RichHillIsABeast

The Cubs are about as likely to sign Alou to platoon in RF as we were to get Larry Dierker as our manager.

The only time I saw Dubois mash a ML breaking ball was when it was hung right over the middle of the plate. Dubois = AAAA But, back to Alou. He's not worth the money, injury concerns, defensive liability, or bad baserunning as a platoon partner. If we're going to go injury prone, let's go after Drew (which I don't advocate in general) and just flat out get rid of Jacque Jones.

Great. Alou and Jones can compare their blunders on the basepaths in their spare time. Murton, ?, and Jones/Alou across the outfield? That's some pretty weak defense. Alou doesn't bring enough with his bat (as a platoon partner) to make it worth the bad knees and baserunning gaffes.

But to be fair, Howry/Eyre performed admirably especially for their contracts. Eyre wasn't good, and he was terrible for his contract. You're looking at overall numbers. Eyre was pretty darn good until August when his physical fitness caught up with him. Once his back and hammy started bothering him, his delivery really changed. He wasn't finishing like he was. Dude needs to get in shape this offseason. And what makes you think that the same thing isn't going to happen again next year? If he doesn't show up to play, Piniella will kill him. It all starts with a phone call in the offseason. Piniella isn't Dusty. Players with run. They will do drills. Eyre either gets in shape or has a heart attack in ST.

Now that MacPhail and Baker are gone, we'll see the real Hendry. He has the power and the free reign to do what he wants. You're right. Hendry better have an awesome offseason. People, right or wrong, want his head.

I'd like to see any other 100M teams lose two aces from their staff and an all-star 1B and still compete. Should we have counted on Wood? No. DLee? Yes. Prior? Yes. Up till this last season, darn near everyone thought he had just suffered some fluke injuries (Giles, Hawpe, etc). It shocked everyone (ok, maybe not the pessimists) when he pulled up lame in ST. We won more games in '04 than we did in '03. It just took more wins to get in the playoffs that year. That's improvement. In '04 with Z, Wood, and Prior we were looking at a dynasty. Hendry doesn't prevent Wood from throwing back to back starts in high school, Prior from Giles, Prior from Hawpe, or DLee from Furcal.

I wish he could lend some insight as to why there doesn't seem to be a sense of urgency on the part of the Cubs. It sure seems like Hendry is being extremely casual about this. Does he not know that Ramirez would likely be the best FA available if he opts out? Wasn't he quoted towards the end of the season as saying that he'd like to get it done a couple weeks after the season ended? What happened to that plan, Jim? Sadly, this is typical Hendry. Wait, and wait, and wait. And just wait-we'll end up with Scott Moore at 3B. It could also be Ramirez's agent slowing things down. ARam's got Hendry over a barrel and the closer he gets to optting out, the more likely he is to get his 15M.

I hope Dempster gets his stuff together for ST and then I eat almost all of his contract for prospects. Dempster will rebound enough to entice other teams, but I'm sick and tired of him costing us wins b/c he has control issues. Yeah, eating his contract sucks, but the wins we pick up w/o him on the '07 and '08 teams makes up for it. If he pulls the same crap next season (and we are contending) several blown saves can cost us the playoffs. Well, I doubt Piniella will play favorites like Dusty did, so maybe he'd just get the hook after his 4th blown save in a row.

I wanted BJ Ryan in the worst way last offseason. But for next season, I'd ditch Dempster and go with Wuertz. If he hit a long slump, Howry or Eyre would be there to save the day (Eyre was pretty filty before his injuries). There are no stud closers in the FA market. If Lidge became available on the trade market, I'd be all over that.

That's not going to happen with the Chicago Cubs. Outside the box is not their thing. Piniella would use your pen like any other pen with traditionally defined roles. 90%+ of managers would do the same thing.

But to be fair, Howry/Eyre performed admirably especially for their contracts. Eyre wasn't good, and he was terrible for his contract. You're looking at overall numbers. Eyre was pretty darn good until August when his physical fitness caught up with him. Once his back and hammy started bothering him, his delivery really changed. He wasn't finishing like he was. Dude needs to get in shape this offseason.

IMO, that second bullpen would get torn up. You don't create a successful 'pen by stringing together some arms with good stats. Who would you have as closer, setup men, loogy, etc? Not to be an ass, but did you read my post? Dempster is still the closer, first off. Secondly, I made the point the Wuertz and Ohman were in the setup and loogy roles respectively in 2005....in what was a better bullpen than the one in 2006. Well maybe I didn't make the exact point, but still they were in those roles in 2005 and the 2005 pen was miles better. If you don't make that exact point, then don't get upset when someone points out the lack of clarity in your post. <--- Not trying to be an ass. So you have: Closer - Dempster Setup - Wuertz Setup - Rapada LOOGY - Ohman Long Relief - Aardsma Middle Relief - Wood Is that right? I'm just trying to be clear about the roles. I don't know why roles are important. But I would switch Wood and Rapada. Oh and who says you can't throw a bunch of arms together to make a good bullpen? The Cubs went out and spent big money on Eyre and Howry. The Cards gave bullpen roles to Wainright, Thompson and Hancock. The best pens in the ML were full of cheap failed starters. Roles are very important. For example, you have Wood as a setup guy. He isn't going to be able to pitch on consecutive days b/c of his shoulder. Dempster...well, he was a one hit wonder. Now we get to enjoy those walks in key situations. When a little bad luck hits (bloopers, shoddy D) you don't just give up the single, you put guys in scoring position or give up runs. Not good. Aardsma is also iffy, IMO, but I'd stick him in there anyway and hope he performs. His disappearing velo last season worries me. No. You can't just throw arms together. Would you stick Ohman in as a setup guy with his horrible track record against righties? No way. Guys have roles. Ideally you want your stongest reliever closing games. This definitely isn't Dempster. I'd take Howry, Eyre, and Wuertz over him in a heartbeat. The next strongest should be your setup guys. Ideally you want 7+ innings out of your starter so your setup guys come in, pitch their innings (or batters depending on their L/R splits) and get the ball to your closer. Woody has the stuff to setup (or close or start or conquer the world) but stamina and health is a huge issue. No setting up for Woody, at least not the first half of the season until we see how his arm responds to the pen.

IMO, that second bullpen would get torn up. You don't create a successful 'pen by stringing together some arms with good stats. Who would you have as closer, setup men, loogy, etc? Not to be an ass, but did you read my post? Dempster is still the closer, first off. Secondly, I made the point the Wuertz and Ohman were in the setup and loogy roles respectively in 2005....in what was a better bullpen than the one in 2006. Well maybe I didn't make the exact point, but still they were in those roles in 2005 and the 2005 pen was miles better. If you don't make that exact point, then don't get upset when someone points out the lack of clarity in your post. <--- Not trying to be an ass. So you have: Closer - Dempster Setup - Wuertz Setup - Rapada LOOGY - Ohman Long Relief - Aardsma Middle Relief - Wood Is that right? I'm just trying to be clear about the roles.

IMO, that second bullpen would get torn up. You don't create a successful 'pen by stringing together some arms with good stats. Who would you have as closer, setup men, loogy, etc?

WTH is wrong with EPat's defense lately?

I tuned into Sports Central to catch the Piniella interview and heard some interesting things. Kaplan said that MacPhail, not Hendry, wrote the contract that gave Aramis his opt out clause. Aramis was also granted an NTC for those two years, meaning that Hendry couldn't have traded him (as the rumors at this past trade deadline indicated). Hendry also never thought of Izturis as the Cubs #2 hitter of the future. He simply got Izturis b/c he needed something of value for a guy (Maddux) who wouldn't be here next season.

That's good. Losing draft pick compensation for Type A's would have sucked for the small market teams, especially with the new unwillingness of the bigger payroll teams to fork over quality prospects at the trade deadline (Zito, Soriano, etc).

Who's demonizing Rogers? He beat the Cards w/o that crap on his hand. The only people whining about that are sore losers. Pine tar on bats is necessary to control the bat, if for nothing else than safety reasons. A foreign substance on a ball has no other purpose than to improve someone's stuff. There is no safety factor there. None. There is no double standard. I'm sure if pitchers wanted to wear body armor on the mound they could. Too bad it restricts the pitching motion so much it won't happen. That's the physical realities of the world we live in my friend. Careers are ended by fastballs to the elbow. There are rules to prevent players from just sticking there armor out there or not even attempting to move out of the way of a pitch.

It's funny that they go as far as revenue sharing and then stiff the small market teams by eliminating compensation picks.

You don't see the difference between pine tar for a grip on a bat, and banning a pitcher from using foreign substances? If he's using the pine tar to alter the motion of the ball, then yes, that's a problem. But if he's using it to get a better grip on the ball, then he's doing nothing different than the batter is doing. Yeah, let's not let hitters use pine tar ever again. That way some unsuspecting fan or athlete can take a bat to the head. It's a safety rule as much as it helps the hitters control the bat. Pine tar on bats doesn't change your ability to hit, only to hold onto the freaking object. Pine tar (plus other stuff) on a ball changes a pitchers stuff. It's pretty noticeable.

Yes, Murton was first pitch swinging and it led to a slump. He was taking Dusty's advice to the extreme and going after the first pitch he saw in the strike zone, and not in a certain hitting zone. BIG DIFFERENCE. Eventually he made the adjustment to more properly zoning the plate. Look at his GDP, GO/AO ratios, HR totals in the time frame we're talking about. Murton really changed his game. You don't need stats to see that either. Baseball is about adjustments. It just took Murton some time to do it this time around. He'll hit for a lot more power this way. Murton has a great swing. But a great swing doesn't mean much if you can't select the right pitch to hit. Murton has pretty much always been able to tell if the pitch is a strike or a ball, but that's a very different thing than identifying pitches you can drive into the gaps or out of the ballpark.

Yeah, that's the timeline I remember. Murton was told he was being too patient. Murton attempted to be more aggressive and his AVG slipped. After that, he was sharing time in LF with Bynum. If Baker/Clines helped Murton, there should have been no reason to sit him in favor of Bynum. When you make adjustments, sometimes you regress for a period of time. But when you get it figured out, you're just that much better than you were to start with. That's the nature of baseball. IT'S NOT ABOUT BEING MORE AGGRESSIVE. It's about zoning the plate, which oftentimes seems more aggressive as you tend to swing at the first good pitch you see. If you're used to driving a car with an automatic transmission all your life and then suddenly switch over to manual, you look like a horrible driver to start with, stalling and fumbling around. Once you get it down, you have another skill. Suddenly driving an automatic is just that much easier too. Same thing goes with making adjustments at the plate.

What is this supposed to show? That Murton slumped? He was trying to hit the best pitch in the AB, like he should. In June he was frequently going after something in the zone, rather than in a zone he could hit. That's part of the learning process! It took him some time to adjust. Because Murton didn't immediately adjust means that Dusty/Clines gave him bad advice?

ok, let me just say that how patient the reds hitters were is probably completely irrelevant. Did Chambliss make them patient? doubtful. I guess there is some benefit in not teaching patient hitters to be impatient but hendry is the man that needs to go get patient hitters. chambliss isn't going to turn jones into a walk machine. In a perfect world, the Jacque Jones' of the baseball world end up playing in some other outfield, far, far away from Chicago. Better players, like JD Drew, take his place. I really don't know the extent of what hitting coaches do for the players. But, I do know that early in the 2006 season, Dusty was getting on Murton for being too patient, which, IMO, induced his slump. Baker stressed aggressiveness. I doubt that the hitting coach stressed the opposite. Murton was being too patient. He was consistently letting the best pitch of the AB go right by him and then swinging at crap later in the AB, many times grounding out weakly in the IF. His success at the end of the season wasn't a return to a patient approach. He learned how to zone the plate better, which was what Baker was whining about in the first place. That's how you exploit power, which Murton has, and wasn't showing early on. I'm not big on Baker's free swinging ways either, but with Murton he was right on the money.

The Reds have decided strikeouts are the devil and are purging players who K a lot. I guess the hitting coach gets the axe too.