Outshined_One

I don't necessarily think it's the offense that Cubs fans should fault Jim Hendry for. He's taken chances on a number of guys who ended up being quite productive with this team. I think the Pierre trade was a desperation move while the Jock Jones acquisition was boneheaded, given Jock's history. Hendry's biggest flaw with this offense has been building the bench. I'm convinced that he doesn't go out and get the best guys for the bench, but instead relies on his manager when it comes to making those acquisitions. Moreover, he's putting these bench guys in a position for his manager to use and abuse them. He should know by now that any talented young player worth a lick will rot on the bench while the terrible veteran gets playing time over him. Let's face it, we all took a sharp breath when Marquis Grissom was brought in this year. Names like Eric Karros, Lenny Harris, Jose Macias, Damian Jackson, Neifi Perez, Troy O'Leary, and a number of others send chills down the spine of hardened Cubs fans. The bullpen has also been spotty, but I think you can put some of the blame on a manager who didn't know what he was doing. Mike Remlinger should have never, ever, ever been used as a LOOGY. Everyone and their mother knew that LaTroy Hawkins couldn't close games except for Dusty. Instead of doing the relatively smart thing and put Dempster in at closer with Hawkins setting up, he did the dumb thing by wasting both guys in roles that did not suit their relative talents. We can fault Hendry for giving Baker these tools to fail with and not Dusty-proofing the team, yes. But, I think the failures of this team have to fall on the manager.

Joy, another injury-prone shoulda-woulda-coulda SP. I'm sure Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, and Wade Miller are looking for a fourth guy to play Mario Kart Double Dash with during downtime on the DL since Angel Guzman only plays Halo. They'll all become best buds.

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Pie for Wilkerson and Sledge would give me pause. There are plenty of five tool flameouts that happen in baseball and Pie could well be one of them. However, when one of those five tool guys manages to put it all together...well, yeah. I can probably count the number of guys I'd trade Zambrano straight up for without hesitation on one hand. With hesitation, two hands.

He was awful because the Cubs decided to double jump him from Lansing since he was making mincemeat out of the competition in Low A (see: 51/4 K/BB). I think that there's a reasonable chance he could have settled in if he hadn't had that bizarre finger injury end his season. He had only racked up 13 starts in 2004, so I think the Cubs would have stuck with him there to see if he could have worked his problems out.

4 starts? Where are you getting that number from? He's had 10 starts at West Tenn over the past two seasons with 54 IP between those starts.

He's always been highly thought of, but his shoulder and finger injuries are puzzling and have made it hard to get a read on the guy. He's got the talent to be quite good, but it's just a matter of continuing his development and keeping his injuries to a minimum.

But...but...but...but...but...Doug Eyechart won the World Series for Boston!!!!

Looks like Brendan Harris might get his shot after all...

Apparently they've been trying to work Hatteberg and Womack (ugh) into the lineup. Dunn was pretty much slated to start in LF from the get-go since he's rather defensively unsound...well, pretty much everywhere. However, that deficiency can be minimalized with him in LF. Pena demanded to be traded earlier in the season if the Reds had no plans of playing him regularly, so that didn't help his case very much. Their offense is still pretty strong with this trade, but with WMP's upside, you'd think they might have gotten something better out of it. Arroyo's career ERA against the NL is over 5, as memory serves me, and tends to be more of a flyball pitcher than a groundball kind of guy. This might turn out well for them in the end...but my gut says otherwise.

I flipped the channel to this game...heard Joe Morgan's voice, then changed the channel immediately.

He can also play 1B, so I figure we can expect to see him play a good number of games over the course of next season.

Career-wise, he's .98 in GB/FB. This will turn out well. I noticed MLB.com lists the stat as GO/AO, defining it as ground outs and fly outs. And they have him at .97. Is GB/FB, for all balls put in play? Is there a difference in stats here or are they just labeled differently? Not sure, to be honest with you. I was using ESPN's stats.

Career-wise, he's .98 in GB/FB. This will turn out well.

Pena has a much better ceiling and much better potential to reach his ceiling than Arroyo, imo. He's young, fairly athletic, mediocre defensively, and has jaw-dropping power. I think this one will end up coming back to bite the Reds when all is said and done.

Couldn't cut it at SS, been moved to the OF.

Not to mention the scouting department has been overhauled a few times during that stretch. Weren't there also some years where the Cubs had an extra first rounder and/or a sandwich pick?

Well, on the plus side, he could have stood to lose some weight. Not like this, granted, but hey.

They do have Olympic-level drug testing. We'll see if this is something serious or a non-issue, like forgetting to notify the heads of the WBC of a prescription.

That's because he got a bigger signing bonus with Texas and could afford to do both. I don't think Colleges can give bonuses and such to students/players. Not legally, no. :D

It'd be one thing if the referees were consistent and called a tight game on both ends. Heck, even if they called a tight game on just IL it'd be more acceptable. But the refs didn't do much in the way of calling fouls on IL until they were up by 12. Washington didn't even play all that well; all they were any good at was shooting FTs and that was it. Heck, Roy got more than half his points on FTs. That reffing was BS, imo.

While GMU is having massive trouble with FTs. But naturally MSU can't hold onto the ball. This is getting ugly.

MSU can't play defense to save their lives. Yeowza.

MSU just sucks at rebounding tonight. Holy wow.

GMU just keeps hitting three pointers. MSU is giving them plenty of great looks, needless to say. Anyone care to fill me in on why UConn is down by 10 at the moment?