ZZ Thorn

You realize there is one major flaw with his arguement right? Grieve is 29 right now. Sammy was 32-33 when his numbers started to drop off. There is a big difference in those 3-4 years. Also, is it really necessary to respond to the same post twice? In my final response then, please answer the key question, why aren't all the contenders after him? You OBP fundamentalists... there's more to life than OBP, one day you'll realize that. Grieve sucks. Nobody wants him because of my preceeding statement. LOL, he can't even hit in AAA, but that doesn't mean much I guess. To me it does. I'd call up Kelton before I called up washed-up Grieve.

Even if we keep CP, Kotsay would be about as good an addition as we can reasonably make. He'd be a real leadoff hitter at least - he could even be a very good one like he was last year. His career averages of .283/.343/.423, which is about what he's doing this year (which classifies as minor decrease from what was expected) and his BB/K rates are good, but for us they'd be a big upgrade. Kotsay is signed thru 2006, so he could hold down the leadoff spot until Felix Pie is ready. He's not cheap - making $6.5 mil, but at least he'd be a real leadoff hitter which is what this team has friggin needed for years. His line of .314/.370/.459 last year makes him pretty enticing. We could move CP to LF, where he'll be when Pie gets the CF job (if CP is still around) and we'd have a great OF defensively, as Kotsay is excellent. If we get Kotsay I'd be very satisfied. He's not the greatest leadoff hitter, but he is bonafide and we need a bonafide leadoff hitter BIG TIME. Getting a real leadoff hitter sure would take a lot of pressure off CP I'd imagine. Dempster has solidified the troublesome closer spot, Kotsay would solidify the troublesome leadoff spot.

Nope. Feel free to blame many things on Baker, but Patterson isn't one of them. Patterson's problem is Patterson. He hasn't listened effectively to any coach, and hasn't made many positive adjustments in 2 years. Sure there is this clash of want between Baker and Patterson regarding where he hits in the lineup, but that falls on Patterson's shoulders. It is irritating to hear a player as young as he, without the credentials, staking his claim to a particular spot in the lineup. It further shows he does not listen. Baker is trying to do what everybody wants to/has tried to do with Patterson, you can't pin CP's problems on Baker.

No, Hairston is actually a pretty dumb ballplayer. It sounds like him that he'd miss signs. He doesn't seem to have his head in the game at times.

It's local...that is all you can say. I tuned in to Boers and Bernstein today for 5 minutes and they were saying that Jose Contreras is as good as Kerry Wood. They said it was a no-brainer to trade Wood and that he should be the first guy out the door. What a bunch of morons. Thankfully I'm not stuck in traffic like I used to be so I practically never tune into the Score.

A big difference between Stone and Dusty is that Stone was a pitcher and pitchers/catchers are generally much smarter regarding baseball than position players. Not unlike QBs in football.

After a slow start he was getting it together. His OBP and runs scored was great. Too bad for the guy that he keeps getting injured.

I reread your post and understood what you said and edited my post. I was confused for a second and didn't realize you were agreeing with me. I see. I love Dunn Detractors though. It's way more catchy than Dusty Busters. No way. They both have alliteration, but Dusty Busters actually has rhyme and meter. Ergo, Dusty Busters is way better.

The secretary made a good point: both bosses are gone, it's the Friday before a holiday weekend, (there's a Cubs game on); why is everyone still here. She sold me. I'm gone. Go Cubs!

That is one god-awful statistic. But hey, a K is always the same as every other out eh? So would you think more of Dunn if his 19 hits the past 3 seasons with a runner on 3rd less than 2 outs were actually just routine flyballs to center-field? Would he be more valuable if instead of having 6 HRs in this situation, those homeruns stayed in the park instead of leaving? I know you're thinking Dunn must be a horrible player with a runner on 3rd less than 2 outs because of his lack of sacrifice flies, but once again, the stats show that Dunn is awesome. .268/.433/.620 and he has 57 RBI in 71 ABs. but yeah i agree since dunn drove in runs by slugging the ball instead of hitting flyouts he sucks and is overrated .268 isn't that good, especially for a 'great' player. And what good is a walk in that situation? It's better than an out, sure, but it's not what you need. It's certainly not what a 'great' player is trying to do. But hey, the guy is only batting .242 this year, lifetime .248, so I guess you can't expect too much. Pretty good tho - 57 rbis in 71 abs, tho the bbs are taken out. He's only K'd 25 times in that situation is surprising, tho still not very good. But you don't go that long without a sacrifice fly for a reason.... Just to refresh from earlier in the thread, I've always said I wasn't sold on Dunn, and that I needed to see 2 good seasons in a row from the guy. He's doing pretty well this year - very Dunn-like. SBs are way down - the guy is going to be a real liability in LF in a few years. He really should go to an AL team where he can DH towards the end of the long term contract he'll get. Not good, huh? So what is the league average in that situation then? Prove that those numbers aren't very good before dismissing them. Man that sounds like a lot of work, and I really should do some work that I get paid to supposedly do... and anyway, are you trying to prove Dunn is an average player or a 'great' player. I'll certainly agree that Dunn is at least average. It's 'great' that I'm still reserving judgment on.

Hairston sure deserved it. I swear, he must be the dumbest player to come from a successful baseball family. That guy has made WAY too many dumb plays.... Moises Alou? Considering his '04 performance on the basepaths it's hard to disagree. But my point is: Hairston is stupid. Really stupid. So stupid I can see why he's not starting. Cuz he makes a lot of stupid plays. I expected him to be smarter, since he's from the baseball Hairstons.

I hear ya, but our top 2 are SO BAD at it. I mean terrible, and that's where it's really vital. I wish we had a solid lineup like the Cards too, but if we can fix the first 2 batters that'd net us the biggest returns on our investment.

Nail meet head? The head is the top part of the nail. Nail, meet yourself? Howabout: nail, meet hammer. Cuz really, you're always hitting the hail on the head, unless you hit your thumb. I sure wish CP was Scott Podsednik. I don't think we can win the series without a real leadoff hitter. Master of the obvious here - but we have too many sluggers. LF or CF needs and is probably the easiest place to find the type of player we need.

That is one god-awful statistic. But hey, a K is always the same as every other out eh? So would you think more of Dunn if his 19 hits the past 3 seasons with a runner on 3rd less than 2 outs were actually just routine flyballs to center-field? Would he be more valuable if instead of having 6 HRs in this situation, those homeruns stayed in the park instead of leaving? I know you're thinking Dunn must be a horrible player with a runner on 3rd less than 2 outs because of his lack of sacrifice flies, but once again, the stats show that Dunn is awesome. .268/.433/.620 and he has 57 RBI in 71 ABs. but yeah i agree since dunn drove in runs by slugging the ball instead of hitting flyouts he sucks and is overrated .268 isn't that good, especially for a 'great' player. And what good is a walk in that situation? It's better than an out, sure, but it's not what you need. It's certainly not what a 'great' player is trying to do. But hey, the guy is only batting .242 this year, lifetime .248, so I guess you can't expect too much. Pretty good tho - 57 rbis in 71 abs, tho the bbs are taken out. He's only K'd 25 times in that situation is surprising, tho still not very good. But you don't go that long without a sacrifice fly for a reason.... Just to refresh from earlier in the thread, I've always said I wasn't sold on Dunn, and that I needed to see 2 good seasons in a row from the guy. He's doing pretty well this year - very Dunn-like. SBs are way down - the guy is going to be a real liability in LF in a few years. He really should go to an AL team where he can DH towards the end of the long term contract he'll get.

There are so many big mook OFs with the instincts of a cow that sounds like talk radio bs to me. Here's what ESPN says about his D: "Speed is Podsednik's game-he's among the fastest guys in baseball. He's a reliable, and sometimes spectacular, center fielder, covering the considerable gap between Jenkins in left and the team's 2004 right-field combo of Brady Clark and Ben Grieve. Podsednik also throws well."

Really? I was listening to the radio yesterday and they were talking about how he was pretty underwhelming on defense and how he gets really bad jumps on balls. I don’t watch the White Sox so I really can’t say but that’s what I heard. I haven't heard that, but he was a very good CFer with the Brewers and now he's in LF, so that must require an adjustment. One thing I've heard 3 times a day about Poddy on the radio (and I listen to maybe 5 minutes of Chicago sports talk radio a day, to give you an idea of the Pod lovefest around here) is that his mere presence on the basepaths shakes up the pitcher and distracts him. That must be true in a large part - the guy is one of the top basestealers in the league. Even if he does 'pad' his SB stats, he's above an 80% success rate for his career. He doesn't K much, he gets plenty of walks - he's a great leadoff hitter. He's exactly what we need.

He plays a terrible OF. He's about as good as Dubois, and that's bad. Dunn's offensive plusses ofset his defensive minuses no doubt, but he's a bad fielder. I would certainly say his mobility is a problem.

Hairston sure deserved it. I swear, he must be the dumbest player to come from a successful baseball family. That guy has made WAY too many dumb plays....

I'd trade Scott Poddy for Burnitz in two seconds. He's exactly the kind of player that's nearly every team needs, especially us. There's dozens of Burnitzes, there's very few players like Poddy. There is a HUGE lovefest for this guy in Chicago, but he's pretty deserving of it. Can he slug his way out of a paper bag, no, but he makes up for it in spades with his baserunning. He also plays phonomenal defense and that's another reason why the Sox are doing so well - is there a better defensive OF in baseball? If we had a guy like Poddy we'd be right there with the Cards. Until we get a Poddyesque player I don't know if this lineup has the goods to go all the way. I was a big fan of this trade when it went down, and even tho Lee is leading the NL in RBIs the Sox still came out on top (so far) in my book.

That is one god-awful statistic. But hey, a K is always the same as every other out eh?

Even half-ass decent SS prospects are hard to come by - we'd be NUTS to trade Cedeno. He's got the glove, if he can hit .270/.330/.400 that's pretty good for a starting SS, especially for one as cheap as he'll be. Just thought I'd restate the obvious in case Jim Hendry is reading this thread. Dusty is going to get Cedeno some PT this year - the guy could be our starting SS next year.

Hill can at least be a great LOOGY and to me that's something. It takes all kinda parts to make a good pen and that's not an easy one to find, and he'd be cheap for years. I'd be real wary of trading him. He could even turn out to be a darn good starter - he could wind up being that lefty starter Hendry's been jonesing for for years. He sure is pitching well this year - did real well in his last start at AAA too.

I finally voted. One more for Lee.

Bob Uecker is my hero.

It'd be fair, but Hill sure looks pretty good. And we've lost lefties Sisco, Willis and Jones recently. Nolasco didn't do to well at AAA. Maybe we can wait them out and give them a lesser lefty prospect like Piggy instead. Just being nitpicky, but don't you mean Pinto? Nolasco's not a lefty. Oops - thanks for the correction. The Cubs have been reported to have been so keen on getting a lefty in the rotation but we keep trading them. I'd rather not give up Pinto either, but it is tempting.