ZZ Thorn

So when do you think Dubois will get regular starts vs. RH pitchers? The fact that Macias pinch hit for Dubois vs. a RH reliever Saturday, on a day when he was 2-3, shows me that Dusty still has very little confidence in Dubois' ability to hit RH pitching. He will remain badly underused for a while yet. If Holla has a hot streak Dubois should ask to be traded. I'm sure your joking. The 27 year old rookie making a demand like that is laughable... if he did I'd hope they'd demote him back to the minors. Just go with me here: Dusty, as mananger of people, needs to support all his players, even when they suck. Especially with vets who have had success in the past, and are older, he has to baby them a bit. Hendry and Dusty always said HOlla was the starter, they can't just bench him at the first sign of struggling, can they? That would demoralize him and send a bad message to the team. It's a long season. I think yeah, maybe in a month, if things progress like they are, Dubois will have proven to all, including Holla, that he should start regularly. Yeah I was joking, sorta. But I do believe that all Holla has to do to bury Dubois for a very long time is get hot for a couple of weeks. Yeah, I agree, and I don't like it either, but this just how it goes. The rook Dubois, who has no high-class pedigree, has to earn it, he has to beat out the vet. That's just how it works. It makes for better competition anyway. Look at it this way, I think it's the same for Dubois. A few more weeks of .600+ slugging and Holla hitting barely above .200 and Holla will be on the bench, where he's probably the most effective.

So when do you think Dubois will get regular starts vs. RH pitchers? The fact that Macias pinch hit for Dubois vs. a RH reliever Saturday, on a day when he was 2-3, shows me that Dusty still has very little confidence in Dubois' ability to hit RH pitching. He will remain badly underused for a while yet. If Holla has a hot streak Dubois should ask to be traded. I'm sure your joking. The 27 year old rookie making a demand like that is laughable... if he did I'd hope they'd demote him back to the minors. Just go with me here: Dusty, as mananger of people, needs to support all his players, even when they suck. Especially with vets who have had success in the past, and are older, he has to baby them a bit. Hendry and Dusty always said HOlla was the starter, they can't just bench him at the first sign of struggling, can they? That would demoralize him and send a bad message to the team. It's a long season. I think yeah, maybe in a month, if things progress like they are, Dubois will have proven to all, including Holla, that he should start regularly.

To me Dubois is right on track - he's out-hitting Holla by an excellent margin, and Holla's not doing that well, which is no surprise. Dubois is starting to get more starts. If he keeps hitting that'll increase and Holla will be where he should be, on the bench. Dubois has to stop making Holla-as-defensive-replacement seem like a good idea tho. Dubois is whiffing more than I hoped, but he's producing otherwise - right on track....

It's still too early...I don't think I can in good conscience jump on until September at the earliest. He's doing great now, no doubt about it.

It's not how many innings but when. Fox pitched in 3 consecutive days. The culmination was yesterday's blow out. There was absolutly no reason for him to be in there, none. I don't blame Dusty for injurying Fox, but I do question his baseball acumen. How do you pitch a guy comming off of a serious arm injury in 3 straight games? Espeically when he has been anointed as the closer de jour. If a tree falls in the forest...can we blame Dusty? Fox closed one game, he's not our closer.

Wow. This guy is gone. See you later Andy Sisco. This sucks big time. I never thought he'd have this kind of success this year. Bad move by Hendry, but honestly, who could've guessed it? He can't be this good, he'll come back to earth, but with such a great start he's not coming back unless he pulls an Ankiel.

Way to read my criticism of Dusty. :roll: I really have no idea what you are talking about. While I'm here: I can't believe Dusty didn't equip the RF with a telescoping fishing net that could have been used to catch that game-winning home run. Nice call Dusty! Dubois would have caught that.

Looks like ZZ has a mini-me. You don't lie: Haha! Good one DRG! Great minds think alike eh? :yeah: I can't believe Dusty used his closer. This loss is all his fault. Who uses their closer to save the game!!!

Well that is pretty surprising. Thanks for the stats. it's funny what you can learn from stats. like, how a hitter actually performs. and dunn still sucks. I should kick your ass, but that was pretty funny.

Well that is pretty surprising. Thanks for the stats.

What? I thought he had to be on the roster the whole year, he can't get get hidden on the DL. We've done this so many times I don't know which way is up....

Not a bashing or a hijacking attempt: Man, no wonder Cincy hits so many dingers. I've played in HS ball fields that played deeper. That first home run was a freakin fly ball out! I couldn't believe it carried so far. And LF is a joke too! Seriously, Coors Field has nothing on that place. I'd like to see how good Dunn does in a normal ballpark, or even say SD's new stadium. He'd hit .178. Hopefully he'll get traded out of the Central cuz he keeps hitting HRs off Kerry. That second one was very well struck. Only one error so far...must have had a lot of home games. :wink:

Have you seen what Lewis is doing at Iowa so far? I still believe he's not going to make it. (Kramer impression) Oh...I've been seeing. You may have the opinion he won't make it, but it's still WAY early. Not even out of April yet. I expect a certain period of adjustment whenever a player switches levels. If Lewis hasn't turned it around by July, then I'll worry. He's a very good defender, just needs to hit to be a starter in the bigs. Last year was a dream season for him, but how rare is a true (non drug-aided) fluke season? I still say 2 years of Walker (or maybe now 1 year of Walker, 1 year of Hairston) and Lewis to start in 2007. He switched levels at the 3/4 point of last year. He's got over 150 AB's at AAA now. If he's going to adjust, he should do it soon. The kid isn't so young anymore. You have a reason to be skeptical, but I have reason for optimism too. Soon is the key word there. He started poorly in AAA last year but was starting to heat up...then he broke his leg. It's only mid-April, give him at least a month.

Have you seen what Lewis is doing at Iowa so far? I still believe he's not going to make it. (Kramer impression) Oh...I've been seeing. You may have the opinion he won't make it, but it's still WAY early. Not even out of April yet. I expect a certain period of adjustment whenever a player switches levels. If Lewis hasn't turned it around by July, then I'll worry. He's a very good defender, just needs to hit to be a starter in the bigs. Last year was a dream season for him, but how rare is a true (non drug-aided) fluke season? I still say 2 years of Walker (or maybe now 1 year of Walker, 1 year of Hairston) and Lewis to start in 2007.

That stat about Cruz working pretty much only in mop up duty really shined a new light on his suceess last year. I'll say this about Cruz - he's damn ugly. Cruz for Pratt/Lewis looking better and better....

Absolutely. When he comes in to the game, the should flash "Game Over" on the scoreboard, like they do in LA for Gagne, because when we see Macias, its game over for the Cubs chances of rallying. :lmao:

Macias is a defensive upgrade to Dubois at least (covers way more ground and showed, amazingly, that at least he has an accurate arm last night) but definitely not Hairston so bad move by Dusty. Dusty must've brought him in for his speed to play no doubles defense, but nice bobble. Macias may even have more time in the OF thruout his career than Hairston for all I know, but Dusty should have been ecstatic that Macias-as-defensive-upgrade worked so well last night and not been greedy and done it twice in a row. Dusty pulled that string one too many times - half-amazing it even worked once. Sadly, Hendry will not cut the cord. Macias may come thru one in a great while, but he will no doubt level out back to overally lousiness very quickly. You're kidding me, right? Macias can play multiple positions, but he plays them poorly. He may have more speed than Dubois, but he doesn't get good reads or jumps on balls hit to the outfield. Dubois also has a much better arm than Macias. Dubois is pretty slow in the OF from what I've seen. As for his takes on balls his way he's no Burnitz thus far either. Dubois coudn't have gunned out that runner at home much better than Macias did the other night.

Macias is a defensive upgrade to Dubois at least (covers way more ground and showed, amazingly, that at least he has an accurate arm last night) but definitely not Hairston so bad move by Dusty. Dusty must've brought him in for his speed to play no doubles defense, but nice bobble. Macias may even have more time in the OF thruout his career than Hairston for all I know, but Dusty should have been ecstatic that Macias-as-defensive-upgrade worked so well last night and not been greedy and done it twice in a row. Dusty pulled that string one too many times - half-amazing it even worked once. Sadly, Hendry will not cut the cord. Macias may come thru one in a great while, but he will no doubt level out back to overally lousiness very quickly.

If Remmy came in and shut them down I wouldn't give Dusty the credit - he's paid like a top reliever, he's supposed to do that regularly. I really wouldn't have been crowing about Dusty 'pulling the right string' there. Or if Fox had done well. Those are basic situations for those guys - putting them in is like batting ARam 4th. It's standard operating procedure - not pulling a string by Dusty. He sure pulled the right string with putting Macias in defensively, much to everyone's surprise. Burnitz really is an upgrade from Sammy defensively - they're both lefties, I didn't get that move but it worked out pretty well. The only thing Dusty must've been thinking was that Burnitz wasn't going to do well making contact against Mesa. And the Busters aren't predictable? I may be somewhat predictable, but at least I'm objective.

IMO, our Achilles' heel is our BP. Our loss of Sosa and Alou, loss of Clement, Dusty - all these aren't as big a problem as our BP. We really need a bonafide closer, which'll slot everyone done and make us solid. In the Wuertz for closer thread it was posted that the Cubs are, they guess, waiting to trade for a closer and that they have plenty of financial flexibility to pick one up. They're going to wait until some teams fall out of contention, then the Cubs swoop in. I sure hope that works out. With no closer, even if we make the playoffs, I doubt we can go very far unless our Big 3 are totally lights out.

So what does the book say when Hill is up, first base is open, but the guy behind him had gone 3 for 3 with 2 home runs off your current ace thus far? Your argument is just as vaild as the argument for not letting that guy beat you, again! So how can you really fault Dusty when you're dammed if you do and dammed if you don't. When you are thus dammed, you can only rely on your players, and Dusty's BP totally blew it for him tonight. They let in 4 runs in a one run game! Macias and Perez's success I find funny. I say keep Perez, but what is Macias? Our new defensive replacement? He played a very solid 3rd the other day, a great outfield assist...too bad he's 1 for 12. It really is Hendry's fault he's on the team.

Definitely one of the dumbest things I've heard this year. Let me guess: this guy is on AM radio.

Alright, this is just my take on the blowup tonight: The game was blown by the bullpen. All 25 players are supposed to be able to come into tough situations and succeed. Z put Rem in a bad situation, Rem faltered. Rem has to face lefties sometimes people - he's one of our main relievers and sure is paid like one. Rem didn't do well after letting the game get tied. Wuertz could have been used better, but Wuertz is not Gagne. Wuertz is so popular on this board for the same reason the backup QB is the most popular QB in Chicago. I like Wuertz, however. Not a great use there. Fox is in, tough situation. Gets an out, runners on 2nd on 3rd, Hill up, Ross, player of the game 3 for 3, on fire, is behind him. As Brenly said you pick your poison, 50/50 either way. Fox gave up the double, game over. Fox needs to be able to get Hill out in that situation. Fox was our last line of defense and he let everybody home. As far as Macias, LOL, he freakin threw the guy out at home so how can you really complain? Even if he didn't get it hit (no surprise here) he still prevented a run, and that's not easy. LOL at Macias. I'm sure some people will blame Dusty for this. Why? Cuz it's easy. But his pitchers - Z, Rem, Fox - didn't do their job and put him in tough situations that no mangerial expertise gets you out of. What gets you out? Not getting in these situations to begin with. If he walks Hill to set up the DP and Ross gets a hit, everyone says "Ross was the player of the game, why did you let him beat you?" Dammned if you do, damned if you don't in that stituation. To me the blame goes squarely on the pen and on Z for not pitching a great game. The only questionable call by Dusty is the use of Wuertz and Macias, the latter which I cannot understand, but sure worked out pretty good. Everyone's pen blows it, and maybe ours will gel, but I'd sure like to see a bonafide closer or dare I say Farnsesque pitcher by the trade dealine....

Dubois IS the 24th man, that's the reality as I see it. I wish he was our starting LF and Holla could hopefully replicate the success he had off the bench last year.

:| :( #-o Dis is a revoltin devlopment.