XZero771679666304

Than why hasn't Walker been a leadoff hitter for his career? And why has Pierre been a leadoff hitter for his career? Is this a joke? Sorry, but if this is sarcasm, I missed it. Todd Walker has been a leadoff hitter in the past, and should have been all of the past two seasons. Pierre has been a leadoff hitter because he is a slap hitter with no power, and no place anywhere else in the lineup. Even so, had Luis Castillo not lost speed due to injury, he may never have been the Marlins leadoff guy either. Pierre has a .319 OBP this year. For those who don't know, that's BAD. Why give up some of our best prospects for a player who is performing worse than what we have? It makes no sense. I'd much rather have a guy with an OBP of 350+ than one with a .319 OBP who can steal bases.

Molina just isn't a significant loss. Walker being injured is to be expected, and Edmonds hasn't really missed any time. He may play hurt, but not very hurt. Ramirez has played hurt for us for the better part of the last 2 seasons. Sanders kind of hurts, And Rolen being hurt might make up for him playing way above himself last year. As for the Cubs, injuries have hurt a bit this year, but nothing like last year. The 2004 Cubs were good enough to lose 3-4 guys and win the division too, but just not the guys they did lose. In my 20 years of following baseball, I can't remember a team more screwed by injuries as the 2004 Cubs, or a team that seemed as blessed as the 2004 Cards. The bottom line is we're facing you guys this weekend shorthanded. And we haven't been "blessed" this year. We've had injuries and we're still in the same spot we were in this time last year. If you're going to comment on Walker being injured should be expected, the same holds true for your pitchers. Sanders is definitely a loss, our second best power producer this year. And although you discount Molina, you probably wouldn't rather face us all three games with Blanco. The Cubs/Cards schedule this year worked to your definite advantage unlike last year. As for the Blanco comment: Barrett is twice the hitter that Yadier is, but Blanco is top notch (nearly as good as Molina) defensively. I can't say it would bother me too much to see Blanco play, and he will for at least one game. And prior to last year, Kerry hadn't missed significant time in years. 2 of Priors DL stints have been due to freak accidents, not being injury prone. Essentially, Prior has had one injury that wasn't line drive or collision related. Either incident would have put anyone on the DL. Larry Walker has been in the league for 16 years and has played at least 150 games once. Once. 140 games 4 times. The man is a human injury, and now he's old to boot. He may be the most injury prone man in MLB outside of J.D. Drew. You can plan on Walker being injured with a far greater degree of certainty than anyone on the Cubs roster.

Regardless, Pierre doesn't represent enough of an upgrade to justify paying what will no doubt be an inflated price. Pierre this year has been no better than Hairston, and we have bigger fish to fry, so to speak. Let the Yanks or someone have him.

Molina just isn't a significant loss. Walker being injured is to be expected, and Edmonds hasn't really missed any time. He may play hurt, but not very hurt. Ramirez has played hurt for us for the better part of the last 2 seasons. Sanders kind of hurts, And Rolen being hurt might make up for him playing way above himself last year. As for the Cubs, injuries have hurt a bit this year, but nothing like last year. The 2004 Cubs were good enough to lose 3-4 guys and win the division too, but just not the guys they did lose. In my 20 years of following baseball, I can't remember a team more screwed by injuries as the 2004 Cubs, or a team that seemed as blessed as the 2004 Cards.

A relatively minor injury. Let us know when Carp, Morris, Mulder or Pujols goes down. :P You're right. The Cards are a good enough team to lose 3 or 4 guys for a while and still win the division. Guys like Molina. Lose Carp, Morris and Pujols and watch what happens to that record.

Losing Molina's sub-700 OPS is going to be devastating. :) And Einar Diaz is a more than competant defensive catcher. This doesn't hurt the Cards much at all.

A third? That's a bit of an exaggeration. For his career Pierre is a 74% base stealer and this year he's at 80%. A slight exaggeration. That's still 10% less than a player like Podsednik, and his OBP still stinks this year. At this point, we're better off with what we have now, especially considering what the Marlins would want for him.

A relatively minor injury. Let us know when Carp, Morris, Mulder or Pujols goes down. :P

If Pierre didn't get nailed in a third of his SB attempts, I might be more interested. Or if he had a decent OBP this year. Or had some power, or a throwing arm.

If he did that and didn't get fired, I'd march on Tribune Tower. That would be 2 in one season.

I'm not either. It provides a forum to discuss a trade for Dunn (which may or may not happen anyway). As for this particular rumor, I have the utmost confidence that it's BS. But I will save the expletives until the 48 hours are up.

He won't it's been stated numerous times by both Hendry and Dusty that Dempster is the closer for the rest of the year. Yeah. And if Dusty pulled Dempster from the closer's role, Hendry might blow a fuse. You don't mess with a winning formula, and even Dusty must be smart enough to realize that. Especially considering Dempster is Hendry's pet project, and having him close was Hendry's vision. Which I must say was dead on accurate. Too bad he wasn't closing since day one, but I won't get too far into that...

Its been brought up before. But seriously, defense in left is not that HUGE of a deal. They get like five chances a game. And when you can produce offensivley like he does. Wow. I couldnt care less. Yeah, people didn't seem to mind how bad Moises was out there last year. Moises wasn't that bad last year.... Yes, yes he was. He may have made diving catch or two, but he had the range of a sloth and a noodle arm. He was bad.

Its been brought up before. But seriously, defense in left is not that HUGE of a deal. They get like five chances a game. And when you can produce offensivley like he does. Wow. I couldnt care less. Yeah, people didn't seem to mind how bad Moises was out there last year. Dunn > Moises. well, Dunn > 2004 Moises. This year his numbers are huge. Also, K's are alot less annoying then slow grounders to short that turn into two outs. Ugh. Don't remind me. I think Neifi has taken Moises' place as the DP-Meister.

Its been brought up before. But seriously, defense in left is not that HUGE of a deal. They get like five chances a game. And when you can produce offensivley like he does. Wow. I couldnt care less. Yeah, people didn't seem to mind how bad Moises was out there last year.

Dubois probably won't produce enough to compensate for his defense, Dunn does.

If there is any truth to this rumor, it makes O'Brien's claim that Kearns is going nowhere a whole lot more believable. Kearns will be much cheaper for the Reds to keep, and they probably won't part with both Kearns and Dunn anyway. yeah your probably right. So then if the Reds balk on just sending Patteson-Mitre-Hill to Cincy, i guess we could put Dope in there and i doubt they'd refuse that for just Dunn alone. While Dopirak isn't doing particularly well this year, I'd still balk at offering too many prospects. Lee could get hurt. He could get real expensive or take more money somehwere else. If nothing else, it's always nice to have a cheap, talented prospect in reserve if the need arises. Unless Dope really cranks it up, he won't be ready to help the big club anytime soon, and if he keeps going at his current pace, he never will. Either way, he's not a guy I would have any qualms about throwing into a trade for an impact player.

He won't it's been stated numerous times by both Hendry and Dusty that Dempster is the closer for the rest of the year. Yeah. And if Dusty pulled Dempster from the closer's role, Hendry might blow a fuse. You don't mess with a winning formula, and even Dusty must be smart enough to realize that.

If there is any truth to this rumor, it makes O'Brien's claim that Kearns is going nowhere a whole lot more believable. Kearns will be much cheaper for the Reds to keep, and they probably won't part with both Kearns and Dunn anyway.

Mulder has 10 wins. Carpenter, who is ace material, has 14.

I'm not saying the trade will happen, but we all know about Patterson's potential and Mitre And Hill probabily could start for the Reds now. Also, Mitre is a ground ball pitcher and Hill is a strikeout pitcher, both would help in Great America Ballpark. Hill also gives up a lot of homeruns, which would be bad in the GAB So does Milton, but the Reds still threw a bunch of money at him. Reds management = not mensa material

Hey, the A's took two VALUABLE arms, and an outstanding---albeit a few yrs away---bat away from the Cards. I mean imagine if the Cards still had Haren/Calero/Barton, do you think the Cubs COULD HAVE top and offer of Haren/Barton/3rd prospect for Dunn? I don't think so. The A's did the Cubs a favor, by taking away some valuable ammuntion for the trade deadline. It's more than halfway through the season, and Haren has looked as good or slightly better than Mulder. The A's got a pitcher of equal caliber and two of the Cardinals other best young players while dumping salary. Walt is a good GM, but Beane worked him over. At this point, Mulder is nowhere near the "ace" the Cards thought they got.

But what exactly do you see in his performance that makes you think he'll hit his career average from here on out? He's 2-3 tonight and hasn't cooled off since the beginning of the season. At some point you have to say that this isn't a total fluke and that he's not going to just got back to his career average. yep, this pretty much covered what i was going to say. i highly doubt lee will regress to his career average before the end of this year. Just for clarification, I'm saying that Lee might bat at his career average in the second half...not that his current will average will drop to his career average during the second half. Now THAT I agree would be highly, highly unlikely. right - i understood :) i just don't think he'll hit even close to .275 from here on out. of course i expect regression, but nothing that extreme. No,Derrek made a fundamental change in his batting approach that has contibuted to his success this year. I think the days of Derrek being a .270 hitter are over. He won't hit .370 every year, but for the next few seasons, I'd be surprised if he didn't hit .300+.

You should hear how bad the lag is with XM.

It's his responsibility to build a winner. Call it blame, call it whatever you want, the bottom line is what you judge him on. Injuries are part of the game. He took risks relying on oft-injured players. The Cubs were an 88 win team in 2001, and he built them to an 88 win season in 2003, and 89 in 2004. This year they should once again finish over .500, but we're a long way from knowing if they'll be closer to 94 than 84. There's nothing silly about holding a GM accountable for the results at the end of the year, especially when he hired the manager and acquired nearly all of the roster. Oft injured players like Sosa (very rarely injured prior to '04) Prior and his perfect mechanics, Wood who hadn't missed significant time since 1999.....The key injuries in 2004 were to players who usually stay healthy. The ones who stayed healthy were the oft injured players. The bottom line is that Hendry built a team capable of a hell of a lot better than 89 wins last year, solid up and down the lineup, in the rotation, the bullpen and on the bench. A GM is responsible for building a winning team, yes. But to say he should have been clairvoyant enough to forsee the litany of the ridiculous and improbable that felled the Cubs last season and is therefore primarily responsible for last year's underacheivement is patently absurd. Wood, Prior, Sosa, Grudz, Borowski, Ramirez...of those players who missed time last year, who had a rep as being "oft injured" going into the 2004 season? I count none. The only players who had that rep were Moises and Barrett, and the were healthy all year. Jim put together a damn good team last year that got raped by injury. Jim pulled off an improbable trade for an impact player at the deadline (again), but it wasn't enough. Expecting him to have done more would have been asking a bit much. A GM is responsible for his team, but to judge the results without weighing the impact of such an astounding precession of aggravating circumstances that could not have been reasonably forseen is, well, just silly.