dalgreen

\ 3 game winning streaks against the brew crew are apparently huge. Here's to a 15 game losing streak starting out with the Mets. I want Dusty humiliated and Hendry to look like the idiot he is. I want them both gone. But I don't understand those who want Baker fired right now but are willing to give Hendry another opportunity next year to overpay for mediocrity and "toolsy" players. I will say this for the players, if they wanted Baker gone, they could've laid down against the Brewers thus pretty much solidifying Baker's departure. If the Cubs somehow play well enough to finish .500 or a few games below, does Hendry try to re-sign him?

No, but if not for the Cubs' last week collapse in 2004 we'd be talking about that year. It works both ways. I understand and agree it works both ways. If we hadn't have choked in 2004, we could've been swept in the NLDS or won the pennant, I don't know. But we do know we came within 5 outs of the World Series and people still want to give Hendry a pass for that. Prior to 2003, no one predicted the Cubs to make the playoffs. Prior to 2004, many picked the Cubs to win the World Series. He's now had three straight disappointing years.

The NBA seems to be doing well having their playoff series on TNT (of course, they haven't been the same since Jordan left. . . ) Any opportunity for less Tim McCarver and Lou Piniella is fine by me. NBA playoffs were never a staple on network tv. 25 years ago they didn't even show the NBA Finals (weeknight games) live, it was on tape delay. Anyway, yes, it's hard to believe but there are still quite a few people who don't get cable. I guess it's too high, but there are still quite a few people who don't get cable. I still think it's ludicrous for those with Extra Innings not to be able to receive other afternoon games. All of the money is going to MLB anyway so I don't get why those with EI can't get the other games offered by FOX on Saturdays, in addition to the other games going on on Saturday prior to the 7 pm ET blackout.

No Divisional Series games on network tv? Doesn't make sense to me. Nice to see MLB is still trying to get fans back.... way to go. :roll: I bet Chris Berman wet his pants with the announcement. I can't stand listening to him do baseball games. I hope Selig is serious regarding the Saturday afternoon blackouts for Extra Innings. ABC allows it for their college football broadcasts and NBC allows other games to be shown on their NHL broadcasts. Get with the times, Bud.

I'm not sure what will be done, but something will be done. I'd like to see Clines and Matthews gone, but then that would mean that Hendry would have to admit failure since he was the one who swapped Matthews for Clines. I just don't get why he had to use these four days to "evaluate" the team completely, instead of using the whole months of May and June to do it.

It's almost sickening to hear people give Hendry credit for the 2003 "five outs away" team. The Houston Astros should be given more credit for that than Hendry. Had Houston not choked the last four games of the year, would we still be talking about 2003? This is the third straight year he's made horrible decisions. I agree with Goony that MacPhail should be in the top five. As I've said for more than ten years, I've never, ever heard MacPhail or Hendry state, "any year we are not contending for the NL Central will be considered a failed season." These were the exact quotes I remember Mark Lamping, Cardinals President, stating when he was hired. The culture of winning begins at the top.

I don't get the play the kids talk. Who do we have that's not playing who should be playing? I'm all for playing kids if and when they're ready and if they're good. Hill, Dubois and Choi were not as good as many of us thought, and not to turn this into a Murton thread, but I was fooled. i don't think he'll be as good as I thought he would be. Just ask yourself this: If we didn't trade for Nomar, do you think Murton would be playing everyday for the Red Sox? Brenly is a bad in-game manager. No one remembers game 5 of the 2001 NLDS when he called for a suicide squeeze in a tie game in the bottom of the ninth. Womack bunted through it and a runner was caught between third and home. That would've gone down as one of the dumbest calls in post-season history, but Womack then singled the game winning run home from second. I want the Cubs to get a guy who knows how to win and has won before. The first thing a manager will have to do is convince Hendry that OBP and OPS are important stats and take the word "toolsy" out of Hendry's vocabulary.

I held Rothschild in high regard too until 2005. Rothschild is the pitching coach and I think people give Baker too much credit by criticizing his use of the pitchers. I think Baker doesn't know jack about pitching and pretty much relies on Pole and Rothschild. Rothschild has had two opportunities to leave the Cubs with Baker at the helm and has chosen to stay twice. That should tell you something. I've yet to read, hear or see anything to show that he is powerless and is at odds with Baker. You mean after all these years you think he'd stay if he was in constant philosophical battles with Baker?

I went last night, July 5th.

and decide to go to the Chiefs/Clinton game at O'Brien Stadium. Nice park with some activities for the kids and between innings games/entertainment. I had a nice time. By the way, none of the Chiefs players I saw excite me except their closer, who was throwing some wicked breaking pitches. Congrats to them for winning the first half of the Midwest League. One funny thing - Jody Davis (Peoria's manager) would jog from the dugout to the third base coaching box and he runs just as fast now as he did twenty years ago for the Cubs! :P

That's not a quote I want to read/hear from a supposed ace of the staff. Just my opinion, but if Rusch had said it I wouldn't be as concerned because he just sucks and we knew that. But for Prior to say that (the quote is "There's something going on upstairs and I have to figure it out.") really concerns me. I've always maintained that I didn't think we should pencil in Wood or Prior as our "aces" to begin a season because of their health issues. Hey, maybe Prior has great stuff but is more of a #2 or #3 than an ace? It's obvious that Ramirez isn't capable of carrying a team, maybe the same could be made of Prior?

Hendry will be gone if the losing continues, but he's safe through next year. Just a reminder to everyone, Ed Lynch wasn't fired he resigned, and he was worse than Hendry And it was the second time he offered his resignation before MacPhail finally accepted it. I apologize for the pessimism, but I think Hendry is safe until he's ready to go.

I think getting Beltran helped, too.

I still maintain that the best thing would be for Baker and Hendry to go. I have no confidence and no faith in either of the two, and I suspect as long as Hendry is the one (along with the current Cub scouts, something he's also responsible for) responsible for constructing teams, we won't be contenders. Last August in a full article he apologized and took full responsibility for the make-up of the team and said he needed to do a better job. Well, May of this year he said the same thing. I've yet to see a good manager with a bad baseball team contend for a championship. I've seen bad managers with good teams win (Phil Garner, Terry Francona) but I haven't seen bad teams with good managers win.

I don't know why Williams would be considered a worse choice than Baker, other than some people already wanting one guy and if it's not their guy they're not going to like the choice. One thing I don't like about Williams is how his first name is spelled. :P

Sorry, but you're wrong for defending Baker here. He doesn't teach swing at ball 4. But he does loudly downplay the value of the walk, bench players whose best quality is patience, try to get patient hitters to be more aggressive and teach overly aggressive approaches at the plate. Just because he doesn't say swing at ball 4 that doesn't mean his instructions don't lead to people swinging at ball 4. It's part of the package when you preach what he preaches. You can't deny responsibility for the negative ramifications of your bad philosophies. I don't get how what you stated is much different that what I stated. He doesn't say swing at ball four and by being overly aggressive means our hitters rarely get to ball three counts, anyway. But in the rare instances our guys do get to ball three, Baker's philosophy and our hitters' lack of pitch recognition makes it difficult for ball four. Hey, when is someone going to ask him why he downplays walks on the offensive side, but hates them when we give them up? Cuse said, "Dusty preaches aggresive hitting and with that comes swinging at ball 4" and you tried to defend Baker by saying he doesn't preach swinging at ball 4. It doesn't matter if he doesn't preach that, he preaches something that leads to ball 4. There is no defense for Baker on that charge, and there's no reason for you to try and defend him. So, swinging at a helmet high pitch or a breaking pitch eight inches outside comes from preaching "be aggressive" yet they were able to take three other pitches during the at-bat? As I said, I hate Baker's philosophy, but to give players a free pass on consistently swinging at obvious balls is ridiculous.

Sorry, but you're wrong for defending Baker here. He doesn't teach swing at ball 4. But he does loudly downplay the value of the walk, bench players whose best quality is patience, try to get patient hitters to be more aggressive and teach overly aggressive approaches at the plate. Just because he doesn't say swing at ball 4 that doesn't mean his instructions don't lead to people swinging at ball 4. It's part of the package when you preach what he preaches. You can't deny responsibility for the negative ramifications of your bad philosophies. I don't get how what you stated is much different that what I stated. He doesn't say swing at ball four and by being overly aggressive means our hitters rarely get to ball three counts, anyway. But in the rare instances our guys do get to ball three, Baker's philosophy and our hitters' lack of pitch recognition makes it difficult for ball four. Hey, when is someone going to ask him why he downplays walks on the offensive side, but hates them when we give them up?

I'd take Dunn. Your reasons for Lee would be just about what Hendry's reasons would be. Except you left out the part of him wanting to play here.

It really irks me to have to defend Baker, but he doesn't preach swinging at ball four. His aggressive philosophy is swing at any pitch in the strike zone -- that's a big difference than just swinging at everything. Having said that, I still disagree with that philosophy. I'm all for players swinging at balls in their "hot" zone whether it's first pitch or a 3-0 pitch, but it's stupid to swing at any pitch in the strike zone, unless, of course, it's with two strikes. The thing I can't stand is the number of our players who love swinging at breaking pitches, especially when that isn't their pitch.

Wait didn't Cedeno go 20+ games in a row until that error last night? Oh and in 47 games Neifi has 6 errors, while in 72 games Cedeno has 12. Neifi is not that much better than Cedeno. Are those 6 errors all at SS? Also, isn't the concensus on this board that the season is lost anyway so we should be playing the kids as much as possible so they get better? Yeah, but they aren't doing that. They think they are still in it. Therefore, if you were in it, it would make sense to put Neifi at SS for the 9th. And you would bring in who to play second base? Cedeno is better defensively at SS than Walker is at 2nd base.

I agree. Basing defensive liability solely on the number of errors is not an accurate assessment. ARam has the second highest fielding pct. either in the NL or MLB and I think he's one of the worst defensive third basemen in the game. Plus, all it takes is for two official scorings to screw you. Baker should have plenty of blame placed on him for this season and last season, but I'm sick of hearing about how good Matt Murton will be if he's away from Baker. Didn't we hear the same thing about Bobby Hill and Hee Seop Choi? I like Murton's ability, but I also at one point liked the above mentioned guys, too and I simply overvalued them. Ask yourself this about Murton, if we hadn't have made the trade for Garciaparra, would Murton have made an appearance at Fenway Park yet? Last night's game was lost due to poor execution. Yeah, you can blame Dempster's ineffectiveness on not pitching a lot, but who else in the bullpen would you feel comfortable with protecting a one-run lead? Regarding trade values, I have to give it up to Jacque Jones because I was riding him hard for the first six weeks of the season and now he's playing well (but learn how to throw the stupid baseball), Walker's trade value, in my opinion, was never that high or he would've been dealt in the off-season. Nevin will probably net you the same for what we had to give up.

Just another example of how bad our team/organization has been over the many,many years. Cardinal fans are in an uproar and state of shock because they are on an eight-game losing streak, their first since 1988. I was graduating high school in 1988. I wonder how many 8+ game losing streaks have the Cubs had since 2000 let alone since 1988? Kind of puts things in perspective.

12 losses in a row yet only three games from fifth place. We Cub fans are in no position to joke about the Royals or Pirates. In fact, I believe the Royals have a good record over their last twenty games. Something I wish I could say for the Cubs.

It sounds like a combo of tired arm, badly needed mechanics retooling, and some mental rest as well. I think he's really hurt. I've seen his last few starts and he's struggled to reach 90mph for a while now. Too bad since it's his free-agent year.

I went to the Royals/Pirates game (I must love baseball to see these two teams) and a couple of things I came away with: 1. Todd Wellymeyer still stinks. He walked the first guy he faced on four straight pitches and threw a wild pitch. He then walked the third guy he faced (although he never should've had to face the third batter due to an error). 2. I'm trying to figure out why Hendry hasn't gone after Angel Berroa yet. He would be the typical Hendry signee. Berroa has tools but sucks. His OBP is bad -- he has walked a grand total of 5 times this year. He always goes up hacking and simply is someone I could see Hendry thinking, "A change of scenery is all he needs." It was funny, he walked today and the entire crowd behind the first base dugout gave him a standing ovation. They then promptly booed him when he dropped a pop up on the infield, while calling off Grudz and Graffanino and trying to catch it one handed. I don't know why Hendry hasn't gone after this guy. Kaufmann Stadium might be the most underrated stadium in the majors. Great place to see a game (too bad the product isn't) and it isn't even a "new" retro stadium. KC new what they were doing when they decided to build a baseball only stadium instead of those stupid cookie cutter stadiums.