abuck1220

yeah, there will be 11 teams ahead of the cubs in the WC chase, but they'll think they're still in it. i'm guessing on a pie for reggie sanders deal, moving murton to the bench. or possibly a hill for jack wilson dealing, pushing cedeno to the bench.

oh no, murton's gonna put up a .400 obp. cedeno will hit .340. they did it last year, what makes you think they can't do it next year?

but hello to a pretty sweet first round pick.

that's the worst part of the whole thing. a panic move based on the fact that hendry couldn't find a rf has crippled the cubs' offense for the next three seasons. what a joke.

with the inevitable extension for pierre, the cubs have locked themselves into having one of the shittiest offensive outfields in baseball for the next few years. three years for jacque f'in jones is such a pathetic panic move it makes me sick. the cubs have just taken themselves out of the running for any decent outfield bat that becomes available for the next three seasons.

not only does this mean that the cubs will suck next year, it also means that they'll suck for a couple more years. hendry's gonna sign pierre to an extension, so the OF for the next three years is gonna be pie/murton + pierre + jones. you've not only locked yourself into one of the crappiest offensive outfields in baseball for 2006, but for 2007 and 2008. the cubs will never be players if guys like abreu, wilkerson, dunn, etc become available in the next three years. the unfortunate thing will be that the GM that takes over for hendry after this year will be stuck w/ hendry's mess for a couple of years.

Derek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Kenny Lofton, Mark Grudzelaniek,Eric Karros Juan Pierre, Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano, Matt Clement, Moises Alou, Michael Barrett, Ryan Dempster,Jerome Williams, Matt Murton! Oh the pain!!! Jim you shouldn't have! How dare you!!! the best part is all the world series trophies those moves got the cubs!

Murton had a .342 BABIP in the big leagues last year(his AA BABIP was an obscene .376 by my calculations, completely unsustainable). Only 7 players in each league were able to do that last year and qualify for a batting title, and they are some of the best hitters in the game, or at least ones with styles conducive to a high BABIP(Wily Taveras doing his Juan Pierre impersonation). It's completely unreasonable to expect Murton to duplicate that. Murton is here to stay, and I'm guessing his OPS will be more in the 850-900 range consistently. I really don't see him struggling enough to give Dusty a reason to keep him out of the lineup. Murton is the type of hitter that this team has been lacking for too long (a good one). Remember, he was drafted by the BoSox, not the Cubs. He's bound to be good. how much do you want to bet that murton won't put up a .900 OPS next year? that's better than sheffield, burrell, kent, abreu, and tejada put up on 2005. putting up a .900 OPS would put him on the verge of the top 10 in the AL. if he posts a .370 OBP (which is optimistic, to say the least), he'd have to outslug the 2005 versions of berkman, david wright, kent, floyd, carlos lee and abreu to reach .900. i like the kid, and i think he should be starting in lf, but you are being a little more than optimistic w/ those projections. of course, if he does it, i'll be ecstatic. people here are as quick to hail a prospect a savior after a month of great big league play as they are to dismiss a prospect after a month of bad big league play.

For that alone Hendry, Baker, and Rothschild should be fired. you know, i wouldn't go so far as to say they should all be fired, but that was really inexcusable. of course, you'll hear nothing about it from them...they'll act like the whole thing never happened and that they never planned on wood being ready by april.

you're 15 question marks worth of excited about a reggie sanders signing?

ya think? you should be hendry's PR man when it's time to come up w/ stats to make jacque jones' three year deal look good.

how is it that this guy -- .255/.368/.497 -- is probably going to sign for less than a mil to be a back up, but jacque jones -- .249/.319/.438 -- is looking at 3-4 year offers for 5 mil/year? obviously age and position are big differences, but geez...

if choi is non-tendered, i'd like to see him back w/ the cubs.

he went to college, that's why is age is higher than you'd like it to be. i, for one, am kinda glad that dusty wasn't in charge of how he was used when he was 22-23. The problem here is that top college pitching prospects aren't supposed to take as long to be major league ready. (I'm not sure he applies as one, but for the sake of discussion...) The high school guys are considered to be more projects than the college guys. It doesn't apply to all college pitchers, because some of them just suck and aren't good enough for the big show. In Hill's case, it's taking too long for him to be major league dominant. He should be able to have stretches, even when he's still a little 'green' where he can dominate major league hitting. That's if he's as good as advertised. Of course the sample size we have is a bit too small, so the only way we'll know is to put him out there and roll the dice. The downside to that is if he gets man-handled by MLB hitters over the course of a few months - his value at age 26 will be nil. Best bet is probably to trade him now for the best possible MLB talent we can. Otherwise, its ____ or get off the pot for Rich Hill this year. well, i don't think that's the case. there's no doubt that hill's a late bloomer. but you can't argue w/ the #'s he put up last year, and his strikeout #'s have ALWAYS been out of this world. it's not like major league pitchers retire at 28...he's still got some time left regardless of what he does in the first few months of this season. if every gm in baseball was asking him about him at the winter meetings, i doubt it drops to no gm's asking about him in june...even if he struggles.

he went to college, that's why is age is higher than you'd like it to be. i, for one, am kinda glad that dusty wasn't in charge of how he was used when he was 22-23.

yeah, you just sayin' stuff is much more persuasive than stats.

so a full year of sheets, weeks, turnbow is going to equal a four win subtraction? turnbow and weeks should only get better, and i don't think prince is going to be a big dropoff from overbay. they should trade for blalock and sign weaver...they could be a real contender if they made those moves.

the brewers are just as good, if not better, than the cubs...i doubt they're going to start dumping their players. with a full season of weeks, a full season of turnbow as closer and a healthy sheets, they have a good shot at 90 wins. they should look into signing weaver.

why is oakland trying to dump players/salary? they're closer to contending than the cubs are.

Did somebody say they were awful? They're role players, secondary moves, nice additions to a good team, but hardly anything to hang your hat on if you're coming off a losing season and have the holes the Cubs have. Hendry has time to salvage this mess, but it is a mess, it's been a mess for a while, and it will continue to be a mess unless he changes his ways. the problem is, i honestly think that hendry feels as though last year's team needed only minor tweaking. bullpen help, a leadoff guy, john mabry, and i think he thinks the cubs are ready to contend. i think he's fine w/ getting someone w/ burnitz's production for rf.

you want to trade our starting 2b AND a prospect to get a platoon player who will start twice a week? no thanks. wow, does jones suck against lefties. again, how is there even talk of him getting a multi-year deal? he's practically a 4th OF type.

i don't understand how jones is anything more than a 4th OF. his #'s are similar to burnitz's, and nobody's knocking down his door w/ three year offers. if you sign jones to a 3 yr deal and lock up pierre for a few more years, you might as well trade pie or murton. a team w/ one of the highest payrolls in the game should NOT have, hands down, the worst offensive outfield in baseball. that is embarrassing. hendry's going to sign jones, throw up his hands and say 'what else could i do?' as if giles, wilkerson and bradley were not viable options. not willing to overpay for giles, but you're ok overpaying for a guy whose obp is 100 points worse?

wow...worst offensive OF (by far) in baseball. let's hope it doesn't come to that w/ a payroll over 100 mil...embarrassing.

Todd Walker with men on base, 2005: 311/350/451 While not Manny Ramirezian, that's pretty timely. quit looking up stats...that's cheating! you should only judge players based on what they seem to do when you watch them.

First, I was never trying to imply that Hendry is better than KW. This offseason in particular has shown that Williams is a better GM. But your examples are completely flawed. One by one here: DLee - Everyone knew he had the tools. He had a hole in his swing and fixed it. Barrett - Part luck, part talent. Dempster - Should have been closing all along in 05, and it was Dusty's stupidity that kept it from happening. Murton - Everyone knows he is good. Even when we got him in the Nomar deal, a lot of people were surprised that we could have plucked him. Bill Simmons, a Sox fan, expressed shock that we got the best player AND the best prospect in that deal. Ramirez - He had one bad year in Pittsburgh. That was the fluke, not what happened afterwards. my point is, you can say that the cubs were lucky just as easy as you could say the sox were lucky. you're just making excuses for why the cubs' unexpected successes were, in essence, expected. you could do the same for the sox. dye has always had potential, same w/ jenks, same w/ cotts, same w/ garcia, buerhle, hermanson, etc. and if you think bill simmons had one clue about who matt murton was the day of that trade, you're nuts.