jersey cubs fan

Certainly we would keep Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, and Barrett. That's would be a good balance of Vets and Youngsters. Not sure why Barrett is a certain keeper. He's a free agent, and in my opinion, the Cubs got the most out of him they could expect, and should let him go, if not trade him this summer.

The late 90's Yankees were stacked with home grown talent. The 114 win 1998 team had Jeter, Bernie and Posada among everyday position players, along with multiple bench players. Then you had Pettite, Irabu and El Duque who came into the bigs via NY's system. Plus, you had Rivera, and a couple bullpen arms. It wasn't until they started going hard after the biggest money free agents that they stopped winning it all. The Braves have been mostly internally developed. I believe the Angels teams were quite home grown as well. No team is ever going to win with 25 home grown talents, but good ones generally develop a significant amount of their players from within. The Cubs have zero everyday players developed from their own system. Coming into the season the closest thing they had to an internally developed everyday position player was Matt Murton, who actually spent more time in Boston's minor league system than the Cubs'. Theriot is the only position player on the roster who was drafted and developed by the Cubs. Obviously they've done a better job of it with the pitchers, with Hill, Marshall, Zambrano, Marmol and Wuertz.

Absolutely not. Selective means choosing the right pitch to hit regardless of the count, whereas patience means working the count - which in turn translates to two quick strikes and a third one in the dirt swung at. I wouldn't say absolutely not. They are very similar. You have to be patient in order to be selective. It's one thing if you just refuse to ever swing until you have 2 strikes, but I don't think that's what anybody really means when they talk about patience.

You have it backwards. By using "greater than" signs when you probably meant to use "less than" signs you actually have Mesa as the top farm team and Iowa at the bottom. If you are using hope and expectation that a Cubs prospect will be somebody one day, this may actually be true. The higher up the ladder they go, the less hope and expectations we have in them.

Yes, the problem in general is they need to be more selective, and have a better approach at the plate. Just standing there and watching a first pitch strike wizz by isn't going to help anything. There has to be a threat of a swing on any pitch.

Lee's batting average is being propped up by an insanely high, and impossible to maintain, batting average on balls in play. Once some of these hits stop dropping in and start finding gloves, the average will go down. If he starts hitting more homeruns that will be less of an issue, because a homerun isn't in play. It's not a coincidence that Lee's highest batting average season was also his highest HR season. What once may have been a flyout is now a hit.

Can somebody explain to me the reason behind the NBA's rule where salaries have to match up in order for a trade to happen? It's obviously not just because of the salary cap, since teh cap itself is routinely circumvented. It seems to me that the only purpose it serves is to give teams a reason to pay some worthless veteran $10m for one year and hope they can use him in a trade.

Did he pull a Scott Eyre and foolishly work out this offseason?

If he's such a bright guy why did he leave Hendry as GM this past offseason? I really don't think a newly appointed interim GM would have the clout to fire any GM. Interim president perhaps? You are probably right, Andy's ill-timed Hendry extension more or less guaranteed Jim would be back this year.

Why is this such a talked about issue? The Cubs and Marlins both left 10 runners on yesterday. The Marlins had 2 doubles and a homerun, the Cubs had no extra base hits. FLA had one extra baserunner along with those 5 extra total bases. The Cubs did nothing until the 9th inning, when they had 4 of their 8 singles, but it was too little too late. Lots of stories are focusing on the LOB, but 10 stranded is nothing out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, neither is 8 scoreless innings by the offense and bullpen struggles.

Here's to carrying on the tradition!

As in passed balls past him?

How far away do you think Patterson is from being our 2nd baseman? He is already considered one of the oganizations best baserunners and plate disciplined hitter (I know, it's funny). I wonder about Chris Jackson, the outfielder, also. Lots of speed coming up. Chris Walker? He's 27 (or actually turns 27 this July) and hasn't done much in the minors. He might be a lesser version of Pagan, although with more speed. I think you really have to have a solid and settled OF situation if you want to have a guy like that on the roster. I think Patterson might be able to start at 2B by next year, but with DeRosa around I'm not sure he'll be given the chance. I also don't think the Cubs future has Murton in a corner OF spot.

when Lee's average drops to the .290 range, his slugging percentage will be around .510 based on his career IsoP. he's obviously not hitting for power like he did earlier in his career, so i would expect his slugging percentage to drop to the .470 range, making Lee a .290/.360/.470 player. I doubt Lee falls that far. He's a much better pure hitter than he ever has been before, and one of the better ones in the league. I would guess he'd be somewhere between .310 and .320 on the season. He will have to up the HR totals if he wants to maintain that average.

So anybody have a list of bodies to fill the role? I'll nominate Chad Bradford.

I would love to see the Cubs win the division and still manage a top 10 pick. I think they could do it.

That's the thing, given the fact he's past his prime and doesn't have a great track record to begin with, even if he does manage to adapt to OF over the offseason and next spring, he's no sure thing to be a significant improvement over a guy like Murton. And there's just no way he handles the move to 2B. So now you have a guy who is going to be a free agent, and you are going to have to commit serious cash to him without knowing his ability to handle the spot.

Even if true, that's a bit harsh, isn't it? I've never heard Barrett speak and thought to myself, "he's a total moron." Its his actions not his words. Actions and words. How many times does he make the wrong throw and then say to himself "I know I shouldn't have done that"? He reminds me of Chris Farley getting pissed at himself for asking stupid questions over and over to Paul McCartney. Besides all the ill-advised throws, everytime I hear him speak just confirms to me the guy is a mimbo. Seems nice, by all accounts, and has great intentions, but not a lot going on upstairs.

How is Barrett to 2nd even considered a possibility? He's logged exactly zero innings there in his major league career. 3B is the only position he's put up any reasonable amount of time. I think he might be okay at 1B, but obviously his bat isn't enough to justify the spot. There's a slim chance he could handle left field, but there's absolutely no way he handles a move to 2B.

This situation, GM fighting for his job on a team still "in the race" but with bullpen issues, just screams for a Garland/Karcher part II.

The clutch talk only distracts from the real issue. Lee isn't hitting and his power has been gone all year. The distraction of his doubles streak has caused many to ignore it, but the lack of power is a huge problem for a guy expected to be a middle of the order force.

A) He's dumb as a box of rocks, the move would probably only confuse him more. B) He's not patient. He may not be as bad as some of the hackers this team has had the past couple years, but the guy has never drawn more than 40 walks in a season. C) He had an excellent 2006 at the plate. His 2005 was good, but lacking in OBP - the most important stat, and his 2004 was the same. D) He's already completed his peak seasons, and did so by logging a lot of innings at a very physically demanding position that has worn him down just like it has done for most catchers throughout history. E) There may be a few catchers who have done it, but the two most prominent examples are Biggio, Bench and Berra. Biggio switched out of catcher in his early 20's, while Bench was logging time at 3B, 1B and the OF from the time he was 22, and he never had one full productive season once he made the switch more or less full-time. Berra was a full-time catcher throughout his 20's and started to make the gradual switch in his early 30's. But Berra's career dwarfs that of Barrett's to this point, as he consistently put up solid numbers year in and year out, with an OPS+ that matched or beat Barrett's career year 7 times by the time he was Barrett's age. Not to mention Bench is a hall of famer while Biggio is a likely hall of famer. Barrett couldn't hold these guys' jocks. Barrett has pretty much been just a catcher (with a little DH time and 6 games at 1B) for 7 years now. This isn't switching a LF to RF (and we know how good the Cubs have been at that). Bottom line is I see no way he makes the switch this year. You would need at least all offseason and next spring to get him acclimated. And even then there is no guarantee he'd be a more productive corner OF than Murton, but you would have to sign him to a free agent contract. Plus he'd have another full season of catching duty under his belt, just wearing him down even further.

Intriguing. I could almost guarantee that his offense would go way up if he was able to focus almost solely on that. Put him in RF. I'm sure he's got a good arm. If he doesn't have to catch I would bet he is good for something like .290 / .370 / .475 and 20-25 HRs. I'd be more than willing to take the other side of that bet.

I don't think they have a whole lot to sell. I wouldn't be for dealing Lee and Ramirez at this point. The Cubs have the ability to contend within the next year or two with a competent GM. And those guys will be a part of it if it happens. Soriano is untradable. Nobody else among the position players is worth much of anything on his own. I would be up for dealing Barrett if somebody wants him, because I have no interest in seeing them extend him this winter (and he's a moron who isn't particularly good at baseball - despite a couple solid years at the plate). As for pitchers, I'd be fine if they traded away Zambrano for some solid youthful talent, but again, other than him, who do they have that they could deal as sellers?

This makes absolutely no sense. First off, he's not driving in runs. He has only 28, which is a bad total for a #3 hitter at this point. He's on pace for just 100. And while that sounds like a nice round number for many, it's not anything to be excited about for a #3 hitter in today's game. But more importantly, what is the point of waiting until after the problem is obvious to show concern? Lee's lack of HR has been a problem for 2 months now. Just because his other numbers have held up does not mean it wasn't a problem. Lee's lack of power will translate into the rest of his numbers by seasons end. He's already down to a 937 OPS for the year, and is only at 809 in May. That's not killing the team bad, but it's certainly not dependable middle of the order hitter good either. Lee is struggling. Lee was bad at the end of 2006 and the wrist ramained a concern throughout the offseason. It's now May 29, Lee is 5th on the team in HR for a team that is in the bottom half of the league for HR as a whole. It's a very big problem, one of many, no doubt, but a very big problem. If Lee doesn't start hitting homeruns, his average is going to plummet, and his overall production numbers will be lower.