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He's signed through 2007 at $13.5m. We could extend him if we felt it appropriate of course. I'd rather spend $2.5m more (at most) and lock up Soriano in the off-season. Why? Besides this season, I don't think Soriano's stats has been better than Jones' besides this season. I would probably have to agree with the Soriano talk, with the only big reason is that their stats have not been far enough apart to spend the prospects on Jones-if we sign Soriano, we could spin those players off for another impact bat. That doesn't mean that I oppose getting Jones altogther though-he's still a very good ballplayer that would be worth it. Or we could use the prospects for Jones and try to sign Carlos Lee or somebody like that. That is certainly another option-Jones and Lee would improve the offense significantly. Of course, if we have the money, Jones and Soriano would also improve the offense-so, yes I definitely would say that if we could get Jones in the right deal to go out and get him.

He's signed through 2007 at $13.5m. We could extend him if we felt it appropriate of course. I'd rather spend $2.5m more (at most) and lock up Soriano in the off-season. Why? Besides this season, I don't think Soriano's stats has been better than Jones' besides this season. I would probably have to agree with the Soriano talk, with the only big reason is that their stats have not been far enough apart to spend the prospects on Jones-if we sign Soriano, we could spin those players off for another impact bat. That doesn't mean that I oppose getting Jones altogther though-he's still a very good ballplayer that would be worth it.

I think there is one other thing to consider when thinking about how big of a role defense should play-and that is that our pitching will be young. If we go with a rotation of 2 or 3 young pitchers, hits tend to multiply on young pitching especially. They sail through a couple innings, but can have trouble especially when runners get on base (this is based purely on observation over the years). Errors can also cause young pitchers to get flustered, and cause more hits and runs. Veteran pitchers can more easily shake off errors behind them in the field, but rookies need that confidence that they don't have to throw the ball past the hitters in order to win-that if they let them hit the ball into play, outs are going to be recorded. I can't tell you how much more valuable, but defense definitely becomes more valuable with a young pitcher on the mound.

I don't know, but that's what trades are for. It shouldn't be hard to find a lead-off guy with a .330 OBP who is cheaper than Pierre. If Pierre had more of a recent history of a .350+ OBP, I'd be on board with re-signing him. Leadoff hitters are hard to find. You cant just go out and make a trade for one. Not many teams will deal their leadoff hitter. Matt Murton would be just fine as a leadoff hitter if Pierre didn't come back. Yes, he actually would. I would just then have 2 questions: 1) How does Matt feel about batting leadoff? That's something that we can't really know-some hitters are just not cut out for batting leadoff. From our vantage point, it would be hard to tell if Murton is one of them or if he is comfortable in that role. 2)Who do we sign to play center? I'm not sure what options there are that could be had, or how much it would take.

Pagan's been a pleasant surprise this year-albeit in a small number of at-bats.

Whatever else Theriot does, he really has great game awareness-both the tag up earlier in the 1st and that double play have really showed that.

I can ask for a leadoff hitter who can at least work the count beyond seeing 2-3 pitches and have an on-base percentage of at least .350. How is Pierre supposed to work the count? It's not like he's heading up there swinging. In fact, he finished 8th in the league last year in taking the 1st pitch-he only swung 11.4 percent of the time. The only reason that he doesn't see all that many pitches is that he doesn't swing and miss very often and doesn't foul that many pitches off-which means that he's likely to put his first swing in play.

It's only caused 3 out of the 4 runs today..all 4 if you think Gonzalez should have been able to throw Pagan out. Really though, I think Cedeno was just nervous on that play-he probably is feeling a little out of sorts the last couple days trying to learn a new position-even going back to your old position can still have you a little jumpy-great barehand Mateo!

Mateo hasn't tried to nibble-he is really going right after them, and it is really working right now. I'm really interested to see if this continues if he gets into a bit of trouble later in the game-those 2 innings have been pretty impressive so far though.

Welcome back Aardsma, and nice inning there.

Down 7-1 after 5..Marmol gave up 5 in the first.

Does anybody else question the theory that he was tipping his pitches? They said Arizona was laying off borderline pitches-I didn't really see any borderline pitches the first 2 innings. It looked instead that he was throwing most of his pitches a foot off the plate, and his strikes were easy ones right over the middle with Arizona sitting dead red.

Lol..at least the 2nd one was right down the middle there. 79 pitches for Marmol, and 73 pitches for Cruz now. Amazing.

Great patience out of the Cubs today-every Cub hitter so far has looked at the first pitch, and only 3 Cubs swung at the second pitch-resulting in one foul ball, one out, and the Pierre double.

Otherwise known as we don't really want him to pitch anymore, so we're going to sneak him onto the DL. This could be a real injury, but this is one you sort of question.

In what way shape or form? Well, Pierre is considered to be a marginally bigger threat on the bases than Posednik. Also, as much as we have been upset at Pierre for how he plays center, Posednik is that much worse. When their offensive games are so similar, the tiebreaker should either be amount of contract (which I don't know what either of them will ask for) or their other attributes, which Pierre is better at. It would still be a very close call between the two players, but the fact that a natural center fielder by both speed and the limited offense that Podsednik brings was moved to left is a telling sign I think. Considered to be marginally bigger threat on the bases? By whom? Pods is more successful stealing. And he makes considerably less money. You can't just claim Pierre is "better in every category" and expect not to be called on that completely made up and arbitrary statement. I'm fine with being called out-especially since Pierre has been more successful at stealing bases each of the last 2 seasons. 2005-Podsednik-59 steals, 23 times caught Pierre- 57 steals, 17 times caught 2006-Podsednik-30 steals, 13 times caught Pierre- 38 steals, 12 times caught Podsednik's percentage is going down and is getting caught much more frequently than earlier in his career, while Pierre is staying level to his career. So yes, Pierre is now considered to be marginally better on the basepaths.

2 under .700 isn't bad for any team. Including Eckstein into that isn't fair either given his role is to get on base and he does that pretty well, not ideal but good enough to not become a weakness. But, if have players with weak OBPs (top of the order hitters) and weak OPS (btm of the order) there has to be extreme compensation by having a great 3-4-5-6. From a cost standpoint, it's more difficult to obtain a great 3-4-5-6 than a balanced lineup. That's certainly true, and believe me, I am a big proponent that they go out and sign a second baseman rather than have Cedeno play there next year. I'm just saying it won't absolutely kill us or have us to necessarily have the worst offense next year-I think we already have a good 3/4/5 (Lee/Ramirez/Barrett)-and a good 7 for next year (Jones/Murton Platoon). We need to sign a player in LF that will be very good in the 6 spot (or the 5 and Barrett can move to 6). If we do that, we could still be a decent offense even with Pierre, Izturis, and Cedeno. If we can get both a LF and a second baseman (and if the LF is great, the second baseman doesn't have to light the world on fire, just be pretty good), then we would be down to 2 possible sub .700 players (and those 2 could certainly put up .700 or more-Pierre is at .700 this year, and we will see how Izturis is at the end of the year this year when he gets some at bats for this year), and I think we would have the potential of having a very good offense.

In what way shape or form? Well, Pierre is considered to be a marginally bigger threat on the bases than Posednik. Also, as much as we have been upset at Pierre for how he plays center, Posednik is that much worse. When their offensive games are so similar, the tiebreaker should either be amount of contract (which I don't know what either of them will ask for) or their other attributes, which Pierre is better at. It would still be a very close call between the two players, but the fact that a natural center fielder by both speed and the limited offense that Podsednik brings was moved to left is a telling sign I think.

offensively, he's far superior to pierre, who actually is quite pathetic. He's not far superior..38 points better in OPS this year, 20 points better last year-Posednik's last year is the same as this year for Pierre, and this year for Posednik is his best year in his last 3. Also, Posednik had his hot streak earlier in the season and Pierre is still going on his, so that gap could easily close to 20 points or so very quickly. When their stats are that close, you have to look at the other things that they bring to the table, and Pierre is better in every other category.

There is talent in the pitching department, but you still need hitting... agreed but there is some talent there for next year too. they have a core of aram, lee, barrett & jones. it looks like pierre might be re-signed soon due to his extended offensive surge and i hope they haven't given up on murton yet. if izzy can hit .280 + with a .750 ops and cedeno & fontenot can handle 2b. what in the world would lead you to believe that he'll be anywhere near .750 when his career high is .711 and every other year he's been under .700? i might also add that he has had back-to-back seasons posting a sub-.600 OPS. i reiterate, 3 players with sub-.700 OPS's in any lineup will kill said lineup. a batting order consists of 9 hitters, you cannot put 4 dead bats out there and expect to score any runs. i'd be interested to find out if it's ever been done before, you know, 3 players with sub-.700 OPS's on a playoff team. the pitching would definitely have to be superb, which i won't hold my breath on. EDIT: the astros made the world series last year with 3: taveras, burke, and everett. you know, the astros of the 3.51 team era. That's true-there are some other examples of that. The 2002 Braves had plenty of sub .700 OPS's-now, these Braves had several different starters (they only had 5 people get over 350 at-bats) but 1 of those 5 and 4 others with at least 200 at-bats had under .700 (2 of those can be combined though-Javy and Blanco both had under .700 from the catcher position). Houston just about did it in 2004. The Cardinals also have 3 this year (Eckstein, Molina, and Miles). It's actually not all that uncommon-and just about every team I looked at had 2 under .700 (I looked at all the playoff teams that were not the Red Sox or Yankees). Reason for Edit: Typo on one of the first numbers.

That is what Len and Bob said last night that both games would be on WGN. We shall see, but I certainly hope so. (The only reason I'm not sure is that once or twice the schedule has changed and they didn't show both games-but I doubt that will happen this time.) is this a day/night double header, or should the second game start around 3:30-4pm central? From what I have heard, this is not a day/night doubleheader-so yes, I think that the second game should start around then.

That is what Len and Bob said last night that both games would be on WGN. We shall see, but I certainly hope so. (The only reason I'm not sure is that once or twice the schedule has changed and they didn't show both games-but I doubt that will happen this time.)

Yes, so even though their OBPs weren't good, they still had a significantly better IsoD (more patience) than Izturis at age 26. Exactly. Both had more patience than Izturis at this age, which allowed them to progress as hitters. If Izturis doesn't learn how to take a walk, he will NEVER, I repeat, NEVER, be a consistently good player. Which is why...after the season....have Cesar and Ronny go visit Tony Gwynn and see if they can pick up a few tricks to hitting, such as....putting the wooden piece instrument on the white baseball, for instance. Or that just because the pitcher throws say ball, doesn't mean you have to swing. But none of the younger players on the Cubs are going to improve, unless they bring in coaches that DEMANDS plate zone judgment, something that Baker has a disdain for. I understand completely what you mean-but if you want patience and taking walks, you might not want Gwynn. Most of his years had about as many BB's as Izturis's last healthy year. I think he certainly could teach them better though how to hit a pitch and drive it into the gap, so that's still a very good idea.

Hendry said yesterday on the Score670 (in his interview with Mike Murphy) that he has all intentions to bring back Pierre for next year. So it seems he definitely knows what direction he wants to go in terms of CF. Here's a link to the interview for anyone who hasn't heard it........ http://670thescore.com/podspot/pages/murphy/4.shtml time to get a new hobby. if they go into 2007 with Pierre, Cedeno and Izturis in the line up, there won't be a point in watching or posting about the Cubs. The more I've thought about this, the more I think it might not be a completely lost cause. If those 3 are in the lineup, we'll have a similar offense to this year except for these things. LF will have possibly much more production if we sign a big bat. RF will have more production if we platoon Jones and Murton. Ramirez should have a better year next year at third. Izturis and Cedeno in the middle infield should definitely be better than Cedeno/Neifi/Womack (not including Walker because most of his at-bats were at first this year-and I'm saying it will be an improvement because Izturis is a better hitter than any of those options, and Cedeno should improve over his year this year). Lee will be back at first, and his production should help this lineup a lot. The only position where I see decreased production is from catcher, where Barrett is having a career year (Pierre I think would have a better year next year, but that's just a hunch-so for the purposes of this, I gave him the exact same stats next year). If this happens, we won't have a great offense-but our offense will definitely be improved over this year's version, probably in the 20th-23th range in the majors. Of course, that is not what any of us are hoping for, but an offense like that would at least give us a chance if our pitching was lights out.

Pedro-when you look at the past results of the two players, how can you believe that Cedeno will have a better year? Really-Cedeno would have to improve 59 points in OPS just to make it up to Izturis's year so far this year. If you take out the 3 months that Izturis played with the injury last year, he has improved every single year of his career-every single year until this year in which he is coming back from the injury. I am not basing it off of grit or hustle or anything else, but simply the stats-which show that Izturis has gotten better every year he's been healthy. If you think the reason is that he is not going to be healthy next year, then say so. Otherwise, I don't know how a detailed look at the stats doesn't reveal that he will probably continue to improve (although at a slower rate-it's much easier to progress at a fast rate when you're going from terrible to bad). So why do people think he is suddenly going to start to regress again? A simple no response would be better. Hey I agree with ya Colt. He had a decent year in 2004. And wasn't it the first 2 months of 2005 where he had the .350 OBP before he got injured? Correct me if I'm wrong here. It was the first 2 months of 05, but he actually had a .348 BA during that time and his OBP was all the way up to .389 during that time.