CubfaninCA

Was he hurt in 2004? His numbers in 2004 are basically identical or worse than his 2005 season. His father died in 2004. Can see how a guy can lose focus and all. Ok so he didn't do good in 2004 because his father died. He wan't good in 2005 because he had astrained oblique so then what will be the excuse in 2006? Lets wait and see... If someone's close to a family member, which it appears Jones was, I can see how it can affect one's performance. It's nothing to scoff at or refer to as an excuse. EDIT: Lets just put all the facts on the table before declaring this guy garbage.

Without a doubt. Considering his recent health, I wouldn't be surprised to see him take a 2 year extension and run. Could be a wise business decision. Washington is a team without an owner and as such is in no position to be offering contract extensions like this. This "deal" is not in the realm of possibility. Is there any chance Kerry will get dealt to another team this offseason?

Was he hurt in 2004? His numbers in 2004 are basically identical or worse than his 2005 season. His father died in 2004. Can see how a guy can lose focus and all.

.335-.340 or higher in my book For what it's worth, the league average last year was .330. Just replacing Neifi in the lineup with Pierre puts us at league average. Where we go after that, depends mostly on who Hendry acquires to play right field. Replacing Corey w/ Pierre @ .326 has to jump the team obp a few points correct?? Corey was worse than Neifi right??

There might be people who wouldn't like that deal, but that would be THEIR problem, not yours or mine. Tejada is the type of player you sell the farm for, as is Abreu. Not Huff, not Wilkerson, not Mench. Don't lose hope. Once you've lost hope, there won't be anyone left. j/k :D Don't worry. Even w/ Jock Jones in RF and Nef @ SS, I still have hope. Prior, Z, Wood & JWill could be real tough, and I'm sold on Murton being quite good.

Not true. You and I have butted heads all offseason, so while you are under the impression I am all gloom and doom while I'm under the impression you believe Hendry can do no wrong, there is a middle point most likely for both of us. I had my hopes set for a certain line up this offseason. Expecting my line up to be that line up is unrealistic. However, that wasn't the only line up that would satisfy me. I said right after the offseason ended to give me a line up with .350+ OBP throughout and this team will win more games than it loses. Burnitz, Preston Wilson, Jacque Jones, Juan Encarnacion, etc.. cannot provide a .350+ OBP. I could honestly deal with a year of Jacque Jones if we had Abreu or Tejada or both playing in the same line up. However, the "improvements" I have seen this offseason are a .326 OBP lead off hitter, the resigning of a sub .300 OBP of Neifi Perez, Cedeno will be lucky to be anywhere close to .350 in his rookie year, Murton will likely make it, but he has no back up in place if he gets hurt, Patterson is sub .300 OBP, and the trade Walker rumors haven't gone away completely. I would have been fine with letting Nomar walk, Walker walk, Patterson walk, etc... if they would have replaced them with guys who know how to get on base at a decent clip. I'm not all gloom and doom. Honestly. I've adopted a philosophy that getting on base improves your run scoring chances. Maybe it's not a good philosophy, and maybe it wouldn't get the Cubs any farther in the standings by adopting it as well, but these stats are why I'm so gung ho on improving team OBP: Cubs in 2005 270 AVG, 440 SLG, 703 runs, 419 walks Reds in 2005 261 AVG, 446 SLG, 820 runs, 611 walks We had a better AVG, slightly worse SLG, and scored 117 less runs. Couple a comparable offense to the Reds of last year with our pitching staff, and I think you have a pennant winning caliber team. Hendry's done plenty wrong by sticking w/ Baker. I just think that if the Cubs get Tejada, such a deal will tick of a lot of people cause he'll basically have to deal off most of the farm for him. Same goes for Abreu. Maybe Hendry lucks into Floyd or Wilkerson, but I'm starting to lose hope. This is the Cubs afterall. :?

What killed the offense was a lack of OBP almost everywhere, which was due to a lack of walks. It was not solely because of the 1 and 2 spots, no matter what Hendry tries to sell you this offseason. They sucked in the 4 or 5 spot (whichever one Burnitz was hitting from), and were an awful bottom of the order team as well. And they had absolutely no bench. They were a team full of 6 and 7 hitters. which is why we shouldn't get bogged down in this "filling important holes in the lineup" rhetoric. there are no holes in the lineup, we'll be batting 8 position players ahead of 1 pitcher come april. the problem is with overall organizational hitting philosophy. hendry's too busy hoping we'll all be dazzled by a big name like pierre and the proverbial hole he fills at leadoff to worry about hitting philosophy. this lineup needs a healthy dose of OBP, not at a single position, but at all positions. Starting line up as of now with OBP from last year Pierre 326 Walker 355 Lee 418 Ramirez 358 Barrett 345 Murton 386 Cedeno 350 Patterson 254 Assuming Pierre bounces back to the 340-360 range we only ahve one weak spot in our order right now and that is RF. I would have to say our lineup is improved over last year. I don't know how anyone can deny that. The simple fact that we don't have Nefi and Corey or Hairston batting one two improves the lineup. You also can't ignore that there's virtually no chance that Lee, Murton and Cedeno put up OBP's of .418, .386 and .350 over a full season next year. Fine give Lee 390 before he learned how to hit for average last year his OBP was still aroudn 380. Give Murton 360 he has had a great eye his entire minor league career and there is no way that will change now that he is in the majors. Then give Cedeno 330. That is still better than last year. That lineup will have two problems. 1 Neifi will probably start over Cedeno. He won't produce much, but as long as he's batting 8th I don't mind. 2nd obviously they need more from RF. However, Pierre, Walker, Lee, ARam, Murton & Barrett should provide adequate obp. Neifi, Burnitz & Patterson absolutely killed the Cubs last year. Fortunately, two of those guys probably won't be w/ the Cubs.

If Hendry lands Abreu or Tejada (for Hill or Guzman + Williams+ prospect) the only people ripping Hendry will be the village contrarians who feel the need to play martyr. That's a huge IF. Huff, Dunn, Abreu, Tejada, etc. have a lot bigger price tags than what we'd like. Same goes for top tier free agents either they're way too expensive or prefer to stay in San Diego.

And whose fault is the current predicamant? You can blame the Tribune, but if Hendry would have had any foresight I'm sure he could have gotten an advance from the Tribune for Guerrero, Tejada, Drew, or any of the other FAs from the last couple of years. Now he has no options? We all know the possible Free Agent classes, and they only shrink. Hendry has no one to blame but himself if he's forced to sign Jones. Advance from the Trib for Vlad, Tejada or Drew eh. Hard to argue with.

Without a doubt. Considering his recent health, I wouldn't be surprised to see him take a 2 year extension and run. Could be a wise business decision.

I'm convinced he sees few other options, and prefers someone else batting 5th, which is why they have inquired about Tejada and why they'd love to get Floyd.

Hendry's going to get ripped apart regardless of what he does. Whether it's deal off Hill for Huff or go w/ Corey in RF. Nevertheless, they either need Jones to revert back to 02-03 form or pickup Tejada. There's hope for Jones though. The ESPN profile writeup refers to Jones as an emotional person who had difficulty dealing w/ his father's death in late 2004. With more time passed now, perhaps Jones can get back some of his focus, which he probably lost the past few years.

HE NEEDED SURGERY. How can any outings, nevermind however many there actually were, be trivial? That outing set the surgery back what a few days?? The doctor's said he wouldn't hurt the arm any further. Apparently, all those years of Medical School paid off. He pitched in relief for all of August. I'd like that month back now that the prognosis of "he'll definitely be ready by opening day" has changed to "he definitely won't be ready by opening day". Well, that's a different point now. My "trivial comment" was in regard to the appearance on 9/29 after Lawton had been dealt. Yes, nealry a whole month isn't trivial, and I'd like those 24 days back too, but I didn't want to concede w/ 53 games to go. Wood had some awesome appearances out of the pen.

HE NEEDED SURGERY. How can any outings, nevermind however many there actually were, be trivial? That outing set the surgery back what a few days?? The doctor's said he wouldn't hurt the arm any further. Apparently, all those years of Medical School paid off.

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!!! People tend to forget how bad the Cubs were in 02, and that the two hitting stars (Sosa & Alou) had seen their better days.... Choi not getting reps in Sept whenever & Wood getting one more outing on 9/29 are trivial. People were also predicting Kerry would get hurt too btw.

I recall plenty of people calling it idiotic during the fact. Yes, I recall a few. Nice predictions by them. It was practically everyone. I think I may go through the game threads from those days. This is a nice example of a time when the average member of NSBB was clearly smarter than the Cubs. On one hand people want a title really bad, yet on the other they want to give up the season with 53 games to go. Fwiw Wood was pretty dang good out of the pen. Would have been nice if Lawton did something & Prior returned to 2003 Prior.

I recall plenty of people calling it idiotic during the fact. Yes, I recall a few. Nice predictions by them.

Fwiw and iirc Wood wasn't ready to shut it down on Aug 5th and if the Cubs catch fire in August then it's a good move. It's easy to call it idiotic after the fact.

He hired Dusty. And the only out of nowhere injury was Prior's elbow this season. The team won only 89 games in 2004 (11th highest total) and 79 (17th highest) in 2005. They did so with a top 5 payroll each season. I would say it's pretty clear the negatives outweighed the positives. I agree about 2005, but it is hard to complain about the team Hendry put together in 2004. That was easily the most talented team in the NL that year going into the season. Injuries and Dusty are to blame for 2004. 2005 is a different story, however. Frankly I'm sick of excuses. He hired Dusty. You can't give Hendry slack by passing the blame onto Dusty. We knew what he was going to bring. Prior was injured before the season. Joe Bo was injured before the season. He started the year with an above average Lee at 1B, an above average Grudz at 2nd, a crappy Gonzo at short, solid but unspectaculiar Ramirez at third, aging and underperforming Alou in left, rehabbing Patterson in center. Aging and declining Sosa in right. Alou, Ramirez, Barrett and Rusch all outperformed expectations. The only real "surprise" injury was Wood's. Every team deals with injuries. STL missed Rolen for much of 2005, and were still great. The Cubs didn't lose because of luck. I'm sick of overlooking facts. Few could forsee both Prior & Wood going down in 2004. Those two were the backbone of the team. Sure Hendry should have been better prepared in 2005, but he did pick up Jerome Williams early on, who isn't too shabby.

According to the paper, after the Nomar signing, LA had 14 guys under contract for $74 million. Looks like McCourt's going to spend a little more than expected.

Well, reality tells us that the Cubs aren't a very good team, but they are a very expensive team. So, when you add up all the "piles" of his deals, the results do not at all tilt in his favor, because the team he built isn't good. That's what matters, and that is what makes me think the way I do about Hendry's moves, on the whole. A healthy Prior makes this team "good."

add in a bucket of chicken wings and half the people here things it should land Abreu. Add Williams and Harvey and I think it gets you Abreu. Replace Williams w/ Jon Garland and you may have a deal.

None of the above.

What's the latest on Millwood & Weaver?? I wouldn't mind the Cubs trading for Livan Hernandez or Derek Lowe either.

I'm pretty sure they do draft 90% pitchers, didn't they draft about 10 straight this year? 80% isn't going to happen, but Rusch is already in the rotation, and he is that bad, so they do have rotation issues. What's the rotation look like then?? Prior, Z, Maddux, Williams & Rusch, with Wood ready by May?? There's been rumors of Hendry looking for a starter and I wouldn't be surprised to see him pick one up in January.