champaignchris

Not particularly surprising. Not even really disappointing. Kind of just inevitable, really. Like when your 99 year old great aunt you haven't seen in 10 years dies. You're kind of vaguely sad, but aren't entirely sure who the flowers should be sent to.

You know, the real simple way to fix all this is to simply switch baseball to a "Winter" sport and make sure the host city has a dome. That way it's going on in the off-season and none of this is at all relevant. I mean it's not like basketball is really a "Summer" sport.

When you have, statistically speaking, the best starting pitching staff in baseball is the window really closed? The frustrating thing is that the Cubs don't need THAT much offense to win this division. Really all that needs to happen is for both Bradley and Soriano to play to their capabilities at the same time, which hasn't happened all year.

The Cubs are 9-16 in their last 25 and playing offensive baseball about as poorly as they possibly can, and yet, they're still only 2.5 games out of the playoffs. Thus this question is probably going to be moot. That said, Harden and Gregg would be the two guys that you'd think about shipping. If you could get Lee to waive the no-trade, that'd also be good. It'd be awesome to get rid of Soriano or Bradley, and you'd have to eat a good chunk of the contract to do it, but I just don't see it happening.

This team has only scored 76 runs in their last 25 games. It's been beyond brutal. Soriano, Fontenot, Soto, Bradley, and Miles are all just horrible right now. Bringing in a bat to replace Miles in the lineup would be a good start. Giving Hill, Fox, and Hoff a few more at-bats would be another step. (Sending Fox down so we could carry 13 pitchers was pure madness.) But eventually, Soriano, Soto, and Bradley are just going to have to start hitting.

Considering that since the format changed in 1995, the playoffs have been a complete craps shoot, I'd suggest Cox's lack of WS rings probably has more to do with bad luck than anything.

Yeah, I think it was July '03. He'd just been chosen to be on the all-star team and then blew out the knee at 1B. That year was the first year that the fans got to vote for the last player on each team after the rest of the All-Stars were announced. He had either won the voting or else was leading at the time (one detail I forget is whether he was injurde after the voting was over or while it was still in progress). Patterson was injured on July 6, 2003. The Break began on July 14, 2003. How that timing works with the voting, I'm not sure. Arguably, Patterson was the best position player for the Cubs during the first half of 2003, although Sosa went on quite a tear right before the All Star break. Patterson's injury spurred the trade that brought Lofton and Ramirez to the Cubs in one of the all-time great fleecings in team history. Ramirez and Lofton to the Cubs for Matt Bruback, Jose Hernandez, and Bobby Hill. 787 games, 177 home runs, 581 rbi later, I think we got the better of the deal. It's funny to think that back in 2003, a guy who would go on to become one of the majors' most consistent players and a plus defender at 3b, was thought of as erratic and a defensive liability. Anyway, back to Patterson... He had a really good first half of 2003. Lofton had a really good second half of 2003. A lot of people thought that the Cubs should re-sign Lofton as a lead-off hitter, both because he was better at it than Patterson, and because Patterson might still be having some injury issues. The Cubs declined to offer Lofton. Patterson came back in 2004 and had a decent year, easily his best full year with the Cubs - 24 HR, 32 SB is what you're looking for out of your speedy CF. The problem came of the Cubs' insistence that Patterson become a prototypical lead-off hitter. Something he wasn't particularly suited for from a plate discipline stand-point, and something he didn't seem particularly interested in. In 2005 they (mostly Dusty Baker) tried to completely change Patterson's approach at the plate and it was a disaster. Patterson traded to the Orioles for two minor leaguers that didn't amount to much, and Juan Pierre signed. That certainly worked out well, didn't it. Funny thing is, Patterson wasn't horrible with the Orioles. It wasn't until he signed as a FA with Dusty's Reds that his career seemed to take its final nose dive.

I can say that I've never gotten a speeding ticket in all truth. It doesn't mean that I never exceed the speed limit.

The bigger question for me is when will an All Star manager appoint all his own player as bench players, and then manage it like a real game? You can't tell me that if the Phillies are still in first place come All Star break, Charlie Manual wouldn't at least seriously consider it.

That's been the general trend among users hasn't it. Especially those over 35. Slumps, strange injuries. Sometimes they outright disappear. I mean, there's a reason why they take the stuff. They wouldn't use it if it didn't work.

Wasn't Rafael Palmeiro faced with this same dilema? "How bout I start doing Viagra commercials!"

These two guys have as much proof against them as Sammy. Piazza especially. There are all sorts of stories of his bachne. You're right, and later in my post, I didn't count Sammy among the 9 out of 21 users. But, if I didn't mention anything next to his name, someone would have said something to the effect of, "Everybody knows..." It's pure conjecture at this point. Unfortunately, I think he's going to be kept out of the HoF based on pure conjecture.

Just for those who like to keep track... Here's a list of players in the top 50 career home run list who played a majority of their careers during the steroid era (1995 to 2007). The number in parenthesis is where they stand on the all-time list. (1) Barry Bonds – Confirmed steroid user (5) Ken Griffey, Jr. (6) Sammy Sosa – Widely suspected, no solid proof (8) Mark McGwire – Confirmed andro user, teammate and brother claim steroid use (10) Rafael Palmeiro – Confirmed steroid user (12) Alex Rodriguez – Confirmed steroid user (14) Jim Thome (17) Manny Ramirez – Confirmed user of steroid related drug (18) Frank Thomas (25) Gary Sheffield – Confirmed steroid user (26) Fred McGriff (30) Carlos Delgado (32) Jose Conseco – Confirmed steroid user (34) Jeff Bagwell (37) Juan Gonzalez – Almost certain user, teammate claims steroid use, drugs traced to him seized at Canadian border (38) Cal Ripken (39) Mike Piazza (42) Chipper Jones (44) Andres Galarraga (47) Jasom Giambi – Confirmed steroid user (49) Vlad Guerrero Not including Sosa (who's had no proof at all against him), that's 9 out of 21, with most of them at the top of the list.

I could see spots for Dunn, Cabrera, and Sheets on the Cubs. If they could be had for cheap, they'd be great pickups. But then, if they could be had for cheap, they wouldn't still be free agents.

Maybe I'm just older than most here. But Steve Stone, to me, was the voice of the Cubs growing up. Far more so than Harry Carry. Especially after Harry's stroke in '87, Steve carried those broadcasts and generally did a good job. Him getting run out in 2004 for basically saying about the team what anyone with eyes could see was just plain silly. I'll probably catch a few Sox games next year just to hear Steve. Also, the complete mismatching between Hawk and Stone is sure to create tons of unintentional comedy gold.

The big difference being that where the Mets added Santana, the Brewers will be losing Sheets and Sabathia.

Ok, but they only lost the division by one game, so that 1.5 would have been huge. There's also the added factor of there needing to be at least two teams to pass the Cubs, rather than just one. There are only two ways for the Cubs to miss the playoffs: a. The Brewers and either the Cardinals or Astros pass the Cubs. b. The Brewers and both the Phillies and the Mets pass the Cubs. So, if the Cubs go 7-10 the rest of the way, the Brewers have to go at least 11-5 for any of the other scenarios to matter. Even then, one of the Cards or Astros would have to go 15-1 or 16-1, or both the Phillies and Mets would have to go 15-1 and 12-5. Even then, the Cubs would have the chance to make the playoffs with a one game play-in. Every single game the Cubs play for the rest of the year is against one of the five teams that matter in these scenarios. Essentially every win for the Cubs from here on out is worth two games on one of their magic numbers. The Phillies and Brewers start a four game series tonight. If one can go 3-1, it would virtually eliminate the other from being able to knock the Cubs out. The Cubs are going to make the playoffs. I just don't know what they'll do once they get there.

I think 11 wins will get us a playoff spot and 15 will clinch the division. While it's certainly not clinched yet, and really strange things have happened in baseball (last year w/ Mets and Rockies, 2004 w/ Cubs and Astros as just two recent examples), it would require both a historical collapse on the Cubs part and a historical run by at least two teams to keep the Cubs out of the playoffs.

I don't know what they percentage was, but it had to be pretty high. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/standings?date=20040924 There's the standings on Sept 24, 2004. We had nine games left against a 20 games under .500 Mets team, an 11 games under .500 Reds team, and a Braves team that should have already clinched by the time we were playing them. If we'd have gone just 5-4, the Giants would have to have gone 6-2 in their last 8 games or the Astros would have to go 7-1 in the same span to force a one game play-off. Of course, we go 2-7, losing to the Mets 4-3 in extra innings (the LaTroy Hawkins game) and 3-2, losing 4-3 and 2-1 to the Reds, both in 12 innings, and then 5-4 and 8-6 to the Braves. Houston, of course, goes 7-1 (the Giants went 5-3). The Cubs should have gone 6-3 against the schedule they were facing. The Astros hot streak shouldn't have even mattered. Even if they'd have managed to win three of the six close games they'd have gotten to the one game play off. Instead, they add another historical bed-crapping to the Cubs long line of bed-crappings. Oh well.

The author of the article I finally managed to link in my post above has Santo and Hack tied at #6. He says Hack had the marginally better bat and Santo had the marginally better glove.

More on Hack. http://baseballevolution.com/tony/hacksanto.html The writer basically plays the same game between Hack and Santo as we are between Ram and Santo. Hack gets a pretty raw deal historically because he was a lead off hitter playing what's usually considered to be a power hitting position. EDIT - somehow forgot the link. Fixed now.

In 1929, the Cubs had 5 players get to 90 RBI... Charlie Grimm (1b) - 91 Rogers Hornsby 2b) - 149 Hack Wilson (of) - 159 Riggs Stevenson (of) - 110 Kiki Cuyler (of) - 102 This was arguably the Cubs' greatest offensive team of all time, and amazingly they did it with Gabby Hartnett © out almost the entire year with an injury. (Gabby would hit .339 37 HR and 122 RBI in 1930.) They lost the Series 4 games to 1 to the Philedelphia Athletics. Those A's were a great team with Mickey Cochrane, Al Simmons, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Grove (and a way-way out of his prime Eddie Collins, who didn't even appear in the WS). I wasn't able to find any other Cubs team to ever have more than 3 guys with 90+ RBI in the same year. (As you can imagine, Banks, Santo and Williams did it a few times.) Right now, according to ESPN's website, Ramirez is on pace for 118, DeRosa 96, Lee 93, Soto 89, and Soriano 85.

Rolen's hurt (again) and they've got another IF on the DL, too. Bautista is better than anyone they could call up. He's under contract for next year. He's only 27 and could be a pretty decent player for a couple years. They still have a slim chance of making the playoffs (7 games out). They really, really, really, really want to finish in front of the Yankees for the first time in fifteen years (only a game behind).

Not that anyone here cares... I just needed to share with some folk that might understand... My wife just sprung tickets to the Saturday game of the Phillies series on me as an early birthday present. I'm so excited, I don't even care what section they're in. I'm going to take my daughter. It'll be her first big league game. She's 5. No better way to get her into liking baseball than to take her to Wrigley while the Cubs are in the middle of a great season. Looking at the schedule, it looks like it'll be Lilly. Hope he does better than the last game I was at. The only other game I've seen the Cubs this year was when he got shelled by the Reds right before the All Star break.

For the record: In the 13 years since the wild card format started... The wild card team has represented the National League in the World Series 7 times. The team with the league's best record has represented the National League 5 times. (Those overlap once... the '07 Rockies were the wild card team and were tied for the best record in the league with the D'backs.) The team with the best overall record in the majors has won the World Series twice. While these figures scream "sample size," I also think it's true that who wins in the playoffs has more to do with pitching match ups, which players and teams are playing well entering the playoffs, and a little luck than playoff seeding and home field advantage.