 2008. I agree with you that if Izturis had not been traded to the Cubs, Neifi would still be on this team and Robinson would still be with the Tigers, not the Cubs.

From watching it, my only guess was that he was trying to bunt for a hit..but I have no idea why he would do that, other then that he might be trying to make something happen at the plate because of the slump.

I think that other teams caught on to the fact also..that's why Hendry was able to probably get more for Nevin then he could ever get for Mabry for two guys who were going to be FA's at the end of the season.

i agree that getting two top of the rotation starters like schmidt and zito would help fix this team. but if acquiring a guy who would make the top of the order look good was possible, i'd say dump pierre. his speed does not at all make him comparable to a guy like brady clark, who looks to be expendable in milwaukee with the acquisition of nix and the emergence of gross. clark in CF automatically makes the cubs better offensively. I'd be a bit worried about a player like Brady Clark. He has had 2 good seasons, and only 1 season with over 400 AB's. He is 33, and Pierre's OPS is 15 points better than Clark this year. There is no history of production to count on, and he is at a time of his career where this year certainly could be him tailing off. While I don't want to sign Pierre to a multi-year deal, neither do I think that trading for Clark would be worth it-he's simply not likely to give you the amount of production you need to be worth the trade. i'm not sure why you object to anyone bringing up a player with a high OBP to supplant pierre. in a seasons in which he's gotten 300 or more ABs, he hasn't put up less than a .330 OBP, which is much lower than his career OBP, which is .361. recently he's been slumping, and his OBP has fallen from .380 to .363 in the last couple of weeks, but i'll wager that he'll put up a .370 or better OBP for the third straight season. something that pierre can only dream about. defensively, he's no downgrade to pierre, either. i wouldn't count on a major decline from 33-34, i'd expect his OBP to remain static and his defense to be adequate. clark is as solid player that you can count on to get on base. he'll also be cheaper than pierre next season, probably half as expensive. If Clark and Pierre were both in FA next year, and if they were my two final options, then I would choose Clark. I just don't think he's worth the amount it would take to trade for him for the upgrade that it would be to Pierre (but know that I am not for re-signing Pierre to a multi-year deal either-I would rather go a completely different direction). Also, I simply don't think Clark is nearly the best option out there.

i agree that getting two top of the rotation starters like schmidt and zito would help fix this team. but if acquiring a guy who would make the top of the order look good was possible, i'd say dump pierre. his speed does not at all make him comparable to a guy like brady clark, who looks to be expendable in milwaukee with the acquisition of nix and the emergence of gross. clark in CF automatically makes the cubs better offensively. I'd be a bit worried about a player like Brady Clark. He has had 2 good seasons, and only 1 season with over 400 AB's. He is 33, and Pierre's OPS is 15 points better than Clark this year. There is no history of production to count on, and he is at a time of his career where this year certainly could be him tailing off. While I don't want to sign Pierre to a multi-year deal, neither do I think that trading for Clark would be worth it-he's simply not likely to give you the amount of production you need to be worth the trade.

Not according to this. Nice picture contributions. :D Oh well that page is likely wrong. As I'm sure you know, games typically start at 1PM and 4PM EST every sunday, meaning 12pm and 3pm. All the times listed on that page say 12pm and 3pm EST. I am guessing the EST part is incorrect. Edit: Quick trip to ESPN.com confirms http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/scoreboard?weekNumber=1&seasonYear=2006&seasonType=2 That's because the game is at 2:15 CST and 3:15 EST. While the country is on DST during the summer, people still say Eastern time and Central time, but that is actually now EDT and CDT. So the game starts at 4:15 EDT and 3:15 CDT/which translates to 3:15 EST and 2:15 CST. So the site is correct, just very strangely listed. BTW, this is what Indiana went through for years before we went on DST. We actually were on EST time all year long-but practically, that meant we were on Eastern time half the year (because the timing was standard) and central time half the year when it went to CDT.

Yeah, I'm guessing it will be Murton and Pagan in the corner outfield, and Cedeno and Theriot in the middle infield, with the regulars at the other spots.

Ok, but if you want to compare with their body of work-there are at least a few franchises that have been around quite a while and have not won any titles whatsoever. Take the Atlanta Falcons-they have 3 division titles in 40 years, and football division titles were much easier to win than baseball division titles for much of that span. The Cubs since the World Series was established in 1903 have won the WS twice and been to the WS 8 other times. There have been plenty of franchises when you look at their entire body of work that cannot come close to that amount of success.

Because Nevin might have actually given us a player that might possibly do something down the road..Mabry probably wouldn't have. It's not like Nevin's increased production would have done much for our squad the last month of the season-I would have liked to trade both, but Nevin is the better one to deal simply because he is worth more on the market, and they are both worthless to us at this point.

Considering that Robinson is pretty decent, I would expect that as well. Isn't that amazing?

I agree here. It will end up helping the Cubs much more than it hurts. This is one of those bad for the small market teams good for baseball kind of things. I'm saying it will be good for baseball because this will have 2 main effects. 1) It will make teams a little more likely to dive into free agency without the problem of having to give up their picks. Fans love signing FA's, and so this is a way to make the fans a little more excited. Second, it will increase the number of trades at the deadline. Washington won't hold on to Soriano for example-the increase of trades will make it more exciting also. Will this actually help baseball? I don't know-but I think it will increase interest in the game.

I don't see the final month as having any indication on Hendry at this point. They made the decision to give up on the season alread and play the youngsters, and MacPhail is not going to care about what the final record is-the thing he'll take from this season is that we were a long way from contending, not the record. Hendry will get at least one season to make improvements (probably more if the team starts going in the correct direction), and Baker will be let go a few days after the season ends.

They are going on a straight platoon for Bynum/Theriot right now. I also think they are about the same player, and I would agree with you also that they should get equal time instead of a straight platoon. Platoons are nice for a team that is contending (because you might get maximum value out of the position) but we don't need maximum value right now. What we do need is to see what both of them can do, and exposing them to pitchers from either side helps in doing that. It's probably an open competition at this point between Cedeno/Theriot/Bynum for a bench slot next year, so it needs to be known what each player actually can do.

Dempster has certainly been used inconsistently this season-which is a big problem. He is still getting his innings though, I was actually surprised to see him and a person like Howry so close in IP this season. Howry: 65.2 Novoa: 65.0 Dempster: 62.2 Ohman: 57.0 These 4 lead the way in relief innings. Erye would be right there (he has 52) if not for his injury also.

Was there really a team in baseball that would A. Give Rush more than 1 year B. Give Rush more than 1mil/season. I dont think there was. I'm sure there would be a couple teams that would give Rusch a couple of million after 2004 and 2005, but probably not much more than that or probably not for multiple years.