jersey cubs fan

Of course it is. But the point Pompei was making is that after watching Peppers light him up for a month, and then Williams having a bad game against the Raiders he didn't look like the guy everybody had assumed he was. It does not say the season is over find another tackle no need to play the regular season. I think you people are overreacting to somebody pointing out a potential negative. The fact is Williams has to be really good out there for this team to have a chance. He has not been very good in practice or in the only preseason game the offense has played so far. There should be some doubt and Williams has to come back and be what everybody expected him to be. It's not doom and gloom or apoplectic. It's not calling his game the worst thing that has ever happened. You're calling out one article, but Banedon mentioned more than one source where these doom & gloom comments are coming from, and I am hearing it from more than just Pompei as well. Maybe you don't realize that. He said the trib and the score. I can't refer to whatever he heard on the radio, but I specifically said people were misrepresenting what was said in the Trib article.

In what spot in the batting order does a player have that many sacrifices? I believe the last time that happened was in 1990 and 1991 when Jay Bell, primarily batting second for the Pirates, was laying down bunts like it was going out of style. Leyland had him sacrifice 39 times in 1990 (17 times in the first inning!!!) and 30 times in 1991 (15 times in the first inning). And that was the last time Pittsburgh was any good. You think that's a coincidence? Ryno doesn't.

Is that one of the DLee guys? Is this an emergency start?

They should have sent a planeload of his friends to his house to convince him to have the surgery sooner.

I wonder how Ryno would have been viewed by fans had he not played in the 80's early 90's and instead pulled his BS "sign huge contract, start to decline rapidly, quit, come back and keep sucking" routine in the 2000's. I loved the guy as a kid, but he had and still has zero personality and it was quite easy to essentially forget about him right after he quit on the team the first time.

Of course it is. But the point Pompei was making is that after watching Peppers light him up for a month, and then Williams having a bad game against the Raiders he didn't look like the guy everybody had assumed he was. It does not say the season is over find another tackle no need to play the regular season. I think you people are overreacting to somebody pointing out a potential negative. The fact is Williams has to be really good out there for this team to have a chance. He has not been very good in practice or in the only preseason game the offense has played so far. There should be some doubt and Williams has to come back and be what everybody expected him to be. It's not doom and gloom or apoplectic. It's not calling his game the worst thing that has ever happened.

I don't know about that. But the entire premise of the season has been that the only real question on the line is at a guard position, as LT is settled, center is stable, and Omiyale has to be better at RT. Williams not being a stud is a huge problem for this team. They can't afford for him to just be okay, let alone bad. If he struggles just a bit, Cutler could die. Eh, still overblown even taking the last part as hyperbole. We have seen Williams play 7 games at LT as a Chicago Bear. 5 to end the 2009 season and the 2 preseason games this season. He has had 1 bad game of those 7. All that was shown is that he will have trouble w/ speed rushers. So, 2 games against Clay Matthews and one against Ware/Spencer in Dallas Martz needs to give him help. He'll need help with speed rushers, but that's going to be the case with several LTs around the league. He did fine against Minny when they gave him a little help in the regular season last year. I'll take that as my basis for wanting to see him again in regular season action, rather than judging him as incapable based on a couple preseason games. You guys are completely misrepresenting at least what the Tribune is saying. I assume the reference is to the Pompei article. Nobody is judging him solely on one preseason game or suggesting they don't want to see him in the regular season. The point of the article is that Peppers has destroyed him in practice and that could have either good or bad effects. Also, he played poorly in the last game and didn't look like the guy we've come to expect. That can be a problem. The Bears need Williams to be really good in order to have any chance of having an offensive line that is effective. It's pretty damn important for this season and the team's future.

The problem is, for $13m this year and $13.5m next year, the Cubs should be getting better production than what Fukudome has given them. He's a good player and would be a useful platoon player/defensive replacement on a contending team, but for that price, you really need something better at RF. Sure you'd want more for the money, but that does not explain their insistence on dumping him. They've gotten the 5th best OPS in the NL from their RF. That's Fukudome and Colvin, but both guys have about the same overall OPS. Fukudome's is more valuable given the 370 OPB to Colvin's 311. Since the all star break Fukudome has a 958 OPS with a ridiculous OBP of 450. Colvin, who keeps getting more playing time, is at a measly 767 with an anemic OBP of 308. Sure in theory you might get more production for the money spent, but where the hell is it actually going to come from? Fukudome needs to play more for this team, as he's been a positive despite not being as good as hoped for.

I read hundreds ( not hyperbole, hundreds ) of posts about how Kelton ( and Choi and Bobby Hill etc ) were the future of the Cubs, but I do not recall a single post proclaiming he had an untouchable immaculate swing, or anything of the sort. Colvin has already achieved far more than David Kelton, and to compare them is inaccurate at best. Colvin may well fizzle out, but at equal points in their careers Colvin shows much more promise than David Kelton, who OPS'ed .750 in his last two seasons in Iowa. In fairness to Kelton, injuries didnt help. If you read anything about Kelton you read about his swing.

I don't know about that. But the entire premise of the season has been that the only real question on the line is at a guard position, as LT is settled, center is stable, and Omiyale has to be better at RT. Williams not being a stud is a huge problem for this team. They can't afford for him to just be okay, let alone bad. If he struggles just a bit, Cutler could die.

I don't see what was unclear to begin with.

I know how hitting works. It doesn't change the fact that he has a huge problem with making a whole bunch of outs rather frequently and not walking. He turns 25 in a couple weeks with all sorts of big time college and professional experience and it's still a major problem. His perfect mechanics hasn't come close to getting him past the hurdle that was always going to be the biggest obstacle to him being a quality major league hitter.

The quote was something like "everybody thought this was a Dusty team getting hot in September like they always do." People may have thought they were getting hot at the right time, but the "this is a Dusty team doing what Dusty teams do" thought process does not ring true.

What evidence do you have to support your claim? He looks pretty doing poorly? Why is that better than looking awkward doing well? His fatal flaw, high strikeouts with no walking, has proven to be a very difficult hurdle for hitters to overcome. To which claim are your referring? That his swing is mechanically sound? I thought I explained that in my original post. claim: an assertion of something as a fact observation: an act or instance of noticing or perceiving. Hitters don't look awkward and do well. A hitter can look awkward prior to the swing, but in order for a hitter to have prolonged success at the ML level, they HAVE to be mechanically sound from the moment there hands fire to the point of contact. Whatever happens prior to the load and after contact, is irrelevant. Your claim that he has less to overcome than hitters who are less mechanically sound. He has a lot to overcome, not as much as some raw single A shmoe, but that's kind of pointless.

No You'd be surprised. I know there was always at least a small anti-Dusty group on this board, but most of the meh-Dusty or pro-Dusty people (and this board was littered with them..myself included in the meh-Dusty category) had that sentiment. Then again a lot of us were not as jaded as we are now. Sure, there were people blind to the truth. But I know I was not the only one who was against him from the start.

No

I would guess there's some sort of nominal transfer fee being paid.

What evidence do you have to support your claim? He looks pretty doing poorly? Why is that better than looking awkward doing well? His fatal flaw, high strikeouts with no walking, has proven to be a very difficult hurdle for hitters to overcome.

I said for a while. He's got a 670 OPS the last two weeks, 710 the last four weeks. He's got a .305 OBP in the 2nd half and it's just 310 overall. His pretty crappy performance has been masked by an unusual high number of HR. That props up his SLG, the lesser of the two parts of OPS, making his numbers actually worse than they are.

Except that really doesn't do that at all. He had a really interesting start to his career but he's been pretty terrible for a while now that he's been playing with more regularity. It was always a pretty safe bet to say Colvin would see a fair amount of playing time, but his numbers, .277/.320/.465 341k/105bb/1800PA in the minors indicate he's probably not going to be very good. His major league numbers, .247/.306/.487 90k/26bb/344PA show much of the same, with the lone exception of a few more HR than expected. And I really don't see how his mechanics can be considered so pretty when he looks so clueless so frequently swinging at absolute garbage and missing by a mile.

I don't give a crap about who the manager is if Jim Hendry is still GM.

Except given the fact that it was written by David Haugh and about a team run by Jim Hendry, making it completely meaningless. Don't you think he's basing this off of some sort of source? I'm not saying it's true, and we could just as likely wind up with Don Baylor again, but the idea even being out there is somewhat encouraging Sure, but it's David Haugh who is a glorified football beat writer and who knows jack squat about sabermetrics. And it's a Jim Hendry team which has always paid lip service to this stuff but nearly every time chooses to focus on obscure nonsense. Whether or not they are going for a young hands on teaching manager without name recognition probably has a lot less to do with sabermetrics and a lot more to do with trying something different + cost cutting.

Why couldn't they send Hill back instead? He's the freaking spokesperson of this team. I've never seen a more inconsequential and incompetent player take such a prominent role in the team's conversation with the media. You can't get rid of that. Not since Ryan Theriot in 2009 He could at least pass for a competent starting SS. Hill is a backup catcher who is terrible.

Except given the fact that it was written by David Haugh and about a team run by Jim Hendry, making it completely meaningless.

Why couldn't they send Hill back instead? He's the freaking spokesperson of this team. I've never seen a more inconsequential and incompetent player take such a prominent role in the team's conversation with the media. You can't get rid of that.