RockTheIvy

And what do the Pads do with Burroughs?

So do the Nats use our beloved Brendan Harris?

Horse, why the change in name?

It's a chicken-egg argument. Did the winning spark the chemistry, or did the chemistry spark the winning. Everyone is having a blast when they are winning, so of course the chemistry is great.

I agree that a good leadoff hitter is important. But I think a leadoff hitter can be made too, assuming he has the right skills. The main skill, IMO, is patience and plate discipline. He doesn't have to be Bonds, but he has to have the ability to at least work the count. I think Murton could be a good leadoff hitter next year. My problem with the idea of a "leadoff hitter" like Podsednik or Roberts, is that they don't do anything else. They are fast, sure, but hit for a very low power, and their OBPs are largely a factor of their average, so when Scott's average tumbles, as it did in 2004, his OBP will go with it. And if he doesn't get on base, he doesn't have any real value. Hendry needs to assemble a team with the best 25 players he can find. Let Dusty build the lineup with the players he is given. Make the lineup foolproof so that at worst Dusty's lineup would look like the one I have given above.

I agree with you Vance. You have to look at the total result. I would take Furcal over Pierre, but taking into account Furcal might get $40 million over 4 years makes it questionable. Actually, neither one excites me very much. Trading for Lugo, M. Giles, or Castillo would be better and cheaper options. Would you do Cedeno for Lugo? TB might bite on that... I'm not so sure they would. I believe one of the reasons they would move Lugo is because they have Upton ready to go. At 2B, they have Cantu, who came up playing a lot of short for them. I'm not sure they need another SS/2B.

Sign Giles and Trade for Cameron, have Cedeno backing up at short and second, and you have a lineup of: Murton Walker Lee Giles Aram Nomar Barrett Cameron Lots of runs, great defense in CF and Cedeno can fill in at short on days when Z pitches. Plus, we would only be taking on about 25mil, leaving plenty of dough to finish up the bullpen and grab Millwood/Burnett. Offense first, please.

You're kidding, right? You mean, "the other" 250 million dollar payroll" teams? :-k I just want them to win. Who cares how?

Wood has a no trade clause.

Put Ramon Hernandez in center.

I also think he tried to get too much for Sosa and wound up getting too little. IIRC, there was a Cliff Floyd deal almost ready to go. That would have solved the RF problem. There was also a Wilkerson deal that would have had the Cubs picking up all of Sosa's salary. That seemed crazy then, but as it turned out, as you pointed out, we ended up paying it and then some in order to sign Burnitz. Both of these players could have handled an OF spot better than Burnitz, yet Hendry somehow thought he could do better. But all he got was a supersub and some minor leauge relievers.

This is the same budget that was dictated by the Sosa debacle. There were limited options at the time b/c free agency was coming to an end and all potential options had already been signed. Had the Cubs used any foresight, they would've known if they had to trade Sosa it would've been key to find a RF'er ASAP once they made the decision they were going to trade him instead of few possible options such as Burnitz. Hendry had to sign Burnitz, he had to sign him b/c the Cubs waited so damn long in trading Sosa and deciding not to sign anyone until after the trade was completed likely b/c of budget constraints and potentially eating more than they already did. The flaw isn't in signing in Burnitz, it's waiting till he's the last avail. option. Actually, I think the budgetary concerns were nonexistent. We picked up most of Sosa's salary anyway-did Hendry think he was going to be able to unload all of it on some other team, especially considering the hackjob the Tribune pulled on Sosa. If Sosa's 18m was a hinderance to singing a top flight RF, it would have been a hinderance if he were traded or not, so what's the difference? Beteween Hairston, Burnitz and Sosa's salary we ate, we lost money on that deal. I think the team uses Sosa's trade as an easy out to the question of: Why didn't you sign a FA OF? At the very least they could have brought back Alou. He signed, what, a $7m contract with a $6m option for 2006? The excuse for not bringing him back was that Hendry wasn't sure he could move Sosa, so he didn't want to commit money to Alou just in case. Then he signed Burnitz for $4.5. Hendry couldn't have found an extra 2.5m somewehre in the budget to accomodate that? It's in that chain of events like overpaying for Macias, Perez and, to a lesser extent, Blanco came back to bite Hendry. As irritating as Alou was to us (especially Tim), an Alou/Patterson/Whoever OF would have been light years better than the one we ended up with. At that time, they were coming to an end financially. They had to have known they'd be eating most if not all of his contract. But, the 7 or so mil did help land Burnitz and I don't think they would've been able to if they didn't get Balt. to pay part of Sosa's '05. We ate, IIRC, $13m of the $18.5m of Sosa's 2005. Hairston made $1.8m last season, and Burnitz signed for $4.5m. At best, that's a wash. The budgetary issue is a total red herring for a complete lack of planning from the second the final out occurred against Atlanta last October. Say what you will about the results that Hendry has produced but saying that he has a "complete lack of planning" is absurd. From all accounts Hendry is one of the hardest working GM's around, so I seriously doubt that he just sat around all winter without thinking about the direction of the ballclub. The difficulty in moving Sosa is highly underestimated. I think Hendry probably worked daily in trying to get this done. It also seems to me that he had a unofficial agreement with Burnitz that he would sign him as soon as he found a taker for Sosa that would free up the position and the necessary cash. Otherwise it makes no sense that Burnitz would be the only guy still unsigned considering the numbers he put up the year before and the fact that he did get interest from other teams. Hendry had been interested in Burnitz since at least two years ago when he was with the Dodgers. I can respect the argument that Hendry overvalued Burnitz and that was an error in judgement by him, but I don't buy this hyperbole about Hendry not having a plan. Hyperbole indeed. Hendry had a good plan for 6 of the 8 positions. Unfortunately, Nomar and Patterson were brutal. He had a so-so plan for LF, which failed miserably, until Murton came up and looked real good in September. He tried to fix the LF problem by trading for Lawton @ the end of July, but that flopped too. The plan for RF sucked, but AGAIN, what was out there?? If people think Burnitz was bad, look @ the alternatives.. Drew 72 games. Ordonez 82 games and a .795 ops. Sosa 102 games and .671 ops. Huff .749 and would have cost multiple prospects. Yes, they could have went w/ Alou in LF & Holla/Dubi in RF, but Alou missed 40 games and cost SF $13 million over 2 years and did Alou really want to come back or play for his father instead?? Unfortunately, Ichiro, Vlad, Giles, Sheff and Abreu weren't available. Shawn Green could have been had, but does anyone want to pay him what AZ did? Sure Hendry could have been creative and picked up a bat, but that would probably have meant dealing off Pie & another prospect. Of course, then he'd get ripped apart for not giving the kids a shot. The bottom line is that the season was over when that line drive hit Prior and Wood went down. An extra bat wouldn't have got the Cubs into the playoffs. You know who would have though? Ramon Hernandez.

I'm starting to warm up to Furcal. Bottom line is he will help the Cubs win more games than any other available option at SS. Nomar's likely to get hurt again. Cedeno's a good, cheap option, but isn't gonna be on Furcal's level right away. The price tag is scary, but the Cubs can afford to pay it and still fill the other holes on the team. I am starting to feel the same way. I really want Nomar back, because I believe he still has a .290/.350/.500 season in him. But the Cubs haven't been sacrificing enough to the Durability gods, so I think Furcal might be the way to go. Now if we sign Furcal, we better make sure we have strong OBP guys (eg, Dunn, Giles or Abreu) in the OF just as insurance in case Furcal pulls a Blauser on us and sucks. But an OBP in the 340-350 range, 40+ steals, good power and defense for for the position might be too much for Hendry to pass up.

:cry: :cry:

I used "romanticist" after goony had used it a few times. It's an approved label. :) People need to lighten up. This isn't the Lifetime board. While that may be true, I don't think anyone would mind if we had a little more Meredith Baxter on the board. :lol:

If a team wanting to trade for Dunn is forced to take Milton and any part of his salary, then the Reds better be flexible with the level of talent they expect to get back in the trade. Milton is not good. 40+ homers allowed in each of the past two seasons. Estes only gave up 30 in over 200 innings while pitching for the Rockies in 2004, if that tells you anything. As much as I'd like for Dunn to be a Cub, I'd like just as much for Milton to not be one. Good call. And sadly, if the Cubs got him, I could see them trying to explain to us how crucial a lefty in the starting rotation is. The White Sox had one...

This is the same budget that was dictated by the Sosa debacle. There were limited options at the time b/c free agency was coming to an end and all potential options had already been signed. Had the Cubs used any foresight, they would've known if they had to trade Sosa it would've been key to find a RF'er ASAP once they made the decision they were going to trade him instead of few possible options such as Burnitz. Hendry had to sign Burnitz, he had to sign him b/c the Cubs waited so damn long in trading Sosa and deciding not to sign anyone until after the trade was completed likely b/c of budget constraints and potentially eating more than they already did. The flaw isn't in signing in Burnitz, it's waiting till he's the last avail. option. Actually, I think the budgetary concerns were nonexistent. We picked up most of Sosa's salary anyway-did Hendry think he was going to be able to unload all of it on some other team, especially considering the hackjob the Tribune pulled on Sosa. If Sosa's 18m was a hinderance to singing a top flight RF, it would have been a hinderance if he were traded or not, so what's the difference? Beteween Hairston, Burnitz and Sosa's salary we ate, we lost money on that deal. I think the team uses Sosa's trade as an easy out to the question of: Why didn't you sign a FA OF? At the very least they could have brought back Alou. He signed, what, a $7m contract with a $6m option for 2006? The excuse for not bringing him back was that Hendry wasn't sure he could move Sosa, so he didn't want to commit money to Alou just in case. Then he signed Burnitz for $4.5. Hendry couldn't have found an extra 2.5m somewehre in the budget to accomodate that? It's in that chain of events like overpaying for Macias, Perez and, to a lesser extent, Blanco came back to bite Hendry. As irritating as Alou was to us (especially Tim), an Alou/Patterson/Whoever OF would have been light years better than the one we ended up with. At that time, they were coming to an end financially. They had to have known they'd be eating most if not all of his contract. But, the 7 or so mil did help land Burnitz and I don't think they would've been able to if they didn't get Balt. to pay part of Sosa's '05. We ate, IIRC, $13m of the $18.5m of Sosa's 2005. Hairston made $1.8m last season, and Burnitz signed for $4.5m. At best, that's a wash. The budgetary issue is a total red herring for a complete lack of planning from the second the final out occurred against Atlanta last October. I agree. If we're gonna get creative, let's do it in a different way please.

Nice team BD except for Pierre. Yeah just replace that with Lofton, and maybe sign Dotel, and, well, I'd be thrilled.

Good, then maybe we will resign Nomar!

Could Murton be our leadoff hitter? I realize he might not steal 40 bags a season, but a .350+ obp at the top spot would be very nice. A lineup of: Murton Walker Lee Giles Ramirez Nomar Cameron Barrett would make me very happy. Everyone in that lineup would have OBPs around .340, and the outfield offense would be vastly improved.

Glad you like it. I be here ze whole week.

So I guess SANDY MARTINEZ is a great catcher, since Wood k'd 20 with him catching? I would rather have Barrett, because I think you'd have to spend more to get Hernandez when there are more pressing needs. DOn't be an idiot about Martinez. That was terrible. Hernandez wouldn't be much more than Barrett and who cares if he is?? Catcher is an important position with a team who seemingly is building the team around the starting rotatio, don't you agree?? Hernandez had more errors than Barrett did this past season. Now even without that, they are very similar players offensively, with the edge going to Barrett slightly, better isolated patience and power. Hernandez made over 4mil last year. I am willing to bet that if he is as good as you say he is, he'll probably get a contract like A-Rods. Somewhere in the 18 mil range? I mean he might be an upgrade defensively and he might have had better luck with his staff, but do you really think this is a problem worth addressing this offseason? We had two pitchers, Prior and Z, post excellent ERAs. Overall, our pitchers weren't that bad. The problem with the team is its inability to consistently get men on base and score them. Whether you subscribe to the station-to-station style of play or the "smallball" idea, you still need people who can get on base. The Cubs were terrible at that last year, and it should be their primary focus. If they could get Ramon Hernandez at the same price as Barrett, would it be a good idea? Sure. But that should be pretty far down the wishlist.

So I guess SANDY MARTINEZ is a great catcher, since Wood k'd 20 with him catching? I would rather have Barrett, because I think you'd have to spend more to get Hernandez when there are more pressing needs.

The question I have for the Barrett knockers is would the Cubs have won more games with, say, a Molina behind the plate, all other facets remaining the same? I am willing to bet that Barrett's bat makes up for any bonehead plays he might make. Now take the other side of the coin, can a catcher's defensive contributions make up for a Mendoza-line bat? I don't know the exact answer, but I'd be willing to bet the answer is no. Offense is more valuable.

I didn't realize this, but he led all NL catchers in VORP. I realize he has some defensive flaws, but I think Hendry's most overlooked move was turning a weak offensive position (remember the Bako/Miller platoon) into a very good one. Hope he keeps it up next season! http://baseballprospectus.com/