Backtobanks

I was one of the people who thought the Brewers would be decent last year, now that everyone is piled on the bandwagon, I don't think they're ready yet. Weeks and Fielder will experience growing pains. They are bad defensively. Hardy won't be as good as his 2nd half numbers, but not as bad as his first half. Lee's a great RBI man, but doesn't get on base like a 3-4 hitter should. Jenkins had a great 2nd half too, but won't hit as well in 06. I think they are seriously in danger of seeing decreased production across the board offensively with the exception of 2B and possibly SS. If Ben Sheets can't start 30 times for them, they are in bad shape. As I originally stated, the Cubs, Cards, and Brewers all have question marks, but they are the top 3 teams in the division. The Brewers are counting on some talented youngsters, but they are youngsters. They got a career year out of Brady Clark and I think it's questionable that he will repeat that success. If he doesn't, Lee's RBI total goes down significantly. I do find it interesting that so many sportswriters will assume that every other team's question marks will succeed while the Cubs' question marks will fail. After this spring, I don't think of Murton as questionable. I think Jones in RF will be adequate. Hopefully Pierre will return to his career averages, but his "lousy" year in 2005 will be a vast improvement over last year's leadoff men. I do agree that spring training didn't solidify Cedeno as a "sure thing", but I do have confidence that he will be a solid SS and an improvement over 2005. As usual, the one unknown is the injury situation, which does seem to haunt the Cubs more than other teams.

The Cards have lost talent, the Astros has lost a ton of talent, the Reds have no pitching, and the Pirates are the Pirates. The Cards should be favorites, while the Brewers are the team on the rise. The Cubs have some question marks, but so do the Brewers and the Cards. The Cubs should end up 2nd or 3rd with a shot at 1st if a few things go well. I think some sportswriters write stupid things to get people discussing their column. Apparently it worked.

I don't think the Cubs will have a "building" or "rebuilding" year anytime in the forseeable future. With the budget at $100 million, the success of the White Sox, and attendance at 3 million, the Cubs will continue to at least give the impression that they are competitive.

I still don't understand why Hill is considered so valuable.

STL will get him and he'll end up playing regularly and hitting .300.

Selig was at Saturday's game and discussed the success of the Wild Card. He pictures 20 teams still in the hunt by Labor Day because of the Wild Card. Having said that, it's difficult saying how many teams would be "sellers" in July.

Wow, talk about pessimism. If Konerko gets injured, Buerhle's arm falls off, Posednik breaks his leg, Garland and Dye regress, Thome and Contreras realize how old they are, and Williams trades Garland and Garcia for Jeff Fassero, the White Sox could be in trouble too.

I don't know what's going to happen with Baker, but I think MacPhail thinks the world of Hendry and wouldn't replace him. Of course, if the Tribune ended up selling the Cubs to someone like Mark Cuban, all bets are off on retaining MacPhail, Hendry, and Baker.

People can critcize Soriano for lots of reasons (money, defense, attitude, etc.), but to say that Soriano is only a "marginal improvement offensively" over Walker is ridiculous. I like Walker, but he has to fight for a starting job every year while Soriano is making All-Star teams. Offensively, Soriano is Jeff Kent with speed.

He won't have to worry about crashing into the OF wall because he will be traded as soon as Bowden can get enough to save face. I don't understand why people are surprised that he backed down and went out to play LF, since he isn't stupid enough to lose $10 million and his free agent year. If I were an AL GM, I would be interested in trying to get him as a DH.

Since it is obvious that the Cubs are trying to trade Walker, I would love to see the Cubs get Soriano as long as they get him cheap and the Nationals pay a decent chunk of his salary. His defense stinks, but what he would add to the lineup would more than make up for it. It is said that he averages one error every week, but how many HRs, RBI, and stolen bases would he average in a week. Actually, I'm surprised an AL GM hasn't tried to get him to DH. The funniest thing about all of this is that the Bowden traded [b]two[/b] good outfielders for a 2B that refuses to play the OF.

If I was an AL GM, I would jump on this Soriano situation right now. You could probably get him cheap and use him as the DH.

There you go being logical again.

Rusch knows what it means to be a #2 starter on the Cubs, so he followed everyone else and got injured.

Yea, how about sending one of our young guys out there and tell them to give it everything they have for 3-4 innings and then relieve them with another for 3-4 innings, etc. If they only have to go through the batting order once, they might be able to fool the other team.

Marshall shows some promise, but I'm not sure he's ready. Of course, there's always a Walker for Clement plus cash deal or a Walker plus someone else for Clement, Graffanino, and cash deal.

Burnett plus $5 million per year for 5 years for Kerry Wood. Does this belong in the transaction forum?

Lord knows that I don't want to defend Baker, but I do question the whole idea of pitch counts. I've been a fan for quite a few years and I have watched Fergie Jenkins, Bob Gibson, Warren Spahn, Nolen Ryan, etc. pitch in 4 man rotations and consistently pitch into the 8th or 9th inning. These pitchers understood that there was no such thing as middle relief and you pitched a complete game or enough of it to turn it over to a relief pitcher in the 9th inning to finish the game. Nowadays, pitchers pitch every fifth game and try to get to the 6th or 7th inning to turn it over to 3 or 4 relievers to finish. With modern science, you would think that we should be able to see pitchers who can actually go more than 2 months without breaking down.

With this morning's headlines, it might be time for the Prior for Tejada trade.

The original post not only asked what Murton might be worth, but packaged him with Lee. The only possibility of dealing Murton would be for someone like Cabrera or maybe Dunn. We would need someone young enough to play quite a few years, but already established as a solid major league player. I don't think you will ever see the Cubs trade off most of their stars to rebuild because of the market size and budget. This is especially true if the Sox continue their success. The Cubs cannot afford 3-5 years of rebuilding while the Sox are one of the best teams in baseball. Win or lose, I think the Cubs will continue in the manner that they have been----- fine tuning by bringing in (or trading for) one major player and making a few middle-to-small deals to complement the core of the team. I think the core of team will be Lee, Ramirez, Prior, Zambrano, Cedeno, Murton, and Pie. Everybody else will be role players or trade bait.

Boy that's the earliest White Flag ever. While we're at it, why don't we see what Ramirez, Prior, and Zambrano would bring us.

Just what we need---another deal where we give up a reasonably productive player and pay him to play for another team. I got a better idea, why don't we keep them and pay them to play for the Cubs. So...Hairston, Hill, Guzman, Pie + @2 Million for Miggy Cabrera. Sounds good to me. Knowing the Cubs, it will be Hairston or Walker plus $2 million for some A ball prospect.

Just what we need---another deal where we give up a reasonably productive player and pay him to play for another team. I got a better idea, why don't we keep them and pay them to play for the Cubs.

A perfect example of this was Ernie Banks. He said a record for fielding at SS and everyone knew he wasn't a great SS.

Maybe because Cintron isn't that adept at "catching the ball." Or maybe we didn't have a 28-year old AAA pitcher to give them.