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Respectfully disagree - the Cubs problem is not a general lack of offense, but lack of offense from the corner positions. Murton and Jones are both 4th OF in my opinion, Ramirez had a terrible first half, and Lee has been disabled for most of the season. The Cubs were 5th in baseball in defensive efficiency before trading for Izturis, thus his defense can only improve them marginally. Furthermore, regardless of what the team "can" spend, they will only spend somewhere in the $100 million range. As such, you can't waste $4 on a defensive player who provided minimal offense when you've already got that same player on the roster (Perez). Perez's defense is roughly equivalent to Izturis', as is his offense (.650 OPS). You simply can't have two of the worst offensive players in baseball occupying the same roster because they might happen to save a run with their defense every third or fourth game. Furthermore, when a team is last in the league in runs scored by over 100 runs, I would say the team's problem is a lack of offense in total, not just from the corner positions. Over 100 runs from the next team? It's actually 14 runs-I understand your point though (although I still don't understand how we're 5th in defensive efficiency watching this team play defense everyday (especially the OF and catcher and the middle infield earlier in the season, and then see the differences when watching other teams, but that has been beaten to death :D). I happen to think that Izturis will surprise some people offensively next season, but for that we will have to wait and see.

For those who are really unhappy with Izturis, I have a question. What numbers offensively would you acccept from him to make him a decent overall player for the team that brings value to the team? What are the numbers he needs to reach?

When we're paying his contract for a .600 OPS next year, I don't think I'll agree. Isn't that a bit overstating it there? From his last 3 years and splits, he is likely to at least be at 650 OPS next year, and possibly better. Still not good at all of course (and I expect more out of him, but it's a longer explanation why) but when the median shortstop has a 740 OPS, it's a lot better to be a 650+ OPS then to be a 600 OPS. 2005 was the only year in the last 3 that he didn't reach that number, and if you look at his splits where he was playing hurt (same as that you have to throw out Lee's numbers this year because half of the time he played he was playing hurt) Cesar's numbers are well over 650 for 2005 also.

That's almost 3 games worth of runs, that's a huge difference between the 29th and 30th teams. I don't understand the rest of your post, it's stating the obvious as far as the Cubs being streaky. True about the 12 runs-I guess I am comparing to a month ago when we were 30-40 runs behind the next to last team. The rest of my post was just that the Cubs haven't been going up and down all season, but that their season was lost in 3 long streches where they just collapsed in big losing streaks. I'm not sure how many teams you'd find over the years who were this far under .500 and who had more winning months then losing months. That can partially be put on the manager as in my last post, but it can also partially be put on pitching. Many times in a long losing streak a team needs a couple of pitchers who will shut down the opponent and stop the losing streak in order to start the momentum the other way-the Cubs only had 1 possible pitcher to be able to do that in May or June, and that hurt. The offense was still the biggest factor in May and June being so atrocious though-in April, July, and August they have been a middle of the pack offensive ballclub in average runs scored. One just has to wonder if a couple of those games the other way that momentum would have made a 6-7 win difference for this team so far, which would still be under .500 but hanging right in there.

I think it's a matter of Lee wanting to come back and get to playing again even if its for a couple of weeks. This is his first injury, and if it is safe I don't really want him to stew and wonder if he'll ever be the same again until next season. The Cubs organization needs to make sure though that if he steps on the field this season that he is 100% besides of course being rusty at game action. Basically, I think they need to have extreme care to make sure he is healthy before allowing him to step on the field, but I don't think they should hold Lee back who wants to play so bad if they clear him as fully ready.

The Cubs have scored the fewest amount of runs in MLB by a pretty good margin, better pitching would not overcome that. Well, 12 runs behind the next team, but I can understand what you mean-and they were much farther behind the rest of the league just a month ago. Pitching would have made us better this year, but it wouldn't have solved the problem of May when we couldn't score to save our life. We've actually had a very strange season as far as record: Here is our record by month April-13-10 May-7-22 June-9-18 July-14-12 August-9-6 I would not have thought that if we finish the month decently, we'll actually have more winning months then losing. 3 long stretches destroyed us this season. April 26th-May 14th-3-15 Friday May 19th-Sunday May 29th-1-9 June 13th-July 4th-4-17 Record in all other games: 44-27 That's a big reason I want Baker to go-if our losing streaks could have been stopped a little sooner each time (and for example, the second losing streak the last series was that Atlanta series where the 2 run sac fly was on Friday and the Ramirez pop fly off his head in the 11th was on Sunday-both games we could have won, and there were places earlier in the game where we could have won those games), we could easily be right in the race. I think part of a manager's job is to make sure that the team does not go down and keeps playing hard during a losing streak, and if you analyze these losing streaks it is obvious the team gave up at times after losing a few games.

i hope he was joking. Wow, if he wasn't kidding, that reaches whole new levels of pathetic. Wowza. Even if he was joking it's not a wise thing to say given the circumstances. I guess I'm not understanding why this is a big thing. He was walking by the family, and he said one of those funny polite things to say-I'm sure the family got a big kick out of it and that's all.

How do you figure out? If we sweep and the Reds sweep, we'll still be 9 1/2 behind them in both the WC and division-of course then we'd only be 9 games out of the WC (with St. Louis then leading the WC because the Reds would be 1/2 game ahead in the division)

Jones isn't going anywhere, so scratch that idea. I'd love to see Lee and Soriano hitting for the team, but I think it would work best, given who is running this team, with Lee in LF and Soriano playing 2nd again. wow, if you thought walker was a poor defensive 2b . . . The way I see it, that's the only way keeping Izturis makes any sense. His defense combined with Aramis and D-Lee make up for Soriano's defensive shortcomings, and Soriano's bat makes up for Cesar's. there are worse options, that's for sure. Soriano is a bad fit for a team sorely lacking obp though. I'd like him a lot more as a #6 hitter on a team loaded with guys that get on base. He would definitely have to play 2b to be worth what he will make. Seems like Soriano would be a good pickup if he wasn't going to be so overpaid. I'd go for Loretta. Yes-I think you can go either way with this. Soriano at 2nd, Murton in LF, and a platoon partner for Jacque in right-or Lee in left, someone like Loretta at 2nd, and Murton platoons with Jacque in right. I am assuming they resign Pierre (no point in speculating otherwise the way they are talking)-so that leaves a lineup of either Pierre Murton Lee Ramirez Jones/PP Soriano Barrett Izturis or Pierre Loretta Lee Ramirez Lee Jones/Murton Barrett Izturis I think either of those lineups would be a very good lineup, one that in fact is probably the best lineup in the division.

To be fair, remember ione game was 18 innings. It is 6 BB/9 IP That's the funny thing also-we only gave up 6 walks in those 18 innings, and gave up 24 in the other 27 innings.

You can try out different lineups here: http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py According to the simulator, Murton and Barrett would be the ideal 1 and 2 hitters for the Cubs, but as goony said, the difference in runs per game isn't very much (about .7 runs) no matter how you shuffle the same 9 players around. .7 runs total, or .7 runs per game? It's per game. And I don't understand how you can say .7 runs per game isn't very much--is a pitcher with a 3.80 ERA not much better than one with a 4.50 ERA? Yeah, that's why I asked. .7 runs a game would push us from the 20th best offense last year to the 5th. It would have pushed Pittsburgh from the 28th best offense to the 7th best offense. I know we probably don't have the absolute worse lineup, but even a .2 to .5 difference per game is signficant over the course of a season.

How do the A's keep winning ? I mean, they are so young and inexperienced, they don't play small ball, and they have guys on pitch counts. It makes no sense. Great pitching in a terrible division will do that for you. That's all they have-their offense is only marginally better then ours for the year.

You can try out different lineups here: http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py According to the simulator, Murton and Barrett would be the ideal 1 and 2 hitters for the Cubs, but as goony said, the difference in runs per game isn't very much (about .7 runs) no matter how you shuffle the same 9 players around. .7 runs total, or .7 runs per game?

moneyball was NOT about simply exploiting inconsistencies in the market of baseball. It WAS about OBP, and that it's undervalued. if teams had undervalued defense, he wouldn't have exploited THAT incosistency, because undervaluing defense is not really exploitable, defense isn't nearly as important as OBP. Billy Beane was able to find that the single most important conventional statistic in the game of baseball (also referred to as "outs NOT made") was also it's most ignored. Sulley, what abou this quote from Beane from 2004? "BB: Exactly, guys like Scottie Hatteberg. Now people are recognizing the value of that and they're paying for it. And if we're in a bidding war, we're going to lose that. So we have evolved. If you look at some of our first playoff teams, the `99 team that won 87 games, it was a power, on-base team. Now we're tops in the league in defense and pitching. For us, it's all about filling in on the backend and figuring out what people are undervaluing. You know, one day we're going to have a team with guys who steal 50 bases because people aren't paying for it. But it's all about wins. That's all that matters." It certainly sounds like he has gone after some defense since it was undervalued, and would do the same thing with speed. Beane is willing to exploit any inconsistency in the market, not just OBP. By the way, here's the link on that-it's about halfway down. http://www.athleticsnation.com/story/2004/9/20/23544/2604

I think I understand the first part now, but not the second. If someone claims Soriano-and the Nats want more in a trade offer then the claiming team is willing to give, the Nats are left with 2 choices: pull him back, or let him go. If they let him go, then that team wouldn't have to send any players for Soriano. All they have to do is pay for Soriano, and I'm sure any team in the race would easily pay 2.5 million for Soriano for a month if that's all they had to give up. If the Nats pull him back, then the claiming team doesn't lose anything either. The only way the claiming team would trade players is if they agreed to a trade with the Nats during that negotiation period, and of course then the risk would be in the trade, not the claim.

Which again, just proves the point that there is no risk in putting in the claim. The claim is riskless. Risk does not exist for making the claim. No team would be at risk for putting in a claim on Soriano. Any claim put in on Soriano would come without risk. QFT... I'm not sure what about goony's point hasn't gotten across here the 500x he's explained it. Any team claiming him runs the risk of giving up prospects just to have him until the end of the season with no assurances that they will either make the postseason or be able to re-sign him. The claim is not riskless no matter how many times you say it. That's the difference though. Claiming him has no risk to it. Trading for him though is risky-you don't have to trade for Soriano when you make the claim though. Claiming him is really no more risky then calling another GM on the telephone before the deadline-all it does is give you an opportunity to make a trade. It puts no obligation on you to actually make the trade.

.... and again...... and again...... and again....... 6 times in the next week and a half would do nicely for now :D

I would like to nominate Fred for official game thread starter. I second that.

I would definitely agree with you there that Beltran is worth that extra money. The only problem is that if he's only making 12 million this year, the contract must be back loaded (because the deal averages exactly 17 million per year). So Beltran could be making 20 million in his last 2 years of the deal at 33 and 34, and he would probably not be worth it then. That said, I would still want him-and hope other baseball salaries continue to go up and make that deal seem less expensive in comparison.

Okay check it! If the Cards lose tonight we are 11.5 games out. When we sweep the Cards this weekend we are only 8.5 game out! Wow! How does it feel to witness a Cubs miracle in your lifetime!?!? GO CUBS!!!! Am I the only one with a bad feeling about this weekend series against the Cards? It seems everytime the media or fans dismiss a team as an "easy win" because of past success, it backfires right in our face. The Cubs have been living dangerously against the Cards at Wrigley. I would be shocked if we swept. I don't have a great feeling about it. I doubt we sweep-I'm hoping we can take 2 out of 3 against them. It would be really fun to win all 10 at home though-so that is why part of the optimism comes from. CubbieChris, we have 2 things that will hamper that thought to be that good. Remember, the Cardinals play the Reds tomorrow also. So we could be either 11, 12, or 13 games out of the Cardinals starting the series-but if we're 11, then the Reds will only be 1/2 game out of the Cardinals and playing Pittsburgh over the weekend-which means they would most likely be leading the division if we swept the Cardinals. I hope the Cardinals beat the Reds in both games remaining in their series-we have to catch the Reds anyway, and that way we can make headway in both the division and WC race (remember everyone, I don't think this will happen-but it could, and it's fun to dream).

That's 4 straight wins actually :D. If the Reds lose tonight, we will be as close to the WC as we have been this season in a while-9 games even, so that will eliminate the first two options of the poll. Like you said, if we win on Friday, we will satisfy the other part of the poll and be 15 or less under .500-let's go take those Cardinals again!

So does everyone else in the NL except the 2 teams we play well against:)

We were laughing early in the game about playing for 1 run today..I don't think anybody expected that 1 run would be leading today. Great job O'Malley. Ok-now this is getting a little crazy with him leading off.

This is a strange stat. From my counting, in the 3 game winning streak and this game, we have allowed 23 more walks then we have took. You can't keep winning for too long with that big of a disparity.

I doubt it will ever happen either-I'm pretty sure they don't think that Theriot can play SS (even though I've heard he can), and they are unwilling to have Cedeno play SS at all right now (probably to not confuse him as he is learning 2B. So, I doubt all 3 of these players will play together, at least this season.