champaignchris

O.K., how's this then... Why do you trade Michael Wuertz for pocket change, then effectively trade Cedeno and Pie for an older, more expensive, not as good version of Wuertz, and follow that up with spending about $3 million to sign older, more expensive, not as good versions of Cedeno and Pie (Miles and Gaithright)? And I've now checked back through 1960 and found no Cubs player to have had at least 150 ABs and a worse OPS than Miles this year. Although Don Kessinger's 1965 was a sight to behold... .485 in 309 AB. Of course, he was 23, in his first full season in the bigs, and he'd later go on to be a six-time All Star...

When you consider that Miles signed his 2-year, $4.9 million contract on December 31, 2008 and Orlando Hudson signed his 1-year $3.4 million contract with the Dodgers on February 20, 2009, one could argue that his awfulness hasn't been addressed anywhere near enough.

Aaron Miles, signed for a 2 year, approx. $5 million deal... and promptly: Hit about .100 points below his career numbers in Batting Average, On Base %, and Slugging. Had the worst OPS of any player in the majors with at least 150 AB... .466. Of players with at least 100 AB, only Eric Bruntlett, Mike Aviles, and Eliezer Alfonzo had a worse OPS. Posted a lower OPS than Zach Duke, Randy Wells, Chris Carpenter, Kyle Loshe, Russ Ortiz, Johan Santana, and Derek Lowe, just to name a few pitchers, none of whom are known to be "good hitting" pitchers. But really, how much damage can a back up 2B really do? Well, with his 157 AB, the Cubs essentially played a quarter of the season with two pitchers in their line up. That's pretty crippling, wouldn't you agree? (Think Sean Marshall can play 2B? He posted a better OPS this year, and then Lou could do that cool lefty-righty switch off thing.) I went back and checked Cubs teams going back to 1980 and, not only could I not find anyone with at least 150 AB who had had a worse season, I couldn't find anyone who was really even close. (Curtis Wilkerson in 1990 posted a .507... Special mention should go out to Doug Dascenzo, however, who posted a .428 in 139 AB in 1989.) It may take more research to determine, but we may have been privileged to witness, not just the worst offensive season by a Cub in a generation, but perhaps the worst offensive performance by a Cub ever. (And, yes, I agree that "worst offensive" is redundant.) Of course, best of all, he's under contract for next year!!!

Bradley to the Tigers. Magglio and Dontrelle (and about $15 million) to the Cubs. It makes too much sense not to happen. Yes, I'm kidding. Mostly.

With Ricky Henderson as 3rd base coach.

The perception over the last couple of years is that the Indians have had the talent, but not performed on the field.

He was asked about breaking the record, and he said something to the effect of, "So what?" Mike and Mike went off on him this morning saying the strike out is the least effective end result of an at-bat. While, I don't think that a strike out is good, it at least eats up three pitches, more often five or so. I've watched too much of the Cubs offense these last five years and seen too many first pitch lazy fly balls, first pitch slow rollers, and opposing pitchers blasting through 7 pitch innings. The strikeout is overrated. There's certainly a time and place where the k is completely unacceptable, where you simply have to make contact and get the ball in play, a runner on third with less than two outs, for example. But generally, in this day and age, where there is such a disparity between starters and middle relievers, when there's so much strategic advantage to getting into the bullpen early, If a guy is going to make an out, I'd rather see strike outs than early in the count easy outs.

Ram is, and has been since 2004, one of the most consistent players in the National League. You can pretty well chalk in 140 G, 30 HR, 100 RBI, .300/.390/.525 every year. I suspect, barring another significant injury, that's about what you'll see from him again next year.

Z got shelled in the start leading into, and the two starts right after, going on the DL for the second time. Other than that, he's had a pretty darn good year. I think a lot of critics look at the W-L record. He's had six starts this year, where he's pitched six or more innings and gave up 2 runs or less and not gotten the win. In five starts from May 27 to June 23, he pitched 35 innings, posted a 2.07 ERA, and was 1-0. He's only 29 years old and still has 3 or 4 seasons of 180-ish innings with a sub-4.00 ERA left in him. I'm not saying he's untouchable, but the Cubs better receive value for him if they do trade him.

I see nothing in that article about Soriano dissolving before our eyes like the bad guys in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Or Ramirez missing 70 games. Or 2B being a big black hole. Or Soto having the sophomore slump to end all sophomore slumps. Keep DeRosa and don't sign Bradly, and you either still have a hole in RF or you have the same hole at 2B. Either way, you still don't have anything to make up for Soriano and Soto under performing and Ram missing almost half the year. Hendry is being roasted for not standing pat. If he had not made any changes and everything happened just as it did this year (Fontenot, Soriano, and Soto sucking, Ram getting hurt) he'd be roasted for standing pat. At the time it made sense. We had an extra second baseman and needed another outfielder. If you want to blame him for something, blame him for signing the wrong outfielder. (I wanted Dunn) Bradley's blow-up may have been inevitable, but Fontenot and Miles OPSing .080 and .220 below their career averages respectively was not. (And to Hendry's credit, he did trade some loose pocket change for a guy who's OPSing at .845 for the last third of the season.)

Exactly. Here's a little perspective for you. I was born in 1979. The Cubs have made the playoffs 6 times in my lifetime. The Cubs have also made the playoffs 6 times in my Dad's lifetime. He didn't have me when he was 10 either. There have been far worse stretches to be a fan of this team. We've just been teased into thinking it was, uh, gonna happen. Other than 1969, my dad saw a lot of [expletive] baseball until Sutcliffe and Sandberg came along. So true. For all the crap that's gone down this year, it's still looking like it'll be the first time since '70-'72 that the Cubs have had three winning seasons in a row. (They had six in a row from '67-'72.) Because those Banks/Williams/Jenkins/Santo years straddled the late 60's/early 70's you could argue the 00's has been the best decade for the Cubs since the 30's.

I tried. Prior to the 1993 season, I actually went out and bought a Braves hat. I was sooooooooo pissed about the bungling of the Maddux deal. But I couldn't follow through on it. The Braves didn't hold my interest and by the end of the year, it was all about the Cubs again. Some really pathetic years in between - 1994 and 1997 - and the strike, and I was ready to swear off baseball entirely. But, of course, 1998 comes along... Sammy and the home run chase, Woody, the playoffs, and I've been hooked, hard core ever since. Oh well. There's always next year, right.

If he does nothing but shag fly balls in right for the rest of the season and off-season, will he be ready for opening day? (Only half kidding.)

Just for fun... Jeff Stevens (26) AAA, 57.2 IP, 2.03 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 61 K John Gaub (24) AA-AAA, 60 IP, 2.25 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 80 K Chris Archer (20) A, 109 IP, 2.81 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 119 K Stevens has already been called up to the Bigs and was pretty impressive during his time with the team in July. Less so in his infrequent appearances since. Although it's too soon to tell with Archer, I think there's a strong likelihood that Stevens and Gaub are fairly frequent contributors to the Cubs' pen over the next three or four years. Considering DeRosa just turned 35 and has a career OPS+ of 97 (which, he has matched this year, by the way) I'd say, viewed in hindsight and in a vacuum, the DeRosa trade will probably look pretty good. Problem is, it's just not the kind of trade teams that a team that thinks it's gunning for a title generally makes in the off-season.

Baseball is a weird game. Looking at their remaining schedule, I could see the Cubs going about 12-7 the rest of the way, which would probably leave them about 4 games out of the playoffs with no real drama toward the end of the year. It would also give them 87 wins, which would be two more wins than the '07 playoff team and only three or four games off of most people's projection for the team this year. As disappointing as this year's been (and it has been disappointing) and as much as the Cubs have underperformed (and they have underperformed), you have to give a whole bunch of credit to the Cardinals cobbling together a real good team mid-season, and the Rockies and Giants playing way above expectations.

The problem was never dealing DeRosa, but rather replacing him with Miles. If it makes you feel any better, you could think of Miles as Ronnie Cedeno's replacement, with the Cubs not getting any replacement for DeRosa. Yeah, it doesn't make me feel any better either.

Answering my own question... With all the contracts the Cubs have, I don't see this team being blown up. Ram, Bradley, Lee, and Soriano will all be back. Fox should easily get 250-300 ABs giving Ram, Soriano, and Lee days off and pinch hitting. Starting 2011, when some of those contracts are coming off the books, we should have a better idea if Fox is a full-time player.

This makes no sense in terms of putting the guy out there that gives us the best chance to win. Is there any question which player is more talented? This makes no sense in terms of preparing for the future... Soto is 26, Hill is 30. Only two things would make this make some sort of sense... 1. Soto has some lingering injury issue and the Cubs want to give him more rest so that he's healthy going into next year. or 2. Soto has some sort of attitude issue and the Cubs are trying to send him a message to shape up or face the loss of playing time.

Of RF with at least 300 plate appearances, Bradley is 14th out of 28 in VORP. Neither elite, nor horrible. Last year Fukudome was 27th of 30. Cubs RFs posted an aggregate .731 OPS last year, which was 14th of the 16 NL teams. Cubs RFs this year have posted a .792 OPS, good for 7th. OF CF with at least 300 plate appearances, Fukudome is 9th out of 27 in VORP. Top third in the majors. Last year, Johnson was 23rd of 30. If you look at CFs with at least 250 plate appearances in 2008, Edmunds was 15th of 35 and Johnson was 24th of 35. As an aggregate, Cubs CFs posted a .858 OPS last year, which was 2nd in the NL. This year, Cubs CFs have posted a .817, which is 5th of 16. Quite good both years. Acquiring Bradley and shifting Fukudome over to CF worked out this year. (Whether it will continue to work out over the course of Fuku's and MB's contracts, I will make no claim to.) Our production at RF has risen from pathetic to average. Our production at CF has remained solid. Those looking to blame Bradley for this year's problems are looking in the wrong place. The Cubs' horrible offense has a lot more to do with Soriano, Fontenot, and Soto all having awful years, and Aramis being hurt for a huge section of the season.

If I were to have my baseball team emulate any current baseball organizations, it'd be the Red Sox and (ugh!) Cardinals. If I could double the payroll, I'd be all in favor of emulating the Yankees.

I can't see us doing better than 27-13. Which would require the Cards to go 17-19. Despite our generally more favorable schedule the rest of the way, I just don't see it. Besides, Milwaukee will probably fight us tooth and nail in our series with them, and just lay down for the Cards when they play them. The wild card is even more improbable, because it'd require the Rockies, Giants, Braves, and Marlins to all tank.

Turn of phrase. I didn't mean that it would be easy. I meant that it wouldn't be surprising. You've seen their upcoming schedule, right? There's no reason why they can't have a streak similar to the one from July 11 to Aug 4 when they went 17-6 against stiffer competition. Will they? Probably not. I mean, it's still the Cubs, right?

They're starting a 23 game stretch where they play 22 games against teams with losing records, 17 of those games are at home. They could very easily pull off a 17-6 stretch. If the Cardinals cool down to a slightly less torrid 13-8 during the same period, the Cubs will pick up 3 games on them, and be only 5 games out for the last 3-game series against the Cards in St. Louis.

Sure. Why not? He's a couple years younger than Fontenot and Hoff were last year, with a much better minor league track record. That said, you've got a point. Hoff, I think we can chalk up to sample size, and Soto to injury. Besides, while not all-star quality, Soto hasn't been that far off of adequate production from an average starting catcher. I'm still not sure what's happened to Fontenot, though... His OPS has dropped ~.230 against lefties. So it's not like we can chalk it all up to the fact that he's facing a lot more right handers as the regular starter.

The ice cube that gets lodged in your trachea?