abuck1220

[expletive] idiotic bunting by the braves lets jobo get a lucky save and willis get a win. at least the harangatang is throwing a gem.

pretty sad that the best move hendry's made in the past two years is to partially undo one of the worst moves he's made in the past two years.

may not see a pitch faster than 87 mph. Brenly said 86! :P wow, brenly and i on the same page...terrifying.

may not see a pitch faster than 87 mph.

it is a nice day in the des moines area...

guzman, please.

neither miller nor o'malley have any business getting starts right now for the cubs.

so is hill out of the rotation now or what? if o'malley gets starts at hill's expense, i may quit the cubs.

subbed paps in for street, who strained his groin.

why, i was just thinking today that the cubs could use another terrible bat in their lineup. a defensive-minded catcher is just what i had in mind!

because it would be in keeping with the cubs' philosophy of overspending for mediocrity.

I'm well aware of the differences. However, both are rookies with limited experience in the big leagues. The Cubs are going to get inconsistent outings from both at this point; neither is a guarantee to go out there and pitch 6 good innings. However, if we go into next season with a rotation of Z-Schmidt or Zito-Prior-Young Guy #1-Young Guy #2, I'm not liking the Cubs' chances. Health problems could inevitably lead to one or two more rookie SPs coming into the rotation at some point. I like the potential and the depth the Cubs have at SP right now, but we don't know what to expect out of those young guys in terms of consistency. Getting a halfway decent #3/#4 guy along with some one like Zito or Schmidt would go a long, long way. While the offense has had its share of problems, getting a strong pitching staff would make life a lot easier for everyone involved. i just don't think there's enough resources to get more than one starting pitcher. the cubs have to hope prior is healthy and that two of the young guys can do the job. the offense is so terrible, i don't think they can put the money into getting 2 fairly big name starting pitchers.

geez, short leash on marmol. now dusty can justify leaving z in for 144 pitches because his bullpen will be so worn out.

agreed. chances are he won't improve. but, if by some stroke of luck, he does improve, he's still going to suck. expecting him to improve at all is asking a lot. expecting him to improve to the point of not being terrible is asking much more than a lot.

he may be. but so are bynum (and that's being kind) and pagan. and, at this point in their careers, neifi and mabry are no better than AAA roster filler either. i don't think anyone's expecting restovich to be an everyday player though.

if baker's around in '07 and no big bat is brought in, pagan may just well be the opening day LF.

maybe izturis hasn't reached his peak...but even if he isn't, what's that peak going to be? because he sucks big time right now. is he building up to a peak of sucking moderately? i could concede that he'll improve, but it's going to have to be a serious improvement for him to be worthy of a spot in the lineup. and it's going to have to be one hell of a quick improvement if the cubs are going to benefit from it.

actually, if you give him starts over hill, guzman, marmol, etc, the cubs would be losing something...a chance to see who fits in the rotation next year.

how can his late of discipline "cancel out" his OPS? his lack of discipline is factored into OPS (thru OBP). that's like saying the outs a guy makes cancels out his batting average.

Sarcasm or not, I'm in the camp of in any sport, defense wins championships. Defense in football, basketball, soccer, etc. means preventing the other team from scoring. In baseball, that's overwhelmingly the task of the pitching staff, not the guys behind them. Defense in baseball doesn't compare to defense in other sports and is a relatively small factor in keeping the other team from crossing home. exactly. defense (as in preventing the other team from scoring) is very important in baseball. but actual fielding makes up a very small % of defense.

Respectfully disagree - the Cubs problem is not a general lack of offense, but lack of offense from the corner positions. Murton and Jones are both 4th OF in my opinion, Ramirez had a terrible first half, and Lee has been disabled for most of the season. The Cubs were 5th in baseball in defensive efficiency before trading for Izturis, thus his defense can only improve them marginally. Furthermore, regardless of what the team "can" spend, they will only spend somewhere in the $100 million range. As such, you can't waste $4 on a defensive player who provided minimal offense when you've already got that same player on the roster (Perez). Perez's defense is roughly equivalent to Izturis', as is his offense (.650 OPS). You simply can't have two of the worst offensive players in baseball occupying the same roster because they might happen to save a run with their defense every third or fourth game. Furthermore, when a team is last in the league in runs scored by over 100 runs, I would say the team's problem is a lack of offense in total, not just from the corner positions. Over 100 runs from the next team? It's actually 14 runs-I understand your point though (although I still don't understand how we're 5th in defensive efficiency watching this team play defense everyday (especially the OF and catcher and the middle infield earlier in the season, and then see the differences when watching other teams, but that has been beaten to death :D). I happen to think that Izturis will surprise some people offensively next season, but for that we will have to wait and see. "watching this team play defense everyday" just isn't a reliable way to judge the team. True, but I saw one of the metrics that had the Cubs high in defense this year this morning. Pierre was rated as the top defensive center fielder in the National League this year. Do you believe that? defensive metrics are far from an exact science...but so is your memory of watching a bunch of games. and i'd be curious as to which metric rated pierre that highly.

Michael Barrett's .924 OPS is much more valuable to this team than his ability to tell a pitcher to calm down. As for calling a game, unless the pitch selection is coming from the dugout, a pitcher has the ability to shake his catcher off. The pitcher is the one that should know what he wants to throw in a certain situation and where he wants to throw it. Blaming catchers for calling a bad game is an excuse used by pitchers that don't want to admit they screwed up. Heh...I agree with you, but I know the Red Sox sure don't right now. yep, the "red sox pitchers suck now because varitek is hurt" line is 2006's 16th best BS baseball story that analysts can bring up to sound smart!

Respectfully disagree - the Cubs problem is not a general lack of offense, but lack of offense from the corner positions. Murton and Jones are both 4th OF in my opinion, Ramirez had a terrible first half, and Lee has been disabled for most of the season. The Cubs were 5th in baseball in defensive efficiency before trading for Izturis, thus his defense can only improve them marginally. Furthermore, regardless of what the team "can" spend, they will only spend somewhere in the $100 million range. As such, you can't waste $4 on a defensive player who provided minimal offense when you've already got that same player on the roster (Perez). Perez's defense is roughly equivalent to Izturis', as is his offense (.650 OPS). You simply can't have two of the worst offensive players in baseball occupying the same roster because they might happen to save a run with their defense every third or fourth game. Furthermore, when a team is last in the league in runs scored by over 100 runs, I would say the team's problem is a lack of offense in total, not just from the corner positions. Over 100 runs from the next team? It's actually 14 runs-I understand your point though (although I still don't understand how we're 5th in defensive efficiency watching this team play defense everyday (especially the OF and catcher and the middle infield earlier in the season, and then see the differences when watching other teams, but that has been beaten to death :D). I happen to think that Izturis will surprise some people offensively next season, but for that we will have to wait and see. "watching this team play defense everyday" just isn't a reliable way to judge the team.

Not when you are dead last, or near the bottom in walks earned and walks allowed. Not to mention a total lack of power production from key positions. Add on top of that our pitching staff has been depleted by injuries, and obviously inexperienced pitchers are more prone to allow the fly ball in ratio to the ground ball. eh, but still...DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS! i've heard many a high school coach (and several NO FEAR! t-shirts) tell me that.

that's a lot different than saying defense wins championships, don't you think? the reason you can't crunch and collect numbers to prove your point is because those numbers don't exist.