UMFan83

Interesting article in today's Sun Times: http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/cubs/591759,CST-SPT-cubnews07.article Interesting...

Exactly, how can you say that the Cubs pulled him as a pre-emptive move. The kid has been in the bigs for over 300 innings now, teams should have figured out how to hit him much earlier then last August. How the kid will ever get a chance to prove himself when, at the first sign of danger he is yanked from the rotation is beyond me.

Terrible move...the only reasoning is that they want to keep Vizquel for defense behind their young pitchers, but even that is not as great as it used to be. A raise? I guess they are spending that Bonds money wisely..

WTH? Derrek Lee barely hit 22 home runs this year. How the hell did he win? But seriously, big shocker for me A) His defense definitely wasn't the same as years past B) I just assumed that after Albert won the GG last year, he would take over and win for the next 6-7 years because of all the sportswriters who gush over him.

I think it would be a boneheaded move for the Cubs to let Prior rehab for most of 4 seasons, finally find enough wrong with him to have a surgery and then let a player with his talent go before we figure out what he has got.

That is just silly. The proof of the process is in the product. Process is never more important than outcome. Never, not in a million years, and not in any way, shape, or form for any aspect of life. I think this is a horribly misguided and wrong way of thinking that will never lead to any long-term success in any avenue of life. EDIT - and it's the exact same type of thinking that leads to Jim Hendry trying to somehow copy the latest lightning in a bottle team every year. No the Cubs are a bona fide example of process over product, unless I am reading your "they should've won" supposition incorrectly. Forget the Cubs. That's a separate argument. Process is more meaningful than outcome. Period. Variance can impact a single outcome. Sound process is the only way to ensure long term success in anything. I'll use a poker (Hold 'em) analogy. If you have pocket aces, and somebody acting before you goes all in, you call. 100 times out of 100, the correct play is to call. Now, say the other guy flips over 6 3 offsuit. The board winds up being 4 5 7 9 Q and he wins this hand with 6 3 offsuit. This doesn't mean that calling with AA was the incorrect play. It means that the best hand didn't hold up. Long term, you will win far more often than not when you make this same play. The outcome of the hand (a loss) means nothing (other than the fact that you lost some money in the short run). The math says that you made the correct play, and that is all that matters. Now apply that to baseball. If team A is better constructed than team B but, due to variance, winds up winning fewer games than team B in a given season, that does not mean that team B was the better team. In terms of GMing a team, what matters is how the team is put together, not necessarily how that team winds up performing. If my team were looking at two candidates for GM, one who has sound baseball philosophies but, for whatever reason, has an under .500 record, and one who has a .600 record, but has flawed philosophies, I would take the former every single time. I liken this to a bad pitcher with a good W-L record vs. a good pitcher with a bad W-L record. There's a far better chance that the good philosophies will lead to future success than the naked bottom-line success. Obviously, I'm talking extreme ends of the spectrum here, but it does a good job of illustrating the point. Thank you. I was trying to think of a good analogy and you came up with several good ones. Except the last one, everyone knows that the pitcher with the most wins is the best choice. :wink:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/11/02/billjames.rankings/index.html Not really surprising for a team that doesn't spend a lot of time developing their own talent.

No, it was a reply to the post above, I just took your last comment as well. My bad

This is ridiculous. You can't make these determinations in hindsight. Even if you want to go the hindsight route, then how was the 2003 (mediocre as it was) team not a contender? It was 5 freaking outs from the big dance. You can't have it both ways. Personally, I look at the 2003 team as a non-serious contender that got lucky. The 2004 team was a serious contender that was unlucky with injuries and poorly managed. What is ridiculous is to judge a team by the names on the back of the Jersey and statistics that have little usefulness outside of a theoritical model used to predict wins. I judge a team by their actual wins over the course of a season. Not one of the teams the Cubs have fielded in recent history has won 90 games. None of those teams were in the World Series and only the 2003 teams managed to get past the Wild Card round in a crapshoot playoffs. Sooooo... at what point is a team deemed a contender? What are you suggesting we do instead of judging the team by their names? Sure if you are throwing out 25 arbitrary players with unknown abilities and skills, the best way to judge their talent would be wins and losses after a season has been played. But since these players had played in the majors before and had been extensively evaluated on their talents and abilities, you could make several conclusions before 2004. The 2004 Cubs were talented, and they had enough talent to win 92-95 games. Obviously they didn't, so either they were evaluated incorrectly, or other factors came into play during the season. But that doesn't change the fact that with the talent they had, they should have made the playoffs. Not that this furthers my argument at all, I personally think that if they played that season 10 times, they would have made the playoffs in 8 of them.

But the numbers show that it was a shock that they finished with 89 wins. Their pythag shows that they should have won 94 games that year. Who knows how differently it would have been if they didn't go 1-5 in their last 6 games. Not to say that you can't count that, but if someone had told you after game 156 that the Cubs wouldnt win 90 games with 6 more against the bad Reds and the already clinched Braves, you would believe them? I think it was very surprising that they didnt win 93-94 wins. Obviously they had some major fundamental problems, but I don't think many expected them to win under 90 games after getting Lee, Walker, Maddux, and later Nomar and Dempster to add to a team that won 88 games the year before. It doesn't matter what people expected to happen, or what their pyth. record was. They finished 3rd. Winning is what matters. The only constant besides a handful of players is Jim Hendry. And he is the very definition of mediocre, as are the Cubs. But if it makes you happy to believe that the Cubs were victims of bad luck or what have you, go right ahead. I will say this, no amount of luck explains why the Cubs haven't fielded one or two championship calibur teams in most of our lifetimes. But thats what my whole argument was, that the Cubs on paper were a championship caliber club. The pitching alone should have allowed us to contend if they all played up to their expected level. Add the fact that we did have an offense of sorts, however lacking it was it was not the worst in the league (in terms of runs scored it was 7th in the league), and we should have won 92-95 games and contended for the World Series. I agree there were major issues that many homeristic Cubs fans didn't foresee (bad bullpen, OBP, management issues, injuries), but the fact is the Cubs had the talent, it just didnt translate into wins.

But the numbers show that it was a shock that they finished with 89 wins. Their pythag shows that they should have won 94 games that year. Who knows how differently it would have been if they didn't go 1-5 in their last 6 games. Not to say that you can't count that, but if someone had told you after game 156 that the Cubs wouldnt win 90 games with 6 more against the bad Reds and the already clinched Braves, you would believe them? I think it was very surprising that they didnt win 93-94 wins. Obviously they had some major fundamental problems, but I don't think many expected them to win under 90 games after getting Lee, Walker, Maddux, and later Nomar and Dempster to add to a team that won 88 games the year before.

The 2004 team was a serious contender. Should've won near 95 games and would've been a very scary playoff team. They just blew it at the end. That was by far our best shot. Injuries and a late season collapse took it away from us. Should have? There was nothing serious about the 2004 team. They were a blip above average. Really? I thought they were an good to very good team on paper. Prior just came off a season which he had a 2.43 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP and was 23 years old Wood had a very nice season as well Zambrano was probably the best #3 in baseball in 2003 and like 21 years old Maddux was a slightly above average pitcher Clement was also solid That starting pitching alone is borderline spectacular, with 3 Cy Young Caliber pitchers, another one (Clement) that would be a #2 or #3 at worse in almost every rotation, and a solid HOF pitcher at the backend of his rotation who had the brains to compensate for his eroding skills. The Bullpen was not very good, but the Lineup had by the end of the season, all starting position players capable of hitting double digits in HR, while 5 of them (Nomar, Sosa, Alou, Lee, Ramirez) had the ability to hit 30 or more HRs with 3-4 of them the ability to hit 40 or more. Sure the OBP was a huge issue, but that lineup was built to hit for power and average, and they did for the most part. What killed the Cubs was their bad bullpen, their lack of OBP, and the unexpected decline of Sammy Sosa. That team had to be a 92-95 win team on paper, it had to.

From Jon Heyman at SI.com:

I agree. Doesn't look (according to his numbers) like he has overpowering stuff, but I think with Fukudome comes Kuroda. Chicago doesn't have the Japanese market, nor do they have any Japanese players on their team to help one get acclimated to the MLB and US

http://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/story/2007/11/5/93248/2665 Yes please. I'd love to make a splash right away. Does Kuroda really project as a starter, though? What I've read is that he projects into a 3-4 starter...but I am not sure.

I posted that in the Fukudome thread. Would be an amazing pickup IMO. Not sure about Kuroda, but as far as Fukudome goes, if his OBP and SLG translate to even 85% of what he is doing in Japan, it would be a very nice move for the Cubs and get me excited about next year.

How about sign Fukudome and Kuroda, trade Pie for Greene straight up and then offer Marmol, Gallagher, Veal, Marshall, Murton for Crawford. Would kill our team longterm, but look at short term (assuming Soriano agrees to move down in the order) Crawford, CF Fukudome, RF Lee, 1B Ramirez, 3B Soriano, LF Greene, SS DeRosa, 2B Soto, C Zambrano Lilly Kuroda Hill Prior/Marquis Wuertz Wood Eyre Howry Dempster That is a World Series contender minus the bullpen Spend: Crawford - $6m Fukudome - $13m Kuroda - $10m Greene - $4m Dump Prior - (-$4m) Total - $29m Thats about double the Cubs plan to spend, but you'd have to think that the management would be more willing to approve $30 million in payroll increase if we are getting 4 quality players as opposed to 1 A-Rod or opposed to our wild overspending of last year.

Al on BCB seems to think this is very likely to happen, according to his 'sources' http://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/story/2007/11/5/93248/2665

Tell me if anything of substance is said please

I hope it's something like "Wallace, Gordon, Noah and assorted crap for Kobe" Although if something were close to imminent, it would have broken elsewhere. It was just on..yeah, much ado about nothing. What did he say

If I could have one of those players for the same price, I'd pick Santana because I think that finding an ace through FA is nearly impossible (especially one as dominant as him) and significantly more expensive than a hitter at comparable value. But if it was just "money is no object" in general meaning I could spend as much as I want for anyone, and I could only get one of those 3 than probably ARod.

I love how he lists Murton as a "ready now youngster" even though this will be his 4th major league season. I know he's never been a full time starter, but still

FWIW regarding the Marlins suggestion http://www.miamiherald.com/591/story/292961.html

Yeah, I was 1) Roy, 2) Aldridge and 3) Thomas. If the Bulls got Roy, I wanted to trade BG for a big. His lack of PT is directly related to his inconsistent play and (as was the case on Wednesday) his foul trouble. I think Tyrus has a lot of potential, but I haven't seen anything from him offensively that would suggest that he is going to be a very good player. Who knows though, compare him and Shawn Kemp's first years in the league: MIN FG% FT% 3P% RPG BPG APG SPG PPG Shawn Kemp 13.8 48% 74% 17% 4.3 0.9 0.3 0.6 6.5 Tyrus Thomas 13.4 48% 61% 00% 3.7 1.1 0.6 0.6 5.2

Barrett is an A