RichHillIsABeast

Fredi Gonzales Marcus Giles Aramis Ramirez Juan Pierre Cliff Floyd / Jose Guillen Meche Miller Wood Who do I want? Gonzales Giles Ramirez Lugo Lofton Zito Moyer

Who is your source? Why wouldn't a club offer him a 2 or 3 year deal now that he's surgically repaired and rehabilitated? If he shows improvement and stays healthy over the next few months, there will be teams interested. Hendry already took the big risk -- it's nowhere near as great when planning for '07. The velo on his fastball is topping out at 91. He was at 95 easily pre-injury. He's not rehabilitated and repaired. It'll take time. He hasn't put up great numbers in his minor league starts, much less against the Braves in his first ML start. If he was hitting 95 with little velo drop after 100 pitches, then you'd probably see a multi-year deal thrown his way. You don't throw a multi-year deal at someone who hasn't proven his health or stuff. Miller isn't going to gain 4+ mph on his fastball in the remaining 20 games, which means another 3 possible starts for him. 3 decent starts aren't going to get him a multi-year deal from anyone. Ya'll are worrying over nothing. Miller will be a Cub if Hendry wants him. It could be our scouts see some things they don't like and we take a pass. Miller's return to pre-injury form is no sure thing as TT pointed out. We'll have a better idea what the chances are than any club out there has. If we pass, buyer beware.

100 losses, here we come.

It's not going to make that big of a difference. The players you have make the lion's share of difference, not the manager. Batting order is largely inconsequential anyway. The GM, ownership, and talent acquisition departments judge the worthiness of an offensive player, not the manager. I doubt Dusty cost us 5 games this season. I may be wrong, but it appears, that at least with Dusty, Hendry gives his manager some input with roster moves and decisions. If so, I think Dierker would have a greater input than we might imagine on face value. Have you heard Hendry and our scouting department on the value of bunting, stolen bases, and walks? Dierker would be talking to a brick wall. They all think they know more than he does about baseball. After all, all you have to do is watch the game and you'd know that sabermetrics garbage is for fantasy geeks. (heavy sarcasm) 1) Dierker will never be hired by the Cubs. 2) If Dierker was hired, no one in the baseball operations department would pay attention to him. It's going to take a change of upper management, including Hendry and MacPhail for there to be any serious impact on this organization.

It's not going to make that big of a difference. The players you have make the lion's share of difference, not the manager. Batting order is largely inconsequential anyway. The GM, ownership, and talent acquisition departments judge the worthiness of an offensive player, not the manager. I doubt Dusty cost us 5 games this season.

No inconsistency whatsoever. I wouldn't have signed him at all, but, if you're going to sign a rehabbing pitcher, there has to be some upside to the signing. Having signed Miller for 2006 gives the Cubs exactly ZERO advantage over the 29 other teams going into the '06-'07 offseason. Where's the upside? Miller will resign with the Cubs, if that's what Hendry wants. He's not getting a multi-year deal from anyone. We can give an incentive laden 1 year deal just like anyone else and we're in his good graces for signing him at 1M. It's not like organizations are lining up to take risks on players. Hendry doesn't mind the several million dollar gamble on a starting pitcher. I don't either considering their worth to a ballclub. Maybe Hendry did mess up. The future will tell. But, don't rag on Miller for being "toast" when he's still rehabbing. I can't think of a player who wasn't mediocre when rehabbing from a semi-serious surgery. So he doesn't have his velocity back. Big whoop. It'll come back or it won't. I'd be fine with the cubs spending several million bucks to find out. We spent how many millions on the likes of Neifi Perez and Glendon Rusch? At least Miller has a high upside. Will he reach it? Maybe. Maybe not. Let's find out. Be patient. Big whoop? I would like to see a WS championship some time this century. It's time for a fully qualified GM to take over. Don't get me wrong. Hendry deserves to be fired. Dusty stinks, but he's only costing us a handful of games, not putting us in the cellar. That's all on Hendry. However, not all of Hendry's moves have been poor. Miller is still in the undecided category. Rusch, Neifi, Jones, Pierre, etc are pretty poor moves. I'd much rather have Nolasco than Pierre, that's for sure. The most recent Nevin trade was good. Ditching Neifi (finally!!!) is great, especially since we picked up a decent catcher. And that's just recent history. Aramis, Lee, Murton, and Barrett were all great acquisitions. We built a team around Prior and Wood. Honestly, I didn't expect Prior to implode like he did. He had a couple of freak injuries and now... I didn't have a problem with Wood's new contract at the time he signed it. Now it looks dumb, but hindsight is like that. Hendry should have added more starting pitching for this season to account for Wood's health concerns. He didn't. He definitely got raped in the Pierre trade. A few stolen bases isn't worth a major league ready starting pitcher. No way.

No inconsistency whatsoever. I wouldn't have signed him at all, but, if you're going to sign a rehabbing pitcher, there has to be some upside to the signing. Having signed Miller for 2006 gives the Cubs exactly ZERO advantage over the 29 other teams going into the '06-'07 offseason. Where's the upside? Miller will resign with the Cubs, if that's what Hendry wants. He's not getting a multi-year deal from anyone. We can give an incentive laden 1 year deal just like anyone else and we're in his good graces for signing him at 1M. It's not like organizations are lining up to take risks on players. Hendry doesn't mind the several million dollar gamble on a starting pitcher. I don't either considering their worth to a ballclub. Maybe Hendry did mess up. The future will tell. But, don't rag on Miller for being "toast" when he's still rehabbing. I can't think of a player who wasn't mediocre when rehabbing from a semi-serious surgery. So he doesn't have his velocity back. Big whoop. It'll come back or it won't. I'd be fine with the cubs spending several million bucks to find out. We spent how many millions on the likes of Neifi Perez and Glendon Rusch? At least Miller has a high upside. Will he reach it? Maybe. Maybe not. Let's find out. Be patient.

First you say that Miller will never get his velocity back and he's toast. Then you complain about Hendry not getting an option for next season? At least be consistent. Resigning Miller won't be a problem. No one is going to offer him a multi-year deal, including us. An incentive laden one year deal will land him. I'd be fine sticking him in the 5 slot next season assuming we have a couple backup plans.

I have been really impressed with him. Other than stealing 3rd with 2 outs the other day, he's been great. At least he knew he was in the wrong. I don't think he'll be Jones part II. :lol: I think he's made the '07 team. You forgot getting picked off of first in the 9th inning when he was the tying run-but other then those two mistakes, he has shown really good baseball awareness over the last month. Haha, I forgot that one. An OBP over .300 makes me do that.

Eyre doesn't think so. :lol:

I have been really impressed with him. Other than stealing 3rd with 2 outs the other day, he's been great. At least he knew he was in the wrong. I don't think he'll be Jones part II. :lol: I think he's made the '07 team.

When he was good, Miller was consistently 93-95 on the fastball (at least). I don't see him getting 5 mph back. He's toast. I'm sure there were tons of Jays and Cards fans saying the same thing about Carpenter for 1.5 years, who went threw a much more serious surgery. BTW, Miller was by far the better pitcher between himself and Carpenter before surgury and during his minor league rehab starts. Your negativity is premature. What about the dozens and dozens of pitchers who have gone through surgery and never been the same? Just because there's a slight, slight hope doesn't mean it's premature to dismiss Miller, especially considering the other arms we have in the system right now. That slight hope is exactly what makes that negativity premature. Where would the Cards be without Carpenter? In the cellar, that's where. I know this season has sucked, but it's going to take something big like Miller panning out for us to contend in '07 and '08. MacPhail isn't going to let us land a top tier FA. He's costing us a whopping 1M this season to throw a few crappy innings. How much did Wood and Prior cost us for their fine outtings? We're out of it so pitching Miller isn't a bad thing at all. Who's losing innings? Geez. Guys like Walrond and Guzman are getting their chances and flopping. The only guy with a legit shot at the rotation next season is Hill. Everyone else is going to be chilling in AAA or the bullpen. If we're going to write off Miller b/c of lack of stuff, let's just release Guzman right now. He sure as heck doesn't have the 3 plus pitches he used to. You have to give people the time to prove they don't belong. Less than a season of rehab isn't enough to write Miller off. It's a low risk, high reward type of situation. There are plenty of things to complain about this season. Miller isn't one of them.

Thx Fred. I saw Miller in the 87-90 range with the fastball. The arm strength just isn't there yet. He's not a finesse pitcher and it shows when he can't go up with the fastball.

Hey Fred. Could you do the P/PA, OBP, OPS, etc breakdown for the two teams so far? Thanks! :D

When he was good, Miller was consistently 93-95 on the fastball (at least). I don't see him getting 5 mph back. He's toast. I'm sure there were tons of Jays and Cards fans saying the same thing about Carpenter for 1.5 years, who went threw a much more serious surgery. BTW, Miller was by far the better pitcher between himself and Carpenter before surgury and during his minor league rehab starts. Your negativity is premature.

It takes time for pitchers to come back from that kind of surgery. I doubt he'll be 100% until after next season. Don't judge the finished product by the rehab version.

Just as expected. First start since August 05. Give him some time. I know. It'll be quite some time before he is all the way back, like 1-2 years. It's a good thing our games don't mean much right now.

OK. Miller is getting shelled.

Nice grab.

Murton with the opposite field power. 8)

That was a scary inning from Miller. He'll be a lot better once his velo comes back.

hahaha, thx Aybar!

Red Rover, Red Rover, send Giles right over.

Miller pre-injury was far better than Carpenter pre-injury. Carpenter also posted very mediocre numbers in his first 1-1.5 seasons post-injury.

Chris Carpenter.