Tim

Yep. .308/.388/.575. Can you give us a rundown on potential OF's for next year when you have a chance?

If you read this thread and knew nothing about the current state of baseball and it's players, you'd think Adam Dunn was horrible. Now is the time to get him. Strike while the iron's hot. I believe he's on the cusp of blowing the league away with his ability. If his average was .270 and the rest of his numbers were exactly the same (take some of his walks away and make them base hits) people would trade anything for him. It's all the same in the end. Only 6 NL players score more runs than he does. He gets on base and reaches home plate. He knocks in runs. He takes pitches and wears pitchers out. He's very, very talented. I hope this isn't supposed to be a characterization of my argument. Partially. You were one of a number of posters who made it seem if there was something wrong with his ability. For his one weakness, striking out, he has many more strengths. He combines plate discipline, speed and power. The way I see people talking about him makes him out to look like a scrub. Calling him a flawed hitter when he takes more walks than 99% of the league is inaccurate and unfair. So which part of me saying that he'd be a huge upgrade in our OF is calling him a scrub? Or do you just feel that you need to miscast my argument to make yours look better? Just to be sure I'm understood: - I think Dunn is a very good player, one of the better offensive OF's in baseball - I would be really happy to have him on the Cubs - I also feel he does have holes in his game that somewhat limit his value - Therefore, I'd be a little cautious about the package I put together to acquire him Also, for those that say Dunn would do better in a superior lineup...The Reds have significantly outscored the Cubs so far this year. He's already in a better lineup than the Cubs have. ----- One last note: Can we stop talking about trading a pitching prospect whose one big flaw at this point is giving up too many HR's to Cincy? I think they'd be more interested in a pitcher who can keep the ball in the park.

Shawn's stuff was never nearly as good as Rich Hill's if you look at his strikeout rates in the minors or majors.

If you read this thread and knew nothing about the current state of baseball and it's players, you'd think Adam Dunn was horrible. Now is the time to get him. Strike while the iron's hot. I believe he's on the cusp of blowing the league away with his ability. If his average was .270 and the rest of his numbers were exactly the same (take some of his walks away and make them base hits) people would trade anything for him. It's all the same in the end. Only 6 NL players score more runs than he does. He gets on base and reaches home plate. He knocks in runs. He takes pitches and wears pitchers out. He's very, very talented. I hope this isn't supposed to be a characterization of my argument.

Here's the thing, despite the power and patience, Dunn is flawed as a hitter. He's a huge upgrade over what we have out there, but he's not the guy that I trade the farm for. If I'm going to make an offer of Pie + Dope + Hill, I want someone with a complete game like Abreu in return. And yes, I do recognize the age difference. My take is that I see Dunn as a guy that can devour bad pitching, but can also be dominated by good ones. I wish there were a stats service that broke out player's numbers versus quality of pitcher (though that would be hard to define, obviously). I have no idea if my impression is right. In general, I just feel that guys with strikeout rates that high (including Patterson, Sosa in the past, etc.) are more vulnerable to the quality pitchers. That said, we often seem to have more trouble as a team against the dregs of the league, so maybe we should go after Dunn. :D

Maybe next time the tv info could at least happen. And the starting pitchers. Some of us DO care. Nothing personal roast, but if you're not going to put the necessary info in the game thread, then let someone else start it. 1. I did not know who was starting. 2. I did not know what channel it was going to be on. 3. I was planning on adding those things after the cubs website put that info on their page, but i forgot. 4. I think I just got on someones case the other day for this, and was told it was ok because he was "shaking things up a bit" It was originally and funny once, but now I think people would rather just have the information. So do i. I was planning on adding it. Like I said, I forgot, I'm sorry. I think sometimes people take these things waaaaaaaaay too seriously. For future reference, in case the thread starter forgets, decides to shake it up, or whatever... 1. click on the address window of you web browser. 2. type in the window "www.cubs.com". 3. Look to the left hand side of the page when it loads (15-30 seconds with high speed internet...a little longer with dial-up) and you will see the information that you seek. Rather than get upset, just find it yourself. Does this need to be a sticky? :P Alternatively, you could check this really cool website.

Hmm. That sounds like an indexing issue. I'll have to check the DB integrity when the load is lower tonight.

You could check out minorleaguebaseball.com...Murton has faced Olsen in AA this season.

Well, a little bit. :D

I'll be mostly offline next week and the week after. If I could ask a favor of those of you to whom I have extended trade offers, please accept or reject them in the next couple of days so that my lineup doesn't get screwed while I'm offline. Thanks!

Preston Wilson's main value is being able to hit home runs. He's not going to do much of that at RFK. Bowden is an idiot, though he didn't give up much to get him. They'd be better off with Chuch out there, though, unless they're simply convinced that Wilkerson is inadequate in CF.

I need to go to our offices in Saarbrucken (Germany) this summer for a meeting. I'll try to check out their access to NSBB when I'm there. Thanks, Werner.

I wish that Corey and Jason had been sent down to West Tenn to work with Von Joshua, my favorite hitting coach in the system. It would have been an easy swap of 2 OF's for 2 OF's, too.

Well, it depends upon probabilities. If you think Lee is highly unlikely to continue his performance and is very likely to revert back to a .280/.370/.480 hitter, then trading him now makes sense. If you think there's a 90% chance that two of the three players you pick up can turn into all-stars within a few years at a very cheap price, then it makes a lot of sense. There's a pretty simple risk/reward matrix to set up here to evaluate the payoffs, but the right decision to make is entirely dependent upon the probabilities you assign to each potential outcome.

Ron, Before his surgery, Thomas Atlee was looking like a legit short relief prospect. He was a bit up and down in his performance at Daytona this year, but I hear he has pretty powerful stuff. Could you give a quick rundown on how he's looked at West Tenn so far? Thanks!

Welcome to the Forum, Nathan!

You've watched the Cardinal's prospects the past few years. Who have you seen on the way up for them that we should look out for as Cubs fans?

I guess the question is whether you believe (or more importantly, if Hendry believes) that Lee actually has made a huge performance breakthrough at age 29 or if he's way over his true ceiling right now. If Lee's going to fall back to his norms from the last three years, and if someone's willing to give up talent for him as if he's truly the kind of hitter he's been so far this year...then it would increase the overall amount of talent on the team to trade him and would make perfect sense from a baseball perspective. Explaining that to the average fan, however, is something different.

We at NSBB are pleased to have opportunities to ask questions of players and people with first-hand experience with minor league baseball. We appreciate the time and effort they take to answer our questions, and we expect that our members will also put time and effort into the questions they submit for answers. If we would like to have more Q & As in the future, we must put our best faces forward. In general, please remember -- to be polite and avoid grinding axes or making sarcastic remarks, especially about issues with which the interviewee has no direct involvement -- to read through the questions before submitting a new one to avoid repeating the same question -- that not every question may be answered, and sometimes the answer may be "I don't know." Sometimes people will make the extra effort to track down the answer, but that takes time. -- that questions may be edited to correct typos and other errors. -- that questions that don't meet these standards won't be submitted or may be edited.

I've been a proponent of something like this. I'm not itching to trade Lee, but if we fall out of contention and could get a huge package in return for him while his value is out of whack with his true value, it would behoove the team to listen. However, as much as I'd love to have Drew, he can't be traded until next May or June (1 yr after he signed with the team). A package of Jackson and Quentin would be very, very nice, though.

It's always bad times when someone affiliated with the team visits a message board. Dave Duncan visited Cards Talk once anonymously, posted something (I think something positive about Chuck Finley but I could be wrong) and he got ripped to shreds by a ton of posters. When they found out it was Dunc, the anti-Duncussa or LaDuncan (whichever you prefer) faction came out of the woodwork and made fun of him to no end. It was ugly. Say it with me now...m-o-d-e-r-a-t-o-r-s. I absolutely love the fact that we've got one of the beat writers for the Cubs as a regular reader here, one of the minor league announcers, we've had minor league players come online and browse (and post???). A lot of people have complained that we run a "country club" type of atmosphere here or claim censorship...but our ability to attract and retain some of these people is only possible because we keep that type of thing under control. The people on that website could have benefitted tremendously by having Duncan contributing from time to time but lost that by allowing a few people to drive him away.

What sources? Due to the fact that this site is in pursuit of landing prospects for Q & A sessions I personally feel that if a comment like that is going to be made then a source should be listed. I should have been more clear, I have no knowledge or source of Dope or any Cub farmhand taking Steriods. It was a general statement based on info from a family friend who is in the Yankees system who told me about 50% of the players he came to camp with in 2003 had or do use them. (I also have a friend in the Twins system who concurs) I'm speculating that this may be the same in other systems. I guess I'm guilty of having my doubts without having evidence. But, in my opinion, to rule out Steriods would be nuts. I hope he finishes strong and becomes the top prospect we believe he is. I personally prefer to give a guy the benefit of the doubt rather than concluding or speculating steroids as the reason. Yes the numbers may have been high in the past, but MLB is really cracking down on players using performance enhancing substances, especially the Minor League guys. My only issue is that we are trying very hard to bring prospect interviews to NSBB. With that being said, it is very possible that players and personnel within the organization are looking at the site before making decisions on contributing. I would not like for a player to be turned off from the site. I think players understand that many fans are jaded right now because of the steroid issue and that it is something that will hang over the sport for a while. Players like Dopirak that are astonishingly strong are going to naturally attract more of the focus than someone like Theriot. What I think people need to understand is that it isn't okay to accuse a particular player of steroid use simply because his power stats fall. There are a number of perfectly legitimate reasons that Brian's numbers could be falling off this season (difficulties with better breaking balls, league park factors, minor injuries, etc.). Just because there are known to be steroid users in the sport does not mean that we should single out individuals without more cause than a lack of power numbers. To suspect every power hitter in baseball of illicit drug use is nothing more than profiling.

Oh, please. What is this, the McCarthy trials? The inquisition? Salem witch-hunt? I can't stand the wanton and unsupported accusations made against every baseball player having a down year. Be prepared to back it up or don't say it at all.

I'm going out on a limb and calling a quality AB for Patterson here.

Pfft. That's easy. Ernie Banks Billy Williams Ron Santo Or did you mean within the past 25 or so years? Because that's tougher. :D Mark Grace On the second part of your post, I'm thrilled we didn't top philly's offer to Thome right now.