17 Seconds

Thats because we don't know how these moves will work out yet and I'm giving them a chance. Like I pointed out before I don't mind having Aaron Miles on the team. I'm fine with him coming off the bench, and think he will be a asset to the team. Do I think he should have gotten a two year deal? No, but if he hits like he did most of the last two seasons, it won't be a bad deal no matter what you think. By the way, with Lou saying he wants 400 at-bats for Miles, you can no longer use the argument about him being fine off the bench. 400's at-bats is starting 2 out of every 3 games. The money isn't the worst part. It's that we're going to be giving so much playing time to a crappy player.

I agree it doesn't sound stupid to me either. Fontenot-247/305/675 - last two years against LH pitching Miles-297/374/732- last three years against LH pitching The third slash is supposed to be slg%, not OPS. But yeah those numbers are a little skewed. Miles' are pumped up a lot by his never-going-to-happen-again 2008. The year before that he only had a .704 OPS. Fontenot doesn't have nearly a big enough sample size to be really putting any stock in those major league numbers numbers. He has 73 at-bats spread out over 2 season. In his last 2 seasons at Iowa he actually hit better against LHP (small sample size again though). I want to see what Fontenot can do with a full season's worth of at-bats. I want him playing every day. I don't want him playng a couple games and then having to sit on the bench for a day or 2. I want to see what he can do. I don't think putting Miles in there to maybe put up a .750 OPS is worth taking that chance away from Fontenot. I want to see what he can do.

Maybe he will. Even if he doesn't get a ton of opportunity, the difference between what Fontenot will likely do with those limited at bats and what Miles will do is small enough to be more than covered by variance. I don't really care if there's no left handed hitters in the lineup against LHP. First of all, if Fukudome starts hot or Fontenot earns a full time gig, that might not even be true. Secondly, I'm not worried about it for relief pitching purposes since our LH side of the bench is much stronger(Fukudome, Fontenot, Hoffpauir), plus Bradley and Miles are switch hitters. And thirdly, unless there's more evidence than a quote from Andy Pettitte saying he's more comfortable against all RHP, I find it hard to believe there's a significant impact to having a solid RH lineup against LHP. It's not just Pettitte. I've heard many people say the same thing. It seems like we mash lefties but then anytime we face a decent one, we have all sorts of problems.

I don't have numbers to back this up and it's been discussed here before, but it seems like we mashed crappy lefties (especially Pitt lefties), but had a lot of trouble against good lefties.

I think there's a pretty good shot Fontenot could at least match Miles' career .704 OPS vs lefties. Plus if Miles is in there it means we won't have a single lefty in the lineup against LHP.

But if those projections of Lou's end up being true, that means Miles is getting all the at-bats vs lefties. That also means we have no LHB in the lineup against lefties, and I don't really like that either.

Because I don't want a platoon. Miles playing against lefties occasionally is fine.

He says he sees about 350-400 at-bats from Fontenot. If that happens, that means Miles is playing against lefties.

bradley's hitting 4th i said the best hitter, not the hitter who has been the best for the past 600 at-bats

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090314&content_id=3986650&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc gross. sounds like a strict platoon to me

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090314&content_id=3986650&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc Sounds like what I've been saying all along... that Miles will get most of the at-bats against lefties. That's really stupid.

No, but if he hits like he did most of the last two seasons, it won't be a bad deal no matter what you think. lol okay. that settles it then. or he was aided by coors in his first few seasons and his numbers those years would have been worse than his numbers with the cardinals if not for the park. he had some pretty hefty splits while he was in colorado, so i'd say his career numbers are definitely a bit better because of it.

The biggest thing I hate about that lineup is our best hitter batting 5th

This is exactly what I mean when I say that you give him a free pass. Nothing else hendry has done changes anything about who Aaron Miles is. Not really. Miles is better offensively, but at least Cedeno can actually play shortstop. I don't think some people realize that Miles is not even close to the utility guy (in terms of defense) that DeRosa was. The .410 wasn't in reference to those guys. It was just an example of how you were completely ignoring slugging percentage. Since you mention Vazquez's numbers being inflated by Texas.... Career OPS Miles-77 Vazquez- 85 Hairston- 85 Lopez- 89 Cora-75 Punto- 74 The only guys he beats are Cora and Punto, but those guys' value comes from their defense. That's where I get the "they are all better than Miles" thing. That's what you keep saying, then you always come back the second anybody ever voices anything negative about Miles and tell us all how we should shut up and stop complaining about it. You bring it on yourself.

but gms value guys who can get a single 29 percent of the time off the bench... or something like that.

god what a stupid and unnecessary thing to say. i mean really, who actually has that phrase enter their mind? and who takes it further and actually says it? uncanny. lol relax im pretty sure he didn't mean it literally well i didn't think he meant it literally. it's still stupid and unnecessary especially for this "family" board. if anybody is offended by that then that's pretty sad

god what a stupid and unnecessary thing to say. i mean really, who actually has that phrase enter their mind? and who takes it further and actually says it? uncanny. lol relax im pretty sure he didn't mean it literally

whoa, if what miles got is the going rate for players like him, then how did we get german so cheap? man this hendry guy really is a genius afterall.

You just act like people aren't outloud to voice criticism. I haven't seen you ever acknowledge that Hendry has ever made even a questionable move. Hendry could trade Soto for Victor Zambrano and I think you'd get mad if people complained. You complain about people complaining and not letting it die, but you do the same thing. You just argue the other side. Well a 2 year contract isn't the going rate, but that's besdie the point. Why should it be okay that we waste money on crappy players as long as other teams are doing the same? We didn't need Miles. He doesn't really make this team better. Cedeno could have done the same thing for far less money. I don't know why you don't unserstand that getting a single 29 percent of the time doesn't really mean anything if you don't do anything else. Imagine Juan Pierre without the speed. Is that a productive player? Because that's exactly what Miles is as a hitter. He's Juan Pierre without the speed.... only worse. Think about that for a second. Juan Pierre without the speed is still a better offensive player than Aaron Miles. Would you take a .260/.330/.360 guy over a .260/.330/.410 guy? That's the question that actually is relevant. See, you only cite BA and OBP because those are the only things you can say he's comparable to. You say that slugging percentage is everything, but nobody is saying that. It's the complete opposite actually. You're pretending like it's nothing so you can say Miles is as good as those guys. Why else would you leave it out when comparing them? All of those guys other than Punto have more productive career numbers than Miles, despite Miles hitting a single more often than them.

How do we know that Lou isn't part of the choker mentality when the playoffs start? I'm not saying he is, but we don't know that he's not. A lot of the time sports coaches/manager tend to tense up and give off that vibe. We just heard Shaq call out Van Gundy for it. Choking isn't only reserved for players. Again, I'm not saying this is the case with Lou, but his teams have now fallen well short of expectations in 3 straight postseasons. It's at least possible that he has something to do with it. Oh BTW, saying Girardi ended the 13 year streak isn't fair. They were still a really good team last year, they just played in a ridiculous division.

I guess not, but still, it was like 10 seconds.

He was clutching his shoulder. hmm. i didn't see that. i thought it was his leg

The results weren't there but the effort and intensity was there.

did they say anything about the injury? relax

better get it together in these next few weeks or it's going to be a quick exit in the playoffs