RockTheIvy

We aren't getting Lugo. I got that feeling. That George Jose Offman feeling.

I like his song from "Saturday Night Fever" http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/3769/tavares3cy.jpg Hey lookathat, it's spelled differently.

As has been said, Burnitz promised us 30 homers. He didn't deliver. I'm used to lies coming out of RF on the northside.

:shock: (really, I hadn't noticed he didn't get his high, that's astonishing) In '02 and '03 he walked 98 and 88 times respectively. Last year, only 85 walks. The Chubbs really do hate the walk. I usually want a guy to try to work the count for walks. But if a guy is seeing the ball and hitting like Lee was last year, if he gets a pitch he can handle I want him to drive it. I guess I'm saying I'd rather see his OBP go up with a double than with a walk. Bottom line is: its about OBP not walks, and his OBP was a carreer high. It's still shocking that as well as he was hitting he wouldn't have enough PAs where the pitcher had no interest in throwing a strike to top his best But that's still not evidence of the Cubs' hitting philosophy not valuing walks. (not that we need that peice of evidence for a conviction). Its evidence that either the league continued to think Lee would slow down, or that since their was no one on base and often no threat behind him, that they weren't that worried if he gapped a double. I'm going with 2. He did have a career high in IBBs. I agree with you Mr. Wood, that the bottom line is how high the OBP is. But I think walk rates tend to be more static from year to year. I was hoping Lee's would have jumped up so that we could see another .400+ OBP from him without him having to hit .330.

:shock: (really, I hadn't noticed he didn't get his high, that's astonishing) In '02 and '03 he walked 98 and 88 times respectively. Last year, only 85 walks. The Chubbs really do hate the walk.

If I had my choice it would be Larry Deriker. Didn't he have like a heartattack or a stroke or something? How is he doing? He had a lot of success with the 'Stros that's for sure.

I would be interested to see who Hendry would replace Baker with.

I don't understand your disdain for the cubs major league hitting coaches i.e. Matthews and Clines. Over the last three or so years they have taken some players and improved them significantly. For instance, before Aramis Ramirez came to the Cubs he had one season in Pitt in which he had a OBP above .300. Since coming to the Cubs he has put up seasons of .358 OBP and .373. That is a significant improvement. Lee's OBP was 40 pts higher than it has ever been in his career, and those numbers came with Clines as hitting coach. Barrett has improved significantly since coming to the Cubs. Grudz put up great numbers coming to the Cubs. Murton put up great numbers last year in limited time. I am interested to see what your explanation is, as to why these players can excel once coming to the Cubs. Why can Clines or Sarge have such an effect on these guys but yet be horrible with players coming through the Cubs system. To me it seems like more of a problem with the Cubs inability to develop position players at the lower levels and wouldn't that failure fall on Zisk, Listach and Von Joshua? If not do you blame the Cubs scouts for selecting sub par players? Ramirez has had plenty of major league as well as having previous experience doing very well. He spent an injured '02 and came back in '03 and hit well in '04 and '05. Same goes Barrett, he was oft-injured in Montreal and had previous seasons of success. Neither of them have had any success at developing a young hitter, one with great tools like Patterson or minimal like Hill. There would be a track record of them developing young hitters, god knows Matthews and especially Clines would have had developed a hitter in their career as HC. I think it's a different mindframe and approach dealing with young players w/minimal experience and dealing w/veterans. As far as Murton, the test will be when he struggles, he's going to struggle, he's going to go in a severe slump. When he does, I'd like to see how they handle the slump. I watch Kelly Johnson start off his career in a major slump, the Braves handled it much different than I'd expect the Cubs. The Braves know how to handle young in-house position players, the Cubs have not shown that. Also, despite Lee's monster season, he still didn't set a career high in walks, again showing our organizations love/hate relationship with the free pass (Hate- hitters who walk/Love- pichers who walk hitters).

Hendry looks TERRRRIBLE in that picture! Geez ease up on the manhattans and Boston Cream's Jim!

I was kinda hoping he'd be a cheap RFer, batting 6th or 7th. I think he could outperform Jones. But I also understand Hendry's thinking.

Neifi(!) just called. He wants his exclamation mark back.

Well fine then. Macias could be a great 4th starter. :lol:

Right, Gunned. He still managed an OPS over .700 that year. Corey really really regressed.

At this point I say roll the dice. He's got the potential to be a very good power threat. Platoon him with Murton in left? That also strenghten's the bench too. I'd do it.

God, I know it's sooo frustrating. Hopefully this time Neifi! really is a reserve player.

I really wish Dusty would just play Cedeno and Hairston at SS and 2B. Bat Hairston 2nd. That would be a poor man's version of the Pierre-Castillo duo. I think that would greatly improve our run scoring chances. Also I thought Hairston was a very good defensive 2B when healthy in Baltimore? Why not let the guy that we traded for a HOFer play?

The most similar situation I can think of to Corey's in recent times is Pat Burrell in 2003. He was a former blue-chip prospect who had had some success in the bigs, but had a simply dreadful year, looked awful doing it and the fans booed him mercilessly (it is Philly, afterall). At that time, Philly could have dumped him for next to nothing (his contract was much worse than Corey's) and used all the same excuses that the Cubs just have used. Time to move on, change of scenery, trying to compete this year, blah, blah, blah. Pat the Bat has come back pretty well and I think Philly is pretty happy they showed the patience in him at this point. I just don't understand why people insist that it is absolutely impossible that Corey could ever come back and do well in Chicago. It is impossible to know. I wish Corey could have done well here. He had so much potential. The Pat Burrell situation is a pretty good analogy, IMO, except that Burrell still hit 20+ homers that year and walked over 70 times. You would think though, that if a player could recover from a .209/.309/.404 season in BooSantaLand, that Corey could recover here. I would have liked to platoon Corey in right with a Restovich or even Grissom (yikes), and see what he could do hitting 6th or 7th for a prolonged period of time. I imagine he has a higher upside than Jock?

I wouldn't mind a Weaver signing, just so long as it was a 1 year deal. I would rather trade for Zito and try to sign him long term.

Preferably at SS.

You don't think Cedeno could match Lugo's production? Could or would? Do you forget who our manager is? I promise you, if we have Lugo, Neifi, Cedeno, and Hairston on the roster we will all end up grossly disappointed with Cedeno's playing time and we'll all regret parting with whatever extremely valuable trading chips Hendry burned to get Lugo. Gawwd you and your ability to point out the obvious mistake in my rationale! :lol: I really hope Hendry puts a boot in his 4th point of contact to make sure Cedeno plays in 130+ games as a starter. But if we were to get Lugo as a starter by trading Ron Ce, wouldn't we be in effect opening up the 2B job for Neifi! ?

I'm not one of those people but I'd like to answer anyway... I'd say, "See Dusty, you fool. That's what you get when you don't force a player into a situation in which he isn't equipped to handle". Dusty is so stubborn within the last two years he has ruined two different players by forcing them into situations they couldn't handle. He keeps trying to pound that square peg into a round hole. No matter how much everyone else can see it ain't going to fit he keeps pounding away. Hawkins came over with the rep of being a very good setup man but that he couldn't close so lets force him into that closer role and even when it's obvious to a 3rd grader it isn't working lets do it some more. Same thing with batting Patterson leadoff and then doing it over and over and over. Then have about 8 different people telling him what to do at the same time all the while he's trying to face major league hitting and playing defense, running the bases. He was clearly overloaded last year by mid-season and NO ONE is going to tell me the decline of Corey Patterson is NOT the fault of Dusty Baker! The man is a menace in the dugout and I feel sorry for Murton and Cedeno if they have one bad game. I wonder just how long it will take Dusty to ruin them also. Once we trade Walker for a bag of used balls maybe Hendry can bring back Delino DeShields and then Baker can bench Cedeno and Murton, Ramirez will pull his groin in the WBC and then they can bring Lenny Harris back to play 3rd. Dusty would have an orgasm with DeShields at 2nd, Neifi at SS, Harris at 3rd and then he can send out the French Connection to the outfield. (Marquis, Pierre, and Jacque) When the hell will the madness end? :x I know there was no way Patterson could return to this dugout with this group of coaches and the manager. We got rid of the wrong half of the problem though. Oh, and if he doesn't do well in Baltimore? It's still Dusty's fault for screwing him up beyond repair. While I agree with your "Dusty has no clue" idea, I'm not sure many other manager's would have handled him any better. Rotoworld has said that the Orioles intend to bat him second in the order. Apparently they don't have a clue either. I think the organization and Dusty are partly responsible for Corey's terrible slide, I think it ultimately comes down to Corey. For whatever reason he was unable to acheive continued success with the Chubbs in the big leagues. My problem with blaming the organization, is that if Corey does well in Baltimore, I am in no way ready to praise their ridiculous organization for saving Corey.

CPatt's gone, one more round, Cpatt's gone. He was never going to do anything here, and whether that's his fault or the organization's fault, it doesn't really matter. And Rogers is still stoooopid.

You don't think Cedeno could match Lugo's production? If we have to trade Walker, I'd put Cedeno at 2B. That would be a pretty nifty defensive middle infield.

that makes no sense. It does if the Cubs really do want Neifi to be a backup instead of a starter. If you make the assumption that Walker is gone, then Lugo improves this team a lot over Neifi. Then we put Cedeno at 2B?

So any guesses on what Hendry does with the money saved?