abuck1220

cruz was fantastic last season out of atlanta's pen. and he was flat out dominating at AAA this month. dubois is in his first big league season, and he hasn't really been given consistent playing time. and even with the inconsisten playing time + a trade, he's slugging .453, which isn't awful. feliz, luis gonzalez, and overbay slug at about that clip. hill's a decent utility guy...career .345ish obp. that's barrett, walker, winn, milton bradley range. choi's got a near .800 OPS. better than piazza, castillo, feliz, lawton, wilkerson. so while none of those guys are stars, they've all had some success...it's not like they're out of baseball or anything. and they're all still young...and most importantly, for the teams that have them, cheap. Maybe I was right about Cruz after all! :D Choi had a 3 game stretch where he hit a bunch of home runs and has done little since. LA could really use some hitting, and the guy can't even start consistently. Sure, sure blame it on Tracy though. :roll: did you not read the end of my post? So they're getting "shots" but Murton and Hill aren't?? They're playing sporadically just like the Murton and the rest. People would still be beating the "I Hate Dusty" drum if Choi was still in Chicago. hill got four starts. murton just got demoted. if you can't tell the difference between those situations and cruz, hill and choi seeing action in games for the last 3-4 years, i don't know what to tell you.

What we hear: So, now that we've successfully convinced Corey (and Corey's convinced himself) to try pull everything until he can't hit, let's go ahead and tell Murton he can't play in the majors because he gets too many base hits to right field, and because we need to pull our team OBP down a bit. that's hilarious. i don't know if i've ever heard of a guy being demoted because he knows how to go the other way. shame on you for knowing how to hit! watch jeromy burnitz beat weak grounders into the dirt for three weeks and then we'll talk!

i hate the cubs.

It's kind of funny that when this regime started overhauling the organization, they decided to concentrate almost exclusively on pitching, as they were going to try and emulate the Braves, who dominated with pitching. Yet in the process they ignored offense (or concentrated on the completely wrong aspects of offense), which is really where Atlanta did the most damage. Perhaps drafting and developing pitchers, then trading them off for bats wasn't the genius idea they thought it was. Perhaps you need guys who can hit to win baseball games, and perhaps you need to develop your own guys who can do that. I don't know though, I'm just a fan who hasn't "been there". yeah, dummy. obviously people in charge of a sub-.500 team with a $95 million payroll know what they're doing.

i love how dusty lumps zambrano and prior into his 'young players' category. gee, thanks for sticking with two of the best pitchers in baseball instead of throwing estes, kirk rueter or glendon rusch out there. and it's not like he took a wild chance on a scronny AA guy with those two...they were pretty well established in the rotation when he got here. and we wouldn't want a youngster out there making fundamental mistakes...thank goodness we have his veteran-laden team out there playing fundamentally sound baseball. :roll:

You needed proof to validate your assumption? Common sense would've saved you time. :) every once in a while i like to throw some facts in there to back up my wild accusations...just for something different. :D

Obviously disagreeing w/ you is worse. no...i was wrong to question the cubs' way. obviously, this refusal to play young players is working out great. they are under .500 with one of the highest payrolls in baseball, so they obviously know what they are doing. i say if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

while true, i doubt the media would give him much credit.

cruz was fantastic last season out of atlanta's pen. and he was flat out dominating at AAA this month. dubois is in his first big league season, and he hasn't really been given consistent playing time. and even with the inconsisten playing time + a trade, he's slugging .453, which isn't awful. feliz, luis gonzalez, and overbay slug at about that clip. hill's a decent utility guy...career .345ish obp. that's barrett, walker, winn, milton bradley range. choi's got a near .800 OPS. better than piazza, castillo, feliz, lawton, wilkerson. so while none of those guys are stars, they've all had some success...it's not like they're out of baseball or anything. and they're all still young...and most importantly, for the teams that have them, cheap. Maybe I was right about Cruz after all! :D Choi had a 3 game stretch where he hit a bunch of home runs and has done little since. LA could really use some hitting, and the guy can't even start consistently. Sure, sure blame it on Tracy though. :roll: did you not read the end of my post?

you're obsessed with disagreeing with everything i say. which is worse?

after some discussion in the other thread about other teams that use young guys, i got to thinking just how many teams currently have a rookie/2nd year guy in the everyday lineup, rotation or as the closer. guess how many teams... a) don't have a guy w/ less than two years of service time currently in their lineup, their rotation or as the closer or b) haven't given at least 10 starts to such a pitcher or 30 starts to such a position player? ONE....the cubs. the only teams to come close were... the padres, who have given 10+ starts to stauffer. the twins (surprisingly), who have mauer at catcher. the red sox, who currently have papelbon in their rotation.

take away the red sox championship.

cruz was fantastic last season out of atlanta's pen. and he was flat out dominating at AAA this month. dubois is in his first big league season, and he hasn't really been given consistent playing time. and even with the inconsisten playing time + a trade, he's slugging .453, which isn't awful. feliz, luis gonzalez, and overbay slug at about that clip. hill's a decent utility guy...career .345ish obp. that's barrett, walker, winn, milton bradley range. choi's got a near .800 OPS. better than piazza, castillo, feliz, lawton, wilkerson. so while none of those guys are stars, they've all had some success...it's not like they're out of baseball or anything. and they're all still young...and most importantly, for the teams that have them, cheap.

You don't think Maddux has taught Kerry, Prior and Z a thing or two?? Also, I don't notice any teams beating down the Cubs door for Mitre. and you are privy to the private discussions between hendry and other gms...so, if anybody would know, it's you. as i've mentioned in other threads, it's ridiculous how baker continues to defend his guys (neifi, holla, rusch), while doing nothing for the young guys (murton, hill, mitre) except keep them on the bench or demote them. nearly every team in contention is getting contributions from young players/rookies/guys w/ little experience... cardinals: molina, reyes a's: swisher, johnson, street, haren angels: kotchman, santana braves: frenchy, johnson, langerhans, davies, mccann, betemit astros: lane, burke, taveras the yankees have cano, the phils have howard and even the red sox have given papelbon starts. all of those teams have done more w/ regard to giving youngsters a chance than the cubs...and they are all 'in the race' a heck of a lot more than the cubs are. who is going to have accomplished more this season, the cubs or the pirates? it's likely that both teams will be out of the postseason. except the pirates have given experience to duffy, duke, doumit, eldred, snell and now mcclouth. what will the cubs have to show for their likely non-playoff season? experience for rusch, macias, hollandsworth, neifi? bench time and minor league ab's/innings for hill, cedeno, murton, mitre, welly? whoop de doo...that really helps get ready for 2006. i'm personally not a fan of mitre, but i'd at least like to see my doubts for him confirmed at the major league level. all these people who say that not all these prospects will pan out are absolutely right...but how are the cubs going to know which ones will and which ones won't?

Hey PJ we'd love to have you in Peoria for a game. My brother lives in Burbank and works on a prominent TV show and I love the LA area and can't wait to get there at least a couple of times this off-season! You can fly into Peoria on Delta or Northwest and then either take a $15 cab ride downtown to the hotels or catch a bus downtown though I would advise the cab. There are a few hotels that are about a mile walk from the stadium and right near everything downtown. Our team hotel is the Holiday Inn City Center...There is also the Mark Twain Downtown, Staybridge Suites. in walking distance and the Radisson a few minutes away. As for things to see, i dont know if CAT gives regular tours or not but they have their headquarters in Peoria and some impressive buildings/machinery close by. Wildlife Prairie Park is awesome and i would suggest that. Otherwise, check out http://www.peoria.org to see what else is going on the days you are gonna be there! the riverfront, which is right near the stadium, is a pretty nice place to walk around. there are restaurants there, and i've seen live music there before. i don't think the area has taken off quite like they hoped it would, but it's a nice area for the ballpark.

i think wood should be moved to an operating room in a chicago hospital.

bartosh also got lit up, jinxy mcgee. any other of your favorite players whose career you'd like to ruin? and i'll stick up for brownlie a little by saying that i don't think he's pitched into the 6th inning much lately. of course i could be wrong, but i thought i'd give it a shot.

always wait till they're out of the game before you say something. that's what i do when i'm getting ready to brag about hill.

sully's has the best wings ever. they were the first wings i ever had, and i just assumed that all wings tasted like that. boy, was i wrong. my friend and i enjoyed three pounds of those babies after my brother's wedding in july. deeeeelicious.

But better than losing a game or 3 in standings as well, too. at this point in the season, gaining one game every other week or so may as well be losing three. but i agree...they're playing better of late.

the cubs won the games i thought they'd lose and lost the game i thought they'd win. a sweep would have gotten me half way on the bandwagon, but for all the hard work that went into a 2-1 series win, it only gained the cubs a game. that hurts.

by the way, for those who think that hill will be 'figured out' once teams see him a time or two, he has faced omaha three times this summer...and struck out 10 each time. and before everyone points out to me that they're a AAA team and not a big league team, i'm fully aware.

these baker quotes are even better (and by better, i mean worse) than his previous ones... see, that was hill's problem. he didn't want to pitch better than he did.

i'd dfa hollandsworth, as there is no need for a left handed back up to a left handed starting lf. and now that macias is swinging relatively well, hollandsworth isn't even the first lh bat off the bench. i think the cubs will send welly down. w/ williams available in the pen, they would essentially have 13 pitchers if they kept todd. there's also a chance they send murton down...only a baker managed team would keep hollandsworth over murton at this point in the season given the cubs place in the standings. these wins over st. lou and houston have been fun, but all they've probably done is put off the chance to see murton, hill, welly, cedeno.

it's reassuring to hear that the cubs' AAA hitting coach accomplished something in three weeks that our major league hitting coaches couldn't do in three seasons.