badger1679666666

Is it wrong that I am cheering for the Brewers? Unfortunately with Hendry at the helm, I'm fearing that a split against Milwaukee will cause Hendry to wait the whole season to fire Dusty. IF we lose 3 out of 4 or get swept, he'll be gone after the break. So is it wrong? I'm conflicted.

:lol:

baker.

Probably true. But there's a very small part of me that's hoping that JH instructed Dusty to play guys like Nevin in hopes of increasing their trade value. I know, it's the irrational part of me, but I'm hoping. Exposing guys who can't play everyday by playing them everyday is a poor way to increase their trade value. Use them in the best situations for them and you might get some productivity, which is the only way to increase their trade value. Why do you try and be logical and rational when criticizing Dusty's "thinking"? It just makes everything that's happening more painful.

That could be a problem. But, with the two man combo groups, you should be able to get 8 innings out of them. You'd still have 5 strictly bullpen guys, plus, in between their outings, the guys who start and only go 3-4 innings, can pick up garbage innings here and there. Plus, you can always bring Wuertz, Novoa, Marmol and others up from the minors if anybody is getting overworked. This would take smart moves by the manager. Dempster has had rest periods of 7, 4, 4 and 6 days between outings, while Howry and Eyre have worked practically every other day. It doesn't have to be like that. I don't think Dusty knows how to think outside the box like that...

Dusty isn't playing any rookies he doesn't have to while he's trying to save his ass.

This team is obviously done, I'm just looking forward to things for next year... The 9 K's tells me he's getting his stuff back. His BB's tell me he wasn't in control and the 8 hits tells me he wasn't ALWAYS dominant. Is that an accurate reflection of the outing? I'm just hopeful that the 9 k's means he was dominant at times. What was his velocity today?

http://www.suntimes.com/output/cubs/cst-spt-cubnt29.html ugh. I don't want him back for $1 million. But hendry does have to justify giving up 2 very promising pitchers for him. Actually I can totally see Hendry saying something so fundamentally misquided such as: "We let nomar go last year, and made a mistake - see how much we regret it? We can't let the same thing happen to Slap Nasty."

[george costanza] Can't you desour? Why can't you desour?[/george costanza] Show me 2003 the rest of this season and all of next season (plus no DL), and I will desour. I don't see it happening, but if it somehow did, I would. So he needs to be the best pitcher in the game or nothing? I want to see him pitch at or close to what he's capable of. Z does it every year. What happens if/when Dusty runs him into the ground? Will you sour on him too? No, Prior had a very successful season performance and health wise in 2003. I don't hold the Giles thing against him at all. He's been a lot different ever since his injury at the beginning of 2004. Z's been doing it and doing it well without injury since he came up. I'm not saying everybody has to be as healthy as Z but certainly not even close to as oft-injured as Prior. Z's shown me he is a horse with multiple consecutive years of health and excellence. If he were to go down tomorrow as a result of whatever, I wouldn't sour on him. He's proven himself. The difference between some of you and myself is that one season isn't enough to prove to me that he is the pitcher of 2003. It was a great season, and I expected him to have many more great seasons. He gets hurt every year though, and he misses more and more starts while his production goes down. Prior def. WAS a great pitcher. I think the injuries have turned him into something else, and I don't like what I'm seeing, nor does any Cub fan. There have been a lot of guys who have had one great year and never came close to duplicating it again or at least never put out consistently like Z does. Look at Jerome Walton. Walton turned out to be worse than his first full season because he just wasn't that good and the league caught up with him. IMO, Prior is just like Walton, but his decline is due to the injuries because he was as talented as anyone. This is just my opinion. I never said it was impossible for Prior to start pitching like Z and do it for the rest of his career, but I don't see it happening. It seems like even some of you even agree with that, but you think he will end up being somewhere between his worst and best. Nobody knows for sure. Now, as far as the point of the thread is concerned, just read the first post again (or for the first time). It's the combination of two issues, keeping Prior and Dusty. I was just saying that if it is true that Dusty ruined Prior, why would you want to keep him? That's to say that you might love Prior but knowing he's damaged goods, wouldn't you want to trick some other team into thinking he wasn't by trading him after a nice hot streak? If he isn't damaged goods by what Dusty did in 2003, and you want to keep him and see how things turn out, that's totally understandable. However, if you believe that, don't blame Dusty in 2003 for what he is doing right now anymore. Evaluate him by his performance and credit him accordingly, positive or negative. I just think that's the objective way to look at it. To blame Dusty for ruining him and at the same time want to keep him and think he's going to rebound to his old form is contridictory IMO. Later people said, well, maybe Dusty just ruined him for a period of time (so far it's just about up to 3 years) and that he could all of the sudden start pitching closer to what he did in 2002 and 2003. That would allow one to both blame Dusty and have optimism Prior will become a great, healthy pitcher. I never really got the impression before this thread that people think Dusty just ruined him for something like 3 years or however long it's going to be. I don't really see how that could happen. I've never heard of anything like that before, and it seems kind of like a copout so Dusty can get the blame when Prior plays poorly while Prior gets credit if/when he does well. I don't think anybody who had one great full season deserves that because it was just one year and so much has happened production and injury wise since then. No one thinks he's damaged, irreperable goods except you (at least very few do). And for the MILLIONTH time, the "ruining" of prior need not be permanent. He just needs time to recover from Dusty's 3rd leading abuse points performance in 2003. Wood has yet to recover from the #1 most abused pitcher.

My dog is a good manager if you give him great players and no adversity.

[george costanza] Can't you desour? Why can't you desour?[/george costanza]

Is he righty? I hope so, that way Neifi's ass will still be on the bench. I can't believe Dusty is now platooning Walker with Neifi. It's so absurd I want to punch my monitor.

Anytime you want to staff's is alright by me. FYP.

What are the actions I'm supposed to hold him accountable for? Not being great? Being injured? Having setbacks after being overused at a very young age? Okay. Mark Prior, you dastardly fiend, how dare you get injured and have setbacks. Now get back in there and get better today, there is no room for gradual improvements. This is baseball, nobody ever takes time to improve, or get back to health, and nobody ever suffers setbacks. Like I said, just tell me how many years he gets to recover. None of us are doctors, how are we to know? We do know it's too soon to give up on him. He's only 25, his velocity is already back and he's shown lots signs of rebounding to his old form. Well, how many years in your non-medical but baseball fan opinion would you give him before you conceded that it's time to trade him. If he regains form, we keep him, of course. I'm just wondering how you guys think about this situation because it's very confusing to me. That's all I wanted to know. I'd give him until we lose control of him after 2009. He's got the potential to be a cy young ace, and I don't want that going anywhere. It's not like he's costing us an arm and a leg.

Wow are you this obtuse? He's had other non-dusty related setbacks during that team which have only magnified and excerbated the situation. Is it that hard to see or is your raging hard-on for getting rid of Prior that dominating? Come on badger, there's no need for that. sorry. i couldn't think of a synonym :?

Wow are you this obtuse? He's had other non-dusty related setbacks during that team which have only magnified and excerbated the situation. Is it that hard to see or is your raging hard-on for getting rid of Prior that dominating? This thread is about why I think it's wrong to both blame Dusty for ruining him and wanting to keep him. Wrong if you want the Cubs to win anyway. Now people are saying he's possibly ruined just the early part of his career. I can accept that possibility; I'm just wondering how many years that would constituted in your and likeminded people's opinions. I understand what you're asking, but I think it's an unanswerable question. As someone else pointed out his velocity is rebounding (I saw him hit 93 serveral times in Minneapolis) and his stuff is coming back in only his second start... No one knows how long to wait, but he's still too young, and his trade value is TOO low to give up on him.

What are the actions I'm supposed to hold him accountable for? Not being great? Being injured? Having setbacks after being overused at a very young age? Okay. Mark Prior, you dastardly fiend, how dare you get injured and have setbacks. Now get back in there and get better today, there is no room for gradual improvements. This is baseball, nobody ever takes time to improve, or get back to health, and nobody ever suffers setbacks. Like I said, just tell me how many years he gets to recover. That's just it. You want clear cut black and white in a situation that is anything BUT black and white. Either you have patience (like the BJ's had with Roy Halladay) or you have no patience and get screwed in the pooch. The kid is 25 years old. You wait a hell of a lot longer than that before getting rid of what could be your co-franchise.

Wow are you this obtuse? He's had other non-dusty related setbacks during that team which have only magnified and excerbated the situation. Is it that hard to see or is your raging hard-on for getting rid of Prior that dominating?

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :arrow: :throws up in mouth: That is beyond sad. I often day dream of things, stats, comparisons, I'd have prepared if I ever got to have a sitdown with Hendry, and this would be one of them.

Well Cedeno was in the game instead of Neifi and Carlos gave up that deadly run. I think this is hilarious now. I'm waiting to see how they lose, and how they've given up on Dusty. Maybe Hendry will see it by September. 21 games under .500 and falling.

Can you go three days without making a trade prior thread? Or just use one of the 124398745 trade prior threads you've made this year?

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.

Shouldn't someone be putting on clinics for THEM?

No offense to MustangMike at all, but MODS, can we be consistent here. We couldn't use Sam ME, we couldn't use K and Patt, can we not allow posters to use Dumpster? If the previous two were juvenile, so is Dumpster.

if dempster did his job we'd be 32-44 with a .421 winning percentage. that's a heck of a lot better than 28-48 with a .386 winning percentage You're kidding right? mostly. though with the way dempster has walked people his whole career, i'm open to the possibility that maybe dempster just isn't that great of a closer. I'm open to the possibility that he's just a bad pitcher. He had a nice run of 4 and a half months and 60-something innings as a reliever and he got a $15.5 million deal out of it. I was one of those who felt his track record didn't justify such a large $$ committment. He was pretty decent to start this year, when he was getting regular work as well... I don't think a proper evaluation can be made until he has some consistency in the role, and consistent work in general.