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And the money to pay for Rusch in 2007. Let's keep the faith! Doesn't matter, all another team has to do is put in a claim on Rusch and Hendry doesn't even need to work out a trade, he can just let that team have Rusch, which includes his contract. Just getting rid of him is enough of a return on the trade if you aren't saddled with the contract. True, but I'm sure Rusch already passed through waivers near the beginning of August when Hendry probably put anybody he might want to deal on waivers.

If we had a platoon partner for him this year and could take away all his at bats against left handed pitching, would you take him?

And Izturis is very similarly OBP challenged. It's not ridiculous, it's quite accurate. Yes but that's not all of my arguement. Please respond to the rest. How many DP has Izturis grounded into this year, how many per year? How often do you see him swinging away when the runner infront of him gets a stellar jump? How many pitches per plate appearance? He sucks offensively right now yes. Is he Neifi? God no. I will tell you before others do that his P/PA is pretty low, but I do agree with you that he is very patient when he gets deeper in the count. Izturis has a pretty good eye for the strike zone-he just doesn't like to take very many strikes, and so will put many pitches into play early in the count. He'll usually look at pitches out of the strike zone though (this is based on the limited look we've seen him so far-it could either be validated or softened as we see him in some more situations, but so far that is my impression) 1. neifi=3.28 P/PA, cesar=3.38 P/PA 2. neifi grounds into a DP every 60 ABs, cesar grounds into one every 64 ABs. 3. neifi strikes out less. the rest of what you said is typical anecdotal evidence given by people who like izturis for some reason, and is the exact reason why you can't trust what your eyes see much of the time in baseball. truly, "he is very patient when he gets deeper in the count" is such a meaningless thought, i doubt even you yourself know what you meant by it. check out #1 and #3, neifi strikes out less and sees roughly the same amount of pitches per PA in his career. I am taking his being patient as he gets deeper in the count from 2 things. First is you're right, I've watched him as he gets deep in the count and he's taken many pitches that were just off the plate. This shows up in the stats to show his higher BB/PA with the Cubs than his P/PA would suggest. That's why even though Neifi's P/PA and Izturis's are very similar, their walk totals with the Cubs are like this: Neifi: 5 BB's in 234 PA's Izturis: 5 BB's in 60 PA's Izturis may not walk a great deal, but he walks more than his pitches per plate appearance would seem to indicate-and I think his approach deep in the count may have something to do with that, just like his approach early in the count means that he won't walk a huge amount.

And Izturis is very similarly OBP challenged. It's not ridiculous, it's quite accurate. Yes but that's not all of my arguement. Please respond to the rest. How many DP has Izturis grounded into this year, how many per year? How often do you see him swinging away when the runner infront of him gets a stellar jump? How many pitches per plate appearance? He sucks offensively right now yes. Is he Neifi? God no. I will tell you before others do that his P/PA is pretty low, but I do agree with you that he is very patient when he gets deeper in the count. Izturis has a pretty good eye for the strike zone-he just doesn't like to take very many strikes, and so will put many pitches into play early in the count. He'll usually look at pitches out of the strike zone though (this is based on the limited look we've seen him so far-it could either be validated or softened as we see him in some more situations, but so far that is my impression)

They said in the article in the next week, and yup, the deadline is August 31st.

Well, it's going to be hard to do..but I sure hope they bring him into the game a few times this week-and hopefully they can bring him into situations where he can succeed and somebody like the Mets will trade for him. I wonder if the note that the Cubs are hoping to trade him actually comes from the organization, and Hendry is actively trying to get rid of him to whoever will take him right now.

I agree that Theriot should be getting the starts that Izturis or Cedeno doesn't get (and I think he will for the most part, but am less sure about that than some other things I've thought Dusty will do) but I disagree that 3 players on the roster capable of playing the middle infield is enough. I think you really need four on a usual basis that can at least slide over to the MI-otherwise it just limits your options way too much on the bench. I'm not sure Bynum is the choice (although I understand why they called him up), but I think they did need to bring up somebody who could play the MI.

By the way, did you notice the first test was passed? Theriot was the first infielder off the bench tonight and not Bynum.

I'd be scared of trading for him unless the Phillies decide they want to cut more payroll. I like him a great deal, but I bet his trading value is higher than his actual value-if he was a free agent though, I'd get him very quickly.

He's already on the 25-man roster. I believe those are relavent even during the offseason, and he won't be on the DL in the off-season. The Cubs can't just give him a non-roster spring training invitation. I don't know how the 25 man roster would be relevant in the offseason-what happens if 5 people end up on the DL at the end of the season? Does that mean 30 people are on the 25 man roster? I think that the 40 man roster is the only one that is needed during the offseason.

I don't see the point in waster 25-man and 40-man roster space on the guy for the off chance that he'll be halfway decent next year. He's been bad most of his career, he was bad last year and he's been awful this year. I don't think it is smart to gamble that he'll be better. Well, if we need the 40 man space, that's one thing. I don't want him on the 25 man roster at all this year, so that's irrelevant-he'd have to earn his way back on to the 25 man roster next year under my plan. He wasn't good last year, but he wasn't that bad-he posted a 4.52 ERA in 2005, admittedly with a high WHIP. So he was at right about league average ERA in 2005-if he could return to that, he'd be fine as a long reliever. The only gamble is the waste of a 40 man spot-if there is a reasonable chance of losing somebody of value because of him, then go ahead and release him-if not, there's not much to lose.

Yeah considering Weaver, Wilson, Choi, Pollite, and many others were DFA'd. I mean I understand Hendry doesn't want to admit he made a bad investment but it's time to own up and cut the guy. He had one career year and the Glendon Rusch we are seeing today is the real Glendon Rusch. The thing is, I'm not sure about a couple of them, but I believe all of those players you mentioned were in their final year-those teams did not have to eat 3 million dollars for next year, and so if the player is not helping them right now, they might as well cut him if he cannot help them before the end of the year. There is a small chance Glendon might actually be a decent reliever next year-let's go through the offseason (he gets no guarantees, he has to make the team fair and square), and if he's not good enough to make the team at the start of next year, then release him.

True, but Fassero wasn't hurt..Glendon won't get back before the August 31st deadline. Sit him down for the rest of this year, find out if he has anything left to become the long reliever at the start of next year-and then option him or cut him at the end of spring next year if he doesn't. Give him no chance to be a starter whatsoever.

Izturis has a .302 OBP for each of the last 3 years. Why would we want to bat him 2nd? He's not only not ideal, he's terrible for the 2nd spot. I'd probably put Barrett there, since he get on-base at a good clip. And you might as well put Soriano 5th to drive in runs. Doesn't matter if he gets on base since the guys behind him suck anyway. Bat Izturis 8th. And hope he's injured again next year and Cedeno can go back to SS. Well, technically, Izturis has had a .302 each of the last 2 years-2004 he had a .330 OBP. With that said, I agree with you-he should be the number 8 hitter next season. And if you have Izturis on the team, why would you want him to get injured so Cedeno can play? Even if Cedeno improves his OBP 20 points next season, he'll still only be at .295, which would still be worse than Izturis-so you're still hurting the offense by having Izturis hurt. Jones is terrible huh? So terrible that his OPS is still above Murton's this year? (Yes, I know-Murton is likely to improve, which I agree that he is). Just sign Jacque a platoon partner and hopes he puts up the same numbers against right handers next season-.307/.347/537. Those are approx the same numbers against one side of the plate that Carlos Lee has this year against both sides, and Lee will probably make at least 12 million dollars this year-if you can find a guy that drills left handers, you can save 5 million from that position and still in effect pick up a big bat in right field.

Fred's numbers disagree with yours. What is your source? The difference is that Fred's numbers were from June the 10th, while texas's numbers were only post all star break. Of course those numbers have changed by now, but the day he posted them they were correct.

Yeah, he started out real slow last year too (he was hitting around .230 in the end of May, if I recall correctly) but in 2004, he was strong pretty much all season. 2005 stats by month April-.241/.344/.458 May-.289/.324/.546 June-.365/.419/.656 July-.330/.368/.670 August-.272/.326/.469 He definitely got hotter as the season went along-but the splits were not as pronounced as this year, or lasting as long (this year it lasted through June)

They are expected to call up Bynum. We all know he was going to come up at some point, and Theriot would have probably been sent down-and now Theriot gets to stay with the team.

The threads seem to be slower on weekends... Also, threads can explode when there is disagreement-there has been very little disagreement in this thread, so people have trouble finding multiple ways to express their joy :D

I think we could have actually gotten rid of Rusch if not for his injury-too bad. I doubt we will be able to get rid of him in the offseason because the urgency of needing any pitcher, good or not, will be gone by that point.

True, and out of the top 15 run scoring teams in MLB, 12 of them are in the top 15 in Batting Average (and the other 3 in Batting average are 16th, 17th, and 18th in runs scored). Of course, OBP correlates better to runs scored than BA-and OPS correlates better to runs scored than either of them. I want a high OBP on my squad-I'm willing to sacrifice offense at 1 or 2 positions in order to get great defense in the right positions (unless I can get a great offensive player at the position-for example, I consider catcher to be a position where I would take a great defensive catcher over an average offensive player and poor defender, but I wouldn't replace Barrett whatsoever because his offense is so above average for the position). Also, I'm willing to sacrifice OBP at a couple positions for high SLG players-I'd like to have both in high quantities, but if I can only have one in each player, I'd like to have 5 high OBP players and 3 high SLG players (hopefully I can get one that is extremely high in both to have 5 high OBP players and 4 high SLG players). OBP is a great indicator while BA is a good indicator of runs, but both are incomplete when talking about forming an entire team.

I was all for a Jones/Murton platoon earlier in the season. Now, I would like to have Murton in left, a platoon partner for Jacque in right (where that position becomes a huge + for the team with the right platoon partner), and a n offensive 2nd baseman. I offer Pierre arbitration-if he accepts, sign him to a 1 year deal and prepare to have Pie in center in 2008-if he doesn't, pick up the draft picks for him.

Wow, do you watch games? as for OBP being important, it is the single whole belief of the A's system to 9 OBP monsters...and exactly how many World Series' have they played in with that philosophy??? scoring runs matters, the other team not scoring runs matters more. OBP matters little. awesome, about time the "do you watch games" counter argument came. yes, i watch games. hitting 4 groundouts to move a runner isn't a great game. it's not the worst possible game, but it's a bad game. it'd be a good game if on one of those groundouts, he instead drove a double to score the runner, or even if he drew a walk to prolong the inning. nice try on the a's argument. it's completely irrelevant and ignorant. how many red sox world series titles did they win with "get as good an obp as possible" philosophy? The interesting question is-is an 0 for 4 game with moving a runner up 3 times better than a 1 for 4 game (with 1 single) and not moving a runner up in any of the 4 at bats. Based on game situations, the answer might be yes-it just would depend on the situations those 4 at bats came in.

It depends on the context of the game. 0-4 while moving runners up doesn't add enough to help out the team if they're down by a large margin. (down 4 or more runs and it's more important to play for the big inning. If that 0-4 led to 2-3 runs b/c the batter behind also had a good game, then it should be noted as a positive. Game situation dictates the quality of those ABs moreso than anything else. Also, the quality of the batter plays a key role. There's a big difference between M. Ramirez and Rey Ordonez as far as qualifications of a productive game under those circumstances. I completely agree with this, and the last part most of all. A stronger hitter that moves a runner up in front of a weaker hitter is not doing nearly as much of his job as a weaker hitter moving runners up in front of the stronger hitters. Game situation and matchups play a huge factor in this as well.

I agree that guys like Neifi and Izturis have value on teams that have the ability to score runs. However, playing much of the season without Izturis, the Cubs are the 4th best defensive team in MLB. Playing much of the season without Izturis, the Cubs are dead last in runs scored. Defense was not the problem with this roster. Instead of filling a hole, Hendry has created more holes for him to field. Hendry solved a problem that didn't exist. How did he create more holes with the Izturis trade? Because trading for Izturis moves Ronny to second. I'm not convinced that Ronny is guaranteed a starting job next year. I'm also not convinced about that, and the Neifi trade has reinforced that in my mind. I think they have Ronny penciled in as the backup middle infielder next season in Neifi's newly departed spot.

I'm sure he probably passed through waivers initially. Neifi was probably put on waivers along with players like Nevin and Mabry at the beginning of August after the trading deadline. Nobody probably claimed him then, and then the Tigers came calling after Neifi when Polanco got hurt. I've seen mixed reviews on Robinson so far, but he looks like he could end up coming up in a couple years and being a cheap backup catcher-that's what I would imagine would be his reasonable upside at this point, although others could probably give better information than I can on this subject.