WrigleyField 22

Do you ever bother to check stats before posting? Barrett's .307/.368/.517 line this year is easily above average for a corner spot, and is significantly better than anything any of our outfielders. yeah i did....have you looked at murton's stats? .295/.360/.429 looks very similar.... he(murton) has 6 fewer hrs but more rbi and bb you may also want to look at corner players(3rd and 1st) and see how their stats match up. barrett only is close in average. he is way behind in obp and slg....not too mention hrs and rbi. giambi is a great example in hitting .251 but has an obp over .400 do you ever check stats before posting? Way behind in slugging? If he had enough PAs his .517 SLG would be good for 35th in all of baseball.

Done: Signed mediocre/bad players to multi year deals... counted on the health of Prior and Wood year after year... Not Done: Traded players when their value was highest... target available players who address team needs like OBP.... fire Baker Those are probably the main things, with there being many instances of each. Really his best deals were done when another team needed a salary dump... Aramis/Lofton, Lee, Grudz/Karros. Barrett was his best deal. These reasons have all been discussed PLENTY of times in the past. Its been so beatin to death that some posters feel they will just call him fat nowadays, as if that explains anything.

as opposed to our roaring success this year? No as an addition to the years of failure. he will never get the chance but if it worked, his name would forever be sacred in cubs fans hearts Anyone who could turn around this mess of a franchise would be held sacred in hearts of Cubs fans. Anyone: Osama, Sadaam, Satan If Hawk Harleson became GM and used his annoying catch phrases after any transaction (after releasing Rusch "He Gone", after signing a big Fa "Sign the dotted liiiiiiiiine... YES" etc etc and Cub fans would still love him as long as it worked.

as opposed to our roaring success this year? No as an addition to the years of failure.

Oh and I hardly think Jim needs to be demoted all the way to bowling alley. Wasn't he in charge when we turned around our minor league program? He may just be in over his head as GM.

hmmm it certainly could work, but it has big potential to fail. From a player perspective Len would do better as far as targeting the right kinds of players. He is smart enough to recognize important stats like OBP. On the flip side there are probably a lot of paperwork/administrative things that he would need a lot of help doing. I can't imagine its just as easy as calling up a GM from another team and proposing a trade or telling a FA to sign his name on a contract. John Paxson made a leap from the booth to GM for the Bulls and has done a great job. He apparently was able to learn the ins and outs of being GM on the fly. Maybe Kasper would make a similar easy transition, but I'd rather try someone with a little more experience and is just waiting to get a chance as GM. I like Len in the booth, lets keep him there.

I'd say his first few years won't be spectacular, along the linesof .275 .325 .400 which wold be okay for a young cheap player who provides good D. In 3 years he will be 24. At that time he might start to break out, or it could be the following year or two. At his highest potential he is a .300 .370 .550, but if I had to guess I'd say he settles around .285 .345 .455 with great D. I didn't really compare him to any other similar players, more just gut-feeling based on his minor league numbers.

Oh ok. Either way I'd like to see what he can do next year. His minor league numbers are better than Theriots and he has put up consitenty good numbers in AAA for 2-3 years now. His ability to play 3B is nice as well.

Can we please drop someone from the 40man and see Fotenot get some big league action? Walrond Rusch Negron Bynum

Absolute Likes: Lee Zambrano Murton Likes: Young Pitchers Barrett Ramirez Eyre Howry Wrigley Nuetral: Theriot- looks like he could be solid bench guy Pagan- looks like he could be solid 5th OF Pierre- bring him back for ONE year or collect the draft picks Jones- Don't like length of contract, but it is movable if better option comes along(possibly could play CF), solid candidate for platoon Dislike: Bynum Dempster- he has sucked, but I'm willing to see if he can be a solid closer again next year knowing Wood or Wuertz could potentially fill the role if and likely when he sucks Cedeno- I'm not ready to give up completely. Maybe with better coaching he could develop some patience and be a viable bench option. Still good defensive potential. Absolutely Dislike: Baker Hendry Pitching Injuries Izturis

I can see it now. He gets Todd Helton to pop up for the last out in the 9th on his 213th pitch of the game, blowing out his arm in the process. Would anyone have a problem with that? Yea, because he would miss all of next year so Hendry would make him his reclamation project in 2008 because he never had the chance to fullfill his contract or something like that.

If we let him play up his value more thats fine because than it becomes more likely another team will offer a multi-year deal and we can more safely offer arbitration. Heck, maybe Pierre agreed to not agree to arbitration assuming we let him play so as to help his value in the FA market.

I don't neccessarily think Pie needs to be called up, so I'm fine with this. He also tells us Murt needs to play a lot, which is good. I don't see much wrong with this.

Well it depends on what our strategy is for next year. Are we making some big FA splashes to try and buy a winner? Or are we going to take this a little more slowly and try out some younger players? If we decide to go with youth he would be an upgrade to Cedeno. Based on his minor league career you could probably expect a .350 OBP out of him. The big thing is slugging. Except for his hot streak he's had right now he has never shown power. I don't expect that to change long term so the only way he is more than a utility guy for his career is if he could sustain a .370-.380 OBP. Not impossible, but not terribly likely.

Murton can give us similar production to Catalanotto minus some slugging, but with the potential to still add more. If we get Catalanotto we should just put him in RF to replace Jones or try Jones in CF and get rid of Pierre.

Is there a time table on when the PTBN has to be named? Maybe theres a guy that interests the Cubs, but is up for the rule 5 draft this offseason, and they want to see him pass through.

Time to get her knocked up again. then he'd suck twice as bad. Time to sacrifice the kid.

Cubs have no need for Howard (and Ryan can't play anywhere else but 1st) with Lee on the team, so I would say CHASE UTLEY or bust.... With that said... People automatically assumes that Pierre who could be classed as a Type A Free Agent, would be offered arb. But what happens if Hendry doesn't offer arb to Pierre, ie like Nomar, and he leaves without getting any draft picks in return? Or better yet, what happens if Hendry does offer ARB, and so a team goes Boston/Clement on us? Meaning the Cubs would have to settle for a 2nd/3rd/4th rd pick at best for Pierre? The reason that happened with Clement is because he was a type B. Assuming Pierre is a type A, at the very least we would get a supplemental pick plus whatever lower round pick.

I think the bottom line is not how fast a guy is, but how wel he uses the speed he has. This applies on the basepaths, but also other areas such as defense. For instance I was watching the Cubs game last night and I think it was the first hit of the game, a line drive up the middle that Bynum didnt reach. Hes a fast guy but as you saw the replay he had to first plant with the away foot so he was behind a step and missed the ball by a little less than a step. This is just an isolated incident and I haven't seen enough of Bynum t 2B to know if he does it a lot, but the point is a small change in step can give the guy the slight advantage needed. Its how Singletary compensated for his lack of speed on the football field. Theres a lot of speed/quickness knowledge and training out there these days and while I think it has less value in baseball than other sports, little things in footwork can make a big difference in a guys defensive or baserunning capabilities. If you use this type of knowledge to your advantage you wont get caught up in just pure speed. Guys take a lo of wasted steps and general body movements contradict what guys are trying to do.

If he is type A I believe they will recieve a first rounder (2nd rounder if its tp 15) and a supplemental. This could change if the signing team signs other type A FAs. I think this happen with Clement where we should have recieved 2nd(he was typeB) but the BoSox also signed a couple type A guys so thdraft compensation was pushed down and we got a 4th or 5th I believe.

Why down on Montanaz? He's crushing the ball in AAA this year! .288 .346 .634 (obp - slg - ops)

I think this is an excellent point. I think a lot of low-walk guys don't walk because they are afraid of 2-strike counts. They know they stink with 2-strike counts, and K a lot. Solution? Don't let the count get to 2 strikes, and expand your strikezone already on 1- and 0-strike counts. But sometimes, if something happens so that a dude's contact ability does increase, his confidence that he can live with some 2-strike counts increases. And when that happens, he may be more patient and disciplined earlier in the count. One side of the coin is the view that from good patience, you swing at good pitches and hit them better. Plate discipline is the chicken, better hitting is the egg. I'm suggesting that the reverse can also apply; when you're hitting better, you may be more willing to be more patient. Another way to look at it is that in some instances, if a player is hot enough pitchers are really gonna start laying off and not putting anything near the strike zone. Its possible pitchers are throwing such bad balls not even Harvey would swing at. I think all of those things go into the equation of plate discipline, but the biggest thing is that you have to first have good plate discipline.

My middle school gym teacher used to do some some regional recruiting for a college and he said that if the pitcher was throwing a curveball before 16 he wouldn't even look at him.

I hate the comments like that which try to make the management look even worse. (I'm not trying to attack you personally because it happens a lot). This organization is terrible for its decisions regarding player signings, hitting philosophy, player development, coach, GM, etc etc. The decisions regarding names on the jerseys are not stopping this team from getting better. Its the boneheads running everything. I would bet Hendry doesn't even have say in this. Theres probably a special department with people who don't have any part of the baseball side of things that make these decisions. Plenty of teams can put together a good team and worry about stuff like this. I geuess I'm analyzing it too deeply and its just meant to be funny, but I don't get such comments.

You can't really judge them on their limited major league totals. However, you can look at minor leaue totals. Theriot, while always being old for his league has career numbers of .265 .355 .331 While the OBP is solid, the slugging leaves much to be desired. Those are his 5 previous seasons, not including this year. Cedeno, while being young for his leagues has career numbersof .265 319 .376 Obviously the OBP leaves MUCH to be desired. With his slightly higher SLG, his OPS edges Theriot .692 to .686. As 2B I don't see either of these guys being anything other than career backups. Cedeno has had one great season(between AAA and MLB) one decent season (AA) and everything else has been bad. Theriot, while showing great plate discipline for the past 4 years has never really had acceptable SLG numbers other than last year at AA. With the right coach and a switch back to SS, Cedeno could become a starter. Unless Theriot develops power next year at the age of 27, hes just a backup. Fotenot's minor league numbers make him look capable of being a .800 OPS player. He has been a AAA player for three years now and will like Theriot be 27 next season. Maybe he's the best 2B prospect of the three, but he needs to be given a chance soon. Maybe they will all just brige the gap for Patterson, but he has not lived up to the hype of last year. Theriot only a few years (2-3?) started hitting right handed full-time...I believe he was an experimental switch hitter before that...you can basically throw those stats out. Well his past 2-3 years do reflect that as he has had a consistently higher AVG and in turn OBP, but his SLG has yet to catch up. I don't think that his OBP is good enough to ignore his lack of power.