soccer10k

The problem there is that Eyechart can only play 1B. And he hits like a pitcher.

Stone sounds fairly optimistic about the Cubs. He brought up the fact that we have a weak schedule coming up and said he would play Hairston at second and Walker at first.

Can we take off the question mark from the post and just make it "Restovich called up" since he did get called up and its not speculation anymore.

Lee to the 60 day DL would solve that problem. I've seen 6-8 weeks. With a rehab assignment that comes to 60 days. I'd be suprised if the 60 day DL'd him. Fractures can heal faster than projections. I broke my wrist once and instead of the 6-8 weeks, it took about 4 to heal. First, did you have the same wrist injury as Lee did? Second, did you factor in the recovery time? They aren't going to take the cast off on one day and stick him in the lineup. I have seen 8-10 weeks on the injury. Putting him on the 60 day DL would ensure that he wouldn't come back too quick. No and yes. You can help a break or a fracture heal more quickly, to a certain extent. Drink lots of milk, stimulate blood flow to the area, etc. I think Lee will miss closer to the 8 weeks than the 10. 8 weeks is 56 days. But I understand your point. I hope you are right.

Wouldn't it have to be the other way around. The Dodgers would be getting ripped off enough by taking Rusch. Why would they take his contract and Nomar's? I thought the lunacy in my post would have been enough evidence that I was joking. I guess not. I wasn't sure. It is hard to tell if somebody is joking just from what they write. Good joke.

In St. Louis's defense, everybody gets fleeced by Billy Beane in his trades. It's not really something to be surprised about.

Lee to the 60 day DL would solve that problem. I've seen 6-8 weeks. With a rehab assignment that comes to 60 days. I'd be suprised if the 60 day DL'd him. Fractures can heal faster than projections. I broke my wrist once and instead of the 6-8 weeks, it took about 4 to heal. First, did you have the same wrist injury as Lee did? Second, did you factor in the recovery time? They aren't going to take the cast off on one day and stick him in the lineup. I have seen 8-10 weeks on the injury. Putting him on the 60 day DL would ensure that he wouldn't come back too quick.

As for getting Nomar. Absolutely not. I have absolutely no faith in him staying healthy.

Wouldn't it have to be the other way around. The Dodgers would be getting ripped off enough by taking Rusch. Why would they take his contract and Nomar's?

Awesome.

I'm just as excited to watch this team play. It'll be interesting to see how they play. Can this team persevere? Perseverence is a huge part of this sport. Will they hang their heads and die or will they man up and win this series, hopefully bringing SOME optimism back to NSBB? *Kicks metal fan* :P I'm down, I'll admit it. Lee's wrist injury will hurt this team both offensively and defensively. He's a very important part of this team, no one can doubt that. At the same time, though, this team has managed to be impressively inept and bumbling over the past two seasons...and has still remained in the Wild Card race up until late in the season both times. This year's team is more fundamentally sound than those teams (although not quite as strong in certain areas), so I think they can manage to not completely fall into the dumpster while Lee is gone. Besides, Lee should come back some time in June. We know that's his month! ;) If they're at or above .500 by June 1st, they will have a legitimate shot of getting back into it. If not...there's always pining for next year, haha. 8 weeks puts him in the middle of June while 10 weeks puts him at the end of June. Remember that the cast will be on for 6 weeks. Then he has to rehab it back to normal strength. I think early July is the sure bet. Hopefully he makes it back early, but I don't want him coming back early if he's going to hit like Jacque Jones.

I agree. The guy has done absolutely nothing to prove he deserves a roster spot.

In his defense, who saw DLee getting hurt? It's not like he tried to trade a starter if Prior and Wood were healthy. It was a freak injury. That being said, I'm really happy we didn't make the deal.

So we won 9 out of 10 right when Prior was injured, including the game he got hurt in. If I remember correctly, Lee hit EXTREMELY well during that win streak. Hopefully we can run off a streak like that and have somebody else, Aramis maybe, get hot as well. We do have the Marlins coming up.

Isn't debatable??? They aren't healthy. Wood isn't healthy. Neither is Prior. ARam is pretty much guaranteed to miss a handful of games this year, and the rest of the supporting cast is mediocre. The Astros had Berkman, Ensberg, 3 starting pitchers with ERAs under 3.00, and the best closer in the league. The Cubs don't have anthing close to that, except for ARam in place of Ensberg. Even Jason Lane is better than any of the Cubs' 3 starting outfielders. Zambrano, Prior and Wood can't hold a candle to what Clemens, Oswalt and Pettitte did last season. While I like Dempster, he's not in the same league as Brad Lidge. Wait til next year. Although I guess that if the Cubs manage a .500 record with Lee, Prior and Wood missing a significant amount of time, people can feel good about it, rather than disappointed. The only good sign for us is the NL is down this year. The Cardinals aren't as good and the Astros, as long as Clemens isn't on the team, aren't as good either. With that being said, I think we would need a heathy Prior/Wood and some career years from other guys, as well as a completely healthy DLee the last two months of the year to have a chance. If we can somehow manage to hover around .500 until Lee comes back we have a chance. Unfortuantely, I don't see that happening.

Your economics are off. It's not the supply that's fixed, it's the demand. Fixing the demand wouldn't increase the cost of the players. Howso? I thought the supply was what's available to be consumed by consumers (in this case it would be ballplayers and the entertainment value/service they provide) and the demand is how much the consumers desire/are willing to pay for the good/service. If the market was flooded with good ballplayers, prices would have to become more competitive and consumers would be less inclined to pay a premium to be entertained (demand would wane...as would the average ballplayer salary). I would think it's the demand that is fixed. I look at demand as the number of roster spots on major league clubs. As you said, there are hundreds of minor leaguers that could step in if need be. But the demand for MLB roster spots is 25*30 = 750 positions. The supply is how many people want to play professional baseball.

I agree that the Cubs can probably stay afloat for the next couple of months. I just doubt their ability to do it well enough to put us in position to storm into the playoffs at the end. I'll still cheer them on wholeheartedly, though, just because I can't imagine doing anything else during baseball season. I figure I went through 1999, 2000 and 2002, I can get through this, too. We can make it through this. But Aramis has to start to hit. Jacque has to get his average up to at least .250. Murton has to come through. Z has to pull his out and pitch like the ace he should be. And most importantly, Prior and Wood MUST come back healthy and pitch well. But this is the Cubs so let's not get our hopes up. I'm not giving up, I'm just trying to be realistic. Remember, low expectations means high chance of exceeding expectations.

Trading Todd Walker for Craig Wilson wouldn't help our team at all. Hairston is going to end up playing more anyway so nothing would be gained.

That would be especially nice considering we have the Cardinals coming up.

I couldn't agree more. The Cubs aren't going to be within sniffing distance of first place when Lee gets back. It's going to take and Astros or A's esque second half run to make the playoffs this year. And even that might not be enough.

It depends on what the baseline is. If you assme that Lee would have had another season like 2005 and he would be replaced with something approaching Hairston's career averages (~700 OPS) then the difference would be about wins over a full season. (300 PA isn't half a season, it's closer to 35-40% depending on how often a player would have been rested.) I for one don't think that Lee would have duplicated his 2005 numbers anyway, so the difference could well be smaller than that. That's a good point. Losing Lee's glove for a couple months could well cost us another game or so. Doesn't Lee play every single day though? So that would mean closer to half a season.

Sad but very true. Couldn't a bad sprain actually be worse than a break?

Does anyone have a video of Clemens throwing the broken bat back at Piazza?

The Canadian baseball teams were awesome as were the ESPN top 10. It's not surprising at all to see Pedro in there. I remember that brawl with Gerald Williams where he's thinking about whether or not to go after him.

What "big middle of the order type hitters" were available last offseason? And I mean available so Brian Giles doesn't count.